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featherwriter · 3 years

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CONTENT WARNING: This chapter contains depictions of extended torture and medical experimentation, as well as an implied, non-permanent suicide of a Guardian. If the rest of the fic has not prepared you for the kind of dark content in this story, this chapter is probably the heaviest point.

<< Read from the beginning! >>

The torture began in earnest the next day. Sylvanni had initially believed the extent of her 'service' to House Kings would be gladiatorial entertainment in their arena and the harvesting of her Light, but Erxaris, it seemed, had crueler plans for her. The Fallen were so terribly curious about her kind and now they finally had a Guardian on hand to satiate that curiosity.

The room they took her to was simple, with walls of smooth concrete and a long since shattered window which had been replaced by an energy barrier. The only real feature was a simple iron ring in the floor to chain her down. There was no slack in her restraints, forcing her to hold an awkward kneeling position with her arms behind her. Then it began.

The objective was simple; they wanted to know what it took to kill her.

They started with their own weapons first. Shock daggers, then lances, then swords. She was cut, stabbed, and sliced in all variety of ways, until they found something lethal. Sometimes it was blessedly quick, such as the time a lance found her heart on the first thrust. Others were agonizingly slow, as her healing factor—weak though it was—continued to try to mend her, keeping her clinging to life through wounds which would kill a non-Guardian.

Her main tormentor was a burly Captain, but Erxaris watched over everything, with the canister trapping Sylvanni's Ghost in stasis clutched in her lower arms. Whenever Sylvanni died, her Ghost would be released to resurrect her, and then Sylvanni would give him up again. At first, they'd tried to communicate in those brief moments before she had to turn him over, but every time they did, it got a little harder to let go.

Eventually Sylvanni had to turn that side of herself off. She couldn't bear to acknowledge him at all, couldn't think of him as hers. The motions of letting Erxaris trap him once more became rote, empty, meaningless. At least, she told herself, he couldn't see or feel anything in the stasis. He didn't have to watch what they did to her, just fix her in the aftermath.

Erxaris and the Captain tried every method of wounding her with their Fallen melee weapons, even 'docking' her arms a few times, a punishment Sylvanni assumed was meant to be humiliating. After one such time, Erxaris held up a hand, curiously watching as Sylvanni's meager healing tried to seal over the amputation.

When the wounds healed new skin over a stump, the Judgment Vandal frowned. "Doesn't grow back? Such… pitiful things, your kind. Without Machine, is nothing."

They moved on to firearms: shock rifles with their lazily homing bolts, wire rifles with quick precision, a Captain’s shrapnel launcher. They even brought in that accursed Servitor in and watched it blast her from close range. She was shot in the limbs, in the chest, in the head, from the front, back, and sides. Every way they could think of to destroy her, they did.

Then they tried more. They sealed the room and watched from the other side of their barrier as they pulled the air from the room and watched her try to suffocate. That one—agonizingly—didn’t even work, her scraps of Light managing to keep her clinging to life even as her lungs burned for oxygen, but Erxaris and her hateful assistant watched Sylvanni gasp and writhe in the airless chamber for the better part of an hour before giving up on that one. At full Light strength, she’d routinely run missions in the vacuum of space with only mild discomfort, but down here with so little, it was cripplingly tortuous.

The Fallen picked up what alien technology they had on hand to try as well. They flushed the room with Hive Witch’s poison, though how they’d managed to distill that, she couldn’t fathom. They had a few Vex weapons on hand, a few severed Goblin and Hobgoblin arms grafted to external power sources to make them fire. Cabal slug rifles, no doubt scavenged from a firebase somewhere. The Fallen were nothing if not thieves and scavengers at heart.

The torments were endless but Sylvanni said very little through it all. At the start, it was pure determination which held her tongue. She was a Guardian with centuries of battle to her name; she was no stranger to pain and death. She could muster the will to force her way through this without giving her captors the satisfaction of seeing her break. Or so she had believed.

The relentlessness of the torture was something far beyond the violence of battle, however. When connected to her Ghost, her deaths were always quick, sparing her painful ends more often than not. The deaths she received at Erxaris’ command were anything but. The agonies were ever-changing and endless, broken only by the dark, blank stretches of disconnected death. There was nothing she could do, there was no end in sight, no escape from the hell. Dying was only a temporary reprieve, for they always brought her back to suffer again.

Her stoic resolve could only endure so long, but rather than breaking down, begging for mercy, crying, pleading, Sylvanni found her mind drifting instead. It started with that mental break of her Ghost. She couldn’t think of him as himself, couldn’t acknowledge what he really was to her. What she handed back after each rez was only an object, a thing, meaningless to her. It had to be, because if it wasn’t, she’d never be able to give him back, and then they both would die.

Then she began to disconnect from herself. Each time she resurrected, she felt a little further, her mind gently drifting further and further from the reality of her situation. It was reminiscent of being tethered during a spacewalk, drifting in the abyss of space, floating further and further from her anchor. What would happen if that tether was severed, when the tether was herself?

After all, could pain truly be considered pain when it was simply a constant state of being? There was no end to it, it was just the way things were now. Her nerves kept firing those signals, kept screaming at her to do something to stop this, but there was nothing to be done, and so her mind stopped listening. These things could happen to her body, but she consciously observed herself as though on the other side of thick glass, until it was almost as though she felt nothing at all.

Just as her Ghost was only a thing, an object, so too was she a thing herself.

Time was meaningless: there was no way to tell how long between her deaths and resurrections anyway and the monotony of pains simply blurred together. It wasn’t as though there was anything which required her attention. They weren’t torturing her for information, making demands, or asking questions of her. They didn’t care about making her talk. They just wanted to see how she might be killed and enjoy the satisfaction of tearing her apart again and again.

At some point, Erxaris’ torture assistant was replaced by a team of King Splicers. These, unlike those of the House of Devils, hadn’t endowed themselves with SIVA augmentations, but they were interested in biological information. Her anatomy, alien to them, was a secret they wished to unravel, and they opened her up, a live dissection. They poked and prodded and rummaged about her body until they’d cut or stabbed something they shouldn’t have, collapsed a lung or compromised an organ, and then they wrote that down and started again.

It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Sylvanni just drifted through it all, mind so very distant from the endless horror, barely making a sound. She was increasingly certain nothing would ever matter again. Time was meaningless, not even the barest circadian hint in this bleak, crumbling ruin, and she had no way to tell how long they left her dead each time before bringing her back. It might have been days; it might have been months. They never offered her food or water anymore, as they’d realized they didn’t need to. Just pain, in endless, infinite, multitudinous, myriad forms.

If there was one relief, it was that the Servitor didn’t come to drain her again. The constant wounds were such a drain on what meager Light she could get, there were no reserves for the Kings to siphon off.

After one resurrection, back in the smooth stone room, she was left alone, still chained to the floor. They brought her back from death, took her Ghost away, and simply abandoned her. As time passed, heartbeat after heartbeat, that drifty, floaty little piece of her at the edge of her distant mind could have laughed. Were they hoping to study the effects of isolation, glean some psychological insight? She simply sat, staring at nothing, absently noting as her body slipped physically closer to dehydration, until she was lying down, back to fluttering on the edge of life, burning through those sad little wisps of Light within her to stave off death. This one, she decided emotionlessly, was at least not as bad as the endless suffocation had been.

In that fragile limbo, she found herself thinking of Osiris of all people. It had been centuries now, she realized, since the last time she’d seen him, but she’d once been new to immortality, foolishly enamored with her Vanguard Commander and the dangerous ideas that would lead to his eventual exile.

Dangerous ideas that were… not entirely unlike this. He’d encouraged thanatonauts, who thought they could glean secret wisdom or insight from death. Warlocks who intentionally lingered on the edges of death, or flung themselves into its depths repeatedly. Perhaps one of them could have found this torture useful. After all, it was practically what those kinds did to themselves anyway.

She drifted in the haze of memories, of imaginings, of dreams and nonsense. Maybe visions like these were what thanatonauts sought, or maybe it was all just the hallucinations of a mind and body pushed far beyond their breaking points. If there was thanatonautic wisdom among it all, she couldn’t summon the mental effort to try to remember any of it. She couldn’t really believe any of it mattered.

Somewhere in that fugue state, something must have killed her again, because at some point, she was brought back to life yet again, no longer alone. Erxaris stood in the chamber, lower arms crossed over her Judgement-green tabard, upper arms holding the stasis capsule. Her only weapon was a shock dagger at her waist, but the power Erxaris held within House Kings wasn’t truly martial anyway.

By rote, Sylvanni held out her Ghost, offering him back once again. Had Sylvanni been herself, she might have noticed how he still turned to look back at her, every time he was taken, she might have recognized the mix of pity and fear in the tilt of his corners before the capsule froze him again.

But she didn’t register any of that. She couldn’t. She was adrift, and the Ghost was just a shape, just a thing to hand back as part of the routine.

Erxaris clicked the container shut with a small click, then handed it back to someone waiting outside the chamber for safekeeping. When she turned back, she tipped her head as she regarded the blank-faced Warlock standing before her. “Wish tests to stop?”

Sylvanni didn’t answer. A part of her couldn’t really believe that there would be an end to the pain they put her through. She just stared straight forward, unmoving, waiting until the suffering started again.

Erxaris chittered a laugh. “Stoic, it becomes. Answer, Machine thief. Opportunity not to be offered twice.”

“What.” Sylvanni forced the word out, her own voice a foreign rasp to her ears. “Do you. Want.”

“Fealty.”

The word was so surprising, so out of place, it shocked some part of her back to enough awareness to look up, meeting the Vandal’s four eyes with her two.

“Renounce Machine-right. Your Tra-vel-er.” The drawn-out emphasis of each syllable couldn’t be anything other than mocking. “Swear to House Kings. Loyal donor of ether.”

In the distant drifting, a piece of Sylvanni could hardly see the point in answering, couldn’t muster the will to care about what happened to her. A smaller, desperate, animal part of her, the shreds of her self-preservation, begged for a respite, willing to give Erxaris anything she demanded if it would mean an end to the suffering.

Neither of these were capable of a real decision, neither were capable of true survival. The Void, as ever, held her salvation. What Light she held was faint, but within it she found that calm stillness, the centering of self she needed. A singularity around which to gather herself once again for just a moment, long enough to think.

House Kings wished to make their Guardian prisoner a Guardian slave instead? There could be opportunity in that, she realized. So be it. If she was going to find a chance to escape and retrieve her Ghost in truth, it wouldn’t be done in these passing, powerless moments of life between endless, captive deaths. She didn’t expect they’d be sloppy in this, but it only took one moment of lapse for this to work.

As for the oath, the renunciation? Meaningless. She didn’t think Erxaris was foolish to believe endless, repeatedly lethal torture had inspired anything resembling loyalty within her for her captors, but that wasn’t what this was really about. They both knew that. It was about the power of forcing a Guardian through the shame of saying such a thing. But what did Sylvanni care about shame, after what she’d been through? Whatever dignity she’d thought she had was long gone in the eyes of these Fallen, and she wouldn’t have let something as worthless as pride keep her from seizing a possible advantage, anyway.

She was, for just a moment, cold clarity once again, the void’s resonant reassurance within her. The decision made. Sylvanni let out a long breath, then forced the words out. “I… accept.”

Erxaris drew herself up, a sense of triumph clear even in her alien posture. “Renounce.”

Sylvanni fixed her eyes on the floor and swore the lie. “I renounce the Traveler, and my right to its gifts.” Even saying it felt like poison, but she’d endured far worse toxins recently.

“Swear,” Erxaris said, punctuated with anticipatory clicking. “Swear loyalty to House Kings, its great and regal Kell. Swear your stolen ether to the service of your House.”

“I swear… loyalty to House Kings and its Kell. I swear my Light to its service.”

The rebreather hissed as Erxaris drew in a full draught of ether, her lower hands clasping together. “You will be lowest of House, beneath dregs, beneath shanks. Silveks, Kings Slave.”

The butchered eliksnization of her name felt like a final insult, but Sylvanni gave no reaction, no response. From this point forward, she followed orders, nothing more. This void-drift she’d cultivated could serve her in this as well, she thought. These Fallen would surely seek further ways to humiliate her, new ways to hurt her, but now she would feel nothing of it, give them no satisfaction of a reaction from her.

The shock dagger clanged to the ground between the bowed Awoken and the looming Vandal, sliding into Sylvanni’s still-lowered gaze. Sylvanni didn’t reach for it, though she had a sinking feeling she knew what was coming next.

“Prove loyalty,” Erxaris hissed cruelly. “Your Kell demands more than Machine-ether. Demands blood. Demands life, Silveks. Then, oath accepted.”

Sylvanni slowly reached forward, picking up the small dagger. For the barest moment, she considered turning on Erxaris, but as satisfying as the idea might have been, the other Fallen outside this room would surely turn out in force to put her down permanently. In the end, there really wasn’t much of a choice. At least when she was the one holding the knife she was able to make it quick.

After all, what was one more death after everything?

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#Destiny fanfiction #Destiny the game #Destiny #Destiny Warlock #Uldren Sov #Recompense #My fanfic #Sylvanni Duv #A Crow's Rescue #boy it sure has been like several years since this fic updated huh #i don't even know if it's worth it to post these on tumblr tbh #i might end up just switching to AO3 completely #there's a longer authors note on AO3 about my plans for this fic moving forward #but the short answer is i want to finish #and hopefully the next update will not take YEARS again #fingers crossed #thank you all for bearing with me #those of you who've stuck around

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recurring-polynya · 3 years

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Do I mind if I ask how you approach writing longer fic? I've always struggled to write anything more than maybe two chapters long and I'm curious if you have a particular method to how you approach such stories.

Thank you so much for this ask! I absolutely love it when people ask me for writing advice because it makes me feel like a Smart Person Who Knows Things.

Before we start, here is one grain of salt to take all of this with: I have a naturally long-form brain. It is very hard for me to write something less than 1k. Short fiction is great, and there is nothing wrong with sticking to short things if that's what your brain likes to do.

So. You have decided to write a story. This is going to focus on "stories". Some people write fic that's more freeform or whatever, I am not going to cover that. What I mean by a story is this:

It starts

Some stuff happens

It ends

It is highly probable that your story contains a change of state, which could be that a villain is defeated, or a goal is reached, but it could also be that character falls in love with another, or someone learns to like broccoli.

I like to start out by completing the sentence, "This is a story where _______". This is basically like coming up with a summary for an ao3 post, except that it doesn't need to be catchy. Lots of different kinds of things could go in that blank! It could literally be what happens: This is a story where Ichigo goes back in time and punches young Aizen in the nose. It could be about what you want to explore: This is a story where Hitsugaya gets a better understanding of his zanpakutou. It could be about the vibe you want to achieve: This is an AU where everyone is in a punk rock band and has cool hair and outfits. The idea of this is to clearly define what you, the author, is interested in writing. Make sure it feels right! Maybe you pick the first one, but when you say it out loud, you say, "You know, I really just want Ichigo to go back in time so he can horse around with young Renji and Rukia and punching Aizen in the nose is just an excuse for that." That may sound dumb, but it's fine, actually! Most people don't read stories strictly for the plot, they read stories for the implications of those plots! Will my favorite two characters kiss? Will there be funny interactions between these two groups of characters? Will there be sick fights? Stories are excuses to have scenes. Sometimes, you will have a story where the interesting sequence of events is the draw, but the point is to know what you're about.

Once you feel happy with your "mission statement", you need to decide the bounds of your story: where it starts and where it ends. It may be easier to start with the end. In some cases, it may be obvious from your mission statement: everyone gets home, a villain is defeated, Kenpachi realizes the meaning of friendship. On the other hand, let's look at that punk rock AU. You've picked a vibe, but you don't really have a natural story arc. It has to have a destination, though, otherwise, it's not really a story, it's a recipe for 3 chapters of an abandoned fanfic. So brainstorm a little: Maybe they get a record deal? Maybe they win a Battle of the Bands? Maybe Byakuya accepts that the band is actually good and tells Rukia he is proud of her. Do not settle for a plot just because it works. Pick something that makes you excited! You're the one who is gonna have to write it!

I said that we needed to pick a beginning point, too, but I'm actually going to skip that for now. The next thing I do is think of all the Big Scenes I want to write, the ones you are hype to write, the ones that pop in your head as you think about the premise. Make a bullet list. They don't need to be in order. The descriptions don't need to be super detailed, but write down anything about it that is important to you. If there's a mood or a snippet of dialogue or a joke you want to make, go ahead and jot that down so you don't forget it later. What you're doing now is putting broad blotches of color on a canvas, filling in space and leaving the detail for later.

Once you are pretty happy with what you have down, try to arrange it in chronological order. Put your end at the end (if it wasn't one of your big scenes, add it now). The next task is figuring out how to traverse your scenes. You've already picked out where you want to spend the majority of your energy. The rest, I regret to tell you, is your slog writing. Now, it often happens that you will find joy in some of these scenes and your best writing may occur there, but that's serendipity. These are the scenes that you are gonna have to make yourself sit down and write, so you honestly want to limit them to just the ones you need.

So how do we do this? Look at the first thing on the list. Can you start there? If so, congrats, that's your beginning. If you can't, what needs to happen to get to there? Where can you start so that you can get to your first fun scene as soon as possible? There. That’s it. You’ve picked your beginning, good job! Now, go through the rest of your list, and add in things that must happen, even if you don’t particularly look forward to writing them. The characters need to travel from geographic point A to point B. Shuuhei needs to say something that Izuru hears and misinterprets. The Central 46 makes a new law. If you have a good idea of how these things happen, go ahead and write them down, but it’s okay if you don’t know yet. Fill in all the blanks so that if you think of each bullet list as a scene, you could read it as a story, start to end. Once you get writing, you might add more scenes, or move things around or whatever, but you should have a thing that functions as a story.

If you struggle with this, an alternative is a story with a very strong structure that is going to guide you though what you have to write.Here are two examples from my own stories Hold On, Hold On (which is only one chapter, but the principle is the same) is structured around the 5 stages of grief. Not Broken, Just Bent takes place over roughly a week, and I just decided what happened every day of the week. See You on the Other Side takes place in the middle of a bunch of canon events, which worked at mile markers.

Congratulations. You’ve just made a rough outline!

Special note for avoiding burnout!: I am a slogger. I will drag myself through the broken glass of an interminable plot to get to a single thirsty scene. That's why, at this stage, I try to look at the ratio of what I want to write to what I must write. It's gonna vary for everyone, but this is a hobby, and if looking at this proto-outline makes you feel deeply tired, maybe this isn't a good story to be devoting your time to! Can you carve it down? Can you chuck two scenes you really want to write and get rid of 80% of the slog? Or maybe you can't! In that case, just write that thirsty scene as a standalone drabble! Or just go work on something else! Maybe in the future, this one will come back to you and you’ll have a fresh idea or a renewed enthusiasm for it.

Another thing I sometimes like to do at this point is to write out some notes about my characters and their motivations and moods. Character A is homesick. Character B is so determined to defeat the enemy that they are having a hard time being sympathetic to Character A. Character C cares for both A and B and is trying to support them both. This is sort of background info that you want to keep in your head as you are writing. Depending on the type of story you are writing, this might actually be the main plot, or it might be happening subtly, but adding to the emotional impact of the story. It’s very easy for me to write these sorts of emotional arcs, but if you struggle with that, you may wish to go ahead and made a more detailed outline for that, too.

Now, it’s time to start writing! I am great at beginnings-- it is very often the case for me that the opening scene was one of my Big Tentpole Scenes. (Before you hate me too much, I make up for this by being double horrible at endings; just let me have this) Usually, I will start at the beginning and write linearly for as long as I can until I get stuck. Then, I will look forward on my outline and do the next chronological scene that I feel like writing. In general, if I sit down to write and there is something I have an urge to write, that trumps everything else. Inspiration is a precious commodity, and you should embrace it when it hits! You can slog any day. I will occasionally hold off writing a scene that I really want to, because I am saving it, like a prize for myself for getting that far. This is a very personal process of figuring out what motivates your brain and then giving your brain what it needs to be its most productive.

Eventually, you will run out of things you are excited to write, but the good news is, you’ve got a bunch of story now! Odds are that what’s left is going to be a lot of those connective tissue scenes, and you’re just going to have to do them, except that now, because you’re connecting two concrete points instead of two abstract points, it will be a lot easier. You can continue running jokes you’ve started. Maybe you invented a cafe in an earlier scene where your characters hang out and you can have them return there. Try to think of ways to make these scenes more fun, both for yourself to write and for your reader to read.

Around this time, I like to start refining that rough strokes outline into what I will call an “as-built” outline. (This is an engineering term where you update your plans or models for something to reflect any changes that had to be made along the way). This is a great activity to do at times when you feel like you have writers block. I write down every scene I have written as a 2-3 word blurb, in order. I break the scenes into what I think makes logical chapters, and I will do a word count on those prospective chapters and write it down. As you do this, you will realize that maybe you can move a scene from here to there, which will make it 1000% easier to write. Things may be happening too much, or you’ve got the characters eating three times in the same chapter. If you have subplots and dangling threads, this is where you make sure they get closure. I know this sounds very headache-y, but you are so far along in the story at this point that it’s really not-- it’s a way to look at the problems you have left. Use some sort of formatting (I like to bold things I haven’t done and sometimes I put them in red) and it gives you a very visual to-do list.

You specifically mentioned multi-chapter fanfics and I admit that I don’t tend to think in chapters, I tend to think of the story as a whole and just break it up where it feels natural. The as-built outlining I described is very helpful in making sure that my chapters feel balanced. They don’t necessarily need to be the same length, but I like them to have the same amount of stuff in them. One chapter may basically contain one long scene, and other may contain many short ones. I don’t tend to, but you can certainly have a fanfic that varies between short and long chapters, that can actually be an interesting effect. But like I said, I always like to know what I am doing, and so having it mapped out, you can say “welp, this is what I’ve done, how do I feel about that?”

Polynya, you may be saying at this point, do you write the whole fanfic before you post any of it? and I regret to inform you, the answer is yes. A lot of people write as they go, and I have made one attempt at this and I didn’t like it. I don’t like locking myself in, I just need to be able write out of order and go back and change things. Here is the story of a little in love: someone gave me an AU prompt and I got mildly obsessed with it, and wrote 5 snapshots drabbles in that universe, ending with a slight cliffhanger ending. I probably should have stopped there, but I decided to keep going. I wrote out an outline of 5 acts where the first act was detailed to the degree of each chapter being specified. The chapters here were much smaller than I usually make chapters: 1-2k. I wrote act i and ii and it was actually great, and then I hit act iii which required a lot of set up for misunderstandings and a mini romance arc. I couldn’t wing it, but nor could I figure it all out with outlining. I write dialogue in almost sort of an improv “Yes, and...?” style, so until I do it, I don’t know what’s going to happen. So, what I did was treat the second half of act iii as a complete story in the process I describe above, wrote the entire rest of it, and then posted it. One might notice that the chapter lengths grew to 3-5k each. I have two more acts to go, and I haven’t decided how I am going to do them yet, but I suspect I will treat each of them as their own mini-stories.

(I will admit that in Heart is a Muscle, I tend toward chapters that are about 10k long, and this is honestly too long, someone should smack me. If you like punchy chapters, 1-2k is good. I think 3-6k is probably an ideal chapter length. Is this how long the chapters are in my latest fanfic? Absolutely not.)

Okay, so there’s one more step, which is quality control. I am habitual re-reader-- I read my fanfics-in-progress over and over and over while I am working on them. I understand that not everyone does this, but I am usually the primary audience for my own writing, and this is the actual fun part for me. Nevertheless, you should re-read your work at least once, to make sure it hangs together.

This is purely optional, but I recommend it: get a writing friend (if you don’t like re-reading your work, I recommend this even more strongly). If you can get a full-service beta reader, that’s great, but if you can’t find someone, or if receiving that level of critique stresses you out, it’s perfectly valid to just find a friend who will read your stuff and a) shower you with compliments, b) reassure you about parts you aren’t sure about (or suggest ways to help) and c) point out any huge problems you missed. When I am writing a long fanfic, it is a huge motivational factor for me to be able to send my beta chapters as I finish them. If you are already an established writer, and you have people who consistently comment on your fic, they might be overjoyed to get a sneak peak at your work.

And that’s it! That’s the way I do it, anyway! Some people are able to sit down and write a very detailed outline and the write it start-to-finish. Good for them, I say! I have tried this and it doesn’t work great for me. I will admit that some of my fics (especially my early ones) I just sat down and banged out whole-cloth like an insane person and they are generally better than the ones I actually plan out, but that’s not a reproducible process.

As one final mechanical note, I usually write in Google Docs, which I can access on multiple devices (I used to write a lot on my phone), has convenient sharing functionality, and I use the ao3 html formatting script add-in. I generally have two documents for a single story-- one is the outline, and any other notes I want to have handy. I’ll usually put a trashcan space at the bottom for scenes that got cut but I don’t want to lose. The other is the fanfic itself.

I hope this is helpful! Please feel free to follow up with other questions and good luck with your writing!

#writing advice #longform writing

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fantasydaydreamers · 3 years

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Can we get nsfw hcs/fanfic for friends with benefits relationship with my boi kaminari? Like maybe they first hook up in a party and then in a classroom, janitors closet etc... "we are 100& best buds but we cant keep our hands off of each other... okay maybe 90%" kinda thing

KAMMMIIIIIII!!!!!!💕💕I LOVE THIS REQUEST SM!!!!!!!!!! Fun fact: i was going to use my fic “Hitachi” to answer this request but it was slightly different~

Words: 1,571

Warnings: Smut, ‘best friend’ kink but not really because you’re actually best friends

Author's Note: Hey y'all! My ✨explicit✨ fic is going to take longer than expected bc I'm figuring out AO3🥺ty for understanding!💕

~*~*~*~*

"Fuck...(Y/n)..." Kaminari moans softly, gripping your hair as your mouth worked over him quickly. His cock pulsed in your mouth which only made you whimper around him, your own hips thrusting on nothing but air.

The night started out with a friendly game of Mario Kart. He had invited you over to his room since the two of you had nothing better to do over the weekend, and surrounded yourselves on his bed with snacks and fluffy blankets, settling in for a long night of gaming.

You had been doing tournaments to see who could rank higher while throwing a few snide remarks around followed by playful shoving. It was all fun and games until you pushed Kami a little too hard, falling on top of him. He caught himself on his elbows, staring at you with a glint in his eyes and a small smirk on his lips.

The two of you have been best friends forever--to the point where he knew you better than you knew yourself. That's why when you saw his eyes flicker to your lips and back, you knew what he wanted.

You didn't know if this was considered a 'friend's with benefits' situation but didn't try to overthink it. The current 'situationship' all started during a dorm party a few months ago when the two of you happened to get paired together for 7 minutes in heaven. When everyone else heard your names being called, they rolled their eyes and demanded a rematch. Knowing you two, you would purposely slap the wall and fake moan through the door making it seem like something was actually happening.

