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humanpurposes · 3 months

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We're Born At Night

Chapter 3

Lady Rhaelle Targaryen of Runestone travels to King's Landing to plead for her sister's life, though the King she must bow to is a kinslayer three times over, and the very man who slaughtered her father

Series Masterlist // Main Masterlist

Aemond Targaryen x Rhaelle Targaryen (OFC)

Warnings: 18+, mentions of death and war, Targaryens trying to flirt

Words: 6.8k

Days pass and every day Rhaelle brings herself to her knees before the throne, pleading for her sister’s restoration as Lady of Runestone, as their mother’s heir, for her freedom and for her life.

Aemond denies her. Again and again he denies her, and each day she appears before him, she thinks she sees his expression darkening. It is obvious that he is a proud man, a second son who was never meant to be King, repeatedly defied by the second daughter of a traitor. Lord Corlys tells her to give him time to persuade the King and the council. He also warns how quickly Aemond’s patience can turn into anger with deadly consequences. What else can she do but try, even if it means tempting his rage?

They have been here a fortnight and not much has improved. She and Daena often take tea with the other ladies and attend dinners in the throne room but Aemond’s court is an echo of what she remembers from the reign of his father. The dinners are polite, the music is sombre, the dances are slow. There is no joy in the castle, just talk of the fast approaching winter.

Back home, the running of the castle— her castle thanks to Aemond’s generosity— would keep her busy. Between her duties she would be able to steal a few hours for herself, read her favourite texts in the library or mount her horse and roam the surrounding lands as she pleased, bringing back pheasants because Alyssa was the sister to inherit their mother’s talent for hunting larger quarry.

One night she dreams she is riding her horse, a beautiful grey stallion she has back at Runestone named Semyon for the legendary knight with sapphires for eyes. It feels so real with the wind whispering in her ears, the scent of the fields and the forest, the slightly earthy taste on her tongue. She rides along the paths she has followed since she was a girl, the same her mother would have followed, and passes the valley where her body was found, tightening her grip on the reins and the saddle, as she always does. The sky seems to darken. A figure blocks out the sun and lets out a whistling, rippling screech, the cry of a beast she has only heard a handful of times, and never will again.

She is woken by a sound that still rings in her ears as her eyes open, sweat clinging uncomfortably to her skin. It sounds again, a faint clash of metal. It is a wonder it was even enough to rouse her.

The stone floor stings against the bare skin of her soles, the cold creeping into her flesh and sinking itself into her very bones. Yet she walks, first to the chaise by the wardrobe to wrap a thick robe around herself, and then to the window. The days are darker now. The sun takes longer to rise and beyond her window the sky is a glum shade of grey.

Down in the courtyard, before the steps of the holdfast, a flash of silver catches her eye.

Aemond is a fearsome fighter, tall, lean and lithe, moving quickly and fluidly. He bests his opponent, Ser Willis, with a few brutal blows, holding the edge of his blade to the man’s throat. Before long he is eager to go again.

She can imagine him on a battlefield, his face silently furious, carving through the men and boys who dared to place themselves in his way. She can imagine him in the courtyard of a ruined castle, blood on his face and hands. They say he slaughtered each member of House Strong himself, and then he bedded one of their bastards and made her a Lady. Daena thinks he would not have given a servant such an honour unless she had borne him a bastard, but Princes have sired bastards before and had mistresses from far more noble backgrounds. What was so remarkable about Alys Rivers?

With a particularly harsh swing of his sword, Aemond brings his blade down upon Ser Willis’, but the Lord Commander recovers quickly and begins an attack. Aemond is clearly taken by surprise and quickly forced to his knees with a frustrated grunt, one which she hears easily through the quiet of the early morning. He is facing the window though she doubts he will notice her. He glares up at Ser Willis, lips parted as he pants for breath. He looks enraged, vengeful even, and she almost expects him to leap up and attack with renewed force. Instead he bows his head and accepts Ser Wills’ hand to help him to his feet.

As a slight draft brushes over the exposed parts of her skin, she imagines the sound of his breathing and finds herself struck by a strange feeling of emptiness.

Later that morning she dons a blood red gown and makes a journey through the castle which is all too familiar to her now, to the waiting chamber by the throne room. Lord Corlys is there, speaking to a man who she has only seen across a room, more often than not, glaring at her along with the Hightower brothers. He has wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, but his face appears surprisingly younger than the flecks of grey in his hair and his beard would suggest. He has sharp eyes that stay fixed on her as she approaches.

Concern briefly flashes over Lord Corlys’ face as he steps forward to greet her, but the other man already has his hand extended to her. “Unwin Peake,” he says. “We have not been formally introduced, Lady Rhaelle.”

She doesn’t like the sound of his voice or how he says her name, but smiles and takes his hand.

Unwin Peake fancies himself a war hero. Rhaelle is not so easily misled. She knows he led a thousand men under the banner of King Aegon, only for half of them to desert him when he proved a less than capable leader. She knows he tried and failed to seize control of the Hightower host after Tumbleton, that he quarrelled with his rivals to the point of bloodshed, and yet somehow earned himself a place on the Small Council before Aegon’s death.

Lord Corlys catches her eye and seems to be uneasy. She gives him a small nod as Lord Unwin takes her by the arm and leads them into the throne room. It is a show of courtesy, one she must accept with grace.

Aemond is already upon the throne, legs crossed, leaning into one side, without fear of cutting himself on the blades. Noblemen and smallfolk alike come before him and he responds to every concern with such eloquence and certainty, as though the entire ordeal has been rehearsed.

And he always looks ahead. Rhaelle stands on his seeing side, below the throne, but he shows no indication that he has seen her or that he intends to acknowledge her.

She knows what she will say and she knows what his reply will be, and in that certainty there is fear. She can hardly keep her hands still, pressing her fingernails into her skin to stop herself from trembling. The pain isn’t much of a distraction. All she feels is cold, even through the thick material of her gown. She pictures her sister in a cell, in the darkness, perhaps even in chains.

Another chill slips down her spine as she hears a footstep sound softly behind her.

“Do you know what Lord Tyland has taken to calling you?” Unwin Peake’s voice hisses close to her ear.

Rhaelle clenches her jaw. She expects he will tell her whether she wants him to or not.

“He calls you the reluctant Lady of Runestone.”

She presses her nails deeper into her skin.

She finally spurns herself forwards. Aemond’s eye finds her as she enters his line of vision, fixed on her as she moves across the room and kneels before the throne.

She bows her head and stares down at the flagstones, at the crevices between the stones, the flecks of dirt and dust settled within. Any nervous or curious chatter has ceased. The hall is quiet enough that she is sure the onlookers will be able to hear her heart pounding in her chest. If she holds her breath she can see it pulsing through the neckline of her dress.

Meeting his eye is a strange sort of thrill. He watches her sternly, his lips pressed together in a thin line, his fingers tapping against the arm of the throne.

She opens her mouth to speak but his voice pierces the air, clear and demanding. “Dearest cousin,” he says, then exhales sharply through his nose. “You come before me yet again.”

“Your Grace–”

“No, I already know what you’re going to ask of me, and my answer will be the same. Alyssa Targaryen may be my blood but she defied her true King.”

“I know my sister. She is wise and just, but dragged into a war she should never have been a part of.”

“She is a traitor.”

“And yet she has not been put on trial. You seem content to hold her. Why? Allow her a chance to prove her innocence before she is condemned, or else let her return to her home.”

“You have come before me every day since your arrival, to plead on behalf of a traitor. I do wonder what that might make you, Lady Rhaelle?”

“It makes me loyal to my family. I love my sister, and her suffering is my suffering.”

“As admirable as that declaration may be, I have made my decision. I will not hear any more from you on this matter.”

“If you had a chance to save your own sibling from a terrible fate would you not take it? Could you ever forgive yourself if you stopped trying?”

Something about his face changes. There is an absence of amusement, something quiet but cold in the way his eyes and his lips soften.

When his eye falls away from her she thinks she might have made a grave mistake.

He holds the arms of the throne as he stands, grips the iron with his fingertips when it is barely in his reach. Without another word he leaves the hall through the side chamber, keeping his head and his crown held high, while his fists are clenched at his sides.

She shares a look with Lord Corlys, himself stunned at the irregularity. Aemond never leaves the throne room until he has heard each grievance, and never shies from his duties.

The King is an elusive figure at the best of times. He does not seem to enjoy the more frivolous aspects of rulership. If he is seen at dinners in the throne room, he confines himself to the high table along with Lord Corlys. Other than his early morning spars with Ser Willis in the courtyard or his occasional rides out into the Kingswood, he appears to spend most of his time in his chambers. She imagines him pouring over ledgers and papers by candlelight, his face hardened in concentration.

That night, when his seat at the high table remains empty, Rhaelle cannot help but fear she has been the cause of this absence. Did her words truly anger him so deeply? Is her persistence so vexing to him?

She finds herself unable to settle when she retires to her chambers that night. She is starving and yet she has no appetite. Her body feels heavy and her head aches behind her eyes, yet her mind is spinning and will not allow her to find sleep.

He said he would not hear from her on the matter. She pushed too far, allowed her desperation to cloud her judgement and attempted to argue on sympathy rather than reason. Now she feels it all slipping away, any sense of control she had when she arrived in King’s Landing, any hope she had of reuniting their family after so many years. Why would she ever think that Aemond should show mercy to a prisoner on a plea of sisterly love?

He must have loved his sister, gentle Helaena, who wore a gown of pale blue and gold to the wedding of Alyssa and Jacaerys. She smiled rarely, never in the presence of her husband, she could barely even stand to take his arm as they entered the Sept and the throne room. Her eyes often found Aemond though, glassy with tears when he winced at the pain of his wound, as if she shared in it. Did he ever imagine, when he left for Harrenhal, that he would never see her again?

The next morning she wakes with the sunrise, somehow the shortened sleep has left her more awake than she usually is. She is already halfway dressed in her riding leathers, fashioned from a set of her mother’s, when Morra enters her bedchamber, and Rhaelle immediately sends her to the stables to ensure a horse is readied for her.

Finally, once she has pulled on her boots and tied her hair into a single braid, she heads down herself, but not before stopping by the window. The sun has yet to appear over the walls of the castle and the courtyard is empty.

She huffs to herself, at the restless feeling that’s been gnawing at her insides for weeks.

The entrance yard at the front of the Red Keep is bustling with servants carrying baskets and barrels, men unloading carts and carrying their contents towards the kitchens. Morra is waiting for her by the steps, fiddling with the edges of her sleeves.

Rhaelle pulls out her gloves and slips them onto her hands. “Did you find me a horse?” she says.

“Yes, my Lady, but there is another matter–”

She can already see what the other matter is. Aemond is standing by the gates, dressed in black riding attire, arguing with one of the stable hands. He has a beautiful grey horse on a lead, with a coat that shimmers like silk in the early sunlight. The stable hand stands with a slightly smaller horse, brown with a white spot on its nose. These are both muscular creatures meant for speed.

Rhaelle approaches them with Morra close behind. “Your Grace,” she says firmly but calmly. The two men immediately cease and face her, the stable hand with his head bowed, Aemond with a slight frown on his face and the beginnings of a sneer on his lips. “What a pleasant surprise.”

“Likewise, my Lady,” Aemond says, entirely unconvincingly.

There is noise all around them, voices, footsteps, men and women at work, and yet the silence between Aemond and Rhaelle is palpable.

“I was intending to ride through the Kingswood this morning,” Rhaelle says, holding her hands firmly in front of her, unmoving, unafraid. “Perhaps you were intending to do the same?”

“I was.”

“What a happy coincidence,” she says, willfully ignoring the shortness of his tone. “We could ride together, then? I do not know the woods you see, I think I would benefit from having a companion.”

Aemond purses his lips, and glances between her and the horse being held by the stable hand. “It would be my pleasure, dear cousin.”

She smiles graciously.

Aemond hums to himself, then takes hold of the grey horse’s saddle and hoists himself into it with ease. As it happens, the brown horse is a similar size to Symeon. She finds her footing in the stirrup and hauls herself up, settling comfortably in the saddle.

“You ride well, I assume?” Aemond asks her.

She tries not to display any contempt at this subtle insult. “I believe myself to be a more than competent rider, Your Grace.”

He offers her a tight smile, though it fades quickly. His seeing eye remains alert.

Two men of the Kingsguard ride with them through the city. Aemond does not wear his crown but the people know their King, atop his horse, Blackfyre hanging from his hip, his silver hair tied away from his face but flowing proudly down his back, his eyepatch an unmissable feature. They stand aside as they move through the streets, met with awe, either glad or fearful, and distant calls of “long live the King!”

Aemond does not wave, smile or bow his head to anyone, though he occasionally looks over his shoulder to meet her gaze. Does he expect her to disappear? Does he expect her to ram a knife into his back?

How quickly he seems to phase through different states of being. One moment he is amused, the next proud, the next infuriated, concerned, remorseful. And how terrible he is at hiding this in his face, no matter how subtle he is, but a mystery remains because she still cannot read his thoughts, no matter how she pleads to the old gods and the new that she could.

Before long, they reach the southern gates of the city. She can see the forest ahead of them as soon as they are out of the walls of King’s Landing. The trees are dark, lush evergreens, reaching far from the west and east towards the seafront, to the cliffs that overlook the bay, raised on hills and going further south than she can see.

The guards stay with them a little longer, until they pass over a bridge across the Blackwater Rush and the road becomes quieter. Most of the people here are travelling along the Rose Road towards Highgarden, but Aemond leads her towards the treeline, along a path often used for hunting, so he says. It seems to head towards the coast.

Mostly staying at the edge of the forest, the trees are sparse. It’s not like the wide open fields and hills that she is used to. To one side she sees tree trunks, spots of darkness where the forest is thicker and closer. To the other she sees glimpses of the sky and the sea below it.

Aemond slows his horse slightly so they can ride side by side at a comfortable trot. Now she cannot look out over the bay without looking at him, or appearing to at least.

She realises they have not spoken a single word to each other since they left the castle.

“Do you ride often?” she asks.

“When I wish to, and when I can find time to,” he says without looking at her.

She nods to herself, letting her eyes linger on the way he rocks with the motions of the saddle, the way he grips the reins with gloved hands.

“I like to hunt back at Runestone,” she says, facing forward once more, “do you hunt?”

This captures his attention. He turns his head to her, glances up and down. “You did not bring a bow.”

“Or a blade, no. I was not intending to kill anything this morning.”

Aemond hesitates, then smirks. “I never made a habit out of hunting. It is a tedious sport, more suited to times of peace.”

It is a harrowing reminder of the kind of man who rides beside her, a man who kills and holds his own family prisoner.

“You like to spar too. I see you in the courtyard most mornings,” she says.

“I do not like to make a spectacle of myself.”

“I wasn’t suggesting you did, but it is rather difficult to avoid when it happens below my window.”

He turns his head towards Rhaelle, and she finds herself entirely distracted. Away from the gloom of the Keep, without his crown and the way he commands the fear of his courtiers, his beauty is unobstructed. His lips and his seeing eye settle in a way that seems gentle. “If it disturbs you then I shall remedy it.”

“No need,” she says, “for what it is worth, you perform extremely well.”

He smiles again, dipping his head slightly as he adjusts his hold of the reins. “Come then, you say you are a competent rider, I’d like to see a performance from you,” he says, catching her eye.

Her breath stops in her throat.

He kicks his horse’s side and in an instant he’s bolting down the path.

It takes her a moment to realise what he wants, kicking her horse into a canter, then quickly into a full gallop. It follows her commands easily enough but she remains cautious, keeping a tight grip on the reins and with her thighs, chasing the gleam of silver ahead of her. She does not know if Aemond is leading her or racing her, and for now she doesn’t care. Excitement surges through her. She feels the impact of the horses hooves as they meet the dirt. Her stomach drops as they head deeper into the forest, darting between branches, leaping over streams and fallen trees.

She seems to be gaining on Aemond and spots a ridge she thinks might allow her to overtake him. It’s a risk she takes without thinking it through, urging her mount up and along the narrow trail. They seem to stumble at one point but she doesn’t stop. She passes Aemond, just as she thought she would. He looks up at her with a wide eye, the traces of a laugh echoing behind her as she leaps down, back onto the main path.

There’s a clearing not far ahead where the path splits into two, she would wager Aemond had this in mind as an end point. She slows her horse gradually, checking behind her to see him doing the same. She turns the horse to face him, trying not to beam or appear too pleased with herself, but she cannot help it. Her cheeks burn at the exertion and the effort it’s taking to withhold her smile.

The sun is rising higher above them. The light catches on his hair, the thin sheen of sweat on his brow, the curve of his lip as he tries to catch his breath. “I’d say you are more than competent,” he calls, tugging on the reins to bring his own horse to a stop.

“I spent most of my childhood on horseback,” she says. “Ser Gerold always said I took after my mother.”

His amusement fades into something passive, observant.

“She used to take Alyssa and I out with her one at a time in the saddle with her. As soon as I was old enough to ride by myself I could hardly be kept from the stables. Alyssa and I used to race each other around the hills for hours, or until we were called back to the castle for our lessons.”

Aemond watches her as she speaks, breathing deeply, his brow hardened like he’s trying to concentrate.

“Still,” she says, patting her horse’s neck as it starts to get restless, “I cannot imagine it could ever compare to riding a dragon.”

“It is a poor substitute, to be sure,” Aemond says quietly, like he did on the balcony, but she can see the change in him again. With a quick huff, the gentle look in his face disappears and he dismounts his horse. “There’s a stream close by, we should water the horses.”

He approaches her, reaching his hands up to help her dismount. Her more prideful side wishes to tell him she does not need the help, but she accepts it, swinging her leg round so he can hold his waist as he lowers her down. She keeps her hands on his shoulders, even once her boots have met the ground. The pressure of his fingertips through the thick layers of fabric are almost intangible, but it makes her breathless all the same.

They take the horses to the stream at the edge of the clearing, tying the leads to a tree and patting them down reassuringly as they drink. Rhaelle sits herself in the grass, out in the sunlight. Aemond joins her, but he reminds her of a cautious animal, following her a little unsurely, sitting beside her, always watching the space around them.

The air is cold but she feels the sun’s warmth beaming down on her face.

She hears Aemond take a breath before he speaks. “You never claimed a dragon?”

“No,” she says.

“You never had an egg in your cradle?”

“No. My mother insisted her children would be born and raised in her home.”

“And in the traditions of House Royce?”

“For the most part.”

“But your father never…” he stops himself with a deep breath. With his chin tilted down he lifts his gaze to look at her. The sunlight shines in his right eye, cold and clear like a stream, like a cloudless violet sky at dusk. Like this, sat amongst overgrown grass and the last of the autumn wildflowers, he doesn’t look like a tyrant. He doesn’t look like a man who burned half of the Riverlands to ash and fought in a battle that left the waters of the God’s Eye red with blood.

Ser Gerold would have been glad to see Daemon’s end. He called it “justice” when news came to Runestone of his death, justice for the wife he murdered and the daughters he neglected.

Looking at Aemond now she wonders if he regrets it. Does he look at her and see the eyes of the man he killed staring back at him? Does it haunt him to be near her, is that why he watches her so intently?

“I asked him once if I could fly with him,” she says. “I was so desperate to know what it was like. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t laugh or scoff, he just looked down at me. My suggestion was so unremarkable that he didn’t waste so much as a breath on me. Of course I went crying to my mother about it. She took me into her arms and told me that the only difference between riding a dragon and riding a horse was the distance between you and the ground. So much further to fall, she said.”

He tilts his head. “I cannot disagree with her.”

And oh how her father must have fallen, through fire and empty space, into blood and water.

“What was it like to have a dragon?” she asks.

Something in him comes alive. He looks at her with a quiet excitement, shuffling ever so slightly closer to her. “I used to believe a dragon was a birthright. My siblings all claimed their mounts when they were young, and my nephews shared their cradles with eggs and watched them hatch. For many years I was an outlier, a dragonless Targaryen, I was nothing. But it is an earned right, one that must be claimed.” As he speaks he draws his knee up to rest his arm upon it, his hand restless as he speaks. “Dragons are creatures with their own wills. We cannot control them fully, but we guide them.”

“And you claimed the fiercest of them,” she says.

She remembers Driftmark like it was a dream. She remembers standing by the sea as the coffin of Laena Velaryon was delivered to the waves, looking at the faces of a family she scarcely knew in the aftermath, clinging to the only people she had left in the world, Daena and Alyssa.

She remembers someone storming into her chambers as she slept, the shadowy face of her father appearing in the moonlight that beamed through the window. “We are needed in the Hall of Nine,” he said.

“We?”

He found Alyssa in the next room and left Daena to sleep, marching down the dark corridors of Hightide. They walked in on a scene that terrified her. While their father leaned against the doorway, almost amused, Alyssa and Rhaelle walked further inside, hand in hand. They could not see clearly past the crowd that had gathered to watch this battle between the Princess and the Queen, but there was shouting, pleading, blood on the faces of Rhaenyra’s sons and blood on the face of the King’s son, Aemond.

She peered through the bodies, the fabric of nightgowns and the haze of the braziers to see him sitting there, stitches in his face, smaller cuts on his brow and his lip. He didn’t look at the eye discarded in a tray by his side, he didn’t look to his siblings for reassurance or comfort. First he glared at his father with a hatred that somehow seemed contained, stunned but unsurprised. Then he looked at his mother, with far more understanding than a child should ever have to need.

“Do not mourn me, mother,” the boy said, “I may have lost an eye, but I gained a dragon.”

“A dragon is terror and freedom,” Aemond says as her eyes drift over the edges of his scar and the details of the leather patch that conceals the rest. “When I claimed Vhagar, centuries of power and strength became mine. I felt her in solitude, I learned from her.”

It shows, she thinks, that he grew bonded to a beast of conquest, a witness to her fire and majesty, and took that into himself.

Her eyes trail lower, over his jaw, the pale skin of his neck just visible beneath his collar, which ends with a silver buckle. She can pinpoint the rise and fall of his breath, the detailings of golden dragons against the black leather, his hair draped over his shoulders and down his body.

She feels her legs getting numb and shifts her weight onto her palm, placed on the grass beside her so that she leans in closer to him.

“But to take flight on Vhagar,” Aemond says softly, a hint of a smile on his lips, his eye gleaming and trained on her, “to feel the force of her wings, the wind and the weightlessness…”

She feels herself clinging to every word he says, each subtle breath he takes, the minuscule movements in his face as he inches closer to her. Only for her heart to sink when he pauses.

He reaches up, taking the end of her braid between his gloved fingers. “I wish you could have known what it was like.”

“It is like you said,” she says, “it is not a birthright, it is something earned.”

“By those of our blood,” Aemond says, his eye darting back up to meet hers. “You should have had the chance to earn it.”

Our blood, the blood of dragons and conquerors, of Queens and Princes, of weak Kings and cruel fathers.

He releases his hold of her hair, positioning it over her shoulder and tracing his fingertips over the coat of her leathers. His eye follows, then slowly returns to her face. “Might I show you something?”

“Yes, of course,” she says, carefully withholding eagerness in her voice. “Shall we fetch the horses?”

“No,” Aemond says, rising and offering his hand for her to take. “We’ll go on foot.”

He keeps her hand in his, leather against leather, as he leads her down the path, freshly disturbed by hoof prints, away from the clearing and back into the forest. He stops where the path diverged into two and with a small inclination of his head, they walk along the trail that leads uphill. This way is not as the other, overgrown with grass and even the thick, twisted roots of trees. Aemond is keen to guide her, walking just ahead, tightening his grip on her at the slightest of obstacles.

The hill becomes steep, and in fact she is grateful for his caution when she loses her footing on a loose rock and he is there to steady her, determined that she shall stay upright. The higher they climb the sparser the trees, the louder the wind howls, the closer the sound of the water becomes. The path leads on, but Aemond stops and steps out into the open.

She stands behind his shoulder to shield herself from the wind, clutching his hand and squinting through the blinding sunlight on the eastern horizon, over the waves of the Blackwater, roaring and crashing against one another, against the base off the cliff they stand on. The city is nothing but distant shapes, further along the curve of the shore. The Red Keep, where standing at its gates seems to reach high into the heavens, seems so unremarkable from here. The cold seeps through her leathers. Sea salt stings in her eyes and on her tongue.

“My mother’s sworn shield taught me to ride on horseback, Ser Criston Cole. He’d lead me through these woods, until I knew all the trails by heart,” Aemond says, leaning into her so she can hear him. His breath is warm against her ear, his grip on her hand still unrelenting. “I came across this place when I was a boy. I used to sit here for hours, especially when the others would ride their dragons.”

Gulls sail effortlessly through the sea air. She imagines dragons in their place.

“A childish indulgence,” Aemond mutters.

“Show me,” she says, tilting her head up to meet his eye.

He smiles to himself. “Stand there,” he says, pointing to the very edge of the cliff face, at a slab of grey stone reaching out below the rocks and spray of the sea.

“On the ledge?” she says, her legs unsure beneath her.

He releases her hand to gently guide her by her waist. “Right here,”

Her stomach lurches when her boots leave the earth. If it is the truth or a trick of the mind the stone seems to move beneath her. “Aemond, I’m going to fall!”

But he holds her waist tight, pulling her into him until she feels the heat of his body through their riding leathers, the hilt of Blackfyre pressing against her back. “I’ve got you,” he murmurs in her ear, “I’ve got you.”

She cannot seem to breathe, gasping for air as she wills her heart to calm. She grasps at his hands, clinging to him as if he would not merely fall with her. His proximity to her is not quite comforting, it only seems to make her more afraid, but it is a pleasant sort of fear.

“Can you imagine it,” he says, leaning his cheek against her temple, “out of reach of the rest of the world, the heat of a dragon beneath you, the wind against your skin, the weightlessness?”

The force of the wind seems to push her closer into his grasp. She can feel the terror. One misstep and she will fall, her body dashed out over the rocks below, her blood feeding into the water.

“I could feel her fire brewing beneath her hide. I could feel it burning in my blood and my throat before she unleashed it,” Aemond whispers, his lips grazing the shell of her ear.

She shudders, letting herself turn into him, letting her hands close around his wrists.

He leans into her, resting his forehead against hers. She feels his heat. She feels something like fire burning in her blood and wonders if it burns in his too. A gloved hand delicately takes her chin.

It would be easy to give into him, she thinks. She would have been glad to do it the first time she laid eyes upon him.

But she knows she must not allow herself to be ruled by impulse and desire. She cannot escape him completely but she turns her head back towards the open water. Aemond is still holding her, still breathing against her neck.

She waits for him to guide her back, to the safety of solid ground, away from the ledge. Now he cannot meet her eye.

They walk back to the clearing and Aemond holds her hand again, though this time she does not stumble. Aemond unties her horse, helps her into her saddle and she waits for him before they set off back down the path.

The ride back to King’s Landing is a silent one. Each step their horses take through the woods feels heavy in her ears, the closing of a door, the beat of a funeral drum. She looks ahead to Aemond, hoping he will turn back and catch her eye but he does not.

She wants to tear her hair out from the roots and strike herself across the face. She couldn’t afford to make another mistake and yet she has done exactly that. What if the King feels slighted? What if he holds this against her?

The guards are waiting for them by the bridge and escort them back through the city. The streets are busier and grey now that the sun has risen and hidden itself behind a sky of clouds.

But the entrance yard at the Red Keep is no longer filled with servants. Instead the clashes of steel ring out against the walls of the castle, as men of the Kingsguard, nobles and knights spar, to the awe of a few spectators.

Aemond pays little mind to the people in the yard. Even when they greet him he simply nods his head. As his horse is taken by a stable hand, swings a leg over the head and slips effortlessly from the saddle.

Then he approaches her horse, wordlessly holding out his hands, offering his assistance. She allows this, and purposefully turns to face him once her boots have met the ground, keeping her hands on his shoulders, not too firmly, for she cannot appear to be too forceful.

“Your Grace,” she says, determined that their eyes should meet again. “I am sorry if I have offended you, truly,” she says quietly, though she will hardly avoid attention when she stands with the King, his hands lingering on her waist, more timidly than he had been in the woods.

Aemond looks at her, and once again his expression is a gentle one. “I am anything but,” he says, one of his thumbs tracing circles over her leathers. He lowers his voice. “The truth is I am deeply moved by your loyalty to your sister. You were right, I have regrets of my own.”

There have been all kinds of rumours regarding Queen Helaena’s death. Some say she was pushed from the window, perhaps even by Rhaenyra herself, and others say she threw herself from it. She was driven mad by grief, supposedly, since the murder of her eldest son, and perhaps she could bear the pain no longer. Perhaps the cause was the false news of Aemond’s death at the God’s Eye. At first the only news had come from smallfolk in the nearby lands, that both Princes had fallen. A fortnight later Aemond arrived at King’s Landing, dragonless, but decidedly alive.

“I often ask myself why I did not do more for them. Why did I put them in danger? Why did I leave them? Why did I not return to them…”

Something else catches his attention. His gaze has moved from her face, to the leather breastplate she wears under her coat, embroidered with ancient runes, naturally.

“What does that say?” he asks in a voice like ice, tracing his fingertips over the golden thread, over the same markings written into the sleeves of the first gown she wore in King’s Landing.

“Have you seen it before? It is an old saying in the Vale,” she says, startled by another shift in him, “the words read: learn to die.”

His throat hums, lowly and softly. His eye returns to hers, his lips curling into a self assured smile, the kind that infuriates her because it means he knows something she does not.

He releases her waist, then reaches for her hand. He pinches the end of her right glove and pulls it from her slowly, the lack of warmth stinging her bare skin.

He whispers, “I cannot give you what you ask of me, not now at least. But I will try.” He raises her hand and presses his lips against it. “I promise you, I will try.”

Blood blooms beneath her cheeks. For once Aemond’s words fill her with hope. He seems sincere, she wants that to be the truth.

She smiles politely. “Thank you, Your Grace—”

“Your Grace!” Calls a voice from the steps to the Keep. Aemond’s hand falls away from hers and he faces away from her as Martyn Hightower approaches them. “All the preparations have been made for you to receive Lady Floris and Lady Cassandra. They are expected to arrive before the day’s end.”

She watches Aemond bring one hand to the hilt of his sword. The other he brings behind his back, clenched in a fist. “Good,” he says, and turns towards Rhaelle again, his body following his head. “Thank you for accompanying me this morning, my Lady.”

She takes a breath, meaning to thank him but then he’s stalking across the yard and disappearing into the castle.

Rhaelle decides she can hardly bear the sight of him walking away.

Tags (comment to be added)

General taglist: @randomdragonfires @jamespotterismydaddy @theoneeyedprince @tsujifreya @dreamsofoldvalyria @lacebvnny

Series taglist: @adragonprinceswhore @persephonerinyes @gemini-mama @aemondzyrys @snh96 @magnificentdelusionr @aegonx @xxxkat3xxx @dahlias-and-marigolds @mandiiblanche @thaisthedreamer @heavenly1927 @herfantasyworldd @heimtathurs @minttea07

#my fics #aemond targaryen #aemond targaryen fanfic #aemond targaryen fanfiction #aemond targaryen smut #aemond targaryen oneshot #aemond x reader #aemond x you #aemond x ofc #hotd #house of the dragon fanfic #house of the dragon fanfiction #hotd fanfiction #smut #aemond fanfiction #aemond fanfic #aemond oneshot #aemond one eye #hotd fandom

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mndvx · 10 months

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Considering every time your hero saves a cat out of a tree, you write a puff piece editorial about an alien who, if he wanted to, could burn the whole place down. There wouldn't be a damn thing we could do to stop him. SON OF SUN AND KNIGHT OF NIGHT (2016) directed by Zack Snyder | written by Chris Terrio & David S. Goyer ››› Henry Cavill as Clark Kent ››› Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne

#ben affleck #bruce wayne #henry cavill #clark kent #batman v superman #bvs #dawn of justice #dceuedit #dcedit #movieedit #filmedit #dcmovies #dcfilms #bvsedit #son of sun and knight of night #dc #dceu #snyderverse

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witchofhimring · 7 months

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Being the daughter of Sansa Stark

Sansa Stark x daughter reader (platonic)

Warning: mentions of sexual abuse and trauma (to Sansa)

-From the moment she first meets you Sansa is fiercely protective. She knows girls are not kindly treated in this world. So the realities of this world are shown to you from a young age. Sansa has no interest at you being as naïve as as she had once been as a child. You are taught to be cunning and observe everyone. After all, no one can be too careful.