In reality, when the two of you finally entered the confined space, you were barely pressed up against him as Kaminari held his hands on either side of your face on the wall.

It was dead quiet.

You could hear Sero make a muffled comment on how he couldn't hear anything and was surprised there wasn't any laughter. Someone else made a comment, but you couldn't focus on what was said with Kami's quiet breathing fanning your heated cheeks.

"(Y/n)..."

Maybe it was the way he whispered your name or the underlying built-up sexual tension that followed your friendship around, but the feather-like brush of lips against yours had you pressing fully against him, lips meeting together for the first time. It felt so wrong yet so right kissing your best friend. His arms moved to tighten around your waist, hugging you to him as electricity flickered through your veins.

As cliche as it sounded, it was true that you felt a spark as soon as Kaminari's tongue entered your mouth. He moaned softly and you heard a thump against the outside of the door making you two jump apart. You were both frozen in place as Mina's voice was clear on the other side of the door.

"Sero, you idiot! I thought I heard something!"

Kaminari broke the awkward silence first as he leaned back in to whisper in your ear. "Want to come up with something so they don't suspect anything?"

You giggled quietly and maneuvered him to the ground sitting cross-legged from one another. It was a tight fit, but you managed to pull out your phone and turned the flashlight on, setting it between you two, brightening up the closet while you whispered your plan to Kaminari.

When the remaining minutes were up, Mina threw the door open with no warning with the entire class of 1A behind her stared expectedly in the closet only to find you and Kaminari on the floor in the middle of telling scary stories.

After that night, you and Kami would meet up in each other's rooms, continuing your friendship as normal with a few make-out sessions here and there which happen to lead to other activities.

"Mm...just like that, (Y/n)." Kaminari's hand fisted in your hair, smirking down at you as he held you down on his cock, your throat constricting around him as you gagged. "You look so pretty crying on my cock like this...feels so good~"

He finally eased your head up and you pulled off coughing, drool dripping down your chin. You could only guess how wrecked you must've looked because you were too far gone to care about anything else but Kaminari. He gazed down at you with lust-lidded eyes, his other hand coming to cup the side of your face. "So beautiful..."

You moan and take his cock again in your mouth, determined to finish him off. Kaminari's hips roll off the bed with a grunt as his low raspy grunts fill the air and you knew he was close. Dragging your lips up to his tip, you pull off with a lewd pop and do it again repeatedly, hearing Kaminari's curse. Pausing, you lick the pre-cum from the slit, kissing it slowly, catching Kami's gaze.

"Come up here." His voice was demanding and who were you to refuse an order. You crawl up his body seductively and lick your lips as he reaches out to grab you, flipping you to your side. Kaminari trails his fingers down to your panties, rubbing your slit through them as you throw a leg over his waist. "You're so wet for me, (Y/n)~ does sucking your best friend off really turn you on?"

"Mm...only for you, Denki~" Your pleading gaze had Kami groaning as his fingers finally slipped in your underwear, finding your clit immediately. The first gentle shock from his quirk had you gasping out, Kaminari's tongue entering your mouth to silence you.

Running your hand down his torso, you find his leaking cock again and wrap your hand around it, stroking him in time with his fingers on your clit. Heavy breathing and breathy moans filled the space between you two as you worked each other towards release. Golden irises held yours and you couldn't find it in yourself to look away, rocking your hips onto his hand.

"Denki...please..." You didn't know what you were asking for, but your mewl was enough to send Kaminari over the edge, his cock pulsing in your hand as he came on the blanket he was laying on. A long groan escaped his throat, his head coming forward to bite your neck as you felt his fingers work faster over your clit, sending you into a quick orgasm as you squirmed on the bed.

The vibrations were too much as he worked you through your high, his mouth still on your neck as you cried out in his ear. You finally had to pull his hand away, panting hard as Kaminari laughed breathlessly pulling back to look at you.

You rolled onto your back as your body tingled from his quirk. Kaminari stared down at you with delighted eyes and a grin on his face, bringing his hand up to lick his fingers. "Asshole," you mumble, flustered by his actions.

Popping his fingers out of his mouth, Kaminari smiles widely and sits back up on his bed, reaching down to pull his sweatpants back up from his ankles. "But you love me though," he points out, also grabbing some tissues from his desk.

"I do." Confirming his words, you reach grabby-hands out to Kaminari, pulling him back down next to you as the two of you spend the rest of the night talking about anything and everything that comes up, the upbeat music of Mario Kart still playing in the background long forgotten.

~*~*~*~*

A few days later, the two of you were in the common room on the couch. Kaminari was slouching into his seat, his feet propped up on the table as he played on his Nintendo Switch. You, however, were laying across the couch, your head on the armrest as your feet rested on top of Kami's stomach, typing on your phone.

It was comfortable.

"So...when are you two going to come out officially?" Came a voice from the side.

You look over to see Mina eyeing the two of you with a smug grin on her face. Furrowing your eyebrows, you spared her a weird glance before turning back to your phone. "What do you mean?"

"(Y/n)...you're literally in his sweatshirt."

Oh yeah. Glancing down, you notice the baggy black sweatshirt covering everything but your legs, making you wonder if you bothered to put shorts on underneath. You shift slightly to see if you could tell, but couldn't.

Your phone buzzed briefly in your hand and you looked to see who texted you.

SparkPlug⚡: you don't ;) don't think i didn't notice earlier when you decided to move your legs on top of me~ you lil tease~

A blush rises to your face as you swipe on the notification, returning your attention to Mina. "So? It's comfy."

Mina throws her hands up. "Please just go out already! The two of you are together all the time and are inseparable! No one is going to judge and in fact, half of us already think the two of you are dating!"

"We're just friends, Mina." You roll your eyes, continuing to type on your phone. She didn't answer you right away making you look up and put on a serious face. Mina was glancing back and forth between you and Kami, a bewildered yet annoyed look on her face.

You and Kaminari spared each other a glance before turning again to look at Mina.

"Best friends."

#my hero academia #boku no hero academia #bnha #mha #bnha x reader #mha x reader #bnha x reader lemon #mha x reader lemon #kaminari denki #kaminari x reader #kaminari x reader lemon #bnha imagines #mha imagines #mha lemon #bnha lemon

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troped-fanfic-challenge · 3 years

Text

JATP ROUND TWO FICS!

We received seventeen (17!!!!!) Fics for the Second Round of the JATP TROPED Event! These fics were fluff-filled and super fun, and we loved to see how you all challenged yourselves with the theme, tropes, and pairings!

Please try to read as many fics as you can! Take some notes, leave some kudos/comments for the authors, and help us vote on the winners!

Voting will be open until May 14th at 11:59pm EST! Vote here:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BZ3W5FT

Please rank ALL the fics in each question based on the USE of each trope, the theme, the fics overall, and the two bonus polls (best setting + most unique pairing)! Your #1 spot should be the best answer and your last spot the least likely answer for the question. The Best Overall Poll will determine who will be writing in the Final Round! We ask that you please rank EVERY fic, so we can avoid technical difficulties! A reminder that you must include a Tumblr or AO3 username/URL, and you may only vote once, we will NOT count multiple votes by the same person.

————

Okay, Campers, Rise and Shine! (Rated T) [Julie x Luke]

Summary: When Reggie launches a particularly ill-advised prank war at HGC Ranch, Luke's fully prepared to take it in stride.

When the days start looping, though, he begins to suspect that this might all be a little bit above his head.

In other words, he's at least 78% sure that the time loop isn't a direct result of Reggie's pranks.

Maybe 77%.

Oh, well.

At least he's not in it alone.

(The Groundhog Day meets Gravity Falls meets Summer Camp meets The Author's Own Distaste For Prank Wars AU that no one asked for. Ever. At all.)

Starting To Forget (Just What Summer Ever Meant To You) (Not Rated) [Flynn x Carrie]

Summary: Last summer didn't end on a positive note for Carrie Wilson - she and her girlfriend broke up on the last night of camp, and she's been miserable since. But it seems that the universe is intent on having her fix that this summer. Even if that means she has to live through the same day over and over and over again until she does.

Creative B.S. Was No More, Was No Less (Look Around, You're Gonna Miss What You Found) (Rated T) [Alex x Luke, Flynn x Reggie]

Summary: The midnight men move again

Don't know when

Best friends forever

In trouble again

Here's to you, here's to me

Over the rafters and we're free

--- Over the Rafters, Rick Schiffman

***

Alex and Luke go undercover on a mission to a summer camp in order to find a talisman that could endanger the camp and all the kids. While there, they bond with the kids and make peace with the fact that they broke up.

While Alex and Luke are away, Flynn accidentally fucks with time.

bitch but like romantically (Rated T) [Flynn x Carrie]

Summary: The dining hall’s exactly the same as it has been for two mornings now, and Flynn doesn’t hesitate to poke Willie twice on the nose and whisper “pancake” on her way past their seat.

His eyes widen and he whips his head around to follow them, excitement glimmering in their eyes.

“Really?” they blurt. Flynn rolls her eyes and nods.

or: flynn gets stuck in a time loop. {for troped jatp round 2}

down by the bay (Rated T) [Alex x Willie]

Summary: Over time, Camp Phantom has simply become known as a selective summer camp: one that took only the kids that Caleb saw promise in. And Caleb wasn’t exactly lying. He really did take only the ones he saw promise in, he simply looked for different traits than others might.

For example, say, hypothetically, a boy who could see the future. Or, hypothetically, a girl who could interact with ghosts. Or, hypothetically, a boy who could summon objects to him with a simple thought. Or, and this is completely hypothetical mind you, a boy who could manipulate time.

Those might be some traits that Caleb saw promise in. Just, like, as examples.

Time will tell (But only if you do it right) (Rated T) [Flynn x Carrie]

Summary: Carrie had been acting a little off for a week or so, but Flynn was pretty much known for seeing something in nothing, and that was probably what they were doing then. If something was going on, Carrie would tell her eventually.

Who knew all it took was a little bit of miscommunication to mess up time itself?

and so it begins (Rated T) [Bobby x Reggie]

Summary: It’s the first day of their second week at Camp Carolling (they’re spending an entire month, and they’re getting paid to be there!) when Reggie gets a little lost in the woods. During this misadventure into the woods, he finds an egg shaped rock, an inhabited cabin that may or may not be riddled with signs, and something that might be magic. He probably doesn't get paid enough to discover magic.

or, when they were thirteen years old, four boys met at camp carolling and eventually became a band that almost became something legendary. now, all four boys are coming back as counselors, three boys in one band and one boy in his own solo act.

so begins the reunion, though it doesn't go how any of them imagine.

Porcupine Day (Rated T) [Bobby x Ray x Rose]

Summary: It’s been fifteen years since Trevor broke up with Ray and Rose and they’re... not fine, but managing. But when Trevor to adds insult to injury and buys the camp across the lake from the one they once owned together, the two camps become locked in a bitter rivalry. With neither side willing to set aside their pride and work out their issues, the universe decides to settle their fates itself.

Day After Day (After Day After Day) (Rated T) [Alex x Willie]

Summary: When Alex met Willie just after their senior year of high school, they spent a wonderful three months dating before their relationship ended in a blaze of glory. Now, four years later, they meet again as counselors at a summer camp. The only problem? Alex keeps reliving their first day together. The day that Luke had declared "Prank Day."

This is not how Alex pictured his summer going.

clocks move faster (it's all we're after) (Rated G) [Julie x Luke]

Summary: Julie likes it when her friends are happy, so when she realizes she's stuck in a time loop, she uses her knowledge to make sure everything works out for everyone... except she conveniently forgets to factor herself (and Luke) into the mix.

Touch of Magic (Not Rated) [Alex x Luke]

Summary: When everything stands in Luke and Alex’s way of getting to be with the people they love, they have to repeat the day over and over until they can get the happily ever after that they want.

The play's the thing (that goes wrong) (Rated T) [Alex x Willie]

Summary: Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day for Macbeth, but not so for Alex and the production of Hamlet that he is directing and starring in. And while he's stuck repeating the day of the performance over and over, mishaps of all kinds befall the cast.

anything, anything (for another run with you) (Rated T) [Alex x Willie]

Summary: The moment Alex steps foot in Camp Greenwood, he knows that this summer is a bad idea.

He knows it as soon as he sees tan skin, long hair, and a tie-dyed crop top at the check-in table.

Willie.

the camp counselor/exes/prank war/time loop fic of your dreams (unless you read all of the other troped round 2 fics lmao)

there’s a glorious sunrise, dappled with the flickers of light (Rated T) [Julie x Luke]

Summary: What comes next happens in slow motion. Luke’s foot catches on the last rung of the ladder. Julie watches as he stumbles a step forward, barely catching himself before falling on his face. The ladder clatters to the floor below. The trapdoor, no longer propped open by it, falls closed with a loud thunk, the lock clicking into place. They’re stuck.

“Luke!” she exclaims loudly. “Look what you did!” Julie drops to her knees in front of the trap door, desperately trying to fit her fingers between the wood and the stone to pry it open again. Of course it doesn’t work.

“What?” he snaps back. “I wouldn’t be up here in the first place if it weren’t for you trying to fuck us over.”

or: ex-best friends Luke and Julie, working as camp counselors at rivaling camps, find themselves stuck in a time loop

the daughter of apollo (Rated T) [Julie x Luke]

Summary: (the JATP x Camp Half Blood AU that nobody asked for)

maybe the world isn't ending (maybe it's been postponed) (Rated G) [Julie x Luke]

Summary: Alex runs his fingers through Willie’s hair. “I think it’s best to just leave them to their own prank war at this point. Let’s not forget that time Julie put hot sauce in the coffee pot and my mouth was on fire for an entire hour.”

“You’re exaggerating, Alex-”

“I most certainly am not,” Alex cuts Reggie off.

“Or how about the time Luke tried to put glitter in Julie’s bed,” Carrie joins in, “but got my bed instead? I can appreciate some glitter, but even I know when enough is enough.”

“Suffice it to say,” Willie finishes after they’ve passed around a dozen or so more memories of pranks from the summer, “we’re all done being your collateral damage. Whatever Julie has planned for you tomorrow, Luke, you’re on your own.”

It's the last day of camp and Julie has one more prank planned for Luke. He just doesn't know what it is.

Here We Go Again (Rated T) [Julie x Luke]

Summary: Julie blinked as she stared at the place Euterpe had disappeared. What did that even mean? What journey? Old places and lost faces? What was she talking about? But before she could dwell on the questions swirling around in her mind, the sky full of stars began to move, shifting in place and descending until they were all around her. Julie felt her feet leave the ground as she rose up and up. One star in particular was burning brighter than the others, growing bigger in front of her.

It grew and grew, until the light was blinding and Julie had to throw a hand up against the harsh light. She closed her eyes as the light surrounded her and then she was falling. Falling down, down, down.

#troped: jatp #round 2: fluff #jatp fanfiction #submissions #round 2 submissions #round 2 voting #troped: voting

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ciaran-archive · 3 years

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Serious question. How do you write long stories? Is there a technique or advice for that? No matter what story I have in mind, I can't seem to tell it in anything longer than 1 to 2k. Writing 5k is tiring already, where do people seriously get that stamina to even do 50 or 100 or 200k? It's mind-blowingly amazing.

there is nothing less worthy or amazing about writing shorter fic - i know writers who struggle with it, and i’ve come to inhabit that position somewhat myself, though i’m determined to stay in practice. it’s a different skillset, that’s all. your fics aren’t worse for being shorter.

that said i will not deny that longer fics generate far more engagement from fandoms simply by virtue of updating more often → being on top of the ao3 tag when people first open it → getting more clicks and being considered less ‘frivolous’ (which is bullshit, but what can you do)

if you’re dead sure you want to write longer fic, i would first recommend reading this post about writing drabbles, which i promise is relevant to the point i’m about to make.

Because drabbles are about one moment. You don't need to know exactly what happened before this moment of dialogue, or what happens next, or what's happening around it. You don't have to do any of the planning you might do for a longer fic, but you also don't have the space to let the scene lead in and develop naturally. You've got 100 words.

a lot of writing a longer story is about establishing the scope of your story, deciding what beats you want to hit. there are a lot of ways to go about this; [some people like to outline. i don’t outline, ever, so if you want help for outlining you should look at the other sources on the internet. there are quite a few.] i’m going to talk about the way i’ve learnt to do it.

so when i’m writing a short fic, the thing i’m considering is one or two ideas, and one or two moments (short in this case being under 5k). this also depends on the style i’m going for - fics with sparser styles can fit more scenes, if i’m going for my usual style, each scene takes about 700-2000 words at least and therefore takes up more space. a lot of how i eased into writing longer fics was focusing on stylistic changes - you can push up the word count of a fic by going moment by moment. note the difference between:

They’d been standing next to each other as they spoke; now Felix turned to him in the rain, startled by the admission of weakness. He reached out clumsily, bumping his hand against Ryan’s until he took the hint and grabbed on.

and

The rain made it near-impossible to hear Ryan speaking, but the harshness in his voice would’ve been audible through a hurricane. “So you ran away,” he said, like he hadn’t expected this.

“Course I did,” Felix snapped. “What was I supposed to do? Stick it out and let her kill me?” I almost did, he added under his breath.

Ryan’s sensitive werewolf ears, of course, caught that. “I’m glad you did,” he amended, as though it pained him to admit it. “I would’ve - I did the same. It’s all you can do, sometimes.”

Felix turned to him, blinking through the curtains of water. Ryan was slouching in the downpour, eyes narrowed elsewhere. Mostly he was startled by the admission of weakness - rare in a person who prided himself so thoroughly on being reliable and independent. He reached out, struck by the urge to offer whatever clumsy comfort he was capable of; his hand bumped against Ryan’s, and he held it there until Ryan caught up and wove their fingers together.

His hands were wet and cold, and he gripped so hard Felix’s very human bones ached, but he wouldn’t have pulled away now. Not when he’d been the one to offer.

it’s not even that one is necessarily better than the other - they both work, and they’re working in different ways. they’re set in the same scene, conveying the same beat - reaching out to comfort someone in the wake of vulnerability. it’s just that one is longer, and therefore gives you more room to - set the scene (rain, being unable to hear each other) - use dialogue to show what is being told in the first example - convey extra information about the characters (actually, if this was a scene i was writing in a fic or novel, the stuff about ryan being a werewolf would already be known to the reader, so i would use that space to convey something else about ryan in that moment) - elaborate on felix’s internal state: the transition from defensive to curious/surprised to gentle - linger for a sentence or two on the moment of connection

this is about unraveling a scene and making it bigger than it was, breaking it apart into tinier beats and describing each one in the narrative. what happens when you do that and your fic doesn’t get much bigger still?

back to scope! we understand, as people who read and write and live, that the part of a story that you choose to depict in a narrative is not the entire story: events happen off-screen. some of them happened before the story started, and they will continue to happen after the story ends. the narrative is only showing you an arc, a particular series of events.

when you’re writing fic, you have in fact tremendous amounts of flexibility when it comes to the scope of a story. you can write something that is about a single moment in canon, and trust that your audience is following along because they have the context already. so you don’t need to waste time on setting it up, which often means - if you’re given to a certain kind of fic writing (canon compliant / small divergences / missing scenes / character studies) your fics will end up not being very long because you’re not reiterating what you don’t need to reiterate. your idea is small because it inhabits a small space, is squished between canon events, and so doesn’t ever get bigger. if this is what is happening, it’s good, and you should try to preserve this going forward.

people who are writing longer fic are, simply, working with bigger ideas*. they’re not just going “what if he said what he wanted in this scene instead of going home?” and writing the bit where they kiss immediately after - they’re also going “what if this changed everything in the future? what happens if they tackle all their problems together from now on? what new problems arise from this?”

*hopefully they are working with bigger ideas. i have seen longfics that are just incredibly fucking tedious because the author swallowed a thesaurus and had a tenuous grasp on plotting to begin with.

that’s for a canon divergent fic, presumably. you might also be writing a post-canon fic, with its own set of pre-fic events and a new set of problems to deal with. currently, for example, i’m writing a fic where akira and goro were dating after canon, broke up, and stayed together in a deeply dysfunctional way after that - and the consequences for them now that they’re forced to deal with the mess they’ve made of their lives, together and apart. so now they have to deal with: the catalyst for dealing with their old problems, which is a problem in itself, and their old problems, which have been festering for a really long time.

which forms the core of the scope i’m talking about. i have to go through a bunch of scenes to set this fic up - i need to show their old problems and their new problems, i need to explain why the old ones haven’t been dealt with already, i need to set up the potential for dealing with them and the necessity of doing so, i need to give them places to start, and also i want to allow them to fail so they can choose to start again. i know these things because i have some idea of the kind of story i want to tell. if i didn’t know this, my story would not go anywhere by itself, and i would have to start outlining scene by scene the way people who actually outline do it, and i hate doing that because then i never write.

if you can outline and it doesn’t make you want to chew wood, then i highly recommend picking up the habit. it’s very useful, and the methodical approach is a fantastic failsafe for the moments when you (me) get stuck on your fic (breakup au) and have to stop writing for several weeks in order to figure out a single fucking plot point that will let you move forward and

anyway.

so yeah! to sum up;

find a larger scope for your story

get in the habit of picking apart beats into discrete moments and guiding the narrative through them

learn to outline if you can

last thing - which is perhaps the most vital and least reliable - stamina.

you WILL lose interest in half the longer fics you write. it WILL suck. if you think you know pain because you have 700 words of a fic and can’t get through the last 400, i promise you it is like that but much worse because you have 7000 words now, or 17000 words, and you are stuck with no way forward. it will suck so BAD.

don’t beat yourself up over it. once you’re in the habit of writing something long, you will retain that habit, and be able to apply it elsewhere. the words aren’t wasted, they’re practice, and they’re worth what they’ve taught you.

but! all the scope and internal scene-building and outlines won’t help you if you do not (and this is not as bad as everyone makes it sound) actually write. you HAVE to learn to actually write. you have to figure out what you like about writing and make a longfic outline [/ scene beats notes chart / themes mind map / tumblr tag of inspiring quotes and photography] that consists entirely of stuff you love and then you have to sit down and write your fic. it is not terribly scary. it’s okay to fail, but you also have no way around this.

i hope this helped, and good luck!

#writelogging #ok 2 rb #anon #asks

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pretchatta · 3 years

Text

I Saw Her Tomorrow

the authors of the MayThe4th fic exchange have been revealed! I've been dying to share my gift for @ambiguityisnoonesfriend ever since I finished it, so here it is.

a huge thank you to @skitter-kitteruwu for beta reading!!

rating: general; kanan jarrus/hera syndulla; 7.8k words (4 chapters, complete)

link to full work

---

Hera, 0BBY

The wind whistled in her ears and whipped her lekku as Hera wrestled with the glider. Her exhilaration at flying was tempered by her awareness of the imminent danger. They were losing altitude fast, but their forward velocity was enough that the roof of the fuel station was getting bigger with every passing second.

"This is gonna be close!" she yelled to Kanan.

"It always is!" he called back. She knew he couldn’t see the precariousness of their situation, and yet he trusted her completely to fly them through it.

The glider skimmed over the lip of the building, barely clearing it. The durasteel frame screeched as it skidded over the roof, but didn’t crumple. She just about managed to hold on. The rush of another successful landing almost made her giddy.

Kanan was no longer beside her; he hadn’t been able to brace in time and had lost his grip on impact. His momentum had carried him over the glider’s nose to roll onto the roof.

He pushed himself up with a groan. "That was one of your better crashes."

Hera gave him a scandalised look as she dismounted and wagged a finger at him. "Kanan Jarrus, you know I never crash. I have very-"

"Very exciting landings," he finished for her with a smile, grabbing the admonishing hand. "Thanks for reminding me. Come on!" He pulled her towards the middle of the roof and away from the pursuing Imperials.

After a few steps she had to stop him from running over the edge; the Empire hadn't yet finished covering the station. She was about to tell him off for not seeing it, but then she stopped herself with a giggle. He was blind; he couldn’t see anything.

His head jerked as though he suddenly sensed what was in front of them. He made an impatient noise in the back of his throat, clearly displeased with how exposed they were, and grabbed his commlink.

"Spectre-5, do you read? How are you coming with that ship?"

"Kanan! Did you get her?" Sabine's tinny voice came through from the other end. Hera hadn’t even realised she’d been worried, but she felt something unclench slightly from around her heart at the sound.

"Of course he did," she replied, leaning into Kanan slightly to reach the small device. She immediately lost her balance, but he caught her without missing a beat and nudged her back upright. Maybe those interrogation drugs weren’t out of her system quite yet.

"There’s been a change of plans," Kanan was saying into the comm. "We need a pickup–"

"At the fuel station," Sabine cut in, "I know. The Empire does too."

He grimaced. She found herself fascinated by how naked his mouth looked without his beard surrounding it. "Well, let’s hope you get to us fi–"

"Hold on, there are new orders coming through." She paused. "All ships are being ordered to maintain high altitude to allow a bombing run on the fuel station."

"What?" Kanan yelped. "They’ll blow up the whole factory if they do that!"

Sabine sounded like she was still listening to the Imperial orders. "Apparently the roof is reinforced, and can take a hit."

"The roof is unfinished! There’s a giant hole in it!" Kanan gestured towards it even though there was no visual link on the comm.

"I guess Pryce really doesn’t want us getting away," Hera muttered.

"Kanan, it doesn’t matter." There was a definite note of panic in Sabine’s voice now, and it was mirrored by a rising fear in Hera. "I’m not gonna be able to get down to you before the bomber arrives without blowing our cover and getting shot to pieces!"

"That’s not a problem. Just get directly overhead, as quickly as you can. Tell Ezra to be ready to catch us – just like we practised."

Hera heard Sabine’s shaky breath over the comm. "I’ll let you know when I’m in position."

The light blinked off.

This was bad. Adrenaline returned to Hera’s body, chasing away the drug-induced fog that had started clouding her brain since they’d landed. What was Kanan up to?

"What do you have planned?" she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

"When they get here, I’ll jump," he said simply. "I can get pretty high, and Ezra can pull us the rest of the way from above."

Her mind conjured the image of him cradling her in his arms as they soared upwards, just like in every ridiculous superhero holo they’d watched together.

Except this one isn’t ridiculous, because he would do that.

He would always come to save her. Whatever it took, he would always be there. He’d fly into the middle of a maximum security Imperial complex on a few pieces of scrap metal and junk, cut her free of her bonds, fight off a nightmarish assassin and escape an impossible dead-end situation by calling on his supernatural powers.

She felt a wave of emotion rise within her, a surge of warmth that threatened to spill into tears. Did he even know how incredibly important he was to her? They’d been so focused on fighting for so long, they’d had to actively find time to be alone together before she’d left. She’d figure out how to break the other news later, but right now there was one thing Hera needed to say to him.

"Kanan," she started. His attention immediately focused on her; there was something in her voice, something soft and vulnerable, yet serious. "I know it’s been a while since I’ve said it, and I know this isn’t really the moment, but… I love you."