Y/n's little head rested on her mothers chest as Sansa walked through the quiet halls of Winterfell. Lights flickered in the hallway. Every step she took echoed through the ancient stone. Y/n stirred in her mothers arms, a small coo escaping her. Sansa's grip tightened. Even if she was a Queen there was no guarantee that Y/n was safe. Queen Cersei was a powerful Queen and all of her children were gone. Could she, still so young, succeed were Cersei failed? Sansa had always wanted a son. As a young girl it was to please her husband and continue his family line. Now as a woman grown, she feared to have a girl. She worried that her daughter would be burdened with the same worries she did. The night dragged on, the Queen's thoughts a blizzard of torment.

-Sansa will be a strict mother. As a child you would not understand why she labored over your upbringing, constantly tormented by a past you did not understand. She would always warn you of the dangers ahead. This does mean that while you know your mother loves you there is a wall. She is someone you don't fully understand. But you also admire her for being so strong. Sansa has always been a pillar of strength, she understands that her action will be an example to you. From the time you are old enough to, Sansa has you sit in on council meetings and affairs' of state. Because the world shows mercy to none, especially young girls.

Lady Karstark was arguing the case for her right to land against the Glovers. Both parties stood in front of the Queen who sat on her throne. On a seat beside her was Princess Y/n, wearing a newly forged circlet that would now be passed down to each heir. You took note of their arguments, the relationships between each person and the old alliances. You remembered the lands, having been to them on tours in the past. Beforehand, you had looked over documents, no matter how tedious they were. As future Queen you had learned that knowledge is power. Sansa put up her hand. Silence fell upon the crowd. You wondered if one day you would hold such power. The Queen looked to you. "And what does my daughter say?"

-There is still happiness in your relationship. When Sansa has a few hours away from the throne she spends time with you. She will tell you stories of the old Northern Kings, of the white walkers and the Old Gods. The two of you will gallop on horses for hours, the cold whipping your hair. There are times she will allow herself to enjoy things long left in the past. The two of you will sit by the warm fire, as a snowstorm rages outside. There isn't much talking, but that doesn't bother either of you. Warm lemon cakes sit on fancy plates, a delicacy the Queen rarely indulges in these days. She watches her daughter enjoy them, and although she wishes her daughter to grow up as hard as steel she can not bring herself to take this small joy from her.

The two of you found a hill. Breaking off from the party, Sansa made orders for the knights to keep an eye out. The two of you galloped to the top before dismounting. You stared in awe at the setting sun, casting its great light over the sky. The sent of trees and fresh running water overwhelmed you. For a while the two of you gazed out at the scene. Sansa walked back to her horse. "Are we leaving now?" You asked, disappointed. Sansa unclasped a pouch on her saddle. Out she pulled two things wrapped in cloth. You caught a sent and suddenly your tummy rumbled. Lemon cakes. Sansa gave her the lemon cake, and both mother and daughter sat and ate.

-Your betrothal and marriage will not be a happy occasion for Sansa. She knows what marriage means and what a man may take from her. Even if she can protect her Sansa knows that her power as a mother and Queen. Any guy who hopes to marry you had to go through the formidable woman that is Sansa Stark. Many a young man has cowered over the Queen's eyes. And you bet your butt that Sansa will have the boy's every footsteps observed.

"He is friends with Lady Karstark's eldest son. But he's a letcher." A small golden symbol of the boy's house bounced across the table. Sansa would be dead before she allowed her daughter to marry any such man. She critiqued each and every suitor whom desired to marry her. Beside her were stakes of paper. Anyone who married her daughter would have to agree to these terms. 1. Her daughter would be the sole occupant of the throne 2. If Y/n died without an heir, it would pass to the next Stark, not her husbands family Many more terms had been set. Y/n entered the room and everyone but the Queen bowed. "Come Y/n. We are looking to find you a husband." Having her daughters attention, Sansa made room. Y/n looked through the list of suitors before placing it down. "Well, do you see any that appeal?" "Not entirely, should we not look beyond our boarders. Perhaps any of the other six lands may have a second son to marry to me for an alliance?" Sansa gave a small smile. She was learning.

#sansa stark #sansa #game of thrones #game of thrones x reader #sansa x reader #sansa stark x reader #got x reader #got

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fushipurro · 5 months

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In the Shadows of Love

Chapter 1 - Green Flag

Masterlist | Next Chapter ->

☆ Synopsis: You've lived most of your life trying to convince yourself that you're happy, but let's face it, you're far from it. Time continues to pass you by, leaving you feeling stuck — losing hope that life will ever get better.

That is, until a new neighbor and his son move into the vacant spot next-door.

☆ Content: 18+ MDNI, depression, fluff, angst, insecure/intrusive thoughts, mentions of smoking

☆ Word Count: 3.9k

Four in the morning. That’s the time displayed on your phone.

For many, that’s roughly the time others wake up, gearing up for a day of work or school. You however, that’s when you hope to be asleep by. The time just before the sun has a chance to peak above the horizon or the birds start their morning symphony.

It wasn’t always this way, nor do you remember when this routine became your norm. You tell yourself the life of a night owl is one of ease ─ a better way to live. You have unintentionally conditioned yourself into this lifestyle without knowing any better, and even then, you still can’t deny the positives feelings you get from it.

The nights feel as though they move slower than the day, and to you, it beats the alternative of selling your soul away to the 9-5 corporate job. Sure, you still had to go out and get a job ─ it’s an inevitable in life to those born without generational wealth to fall back on. Instead of some soul-crushing office job, you chose to become a model.

Not some high fashion runway Vogue or Louis Vuitton model, of course; that’d be a bit too much for your self-esteem to handle. Nor would you even want to be one, either.

You chose the side of modeling that gears more towards marketing, styling, or the occasional photoshoot here and there, but overall, as much work-from-home as you can get.

Your days typically begin sometime in the afternoon.

A cycle of waking up, feeding your cat, work, chores, whatever else you need to do before a night of indulging yourself with all your many hobbies before starting the cycle all over again.

Reality can be a blur at times with late night thoughts that make you question if you’re truly happy with how things are or if that’s just what you tell yourself to get through to tomorrow.

Putting your phone down on your nightstand, you made yourself comfy beneath layers of blankets in the highlight of your home, your bed.

Sleep is one thing you always look forward to. No thinking necessary or responsibility, just allowing your many dreams to consume you and feed that lust for adventure life can’t guarantee you. You’re more than ready to see what awaits you tonight. Maybe you’ll see dragons and knights, four-armed monsters and cursed beings, the possibilities are endless.

What more could you want?

All your hopes for that and more come crashing down when you wake with a jolt after having just fallen asleep, only to hear that the crash wasn’t a metaphor.

You groan, your voice burdened by your tired state. “Nooo, Tsumiki… come back– fuck.”

You stretch your arm out, feeling for your cat who decided to ditch you from the sudden noise and into one of her many hiding spots. The time on your phone now reads nine in the morning ─ a painful reminder to the cons of being nocturnal.

You’re the minority.

Through the thin walls of the old apartment building you live in, you can faintly make out whoever is disturbing your vampiric slumber, “What do you think, kid?” Their voice is deep, and smooth like honey yet ignites goosebumps down your back.

But wait, kid? As in a child?

Wouldn’t that be your luck.

You’ve been safe for a while with one side of your walls being vacant, but it seems luck has run out, and with a family no less. You only hope their day-to-day noise level is less than that of all the boxes and furniture being thrown around every second.

And just like that, your spare pillow is now your new best friend, sandwiched between your head and your arm to drown out the world.

At some point you managed to fall asleep again ─ if you can even call it that. A better description would be the state in-between, where you’re barely conscious yet still able to rest. By three in the afternoon, the alarm on your phone is your second rude awakening.

So much for any dreamworld adventures to make you forget the crushing weight of reality.

It’s beyond tempting to hit snooze and give it another shot, and maybe you could this time around, given the lack of noise emanating from the other side of the walls. Tsumiki however, says otherwise. With pinpoint accuracy, her tiny paws dig harshly into your bladder and every other vital organ as she impatiently mewls for her afternoon feast.

“Fine, I’m getting up,” you drawl out with a sigh, throwing aside the covers to your oh so warm cocoon…

No, no. Tsumiki needs her breakfast. Her needs always come first before your own, no matter what.

You crack open a can of wet food, adding in all your special additives to ensure she’s getting everything healthy her growing body needs. Once she’s good to go, you follow up with your own lackluster toaster meal, devoid of any extravagant sides. A trip to the grocery store is in order, but that can wait until after you’ve finished your work for the day.

Nothing beats getting all your chores done in the hours after waking up. That way, the rest of your day (read: night) is all for yourself and no one else. What better way to get everything finished too than by singing along to all your favorite songs with the occasional break to stretch.

By seven at night, you’re finished and dressed for the store. Some days you can bring yourself to look the part of a model, other times ─ like today ─ you’re too exhausted to care. So, you fit yourself in your choice of comfy clothes, designed by laziness, and without so much as a red sole on your preferred footwear. You’re going to the store after all, not some Hollywood premiere.

A glance through your peephole reveals an empty hallway, perfect for your liking. The less neighbors you have to pass by or talk to, the better. Once past the threshold, you spot the remnants of boxes just next-door, further proving to your dismay that you’re now stuck with someone on both sides of your home. Getting down the stairs and out the building proves just as easy. Excellent timing on your part to avoid homebound traffic, earning some peace and quiet on your walk to and from the store.

So you hope, at least.

On a better day you would’ve chosen an actual grocery store to go to, but for now, the closest convenience store will have to do. They’re convenient for a reason, might as well utilize it.

Despite only buying enough to last a few days, at best, you still end up with your arms full on the trip back. Each step you take leaves you cursing under your breath for not being able to afford a car. The world’s too expensive for a young, single woman without any family to get help from.

It’s already hard enough leaving the safety net of your home, and your tired arms now feel as if they’re ready to fall off. To top everything off, a lone man comes into sight, resting on the stairs to your building with a cigarette in hand.

He doesn’t look familiar, and in fact, a closer look from the nearby lighting reveals that he’s… actually quite handsome. Hell, he could be a model if he wanted to, and you’d be surprised if he wasn’t one already. His black hair falls neatly over his face, his physique unmatched from what you see around the hems of his black sweater. The scar down his lip adds an air of mystery, that at the same time raises some alarms in your head.

There’s always the chance he lives in the building. It’s not like you’re familiar with every tenant in the complex. But at the same time as previously established, you’re a young woman who’s walking all by herself, long after sunset. Anyone can be a murderer or kidnapper for all you know.

Best to just avoid him, and hope for the best.

You attempt to shuffle by him up the stairs, keeping your head held down and away, but his voice stops you right in your tracks sending a chill down your spine, “Need a hand with those?” He gestures to your bag with the hand that holds the foul cancer stick. There’s something familiar about him, but you can’t place it just yet. Not when your anxiety is shooting sky-high.

The bags tremble slightly in your arms as you turn partially to the man. “N-no, I uh…” You thickly swallow, mumbling softly after, “I’m okay, thanks.”

You move to continue up the stairs, but misplace your foot, fixing to tumble downwards only to be caught just in time by a pair of hands on each side of your shoulders.

“Woah, easy there. I don’t mind helping, doll,” he insists. You don’t protest when he reaches for the bags in one arm, too frozen in place to react beyond budding embarrassment. He opens the door to the building but stops, looking back at you. “You comin’?”

“Y-yeah.”

Great instincts, now let’s hope he’s not about inflict every crime in the book there is upon you. Ending up on the morning news in a body bag is not the type of modeling you had in mind.

His green eyes follow your form as you walk past him, silently thanking him for being chivalrous enough to hold the door open. You take the lead up the stairs, trying not to make it too obvious when looking back over your shoulder, praying he doesn’t pull a gun on you.

The smart choice would be to lead him to some other home in the building. For instance, someone that you’re familiar with to offer a sense of security. Unfortunately, you have about as many friends as you do cats.

Which in this case is… one. If you can even call your boss a friend.

Perfect.

The man quirks a brow as you arrive in front of apartment 4-C, your home. “Huh, looks like we’re neighbors.” He nudges his head to 4-D, the previously vacant housing. “Just moved in today,” he adds.

“Oh,” you reply, visibly stunned. Well that alleviates more of your worries and explains the familiarity you felt. The voice you had heard earlier in the day belongs to him. “I guess we are,” you laugh nervously, stumbling to unlock your door with unsteady hands.

You step inside, keeping the door parted for him to enter. He wastes no time following after, placing the bags down on the countertop in the kitchen alongside your own. Tsumiki runs into the room moments after, stopping to take a cautious sniff of the man’s ankle.

“Who’s this?” he asks, leaning down to pet the now-purring kitten with one thick digit. “Friendly cat you’ve got here.”

“Her name is Tsumiki,” you tell him, still unable to help how meek you sound. You can’t help but feel a bit more at ease with your cat’s quick approval of the man.

There’s a low hum from his throat with approval, “Cute name.” He picks her up into his arms, huffing out of amusement at all the air biscuits she starts making with her tiny little paws. His eyes meet yours unexpectedly, about stunning you in the process. “What’s yours?”

“Huh?”

He simpers. “Your name?”

You avert your gaze to your groceries, playing with the fabric of your sleeves as you tell him your name, no louder than a whisper.

“Even cuter,” he remarks, thankfully not making any comments on how flustered you must look right about now. He does wink however, not that you’re even looking his way to see it, but he does.“Name’s Toji Fushiguro.”

“Nice to meet you, Toji.” You offer up a smile, trying to keep your voice steady. “Thanks for helping with the bags, by the way.”

Toji’s eyes spark with subtle interest. “Told you it wouldn’t be a problem.” He pauses, momentarily looking around. “Guess I should get goin’ now before I’m late for work.”

At this time of night? Though it’s not like you’re one to talk, let’s be real.

He places Tsumiki gently back onto the ground, turning back to leave. You end up having to pick her back up in order to stop her attempt at escaping with him.

Betrayed by your own cat.

He tells you his goodbyes, turning the key into his own home, finalizing the fact that he is your new neighbor and not some degenerate criminal. Well, hopefully. You never know these days.

Maybe this whole thing won’t be so bad after all.

Tsumiki meows with evident disappointment, pawing away at your front door once back inside. It looks as though Tsumiki’s deemed him a green flag with her pawprint seal of approval. “Well, you seem to like him. Don’t you, girl?” She meows in response, and you can only imagine what her mews translate to in your tongue. The most likely answer would be a series of complaints for not making him stay longer to give her more attention like you don’t do that enough.

The remainder of your night is spent as usual, mostly tucked away on the couch, enjoying some quality TV time and whatever else you like to do. Tsumiki’s bakery works wonders on your stomach, kneading and purring away until the covers of sleep pull themselves up and over you, whisking you off to the world of dreams.

The next day starts with a slew of curses leaving your mouth that could put a sailor to shame.

Your sleep deprivation caught up to you with impeccably awful timing, paired with a few missed calls from your boss, and a voicemail to match.

“I apologize for how late notice this is, but I need you in the office at three o’clock. We have a meeting with a prospective client, and they would like to meet you.”

Your eyes dart to the time registered on your phone as you listen in. The meeting is at 3 and it’s… 3:30.

Lovely.

You shoot up from the couch and into some much nicer clothing and whatever makeup you can scrounge to cover the bags resting below your eyes. With your purse in hand, there’s no time to even think about running into a neighbor as you leave. You exit the building like a bat out of hell, flying past Toji and his son on the sidewalk without even realizing.

He calls out your name, but you don’t respond nor even hear it over the sound of blood rushing in your ears, drowning out any and all outside noise.

His son looks on with confusion at the scene. “Rabbit…”

Toji stifles a laugh, “Might as well be one.” He follows you with his eyes, panning down to see that you’re running in heels of all things. It’s a wonder how a set of stairs almost got you the night before.

You aren’t sure how long you’ve been running for. Being as late as you are, there wasn’t any time to order a ride. At the very least, it’s not like your agency is situated in the heart of the downtown, so getting there by foot is doable.

By the time you do arrive, the client is long gone, and other employees are leaving their shifts as well. You make yourself as presentable as you can in what seconds you have to spare before entering his office to hear everything you missed.

In the midst of the discussion, you apologize, “I’m so sorry, Mr. Nanami. I swear it won’t happen again.”

“No matter,” his exhale comes in the form of a sigh. “The client is willing to excuse it this time, and it’s fortunate they still wish to advance to the next step with us.” For a second, you can see some underlying frustration in his eyes, believing yourself to be the cause. “There will be consequences if this happens again, I do hope you understand.”

You lower your head in shame. “Y-yes sir ─ thank you…”

Even if it it’s true your sleep was disrupted the day before from outside of your control, you still feel as though you’re the only one to blame. You could’ve set more alarms, taken a nap ─ or better, not stayed up till dawn.

You’re snapped from your thoughts by a hand on your shoulder. “Don’t stress, this will be good opportunity for you,” he reassures. “Now go home and rest, I’ll be in contact.” You nod, taking your leave from the office.

You take your time on the walk home, losing yourself in your mind once more. Staying up at night to enjoy the silence is nice and all, but is it worth setting yourself back? You can’t afford to lose your job, or worse, not be able to afford your bills and all of Tsumiki’s food and care.

Speaking of which, food was one of the last things on your mind, but upon seeing the neon lights of the convenient store, your stomach growls on cue.

“…Guess I’ll grab something then,” you mutter to yourself.

You scan each aisle, grabbing a few simple snacks, and eventually coming across a comfort food that would taste perfect right about now in place of a full meal. It’s nothing too fancy or expensive, just enough to quell your noisy stomach and anxious body.

“You were in a hurry this afternoon,” a gruff voice sounds from behind you. It startles you, enough so that you lose your grip on the item in your hands. Toji catches it effortlessly, observing the contents in his hand. “Shit, didn’t mean to scare you.”

You take a moment to catch your breath, letting the vicious thumping of your heart calm down enough to speak. “It’s okay, I’m sorry.”

Toji gives you a questioning look, examining your appearance with emerald eyes that practically see right through you. “Something happen?” he inquires.

“Oh, uh– it’s nothing important.” You wave him off, shifting your head to the side. You almost forget he’s even still holding onto your food when the next thing you know, he’s putting it into his own basket alongside whatever else he’s buying. “Um, Toji?”

“My treat.” He winks, moving ahead down the aisle expecting you to keep up.

“I can’t let you do that, it’s too much,” you plead.

“Doll, this is nothing,” he claims. “It won’t break the bank for me.”

You don’t try and argue further, resorting to pouting when he turns his back to you to grab a few other items. With this view, you’re able to take in more of his appearance.

This time, instead of black sweats, he’s fitted in dark jeans, an equally dark shirt, boots, and muted olive parka that goes wonderfully with his eyes. You had noticed his scar looked rougher up close, with a few more hide away on his skin, out of sight. Toji looks over his shoulder, inadvertently catching you staring at him. You blush, quickly averting your gaze to the ice cream selection at your side.

After checking out, you thank him, sticking close to his side on route back to your shared apartment complex. Toji stays silent for the first few blocks, occasionally glancing in your direction without you even realizing, as you do the same.

Normally you’d be content with the peace, but your mind says otherwise even if you have no clue what to talk about. He ends up being the first to speak up anyways, “What do you do for work?”

You figure he must be asking based on how your appearance, especially when you know now that he spotted you earlier. “I work in the fashion industry, mainly advertising…” your voice trails off into a more meek tone, “…also some modeling gigs here and there, believe it or not.”

He hums, acknowledging your words while sparing another glance filled with newfound curiosity. Given your self-confidence, you’re not quite sure what to make of the stare, wondering if he’s silently judging you.

“W-what about you?” you ask, mentally scolding yourself for stuttering.

“I’m a bartender over at a joint called Star Plasma. You should come by if you ever want a drink, I’ll make it special for you.” He briefly pauses, keeping his eyes directed at you while scratching the back of his neck. “You look like you could use one, did somethin’ happen?”

You stop dead in your tracks, looking down at the concrete path below. He stops just in front of you, half-turning to see the glossy coating on your eyes. “I…kind of got in trouble at work, all because of a stupid mistake.” One called not setting a proper alarm or having your phone not set to silent, you later realized.

“I know all about that,” he responds, and in a way, it’s reassuring. “Can’t be that bad if you still have a job, right?”

“Yeah, I suppose,” you slowly exhale. The next words out of your mouth are barely that of a whisper, almost completely inaudible, “I’m hating myself for it…”

Toji doesn’t say anything in the immediate moment, turning his head up to the flickering streetlamp overhead. After a minute he goes on to say, “Don’t beat yourself up, we all make mistakes.”

Tell that to a perfectionist.

“Come on then,” he urges. “Before the ice cream melts.”

You continue walking, muttering, “Right, sorry.”

“Don’t be, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

The two of you are quiet the rest of the way home. Once outside the front doors of your respective apartments, he holds out one of the bags for you to take.

“Here you go,” he says as you accept it from his hands. “I threw in a thing of ice cream too. Figured you might like some with the way you were staring earlier.” He smirks.

You glance into the bag and find a small tub of your favorite flavor tucked away. Your mouth parts in shock, the surprise evident on your features. “How did you know I like this flavor?”

“Lucky guess, I’m glad it paid off.”

Toji’s front door suddenly opens from the inside, and a young boy comes running out, latching onto the older man’s leg. One look is all it takes to see that he’s the spitting image of his father, save for the trademark scar on the lip and hair kept under control. The boy sees you and decides to shield himself behind his father, peering around his leg with a cautious expression.

“Megumi,” Toji kneels down, rubbing his hand along the course of his son’s spikey hair. “Meet our new neighbor,” he says, your name punctuating the sentence.

You smile, lowering yourself to his level. “Hi Megumi, it’s nice to meet you,” you greet.

He shuffles more behind Toji’s leg, and you can’t blame him for being nervous around strangers. He mumbles out, “Rabbit lady,” before darting back inside his home, leaving you surprised.

Toji eyes the door, sighing, “Sorry about that, he’s shy around new people.”

“No worries, he’s adorable,” you softly giggle, standing back up to normal height. “Thanks again for the food.”

Toji looks at you with slightly wider eyes, stunned by the sudden display of laughter. “Yeah, no problem. I’ll see you around then, neighbor.”

You wave goodbye, entering your own home and greeting Tsumiki who must’ve heard you through the door given how she’s right there waiting. Toji was right about the ice cream. Between that and the conversation you had with him; you’re already starting to feel better about the earlier turmoil.

Maybe being neighbors with him won’t be so bad after all.

☆ Notes: During my revision of this series, I gotta admit that my original upload was messy as HELL... i had waaay too many ideas and no cohesive plan for where i wanted the plot but that's all fixed now and i'm super excited for how this series will develop over time and i hope you all enjoy the new version of this series!

sorry for the name change whiplash btw, i've been thinking for a while that "light in the dark" was a little too basic and then thought of this new one on a whim so here we are :)

#jjk #toji fushiguro #jujutsu kaisen #jjk toji #jjk au #toji x female reader #toji fushiguro x reader #toji zenin #toji x reader #toji x you #megumi fushiguro #nanami kento #model!reader

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starogeorgina · 7 months

Text

Violent delights

Warnings: Character death

Pairings: Jacaerys Velaryon x oc

1.11

Jacaerys face falls as he watches his sons play underneath a weirdwood tree within the walls of Winterfell. His lips press into a thin line as a fearful look crosses his features. You could only imagine what upsetting thoughts plagued his mind. Jace only looks away from his elder sons when Daemon starts to fuss in your arms.

“I should take him back inside.”

Daemon hadn’t been outside for longer than ten minutes, but you still felt it was far too long for a newborn to be in such cold weather. You had decided to take the children on a walk to spend the last few hours before you left for Dragonstone together. Rhaenys was happily petting Lord Stark’s heavily pregnant direwolf, while Aemma clung to your side. Avery and Aethan had adapted to the new climate better than their sisters; both of them were fascinated by the snow.

“I’ll take him,” Jace says quietly. He stretches his arms for you to give him the baby. Jacaerys kisses him on the forehead and says, “I’ve hardly held him since he was born. I fear he’ll think I’m a stranger when I see him again.”

You felt terrible for Jacaerys; he was questioning his ability as a father, and blaming himself for what happened to Luke. He had convinced himself that he should have flown to Storm's End with your brother before heading north. But if that had happened, the most likely outcome would be that Aemond would have killed them both.

“You’re his father, Jace; you’ll never be a stranger to him.”

You remain outside for a little while longer, watching as your child enjoys themselves, but when the winds pick up, you tell them it’s time to go back inside.

Clara had agreed to stay with them in Winterfell, which made you feel slightly more comfortable that they would have a familiar face watching over them. When you enter the bedroom, you notice Jacaerys dozing off in one of the chairs near the fireplace, and Daemon leaning against his bare chest, sleeping peacefully.

You run your fingers through Jace’s hair and say, “My sweet boys.”

Jacaerys leans his head against your hand that’s resting on his shoulder. His eyes look painful with how bloodshot they are. “Leaving them is going to be awful,” he says quietly. “It was hard enough leaving the children with you in Dragonstone, but now it’s different. We will be so far away, and we have no idea how long the war will last. It could be a long time before we see them again.”

“Our mother will have her throne back before long, and then our children will be safe to return to their home.”

He repositions the babe in his arms and says, “We'll need to say goodbye soon.”

It had been decided that you’d leave at night, and with the sun starting to disappear behind the clouds, there wasn’t long left. Leaving your babies behind was going to kill you on the inside; it would be the hardest thing you’d ever need to do.

—

It was apparent from the moment you arrived back in Dragonstone that something had changed. The air has a stillness to it; a horrible sensation of death lingered in the air. The dragonkeepers and servants kept their heads low as you walked by them.

Seeing Jace’s lip start to tremble, you link your fingers with his. “We will get through this; I don’t know how, but we will.”

“I don’t think I can... Luke…Luke… I’m still expecting to walk in and see him.”

Hearing Jacaerys voice break causes tears to well up again. You were fighting so hard to remain strong, but you could feel your walls starting to crumble. You remain hand in hand as you walk in silence to the great hall. Upon entering it, you are greeted by a few lords and knights who lower their heads as they address you and Jacasrys. With your mother being next in line to the throne, you had grown up used to being treated as royalty, but never before had you seen fear in the eyes of those who looked upon you. Your eyes land on Baela and Rhaena, who both look as if they have been crying, with your grandsire by their sides.

Jace speaks up, his voice clear of all emotions. “Princess Rhaenys, Lord Corlys.”

Your grandsire nods his head and says, “My prince, princess.”

An awkwardness lingers for a moment before you decide to break it. It was obvious your grandsire was holding back on something, so you looked to Princess Rhaenys and said, "Grandmother?”

She lets go of Baela’s hand and approaches you with a serious look on her face. One of the many things you admire about your grandmother was the way she got straight to the point; she never held back from telling you the truth. A sympathetic look crosses her face. “I’m sorry to inform you that Prince Gaemon is dead.”

You take a step back, feeling as if you’d just been hit. “He’s dead?”

“While you were in Winterfell, two men posing as fishermen managed to make their way into the castle during the night and slay him while he slept.”

Jace’s fingers slip from yours as he stumbles slightly, and his face turns paler than you've ever seen before. One of the lords quickly places a chair behind Jacaerys before he falls to the ground.

Your grandmother raises her brows slightly before saying, “There's more. The night Prince Gaemon was killed, he was asleep in the nursery that belonged to your children.”

“They mistook my brother for one of my sons." Tears roll down your cheeks. “Aegon sent them to kill my boys, and now my mother has suffered another loss, another child taken from her.”

“What of those who killed my brother?” Jacaerys asks.

Your grandsire speaks up: “The men who committed such a heinous crime have since been sent to death by dragonfire.”

You feel as if your heart is physically turning into stone inside your chest. Lucery's death broke you; it left you feeling as if there was a hole in your heart that could never be mended, but learning of Gaemon’s death angered you. He was just a boy. “My brothers,” you sob. Sweet as they were and dead as they are, your family couldn’t suffer anymore. You wipe your tears away with the back of your hand and notice the look your grandparents are giving each other: “What else?”

Your grandmother clears her throat. “One of the servants who were taken advantage of by Aegon has come forward and sworn their loyalties to Queen Rhaenyra. A girl named Tiana claimed she overheard a conversation between Aegon and Alicent from the day you returned to the keep.”

“What did they say?”

“My nephew can keep his bitch, but I will keep my daughter, or I will have their heads.”

You gulped down; you felt physically sick hearing what Aegon said. Jace squeezed your hand; it was frightening knowing how Aegon really felt. You had tried to convince yourself that he didn’t really want Aemma and would soon forget about her. You look up and see your stepfather standing in the back of the room. You make eye contact with him and nod.

A silent agreement that the plan you once refused to participate in was going forth. You’d do anything to protect your family, even if it meant deceiving them.

—

You watch as Viserion, Vermax, Syrax, and Caraxes circle the sky above Dragonstone. For a fleeting moment, you thought you saw Arrax emerging from the clouds when the fifth dragon joined, but your mind was playing cruel tricks on you; it was only Seasmoke, the dragon that bonded with your late father.

Another person you’d lost.

“Who do you think was behind it?”

You turn around to see your grandmother approaching you; she has a sad smile on her face. Without explicitly explaining her question, you knew what she was referring to. “Ser Criston or Aemond, I suspect. Aegon will likely be too drunk to even think for himself, and Alicent and Otto wouldn’t approve of killing a child.”

“They wouldn’t?”

“They know the repercussions of their son's actions will be disastrous for House Hightower.”

“Hmm,” she says, standing beside you. “The farmers and fishermen that live in villages below the Dragonmont are being questioned, while Prince Jacaerys leads a discussion in the small council. He has suggested that they recruit dragonseeds to attempt to claim the six riderless dragons that live on the island.”

A proud smile graces your lips. “That sounds like a good plan.”

“And what plan are you and Prince Daemon plotting?”

“No amount of milk from the poppy will blunt the pain of the greens taking Visenya, Lucerys, and Gaemon from my mother. They won’t stop coming for her, my siblings, or my children. This war is no longer just about who sits upon the iron throne; it’s about keeping those we love safe.”

Your grandmother hugs you and says, "Your father would be so proud of you.”

You fall into her embrace easily. Aside from Daemon, you truly believed your grandmother, Rhaenys, was the only one who wouldn’t judge you. “If I tell you, you must promise to never tell another soul.”

“I promise, dear girl, I won’t betray your trust.”

—

It felt weird laying in your shared bed with Jacaerys without your kids for the first time in years. Once your husband had fallen asleep, you’d leave to meet Daemon. Then there was no turning back.

“Lyarra?”

You roll onto your side and say, “I thought you were asleep.”

“I love you desperately.”

You cup his face. “I love you, and there’s nothing I won’t do to protect you or our family.”

He pulls you closer so your head is resting against his chest. “We protect each other, it’s how we’ll get through this.”

#house of the dragon #jacaerys velaryon fanfic #jacaerys velaryon x you #house of the dragon fanfiction #house of the dragon fanfic #violent delights #jacaerys velaryon #jacaerys velaryon fanfiction #jacaerys velaryon/you #jace velaryon fanfic #jace velaryon #Jacaerys Velaryon x oc #Jacaerys Velaryon/oc #Jacaerys Velaryon x fem oc #Jace Velaryon/oc #jace velaryon fanfiction #Jace Velaryon x oc #jace velaryon x you

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batfleckgifs · 1 year

Photo

─ Son of sun and Knight of Night.

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idyllcy · 2 months

Text

if I told you that I love you, you could be mine

word count: 15.7k

warnings: non-explicit smut, death and heavy themes, historical au

summary: whether in curse or in blessing, in life or in death, he is your knight before anything else, and your orders are absolute, even if it means losing you

🕛.

You die too early the first time Cael serves you.

He finds that the two of you are stuck in some time loop, some loop in which every time you wake up at the stroke of nine on the night you had suffered a concussion, and you stare at your hand, a new carving on your upper thigh, a groan slipping past your lips as he watches you make way to the mirror and pull your night dress up to count. The first time it happens, you only see one tick on your upper thigh, and you turn to look at Cael, confused, eyes wide.