Her ungloved fingers stroked the exposed skin of his cheek. He turned his head slightly in response so that his lips brushed her palm.

"I know," he said simply. It was the best thing he could have said. "And I love you too."

Her mouth curved into a smile as she pushed herself up onto her toes to kiss him. He returned the kiss, the press of his lips against hers achingly familiar, like coming home. Less familiar was the scratch of stubble; after years of having a beard, she’d forgotten what it was like to kiss Kanan without one.

They were interrupted by the familiar scream of twin ion engines approaching.

"Sabine!" Kanan shouted frantically into the comm. "Where are you? The bomber’s here!"

Her response was drowned out by the TIE bomber.

It swept overhead, blotting out the light from both moons. Hera wrapped her arms tightly around Kanan’s torso. Throughout her capture and subsequent torture she’d never once lost faith that he would come and rescue her, but now, faced with their current situation, that hope finally flickered. Their last moments were upon them.

At least they were together.

The bomber passed, the whine of the engines deepening as it retreated, but the shadow remained. Hera looked up and saw, suspended in the air above them, the unmistakable silhouette of a baradium missile.

She relaxed her grip on Kanan and realised he had thrust his arms out towards the sky, eyes closed, brow furrowed in concentration. He’d caught the missile! Her brave, brilliant Jedi.

"Kanan?" she asked tentatively. "Can you... put that down? We've got to get off this roof before they make another pass."

"I'm holding the proton charge detonator," he said through gritted teeth. She felt her stomach drop through her feet; he couldn’t let go without activating the missile. The whole station would go up with it. "Can’t jump without letting go. Or sending it up to the kids. But I can still throw you."

"But – what about you?" She knew the answer even as she asked, but her brain was refusing to accept it.

His sightless eyes locked on to her face. His expression was an unreadable mask. "I'm not making it out of this one."

No.

No, no no.

She was shaking her head, even though he couldn’t see it. "I’m not leaving without you."

"Yes, you are," he insisted. "And you’re going to be okay. Don’t ask me how I know this, but you’re going to move on, and you will be happy again. I’m certain of it. And that’s all I ever wanted."

"Kanan–"

The comm beeped again.

"We’re in position! Kanan, now!"

Sabine’s words had barely sunk in when she felt herself gripped by an unseen hand, and then she was flying through the air. She caught a glimpse of the whole station below her – the square roof framing the round hole that in turn framed gleaming stacks of construction material, the bomb hovering off-center and ruining the symmetry – before her vision went dark.

She felt the wind from the TIE bomber as it raced below her at the same time as a second invisible force grabbed her. It twisted her in midair, and now she was rushing towards an Imperial patrol transport. A single figure in a fighter pilot’s uniform stood in the troop bay with arms outstretched.

By the time Ezra had pulled her into the transport beside him and she was able to turn back around, the fuel station was an expanding ball of fire.

Kanan was gone.

---

Chapter 2 (AO3) ->

#kanera #kanan jarrus #hera syndulla #star wars rebels #star wars: rebels #star wars #may the fourth be with you #maythe4thbewithyou #jedi night #jedi night fix it #fic #really hope i've got the scheduling right here #in theory the reveal should have happened 5 minutes ago #i wasn't going to stay up til 1am to post but i have been unbelievably excited to share this for the last 2 weeks #pretchwritta

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skellebonez · 3 years

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Smoke, Flasks, and Unfinished Tasks: Chapter 9

AO3 Link!

Chapter 1 Link!, Chapter 2 Link!, Chapter 3 Link!, Chapter 4 Link!, Chapter 5 Link! Chapter 6 Link! Chapter 7 Link! Chapter 8 Link!

Summary: As their time in the Calabash continues, the trio is face with three very different kinds of scenarios. Some simple, some subtle, all personal. Outside, the elders come to a realization and start to plan.

Warnings: Re-living emotional and physical abuse, psychological torment, panic attacks, blood and injury descriptions.

Author’s note: ... so it’s been... 3 weeks since I last updated this fic. Being honest, I wasn’t happy with what I had already written after re-reading it. I decided to take a week to let what I had left sit and come back to edit again, and then I realized I HATED what I wrote. So I took a second week off updating and completely rewrote everything I had in the fic so far, including this chapter. I think part of the problem was that, at the time I wrote these chapters a couple months ago, we didn’t have the special and the way I wrote the characters when the situation gets heavier felt off to me. Hopefully I have fixed this!

Chapter 9: Mix and Match

Another blink, another move, and Red Son was at the counter of his food stand that he opened for the Lunar New Year festival. Watching as potential customers passed by and looked over their options, still at the festival stall, still at the Lunar New Year festival where...

He blinked again and there was a flash of red and green flames burning in tandem, wrapped around each other and swirling around a figure clad in golden light.

When his eyes opened the visage was gone, not replaced by another change of scenery but back to same view of the festival he had seen before he closed his eyes. Another blink, and time seemed to have moved forward. There was a man standing before him and yelling and grabbing his frock and oh. He remembered this.

“Look, I wanna speak to the manager.”

It was different this time. Red hadn’t blinked, but it was like the world glitched around him in a strange kaleidoscope not unlike a broken computer monitor that made his eyes ache and skipped forward in time. Like someone was pressing the skip button on an online video and jumped over his own response. He watched as the man (was it the same man from the shoe store? he looked like him but he had only ever seen him once before so he couldn’t be sure) ran off after seeing his father, screaming into the crowd and drawing more than a few confused and concerned looks.

A skip. “Great!?” His father yelled with a growl. “I am the Demon Bull King! What would you have me be? The King of Street Food!?”

Red Son opened his mouth and there was another skip, he was right next to his father’s face when he growled at him. He’d made the mistake of mentioning the White Bone Spirit at that time, he remembered. His father had been growing more and more frustrated at this arrangement as the day had gone on and looking back on it now this was possibly the tipping point that made his father snap.

Why had he brought her up in the first place?

Another skip and Red’s head started to feel light, like he was on the verge of feeling like he would pass out but wasn’t quite there yet, and his father slammed his hands into the countertop. “Enough! I may have failed as a conqueror, but I will not be made a fool!”

Once again Red Son opened his mouth to speak and the world glitched again and he was being pulled from the food stall in the hand of his father now changed into his full size, grip almost too tight in his frustration but not tight enough to hurt him. Not physically, anyway. But Red couldn’t help feeling his chest tighten and grow cold despite the warmth that lived under his skin. He knew this was just the Calabash, knew this wasn’t really happening.

But he still knew what was to come. And regret filled his heart like ice water.

“We are going to have a talk, you and I.”

MK looked down at his hand, the one that had slammed into the Monkey King’s face still clenched into a fist both shaking and numb, and felt his breathing speed up more and more and his head hurt. His head felt like a steel vice was gripping it and yet like it was empty and too light at the same time, his vision blurred and he distantly heard the familiar voice of his mentor asking him if he was ok and no no he wasn’t ok he was dying.

Except he wasn’t dying, he knew that. He’d experienced this before, many times. A panic attack. He’d be fine, just needed some time to-

“Kid?”

That wasn’t Sun Wukong’s voice anymore.

MK raised his head and his eyes widened at the change in scenery. He was in Pigsy’s Noodles, not on a cliff side after training, and Pigsy had just come back from buying... something, he couldn’t remember what.

But what he did remember were the two people he had just taken his eyes off of.

“Look at us when we’re talking to you, brat!” A woman’s voice, one he hadn’t heard in person in almost two years, rang out before a hand reached out and grabbed a sizeable chunk of his hair and yanked his line of sight back to her.

“Hey, get your hands off my employee!” Pigsy yelled out, dropping whatever he had purchased to rush to MK’s side and grab the woman’s hand and pull it back flush with his head to keep her from pulling his hair out. “Who the hell do you think you are!?”

“Who do you think?” a voice that should have been less familiar now than it was.

His mother was gone. Where his father should have been stood Pigsy, no longer holding the hand in his hair but looking at him in disappointment with a shake of his head. MK looked up and...

Sun Wukong looked down at him with disdain. A look that he hadn’t even given to the Six-Eared Macaque when hey fought, one of pure malice and hatred and his hand went to yank his hair harder before the hand holding his own gripped claws of some kind into his wrist to force him to let go.

“You ungrateful little brat, why did I ever give you a chance to be my successor!” The Monkey King hissed and this wasn’t him this wasn’t his mentor this was not Sun Wukong MK repeated to himself as he felt his chest grow tighter again and he clenched his teeth with a scowl.

He turned behind him and where Pigsy should have been standing behind him, the one to catch him as he stumbled backward, stood someone else. Blurred in computer glitches and shaped with long robes and large ears and a fluffy tail and he could see that the shape of the person was smiling softly. Too softly.

The scenery had changed back to the cliff side and suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder and MK jumped and whirled around and saw the once again kind face of Sun Wukong. Marred in worry and fear and confusion. MK flinched back without meaning to.

“Bud? MK? What’s going on?”

Nothing had happened since Mei arrived at the festival. Absolutely nothing.

After what happened not even a few minutes ago the dragon was on edge, looking over her shoulder at every movement. She kept her hands in her pockets now, not wanting to look at them. When she did she saw red, a red no one else seemed to be able to see on her, blood from the MK that she had sliced open. It marked her, not only her hands but her clothes and face where it had splattered on her.

She didn’t dare look at her sword.

Logically she knew that it wasn’t real, the Calabash was tricking her senses as best it could. But it felt real, it felt like she had truly killed her best friend on accident and his blood was on her like a warning for others to stay away.

No one did, though. They acted like she wasn’t covered in the evidence of a murder. Maybe that was an error or maybe that was the intent. To make her feel like she was slowly going to fear everyone learning her secret. A secret that wasn’t real. Lucky for Mei she had plenty of experience pretending that everything was alright and moving forward with a smile. More than enough experience.

Something far worse was coming for her though. She could feel it. After what Princess Jade Face had said to her? This couldn’t possibly be the plan by itself.

“You’re acting weird,” Pigsy said beside Sandy and looking up at her on large demon’s shoulder as they watched the parade procession. “You’re quieter than usual.”

“Just thinking about stuff,” she answered with a shrug, easy as saying the sky was blue. It wasn’t a lie, she was thinking about stuff. Just not what the real Pigsy would have expected, or even a construct Pigsy.

“Huh...” the construct Pigsy said with a shrug, turning back to the parade. It was odd though... He hadn’t once mentioned MK like he had during the real festiv- “MK would have liked to see this.” Calabash. Reading her mind. Of course. “I miss the kid...”

So that was the angle Jade Face was playing with right now. Something simple. Something easy. The calm before the storm.

“Yeah, he would have,” Mei sad softly, not looking at the blood still running down her shirt. She watched as a ghost of a wound opened on Pigsy’s back over his clothing, like a preview image of what was to come, choosing to ignore how it looked suspiciously like her sword. Choosing to ignore how the blood seeped over his back and dissipated before hitting the ground and how she could see bits of bone and viscera she should not know the look of in person.

She ignored.

“You bastard,” Sun Wukong said with a hiss in his voice, baring his teeth at the Demon Bull King. “You- how could you have possibly thought that was a good idea!? In what universe would that have been the way to make him listen to you!?”

For his part, the Demon Bull King actually looked at least somewhat ashamed. Despite being larger than all of them put together the disapproving glares of Sun Wukong, Tang, Pigsy, Sandy, and even Mo seemed to do their jobs well enough.

“I make no excuse for my words or actions that day,” he said firmly, standing straight with a shake of his head. “But do not doubt that I have regretted and wished to undo them every day since-”

“Since what?” Pigsy snapped, beating Wukong himself to the punch. “Since you said them? Or since he told you to fuck off?”

“Pigsy!” Tang whispered out loudly behind him, grabbing his shoulder and moving his disproving gaze from DBK to give the other man one of worry.

“No, it’s gotta be asked Tang,” Pigsy responded, glower not moving from the larger demon. He didn’t back down, gritting his teeth with a growl of his own building in his throat for them all to hear. “Answer me you-”

“Since he told us to leave him,” DBK answered, his honesty in his tone surprising the pig demon. His face was angry, but Pigsy could tell it wasn’t entirely at him. There was anger at himself there. “Again, I made no excuses. I was blinded by power and anger before and it took much more than it should have for us, both myself and my wife, to realize what we had done. That does not change that it happened.”

“... that’s why you let him stay,” Wukong said after a moment of silence between them. “That’s why you’ve been trying to convince him to come back and why you...” He scowled more, shaking his head with a conflicted look of anger and sorrow on his face. “You’re actually trying to make it up to him somehow.”

“Poorly,” DBK also admitted in shocking honesty, sighing before he rotated his shoulders and morphed in front of them. Shrinking down to a more reasonable side, not that much taller than Sandy. “I know I have made mistakes and this alone won’t set things right, but I do care about my son.” He said ‘son’ like it was the most odd word to say, like he hadn’t said it in a long time but he finally understood what it meant. After what he had told them, it made sense. “We will help you find him, and you have my word that should he chose to return to your side we will not stop him.”

“But you won’t stop trying to convince him to give you another chance, will you?” Wukong asked, looking up at DBK. His face was neutral once again, businesslike. Testing the waters.

“No, I won’t,” DBK admitted something for the third time, nodding his head. He was serious.

Wukong turned back to the rest of his companions, three of them looking at Pigsy instead of Wukong. The two once-brother in arms looked at each other. One middle brother and one eldest. Wukong nodded to Pigsy, a silent acquiescence.

‘It’s your decision now’ the nod seemed to say.

Pigsy waited a moment, weighing his options. This had only made his disdain for the Demon Bull Family grow more... but his kids were still in danger. What was worse? Working with someone he hated to help the people he cared about? Or pushing aside help they may desperately need due to that hate?

“... Fine. But you are going to give us everything we need.”

“That can certainly be arranged,” Princess Iron Fan’s voice rang through the room, entering the room with a veritable army of Bull Clones carrying everything from tech to tables and chairs in behind her. “Where shall we begin?”

#monkie kid #lego monkie kid #gen fic #whump fic #hurt comfort #sfaut #smoke flasks and unfinished tasks #fanfic

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hunnybadgerv · 3 years

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The First Try | Mass Effect | Guardians in the Darkness

Summary: Not much more to say except read the author’s notes. Nyx snatches Kaidan’s senses to try something new and distracting.

a/n: A Smut Fic Prompt from @painterofhorizons for Nyx Shepard and Kaidan Alenko. They asked for E. Kinky 4. Sensory Deprivation. I thought about this way too much and I decided that maybe this might end up with a pair of experiences or maybe even stories, but I’ll have to see. Since I always wrote Kaidan as a very visual lover, and a bit of a voyeur, I can only imagine this could be difficult for him. But then I also started thinking about how Shepard might react, especially given the circumstances of Alchera and their demise—that, however, is not included in this piece because it has expanded into its own story.

Read the entire fic on AO3

Under the cut because it jumps right in.

The First Try

-1-

Dim lights cast the room in a warm orange-yellow hue. The fish tank filters hummed their low comforting sound, which was only broken by the wet smack of lips and desperate gasps for breath. The occasional rumbling growl of wantonness of the smooth surfaces of the bulkhead. Nyx Shepard slipped her hand into Kaidan’s and used that grip and a bit of leverage from the thigh against his hip to flip them over and get her lover beneath her.

“Kaidan,” she purred, leaning down to kiss him before he could answer her.

He just hummed against her mouth, both his hands going to her ass to pull her hips more firmly against his as he pressed his erection against her.

She managed to get hold of hands again and pressed them into the mattress above his head as she loomed over him. Her blonde hair cascaded around them as he smirked up at her. He lifted his hips under her as if to prove he didn’t need his hands to excite her. This, however, was a fact that Nyx would never question, hell, sometimes him just dropping his voice by a handful of notes could take her apart and set them on an erotic excursion.

“If you don’t cooperate, this is not going to work,” she lectured with a bright laugh.

“This was your idea,” he countered, lifting his head off the mattress to try and steal another kiss.

Of course, Nyx met him halfway, because how could she not? He sucked on her bottom lip as he leaned back once more, adding a quick nip before she could escape completely. Clearly, he was not going to make this easy for her, even though he’d eagerly agreed when she suggested it. She shifted his hands until they were both above his head, so that she could get the soft restraints on him. He bent upwards once more, this time sucking her nipple into his hot mouth.

Nyx froze there, her eyes slipping closed as she hissed and arched into him. With a soft hum, she savored the rough sensation of his tongue and the careful scrape of teeth against tender flesh. “Fuck,” she breathed, leaning heavily against his wrists. She was loathe to pull away, to steal his fun, break his attention. “Could you behave?”

A lurid pop sounded through the room once he released her. “Not with your breasts in my face,” he teased, leaning up to pepper her blushing decolletage with lingering tender kisses.

She did her best to ignore him; Kaidan did not make that easy at all. But she just needed to reach the bedside table is all. If I can just, she thought as she held his hands in one of hers and stretched over him. His mouth latched onto the underside of her breast, sucking downright hard this time. There was no way it wouldn’t leave a mark, a deep purple bruise formed quickly and pulsed under his tongue.

Struggling with his hands and her own breathing, it took longer than it should have to get the Velcro ties around his wrists. When she shifted again, to try and attach the anchor to the frame of the bed, Kaidan wriggled beneath her. The fact that he hadn’t gotten her out of her pants yet was the only thing that kept Nyx from falling apart completely when he pressed his face between her thighs without the least trace of hesitation of shame.

Deciding to tease him, she slipped her fingers into his hair and rocked her hips. The greedy groan that rose from his chest sent a shiver along her spine. When she rolled away from him, Kaidan yanked at the restraints she’d gotten on him. Nyx giggled in victory; her hand trailed down his bare chest.

“Never hated pants so much in my entire life,” Kaidan told her. The fire in his amber eyes took her breath away.

Nyx draped herself along his side, pressing her bare chest against his warm skin. “That sentiment doesn’t carry the weight it used to, mo chuisle. Not when you say that all the time.” She pressed a kiss against his lips.

A pensive look crossed his features. “Then perhaps you should just stop wearing pants altogether. It’d solve so many issues.”

Nyx didn’t fight the laughter. “That an order, Major?” Again, she didn’t give him a real chance to answer before kissing him. Her mouth lingered on his; their tongues teasing and tasting each other with decadent sensuality. She loved kissing him, holding him tight, and focusing every ounce of her attention just on him. In some ways it was almost meditative, losing herself in this, in him.

He hummed when the tip of her nose brushed against his. “Would you listen if it was?”

“Probably not. My command, so I still out rank you.” She kissed him softly again. “You ready?” she asked sweetly as she pressed another kiss to his cheek.

“You know this is going to be murder for me?”

Nyx brushed her fingers along his hairline. “If it gets to be too much, just tell me. And, I like I promised, we’ll go slow.”

“Watching you is at least half the fun,” he argued.

“And as much as you’ve seen,” she teased grabbing the blackout blindfold from the nightstand, “you’ll have plenty of fodder for that brilliant imagination of yours to make up the difference.”

Leaning against him, she slipped the covering onto his forehead, where she left it. Soft, chaste kisses deepened, and by the time she broke that connection, she’d inched the mask down over his eyes. Now, whether he opened them or left them closed, Kaidan would be trapped in complete and total darkness. There was one of his senses he wouldn’t lose entirely, though it was being thrown off by the spiced candles in the room. The earthy fruity scent that wafted around them bore a strong resemblance to red wine—one of their favorites.

The commander pressed a kiss against his chin, then to the center of his throat. She felt the motion of him swallowing beneath her lips, and she couldn’t resist opening her mouth to taste that divine Adam’s apple. It earned her another healthy groan.

“How’s that imagination working for you, Major?”

“Little spotty at the moment, Commander. Think you could dial it in for me?”

She grinned against the center of his chest. “Any suggestions?” she asked. Her lips teasing across the bare plane of his bare chest in a seemingly random pattern.

“Oh, you seem to be heading toward the neighborhood,” he teased with a smirk.

“You always do enjoy that, don’t you?” she breathed against his skin. She dragged her nails down the tops of his thighs, over the thick fabric of his duty uniform trousers.

Kaidan just sighed, the shakiness of it only encouraging her.

“My hands on your hips,” she whispered against his skin between wet kisses. “Grabbing your ass.” She drew her nails over his ribs, savoring the tremble in his body. “Pulling you deeper into my mouth,” she teased. Her kisses and sharp little bites skimmed his waistband. She move her hands and gripped the tops of his thighs, pressing him against the bed.

“Fuck, Nyx,” he crooned when she flicked the tip of her tongue against his navel.

One hand inched upward, pressing against the front of his hip, but purposefully avoiding the bulge straining against the fabric. No need to rile him up too much before she wanted him on the brink of losing control. With another warm kiss pressed against his tummy, she knelt between his legs. With a light touch, using just her fingertips, Nyx pried open his belt and managed to manipulate the fabric in such away as to avoid putting any undue pressure or friction against his cock.

With a growl he lurched forward as if to sit up and intervene, but his motion halted sharply and he fell back against the pillows as the restraints clanged against the frame of the bed. “Damnit,” he muttered, remembering that practice was over and it wasn’t just his willpower keeping his dexterous hands out of the game.

“Forget?” she asked, her breath caressing his skin.

“Not exactly,” he grumbled.

“Lift up.”

Kaidan hissed when Nyx scratched her nails along his backside as she inched his trousers and boxers down together. Drawing her index fingers over the side of his hips, she plucked his underwear up and over his thick erection.

She bit her bottom lip as she slipped off the edge of the bed and yanked his remaining clothing off. Her hands pushed his legs apart a bit roughly. Her lover chuckled. With a light touch, her fingers traced over his thighs before disappearing altogether. He’d hear her movement—the rustle of fabric, the soft tap of her boots on the floor as she walked. The bed sank to his right as she perched near his arms.

“You look amazing,” she whispered as she leaned over to undo her boots. “All stretched out in my bed.”

“You just like seeing me naked.”

Nyx hummed and pressed her hand across the muscular plane of his chest. “Yeah, I do,” she agreed, leaning over and kissing his lips.

Kaidan dove into it, stretching toward her and pressing his tongue past her lips. Shepard sucked at it greedily, a tease at what she had planned for him. He groaned as she pulled away, still tugging at the thick muscle.

“I know you can get those boots off faster,” he stated. Impatience laced the wantonness of his lowered voice. She liked that register—the fuck me register.

“Thought you liked when I took my time?”

Kaidan grinned wide and mischievous. “I do. When I can watch,” he clarified. “Right now, I think you’re doing it just to drive me insane.”

Her fingertip traced the pulse racing along his jugular. “I thought maybe you’d be thinking about it. The slow slip of buttons through fabric. Dark fabric shifting apart, baring skin burning with heat and blushed with wanton frenzy.” Nyx let one boot drop with a heavy resounding thud.

“Fuck.” The whisper escaped his parted lips on a ragged breath.

Shifting her weight, she worked at the other. “The careful deliberate reveal of bare skin in dire need of your touch.” His hands yanked again at the restraints, testing them. Her other boot echoed off the floor when she pushed it off.

He turned his head toward her voice. “Nyx,” he growled when she shifted off the edge of the bed again.

She said nothing, barely moved, leaving him in relative silence.

“Where’d you go?”

“Nowhere,” she assured him. “I’m just enjoying the view.” It was true. He was gorgeous. His neck and chest glowed with a heated flush. The muscles in his arms flexed almost regularly whenever he tugged at the restraints, which he now gripped like a kind of lifeline. Even his hips strained. His cock twitching against his belly as if every inch of him couldn’t help but beg for more.

Kaidan growled when her observation continued.

Nyx decided to give him a bit of a reprieve, leaning onto the bed again. “If you want music, just say so. But I figured we could start with just the noise canceling,” she explained. All he’d be able to hear then would be the sound of his own breathing, his own voice as she shredded his control. Maybe his own heartbeat racing in his ears.

“Ready?”

He flinched, then instantly relaxed when she brushed the backs of her fingers over the line of his jaw. His head turned toward her touch. “And if I say no?”

“Then we wait until you are.” Nyx brushed her fingers through his hair and dotted his forehead with gentle kisses. “Do you need more time?”

His head lifted slightly, and she pressed her kisses more firmly over his brow. Kaidan took a deep breath then shook his head. “No, I think I’m good. Just want to fucking touch you.” The movement of his hands resulted in another demonstrative rattle. “Or have you touch me,” he added with a chuckle.

Nyx compensated for his lack of touch, and caressed his cheek tenderly as she smiled at him. “I love you. And remember, if it’s too much … just tell me. Say something. You remember the word, right?”

“Yeah. I do. I will,” Kaidan replied. He tipped his head toward the sound of her voice, and Nyx pressed her mouth to his. With considerable care, she set the little devices into his ears.

-2-

The world shrank even further when the sound of her breathing and her voice disappeared. For the moment, he could feel her lips on his, could still sense her presence. But when the kiss ended, he felt suddenly and strangely alone. A little bit vulnerable. He turned his head toward the side of the bed she’d been on, then finally stared straight ahead.

Damn, these things are effective, he found himself wondering. No matter what direction he looked in he couldn’t even find a sliver of light. And the only thing he could hear was his own breathing, it sounded so damn loud. He knew he wouldn’t see anything coming, wouldn’t hear where she was, what she might be doing or planning … or enjoying. He clinched his jaw at that realization.

It was hard to imagine not hearing her. In fact, he rather disliked it when she muffled her reactions to him, even when it was necessary. His mind wandered to that time he’d cornered her in the cargo bay. Dared her to not make a sound. A rumble flowed through his chest at the thought of it.

In the next moment he was painfully aware that the only he could feel anywhere was the shift of the air in the room. He blinked a few times, tipping his head slightly. It couldn’t be as long as it felt, he knew, because his groin still ached, but it felt like it had been forever since she’d put in the earbuds.

“How long are you going to just leave me here?” he asked.

His position wasn’t new by any stretch of the imagination. Kaidan Alenko had been draped naked across Shepard’s bed before. He’d even been tied to that very same and other pieces of furniture in that room, but this was different. Even knowing it was futile, his keen eyes darted back and forth still searching for the slightest sliver of light, his ears strained for even a trace of a sound beyond his own breath. He still found neither.

It was strange. He knew she still had to be there. She wouldn’t just leave him like that.

When a soft touch grazed the inside of his knee, Kaidan jolted and whimpered in surprise. It wasn’t a sound he expected, but then again the touch seemed to come out of nowhere. It happened again, brushing across his pectoral. The muscle in his chest tightened and jumped in response.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about all this yet. Nyx was still playing with him, teasing him, taunting him. Kaidan wasn’t sure if he wanted more or wanted it to end so he could see her, watch her or hear her, at the very least.

Soft touches danced over his body, and like she’d teased, his imagination took over quite easily in the absence of sight and sound. The next time that ethereal tickle brushed over his ribs, he groaned and imagined her leaning over him and tilting her head to let the ends of her hair graze his stomach. He was almost certain that was what caused that particular sensation.