"What... year is it?"

Cael, the ever-faithful servant, gives you the year.

The first time it happened, you clawed at your hair and cried.

The first time it happened, Cael did not tell you that he had returned with you. He had simply watched as you scribbled down everything that happens in the future, and he had nodded when you had told him to guard outside the door rather than inside. He is your faithful knight. His sole purpose is to live to serve you— so if you regress and want him outside of the room from now on, he will regress with you. He will serve you until blood bleeds through his fingers and his soul shatters into pieces through the regression. Until the sun burns out from exhaustion and leaves not a trace of the planet left, he will serve you.

So, he follows you on your journey, he watches as you flirt with the king, lips curled into a sweet smile as you link arms with him, the passion that bled past your skin burning into his, an impression that left everyone who had ever interacted with you speechless. It was simply how you were. You had the aura that would win thousands, and you knew it. So, he stands there on the side, simply content with being with you at every moment. You indulge in the king, smile charming him, and your engagement approaches. He does not get the luxury of being the one you choose, but he gets the honor of being by your side and escorting you down the aisle to the king.

Even if he is too old for you, and even if the king is almost a decade above your age, Cael hands your hand to the king with a nod. He believes that you are making the correct choice. You are making the correct choice to pick the king, and you will live to see a long, long life. You will have children and rule over the empire with dignity and grace, and he will stand by your side through it all as your personal knight.

Your first death comes too fast.

First, there is the announcement of your pregnancy. You are told that you will bear a son to the king, and the two of you are elated. The village streets are decorated with ornaments that would cost a fortune at the celebration of a royal prince, and you are elated, your smile crinkling even the corner of your eyes with a joy that he could only call euphoric. As your personal knight, he guards the chambers of you and the king at night, fighting off any intruders that the king himself was not fast enough for. There are little assassins, he finds. The people of the empire are relatively content with the fact that you are to bear a son.

You decorate the coming prince's bedroom, his cradle and bed all dressed with pretty hues that you pick out personally, and Cael nods at you as you ask him which one would suit the baby more. He tells you both— if your child is to take after you, the prince would look beautiful. You laugh at him, lips stretched into a wide smile as you smack him playfully. You smack him in a way that is unbefitting of the queen of the empire, but in a way that Cael has grown used to since the beginning of his service to you, a way that Cael knows is only reserved for him.

As your due date arrives, he stays by your side alongside the king, offering you a hand when you struggle to do simple tasks, nodding at the maids as he makes your favorite dish. You eat it with the same vigor that he is used to, and he cracks the smallest of smiles as you finish his dish and ask for seconds. The king laughs, wiping your mouth with a smile, simply glad that you are eating again after your pregnancy sickness.

Then, your water breaks.

It is at night, and Cael calls for a maid as the king holds onto your hand, and he watches the midwife as she rushes in with a group of maids. Your legs are spread, and you are told to push, your screaming too graphic for even Cael's ears. He grimaces, wishing nothing more than for you to finish, and no one notices as a maid slips in with water prepared for you, pressing it to your lips with an uncanny amount of panic in her eyes as you swallow, eyes murky and your head spinning. Cael senses something is wrong, grabbing the maid's arm as she tries to slip out with the water, eyes harsh as he tells her anyone who enters may not leave. You push for longer, what seems like hours, and the baby finally arrives.

Then, the world falls silent.

You go quiet, assumed to have passed out, and the next three seconds are awful.

The midwife pats the baby's back. Nothing.

The king presses two fingers to your nose. Nothing.

A maid presses her ear to your heart. Nothing.

and Cael's jaw hardens as his grip around the maid's wrist tightens, nails drawing blood as a bruise forms on her skin and she thrashes in his grip. She screams and wails for him to let go, and Cael stares right past her eyes into her soul, an unbelievable amount of anger present on his face as he looks at the king for permission to draw blood. You are gone. Your son is a stillborn. He can not take orders from anyone except for the king. Perhaps it is a lingering sense of loyalty, but as the king nods, he draws his blade and kills.

He can not bring you back no matter how many times he stabs the maid. You are gone.

So, even as his uniform is bloodied and the king commands for him to stop, he does not, sanity long gone as you had been. He steps up to the stillborn still in the arms of the midwife, pulling off his gloves to brush his finger over the cheek of your child, his roughened hands jagged against the cheek of your baby, a frown so thoroughly embedded on his face that he fears it would burn his soul.

He then steps to your body, lowering himself onto one knee as he takes your hand and presses it to his forehead, his eyes closed as his heart clenches and organs sour. You are gone.

"Knight Cael." The king speaks up, eerily calm for some reason. "You are hereby—"

In the distance, bells chime, and Cael stares at your fingers as it reminds him of something.

Oh. Right.

It meant time was up.

🕐.

The second time Cael serves you, he finds himself back in your room, and you pull up your nightgown to stare at the second tick on your upper thigh, the color of a fresh wound on your skin. Your eyes widen as you curse aloud, and Cael looks up at you, expression unchanging, but in some strange way, he is relieved that you are still alive and cursing. It simply means you are back. In a way, it calms him to see you look manic on your bed.

"I'm back." You croak. "Is it because I was killed?"

Cael has learned to ignore your mutterings. It does wonders for him, he believes. You are unbothered when you think he is simply not listening.

"Cael." You whimper. "What day is it?"

He tells you the date.

You curse, falling back into your blankets, eyes closed. Again. You are here again, and Cael has to watch you suffer through it again. You have to weave your way through high society and win the heart of the king again. You groan at the thought, but you possess the knowledge of a past life to aid you this time.

The king falls for you earlier this time. He cherishes you even more than the past, and Cael watches as you are adorned with gems that the you in your past life thought yourself to be undeserving of. He watches as you adorn a ring with a gem twice the size of the one in your past, and watches as you celebrate a wedding far grander than he's ever seen before. You accept that this is what you have to do in order to reach the end, and this time, Cael makes sure not to let anyone into the room, and you deliver the baby safely. Both you and the child live this time. Cael lets out a sigh in relief when you smile at him, beckoning him over when the maids finish washing the baby and the king goes to fetch his kingdom papers.

"Isn't he cute?" You mumble, eyes gentle as you stare at the child. "I didn't get to meet him last time."

Cael nods, pulling his clean glove off to press the baby's palm, the young one's fingers wrapping around his as he smiles. "He resembles you."

"You can barely tell." You huff. "He's so young."

The child grows up slowly but loved by all. The maids and royals spoil him rotten, and Cael brings the young prince around to tour the palace. Everything goes well. Everything goes so well. It is almost as if the two of you will reach an end. It does not need to be with Cael. It simply needs to end, and the two of you will return to the dust of the earth, and your consciousness will stop looping. That is all Cael asks for. He may repeat it again and again, but in order to put you out of your misery, you would have to fulfill your planned end.

You do not.

The second time Cael serves you, you die to the blade of a loved one.

You watch as the conquering army fights with the royal army at the border, and Cael watches from next to you as the king is stabbed through the heart. You blink lifelessly as your husband falls, and you turn to Cael. Perhaps this isn't your end either. Cael asks if you would like for him to eliminate them all, but you know this is not the right ending. You were never meant to marry the king nor bear a child for him. So, you watch as the palace gates are broken through and the maids scream for mercy.

Cael presses a brick on the wall, and you follow him into the walls of the castle.

There is only one person who would be able to find you here.

The two of you make way down the passage of stairs, and you stop halfway to ditch the heels you had forced yourself to grow used to. Cael watches as you step after him, heels ditched on the stairs, descending into the lower grounds of the castle, a place where they rested the prisons. Perhaps it was not safe, but to you, anything was better than dying at the hands of the man in power during the rebellion. Though, you are not granted that mercy when you reach the bottom of the staircase.

Cael's hand rests on the hilt of his sword, ready to draw blood at any chance, and the leader of the rebellion looks up at you, eyes cold. You back down at him, eyes weary as he orders you to confess to the sins you do not have. Cael is offered a way out, but he has sworn his life to you, so he follows when you are captured and dragged to the dungeons to be publically executed. You do not know how this happened. You simply sit in the dungeon, waiting for your moment. Cael sits in the same cell, head resting against the wall as the guards who feed him each day practically shove the food down his throat.

Then, the day of your execution comes. He is paraded out after you, and he stands behind you as you confess to no crime. You are a clean slate. The flaws of the noblemen were pushed onto you to frame you as a scapegoat and as you are lowered to the guillotine and asked if you have any last words, you stare your son dead in the eye as you curse him to an eternal damnation, cursing that there would be no future with him. You curse him to live in a world in which he is forever to haunt the walls of the palace and never be born.

Cael knows what look you have in your eyes.

You are beheaded, and your head is tossed into a basket. Cael is lowered by the hair to the same guillotine, his eyes staring into your closed ones in the basket as he is asked if he too has any final words. Cael stares your son in the eye and then closes his eyes, only remarking the shame that he decided to believe his friends over the ones of the very one who brought him into the world. Your son curses him for being your loyal dog, and Cael refutes by smiling and mentioning that at least you had been faithful to him to the very end rather than pin the blame on him.

The sound of the blade cutting through the air is not the last thing Cael hears.

It is the sound of distant bells.

Time's up.

🕑.

The third time you regress, Cael watches as you lock yourself in your room for days on end.

Your son killed you. The very child you had birthed and raised with the most love in the world had killed you. You died while your son sneered at you in contempt because he believed you were the reason his expedition to the north had failed, so he decided to dethrone you. It is inhumane of him, and it tore you to shreds, Cael finds. He brings you your food— the only one bold enough to ignore you as you throw vases and pillows at him, and he brings the food to your lips, promising you that it will be fine.

You emerge from your room two months later.

By that time, there are more than enough rumors circulating about your descent into madness, but you pay them no mind. You finish the paperwork for your residence, and get back on with your life, grumbling as you make your very late debut into high society. Cael follows you around as you finish your tasks, and he escorts you down the stairs at your ballroom fitting for only the best of the best.

It is there that you catch the eye of the crown prince.

So, Cael stands by your side and you greet and smile at the prince. Surely if the king was the wrong choice, then the crown prince was the right option. Your son had betrayed you for him, after all. You accept the crown prince as your first dance, and from then on, Cael watches the same thing happen in the past. You get engaged, get married, and settle into a calm day-to-day life that is supposed to go on uninterrupted.

This is the end, Cael believes.

You are finished.

But that is never the case.

The crown prince lets you know one night in bed that he wishes to take over the kingdom, and you watch as he recruits the crown prince, and you watch as the royal palace you once resided in is reduced to nothing but dust. You watch as the queen is beheaded before your eyes, and Cael covers your vision, watching as you grab your own neck unconsciously. The sound of the blade slicing their heads off cleanly, and you grimace, reaching for Cael's hand as their heads are spiked and displayed in the center of the city.

The crown prince becomes the king, and the previous king's child is disposed of after the new king rises to power. You watch as the queen's child is killed in cold blood, and you wonder if that was the fate of yours. Instead, you listen to your husband's requests, the blood spilled during the revolution staining his hands as he presses them on your skin, and with each time he kisses you, you are reminded of the screams of the innocent as he burned down their villages.

Yet, you stay with him.

You do not know what makes you stay with him. Cael does not understand why you stay with your husband, but neither of you speaks up. So, even when Cael is ordered to relocate away from you, the two of you simply turn to the king and disagree. You voice your disagreement, and the king raises his brow at you incredulously, scoffing. He tells you that he was looking for a reason to replace you with a foreign princess anyway to solidify his position, and this was the perfect excuse. Is there any in the land who was so bold as to speak up against the king? Suddenly, everything makes sense. This man had been looking for an excuse to get rid of you, but because of your lack of flaws, he was unable to grant himself the divorce he wanted so badly.

"I will leave." You sigh. "We may get divorced at the temple."

Rather, the king draws his sword and stabs through your chest, and you cough out blood, red staining your lips and his sword as Cael catches your dead body before you can fall. You hiss out a curse at the new king and an order for him to die, and Cael lets your body to the ground slowly, stepping over it as he draws his sword. Your orders are absolute, and if he would die executing them, then so be it. He has no will to fulfill other than the will of his master. You are dead now, so even if he were to die carrying out your final will, he would simply meet in your next regression.

Cael stabs his sword through your ex-husband, and he watches as the king falls with tears in his eyes at the sight of your corpse, his throat punctured so only the sound of a whisper breaks past his lips. Cael watches as he crawls on the ground as though he were some maggot, trying to reach for you, and it makes Cael sick to his stomach. You deserve someone. You deserve someone who would not die before you, give you a son who kills you, or kills you because he is unable to handle the throne perfectly. You do not deserve all of this. The king dies next to you, and as the guards rush in to point their swords at Cael, bells sound in the distance.

Time's up.

🕒.

The fourth time you regress, you wake up and stare at the fourth tick on your skin, and you tell Cael that you're going to plan a rebellion.

Cael does not refute you. After all, if marrying neither sovereign of the nation was not the correct route, then surely putting yourself on the throne was the right. So, he works closely with you as you conspire with the crown prince, acting as an aide and watching the world burn to the ground. You take the lives of all of your past lovers and theirs, and you sit on a throne stained with the blood of your past lives and theirs. You are where you are supposed to be. You want to believe that you are where you are supposed to be. It makes you crinkle and crack, but you want it to be over.

It is not.

You are worked to no end with no real allies as a result of how you disposed of those who would dispose of you, and it is you alone in a palace that is far too large for you. Cael takes over the royal guards, and he lingers by you only when he is not training the others, but it is not enough. You do not have allies in an empty palace far too large for two, and it eats away at you slowly because of a lack of people. It is lonely. You are lonely. You have finally killed the ones who have ruined your life, but you are not free.

Cael watches you as you welcome the magic tower's embassies.

They are welcomed to a tea room, and you sit down with the embassies as they tell you the purpose of their visit. It is marriage. The empty seat of the king consort next to you is empty, and in order to stabilize the kingdom, you would need an heir. It gives you a headache, Cael can tell. He finishes with your tea, and you take it from him with a frown, sighing.

"Well, who do you suppose should be my husband?"

They recommend one of the tower mages. It would be beneficial for the child to possess magic abilities, and you meet them, the mage smiling at you gently. He is sweet, Cael finds. You are treated like glass and porcelain and spoiled to the ends of the earth, and for a second, Cael thinks you will be fine this timeline. You will not die like the previous times. You will get to live a long and healthy life with a doting husband, and the kingdom will slowly revitalize itself. That is all Cael asks for. No more marks on your skin, no more tallies on your thigh, no more cycles for the both of you.

You get married after establishing your new husband's status, and the nation cheers at the celebration, newspapers flying out and selling out about it, and you bear an heir, a young boy for the throne. You live a long and happy life with your husband. Cael watches as you age and your son ages, and he watches as you send people off before your son is by your bedside and on the throne. He possesses magical abilities that could only be borne to parents who both have the ability to create, and it amazes Cael when the young prince lights up the empty palace walls with a simple flick of his fingers.

Perhaps you know how to do magic. After all, you had never been taught or learned how to.

"Do you think you could break my curse?" You squeeze your son's hand while at tea, humming.

"I could not." Your son whispers. "It is a curse that we have examined and found it is too hard to break. It would need to be someone like the first archmage."

"Then will I be cursed to live like this forever? Is there really no ending for me in sight?" You mumble. Cael helps the two of you pour more tea, and your son shakes his head.

"I can not. I am sorry." He pauses. "In your next life, perhaps seek out the archmage instead of father. That might be of help."

"I see." You mutter. "Thank you for being born my son."

"Thank you for loving me." Your son squeezes your hand affectionately.

You are sent off with people who love you. The mages live longer than humans, and even upon your dying breath, your husband presses his forehead to your fingers, muttering gentle spells to keep the pain from getting too close to your heart. You die of age— something Cael now sees as a luxury for you. So, he sits by your bedside with the rest of your family, heart clenching in his chest as you thank him for his service. He does not have long either. He will be following you shortly after, but you do not know that. But for the time being, he kneels by the side of your bed.

You run your hand through his hair one last time, and he leans into your touch one last time.