Her lips grazed his nipple and he could swear he knew exactly the look she was probably giving him. The fire in her blue eyes and that wicked little smirk she saved just for him.

She kept it up. Little surprise touches and kisses here and there. Sure, his imagination was now completely dialed into this whole endeavor, but he wanted more.

“Touch me,” he said, his words echoing in his skull. “For real, no more teasing.” He swallowed and added a wanton but polite, “Please.”

Her palm felt like fire against his skin as it pressed up the side of his ribs. He could only groan as he pushed into that touch. Then there was the tickle again, paired with damp kisses. He hissed when she playfully bit his nipple, groaning again when her whole tongue lathed over it as if in apology for the slight. His hands shot forward again; he wanted to bury them in her hair. Then he could guide her lips up to his, so he could kiss the breath out of her. A growl at the futility of his movement hung in his throat, and he wrapped his hands tighter in the straps for something else to hold on to.

Kaidan lay there, letting her touch him in all the places she chose, though none of them were the place he wanted to feel her most. He loved every caress, writhed beneath every kiss, but she’d planted the seed in his head. The promise of one of those sights he never got enough of. Hell, any time her hands ghosted over his hips and onto his thighs, he could see it. Blue eyes cast up at him, lips parted with shaky breath, that determined look in her eye that let him know he would fall apart at the whim of her tongue.

“Nyx,” he hissed and pressed his hips upward. She hadn’t even touched his cock yet, but he was aching for it.

With the bite on the inside of his thigh, Kaidan cried out. His entire bodied tightened painfully when the back of her hand grazed his testicles—or at least that was his guess at how she’d touched him. He could just be pulling at strands of memories from other times she’d teased him to excess.

His cock strained for her attention. She ignored it. Kaidan felt like his skin was going to crack open at any moment.

“Nyx,” he gasped breathlessly. “I don’t know if I can take much—” his admission fell apart on a guttural shriek that echoed inside his skull. Kaidan pressed his body back against the mattress with all his strength and he could fell the tingle and crackle racing along his skin with raised goosebumps. She’d just … he couldn’t even think about it in the moment. Stars dazzled behind his eyelids and his body shifted with her as she eased him deeper into her mouth.

“Fuck,” he groaned, grabbing onto the restraints a little higher, not to fight them but to anchor himself. He could only feel what she allowed him to. Eventually his imagination gave up trying to picture it; he couldn’t focus. He was awash in a sea of sensation. His stomach tightened, then his groin. His incoherent voice echoed inside head, while his nerves sang. Her nails skimmed his hips, her hair tickling his skin, while her mouth did things he could not even guess at.

“Damnit, Nyx,” he gritted out, yanking again at his binds. “I’m close. Fuck.”

She didn’t stop. Not that he ever expected that she would. In fact, she upped the ante and pressed her fingers to that spot behind his balls. A low groan reverberated in his ears. Even when he warned her, and despite the fact that he could not keep his hips under control, he knew there was no chance she’d pull away. She always guided him over the edge.

“Oh, shit. Nyx,” he crooned, thrusting upward as sparks and static danced across his skin as he came.

His short panting breaths echoed in his clear mind. Every inch of him felt relaxed, if slightly sore from the tension that had built up. He just laid there, his skin chilling from the combination of sweat and the cool air. Eventually his breathing evened and the tension in his shoulders eased. He had no idea how long she’d had him cut off from the world, but as he lay there gasping for breath he was sure it had to have been hours. It felt like it.

Then she returned, inching up along his body and trailing soft kisses across his chest. Her bare leg brushed against his and he grinned. A soft groan lodged in his throat.

“I hope those fucking pants are gone,” he said with a tired laugh, already knowing the answer.

The tip of her nose grazed the line of his sternum in what he took to be an affirmative nod. He groaned, his mind flashing back her trying to lash him to the bed.

“Then I think you need to come closer.” Her lips grazed his and they kissed deeply. “Closer,” he whispered against her mouth. Her body eased against his, making him hum in approval. “No, not yet,” he said when her fingers curled through the hair near his ears.

He stole another kiss, trying to be as convincing as he could be with so few cues to her reactions. “I want to taste you.”

She pushed herself up, one hand in the center of his chest. He could almost imagine that adorable wrinkle of her nose that almost always accompanied his request for her to sit on his face. “I didn’t say it the way you hate,” he argued. “And I can’t see. Can’t hear. Can’t even touch you. Mostly,” Kaidan conceded, licking his lips.

Nyx hadn’t left the bed, maybe she was considering it. Maybe she was talking to him, arguing about why she was not going to straddle his face. He couldn’t hear any of it, if that was what was happening. He just held out hope. Maybe she’ll give in this time.

The kiss she planted on his mouth was gentle and soft. So, when he felt her hands in his hair and her weight shift on the mattress, he didn’t dare move. He waited with unraveling patience. Kaidan growled in appreciation when her leg slipped under his shoulder. “Oh, fuck,” he exhaled against her inner thigh. He didn’t wait for her to settle over him. No, he couldn’t wait; Kaidan lunged forward. This time when he buried his face in the apex of her thighs, he pressed his tongue through her folds and sucked her clit into his mouth.

Again, he found he didn’t need to see or even imagine her above him. And as hot as it would have been to stare up into those brilliant blue eyes when she shuddered to pieces on his tongue, he still knew when it happened. Felt every quiver in her body, tasted the tang of her on his tongue, sensed the release in her tight, muscled body even as she knelt over him and tightened her fingers in his hair to the point that his scalp prickled from a thousand points of pain as she held onto him.

Feeling her relax, her hand covered one of his. Loosening his grip, his fingers threaded with hers. She squeezed his hand then he felt the bed move with the shifting of her weight. Another squeeze of her hand and her fingers slipped out of his.

-3-

Shepard released his hands, returned his hearing, and slipped the blindfold up onto his forehead. Kaidan didn’t open his eyes at first. Leaning over him, she brushed her fingertips over his brow and waited. When he finally did open them, blinking and squinting at her in the low light, Nyx held her hand against his brow to shield him from the dim lamp on the nightstand. She didn’t say anything, but waited for him

“Okay,” he admitted with a slow swallow. “You might be onto something with that.”

Nyx chuckled and pressed a kiss against his shoulder as Kaidan draped one of his arms around her. “Glad you enjoyed yourself.”

“I did. I’m exhausted,” he admitted as he savored her comforting touch. Her hands squeezed at the arm by his side, massaging at the muscle to relieve any soreness that might crop up.

“Did your imagination take over?”

“No, actually. You were driving me insane. I couldn’t keep a straight thought in my head for more than a second or two,” he admitted with a quiet laugh. Kaidan grabbed her and rolled toward her, pulling her beneath him. He wriggled just enough to settle himself between her legs as he leaned over her on his elbows.

Nyx grinned up at him, perfectly contented with the change. “The way you reacted,” she teased.

Kaidan kissed her hard. “Yeah, well. We’ll see how you react when I spend hours teasing every inch of you.”

“Hours?” she countered. Nyx giggled when he buried his face in her neck to tease at the thin sensitive skin over her jugular.

“Yeah, even you, with your iron will, would be coming apart at the seems,” he mumbled.

“That was only like twenty minutes, Kaidan.”

His head popped up like a meerkat checking for predators. “What?”

Her fingers traced down the length of his back as she nodded. “Check the clock. We haven’t even been up here an hour yet.”

Kaidan peeked at the end table, a sly grin curving his lips before he looked back down at her. “Good to know,” he growled at her, inching toward her again. “Then I don’t have to feel the least bit bad about not being ready to sleep.”

He shifted his hips against her and Nyx broke into a fit of laughter when he nipped at her collarbone. She draped her legs around him, steering his lips back to hers as his amorous attentions ramped back up again.

“Sleep’s for the weak,” she cackled when he retreated to her neck again.

#Mass Effect Fanfiction #Mass Effect #Kaidan Alenko #Nyx Shepard #Shenko #Badger Scribbles #Smut Prompts #Fluff and Smut #painterofhorizons #Prompt Fills #Guardians in the Darkness

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darriness · 3 years

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Klaine Fic - You’ll Always Be The Home - Chapter 1

Author: darriness

Fic Summary: Everything is finally settled in Kurt and Blaine's life...right?

Rating: T

Link to: Prologue

Chapter Word Count: 3172

Chapter Summary: A wedding.

Author’s Note: Thank you to everyone who liked, reblogged, or just read the prologue to this. Here’s chapter 1! As always thank you to my amazing beta @darrenismydarcy

AO3 Link

Four years is a long time. A lot can happen in four years. A lot can change. In one four year span for example, Kurt and Blaine met, became friends, became boyfriends, graduated high school, broke up, and got back together again.

In the four years since their reunion, Blaine and Kurt have moved in together, graduated college, gotten engaged, started careers, and planned a wedding.

But if you ask Kurt and Blaine? The past four years have felt like both a lifetime and a milli-second in equal measure.

Blaine adjusts his cuffs and fidgets with his lapels as he stands behind the rows of chairs in front of him. Before he can once again reach for his lapels, his hand is grabbed and he turns to smile sheepishly at Bethany.

“Sorry.” He mumbles.

Bethany smirks and squeezes the hand she has in her own, “You’re adorable.” Her eyes soften as Blaine’s eyes flit around the room, “I am so happy for you...you know that right?”

Blaine’s eyes train back on his little sister and he smiles, “I do know that.” He says, softly, squeezing her hand in return.

*Four Years Ago*

“Can I paint my room any colour I want?” Bethany asks as Blaine fumbles for with the keys in the lock.

“Hmm?” Blaine hums distracted as he tries not to drop the bags in his hands.

“I said, can I paint my room any colour I want?” Bethany repeats.

“Oh uh, I don’t know. We’ll have to ask Kurt, I guess.” Blaine responds, finally getting the key in the lock and opening the door to the small apartment for only the second time. He hasn’t been back since he and Kurt got back together and now he and Bethany are going to be living here.

Bethany sighs as she pushes past Blaine in the unrefined way of a 12-year-old who wants to be the first one in, “We live here now. Can’t you make the decision? Or are we going to have to ask Kurt for everything now?”

Blaine sighs as he drops the bags he’s been carrying just inside the door. The apartment is empty, Kurt is at class. The pair had decided it might be easier to move in when Kurt wasn’t home.

“Just…” He doesn’t know how to answer. He’s never lived with anyone beside his family which means he’s never moved into someone else’s house. He’s not sure what the ‘rules’ are, or even if there are any.

Bethany rolls her eyes and flops down on the couch, letting the backpack she had been carrying fall on the ground next to her, “You said this would be a good thing for us.” She says with a raised eyebrow.

“It is.” Blaine says with a surety he doesn’t really feel. He knows Bethany was fine with moving and happy that Kurt was back in their lives but she’s also twelve...who knows if this really makes her happy.

*Present Day*

Music starts to play and Blaine takes a deep breath as he realizes that’s his and Bethany’s cue to walk down the aisle. He feels Bethany shake his hand in hers and he looks over at her with a smile. She smiles back at him before the pair begin to slowly make their way down the aisle.

He tries not to look over the crowd but can’t help but cast his gaze quickly over the faces. Friends and family all with beaming faces but unlike the former that is a mixture of friends they have as a couple and separately, the latter is all Kurt’s. Blaine threads Bethany’s arm more tightly in his own and keeps walking with a polite smile on his face.

When he and Bethany are finally at the altar he lets go of her hand and takes his place in front of the officiant as she takes hers just behind him as his ‘best woman’. He reaches to fidget with his suit jacket one more time as the music changes to signal it’s Kurt’s turn to make the walk he and Bethany just made.

He turns, like the audience in front of him does, to look at the back of the room and takes a deep breath when he sees Kurt standing arm in arm with his father. He feels Bethany nudge him in the back and he would turn to look at her if he wasn’t so transfixed. He has a feeling she would be beaming at him and maybe winking, anyway.

*Three Years Ago*

Blaine gets home from class with a tired but happy sigh. He loves New York, he loves school, he loves everything about his life right now.

“Bethany I said no!” He hears Kurt say from the direction of the kitchen and pouts his lips thoughtfully, pausing as he takes off his scarf.

“You’re not my dad!” Bethany shouts back at Kurt and Blaine hisses in a breath.

There’s quiet for a moment and Blaine is wondering who is going to blow first. Since moving in, Bethany and Kurt’s relationship has changed slightly. They’ve gone from partners in crime, so to speak, to something more resembling father/daughter, or at the very least, caregiver/child. Blaine knows Kurt tries not to act that way but it’s unavoidable when living under the same roof. Blaine isn’t necessarily surprised but there have been times, like the one right now, when he wishes they could go back to the way they were before.

Finally, Bethany lets out an unintelligible growl and stomps off toward her bedroom, not even realizing Blaine is there when she huffs through the living room.

Kurt follows a moment later but at a slower pace and doesn’t appear to want to actually follow her as her bedroom door slams. He sighs when the slam happens and swings his gaze to Blaine - fixing him with a resigned expression.

“She wanted to take the subway, by herself I might add, to a concert in the park.” Kurt recounts.

Blaine’s eyebrows shoot up, “Well, thank you for saying no.”

Now Kurt’s glance is slightly withering, “Of course I said no.” He says before sighing and looking back at Bethany’s door, “I honestly never imagined I’d be a parental figure to a teenager in my early 20s.”

It sounds more like he’s saying it to himself than Blaine but Blaine’s stomach still clenches with anxiety, “I’m so sorry, Kurt. I’ll talk to her.” He swallows thickly.

Kurt does a double take before he seems to realize what he said and he moves quickly to Blaine’s side and puts his arms around his waist and his forehead to his temple, “Hey, no. That’s not what I meant.” He says before sighing, “Just because I didn’t think my life would be this way doesn’t mean I don’t love it.” It’s Blaine’s turn to give Kurt a withering glance. Kurt shakes his arms around Blaine, “I’m serious! In a few minutes I’m going to go in there and talk with Annie and everything will be fine. Just because she and I fight now doesn’t mean I’m not happy with our life.”

The sincerity in Kurt’s voice makes Blaine breathe a little easier.

*Present Day*

When Kurt and his dad finally, after what feels like the longest walk down the aisle ever (definitely longer than Blaine and Bethany’s was), make it to the altar Blaine can barely contain himself. He tries to wait as patiently as possible for Kurt to hug his dad and then take his place in front of Blaine but the wait for that to happen feels almost as long as the walk did.

Finally, FINALLY, Kurt is smiling at Blaine and reaching forward to grab his hands. Blaine feels like he can truly breathe for the first time all day. He is so ready to marry this man.

*One Year Ago*

“Are you sure I can’t film this?” Bethany asks.

Blaine chuckles nervously, “No, you cannot film this! I’m already nervous enough as it is.”

Bethany smirks, “Yeah but don’t you want to remember this for all of eternity? I mean, unless he says no or you get a divorce or…”

“Annie!” Blaine exclaims, making Bethany giggle in a way she doesn’t usually do anymore. Blaine’s learning there are a lot of things 15-year-old girls ‘don’t do anymore’.

“He’s here!” Bethany squeals, pointing over Blaine’s shoulder.

Blaine turns around in his seat to watch Kurt talk to the hostess before getting shown to the table where Blaine and Bethany currently sit. It’s a fancy restaurant where the hostess even pulls out Kurt’s chair for him before he sits down.

“Oh, thanks!” Kurt says with an amused chuckle at the gesture as he takes his seat, “Hey!” Kurt enthuses, reaching forward to grab Blaine’s hand and smiling at Bethany.

“Hey!” Blaine smiles back as Bethany waves.

“So, what’s the special occasion? I mean, not that I don’t love fine dining and a chance to wear one of my fancier outfits…” Kurt asks, looking back and forth between the siblings.

Blaine swallows. He had originally wanted to wait to do this until later in the meal but…

“Kurt,” He starts and he can feel Bethany’s eyes on him. She had also been under the impression this would come later and obviously understands the tone he’s using. Kurt seems to understand something big is coming too because he sits a little straighter and he tilts his head in interest. Blaine swallows one more time, “Kurt, when you came into our lives my only focus was Annie. And while I love her to death and have never for a second regretted becoming her primary caregiver...I wasn’t really living.” Kurt’s eyes have widened in seeming shock but he stays quiet, “And then you came into our lives and...everything got more colourful. You opened my eyes and my heart to a love I don’t think I could ever even imagine and I am so thankful to you for that.”

Blaine sends one more glance at Bethany who is beaming at him and nodding before he takes a deep breath and gets down on one knee. The tables closest to them are looking on but Blaine only has eyes for Kurt - who is currently staring down at him with wide glistening eyes.

“I love you more than words can say, Kurt, and you would make me the happiest man in the world if you would agree to become my husband.” He produces a velvet box from his pocket and opens it to reveal a platinum band with inset diamonds. Kurt gasps, “Kurt, will you marry me?”

Kurt is nodding before he even finishes speaking, “Yes.” He whispers breathlessly.

Kurt pulls Blaine to his feet and into a kiss as the tables closest to them begin to clap. The loudest cheers are, of course, from Bethany, who makes the pair laugh as she whoops and hollers.

*Present Day*

The ceremony is simple and yet perfect. They debated writing their own vows but decided, instead, to go the traditional route; saying ‘traditional’ words in a ‘non-traditional’ situation really appealed to both of them.

It turns out Blaine cries more than Kurt, but Bethany cries more than both of them to the point where Blaine pauses and asks the officiant to wait before turning and hugging Bethany to him for a brief moment. She cries into his shoulder and their photographer captures the moment forever.

When it comes to their first kiss as husbands, Kurt goes off script just a little bit and bends Blaine in a dip to press their lips together. The room cheers around them at the action and the pair come up laughing - Blaine slightly embarrassed but overjoyed, and Kurt exceedingly proud...and also slightly embarrassed.

As they walk back up the aisle hand-in-hand, they smile at their family and friends who are all beaming back at them.

*One Year Ago*

“Kurt, why are we still doing this? You’re already engaged!” Bethany exclaims as she helps Kurt move the coffee table.

Kurt grunts as he shifts the table into its final resting place against the wall and out of the way, “Because I have been planning this for weeks and Blaine deserves to be proposed to.”

Bethany smiles, “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

It was no surprise that Bethany had been in on Blaine’s proposal but she had been surprised and ecstatic when Kurt had come to her the month before to enlist her help in his own proposal. Bethany had to keep both secrets for the month while inside she had been bubbling over with excitement.

Kurt takes a deep breath and looks around one more time, “So...is everything ready?”

Bethany also looks around before looking back at Kurt, “All we did was move the coffee table and put out champagne. You know, for someone as dramatic as you...this proposal is super low key.”

Kurt rolls his eyes, “Because this proposal is for Blaine.”

Bethany pouts her lips like she hadn’t thought of that before nodding, “Okay, that makes sense.”

They hear keys jingling in the hallway and both of them jump. Kurt shoos Bethany toward the door and she goes with a skip, making sure to wink at Kurt first.

She opens the door before Blaine can get his keys in and he looks up in surprise before smiling, “Thanks Annie.” He says.

Bethany rocks back and forth once, trying to contain her smile, before sweeping her arm into the apartment, “Right this way.”

Blaine quirks an eyebrow as he toes off his shoes, chuckling at the formal gesture, “What’s going on?”

“Would you just come?” Bethany asks with an eye roll, hooking her arm into Blaine’s and pulling him along.

When they get to the living room Kurt is standing where the coffee table usually sits. Blaine looks back and forth between the pair, “What’s going on?” He asks again.

“Blaine,” Kurt starts and Bethany unhooks her arm and shoves Blaine forward a little. When Blaine is standing in front of Kurt, Kurt grabs both of his hands in his own and continues, “You have brought so much into my life - love, laughter, joy,...Annie.” He winks at Bethany who is standing just behind Blaine and the teenager giggles softly before quieting, “And I know you already proposed to me and technically we’re already engaged but you deserved a proposal as much as I did.” He takes a deep breath and goes down on one knee. Blaine, inhales sharply and his eyes are already moist with tears, “You are the love of my life, you are my everything, and I would be forever grateful if you agreed to marry me.”

He opens a ring box to reveal a simple platinum band. Blaine stares at it for a long moment, silence ringing in the room before Bethany breaks in, “Would you mind saying yes? Kurt said I could have some champagne after.”

Blaine and Kurt chuckle from their position. Blaine shakes his head and bites his lips together as they quiet before kneeling on the ground in front of Kurt, “I will, of course, marry you.” He whispers before pulling Kurt into a kiss.

There is clapping this time, too, but only from Bethany as the pair pull apart and Kurt slips the ring onto Blaine’s finger. They beam at each other like they are the only two in the room before Bethany coughs behind them.

They chuckle again, “Did you really tell her she could have champagne?” Blaine whispers.

Kurt smirks, “One glass.” He says.

*Present Day*

“Bethany!” Blaine exclaims.

Bethany freezes with her glass halfway to her mouth and gives her brother a sheepish smile, “Uh….Kurt let me?”

Blaine rolls his eyes and holds up his index finger, “One.” He says as Bethany cheers and takes a sip of wine from her glass.

“Please tell me you aren’t going to be trouble with this whole drinking thing.” Blaine asks, leaning against the bar next to her. The reception has been raging for hours now, dinner long since over, and Blaine is slightly alcohol loose, a lot in love loose, and thoroughly enjoying himself.

Bethany rolls her eyes, “I’m not stupid.” She says and Blaine nods, leaving it at that for now.

“Wanna dance?” He asks, gesturing to the dance floor as a slower song plays over the speakers.

Bethany takes another sip of wine and jerks her head behind her, “Go dance with your husband. He told me half an hour ago that he’s sad you guys haven’t been able to dance as much together with all the entertaining and hosting. I’ll finish my wine and cut in later. Maybe after I ask Finn to dance.” She winks at him and Blaine chuckles as he scans the room for Kurt, who is looking at him from across the room where he’s talking to one of his relatives.

They smile at each other before Kurt pleads, wordlessly, with his eyes and Blaine chuckles before kissing Bethany’s cheek and heading over.

“I’m so sorry to interrupt.” He says when he’s close enough and Kurt’s relative coos at him, “I was wondering if I could steal my husband for a dance.”

The relative, who Blaine is sure he’s been introduced to but can’t remember her name to save his life, agrees easily and Blaine leads Kurt to the dance floor. They settle quickly into each other's arms and Kurt sighs in relief, “Thank you.” He breathes as they start to sway, “My Aunt Jenny is lovely if not a little...over the top.”

Blaine chuckles, “Well, that’s my job now. To save you from well meaning but exhausting relatives. It’s in the contract.”

Kurt’s face suddenly goes somber as they continue to sway and Blaine tilts his head slightly, “What’s wrong?”

Kurt sighs, “I just…” He pauses and cups Blaine’s cheek softly. Blaine looks at him curiously, “Are you upset your parents aren’t here? Were you...expecting them to show up?”

Blaine’s eyes widen in surprise slightly before he chuckles, “Well, considering we didn’t invite them, it would be very strange for them to show up now.”

Kurt sighs again, “Blaine…” He starts.

Blaine sobers before sighing himself and looking off to the side slightly. He notices Finn and Bethany dancing and smiles slightly before turning back to Kurt with one scrunched closed eye, “Maybe...part of me was hoping they might actually show up.”

Kurt’s heart breaks a little at the admission even though he’s the one who asked about it and he’d assumed that was going to be the answer. His heart breaks for Blaine who may never fully heal from the trauma of his past.

He puts his hands on either side of Blaine’s neck and leans in to kiss him softly. He can’t magically make everything okay for Blaine, but he can love him and remind him of how loved he really is.

He plans on spending the rest of his life making sure that happens.

#klaine #klaine fanfic #klaine fanfiction #my loves #my stuff #you'll always be the home

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spc4eva · 3 years

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Mandokar: Chapter 1

Summary: The Mandalorians owe a debt. This is to be repaid by taking an Anaxian princess in as a Foundling in the wake of the planet’s destruction. How will she fare being raised Mandalorian?

Word Count: 13,188

Author Notes: OMG I have been planning this for so long, so thank you for any who are willing to ride it out with me and wait for updates because I'm going to be a PITA on editing and making certain that absolutely beautiful chapters come out. I'm going to try and update weekly, but we'll see if I can get the cogs turning and maybe post 2. Doubt it, because I really want the time to edit and putz around with dialogue.

My intentions for this fic are simple - I want a Mandalorian raised OC of my own self-serving elven race that I've made up. HATE ME. DO IT.

Originally, I wanted this to be a fem!OCxPaz, but after much deliberation, decided against it in favor of fem!OC & BigBrother!Paz, because their sibling relationship has given me so much damn life and daydreams. For those hoping this will be smut with a plot, I'M SORRY, but it's not.While there are definitely adult themes much... much.... MUCH later when Sena becomes an adult, that's a long way off and so is any smut since that's not the intention of this fic.

Full intention is to delve, dive, and describe day to day life of the Tribe, growing up as a Mandalorian, and the challenges our little bird will face along the way. This will include Mandalorian slice of life, culture, strife, and angst - but also tons of rewarding drabble and accomplishments.

Armorer will be around and of a similar age to Paz. Whereas, Din will be the same age as Sena. Whether or not I ship them, I haven't decided, because I intend for them to be rivals and the intention isn't to make this a full on romance fic (though I'll not lie and way down the road it might turn into that).We all want a BAMF Mandalorian OC, so here I am gonna gush all over the culture and vomit up tons of content for you to swallow. If ya want it.

Crossposted on AO3

"Your grace."

The morning was chill, much more so than typical for the mid season. Lifting her palm toward the sky, she felt a few drops of dew splatter to her palm, pressing cool kisses to her skin. Cocking her head, her eyes slid back from the balcony toward the servant entreating her. She broke a gentle smile. Today would be a fine day. Faylen wasn't certain why, but she had a good feeling. Birds trilled in the thicket of trees that surrounded the grounds in a verdant embrace, sheltering the beauty of the architecture which had long since been replaced elsewhere in the galaxy. Not here. Genmaris was one of a kind, the beauty of the Anaxian culture still in full swoon. Protected, hidden, secret.

"Yes, Merith?" the girl, only just 13 years old, turned gracefully, the pale ivory skirt of the night shift skimming her calves.

"Your father sends word that we shall be receiving guests today. He requests that you dress accordingly," Merith bowed her hair, dark hairs scattering around her cheeks as she bowed respectively. Like the princess, she had tanned skin and long pointed ears, however she did not share the same golden eyes nor the speckled teardrop marks of the goddess that pressed against the girl's shoulders and latticed down beneath her bodice, twinkling like amber teardrops, visible beneath the thin material of her chemise. Kissed by the goddess - a great honor and blessing.

"Do you know who these guests might be? It's very rare that we receive outsiders," Faylen trotted forward, drawing near the bath as Merith turned on the water. The servant's fingers skimmed the heat, making certain it was not too scalding for the girl's skin as she threw her chemise off and climbed into the copper tub. Drawing her knees up to her chest, more markins slid down against her tummy and against the outside of her legs. On the tops of her feet, the golden teardrops were double lined in the shape of crescent moons toward her toes. So many kisses, so purposefully placed. Few laid eyes on all the girl's markings and aside from her parents, these people had only been servants and a couple of doctors. Rumors floated through the air on wings. Despite not seeing them, many knew of her markings throughout the lands. Most Anaxians were graced with a handful at most, if they were lucky, but the princess had one hundred and twenty two. Skimming her spine, forming another half-moon at the base of her neck, cradling her chest, and trailing down her throat in a purposeful line. The common folk speculated what this meant, foretelling that the princess had a great destiny ahead of her.

"Well..." Merith drawled, uncertain on whether or not to betray the information she'd heard for the sake of it not being true. Yet, when the honey hued irises turned up toward her, she melted like a candle hearted by a raging flame. "I hear they're Mandalorian." Bending down, she began to scrub the girl's warm toned skin with a sponge, careful not to work her markings too hard.

Faylen perked up, her long ears twitching slightly before Merith poured water over her head, plastering her inky hair to her adorable face. The servant chuckled slightly as the girl moved her mop of hair out of her face, peering out like a swamp monster. "Mandalorian?" she repeated curiously. "As in the best warriors in the galaxy?"

"None other, your grace," Merith smiled, beginning to lather the girl's thick hair. Even on this remote planet, the legend of the Mandalorians had reached them. The princess had heard about their prowess, just as anyone else. The corners of the servant's lips remained pinned up as the teenager drew in a doleful breath, fluffed her cheeks out.

"Why? What do we have here that they could want?" Faylen asked.

"I cannot begin to fathom, your grace," Merith admitted calmly, pouring water over her head again, causing the girl to sputter. "Only that there are two of them and your father is entertaining them."

Sinking lower into the water, the child's hair floated on the surface like dark tentacles. She blew bubbles, smelling the minerals and floral soap, sniffling slightly at the pungency. Her father had told her a few stories about Mandalorians and she knew that they were fearless warriors who wore armor of beskar - the strongest iron in the galaxy. T-visor helmets, obscured faces, an ensemble of weapons and gadgets, skill in hand to hand combat, prowess that could rival Jedi. A shiver went down her spine, despite the warmth of the water, wondering what it would be like to meet one. Would they be intimidating? Did they remove their helmets? Would they be gruff or courteous?

"Let's not keep them waiting all day. You wouldn't wish to offend or upset the Mandalorians would you?" Merith scolded as Faylen skulked in her own head, continuing to blow bubbles. Jolting upward, her eyes went big like saucers, wondering if she was being rude with how long she was taking. "C'mon now, your grace." Offering a towel, the girl scampered out of the bath and let Merith swaddle her before fussing with her hair. "So much of it, Maker, so much hair."

Faylen chose a proper dress for guests, spending longer than she ought to. Did Mandalorians even like dresses? Or did they only like armor? Maybe she should wear pants to prove she wasn't just a prissy little princess. Her father had taught her how to shoot a blaster, how to use a dagger, and a little hand to hand combat. Papa had said that people might wish to hurt a princess, so it was important that she could defend herself should the need ever arise. Faylen was still soft though and didn't spend half as much time as she ought to in practicing. Instead, she'd play in the forest, dirty her expensive gowns, and hide in hidden alcoves and glades. Princess Faylen was notorious for eluding guards and making her papa sick with worry. Wasn't her fault that Anaxes had such interesting fauna that she just had to follow. There wasn't even anything outside the palace to worry about, Faylen had long since realized the vipers were amongst the court.

Merith chastised her for taking so long. "We should have been done by now, your grace-" she continued on her tirade of banter, the child drowning her out as the female brushed through her long tangles of inky hair. Not listening, the girl stared in the mirror at the shimmersilk gown of pale blue. The goddess marks on her throat and collar were visible, but the others were hidden beneath the luxurious material. Merith twirled pieces out of her face, leaving the rest loose, keenly aware that Faylen would rip apart any hairstyle too ornate. Lifting a platinum circlet, she placed it on the girl's brow before letting out a low sigh. "Try not to get this one dirty. That'll be the fourth shimmersilk gown you've destroyed this moon."

"I don't try to destroy them," Faylen groused, rolling her eyes at the servant in the mirror. "Last time was definitely not my fault, I swear. Rathas was chasing me through the gardens-" she puffed out her cheeks like a frog. Rathas was a sore topic for her, a blight on her existence, and a hellion pretending to be her friend. Faylen wanted nothing to do with him.

"Don't do that, it's not a very lady-like expression," Merith huffed, shaking her head at the hopeless princess. "And Rathas is likely to be your betrothed one day. You'd do well not to scuttle away from that boy and make friends with him."

Faylen feigned a retching noise, repulsed by the very idea of the boy even glancing in her direction. "Gross! He's so gross! Papa would never make me marry him," she retorted, voice hitching into a plaintive and very high, tinny tone. "He tried to kiss me you know. I punched him in the nose. He was boasting that he fought one of the sabre boars in the forest, but it was really me."

Merith groaned. "Oh my Goddess. That was why-" she rubbed her face, pulling down on her lower lids as she tried to wonder how the king could have such an unruly daughter. His majesty was so well mannered, patient, and benevolent. His daughter could be polite and courteous when necessary, but a little too curious and explorative for her own good. Having never had a proper scolding in her life, she rarely realized that her behavior was inappropriate. The princess wasn't a brat, but there was certainly some work that could be desired for the child's disposition. "You're ready now, your grace. Let's go to the gardens to meet the guests."

Standing up, Faylen took Merith's arm, her heart thumping excitedly in her small chest. Mandalorians. What did their armor look like? What color would it be? Maybe they'd let her touch it, if that was allowed. Leaving behind the wispy elegance of her chambers, she stepped out into the hallway. Genmaris' Castle was constructed of polished wood and elas stone - a pale white marble streaked with veins of gold. The wood panels were tangled with vines, full leaves leaning eagerly toward the passerbyers. Flora was very much a part of their everyday life. It was almost everywhere around the castle, the grounds; in the halls, on the balconies, even in the washrooms; acting as the lifeblood and veins to all of Anaxian life. Drawing a deep breath, Merith released her as she skirted down the wide staircase leading to the fronds of blue grass that hemmed the entrance to the topiary section of the garden.

Sunlight slanted fingers through the trees above them, casting little peeps of warmth. King Ardryll stood in simple regal, a fine emerald doublet chased in golden embroidery, a set of tan trousers, and dark leather boots. Aside from the golden circlet on his tanned brow, he might've been easily mistaken for another castle goer. Entreating a pair of armor clad figures, his topaz eyes slid over toward his daughter as she stumbled through the grass and collided into his side with big, excited eyes. Chuckling lightly, he brushed a stray piece of hair behind a long ear. Despite how wild the girl could be, he would not trade her exuberance or grins for anything.

There were two Mandalorians, one in a full suit of dark, sherwood green armor. He was tall, lean, and had an impressive posture that reminded her of the knights around the castle. Her eyes went to the vambraces he wore, including the right one which had a ton of tiny buttons on it. Beside him was another Mandalorian, whose helmet was similar, but two pieces he wore were actually made of beskar. He was tall too, almost the same height as the green warrior, though his chestplate was made of durasteel.

"Ah, here she is," Ardryll hummed, drawing his daughter in, holding her shoulder, giving her a meaningful look. Almost as if to say ‘please try not to be too silly’. She was a princess after all, even if she forgot herself when she was too excited.

"Welcome to Genmaris Castle. It is a pleasure to have you here," remembering her manners, she grabbed her skirts and curtsied prettily, before stealing one look up at her papa. He gave an approving nod, before her eyes turned back toward the Mandalorians. She had so many questions, but sucked on her teeth instead of asking.

"This is my daughter, Faylen," Ardryll introduced.

The green Mandalorian stepped forward, kneeling down to that he was of a more similar height to her. She was astonished by how close he got, his dark visor setting into her eyes; dark and shaded so much she could not even see his eyes even this proximity. "I've heard a lot about you, Princess Faylen. Your father and I are old friends. It is a pleasure to meet you. I am Hux Vizsla," he introduced, taking her hand in his glove and giving her a warm pat. "Now... my son, Paz, has never been to a proper castle before. Would you mind showing him the grounds?"

Her head tilted, scattering her long waves of hair as she realized that he was referring to the other Mandalorian. Given the warrior's height, she had assumed he was an adult; maybe he was, she couldn’t tell how old either of them were. Big eyes slid over to him and she swallowed hard. "Of course! It would be my honor, Mr. Vizsla," clearing her throat, trying not to twist her hands anxiously as Hux returned her hand she glanced up toward the visor of the other Mandalorian. "Sir, please come with me-" she puffed out her chest, offering her arm to this... Paz.

"I'm not-" his visor turned toward Hux and she might've believed that he was slightly anxious from the cracking of his voice. The green warrior stood up and gave an affirming nod, Faylen still holding her arm out, trying not to look dejected as she thought he was going to ignore her. Finally, he took it, and Faylen preened slightly. "You don't have to call me sir," he grumbled.

"Papa, we'll be around the gardens first," Faylen proclaimed, feeling the leather of the Mandalorian's glove through the thin material of her gown. It was sort of rough, but sent tiny shocks of electricity lancing up her skin as being so close to a feared warrior. Guiding him away from the pair of adults, she stole a few sideways glances before gliding past the bantha shaped bush. "As you can see the shrubs are very... shrub-like-" she announced, using her princess voice which was rather courteous and dry, trying to seem as dignified and royal-like as possible. He was utterly silent, which made her a bit nervous. "Is that a vibro-blade?" He was quite a bit taller than her, his belt about chest level for her, meaning it was easier to glance down than up, assessing the tiny arsenal on his utility belt.

Pausing, the suit of armor finally glanced down at his belt which she was eying. "Yes," he confirmed, unsheathing it so that she could stare at the way the sunlight caught the reflection. Brushed grey steel, verdant with the fingers of sunlight chasing down, reflecting the garden greenery. "Why does a princess know what a vibro-blade looks like?"

"Cuz-" she sucked in air and bent down, pulling her own out of her boot. "I carry one. This is Pig-Sticker. It's not as nice as yours," she held it up, scrunching her nose as she glanced between the differences. The Mandalorian's knife was twice the size as hers. Still, she had a knife and knew what they looked like, so she had a certain sort of pride about her as she brandished the little toothpick.

"Pig-Sticker?"

"Well, it's kinda small. Probably wouldn't even stick a pig, if I'm completely honest," she contemplated out loud, turning the knife over in her hand, glancing back over at his. "I just thought it was a funny name. People name blades, don't they?"

The Mandalorian rumbled with a laugh, the soft noise crackling through the vocoder. "They do. Sometimes. "

"So what's the name of yours then?"

"I didn't name mine," Paz betrayed.

"What about..." she cocked her head, narrowing her eyes as she leered at the blade. "Now that ought to be a good Pig-Sticker, but mine's already named that. So maybe Bantha-Sticker?"

The Mandalorian laughed again, a little louder this time. Faylen warmed at the noise, excited that she'd made the mysterious warrior chuckle. He didn't seem as scary or intimidating as the legends said. Rather, she thought he was sort of nice - nicer than most people around the castle who just feigned smiles down at her and pretended to be kind. She’d heard some of the ladies in waiting complaining about her before, despite having been silkily sweet to her during tea time. Faylen didn’t like when people were double-faced like that, but being honest wasn’t a very common quality round these parts.

"Bantha-Sticker," he considered carefully, spinning the blade dexterously between his fingers. "Who have you been sticking with that blade, your grace?"

"Oh," she tucked it behind her back as if she shouldn't have revealed she had it. Kicking at the grass, slightly doleful, she rolled her shoulders. The only reason she'd taken it out was because she wanted to ask a bunch of questions and it was the easiest way to bridge the gap. "Trees sometimes. I've never actually had to stab anyone... Yet."

"I hope you shouldn't ever have to. Can you show me what you might do if you needed to?"

She blinked a few times, slightly taken aback that he wanted to see. Giving an overly exuberant nod, hair flying around her, she pulled the dagger back out. "I'm in a dress, so I might not be as good," she told him quickly, sweeping her foot back and bracing her wrist before turning the hilt in her palm. "But I'd stick them like this. Papa says that since I'm small, supporting my knife hand is important."

The Mandalorian circled in front of her. "Your father is a smart man."

"I know that," Faylen scowled, but quickly replaced the expression with delight. "How do you hold your knife?"

He humored her, dropping into a similar stance, though it suited him much better in armor than in a shimmersilk gown. Using a reverse grip, he also braced his arm, gripping his vambrace as he displayed his form. The princess turned her blade to try and mimic him. Hoping that maybe she could possess even one ounce of the warrior’s impressive form or the way in which it looked so natural, like wind blowing through the leaves in the trees. "Oh careful there-" he reached out before she could cut herself, steadying a hand as she nearly turned the metal onto her supportive wrist. "Takes a lot of training to be able to hold it like that."

"Gotta start somewhere," she shrugged, but was nonplussed by Paz's steady hand keeping her from cutting herself. "I'm supposed to be showing you around..." she realized, her mouth dropping into an O shape. "Sorry, I'm being an awful host. I just got really excited. I've never met a Mandalorian before and then I saw-" she began to gush, bending back down to tuck Pig-Sticker back into her boot to save herself showing her face, which had began to grow hot with blush.

"It's fine, your grace. You're considerably more hospitable than most people," Paz revealed, which made her brows push together. People weren't kind to Mandalorians? Did they have some sort of death wish? He held his arm back out to her and Faylen eagerly latched on, not feeling intimidated by the tall young man. "So the shrubs. What would you say about this one?" He pointed up toward one of a local creature.

"That's Cù-sìth," she told him, admiring the beauty of the canine bush. "It's like a dog. They live in the forests. Most of the time they're harmless, except when you make them angry. They have a very distinct bark. If you hear the first one, you better start running. If you linger long enough to hear the third, you'll go raving mad."

"Ah, sounds very pleasant," Paz acknowledged warily.

"I mean, they're cute. I've seen some before. As big as banthas, shaggy green fur, adorable amber eyes."

"I have a feeling that you tend to like things that are no good for you, princess," he chuckled softly.

"I've never had one bark at me," Faylen insisted as they resumed their walk through the grounds. "Most of the wildlife here won't bother you unless you bother it. Cù-sìth is much the same. They just want to be left alone to their peace."

"What other kind of interesting fauna do you have here?"

"Plenty! Let me show you where the Frynocks. Now those are things you really don't want to meet. I swear, they'd survive even if Anaxes were nothing but a pile of rubble," she tugged him toward where the strange creature was hewn into green leaves. "They can only come out at night. The sunlight hurts them. So we don't ever see them around here... but some are bigger than you."

Faylen continued to pelt the Mandalorian with information about the animals native to the planet, specifically those she had come in contact with during her wild escapes. Rather than scold her, he listened on politely, offering a few questions and comments. His intrigue made her blather on much longer than she should have, but she was so excited to share and not be told that what she did was very unbecoming of a princess. Plus it was a Mandalorian, so who knew how long it’d be before she met another one. Anaxes wasn’t renowned for being the most frequented planet, so she doubted she’d see a Mandalorian for a very long time. If rambling kept one in her attendance, then Faylen was going to keep spewing words until the sun set.

"Is that beskar? Your helmet I mean. I think your chestplate is durasteel if I'm not mistaken," she decided to lob a question at him, since he wasn't utterly stoic.

"Yes, it is," he informed her. Maybe she mistook it, the slight bit of surprise that she knew what durasteel armor was when her home was gilded of stone, wood, and marble.

Faylen sucked on her teeth again, her face screwing up slightly as she tried to swallow her next question. "Can I feel it?" The words fell out of her mouth anyways.

"Uhm-"

"Sorry!" she squeaked, cheeks burning. She’d crossed a line, she knew it. "You don't have to. Don't feel obligated. I won't order you or anything. Just because I'm a princess doesn't mean I can make people do whatever I want. I was just curious because I've never seen a Mandalorian before or beskar or-"

"Breathe, your grace," he reminded her kindly. She had let the words basically vomit out of her mouth for fear of offending him. "It's alright, here-" In the same manner that Hux had, he knelt in front of her and tilted his head forward. "Just... touch. Don't try to remove it or I might have to use Bantha-Sticker on you."

Faylen wheezed slightly at his deadpan joke, splitting a wide smile. Lifting a hand, her tanned fingers brushed the side, icy cold beneath her pads. Testing at first, she then pushed her full palm against it, gazing on curiously as the frigid metal before drawing her hand back. "It's colder than normal steel. I'm surprised, since it's not ever very cold here... Thank you... for letting me-"

"You're welc-" but the warrior was interrupted, tensing slightly as a figure trundled out from behind one of the shrubs. Moving swifter than a lightning strike, the Mandalorian was back on his feet and brushed her behind him. "Stay behind me, princess," the warmth of his voice vanished in an instant and her eyes widened as he touched the blaster on his hip. Despite the order, the tremor of power in the male’s voice, she peeked her head around his figure and spotted the assailant that had startled them.

“Oh, it’s just him ,” her voice dripped with irritation, lips tugging down as far as they would go as the gangly boy froze as if he’d been placed in carbonite. Rathas was in his gawky, in between phase, not quite growing into his new longer limbs, a pudgy baby face haunting him each time he looked in the mirror, trying to hide behind a curtain of lank greasy hair. She knew he didn’t like to wash it often because it curled and made his face look more rotund. Didn’t change the fact that it reeked, despite the oils he put in it in a vain attempt to mask the stench. “Mr- uh, Paz. It’s alright.”

“You know him, your grace?” the warrior craned his head slightly, the edge of his visor catching her in his peripheral.

“Wish I didn’t,” Faylen snarked quietly, as not to be overheard. Stepping out from behind the shadow of the Mandalorian, she crossed her arms over her chest and drew up as haughtily as she could. For someone so small, the girl was little more than a skulking loth-cat, especially dwarfed by her blue durasteel and beskar counterpart. “What do you want, Rathas? Can’t you see that I’m escorting a guest around the grounds?” He had no place in interrupting or being there. It did not strike Faylen’s mind that he might also be curious. No, she was rather greedy, wishing to have all the time of day to drill Paz Vizsla with questions without being interrupted.

Rathas recovered swiftly after the Mandalorian’s hand slid off his blaster. Drawing himself up to his full height, he pressed a hand over his doublet, to his collar. “My apologies, your grace,” he simpered, hazel eyes mostly muddy save for a few flecks of amber and jade. “I heard that there were a pair of barbarians trolloping around the grounds and wanted to make certain that you were safe. Since you are the heir to the throne and of petite stature, I was worried for your wellbeing.”

Faylen’s temper flared at Rathas calling the Mandalorians barbarians. The same boy who’d tried to force a kiss on her a few weeks back was now pretending that he cared for her health? No, she knew he just wanted to interrupt and cause her a bit of misery after what she’d done. “Those ‘barbarians’ are the guests of the Crown and you’d do well to mind your tongue. Nor my father or I will suffer such indignance,” her voice was sharp, slightly petulant, but she did as papa had told her: to own her tone in moments like this. Even if she did not like to bask in the power of being royalty, Rathas was definitely an exception. “Now, since you can see that I am in perfectly good health, you may leave.”

“Your grace, even if you insist, these Mandalorians are outsiders. I could not, in good conscience, abandon you to wander deeper into the gardens with this man,” Rathas continued.

“My father trusts them. I put my faith in his hands… unless you are questioning the judgement of your king?”

The threat missed the target and Rathas curled his lip indignantly, rising to the challenge of her words.

“I do believe the princess asked, rather kindly, that you leave,” Paz spoke now, his voice rumbling like thunder, vacant of the mellow warmth he’d spoken to her earlier with. He brushed his sidearm, a much more real threat than being told off by a whiny princess.

Rathas knew when he was beat, not willing to bet that the Mandalorian wouldn’t shoot him where he stood. Forcing a smile on his thin mouth, he bowed stiffly. “I wish you well, your grace, and that no ill befalls you.”

She snorted as he turned and ducked away, not content until his stupid head was utterly out of sight. “Thank you,” she turned back to Paz, dropping her arms and the defensive posture. “I… don’t like him very much-” the memories washed over her like a deafening wave, the fear she’d felt pinned against the tree outside the castle grounds. Frollicking like she usually did, she hadn’t realized she was being followed until Rathas caught up with her. He was bigger than her and in spite of his spindly, spider limbs, he was stronger too. Rubbing her arms self consciously, she tried not to think about it anymore. “You see his nose? The way it was kinked like this-” she brushed her own, small upturned nose which was dotted with a tiny constellation of freckles. “-I broke his nose a few weeks ago. Gave him a real good hook-” she swung her arm up to indicate just how she did it, feeling her heart swell with a tiny jolt of adrenaline as she’d fought back against her assailant, remembering how the blood had gushed out like a river and ruined yet another of her shimmersilk gowns. Despite losing an expensive dress, she had reveled in the fact that she’d actually managed to break his nose.

The Mandalorian tilted his helmet curiously, gazing down at her intently. “Sounds like he deserved it.”

“He did ,” she agreed, a dark menacing grate to the edge of the girl’s voice. “So-” she drew a deep breath, chasing away the torrent of swirling emotions. Instead, she plastered a smile to her face, big and dopey as her ears wagged slightly. “There’s still a little more of the gardens you haven’t seen. Then maybe I can bring you to the spires! They have the most magnificent views of the forests.”

----

“I was beginning to think that you’d never call upon me, Jetii ,” Hux Vizsla leered at the man across from him, so different from how he remembered him. The last time they had met, his fate had been written in the stars and the word they spoke was death. His own brother had made the mistake of crossing the Order amidst the Clone Wars and Hux believed he was going to die with many other Mandalorians, wishing to see the face of his son once more, wishing that he wouldn’t be leaving Paz without a buir . Yet, Ardryll Krisdi stood in front of him not as a Jedi, but as a king. He suspected there had been more to this man a few years back, but after glimpsing the girl - probably less than a handful of years younger than his own son - he comprehended why Ardryll had been willing to help him in the first place: he had not been loyal to the Galactic Republic. Hiding a secret life away in the groves of Anaxes, he need only fake his death before laying down his lightsaber and returning amongst his people. Hux found the irony in this, considering that a Mandalorian had once done the same thing thousands of years ago.

“Come now,” Ardryll spoke in the same, perfectly manicured and intelligent tone. His eloquent accent reminded Hux duly that this was a cultured man, not only due to the station of his birth, but his time spent in Coruscant amongst the now fallen Order. “We both know that term no longer applies to me. I forsook that path the moment I laid eyes on my late wife and then had Faylen.”

The lust for a family. Hux could not blame Ardryll, as family was central to Mandalorian life. How the Jedi could turn their backs on all attachment… he did not know. What he did know was how unnatural he thought it was and that it was no surprise that one of their own had gone manic. It had happened before. History seemed to repeat itself often with the Jedi. One would think they would learn that turning their back on love resulted in nothing but a ticking time bomb to see which would detonate first. Hux hadn’t really believed the transmission he had received, thinking that Ardryll would keep himself away from anything that so much as smelled like the Republic.

“Why am I here?” Hux asked tartly. This was a business transaction, not a run-ashore. The king wanted something and that was the only reason he had bothered the Mandalorian.

“Please, let us go somewhere a little more private,” Ardryll requested, lifting a palm and gesturing toward a thicket of rose bushes in full bloom. Even if Hux was irritated with being there, he could not deny that the planet was beautiful, especially the forests that the selphi-subrace occupied. Whilst a small fragment of the mountainous world, the Anaxians had found a way to peacefully coexist with their woad. An ability that Mandalorians had not learned, after desecrating their home in sake of mining for beskar. There was a sublime loveliness in Genmaris, the lack of steel walls, and the warmth openness from the halls to the outdoors. Lead out to a gazebo coated in a cloak of ivy, Ardryll sat down on a wrought iron chair and let out a low sigh. “I’ve not called you here to waste your time.”

“That has yet to be seen,” Hux retorted, taking the other seat and gazing out amongst the gardens. On the far side, he could see the glint of his ad’s armor, stooping slightly over the princess who was smiling larger than the man would have thought possible. “Your kid is interesting. She got any of your talent?”

“Hm?” the king glanced up, having been deep in thought before he shook his head, long pointed ears swaying. “No, she does not have a connection to the Force. Thank the Maker for that.”

Beneath his helmet, Hux frowned slightly, wondering why anyone would not wish for their child to be gifted in that manner. He also had not known the Anaxian to be distracted. He was a highly trained Jedi Knight, honed and capable of defeating Mandalorians. “What is… going on here?”

“Your son seems to like her,” Ardryll muttered quietly, turning his luminous eyes to pin Hux right where he sat. They were molten, like gold melted in the Foundry.

Hux glanced back out, watching as the teen let the girl hang onto him, her excited gibbering palpable even from the spot they roosted in, keeping a hawk’s eye on the pair. “Why? You offering to marry her off?” he joked lamely, but was slightly taken aback by the soft sigh that parted the king’s lips. “No kriffing way-”

“Not marriage,” the Anaxian finally said. “But Mandalorians take Foundlings, do they not?”

“We do, but-” his words died on the back of his throat, observing the clasp of the Jedi’s hands and the slouch in his shoulders. “The Empire.” Separatists ripped apart most of the Mandalore Sector and had also ravaged parts of Anaxes. The was a brief respite, followed by the wake of Imperial clone troopers continuing to wash over the Core Planets, slowly marching their way out across the galaxy, taking planet by planet or destroying those who refused to comply. “You’re a Jetii , a king . You’re telling me there’s no better option than being Mandalorian?”

“Anaxians are too identifiable. From our dark skin, pointed ears, to the fact that Faylen has many goddess tears… There will be no doubt who she is. I sense a darkness on the horizon and I know I have one more battle with my lightsaber, but-” he pursed his lips, closing his bright eyes and slinking back into his seat. “There will be no mercy for her. Even if she has no promise to be a Jedi, she is my daughter. I know what is coming and he shall not spare her. He did not spare any of the younglings-” the king’s voice cracked and a single fat salty drop ran down his cheek. “Please. I know your Tribe keeps their helmets on aside from those that are family. Our debt. Pay it in this manner. Take her and train her.”

Hux remained eerily quiet, glancing back out toward where the two trotted along, Faylen tugging Paz in the direction of the castle now. “She is older and small-” his voice finally sizzled out of the vocoder, weak and ill. The idea of the little girl being killed twisted like a knife in his belly. “There’s really no one?” Hux knew the answer to this, as the king had just explained that the child was too identifiable. Between her golden markings, her eyes, to the dark tan of her skin; Anaxians were unmistakable, especially the princess. Even the selphi were different, in spite of the pointed ear similarities.