He can not covet the things he does not own. It is not for his owning. You are not something that could be coveted by a mere knight like him. He is the object coveted and owned by you. To you, he is nothing more than a mere tool and perhaps a dear knight. To him, even on your deathbed, he is below you on his knees, resting his head on the edge of the plush in order for you to be affectionate with him one last time. That is all he craves, and that is all he knows. He will never be the one you pick, simply because he does not have the knowledge to break your curse as the others do.

You close your eyes as he stands up, and he closes his eyes with you. "I will see you back in your room, master."

A maid is sent out to announce the death of the queen, and in the distance, the same bells as before chime.

Time's up.

🕓.

The fifth time you regress, you head straight for the magic tower.

Though you are clumsy and unlearned, they let you in simply for the magic affinity you have accumulated through your many deaths. You take in the words of your son whom you will never meet again, and you pass the entrance exam when they discover your magical ability is beyond comprehension. Even if you are not an immediate mage, you will be a subject of study. Cael enters after you, leaving behind his sword and title of Lord, fingers cool against the orb as it proclaims him to share the same amount of magical ability.

"I did not know you had magical properties." Your lips quirk up slightly at the same color.

"Wherever the master goes, I will go." He mumbles, nodding at the mage. "It is my duty as your knight to protect you."

"Which includes secretly hiding an insane amount of magical ability from me?"

"It never arose in our conversations." Cael smiles. "Let us go."

You study hard, working closely with the higher-ranking mages to crack the situation of your curse. It is observed and studied, but ultimately, nothing comes up in the magical index. You read through some of the books on it in your free time, but the vast majority of your days are taken up by fleshing out your research and doing studies. Cael has more free time, fingers flipping through the books as he looks for the content of your supposed curse.

Perhaps it was a blessing, but it is not his place to say.

If his master believes it is a curse, then it is a curse.

Then, under Cael's radar, you find yourself grow closer and closer to the archmage, somehow breaking past his rude facade. Cael does not ask if you did it purely for survival reasons or for personal gain, but he is happy for you. You will be cursed to repeat the cycle again after the two of you pass, and it does not hurt for you to continue finding romance and loving people. It is simply the truest way you live— loving others and being loved back.

Love is a luxury for the both of you. You both know that.

So, as you spend your days with the archmage and Cael finds himself further and further away, he worries about your safety at times. You may be strong and consistently have a magic lining that prevents you from being stabbed, but it is still worrying. So, he moves all of his books to your shared room, flipping through them and completely tuning you out when you're making out with that archmage of yours.

At one point, Cael realizes that whatever circle has been drawn on you is not a curse.

So, he changes sections to blessings, something that would have been revered as the ultimate gift of the universe. You are immortal and able to live again and again. It is a cruel cycle, but it is immortality in a sense. Cael flips through the pages of the book as he leaves you be, confident that the archmage would be able to protect you when he is not there.

He narrows it down to the last books in the archive, and he has tea with you, another mage pouring the tea for the three of you. Cael feels there is something off about the maid, but he doesn't speak up. There is no need to worry over trivial things. You are not the archmage nor someone who is desired to be disposed of. It could have been simple jealousy.

He supposes it's both of you's fault for forgetting how jealous women could end up.

You press the tea to your lips, listening to Cael as he tells you the details of what he's discovered about your curse so far. You press the tea to your lips, sensing something about is off, so you put away with drinking it. You listen to Cael as he tells you it's a blessing rather than a curse, and perhaps the only way to undo it was to undo the blessing itself.

"I see." You pause. "So it is a blessing?"

"According to earlier works." Cael hums, tea pressed to his lips. "...what a waste of good tea."

"I know, right? Well, did you figure out which book has it? I'll just steal it in my next life."

"You're letting yourself die to the poison?"

"I will, after you call for the archmage."

Cael gets up to call for him, mentioning that you were the one looking for him, and the archmage steps into the tearoom, lips pressed to your cheek as you take a sip of the poisoned tea, spitting out blood and dying in his arms dramatically. The scene amuses Cael, his lips curled upward in amusement, and he watches as the archmage directs his anger of your death onto Cael, and the silver-haired man holds both of his hands up, pointing at the maid who had been trying to run away, unable to unlock the spell put on the doors by Cael.

He watches as the archmage kills her on the spot, blinking twice and then laughing.

In the distance, bells chime as the archmage reaches for Cael's neck.

Time's up.

🕔.

The first thing you say when the two of you return to your bedroom on the sixth time you regress should be confusing to Cael, but it makes him laugh more than anything.

"Damn. I really wish I got to see him go ballistic."

Cael laughs. It is a laughter that breaks past his chest into his stomach, his whole body shaking as he tries his best not to make a sound that would make him come off as suspicious. Instead, you raise a brow at Cael in amusement, lips curled upwards as you laugh with him, something in your eyes telling him that you knew. Neither of you addresses it, but you both know. It is funny to no extent, but it is hysterical for the both of you. There is an endless cycle in the world, and the two of you are cursed to live it forever.

You do not bother going to the magic tower. Instead, you simply steal the book Cael was reading and read through it instead. You will return it when you finish it, you swear. In this life, you do not pick, you wait. Romance is not a necessity to you anymore it is not your problem, you swear. So, even as you lock yourself in your room with Cael to try and trace the magic circle back, try to undo the curse that has been placed on you in your day-to-day life, it is impossible.

Then, a marriage proposal makes way to your door.

You are to be wed to a minor duke in order to strengthen their status in high society, and you look at it, really wondering if you should be getting married when all you were doing in your day-to-day life was fighting for your life and trying to remove the seal from your skin. Cael helps you, his magic affinity visibly larger than yours, his magic carving into the spell as the two of you try to undo it before your supposed prospective marriage partner arrives at the mansion. His magic is cool against your skin, now that you think about it.

"Madam? The junior duke has arrived." A maid knocks at the door.

Cael helps you up, and you greet the man.

"You are the one to be engaged with me?"

"Yes. I believe." You hum. "What made you decide upon my house of all?"

"You are... alone." He swallows. "Perhaps you need protection, though your knight is a grandmaster."

"From?"

"The other nobles."

It is a poor excuse to marry into your house to covet your wealth, Cael finds. You hold the wealth of two of the richest families in the kingdom, so it would be normal to want to marry you for such, but you are not stupid. You smile coyly, pretending to frown. There is no one in the nation that could be wiser than you. Perhaps that is what makes Cael's heart twist and turn with some twisted sort of wanting. He is the only one who has gone through everything with you— whether it be through your death or your suicide. Perhaps that is what makes him think the nobleman is not enough for you.

Yet, you accept it anyway, curious to see if his household's history could help with your curse.

Your wedding is comparably plain to the man from your previous life, and you spend your days in the new library, flipping through old books with Cael as the two of you sit at the tables and ladders, still minimal knowledge known about the curse. The maids whisper about your infidelity with Cael as he glares them down, but your husband pays them no mind. You find that it is much quieter than it has ever been. Considering your husband's status as second-born, you do not need to do things that a typical duchess would need to.

Yet, both you and Cael know the story that is to come.

"My older brother died." Your husband tells you. You blink at him and nod, attending the funeral as both you and Cael find that it was a poisoning. The human mind is greedy, the two of you suppose.

"Are you going to divorce me for the woman at the reception?"

"You've been having an affair with your knight for years and I have turned an eye. I shall simply bring her in as a mistress."

"There will be a divorce or no mistress." You speak. "Pick."

"Then her." He clenches his teeth. "Had I known you were to be this selfish, I would have not married you."

"You only married me for my wealth." You turn to leave, and Cael steps forward as your husband tries to pierce a sword through your body. His sword goes flying as Cael saves you in time, the magic spell on your body activating at the action.

"Witch!" Your husband screams.

"You know, Cael." You pause to think. "I kind of want to burn the mansion down."

"Whatever my master wants," Cael turns around to kneel, "master gets."

The mansion erupts into flames as your husband screams, the maids rushing out with what they could in the chaos, and you watch as the flame starts burning your skin.

"You should go." You mumble. "Go live."

"I can not." Cael whispers, smoke filling his lungs as the two of you lay down in the ashes of the mansion. "For wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you dwell, I will dwell. I am yours to use and to keep. Without you, there is no me."

"So you follow me back each time I pass?"

Cael wraps an arm around you as you use the last of your strength to curl next to him.

"I'll see you in my room."

"I will meet you there, master."

In the distance, merged with the roaring flames, the same bells as always chime.

Time's up. For both of you, this time.

🕕.

The seventh time you regress, Cael is leaning over you, his hands caging you into the frame of your bed, hair falling off his shoulders as he stares down at you. You blink back up at him, waiting for someone to say something. This is new. Usually, when you return, Cael is at your door staring at you. He stares down at you, and neither of you move for the silence that haunts the two of you.

"So?" You raise a brow. "What is the meaning of this?"

"I was going to see if you would hit me." Cael sits back up, getting off of you. "What will you be doing this life?"

"Do you think I could just rot in bed for the rest of my life?" You yawn. "Do nothing."

"You could try something new."

"Like living as a commoner..." You pause. "First world problem."

"Yes." Cael hums. "That would be a little... inappropriate."

"Yes." You pause. "Perhaps I could just not pursue romance."

"You know that will not happen." Cael pauses. "Perhaps a new man?"

"Perhaps my old husband." You close your eyes. "I miss my son."

You do not find your old husband. You find a friend, heart ringing in your ears as you smile at her, the two of you running around the field of grass as Cael watches over you. The sun burns in her eyes as you take her hand in yours, the wind in your hair as you press your forehead to hers. She is as dazzling as the stars in the sky could dream to be, and the world is as sweet as divine nectar when you are with her. The world bends and cries according to her will, and you find that you are no different than the other people who love her.

Cael cooks dinner for the two of you in your friend's home, kitchen utensils clattering as he uses his magic to manage everything at once. The two of you stay hushed up and whisper stories to each other under the stars, and the three of you have dinner together in your friend's little room. There is not much told to you about your new friend. You know she is sweet and gentle like the bumblebees are with the flowers, loving like the grass and morning dew, free like the birds are in the air. She is everything that you once wanted to be, and her existence meant the world to you.

Cael sees that you see a fragment of yourself that you've lost over your lives in her.

"What would you do if you could do anything?" You whisper to her in your shared room, the stars twinkling outside as Cael leans against the door on the other side.

"You're funny." Your friend laughs. "I would spend every moment of my life pressing my fingers onto your skin and loving you until there is nothing left."

"Really?" You mumble.

"You?"

"I would..." You drift off, and Cael knows you have closed your eyes to avoid your friend's. "I... I don't know. Perhaps I would spend every moment of my life as your best friend."

Your friend laughs, music to your ears, and you smile at her foolishly.

"The moon is gorgeous."

"It sure is." You hum.

You are not allowed to have good things. Cael watches as your friend wakes up one day coughing blood out of her lungs, and as a doctor is called in, Cael watches as your heart breaks and your eyes go wide. You are the fault. You are causing her decline in life because of your magic affinity. You are destroying her and eating her alive. You, her best friend, her soulmate, are eating her alive. You are destroying the very thing you love because you love it.

"I'm sorry." Your voice cracks, terrified of stepping close to her. You stand at the door, head hung as she sits in bed.

"It's alright. Please—"

"I can't." You mumble. "I won't let myself."

"I am fine." Your friend insists. "I would rather spend the last of my days being with you than letting the guilt of eating me inside out destroy you. If it is you, then I would be more than willing to pass out of love."

You step closer to her, kneeling on the ground as you lean into her touch.

"Besides, I find this ending to be much better than being recollected by the family who had abandoned me to be married off for connections." She laughs, lips curled upwards.

"Do you think I could find you in my next life?" You close your eyes. "Are we soulmates in every life like this?"

"We are not even soulmates in this one." She whispers. "You may not see it, but your soulmate is not me."

"Then I shall make it you." You close your eyes. "I shall claw my way past fate and destroy the books and tear the quill that decides our fates and carve our names in the book of life."

"That is not possible." Your friend laughs, illness visible in the way she is thinning. "Perhaps we will meet again in your next life. Do not bear the guilt of destroying me because you loved me. It is a beautiful thing‚ to be loved."

"It is a terrible thing, to destroy the one whom you love." You whisper, taking her hand as you help her settle into the pillows. "I will not subject you to such a death in your next life."

"I pray that we will meet again. Whether it is in a fleeting moment or a long escape into the field, I pray that we will love as genuinely as this again."

She closes her eyes.

Cael plans the funeral. You are too struck with grief to do anything, and he borrows your name to help bury your friend in the same field of flowers the two of you ran through. The two of you bury her in a field of flowers, your shoulders shaking from the intensity of your tears, heartbreak everywhere on your skin as you come to terms with the loss of your soulmate, your soulmate whom the world had been so cruel as to tear from your fingers and bury her in the same earth that everyone was borne from. No amount of magic could have saved her, you know. Yet, you blame yourself anyway, the guilt of everything clawing at your skin and destroying you. it is a cycle that Cael recognizes from your first two regressions.

"Bury me with her." You growl, lunging for her coffin as it is lowered into the ground, and Cael holds you back, his own heart twisting painfully in his chest. "LET ME GO. I COMMAND YOU, LET ME BE BURIED WITH HER! I WANT MY SOULMATE BACK—"

Cael releases you, and you continue to thrash in his grasp as you sob into the earth by her grave, the two of you sitting there until you catch a cold and are forced to return to her home. You have a raging fever, the lack of will to live eating you alive, and Cael nurses you slowly and patiently, concern trickling out of his skin with each bite of congee you eat, and you whimper, heartbroken as you sit up in her bed and stare out the window.

"I wish to return." You mumble. "Cael, kill me."

Cael's fingers twitch. He can not disobey you, but he can not obey you either. He does not want to obey you. Yet, bound by his oath, he draws his sword. He stares into your eyes. You weep for someone who had become so significant in your life in such little time. You did not weep for your first nor second nor any of the lovers you have had in the past, yet you weep for the girl who had been your soulmate. Cael was not your soulmate. It did not matter what he felt for you. At the end of the day, you are not his as he is yours.

"Please do not do this to me." He whispers, voice breaking.

"Kill me. Now." You whisper.

"How would you like it?"

"Kill me the same way my soulmate died." You hiss out. "Curse me until this wretched body of mine is worth nothing but dust just like hers."

Cael lets out a breath, dropping his sword as he laces his fingers with yours.

As you turn thinner and thinner, as his magic eats away yours the same way you ate away your soulmate's, he understands why you were so struck with grief.

"I love you." He croaks, watching as you close your eyes.

In the distance, the same wretched bells that have rung every single one of your deaths clang.

Time is up.

🕖.

Cael slumps against the wall as the two of you return for the eighth time. He sits on the ground, and you lay in your bed, and there is a heavy silence that hangs in the air. Nothing is worth anything. Everything is worth nothing. Cael had killed his master per your orders, and you had killed yourself for the love of your life. The two of you do not know what to do.

"Knight." You speak up first, voice filled with a lack of spirit that Cael had found terrifying.

"Yes, master?"

"Bed me."

Cael pauses, blinking at you, unsure if he had heard you correctly.

"Do not make me repeat it twice." You hiss out. "Bed me."

"Perhaps you have gone insane." He unclasps the sword from his belt, wedging it between the boards as he climbs on top of you. "Master. Why would you ask a mere knight as I to bed you?"

"Bed me." You hiss. "Make me forget that I am stuck in a wretched cycle and cursed to destroy everything I love. Carve your fingers into my skin so that I may remember that in this world there is only you and I and no other. I am not to fall for anyone else. Even when I do, there is no ending."

"Is that not cruel to your servant? You do not love even me."

"You are my knight. You are mine to use." You swallow thickly. You do not believe your own words, but Cael does not pry. So, he lifts you into his arms, fingers gentle as he unbuttons your nightgown, fingers cold against your back, helping you slide out of it as he rests his head in the crook of your neck for a moment.

"What may I do?"

"Whatever you must do to make me forget." You lift your hips, and he unbuttons his top, swallowing slowly as he slides his hand up your thigh, tapping twice. You watch as he swallows thickly, his fingers tugging at the waistband of your panties, dropping them on top of your ditched nightgown. You stretch as your now exposed bottom half brushes him slightly, and he freezes in place, eyes focused on your pelvis as he closes his eyes to get rid of the discomfort. His feelings. He has to put his feelings aside. It does not matter. His feelings must be put aside. You are his master, and his only job is to serve you to his uttermost.