“Faylen is strong. She broke the nose of a boy twice her size just a few weeks ago. And she always finds a way to sneak out of the castle, despite all the guards and droids being assigned to keep an eye on her,” Ardryll informed him, finally opening his eyes to implore the Mandalorian - to save the last little shred of his family. “I cannot take her elsewhere. Because of what I am, I will be hunted ruthlessly. I do not wish that for her. I must stand my ground here as the king, support my people in our final hours, make one last effort for the sake of Genmaris.”

Even if they had been enemies at one point, Hux’s chest burned with respect for the king’s refusal to abandon his people to hide his daughter. Still, he pitied the Jedi, who had chosen the path of love to slowly lose it piece by piece. “Broke a boy’s nose?” he snorted, eyes trailing the girl as she disappeared behind a set of shrubs with his ad.

“Anaxians are quicker than humans. Not stronger by any means, but we are lighter on our feet, as you are keenly aware,” Ardryll reminded him, thrusting the Vizsla back into a fit of memories, the hazy glow of the yellow saber in the Jedi’s hands. Whirling it like a dervish, creating an arc of light reminiscent of the sun, striking him back against the frame of the gunship - cornering him like a rat. Even if he had beskar, the Jedi had known to strike where the armor did not meet. Hux should have died.

“How much time do you think you have?” Hux inquired, looking to the trees that would soon be barren and charred, the tall manicured grass that would be trodden to nothing but slick dirt, and the gardens which would wilt under the barrage of blasterfire. All this beauty would be gone, replaced with nothing but desolace and strife, blood and bone, and death. These were not things that Hux was unfamiliar with, but he did not think that Anaxes deserved it. The planet was quiet and peaceful. They had done nothing more than remain loyal to the Republic and that was enough for the Empire to drop the guillotine over their heads. No mercy for those who would not convert.

“A few days at most,” tilting his head, the king’s dark hair glinted like obsidian against his circlet. “You’ll take her?”

Hux grumbled, wondering what the hell he was going to do with a princess. Foundlings were not usually acquired this way, but the fact that Anaxes faced its demise and the girl would not be spared, he couldn’t turn his back on the child in good conscience. She was older. Foundlings came in all shapes and ages, from infants to teenagers. Hux would have preferred her to be a handful of years younger, as it would be easier to train her when she was still highly impressionable. “I owe a debt,” was all Hux betrayed, thinking back to Ardryll’s praise of his daughter. He did not think the Anaxian would lie just to impress him. The girl might have some training, but she had also been raised as royalty, which meant she’d probably never had a hard day in her life. “The Way… it will be difficult for her.”

“Faylen is a resilient child. She will do well amongst your people. She needs only the chance.”

Hux resigned to drinking in the gardens, admiring it and committing it to memory because he knew that once they left, none of it would remain. The king let him wander on his own, pausing by a lattice of strange violet flowers that hung like bells, long golden stigmas hanging out like a dog lolling its tongue. Taking it between his fingers, he turned over the petals and thought of Sivo and how the hue of the flower was similar to her beskar. What would Sivo have done? She wanted a daughter so badly to train. To teach how to be good at both shooting and cooking. To raise a large clan. Our clan was supposed to be large too.

Aware that no one would miss them when the planet was burning in a few days time, Hux picked several of the bell flowers and took them into the castle. A few people eyed him, as if he’d done something against the rules - picking flowers from the king’s garden - but they could all go sod off. Acquiring directions from a servant, he was escorted to a chamber that they had been afforded for the night. The room was as large as his home back on Concordia, making him huff an irritated sigh. He’d been to more exuberant places, decadence dripping off the walls to the point where it felt gaudy. Even if Genmaris wasn’t that overdone, it was still slightly overwhelming.

Paz arrived shortly thereafter, glancing at the pile of flowers on the table, tilting his helmet in slight confusion. Dismissing them, he plunked down into one of the plush lounge chairs and slid his helmet off. Fussing with the mess of blonde helmet curls, he pinned his icy eyes at his father.

“How was the tour?” Hux inquired, pulling his own helmet off as he laid back on the bed and glared at the ceiling. Bed felt nice.

“Don’t think I’ve ever had a tour like that,” his ad chuckled. “I assume that most royalty is not as… enthused .”

“Seemed like a copikla adiik ,” Hux speculated, rubbing his eyes as he considered the situation even more. A bucket would have to go right on her head, but then again those ears would be a problem. Maybe some sort of headband to pin them down so they wouldn’t get chafed?

“She carries a knife on her,” Paz laughed, still smiling at the thought of the princess. “Even named it - Pig-Sticker.”

Hux chuckled at this, wondering where the princess had gotten such a braw disposition from. He assumed it was because Ardryll hadn’t reigned her in.

“Why are we here? I know you have a debt to settle. The king is the Jetii that helped you escape on Mandalore, was he not?”

Hux sat up and nodded at Paz. “ We are taking the girl with us, ” he switched to Mando’a, uncertain if they were being listened to. Ardryll had mentioned that others might have ears around the castle. The teen’s eyes hardened and he gave a questioning look rather than ask openly. “ The planet will fall to the Empire soon. Her father is Jedi. They will kill her. She is to become your sister. ”

This could go one of two ways with his ad, but he was glad to see it go in the better. Paz set his jaw and gave a stern, comprehending nod. He did not question, he did not disagree. Instead, he turned back toward the hearth he sat near, watching the flames lick hungrily at the wood, crackling softly. “Kaysh mandokarla. ”

Hux hummed at these words, pleased to hear it, almost as if they settled some of his doubts. Mandokarla; the right stuff. His own son was declaring that the girl had the right stuff to be Mandalorian, a blend of aggression, tenacity, loyalty, and lust for life. Truly, this was all that Hux could hope for the kid, aware that her journey in joining the Tribe would not be easy. She would be behind other children her age, many of which would have a few years of combat training and Mando’a on her. Still, if she had the heart, that was one less thing to worry about.

A soft knock on the door roused them, both immediately reaching for their helmets and replacing them. No one was allowed to see their faces - only buir, ad, and riduur could look amongst each other freely. Paz pushed himself to his feet and answered the door, a hand tentatively brushing his blaster by his side as he cracked it open. His shoulders relaxed immediately and through the small slit, Hux saw that it was Faylen with a tray full of food.

“Papa told me that you couldn’t have dinner with us because of your Creed,” she started, drawing in as deep of a breath as her tiny frame would allow. “So I brought food for the both of you, since you must be hungry.”

Paz opened the door more so that he could take the tray from her. “Thank you, your grace…” but his ad was confused by the gesture. “Couldn’t you have sent a servant?”

The child spluttered, clearly trying to come up with a rebuttal, but instead began turning a shade of pink. “Y-you’re our guests. I thought-” Hux couldn’t help but laugh. “Good night!” she squeaked, darting away before she could embarrass herself any further.

No sooner than the door had shut, Hux roared with deep laughter. Paz turned around, still puzzled by what was going on, standing awkwardly with the tray in his gloved hands. “What?” the teen asked finally, needing the joke explained to him.

“What did you do on that walk?” Hux inquired through his guffaws.

“I didn’t do anything!” Paz’s voice was slightly panicked, as if his buir were insinuating that he had laid a hand on the princess.

“It’s probably nothing, just harmless curiosity,” Hux waved off, still chortling quietly. Paz grumbled, still not completely understanding, as he set the food down on the table. He’d comprehend one day once he had more experience with people. Most folks stayed as far away from Mandalorians as they could manage. The fact that the girl had appeared, doing a servant’s job, eying Paz with the biggest, golden irises… Hux knew the child liked him or else she wouldn’t have been so thoughtful. Good. It was better that she didn’t fear Mandalorians if she was to become one.

---

Skirting through the hallways, she ducked back into her room, heart pounding in her ears as loud as thunder as she flung the door shut behind her. Pressing her back against it, her ears burned as if they were on fire. Why? The moment the blue Mandalorian had opened the door, she had been so excited, remembering their afternoon together. Not that anything much had happened other than her showing him around the castle, but it had been fun. For once, she hadn’t been treated like a little doll or patronized, and Faylen was eager to get another chance to talk to Paz - even if it were as fleeting as dropping off dinner for him and his father. Although, the moment he’d asked why she hadn’t sent a servant made her freeze. It was… rather strange that the princess would come deliver the guest’s dinner?

Idiot. He’s going to think you’re stupid now, Faylen rationalized, pouting as she pulled her circlet off and began untangling the pins from her wavy hair. Tossing them haphazardly on the vanity, she threw open the balcony doors and leaned up against the bannister, just as she had in the morning. A soft sigh parted her lips, the breeze winding fingers through her loose tendrils, which comforted her scalp. Night has cascaded over the grounds, her hands reaching up toward the stars. Once, papa had told her that when someone died, they became a star and burned brightly for longer than they’d lived. Now, Faylen knew this was not true, but she liked to pretend the one, biggest star just above her balcony was her mother.

Rather than go to sleep immediately, Faylen pulled out a stack of books and set a kettle on the fire. Tucking into bed with her favorite novel, she blew the twisting steam over the top and enjoyed the soft floral flavor of the beverage. Her tummy warmed and she flipped a page, resigning herself to her evening routine. This tale was about Jedi and how one had fallen in love with someone outside the Order. Time melted away, her tea long since drained as she plucked through the pages of the romance, nearly pushing her nose into the book as she squealed quietly at the first kiss. Deciding she’d gotten to a point where she could finally put the bookmark in, Faylen flopped down in her bed and put a pillow over her face.

She was a 13 year old girl, but she had often been taught by private tutors. There were other children around the castle, to include Rathas, but she’d never really felt close to any of them. No, they were rather petulant and obsessed with things like the latest fashion or gossip. None wanted to talk about things that Faylen liked - such as running amok in the woods. They told her that was dangerous and one day she’d get maimed or die. She didn’t think that would happen, but took their goading as more of a reason to trot off. Her evenings were devoted mostly to ignoring her teachers and taking a moment to enjoy leisurely books - humming quietly about the romances, envying the freedom of the characters in the book. While she doubted she would marry Rathas, she also knew that it probably wouldn’t be a decision she was allowed to make. Thus, she went through novels in the library like fodder, filling her tiny heart to the brim with the idea that maybe she might get to experience it and not a predetermined marriage.

No sooner than her light went out, did the wispy curtains by her balcony shuddered and an explosion rocked the entire castle. Faylen sat up immediately, her eyes going wide and her ears pointing down. Adjusting to the darkness of the room, she could make out the finer details as she knew them, controlling her breathing after it hitched, leaning over toward her nightstand to reach for the blaster concealed beneath the drawer. Papa always told her to have a weapon stashed nearby in case someone came for her. The noise was chased rapidly with gunshots, ringing in her sensitive ears, her feet sliding over the comforter as she cradled the weapon to her chest.

Hide.

But her legs weren’t quite working. She had Pig-Sticker by the side of her bed, trembling as she checked the cartridge on the blaster and cocked it, posting her wrists on the edge of the mattress and pointing the muzzle toward the door. What was going on? Screaming. So much screaming. But they didn’t last long, followed with a terrible silence as each cry was severed swiftly. Her door rattled on the hinges, her finger moving from the side of the pistol to graze the trigger. Swallowing hard, the anguished cries faded and were only replaced with the tense beating of her heart, thrumming steadily like a war drum. The hinges snapped and the door flung open. She squeezed the trigger before seeing the dull glint of beskar.

A groan followed the shot, which pinged off a helmet - a blue helmet .

Faylen’s gums flapped, but no words came out as Paz Vizsla stood in the doorway with a rifle strapped across his chest. Dazed, but uninjured from the shot, he staggered forward and glanced toward where the shot had come from. Oh kriff, he was going to kill her. She scrambled under the bed, screeching like a feral animal when a gloved hand locked on around her bare ankle. Slashing awkwardly with Pig-Sticker she heard him curse.

“Dank farrik! Stop it! I’m trying to help you!”

Pulled out from underneath the bed, the Mandalorian crouched beside her, motioning for her to be quiet. Faylen’s eyes burned, but she chewed her lip, disoriented and confused as her ears sagged beside her.

“Get up. We need to go,” he ordered, grabbing her hand and wrenching her to her feet. Faylen staggered, in nothing more than her sleep dress, holding onto her blaster and knife with paling knuckles. A quiet sob shook her shoulders as she sat the lights flashing through the thin shade of her balcony curtains. “ Princess!”

Despite the insistence in his voice, Faylen was paralyzed with fear and horror. Rather than try to get her to recover, the Mandalorian hissed a sigh and grabbed her. Picking her up like a child, he adjusted the strap of his rifle, settling it over the both of them before running for the door. Faylen leered over his shoulder, quaking like a leaf barely hanging onto a tree during a storm, as they left behind her room and belongings. Absolute mayhem consumed the castle, the Mandalorian speaking into a comlink in a language she didn’t understand. They were running through the halls that she had been raised in, the pale elas stone smattered with crimson. The vines sagged, no longer reaching out to passerbyers as they curled into themselves and withered slightly from being exposed to blaster smoke.

A shot echoed loudly nearby, Faylen crying out and pressing her face into the Mandalorian’s neck as her ears ached. “I need to-” they ducked around a corner, obscured briefly by the shadows. “-put you down. Wait here, vod’ika. ”

Faylen was set back on her bare feet, her toes stinging from the cold of the stone as she floundered slightly, reaching desperately for the Mandalorian as he stepped out from behind cover. A thin sheet of sweat coated her skin, hairs standing on end as she quivered in the shadows, eyes stretched wide as she saw white armored soldiers prowling through the corridors. They moved in swift regiment, prowling forward in a fine formation and right in their direction. Paz lifted his rifle and shot first, using the element of surprise before the soldiers began shouting in a foreign language. He returned vicious words with them in the same tongue before taking two more down. He sidestepped, diverting attention from her, but she noticed that he was walking straight toward a spire hallway, which would be locked seeing that it had her father’s study in it. Whimpering, she considered what might happen as the snow white enemies made ground toward the Mandalorian. He’d be backed into a corner.

They passed her hiding spot and she stepped out slightly, wondering what she should do. Paz said that he was helping her and she’d never seen those soldiers before. If she let them kill the Mandalorian, what hope did she have after? Swallowing hard, her fingers tightened around the hilt of Pig-Sticker. The knife was still a vibro-blade and the armor of the soldiers appeared to be similar in design to what Paz had been wearing… which meant that the throat would be exposed. Rolling her heels against the frigid marble, she followed them quietly, using her knowledge of the castle to hide behind statues and walls. There were three left now and Paz was at the door, little cover remaining as he realized now that the path was a dead end.

Faylen had managed to sneak up just a few scant meters behind the troopers, hand shaking as she bunched the muscles in her legs up. Right at this moment, she was wishing she’d practiced a lot more with her combat. Bowling forward, she leapt onto a chair and used the height to fling herself to the nearest soldiers. The collision with the back of the clone’s armor drove the wind right from her lungs and her head spun, legs coiling around his hips before she reeled, nearly flopping right off. Screaming, she plunged the dagger into the exposed, black throat as the soldier flailed in surprise. Her fingers began damp and sticky, the vocoder sputtering as the soldier choked on his own blood. The distraction she had caused was enough for the other two to round on her, the body of the soldier she’d clamped onto falling to the ground on top of her. Stunned beneath the body of the man, she watched as the rifles trained on her and wondered if she was going to die. Her life flashed before her eyes and she hoped more than anything in that last moment - that the Mandalorian could escape with her diversion.

But the flash of red was not levied in her, but pierced their white armor, smoting it with blackened fingers before they crashed to the floor: dead. Still beneath the corpse of the soldier, she wriggled helplessly until a shadow fell over her. Shoving the body off, Paz tore her to her feet, her white chemise soaked entirely from collar to torso with thick, viscous warmth. Her fingers were still tight around the humming vibro-blade.

“Looks like Pig-Sticker works, vod’ika ,” he murmured, pressing a hand into the small of her back. “Do you know the way to the starship hangars?”

She wagged her head, her neck aching at her overdramatization. When she glanced down at her hand, she saw the dark liquid coating it. In the dim light of evening, the blood was discreet, indistinguishable aside from the unique heat and ply as she smoothed it in her fingers with macabre interest. Paz ushered her forward, stirring her from her fixation as she drew in a sharp breath, not realizing that she had been holding it. Her knuckles ached from how tight she was holding the blade, but her body kicked into autopilot.

Survive. Survive. Survive.

The word echoed in her head, into an empty void as she thought of nothing else. Not the screams, smell of blaster smoke, the metallic tang of blood heavy on the back of her throat, or the haze of battle. Her bare feet splattered into pools of liquid, which she did not need to look at twice to know what it was. Darting through the halls, she barely registered the fact that she had a gloved palm in her hand, weaving them dexterously throughout the halls, nooks, and crannies that she’d used to evade the guards dozens of times to get out of the castle and into the wilderness.

Genmaris’ last stand was by the starship port of the palace, her eyes swiftly adjusting to the lights that were posted outside the blast doors, flanked by a pair of platinum clad Anaxian knights. Stiffing at the sight of the princess, coated in blood and wild eyed, they parted ways to allow her entrance. There was little respite, the folks that had managed to flee onto the flight deck quailing and weeping behind storage crates. Her brows snared, cocking her head as she saw Merith breathing shallowly against a wall, cradling her abdomen as her grey smock was stained a hue darker, her tan skin pallid, ears sagging as she clung desperately to the last ounces of life.

“Faylen!” her father’s voice snared her eyes away from her handmaiden and she saw him striding across the shed floor to meet her in his strong arms. “Heavens is any of this yours?”

She broke down, tears spilling out of her eyes again as he checked the wounds. “N-no. I don’t think so,” she stammered. “P-pa-pa what’s going on?”

“We have a brief moment. I’ve set the charges, but once they go off, we have all of minutes to flee,” Hux Vizsla approached, a rifle strapped across his chest as he entreated her father.

Ardryll stiffened and a low, deep breath parted his lips as he gave a comprehending nod. “Faylen-” he picked her up, setting her back on her feet. “I love you very much. So very much. Now, I need you to be a good girl and listen very carefully. The Vizslas are taking you away from here. A Sith is coming.”

Sith. Her eyes stretched even further, which she hadn’t thought possible at this point. Her lips trembled and her ears hung low. Papa had told her about Sith, the terrible and evil Force-wielders who fought Jedi. “When will I see you again? Where will we meet?”

For the first time in her life, her papa did not answer her. He bent down, brushing his nose to her brow before kissing it. “I love you, Faylen.” Stepping away from her, Faylen turned and watched in horror as he pulled a silver cylinder off of his belt. His clothes… in her shock she had not realized he was wearing strange brown robes. He still had his circlet on, but the tan and brown robes were unlike anything her father had ever adorned. Switching the cylinder on, a golden blade sliced up and hummed with the whispers of thunder indicating lightning was on the horizon. “Vizsla, I will buy you as much time as possible. They will be distracted by a Jedi.”

“ Papa! ”

She lunged for him, but collided with a durasteel chest. Pig-Sticker clattered to the ground from her hand and arms wrapped around her so tight that she thought she was being strangled. Far. They were getting further from him, moving swiftly and into the hull of a ship as she saw the white armor of the clone soldiers breach the hangar entrance. Hux pressed a button on his vambrace, the ground trembling and the walls shuddering as multiple bombs around Genmaris Castle exploded.

“NO! LET ME GO! NO!” she shrieked, the dock to the ship listing upward as Hux flung himself into the cockpit. Flailing against the blue Mandalorian, she fought in vain mostly, so tiny and small compared to the tall teenager.

“ Vod’ika! You’re going to hurt yourself-”

And of course, she did. She sent a fist flying into the helmet, lips pinching together as she held the breath that billeted up from her lung. Grinding out a furious howl, she cradled her knuckles that were slip and aching, the pain lancing up to her elbow.

“Shh, calm down.”

That was absolutely the last thing she wanted to hear, having watched her home burning around her, slick with the blood of her people, and her father charging off with a lightsaber in his hands. He knew he wasn’t going to survive the Sith. He was a distraction . The original question she had asked: why were the Mandalorians here? - was now answered. Papa had called them to take her away to safety. Her hand hurt just as much as her heart, but she was in such despair that she barely noticed the hand patting the back of her head or running a soothing hand along her back. Despite having just punched him, she sagged against Paz and continued to release tears like a water fountain - to the point where she was hiccuping as the ship lurched beneath them.

She didn’t know how much time had passed, other than the fact she had calmed down to only small sniffles, her entire face wet with salty tears.

“Can I see?” Paz asked gently, trying to turn up her hand.

Her body was still stiff, but she relaxed slightly to let him pull up the fist that she’d punched him with.

“Hm, going to need some bacta. If not for my bucket, you might’ve broken my nose too, vod’ika ,” Paz decided matter-of-factly.

Faylen coughed slightly, her nose all leaky, thus foiling her effort to scoff at his joke.

“Do you think you can sit here? I’ll go get you a blanket-”

She shook her head, latching onto him like a tick, refusing to let go. What if he died too? What if he turned around and left? That would be one less person to be around, one less person who she trusted enough to attach to.

He sighed quietly, pushing static through his modulator as he sat back down, muttering reassuringly in the foreign language he’d spoken earlier. Faylen’s eyes leered into the silver durasteel wall for a long while until her lashes fluttered and she closed them.

When she opened them again, the ship was listing through hyperspace, the terror of Genmaris a dull throb in her heart and the back of her head. Part of her expected to be put to bed, but was surprised to find herself still nestled against the Mandalorian who had also dozed off against the hull of the ship. Now that she wasn't soaked with tears and boogers, she could see and smell a little better. Her chemise was crusty, browned where the blood had soaked in, and chafing slightly at her skin.

Sitting nearby, on top of a storage container, was Hux Vizsla - the dark green Mandalorian that had taken her from the demise of her home. Faylen had traveled a few times before, but always in comfortable luxury. The places she had been to were Naboo and Coruscant. Otherwise, she'd not been off Anaxes. He had a helmet in his hands, not his own, but one that was painted a dark, plum purple.

"You're awake, ad'ika, " he stated simple, his voice rumbling through his modulator as the impassive T-shaped visor leveled at her. There was nothing menacing about him, nor the other Vizsla that she was sitting on. From the moment she had met the both of them, she had felt rather comfortable around their masked faces and they'd not given her a reason to change her mind on the matter. Others would be filled with dread, fearful of what expression the Mandalorians might be hiding just beneath the beskar, but Faylen knew they were human and mortal. No droid would have comforted her like they did, nor would the droid have had a reason to feel enough pity to take her away. "Come here."

The demand was gentle, kind almost. Her legs quivered, but she did manage to push up eventually, disdainful over the state of her clothing and her skin. Her feet were raw and dried blood crusted like a cracked desert landscape with each footfall. Even if she was unharmed, the child had been through hell and her soiled dress and filthy skin was a testament to that.

"What's going to happen?" she asked quietly, approaching him so that she could glance down at the helmet he was holding. The visor was shaped slightly different, the wings like petals, leaning up in a Y-shape rather than T. The visor was dark and tinted with metallic midnight blue.

" Gai bal manda, " he muttered, finally looking up from the helm again. "You will become a part of our family."

While the words were soothing, the idea behind them made her heart seize in her chest. Our family. The implication that there was nothing left on Abaxes and would never be. All hope that her father might've survived dashed like a starship exploding in a dogfight. There were few tears left in the girl, but she managed to let out a strangled and guttral whine, like a loth-cat whose tail had been stepped on. Hux put the helmet beside him and picked her up, propping her on his knee just as her papa would do. Running a gloved hand between her shoulder blades, he continued until her whimpering had quieted.

"What that means," he glanced at her, waiting until she drew a few shuddering breaths. "Is you'll start anew. You will join our Tribe and be raised as a Mandalorian; as my ad'ika and vod to Paz. I hear that you're good with blades - look at you - a verd'ika . Your buir was very proud of you. This is what he wanted, for you to be safe."

"Why did they attack us? Why would anyone do that? Genmaris is peaceful, we never-" her eyes burned, but no tears came out, only a cracked noise from the back of her throat as she leaned into the comforting touch of the armored warrior. What he was saying didn't quite register in her head, thoughts jumbled up and out of order, his praise buzzing like bees, the satisfaction of being told she had done well not reaching her brain.

"Because they do not care who they hurt or kill. The Empire is taking the galaxy and will step over anyone who so much as lifts a chin stubbornly in their direction. All they want is power. To them, we are insects," he answered honestly, the words registering as she nodded slowly. Even if it was a callous way of putting it, she needed to hear it phrased like this - to be told that she'd done no wrong and they were just bad people.

"Will they come for me? Or for your Tribe?"

"If we stir trouble, perhaps," he acknowledged grimly. "But they shall not know where you are or where the covert is. They will be too busy worrying about bigger fish than sniffing out you, verd'ika -" he picked up the helmet and showed it to her. "Because once you put this on, you will no longer be a princess. You will be Mando'ade ."

"What would I even be the princess of?" she forced a chuckle, failing miserably and hiccuping.

Hux offered a gentle laugh, the first bit of true warmth she felt, coursing all the way to her numb toes. The girl leaned into his shoulder, setting her head against the frigid green beskar, shivering slightly. "When you don this helm there are rules. You cannot take it off in front of any living thing - except for your buir, ad, and future riduur.. . Paz is your vod , so he would be an exception as well. You may call other Mandalorians vod , but they are not the same as him. You will be a Vizsla from now on. Do you understand, verd'ika?"

“Wha-what does all that mean?"

Hux translated the Mando'a to her and comprehension dawned on her face. Only immediate family could see her face going forward, which would only be Hux and Paz. He explained the Resol'nare, which was a code of Six Actions that the Mandalorians lived by: education and armor, self-defense, the tribe, their language, and their leader. Well, now that would also apply to her and she had to hold them to the highest regard and strive for perfection. The soft daydreams she'd had, wondering what Mandalorian life was like only to find herself unwillingly thrust into their civilization. Despite how jarring it was, Faylen felt slightly hopeful, glad that she wouldn't be alone and left to fend for herself. While her heart still hurt, at least she had something to look forward to.

"Is this to be my helmet?" she pointed down at the dark beskar, which he had a tight grip on.

"Yes, but before you don it, why don't you get cleaned up. It'll be too big for you and we need to find a way to make certain your ears don't get beat up inside the bucket," Hux set her back down on her feet, pulling out a set of black clothes which had been folded neatly. "They will probably be too big, but it's better than that-" he gestured to her blood stained smock. "Fresher is right around the corner."

Loading up the clothes in her arms, she went into the fresher and glanced in the mirror. Staring back was a ghost of a child, her tanned skin pale and clammy, goddess makings so translucent that they were barely visible beneath the crumbling flakes of blood. Parts of her hair were mattered with more of the dried liquid, creating a womp rat's nest on the side of her head where she'd slept against Paz's shoulder. Her eyes were puffy and red, still damp and irritated looking. A new way of nausea and despair hit her as she looked at herself, the last few pent up tears leaking out as her chin trembled. Starting the shower, she peeled off the disgusting nightgown and sat on the floor, clutching her knees and rocking quietly as the gentle rain of the water plastered her hair around her in a soaking wet curtain. Finally, she stood up and grabbed the soap, resigning herself to lazy scrubbing as it felt weird to not have help; Merith had almost always been there to assist with her back. Now Merith was dead... probably.