So, he lifts your leg, pressing a kiss to your ankle as he pulls your hips to meet his, his fingers, brushing your clit to test the waters, resting your calf on his shoulder as he slides a finger in, curling it slightly as you arch your back. His fingers make a mess of you, one finger becoming two, his heart racing in his chest as you whimper and dig your nails into the sheets. It is not enough, Cael knows, but it is also only the beginning. His skin would paint every cell of your body with his, taint your purity with some twisted impurity that belonged to him. Until his darkness would swallow your light whole, there would be nothing left.

And even when your head is relaxed to the side and he has prepared you for him, he longs for nothing short of the entirety of you. He longs for himself to be engulfed in your light, until the darkness that was tainting your soul was completely absorbed by him, until there is nothing left of your curse but fragments of memories that you would get to take to your grave. He longs for you to become a star in the sky as you have always dreamed, as you had told your stargazing husband so many lives ago.

Cael will forever be a knight to you. So, even when he is buried to the hilt inside of you, his size too big for you as you whimper for him to halt, even when he brushes your hair to the side and presses a kiss to your skin, he is simply a knight to you. He is a servant who will serve you until his dying breath, a breath that will never come simply because of his existence. Through his sword, his life was in your hands, his skin engrained with your name, and if his master wished to return to the dust of the earth, then so be it.

He will forever be a knight, but even with the sight of you blissed out at his antics underneath him, he loves you. His heart burns and bursts and rots for yours, his soul flickering and engulfing everything that comes his way except for you. To him, you are everything at once, the only reason for him to be of worth. You are the one who has given him a purpose, and he is in love with you foolishly and stupidly, but it is not something that can be reciprocated. You do not love him back. You call others your soulmate and your husband, but never him. To you, he is just a knight for your use.

"I love you." He croaks, desperation and longing staining your skin alongside his fingers, his nails digging into the plush of your waist as your head is thrown back in ecstasy, head muddled in the clouds at your servant's antics. You can not hear him, but it does not stop him as he continues thrusting into you, a mess of bodily fluids sullying the sheets, his nails digging into your skin as his hair slides off his shoulders on one side from his movements. His movements become agitated as you clench around him for the nth time, eyes rolling so far back your skull that perhaps someone fears that your eyes will get stuck. Yet, he makes no means to stop, not until you are crying his name and begging him to stop.

Your nails move to his forearms at some point, and his eyes roll back as you tighten around him like a vice, grip strong as his name falls off your lips in broken syllables, begging him for another release, and who was he to deny you?

At some point, the sun sets, and you are fast asleep, your exhaustion engrained in the silk of your sheets, and Cael wipes you down with a rag from the maids, the servants unsurprised at your antics. He forgets how much you had used him in your first life. Though, that remains to be a past that he would not touch upon. You still did not love him, so he supposes there has not been much of a change.

"Cael?" You mumble, shifting as he wipes your face.

"Yes, master?"

"Water." You mumble, and Cael lifts you to have you drink, and you press your lips to the cup, puffy from Cael's own. "Thank you."

You rest up again, and Cael finds you dead in the morning when he wakes up, your breathing gone.

It was not a poison nor a murder— it was simply that your body had given up in bliss.

In the distance, Cael thinks the chimes sound like wedding bells.

Though, time is up once more.

🕗.

The ninth time you regress, you tell Cael to stay put.

"We shall separate this time." You speak.

Cael listens, sending you off in the dead of the night as he returns to the magic tower to continue his reading. The archmage is weary of his magical abilities, but he makes no move, his fingers flipping through the pages as he does his research at the same time, sending you letters with his magic. You do not write back, but he knows you receive them. Perhaps you are with your soulmate again. It is not his worry. His master had commanded him to leave, so he did.

Your curse is engraved in the forbidden archives of the magic tower. He is granted permission after his research reaches a point, and the archmage hands him the key to further his research. Cael spends his days sitting in there, reading through a man's diary— a man who bore the same curse as you did. He flips to the final page, and the indication of the man's death makes Cael pause. Nothing had changed. Rather, the mage had mentioned unsealing the curse through many lifetimes, before eventually passing away of old age. The indication of no other books meant that this man was back to dust.

Cael studies the magic left behind, trying on objects, watching as everyday objects created to not break down broke down. To reverse a blessing meant to create a curse to counter it, Cael finds.

It is intriguing.

It would take a while, and it had taken the mage hundreds of regressions to figure out both the spell and the execution, but Cael would not let that happen. You will pass in next next handful of lives, he promises you that much. So, he engrains the contents of the book in his mind, requesting to be let out of the magic tower so that he may find you. You are still his master, after all. You had told him to separate from you, but not to leave you forever. The archmage grants him that much, and Cael sets way to find you.

You are in a forest.

The evergreen trees surround your little cottage, a small flame burning inside at your fireplace while you have left to forage for the day's food. Cael is glad he has at least found you, standing outside your door as he waits for your return. Even if he had to wait an eternity, he could afford it. So, he continues flipping through the book he has replicated, only pausing when the sound of footsteps echoes in the wind into his ears.

"Cael." You stop. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to test out a hypothesis." He smiles. "To let you return to dust."

"Is it really that easy?" You laugh, opening the door to let him in. "Shall we have dinner together?"

He nods, unclasping his robe as he steps next to you to help with the food. You do not use magic while he does, and he helps you cut while you manage the heat of the flame, and neither of you speak. It can wait. There is no need to exchange words in such a hurry when you are so close. Whether it be in this reincarnation or the next, Cael would stand next to you. He has stood next to you for the past eight, after all.

"Do you still remember your first life?"

"Before my regression?" You hand Cael a peeled potato.

"Yes." Cael hums, magic working as it peels itself. "Before any of this."

You pause, staring down at the rest of the potatoes you need to wash. "...yes."

"We used to cook like this." Cael hums, having you sit down as he finishes with the rest of the veggies. "And the maids would yell at you for tainting your gentle hands, but we still snuck out in the middle of the night to do it anyway."

You hum slowly. "I suppose so."

"Did you enjoy that life?"

"I did not." You mumble. "It was a life where I was raised for the sole purpose of being somebody's bride, only to not be proposed to at all because of the cruel rumors the maids spread."

Cael hums, putting the lid on the pot and setting a spell on the pot to alert him when it is finished.

"I quite enjoyed it." He smiles. "I have enjoyed every life I have spent next to you. I believe that is the word."

"You've changed quite a bit." You hum, tapping the table as you rest your cheek in your palm. "You have grown much more emotional."

"Is that such a bad thing?"

You pause. "No. It is quite... interesting. I am glad you have been beside me for all of these lives."

"Do you miss the children you once had?"

"Sometimes." You pause. "But it is quite alright. After all, one had killed me, and the other had wished for nothing but my own wishes. I do not miss anyone else."

"Not even Naledi?"

You freeze at the name of your best friend, grimacing. "I watch her in the fields."

"I noticed you live close to there." Cael nods, pulling out the utensils from the cabinets, handing a set to you. "Is she faring well?"

"Very much so." You hum. "Though, she had moved away a while ago. She has married, I suppose."

"Was it a carriage that came?"

"It was the crest of the magic symbol."

"Ah." Cael pauses. "Perhaps it was..." Cael does not want to finish the sentence.

"I am aware, that my ex-husband has married her. Though, I cannot call him that in this life." You hum. "You?"

"I have buried myself in the archives. The forbidden ones, to be exact. I have found your curse."

"Will undoing mine undo yours?"

"It does not matter." Cael shakes his head. "As your servant, my only job is to grant your wills."

"I see." You look up at the pot as the magic sparks. "Do you cook in the tower?"

"We have a chef." Cael unlids the pot, and he flicks his finger at your bowl, the ceramic floating up as he fills it with the soup. "Have you been cooking?"

"Yes." You mumble. "It is rusty after so many eons of not cooking, but it is food."

"Perhaps you could hire me as a chef as well." He smiles. "Shall I undo the spell right now?"

"You're planning on killing us both this time, huh?" You frown at the soup.

"I am not. I simply must return to the tower by nightfall."

"Ah. I apologize for making you wait."

"It is normal for a servant to wait for their master, no?" Cael gets down on one knee next to you, taking your hand in his as he traces a small symbol on your skin. "Though, this means you will live a shorter and shorter life in each regression."

"That is fine." You whisper. "I can live for hundreds of years, after all."

"Very well." He completes the circle as it glows some wretched purple, and Cael stares up at you, setting sun in your hair as he smiles. "I shall see you back in your bedroom?"

"Will you not stay to eat?"

"The sun is setting." He presses his lips to the back of your hand. "Eat well, master."

You nod as he disappears, a gust of ice leaving with him.

Cael does not live long after that. He assumes you had made a mistake with one of your plants, and when he heads to his quarters for the night, he hears the chime of bells in the clouds.

Ah, his time is up once more.

🕘.

"Come on." You stick your hand out to Cael in your tenth regression. "The curse."

Cael listens, kneeling at the side of your bed, fingers gentle against your skin as he traces a different circle on your skin, glowing a dark purple as he stares up at you, sealing the magic with a gentle press of his lips to the back of your hand. "Anything else you require, master?"

"Since I am passing soon, I suppose I should do something I have not done before."

"How about becoming a knight?" Cael blurts, eyes widening at his own brashness. "Ah, my apologies. It is a hard—"

"Where do I sign up?" You pause. "No. Take me to your headquarters as grandmaster. I would like to try it."

"You will need training first, master."

"I have wielded a sword in my past life. Let me attempt." You barter.

Cael gives in, sending you to the door of the academy, heading to the principal himself. His return is easy, and he is returned his sword from his days on the battlefield, watching as you have to defeat the rest of the knights who have been training for eons to possibly enter the academy. He nods at his past comrades as he settles down next to them, and he listens to them speak on each one as he watches you.

You are clumsy, but your experience leading a revolution does not go unseen.

"She fights like someone who has seen war." One of Cael's coworkers leans in. "Is she the one who you were bought by?"

"Yes." Cael hums. "Her background is a little murky to even me, but I am surprised at her talent."

He is not. He has seen you kill people without hesitation in order to become queen of the kingdom, and he has seen you bash a man's skull in with a dulled axe. If there is a death out there, then you would bring even that to its knees. You look up at one point to wave at Cael, to which he only grants you a small smile.

You pass the examinations, body strong enough to handle only the minimum, but enough to handle it nonetheless.

You move through the ranks quickly, and Cael no longer gets to see you as often as before, busy with training his own group of students. He finds it is easier to form bonds this time around. His many lives have taught him to read people with eerie accuracy, but his many lives have also taught him how to feel something. He takes his students out on trips to train in the grass and gives time to relax. They are allowed to feel something rather than obey his every word. It angers some of the other generals, but it does not affect him. Perhaps this is what people with power get to live like.

His students are still the top in the academy, after all. Though, it would be a lie to say he does not miss you.

He finds that some of the students in your group are too busy flirting with you to focus properly. You swat them all down, and Cael finally gets to witness this in action, his lips curled upwards as he meets eyes with you while someone has you pinned against the walls. You do not want him to do anything, so he leans against the other wall quietly, watching as you turn the guy down.

"One chance. Come on. Do you really think you're still at top value after turning so many men down?" He sneers. "If you don't accept me—"

You kick him in his groin, knocking him to the ground as you step on his chest, staring down at you with a glare. "Say that again, you shitty piece of scum?!"

"You're not at top value—"

"Knights." Cael speaks up this time, looking at you and then at the guy underneath you. "Is something wrong?"

"She's hurting me!" The guy decides to play the victim, and you scoff.

"Cael—"

"Grandmaster." Cael corrects, nodding.

"Grandmaster Cael." You deadpan. "He damaged my honor by insulting my name, and I was simply paying him back."

"I was telling the truth! No man wants a woman as brash—"

"Do not speak out of turn." Cael waves his hand for you to take your foot off of the man's chest, and he watches as the man scrambles off. "It is a shame. I was willing to give him a chance to explain himself."

"Men like that only prey on me because they think I'm an easy target."

"How have you been?" Cael speaks up, watching as you dust off your uniform.

"It has been alright." You hum. "It is nice not to be treated and revered because of my status. But it is also a pain in the ass to be harassed by the men in my class."

"Would you like to join mine?"

"And get told that you go easy on me? No thank you."

"We will die in war this time around." Cael lowers his voice, glancing around. "You and I both know that."

"Yes, for the honor of the imperial palace, we will be sacrificed in war." You pause. "What if we win?"

"Then that will be something else." Cael pauses. "Then we will be left with no crown prince."

You purse your lips. "Right."

"We will see when we get there." Cael hums. "Good luck with training."

"There is not much in terms of luck." You sigh. "Thank you."

Just like your past lives, the rebellion takes place. Your unit and Cael's are sent to the frontlines, and Cael hands each child a silver tag with their name on it, hidden in the depths of their pockets to be used for identification. It is something he has lived to see once, and it is something that he will live to see a second time. He will lose people, and it will affect him this time.

Though, even in times of war, Cael finds that people tend to get bolder.

"General Cael..." A girl is pushed in front of him by her friends, and he raises a brow.

"Yes, knight?"

"It is a time of war... so I thought I would," She swallows, and Cael knows what comes next. "I like you. I've liked you for a long time."

"I cannot accept these feelings." Cael sighs. "I am far too old for you, and we are at a time of war. It would be cruel to accept them. You will find that they are fleeting emotions in the future."

"I know." She smiles. "There is a rumor that you have a crush on your master."

Cael freezes in place before shaking his head. "She does not love me."

"But you did not deny that you love her."

"Yes." Cael trails off. "Feelings are bound to bloom after spending so long together, after all."

The girl dies on the battlefield, and Cael creates a flower out of his magic, leaving it in place of her sword as he returns to the barracks for the night. The loss of his students is not easy, he learns. It had been different when he could not feel, but now that he is sitting in the very seat that his mentors had been in, he finds that the loss of one soul after the other is never easy.

You open the entrance to his tent as he is preparing to rest.

"Grandmaster." You whisper.

"Master." He mumbles back. "What brings you here?"

You ditch your jacket, straddling him on the edge of his bed as his hands stay by his side.

"Cael." You whisper. "Kiss me."

"That is hardly appropriate for me to do as a general, knight." Still, he makes no move to push you off of him.

"Tomorrow at dawn, the crown prince will ambush my camp." You whisper. "My general has evacuated the vast majority of the people, but I will be one of the knights to stay behind. I have located the quarters of my ex-husband, so you must kill him so that I may kill the crown prince tomorrow."

"We can not guarantee a win even with such."

"Once the leaders of the rebellion pass away, those who were on the fence will inevitably leave now that they have no morale." You whisper, slipping a folded paper. "This. This will be the plan. I have not run it by my general, but you are the general of this other camp. Please, Cael. I have no other but you."

"And if you pass?" He closes his eyes. "We can not guarantee anything if you die."

"I will not die. I have cast magic this time." You whisper.

Cael hums. "Very well. Good job."

"So, general? Can I get a small reward?"

Cael reaches up for your cheek, pressing his lips to yours briefly before letting go. "If we win, I can guarantee something better."

You grin at him, laughing as you disappear with the wind.

Cael's army sets out in the early hours of the morning, and Cael makes haste to simply kill your ex-husband, and he finds it appalling that the man in the tent is not your second, but your fourth. It makes his blood boil, and he scoffs. Your second husband had not killed you because he wanted to. He had killed you because your fourth husband had gained enough power to destroy anyone who fought him's life. So, for your past lives and for his peace of mind, he kills them both, blood staining his white gloves and clothes as he emerges from the tent, both of their severed heads in his hand.

The rest of his army clears and captures the camp, and a letter makes way to him as he reads of your success in killing the crown prince.

The war is won.

He returns to the king and accepts his second title as grandmaster, granted the land that he has received from the deceased duke. Perhaps he would have been scolded for killing instead of capturing, but it was disposed of. Cael watches as your general is honored as well, unconsciously looking into the crowd of soldiers to look for you. You are not there. Perhaps you had not wanted to see your first husband again, but it was not an issue. Wherever you go, he will find you.

He finds you underneath a tree, a pill in your hand as Cael emerges from the trees.

"Master." He kneels by your side, holding out his hand for the poison. "What brings you here all alone?"

"I was thinking of resetting." You hum.

"What about your prize?" Cael raises a brow.

"I can collect that in my bedroom."

"Then, at least grant me the honor of passing with you." He lodges the poison between his teeth and lips, leaning in as you press your lips to his. He bites down on the pill, poison sinking into your mouth as the two of you die kissing.

There are no bells for Cael this time around.

🕙.

In the eleventh regression, you find yourself spread open for Cael once more, tears in the corner of your eyes from overstimulation, lower stomach in knots as your eyes roll back in utter bliss. You are in heaven, you believe. You have won a war in your past life, killed the man who had ruined your life, and now you are coming undone on your knight's fingers as he draws another magic circle on your skin, lips pressed to your skin as you shake underneath him.

"Master," He whispers, humming. "won't you look at me?"

"You're like a spoiled dog." You gasp, arching your back as he curls his fingers in you.

"I promised you a reward." Cael hums. "You wanted it. I am simply fulfilling my master's orders."

You get your reward, skin crawling with goosebumps by the time he's done, a mess in your sheets as he lifts you up to place you in the bath. The maids stay outside of the bath as he washes you up, and your sheets are changed in the short time that you are in the warmth of your bath. Cael washes off after you leave, and he leaves the maids to change you as he sinks into the water, exhaling slowly. He is your knight to be used, and unless you order him to, he will not be your lover.

He dresses himself, stepping next to you as you stare out the window, some sick form of longing visible in his skin, snaking around his neck as it suffocates him, his eyes on the plush of your visible flesh, no better than the men in the streets. So, he tears his eyes from the warmth of your body, staring ahead as you wonder aloud what you should do in this life. You do not wish to be part of the rebellion again, but you do not wish to rot away either. You must accomplish something, anything.

"How about visiting the next empire over?"

You pause. "Can I start a war there?"

Cael would like to tell you no, but you have the beauty to, so he can not lie.

"I'm going to start a war in this life." You pull him down for a gentle kiss, his eyes going wide as you call for the maids to prepare for your journey. There was a banquet going on in the next empire over, and perhaps you could see Naledi again. So, you pack your bags as the two of you send note of your visit, and Cael watches as you are welcomed by the emperor himself, a smile on your lips as you greet him. He does not know if you were joking or not, but perhaps it is not worth it.

"Do not do it, master." Cael mumbles.

"I won't." You hum. "Maybe I should become a pirate."

You do not, and you spend the rest of the year in the empire, watching as your past kingdom falls to ruin, and you purchase a small home in this empire, only attending banquets with the same dress you had brought, never spending too much nor doing too much. You are waiting for someone. You are waiting for Naledi, Cael finds. Even now, you can not let go of her.

"Perhaps the next banquet," He prepares to escort you home, but you stay, eyes glued on the door as you meet the new emperor. The new empress walks in, and you let out a sigh of relief at the sight of Naledi.

The two of you greet them with a bow, and there is some form of closure you receive from seeing that Naledi is doing much better without you around. There is no way for her to know that it is you, but there is also no way for her to remember. You will bear the memories of your relationship forever, heart ringing in your ears as she leaves, your eyes never leaving her figure.

"Did you get it?"

"Let us return home." You smile. "We can find a new place to visit."

"How about the sea?"

"Sounds fun." You grin, the two of you packing your things and paying for the ship's ticket. It is supposed to take you to a new place, and though the world is a large place, there is a sense that it will be discovered soon. Though, perhaps not in this life. As Cael is holding onto you and covering you both in an orb of ice so that you may float, the rest of the ship goes under, and you cling onto Cael, laughing as you lean back into the ice, the magic forcing its way out of the water to say afloat on such a bad storm.

The two of you end up in a boat made of ice, and the two of you drift on the water.

"Which one of us will die of starvation first?"

"You." Cael leans back into the boat. "I can live without sustenance."

"You and your immortality." You grumble. "What will happen to you once I finally return to dust?"

"I shall continue serving your bloodline." He smiles. "And then when your soul returns, I will search for you."

"That's kind of sad, you know." You close your eyes. "You should go explore."

"And become immortal? Like a legend?" Cael holds his arms open as you snuggle close to him. You are losing body heat.

"Yeah. That way, if I ever return, I will know who you are."

"You do not even love me." Cael mumbles sadly.

"Not yet." You close your eyes. "See you in my bedroom.

The bells in the distance chime, and Cael stares out as his vision fades to white.

Time's up again.

🕚.

In your twelfth regression, you rot in bed for the first ten days.

"Is there anything else you would like to do?" Cael tilts his head at you as the curtains to your room are pulled open by the maids.

"No." You close your eyes. "I have already done so much."

Cael watches as the maid leaves, and he reaches for your hand, gesture practiced, carving another magic circle into the back of your hand. You let him, eyes closed as you rest in the warmth of your bed.

"You need to exercise, you know." He nags gently, eyes soft on your hand as he finishes, pressing a kiss to the back of your hand, then turning it around to kiss the palm. "Come on."

He dares to violate your personal space now. He should not have this leniency, but you offer it to him. He can only take it for granted. You have only one more cycle to live through. Perhaps he will wait a day or a thousand or centuries before he can see you again, but he would rather cherish every moment that he gets to spend with you. He is a spoiled dog, now that he looks at it.

"Master," He sets your hand down, holding onto your fingertips.

"Yes?"

"What should this poor knight do without you?" He whispers, squeezing your fingertips. "When you are to pass?"

"Be a little selfish, perhaps." You hum. "Is there something you wish to do with me?"

Cael's ears turn red. He can not be selfish to this extent. He can not. He... he can't be...

"Shall we get married?" Cael looks up at you sheepishly.

You sit up, accidentally hitting your forehead on Cael's, his fingers rubbing it with a gentle frown as you pout.

"You want to get married to me?"

"We can live in the nice little cottage you had in your tenth life." He whispers. "And we can wear matching rings."

"Will you grant me a quick death in my next life, then? So that I may return to dust?"

"Of course." He whispers. "Anything that the master wants, the master will get."

"Then yes." You pause. "Though, make sure the proposal is at least grander than any of my previous ones."

"It will he hard to outdo the king, no?" He hums affectionately.

"I'm sure you can do it, my knight." You grin.

You regain your will to move around shortly after that. The two of you board to explore the continent you both passed away looking to visit, and you have fun, brow raised as Cael helps you off the ship, the two of you settling down in a hostel and wandering around the streets. You find that it is not much different from when you had gone around town with Naledi. Though, the food here is much more fragrant, spices dancing on your tongue as you have them, eyes lit up.

"Good?" Cael takes the food from you, finishing it as you look for something new to try.

"mhm," You hum. "You?"

"It is alright."

"Here." You take the food back, and finish it in a bite, licking your lips. "I'd get you some soup, but they don't seem to have lighter foods here."

"That's quite alright." Cael mumbles. "So? Was there something you wanted specifically?"

"Oh, there it is!" You hand the woman two coins as she pulls out drinks from the ice, and you hand one to Cael. "I think you'll like this one."

"Yeah?" He takes a sip, pausing as he raises a brow. "It's good."

"That's good." You pull at his wrist, pressing your lips to the straw, taking a sip. "Alright. I just wanted a sip. Do you want skewers? I think that's what they're called."

"I'm good." He follows after you, straw pressed to his lips as you look around and stare at the small trinkets. Cael wonders how he's going to propose to you. Perhaps he could make a grand ring, but it would not be worth much. If he buys something mass-produced, then he would be an awful lover. Though, he glances at the store tucked behind one of the shops, snapping his fingers to cast a self-defense spell on you as he heads in. That ring.

He needs to get that ring for you.

The purchase goes smoothly, his words sweet as he tells the jeweler that it is for his lover, his eyes gentle as he snaps his fingers, bag of gold manifesting with his magic. The jeweler blinks at the money handed to her, and she shakes her head profusely. Cael takes the ring and the box, waving at the jeweler as he makes his way back to you, stepping next to you as you show him the soup you've just obtained. You feed it to his lips, and he smiles, laugh on his lips as he hums, the drink you bought him empty now.

"Was it really that good?"

"Yes." He hums. "Shall we get going?"

Time flies. You finish your little trip and pack to leave, luggage heavier than before, yawning as you step around to get ready to leave. The boxes are packed up as both you and Cael push them to the ship, and he laughs, lips curled upward as he hums.

"What do you think about going back on our own boat?"

You blink. "A... like last time we were stranded?"

"It will be better this time." He promises, lips curled upwards gently. "I will learn wind magic for my master's next life."

You laugh at him, cheeks warm with a life that Cael had not seen in forever. So, he brushes the fallen lash on your cheek as he stares down at you, he finds himself laughing, breeze by the port in his hair as he looks up at you, eyes gentle and warm, brimming with affection as he smiles, corner of his eyes crinkling as you stare up at him.

"Master." He speaks. "Will you go on my boat with me?"

You hum, smile mirroring his. "Yeah."

The two of you stay out at sea for a while, and at some point, the boat stops moving. There is plenty of food the two of you have brought, so you do not worry about starvation, but you can't help but feel that it is so strange to see Cael be so upfront about his emotions for you. You suppose it was inevitable that he would fall for you, but you were surprised that it had taken him such a long time to be selfish to this extent. Perhaps it is the looming worry that you will be gone by your next life.

So, when the boat disappears into a floating platform of ice, you jump in your seat, staring at Cael as the ice hardens under your feet. You stare down and then back up at him, confused, head tilted to the side as you let him step close to you, his fingers gentle on your face as he brushes your hair, lips curling upwards as he kneels, and it gives you the same sense of deja vu you got from knighting him so many years ago. Yet, this kneeling is for a different purpose, you find.

"In this life and your last, in your sickness and my death, will you do the honors of letting me be the one to cherish and hold you close?" He pauses. "Whether it is as your knight or as your beloved. Whether it is as a penpal or your chef, and whether it is as your curser or blesser, will you let me cherish you until you return to the dust of the earth and know nothing better?"

The sea breeze ruffles your hair as you look down at him, cheeks and ears flushed, warmth creeping up your neck as you find yourself breathless, and Cael waits as your mouth forms words, baring all your teeth in your smile as you give him your answer.

"Would any master say no in this case?"

Cael fishes out the ring, sliding it on your fingers as you stare at it.

"It's so pretty." You mumble, staring in awe, barely noticing the way the ice platform has returned to a boat. "When did you buy it?"

"That is a secret I will be keeping from you," He grins, finger pressed to his lips as you pout.

"Aren't my words absolute?" You pretend to frown.

"Not when it is my proposal." He hums. "Let me cherish you this life so you may pass quickly in your next one."

"Alright." You hum, closing your eyes as Cael holds you close. "Can you kill me with poison in my next life?"

"You would like to be poisoned?"

"It would be fitting as I died that way in my first life, would it not?" You pause. "Perhaps something to grant me a quick death. Maybe to pass in my sleep would be nice."

"Alright." Cael whispers, pressing your fingers to his lips, bottom lip brushing over your ring. "Where would you like the wedding?"

"Do you think the king would let us get married in the glass chapel?"

"It does not hurt to ask."

You get married to Cael, his hair done up as purple flowers decorate the venue, your lips curled upward as a smile that forces your eyes to crinkle sits on your face, an eternity past spent with him, and the short eternity future to be spent with him. You get to live a long life next to him, your skin turning wrinkly and old with age and Cael staying the same, but his eyes and touch ever fond with the same gentleness that has never changed even now that you are no longer at your prime.

You wave goodbye to your kids, and Cael sends them off with a nod.

"Phew, I'll have to see you in my bedroom soon." You frown, staring in the mirror. "I can feel my death approaching."

"Do you believe we are soulmates, dear?" Cael sits next to you by your bedside, and you smile.

"Perhaps." You close your eyes, sighing. "Maybe Naledi knew all along."

"Perhaps." He closes his eyes with you, and in the distance, the same bells that chimed on your wedding chime again.

Time is up at last.

🕛.

"Would you like to do anything before you pass?" Cael is the first to speak in your final regression.

Perhaps thirteen is an unlucky number, but it is not his problem. He slides your sleeve up as he carves one final circle into your skin, and your chest glows a dark purple, symbolizing the completion of the curse. You stare at your hand, then at Cael, lips curled into a sweet smile. You reach for him, wrapping your arms around him wordlessly as Cael hums into your skin, the vibrations soothing against your flesh.

"Cael."

"Yes, master?"

"Call me dear." You hum. "Ah, I would like to be buried with my ring from our past life."

"I shall do that." He nods. "Would you like to repeat our past life?"

"I do not mind it." You hum. "Though, it would be nice to have children earlier. I do not believe I will live as long as I did in my past life."

"Of course." He presses his forehead to yours, humming. "Let us get married earlier as well."

Cael finds the ring in the same place as before, handing the clerk the same amount of gold, a smile on his face as he returns from his vacation, offering you a pretty bouquet of flowers similar to the ones at your wedding, the ring attached to the center rose, and you laugh, cheeks warm with affection as he slides the ring back on your finger. There is no wedding this time around, just a simple registration and wedding gown, the same white and violet flowers in your hair and his suit, his lips pressed to your ring as the two of you spend the night together as you had in the past.

Cael looks into magic to control pain, and you find that it is so much more soothing to deliver a child with your husband's icy hands on your back. It is almost as if he had learned it so that there would be as little pain as possible this time around. You find that it may be annoying, but knowing what each of your children would be like was much better than expected. Their fingers cling onto yours as you watch them grow up, your body aging faster than your past life, your children only young adults when you turn old and frail.

So, when you call them all to your room, Cael still next to you and brushing his fingers over the back of your hand; you laugh.

"I'm passing soon." You hum. "It is a shame, but I will not be able to see my grandchildren this time around. Perhaps Cael might, but it seems that..."

"It is fine." Your eldest pauses to stare at Cael. "Father will be free once you pass. He will find you again."

"Like he always told us he would." Your second chuckles. "Though, we may not be alive to see you."

"I'll miss you." Your youngest steps next to your bed, taking your other hand. "We will miss you, mother."

"I will miss you all as well, but..."

"But you will be put to rest." Cael nods. "There will no longer be a repeat of the past, and you will no longer be forced to live in a world where you are cursed to return again and again."

"Yes." You smile. "Now, shoo. I wish to have a word with your father."

"Stay in the tearoom. I shall discuss burial when she passes."

Your children exit the door, your eldest looking back one last time. It is strange to see such a young man smiling at an old woman so affectionately. One might mistake him for your grandchild, but it would not be the case. He may not have gotten much affection from his father, but it was evident that Cael loved at least you with his whole heart. Perhaps he will look at someone with the same amount of affection in his eyes one day.

"So?" Cael raises a brow, holding your hand to his cheek as you hum. "Where would you like to be buried?"

"In Naledi's flower field that we purchased off her hands." You close your eyes. "Please tend to the flowers each time you return from your travels."

"Of course." He closes his eyes as you close yours. "I love you, dear."

"I love you too, Cael." You hum. "My beloved."

This time, there are no bells to chime nor time that has run out.

Cael tells your children about where you wish to be buried, and your children comply, gathering for a small funeral as they bury you in the dirt where you had wished to return, and Cael finds himself hugging his children for the first in a long time. It is hard to lose you, he knows, but he is aware that you will return sometime soon. Your soul will wander back into the people who are close to him, and even if you will not recognize him, he would protect you until the very end. Thus, as he sends his children off one by one, handing the family seal to his eldest with a gentle kiss to his forehead, he hums the same lullaby that they had grown up listening to.

"Come visit. The residence's walls are always open." His eldest looks up at him through tear-stained lashes, and Cael nods.

Once all of your children are gone, Cael removes his sword and places a bouquet of preserved flowers on your grave, tightening his coat as the winter snow falls, your frail body buried back into the earth, returning to the dust that it was made of.

And though you are gone now, Cael will find you again as he always has.

After all, you are his master, his lover, and his object of affection. just as he is your knight and beloved.

#☾.nsfw #yexuan x reader #cael x reader #lovebrush chronicles x reader #☾.fics #lovebrush chronicles #reader insert #for all time #for all time x reader

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