After getting out of the shower, she dried off and put on the new clothes, which appeared to be similar to the clothing that the Mandalorians wore beneath their armor. The pants were much too long, wide around the hips, and the shirt bulky, falling down to her knees. Faylen managed to roll the hem of the pants and shirt sleeves, securing the belt around her midsection to keep the two in place. Balling up her ruined shift, she left the fresher behind and found the Vizslas sitting by a low table, helmets turning in her direction.

" Verd'ika -" Hux motioned her over, holding up a makeshift bandana that appeared to be made of a ripped shirt sleeve rolled up and stretchy, so that it could fit over her head. He adjusted it, pushing her hair out of her face. The soft fabric pinned her long ears against the side of her head, smothering them in a tight embrace. "You will need a new name. Faylen is too unique," he informed her, continuing to adjust the headband until it covered most of her scalp and comfortably tucked her ears away.

"Something Mandalorian?" Faylen suggested quietly as she was handed an elastic band. Without needing to be told, began plaiting her long, thick hair, tying off the end.

"Do you have any ideas? You should pick your own name," Hux said, turning over her helmet to add a little extra padding along the inside. "Is there anything... a word or feeling that means a lot to you?"

There were many things on Anaxes that meant a lot to Faylen. From the forests and glades, to the evening sky dotted with stars. Closing her eyes, she let out a soft hum trying to decide which meant the most. A name too similar to her lost home would be a painful reminder each time it was spoken, a dull throb in her heart as she thought about her Papa and the life she could have had if the Empire had not stolen that from her. "Is there a word for song?" A new life, a new song - just like the birds outside her balcony that she'd listen for in the morning.

" Laar ?"

Faylen shook her head, not liking the sound of that. "Or bird?" She was flying away from home to find a new place, migrating like the paradise birds that would go to the mountains in the summer and return to Genmaris during the autumn. Only, Faylen would probably never return.

" Senaar ."

" Senaar ," she repeated quietly, closing her eyes and imagining the verdant plumage chased by sunset oranges and ambers. "Senaar," she decided more resolutely. Faylen was a bird now. Not a paradise bird. If she had stayed on Anaxes she could have been one, gilded and pretty. Now she was more like a bird of prey. She was going to be Mandalorian after all. "Sena for short?"

" Sen'ika ," Paz rumbled, slightly amused. "Little bird."

"Little," she snorted, finally finding the heart to smile faintly.

"Tiny," Hux agreed, turning toward her and offering the helmet. "It is time."

"Time?"

" Ni kyr'tayl gai sa'ad, Senaar Vizsla," he bent down, touching his helmet to her forehead. A wave of emotion consumed her, choking her up as if dark, churning water were drowning her. Despite the fact that all it was was cold metal on her brow and words she did not understand, she knew her new name when he spoke it. The tightness of his fingers on her shoulder, the promising tone of voice - the promise that she'd never be alone despite all that she had lost. Papa had made certain she was in good hands, hands that would never let her go, despite their differences. Soon, those differences would be scattered amongst the ocean - lost to the tides of change as the gaps were bridged and she became just another visor amongst many.

" Ni kyr'tayl gai vod, Senaar Vizsla," Paz spoke next, drawing her attention from Hux and over to the young man who was to become her brother. "Call my ori'vod , it means big brother."

" Ori'vod ," she repeated. There had been times where she'd dreamed of having a sibling, older or younger. A small, but characteristically dopey smile plastered itself to her face as she realized what she had gained in the shadow of her loss. "Then... you were calling me little sister before? Vod'ika ? Because little bird is Sen'ika ."

"She's a natural," Paz crooned to their father.

"Smart kid. At least you have some brain cells. Might have to make up for your aliit every so often," Hux joked, tapping her head with his helmet again. "Now, let's see how this fits and we can make some adjustments."

Lifting the helmet up, Faylen - no... Sena - placed it on her head. The wrappings on her head did well to keep her ears from flopping around. She hissed slightly, the tips still getting pinched near the crown where there was little to no padding. Despite it, she blinked a few times as her eyes adjusted to the inside. A hydraulic hiss was followed by a click, the vocoder whizzing with her heavy breathing. She could not smell anything other than the beskar, which had a slightly acidic and cool aroma. Her view from the visor was distorted, illuminated as she saw the entire room through a filter. The lights weren't as keen, but the edges of the ship, the corners chasing away shadows in the same method her eyes could naturally adjust.

"How does it feel?" Hux inquired, making her jolt slightly as the visor shifted with a pulsing analytical wave, shifting to the sound of his voice, informing her that he was 70% questioning, 20% concerned, 10% unreadable.

"It can-" she was startled again, her voice coming out modulated and rather airy like a little whizzing fairy, high pitched and obnoxious.

"Ah, hold on, that's not a good setting. Sova always had a deep voice," he grumbled, reaching up to fiddle with a sensor on the side of the helmet. "Try again?"

"It can read emotions in the voice?" The modulator was closer to her own voice now, but there was still a mechanical ring to it, making her sound much colder than typical. Interesting. Was the purpose to obscure their true voice to keep it from being analyzed by enemies? Or perhaps the purpose was to seem scarier and less mortal.

"Yes, among other things. How does it feel?"

"It needs more padding around-" she lifted her hand and patted the spots where the tips of her ears were pinned. "-there and there. Pinching."

"Off it goes-" he reached for it, but gave her a meaningful tilt of his helmet. "Remember what I told you. No one other than the two of us can see your face, Sena. Anyone who tries to do this-"

"Stick em!"

Hux chortled, her helmet reading that he was mostly amused before he disengaged the seal and pulled it off. "You're going to do well, verd'ika ."

--- translations

Ni kyr'tayl gai sa'ad - I know your name as my child

Ni kyr'tayl gai sibling - I know your name as my sibling

Aliit - family/clan

Verd'ika - little soldier

Gai bal manda - adoption ceremony

Ad'ika - little one, daughter, son

Buir - parent

Jetii - Jedi

Vod - sibling

Ad - son/daughter

Riduur - spouse

Copikla adiik - cute child/kid

Vod'ika - little sibling

#big brother paz vizsla #paz vizsla & oc character #the mandalorian fanfic #the mandalorian fanfiction #oc mandalorian #growing up mandalorian

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aminiatureworld · 4 years

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The Music of the Night

Ship: Geralt x Jaskier

Warnings: Someone gets stabbed

Premise: The family goes to a music concert, courtesy of Jaskier, and Geralt gets to experience something he never has before.

Author’s Note: I was hoping to post every five days, but unfortunately with classes starting and the larger Medieval AU this fic was a long time coming. I was more liberal with Geralt and Jaskier being open about their feelings, or at least I tried to be.

Hope you enjoy this fanfic and thank you so much to the 42 people who liked my last Geraskier fanfic as well as the 6 people who reblogged it. Know that every single one of you contribute so much to my happiness and my determination to continue writing!

Notes about pieces, historical accuracy, and other such things in end note. Ao3 link in reblog

“Alright, are we ready to go?” Yennefer shouted down the hall. Geralt ground his teeth, staring at the array of weapons laid out in front of him. It was a very important night, one that Jaskier hadn’t shut up about for the better part of three months. A guild of musicians was in a town neighboring Yennefer’s newest stronghold, and the house’s resident bard had been adamant that this would be a perfect family outing, and that no one was getting out of it. This hadn’t entirely been surprising, and Geralt had begrudgingly agreed to the whole endeavor, not being a huge fan of enclosed crowds. When he’d realized that maybe going to a concert unarmed in the middle of what could only be described as the Continent losing its collective mind was a bad move, his intensely minute planning, something that both Yennefer and Jaskier teased him mercilessly about since he’d properly brought Ciri into the family, had spun out of control. Now there the Witcher was, staring at the various knives, daggers, swords, and other miscellaneous weapons that he’d found lying around the house, wondering which to take and which to leave. The two usual swords were among the bunch, of course, but somehow Geralt knew that Jaskier wouldn’t take kindly to them being brought, something along the lines of ruining the atmosphere. Still, he had to bring something and as the banging in the hall grew louder Geralt wondered how he’d ever easily made up his mind about arming himself before.

“Geraltttt!” Jaskier’s voice came singing down the hall, followed almost immediately by the banging of the door. Rushing over, he planted a quick kiss on Geralt’s cheek, something which never failed to bring on a blush, and shook his head excitedly. “You look lovely in everything darling, I promise no one will be in the mood to glare.” Geralt smiled fondly, if a bit exasperatedly, at the bard, before shaking his head.

“That’s not it. I, well, was trying to choose.” He gestured towards the table and Jaskier, turning around and surveying the paraphernalia, nodded thoughtfully.

“Hmm… tough choice.” He brought his hand to his chin for a moment, before his eyes lit up and he picked up a dirk sheathed in black leather. “I’ll take this one!” Checking to confirm the blade was indeed steel, Jaskier smiled up at the, admittedly baffled, Geralt, who couldn’t understand the bent that Jaskier was taking.

“Jaskier, I-”

“Oh and of course the others will need something too!” Jaskier scurried into the hallway. “Guys!! Geralts got his weapons laid out, better get one!” There was an incoherent reply from Yennefer, and the quick footsteps of Ciri, who, running into the room, grabbed a thin knife, this one wrapped in ordinary leather with green silk woven into the hilt, an old gift from a grateful pawnshop owner if Geralt could remember right. Geralt frowned as Ciri ran back out of the room, but before he could raise a protest Yennefer had waltzed in, scanned the table, and ran off with an elegant dagger, a whirling pattern built into the blade. Geralt immediately gave a grunt of protest at that, but Yennefer simply raised an eyebrow and walked out. Jaskier, returning, walked up to the poor Witcher, who was running about three paces behind the entire ordeal, and gave him a smile. “Thank you for thinking of that! This should be a relatively calm affair, more serious you know, but hey, protection is always a must!”

“I… those were for me.” Geralt shook his head. “I couldn’t choose which to pick.”

“Well, we’ve whittled down the selection haven’t we?” Jaskier smiled indulgently. “Now hurry up and choose yours now, you know how much I’ve been longing for this, and nothing is going to stop me from enjoying tonight. Especially not a late indecisive witcher.” And, pressing a kiss on Geralt’s nose, and nearly falling on him in the process, Jaskier ducked out, leaving the slightly bashful Witcher to pick up a weapon, another dirk, this one wrapped in old worn leather with half rubbed off runes cut into it, and run after him.

The venue was already quite crowded when they arrived, and the front seats full. Jaskier gave a dramatic groan at that, but Ciri, muttering a quick word of assurance, ducked off to find four seats. Geralt could barely make her out, as she slipped quickly and quietly between various patrons, but he trusted in her abilities not only to find a good spot but to be able to take care of herself. The latter part of that trust had been harder to build up, the first few weeks they were together Geralt felt as if he were walking on melting ice, worried about the various ways he might put his newfound family in trouble. It had taken a lot of lectures from Yennefer and coaxing from Jaskier for the Witcher to finally accept that Ciri wasn’t a waifish girl in need of coddling; after all, hadn’t she survived without him? Through war and death and a cult chasing after her? No, Geralt now knew that being a good adoptive father didn’t mean locking one’s daughter away, even out of paternal worry.

As Ciri waved the band over to a set of seats in the third row, Jaskier admitting that the choice was “not bad at all”, Geralt reflected for a moment on where he was now in life. He’d never thought at the beginning of his life he’d be a witcher, and he’d never thought at the beginning of his witcher life that’d he’d be destined for anything other than a lonely life, walking the Path with the cold determination of someone who knew no other way. How odd fate had proved out to be, and how grateful Geralt was that he’d been wrong. How happy he was that his life had changed, that he had changed, for the old Geralt knew nothing about either reflection or hope, not in the way current Geralt did, and as he slipped into one of the creaky wicker chairs set up around the semi circled stage, Geralt glanced at the family around him. Yennefer was enquiring after Jaskier the type of music that was to be played, the bard replying with a garble of songwriter facts and music theory that no one but himself understood, while Ciri was scouting the people around them, trying to determine where they were from no doubt, as she’d once confessed to Geralt seeing Cintran refugees always gave her pause, even if she no longer felt the urge to walk up and say hello. It was a happy sight, despite everything that had happened, the mistakes, the goings, the years apart. It was nice to have a night such as this, and as Jaskier turned to glance at the Witcher he seemed to wink, as if to say to Geralt, see, I told you this was a good idea. Geralt lifted his eyebrow, but he couldn’t stop the smile that spread across his face, and as the people hushed and the musicians came out Geralt found himself very happy he’d let that bard follow him around.

Geralt wasn’t entirely sure what he expected out of this night. He knew that it wouldn’t be the same experience as tavern songs, that this wasn’t going to simply be a group of bards, that the singing would be minimal, and that the songs would be longer and more complicated. What he certainly wasn’t expecting was the sheer beauty that hit him. The song started with one musician playing a fiddle, a low pleasant sound, which rose up in a variety of trills. It put Geralt in the mid of early springtime, the birds just emerging from their nests, or coming up from where they’d left. It made him think of the fields right after a frost, buds beginning to dot the trees, the world coming to life again. Slowly the other musicians, of which there were about 60, began to join in with the lone player, adding to the effect of a world waking. The music chased away the rest of Geralt’s thoughts, and he found himself leaning forward, as if somehow he could envelope himself in the notes floating around the theatre.

A glance over at Jaskier made evident that the bard was also feeling affected by the music, for the bard had clasped his hands over his mouth, though every once in a while one would float up, as if guided by the music, and Jaskier’s eyes would close. It was a side that Geralt hadn’t really seen before, for though he knew of course that Jaskier loved music, loved it in an all consuming way, he didn’t show it often, mostly joking that no one wanted to hear the intricacies of Dorian mode, or listen to him sing the praises of men and women long dead. A warm feeling filled Geralt’s chest, and he was almost choked by the sense of fondness that he felt, surrounded by what Jaskier loved best, watching him in his element. Turning back to the performers Geralt thanked every god he could think of and all the ones he couldn’t that Jaskier had brought the family, and that Geralt got to be around such a beautiful being and share in such a beautiful experience.

The music continued, each song more beautiful than the last. After what Geralt could only call the springtime piece came what seemed like four, but Jaskier later told him was only one split up into different “movements”. Their, or rather its, tone was dark, and even when the song seemed faster Geralt only felt agitated, rather than happy. Deciding he didn’t like that as much as the first song, though Ciri rather seemed excited by the frantic energy of it, Geralt was glad when four guild members stepped out and began playing a calmer song, this one another split in four, why did songwriters do such a thing? The second part of the four songs was quiet and soft, almost like a lullaby, and when the third part started again at a bright tone Yennefer, who’d dozed off, jerked up in her seat, to the great amusement of both Ciri and Jaskier, who giggled so incessantly that someone behind them told them in no uncertain terms to either shut up or go home. After that was a song much more based in the flutes and the reeded instruments, which consequently sounded much more fluid and loose, bringing to mind a great city with lazy morals and interesting sights. Geralt was enjoying himself immensely, a happiness only added to by Jaskier’s occasional squeals of glee and raucous clapping at the end of each song, as well as a whisper in Geralt’s ear whenever the Witcher seemed to get lost.

The night was fading away and as the musicians announced that this was to be their last piece the crowd moaned, and shouts of encore echoed through the hall. The musicians stood up and bowed, causing many in the audience to jump to their feet in applause, and some even to begin to walk out, much to Jaskier’s annoyance. “They’re going to miss the best of it.” He scoffed, sitting back down as the stage emptied. Emptied that is except for one woman. She paused, waiting for the noise to calm down, before placing her fiddle on her shoulder. “This is it.” Jaskier whispered, and then she began. Immediately Geralt was blown away. Although there was only of her, multiple notes were certainly coming out of the instrument, at a breakneck pace, which had Geralt in mind of a horse, frantic and wild. The song developed, as a sweet melody came out of the endless pounding of hooves, only to be brought down by another melody, this one thick with panic and fear. The momentum kept going, pitches rising, melodies crashing into each other. It felt more like a torrent than a song, so swept away Geralt felt, giving him an odd sense of dread. Suddenly everything smashed into one another, and the song dropped, giving one the lingering feeling of discomfort. Turning to Jaskier, Geralt looked at the bard with raised eyebrows, not entirely sure how to convey what he’d felt. Jaskier glanced back at him with what seemed like satisfaction. “Based off a poem,” he explained, “of a man trying to save his son, only to be chased by a specter, one who promises the boy happiness and luxury if he goes with him, only to take his soul and kill the boy.” He sighed, seeming much happier than Geralt felt, for a pit had begun to form in the Witcher’s stomach. “Imagine your writing being immortalized in such a way… one day that’ll be my piece Geralt, just you wait. I’ll be the one striking fear into your heart.”

“I hope not.” Geralt responded, a bit brusque for he couldn’t get the image out of his mind. “It sounds like a terrible poem.”

“Tragedy is immortalized better than glory. I’m sure you understand that. Besides, it’s just a story, and one that can bring all people together. You thought her playing was beautiful didn’t you?” He gestured towards the woman, who was receiving heaps of deafening applause. Geralt nodded slowly. He couldn’t deny the talent of both the musician and the songwriter. Still, the music sat uncomfortably over him, and as the family made ready to leave, he couldn’t help but let everyone pass in front of him, thinking of how even if the scenario in the poem itself wasn’t true, the general idea certainly was real enough.

Outside the air seemed to clear a bit, and the group fell into happy chatter. Ciri was still on about how bombastic that second song had been; “I can’t believe how loud they got sometimes! It was like the roof was going to fall!” Yennefer said nothing, rubbing her eyes slightly, but the look on her face was one of contentment. And, of course, Jaskier seemed ready to burst, talking this way and that about all sorts of things. “Did you see the way the fiddle bows were all together? And the vibrato on that first flautist, I couldn’t believe it! Shame that vibrato isn’t exactly a lute thing. And I can’t believe how much work the composer must’ve put into those pieces! I mean, I can barely read two clefs, imagine being able to read four! Maybe I should consider that for the next big project…” His voice carried off, and Geralt smiled indulgently, knowing that for the next few months there’d probably be horrendous amount of noise as this bard tried to put all he’d seen to good use in his own music. Inhaling the cool, fresh air, Geralt began to feel the shroud of that last song shake off, reminding him of how beautiful he’d thought the first song was.

The reverie didn’t last forever though, for as the group made their way out of the stables – Yennefer had insisted on no stays at the inns, for who would spend that much money when there was a perfectly fine home only five miles away – and into the woods the atmosphere seemed much more oppressive. When two men stepped out of the shadows Geralt tensed, wishing he’d brought his swords after all. “What brings you to stop in these dense woods?” Jaskier called out, swinging out of the saddle, a move which caused Geralt’s throat to constrict, and made him simultaneously want to protect and strangle the bard. The men said nothing, and Jaskier shook his head, shrugging his shoulders and holding his hands out to the tall, ragged figures. “Well if you say nothing I cannot help you, and will assume that you’re playing a rather insipid game of hide-and-seek. Now if you don’t mind it’s late, and I’d rather spend a cold night like this in bed than staring a statues.” Going to turn Jaskier stopped in his tracks when one of the men piped up.

“Those are some nice horses. Nice clothes too.”

“Oh you think so?” Jaskier turned around. “I’ll admit I do agree my fashion is impeccable, I’m glad you can see that. But unfortunately I think your judgement on horses is rather lacking. I mean of course Lyra is the loveliest girl, but honestly could you say Roach is anything close to nice?” He gestured towards Geralt, who gripped the reins. The men on the road had the sense to look slightly uneasy at the realization that a witcher was amidst the party, but “evidently they had a scarcity of sense, common or otherwise” Jaskier would later say, for they both looked back upon the bard, and the bulkier of the two drew a ragged sword out of its sheath.

“We’ll be taking Lyra and Roach now. And the horses of those lovely ladies.” The second began walking towards Yennefer and Ciri, the former of who raised her eyebrows, and the latter of who looked extremely unimpressed.

“Do what you want.” Jaskier threw his hands up, as if in surrender. “I must warn you however that one such lovely lady is unused to having her horse stolen out from underneath her, and I daresay mages aren’t known for their forbearance.” The two men halted for a second, and the one closer to Jaskier turned towards the bard. Geralt by now had begun to slide off Roach, looking backwards to make sure there were only two such men, and taking care to be as silent as possible. Jaskier looked as unruffled as ever, and even when the bulky man took a step towards the bard, he stayed in his position, leaning slightly against Lyra, arms crossed at his chest.

“It’s no good lying to us.” The bandit, for that was most surely what these two people were, had a voice that could only be accurately described as gravely. He pointed his sword towards the bard. “I’ll have to teach you a lesson.”

“How menacing of you.” Jaskier deadpanned, and as the man lunged and Geralt made for his weapon it seemed for a moment as if Jaskier was truly about to get struck.

The surprise on the other man’s face was one of complete terror, as his compatriot dropped like a stone. Jaskier pulled his dirk, now drenched to the hilt in blood, out of the man’s ribcage, turning to Geralt, who was likewise frozen. The last bandit distracted Yennefer made quick work snapping her fingers, and in place of the man soon stood a very confused rabbit. Whirling off her own horse Ciri stepped towards the animal, who made a weird sort of strangled sound before bolting into the forest. Walking over to Geralt, Jaskier handed the Witcher the dirk. “Could you hold this for me? My handkerchief is in my pocket, and this doublet is newly made.” Careful to avoid using his right hand, Jaskier pulled out the square of linen, and wiped his hands and the dirk, before sliding the blade back into its sheath. “Thank you darling!” Jaskier planted a kiss on Geralt’s hand, causing the inevitable blush. The poor Witcher still felt like he’d somehow missed something, and as he looked around at the rest of his family, already back on their horses and starting to move on, the Witcher wondered how he’d become the pacifist in the family.

The rest of the ride was quite a jumpy one for the Witcher, who kept expecting various monsters, highwaymen, and other of the sort to come jumping out of the trees at any moment. By the time Yennefer’s place was in sight, Geralt felt an immense sense of relief, and as the group all untacked their horses, Ciri, determined to be the fastest of the group, already combing Melusine, Geralt stayed silent, ears trained on the soft sounds of the night outside. The cleaning done and the hay placed in the stables, the family filed back into the house, Geralt at the rear, locking the bolt to both the stables and the house firmly behind him. “Did you enjoy yourself?” Jaskier immediately asked.

“A bit too long for my taste, but you couldn’t deny the talent.” Yennefer yawned. “Thank you for having us attend Jaskier.”

“Of course my dear Yennefer.” Jaskier dipped into a short bow. Yennefer snorted and walked up the stairs, the bath was definitely going to be hogged for the next hour or so.

“I liked all of it!” Ciri declared, plopping down on the rug in front of the fireplace in the main hall. “It reminded me of the kinds of concerts my grandmother liked to see. I was glad to go to such a thing again.” She smiled softly, and Geralt and Jaskier both walked over to the girl, enveloping her in a group hug. Ciri hummed happily. “Thank you both.” And giving each of the two a quick hug she too went up the stairs, closing the room to her door with a bang, as was custom.

“And you?” Jaskier looked over to Geralt. “Don’t you dare say anything about a filling-less pie this time. I know you lied through your teeth then, and I’ll know you’ll be lying now.” Geralt smiled, old memories swirling through his mind, how long ago that seemed now.

“I liked it. It was…” he paused, trying to find the right words, “different. All the songs were different, but they all fit together. And I felt, carried away.” He lay back on the carpet and sighed. “I felt almost as if there was a spell in the air.”

Jaskier nodded, flopping down besides Geralt. “That’s how I feel too about it. You hear this piece sometimes, and, I can’t even describe it but your entire soul is lifted up, and you just start to drown in it, but you don’t even mind, you want to be further enveloped, further dragged in. That’s what true music can do. Cast a spell without magic.” Geralt turned to look at Jaskier, who himself was staring into the fireplace. “One day I’ll do something like that.” He continued, his eyes warm and full of determination. “I’ll create something like that.”

“I think you already have.” Geralt said, and Jaskier turned to smile at the Witcher.

“Truly?”

“Yes. I think, well, I’ve seen how people react to your music. Even those in the shittiest taverns in the shittiest towns. They seem, almost younger, as if their cares have lifted.” Jaskier’s smiled widened, and he pressed a kiss to Geralt’s jaw.

“Thank you my dea, you have no idea how much that means to me.” Standing up, Jaskier reached out his hand and helped pull Geralt up. “Now be a darling and help wash this dirk, I know that you have your fancy way of cleaning these blades of yours. Then come to bed, it’s late, and I’ll chase away the spirits of the forest.” He laughed at Geralt’s expression. “What? You think I didn’t notice? That last piece seemed to send you out of your skin! And even before that idiotic attempted attack you look ready to throw yourself in front of everything.”

“Cruel of you to notice.” Geralt replied, and Jaskier laughed.

“Well then I must be cruel indeed, for I notice everything about you.” He kissed Geralt softly then, and the Witcher felt the familiar feeling of love and contentment wash over him, something he never thought he’d be able to feel in his younger years.

“There’s nothing cruel about you. Even if you’re wicked with a knife.” And, returning the kiss, Geralt went quickly to take the dirk and wash it off, the music of the evening still in his head and the love for his current life in his heart.

End Notes: For all the music nerds out there, I know that these would all be considered songs rather than pieces, one of these are based off a full symphony, and another based off a string quartet, but seeing as I don't think Geralt would use such terminology, indeed most of said terminology didn't exist in the 13th/14th century, which is the time period I would put this series into the real world, I chose to refer to pieces as songs, composers as songwriters, and make vague mentions of most instruments.

String instruments such as violins, violas, and cello originate from the 16th century, most likely around the 1530s. I took creative liberties again, after all this is a fantasy series.The pieces that are vaguely referenced are as follows: The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Dvorak Symphony No. 9 "from the New World", Dvorak String Quartet 12 "American", Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin, and Erlkonig originally by Schubert for piano and voice, adapted for solo violin by Heinrich William Ernst and based off a poem by Goethe. The last one is my personal favorite of the lineup and I would highly recommend checking out both the piano and voice lieder and the violin solo (Hilary Hahn's my favorite).

Hope any of you found this enlightening and once again thank you for reading.

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talpup · 4 years

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Lost Song: 8

Huzzah for the Smut Fairy! She finally decided to return to me so I could get this chapter written out. And in time for the 1yr friend-iversary with my bnha conspirator @inorganicone2230 Sorry about the delay everyone. Hope you enjoy.

Summary: The war between the Dragons and Griffons ended 233 years ago, and both races right along with it.

Or so it was believed. There are three individuals that will soon change that.

Kai is the last of the Dragons and he seeks to take what he sees as his rightful place and rule over all of Oblvi. Meanwhile, Shouta, the last Sphinx, wants nothing more than to do his job; keep the peace and and teach the young Fourth’s to hopefully avoid the mistakes of their ancestors. And Teris, a Foundling who is just trying to understand and survive in this strange new world that is supposedly her own.

All three have their own wants and desires, but Kai’s plans, Teris’ existence, and Shouta's past mean that none of them may get what they want.

This fic is rated explicit and has warnings of sex, violence, and other possible triggers. For a full list of story tags please check the fics AO3 (link to that at the top of my tumblrs homepage).

8.1

Teris found the book on how Beasts tracked their prey interesting. Not only was she able to pick out signs of how Shouta had reacted to and found the Red Cap during their patrol three days ago. But she noted several things she had thought of as personal habits that, according to the book, were instinct. It was enlightening, and a bit unnerving just how beholden to her instincts she had been without even realizing it.

“Teris.”

Engrossed in reading, Teris startled.

Kai smirked. Finding the little jump and gasp she gave cute. The Beast within him hummed in satisfaction at catching her unawares. His ignited predatory instincts stoked higher. “Let’s hope you’re not so easy to catch for the hunt.”

“Catch? Hunt?” Teris asked.

Kai held her gaze. “Why do you think I gave you that to read? We’re going hunting. Or more correctly I’m hunting..”

Closing the book, Teris got to her feet. A part of her thrilled at the prospect of a chase. While another part of her tensed in defense at the answer she already knew. “What are you hunting?”

Kai stepped to her, voice deepening as it lowered. “Clever girl like you. I thought it would be obvious.”

Teris shivered more from his piercing gaze and seductive tone than his actual words. “You want to hunt me?”

Kai leaned forward, breath ghosting over her ear. “As badly as I know you want to be caught. Do you think you can make a good game of it?”

“Game?” Teris stepped back wearing a teasing smile. “So this is a game. Not a lesson.”

Kai grabbed her waist and pulled her back to him. “I’d be more than happy to give you a lesson if you’d like.”

Teris’ breath caught. Kai had this gentlemanly yet domineering nature about him that was both exciting and frightening. Any game the man chose to play, she was sure he would win. Even so, something deep within her wanted to challenge him and win. But the idea of being hunted by him for play felt too intimate. As much as she like Kai, she wasn’t ready for that. This world and her place in it were still too new and uncertain.

Kai saw the look in her eyes and reigned his desires in. “It’s a lesson of sorts. Though Beasts are known hunters, there might be occasions where you’ll have to run, hide, and cover your trail.”

Teris eased at that. It made sense. Especially since she was still learning and had yet to display her true form. If she got separated from Shouta and Hizashi while out on patrol and was attacked, her best bet would probably be to run and hide. “Alright. But you have to make it halfway fair and give me a head start.”

Kai’s earlier anger and stress, coupled with his heightened instincts made his eyes flash. “I don’t have to do anything.”

Even as she took a step back, Teris’ posture straightened in defiance.

While her submissive step back pleased him. Kai also felt a sense of pride at the fixed set of her posture. He didn’t want a scared, broken mate. Teris’ pride and unflinching strength is what had initially furthered his interest in her. Yet the way she continued to met his eyes and refused to bend was a challenge to his authority he found unacceptable.

All in good time, Kai consoled himself. Just because she was perfectly suited to be his mate didn’t mean she was his perfect mate yet. He had to bide his time and be gentle with her, least he scare her away.

Voice and expression softening, Kai stepped after her. “But I’ll do anything within reason for you, Beautiful.”

Teris slowly relaxed. Kai’s burst of temper had both concerned her and raised her heckles. But she forgave it. Everyone at Traverseen Hall seemed on edge because of these Council Elders that were arriving. As steady and sure as Kai was. It was little surprise that he would be too.

Looking to ease any of his stress that she could, Teris told. “I trust you to know what’s best for my instruction. You haven’t failed me yet.”

“And I never will.” Kai promised.

Teris wondered if that was why he had thought of this lesson. Because it would be a diversion from everything going on. After everything Kai had done for her, the least she could do was put up a good chase. She plucked a his button-up shirt. Raising to her tip-toes she kissed his cheek. “I’ll do my best to use everything you’ve taught me and make you proud.”

Kai’s heart raced at the sweet, tender affection. He wrapped his arms around her, tugging her close. “And I’ll be sure to teach you so much more, Beautiful.”

Teris gasped into his mouth, the kiss sudden but not unwelcome. Clutching at his shoulders, she shivered against him.

A low growl reverberated through Kai’s chest. The desire to claim near overwhelming. He pulled away. “I’ll give you eight minutes.”

The heady excitement of the kiss stoked her excitement over this lesson. There was no way she could win. But that wouldn’t stop her from trying. “And you have twenty minutes to find me.”

“I’ll only need three but I’ll hold off and take fifteen.” Kai said, a firm believer in delayed gratification.

“Cocky.”

Kai’s smirk was smug. “You have no idea.”

Cheeks heated in a blush, Teris ordered. “Turn around. No peeking.”

Kai slowly turned his back to the forest beyond.

In an impulsive move that surprised herself, Teris smacked his ass.

Kai barely jumped at the spank. “I’ll get you for that, Beautiful.”

“We’ll see.” Teris teased and tore off to the treeline.

She disappeared into the forest. First things first. She had to mask her scent. Not caring that it would leave a clear trail, her hands raked through the branches of young pines as she ran. Hands and forearms covered in the trees scent, she rubbed her forearms along her neck. Satisfied her scent was mildly dampened, she stopped and carefully backtracked a few paces. Eyes scanning the towering trees, she lept to a mid lying branch and hopped to a nearby pine. Continuing to do so, she made her way deeper into the forest.

Hands in his pockets, Kai patiently waited. He had tuned out his other senses wanting the added challenge of not knowing which direction his prey taken.

When the sixth minute hit, Kai was temped to turn around and start. His half hard cock was already eager to start the chase and catch her. But he kept his word. Slow as the time seemed to pass, he would wait the full eight minutes. Though he already doubted he would be able hold off catching her for the full fifteen he had said.

Teris jumped down from a tree and into a shallow stream. The water would cover her trail and wash away any scent she left.

At the eight minute mark, Kai turned around. The beast within him wanted to change into his true form. But he held back. The hunt would be over far too soon if he did that. Instead he strolled calmly and slowly into the forest.

The disturbed earth of her footfalls told of her path. He followed it. His nose was assaulted by the pungent smell of pine long before he saw the bent and broken saplings. From there her trail ended.

A rush of adrenaline shot through him. To think he had begun to get disappointed at how easy she had made it. Eyes scanning the trees, he looked for marks of where she had landed when she jumped. Not seeing any, he turned back the way he had come. He smiled, just barely able to make out a bit of scuffed bark. Clever girl.

Teris left the stream. She supposed ten minutes had passed since Kai would’ve begun his chase. It felt impossibly longer and shorter at the same time. Suddenly she heard him speak and was forced to slap a hand over her mouth to hold back startled squeak.

“Teris.” Kai thought into her head. He had broken down and changed into his true form. One might call it cheating. Teris likely would. But pursuing villains never played fair.

Teris halted. She turned in a circle. Ears listening. Eyes searching.

Kai “You did well masking your scent.” Kai spoke into her mind. He stalked through the forest, tail slowly flicking behind. She had either stopped moving or was moving too carefully for him to hear. “Your truly are a worthy prey. But you haven’t done that trick again. I can smell you, Precious.”

Teris’ eyes widened. He was clearly toying with her. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. Deep enough into the forest that there weren’t any saplings, she looked up at the thick canopy. Should she try to mask her scent again? No. Bruising the pine needles would release more of their scent and act as much as a beacon as her scent.

Kai took a deep breath. The slitted nostrils of his true form expanding and contracting. “I have your trail now, Beautiful. Your sweet scent is like no other. The smell and image of you is marked on my very being. I’ll find you. I’ll always find you.”

Teris’ heart raced. Her eyes darted about the forest. She looked back the way she had come and bolted in the opposite direction.

“You’ve grown more excited. I can smell it.” Kai thought into her mind. “You’re making this too easy. Or is that what you want? For me to catch you? Do you like being chased? Is this what you wanted all this time? All you had to do was ask. I would've gladly hunted and caught you long before now if you had but asked like a good girl.” The excitement getting to him, Kai’s beastly instincts took over his mouth as he continued to speak into Teris’ head. “I’ll do so much more than hunt you down and catch you, Little One. I’ll pin you down and pump you full if you’d like.”

Teris tripped over her own feet, just barely catching herself. Surely Kai was just trying to make her mess up. Still, the prospect made her heart flutter and core clench. It stoked a hidden flickering incitement into a full flame.

“Is that what you want? For me to pin you down and make you scream as you take my cock. I’d stretch that tight little pussy of yours and ruin you. You’d be mine forever. You already are. You just don’t know it yet.”

Teris barely heard his last words. As hard as it was to ignore someone speaking directly into your mind, she tried. The feelings and images his words conjured were too distracting. Too enticing.

Kai growled. A different, more alluring smell that was still completely Teris tickled his nose. He shot up through the branches and took to the air.

Teris happened upon a clearing. It was futile to continue running so she decided to wait and make a stand. There had been nothing said about sparring. And she refused to go down without a fight knowing she technically wouldn’t be caught until he had hands on her and she couldn’t get away.

High above the treetops, Kai heard her stop running. For a second he wondered if she had given up. But that wasn’t like his chosen mate. Her instincts would be running just as high as his, if not more so. Kai might not know what kind of Beast Teris was yet. But he knew she was of a proud and ancient breed. She wouldn’t simply stop and call it quits.

Panting, Teris waited. Unbeknownst to her, her features sharpened. The soft peach fuzz along her face changed into tiny quills. Her senses heightened. She saw a wren snap up a grasshopper from more than a thousand meters away. She could see it so clearly she saw the grasshoppers legs and antennae thrash. Could hear the insects frantic clicks before it was swallowed up. A change in air pressure made her look up moments before a shadow passed overhead.

Kai was upon her. The world closed in. Heightened sense shrinking. Quills reverting back to peach fuzz. Before she could move, Kai had descended from above in a whip of wind and swoosh of receding wings.

Seamlessly, Kai returned to human form. He had Teris pinned in an instant. There was no chance of fighting. No hope of escape.

“Mine.” Kai declared, more breathless from excitement of the chase than the chase itself.

Despite the futilely of it, Teris tried to push him off.

Kai grabbed her hands and pinned them to either side of her head. “Mine.”

Teris growled. She belonged to no one unless she willed it. Her hips bucked under him, trying to unseat his straddling frame.

Kai sat more of his weight on her. An echoing growl rumbled from his chest. “Mine.”

Teris’ breath caught at the feel of a hard prodding length. Her body stilled, heart racing impossibly faster.

Kai hummed in approval. Mine. He thought eyes panning from her thrumming pulse point to her heaving chest. He leaned over her. Proud, smirking lips hovering inches above her parted ones. “You did well, Beautiful. But it’s time to admit defeat.”

Teris’ eyes hardened. Conflicting instincts raged through her. She would never admit defeat. She was meant to rule. But the feel and scent of the handsome Dragon was too appealing. Overwhelming in the best of ways.

Teris turned her head, baring her neck to the victor.

Kai’s head dipped. Nose and lips running up the column of her neck, reveling in her submissive state. He breathed deeply, savoring the scent of her. Mine. Good mate. His lips latched onto the curve of her neck, teeth sinking in.

Teris gasped, body tensing. Kai’s deep growl of warning the only thing that kept her still. She whimpered, muscles trembling. Conflicting instincts warring inside her.

Kai’s tongue laved at the flesh between his teeth, easing the sting. Teris melted beneath him, eliciting a pleased hum from the man above her. His teeth released. Shimmering gold eyes examined the mark in satisfaction. His pleasure diminished slight by the fact that it was only claiming mark and not a true bonding bite.

Nuzzling her neck, Kai murmured. “That chase was too easy, Beautiful. It’s almost as if you wanted me to catch you.”

Teris’ body arched involuntarily up to him. The low timber of his voice and heady scent of him making her core clench. She whimpered, arousal seeping from her quivering cunt, wetting her underwear.

Kai groaned, rutting against her. The smell of her essence blew his pupils wide. He lifted up enough to look her in the eye. “I’ve made good on my promise to pin you down. Would you like me to make good on the other and pump you full?”

Her body rolled against his in silent answer. But Kai wouldn’t award so easily. Her vocal consent wasn’t the issue. Rather it was his desire to hear her admit she wanted him to fuck her raw and make her scream. He wanted to hear her tell him how much she wanted him. How much she needed him. How he was the only one for her. And only he could suffice and give all she ever wanted.

“Tell me.” Kai spoke into her head, instincts to high to verbally speak.

“Kai.” Teris mewled, arms trying to pull from where he had them pinned. She wanted. Needed. To touch him. The intimacy of having him speak into her head only added to the heated heaviness that clouded all rational thought.

“Tell me what you want, Teris. All you have to do is ask. I’ll gladly give you whatever you want.”

Teris shivered. Kai’s resonating voice caressing her mind and body as firm and sensual as any physical touch.

“Do you want me?” Kai questioned, aching cock making him impatient for answer.

Teris nodded.

“Tell me.” Kai ground his weeping dick against her, uncaring of the wet spot that blossomed on his underwear.

“Kai. Please.”

“Tell me you want me. Tell me you want my cock.”

Teris broke. “I want your cock.”

Kai growled in pleasure. He reared up onto his knees and ripped off his shirt. Later he would frown at the undignified act. But with his beastly side in control, he didn’t care. He could barely think straight. Every sensation was heightened. Every need magnified. He fell back over her catching and bearing himself up on a strong arm.

Teris’ head tilted and raised. Tongue licking up his bulging bicep. She moaned at the taste of him. Head falling back, baring her throat.

Kai cupped the back of her neck. Hungry lips feasting on her throat. My mate. Mine.

Teris’ hands roved over his back, fingering threading through his hair. She pulled him off her neck, shivering in delight and ire at his indignant growl.

Before Kai could complain, Teris pressed her lips to his. Kai’s hand tightened around the back of her neck, pulling her closer. He quickly took charge of the kiss. Tongue leaking out to push its way into her mouth. Teris moaned around the heavenly wet muscle. Her thighs rubbed together seeking friction against her need.

Kai lapped at her mouth exploring every crevice. He mapped out her wet cavern, finding particularly sensitive areas that made her breath hitch. Taking note of what treatment made her body tremble in delight. Pulling away with one last nip to her lower lip, Kai moved back to her neck. His hands roamed over her body, raking fingers pulling up her shirt to expose her soft flesh.

Teris pulled her top off, tossing is aside. She made to pull him into a kiss again but was stopped by Kai’s large hand capturing her wrists.

He held her down, pinning her arms above her head. With a cocky smirk, he told. “You’re my prize, Little One. I won the chase. I get the reward.”

“You said I could have whatever I wanted.” Teris reminded.

“I said I would gladly give you whatever you asked. And you haven’t asked to touch me.”

Teris frowned, arms pulling against his hold.

Kai growled. “My prize.”

Teris stopped, arms relaxing.

Kai looked over her submissive position in approval. My mate. Mine. He thought, proudly. Leaning over her, he rasped. “You just lay back and let me have my way. I promise it’ll be the best fuck of your life.”

A thought stuck him then. Was Teris a virgin. Even running on instincts she wasn’t acting like one. The thought of someone having at her before him turned him feral. He growled low and long.

“Stay.” Kai commanded, hand pressing her wrists into the ground.

Teris didn’t dare move. Didn’t dare argue. Not with the way Kai had growled. Not with the way his scent had subtlety changed from assertive to aggressive.

It didn’t matter that Fourth’s were freer with sex. Or that Beastly Fourth's could have numerous companions before they were mated. Teris was his mate. Properly mated or not, she was his. The thought of anyone looking at, let alone touching her made him want to kill. With no challenger around to kill, Kai turned his attention to claiming.

He crashed his lips against hers. Ravenous hands pushing up her bra to grope her breasts. He kissed and bit a line down her neck. Mine.

Teris’ hands closed around clumps of grass least she disobey and touch him.

Kai’s eyes lifted. Looking between the twin mounds of her breasts to take in her beautiful face. “Good girl. My prize.” He spoke into her head, lips trailing up the soft curve of one of her breasts to pluck at perk nipple. “Be good and take it for me.”

His tongue flicked the hardened peak. Teris gasped at a hard, toothy suck.

“So sensitive.” Kai’s voice sounded in her head, hands moving down to her pants.

He made quick work undoing her belt and pants. And soon he was kneeling between her legs with her laid bare beneath him.

“So beautiful. More beautiful than I ever could’ve dreamed. And believe me, Beautiful. I’ve done more than dream about this. I’ve imagined taking you since the first moment I saw you.” Kai’s hand ran up her thigh and spread her puffy folds.

Teris tried to close her legs and shield herself from his devouring gaze.

Kai’s other hand tightened around her thigh, holding her open. His gold eyes flashed in warning displeasure. “Don’t you dare try to hide my prize from me.”

Teris’ hips danced, cunt aching to be filled. Never before had she felt such an overpowering need. Her legs butterflied open, all pride and ego gone. She would do anything. Submit to anything. So long as it meant Kai would stretch her open with his cock and fuck her.

“Please. Please, Kai. Please.” Teris whimpered, clawing fingers tilling the earth above her head.

Kai lost all control seeing Teris in such a state. To think his chosen mate wanted. Needed. Him so bad that she was a begging mess with just a single touch to her pretty pussy. He undid his belt and pants, shoving them and his underwear down.

He hissed at his rock hard cock springing free. It hit his stomach, leaving a trail of precum. He preened, letting Teris have a good look at the thick length that would be splitting her open.

Early in his prime, Kai had been able to ignore his beastly urges. It helped that there had been no one he found worthy enough to even seek release with. It made this moment all the more potent for him. Teris being his first.

It also meant that he devolved into pure base instinct. For while thinking Kai might've wanted to take his time and have Teris to touch him. To see and feel her kiss swollen lips wrap around his cock. His beastly nature needed to breed. It didn’t matter that there was no chance of pregnancy without them being properly mated. The need outweighed everything else.

Instincts ruling his actions, Kai grabbed Teris’ legs and pushed them back against her. The position would allow him to thrust as deeply as possible.

Teris squirmed, feeling further exposed at the mating press. The proud, assertive side of her didn’t like being at another's mercy. While she liked Kai. Found him strong, intelligent, handsome, and caring toward her. Her emotions hadn’t developed to the level of a trusting love that would have her fully and willingly submit.

Kai growled, hands tightening around her legs with bruising strength. He would have his prize and she would gladly take it.

All willfulness evaporated when Kai’s cock rutted through her slick folds. Kai shivered in pleasure at the silky, wet, heat. The head of his dick hit Teris’ clit making her eyes roll. Her wanton moan a sound that would ring in Kai’s ears forever.

He pushed in to the hilt in a single driving thrust, and was lost to the world. All that existed was the woman beneath him and her hot enveloping tightness. Never before had he felt such a delicious velvety wetness. Never before had he felt so divine. She was his goddess. And he was her lord.

Teris’ toes curled, back arching at the wide, deep stretch. Having been captured and held for a time only to escape and be brought to this world, it had been nearly a year since she had last had sex. But she could've had sex yesterday and this still would've felt like the first time.

It wasn’t just Kai’s impressive cock. It was the man. The Dragon himself. Molten gold eyes that could go from a comforting warmth to an incinerating fire in a flash. Strong, deft body that could protect and kill. Scent like arctic air and crisp, clean linen. It was intoxicating. He was intoxicating.

“Kai. Please. Move.” Teris implored, unable to move her own hips in his vise-like grip.

Her wish was both his joyful command and an irritant. It rankled that she was still trying to rule things. Still trying to control. His mate must submit… Mate. Claim mate. Breed mate.

Kai pulled back and thrust forward. His hips slammed against hers with an echoing slap that satisfied. He groaned, feeling her cunt quiver around him, his dick twitching in response.

Teris gasped at Kai’s stirring cock. When he held still again, she opened her mouth to plead once more. Seeing this Kai growled. His punishing thrust knocked the air out of her. His chest rumbled in approval at that.

Finally he set a pace. It was hard and fast. Purposeful. Claim. Breed. Mate.

Sweat beaded on his brow. His rolling muscles glistened with the effort of his work. The sound of slapping skin and wet squelches filled the forest. Teris’ lewd moans and sweet mewls adding to the auditory harmony. Their mingling scent wafted through the air. Taken up by the breeze and deposited far and wide.

Teris held onto the tufts of grass for dear life. Kai’s impaling cock hitting all the right places. So driving and deep it made her see stars. She didn’t know how long he could last at such a pace, but it didn’t matter. She was already at her own climax.

Her quivering pussy clamped down around him as she was sent flying off the precipice. She cried out, back arching, body locking. Cramping fingers wrenched out clumps of grass. Green blades rained down around her head. She clawed at Kai’s arms.

Kai grunted at the squeeze of her milking pussy. The stinging scratches adding to the growing tight weight in his balls. With two more thrusts, Kai buried deep inside her with a guttural groan, cock coming alive.

Still floating on the tidal wave of her release, Teris purred at hot cum that further filled her.

Kai held still a moment, coming to his senses. His hand lifted, picking grass out of her hair. Lovingly, he smoothed her hair back and kissed her brow.

It was a strangely sweet act that contrasted beautifully from the hard, fast fuck. And Teris found herself purring again.

Kai blinked. Still lost in the moment he hadn’t registered her first purr. It was a tell that greatly narrowed down what kind of beast she was. He filed it away for later pondering. Right now he had more important matters to see to.

“Are you alright?” Kai asked, slowly pulling out and letting her legs fall. He wanted to watch his cum seep from her abused pussy. Wanted to push it back in despite no chance of pregnancy. But he had lost control and didn’t want to scare Teris off. He needed to prove her that he was a good, caring mate. Capable of seeing to all of her needs.

“That was… amazing.” Teris breathed, head and vision still hazy.

Kai kissed her. “We’re amazing. We could be amazing together all the time.”

Teris’ eyes widened, mind instantly clearing of its lustful fog. This didn’t mean they were mated. Did it? Both Shouta and Kai said that Fourth’s were freer with sex. Both had explained that mating required both parties to be knowing and willing of the bond. And while she had been very willing of the sex; she had not been knowing or willing of any lifelong connection. She wasn’t ready for that. Nice as Kai was. As much as she liked him. She didn’t know him well enough to be bonded for life.

Needing to be sure, Teris carefully asked. “So… What does this change between us?”

Basking in the heady endorphins and pheromones of his first real release, Kai was sure Teris would want to be his mate. She might even want to go again and become his mate this very moment. Much as he liked that. He would make her wait. His mate deserved to be bound to him in a proper bed. Not some filthy forest.

It struck him that she might not be ready to be mated. If that was the case they could be companions for a time. It would allow him to court her with her knowledge of it.

Nose brushing hers, Kai answered. “It changes whatever you want it to, Beautiful.”

“So we’re not mated?”

Kai ceased nuzzling her. “No.”

The beginnings of a frown tugged at his lips before she even asked her next question.

“And we’re not companions?” She asked.

“If you’re worried I wouldn’t accept you--”

“I’m not ready.” Teris said, cutting him off.

Kai’s expression hardened at her words and rudeness.

Seeing this Teris hurried to explain. “You’re wonderful and I like you. I like you a lot. But it’s only been a little over two months since I was brought here and told I wasn’t human. Before all that I didn’t even know Fourth's existed. Let alone that their was this whole other realm.”

She paused, thinking about the scarred man that had captured her. While now certain that he was a Fourth, she hadn’t know it at the time. The only thing she knew then was that his blue flames were clearly inhuman. She shook away the thought, wishing to forget the terrifying experience that she hadn’t told anyone about.

Looking at Kai, she went on. “It’s just a lot. Everything is still so new and unknown. I need to find my bearings. Learn to stand on my own feet before I go looking for a boyfriend-- I mean, companion.”

Kai was furious for a split second. She was already his. He had claimed her. He should just take her back to his Ilca dorm and lock her up until she learned her place. Until she learned who she belonged to. But even if he could force her to be his mate, he couldn’t act until he took his rightful throne. He couldn’t even tell her such things. Not with Council Elders arriving. Not with Aizawa being Teris’ Ilca Leader. If he became too aggressive and controlling, Teris could easily go to the Sphinx. As her Ilca Leader, Aizawa would have every right to keep her from him. If push came to shove it could turn into a challenge. And while Kai would love to fight and end the Sphinx, he couldn’t draw any undue attention his way. Not when his plans were so close to being enacted. Not when only a small handful of Council members were pledged followers of his.

“That’s rather rational.” Kai said, clearing his throat.

Teris relaxed, relieved. “You’re not mad?”

“Of course not.” Kai said. And he realized that he wasn’t. Not truly.

Teris wasn’t rejecting him. She just wanted to be a bit more comfortable and confident in this world before committing herself to him. Now that he thought about it, it was understandable. Having lived his own life with so much uncertainty. Not knowing if or when the ax the Council had hanging over his head would drop. Wanting to be able to stand on your own was something Kai could respect and appreciate.

Teris smiled, thinking Kai really was so sweet and caring.

Kai gave her a gentle kiss. “We can keep things as they are and simply seek release for now.”

Teris didn’t miss the ‘for now’ but chose to focus on the tantalizing prospect of seeking release with him again.

Kai pushed to his knees, and pulled up his pants and underwear. Teris sat up, pushing her bra back down and adjusting her breasts. Grabbing his ruined shirt, Kai laid it over her shoulders. A jolt shot threw him that went straight to his cock. The sight of her engulfed in his clothes had him wanting to shove her down and fuck her all over again.

But Ryuu, his mentor, would be arriving soon along with a handful of other Council Elders. Later, Kai told himself, aggravated that he had to refrain.

It irritated that he was coming away from this without her officially being his. It bothered that she didn’t even know that she was already his. But he could wait. So long as he didn’t have to wait long, he could be patient. If Teris wanted to wait until she was more comfortable and confidant in this world, then he would become the best damn teacher in Oblvi and see her so.

Gathering Teris’ clothes, Kai got to his feet and held a hand out to her. “Come on, Beautiful. There’s a nearby hot spring we can get cleaned up at.”

***So this fic will have a LOT more world building than my others. Please feel free to comment or send me an ask if you have any questions.

Thank you to those who have left hearts. And a special thank you to those who have left comments and/or reblogged. They really mean a lot.

Special thank you to @inorganicone2230 who knows of my love for the mythic and encouraged me to start this fic without stressing about the other two I’ve got going. Your friendship means the world to me.

#bnha #kai chisaki #chisaki kai #yandere kai #aizawa shouta #shouta aizawa #yandere #my hero academia #au #fanfic #lost song

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