#unexpected allies series | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

moumouton4 · 9 months

Note

Idk if you know this, but JSchlatt reaction meme "What the fuck":

https://youtu.be/cl4N8evU8UY

Now, to what, Naruto characters would react like this?

(Yes I have too much time on my hands so I'm looking up old reaction memes)

Toodles~

Their Reactions To You Going "What The Fuck ?!?" || Naruto characters x reader 5

A/n : Oh gosh my dear it took me so much time. I've never struggled so much and I think it was because writing for a meme is a complex exercise 👀 But I did it ! 😍

Naruto Headcanons series : 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

Warnings : Contains both fluff and smut ( mention of boner, hand job, roughness, punishment, oral male!receiver, grinding, mention of wall sex, mention of breeding, dirty talk ) 18+ READERS ONLY and wrap it before you tap it

Masterlist ⚜

I don’t give permission to repost my work, if you want to share it just reblogue it

Word count : 2131

Sasuke Uchiha : All the people around you were engrossed in a dumb ass show - according to him. Once again he sighs discreetly at the jokes he certainly doesn't find funny. He only came because Naruto told him he wanted all his friends to be there for the evening. But then a voice was heard above all the laughters “What the fuck ?!? This is not funny” you said. Everyone looked at you amused before starting to laugh again. Except Sasuke, he looked at you intently. You had to be Y/n, an ally Naruto had met on a mission, he thought. As you got up to take a breath outside. He cautiously made his way outside the house as well. You seemed very raw and unadorned, and it piqued his curiosity. Perhaps he could get to know you in more detail ?

Kakashi Hatake : He smiles widely under his mask, the only thing giving him away were the crinkles around his eyes showing how genuine his smile was. He found it really unusual and unexpected to see you burst like this. After all, you were a great and skilled kunoichi, who had a lot of requirements and was very professional. But it felt really good to see that after all like everyone you have your little moments of overflow. He knew no one was around so he gave your ass a gentle yet noticeable slap “Y/n keep it down. You have a reputation to uphold” he chuckled at the bashful expression on your face.

Itachi Uchiha : He's not even taken aback. He smiles lovingly at you. He loves to see you go out of your way. It gives you a wild, unpredictable side that he loves "My fierce lioness" For him, it's so endearing he can't help but rub your cheek with love, his dark eyes getting lost in your gaze, making you blush and calm down. Every action you take and word you say reminds him of what a good choice he made in asking you to marry him ( maybe a future hc 👀 )

Naruto Uzumaki : He doesn’t care if you’re angry or just messing around. He’s going to pick you and tickle you. At some point you move so much that he slips. You both end up sprawled on the floor. Everyone in the street are looking at you and it’s fueling you again “This is not fucking fucking. Mind your own business !” Meanwhile Naruto is just laughing his ass off as if it was the funniest thing ever.

Iruka Umino : His eyes widen and his mouth hangs agape. But don’t misunderstand him, he is really happy that for once someone takes up his defense when his pupils are making fun of him. Though then he looks at you with a smile as he whispers with his mouth half hiding his mouth “Y/n please they are already impossible to manage. Don't teach them swear words" You gave him a sheepish smile and kissed his cheek before saying goodbye. Leaving him flustered in front of a shocked crowd of kids whispering how pretty their teacher’s S/o is.

Utakata : He doesn’t even care what you’re talking about - as long as you’re safe. He’s going to gently slap the back of your head or pinch your shoulder and remind you of your language "Y/n being my apprentice you must keep a certain self control and keep these kinds of words out of your language" You huffed as his basic and prepared answer, reminding him that you also were his partner. He flushed and turned his head the other way so that you don’t see the effect your teasing has on him. He mumbled “Yeah… that too” He wrapped your arm around your shoulder and pulled you closer. You both trained well now it was time to go home and rest.

Rock Lee : He panics !! He wants to know why you said that, to whom you said that. Not funny ? Don’t worry he is going to give you his best to make you laugh ( almost wrote cum” here. I was on Hidan’s part before 😭 ) Also he is a bit clueless at your choice of word “My Flower isn’t this word supposed to be used in a more intimate cont-” but the look of pure rage that you gave him killed his question in the egg as he gulped down loudly. He’s obviously going to ask Guy senseï, Neji or Tenten for an answer ( Yes Neji is still alive in my canon-verse )

Yamato : He doesn’t know what’s happening. He just knows he doesn’t want to get involved. He stares at you ensuring you’re fine and slowly he steps aside. Slowly, slowly, until he leaves the scene. Which has you running after him throughout the village. Obviously you find him hiding behind the bench where Kakashi is reading his book on “Please don’t tell Y/n I’m here” “Y/n ! Tenzo’s hiding behind that bench”

Sasori : Seriously bro is unfazed lmao. If he looks up from the puppet he is crafting then you’re a lucky one. But ultimately he is going to make sure there is nothing wrong happening because believe it or not he cares about you. And whoever displeases you will regret it.

Gaara : He freezes slightly. His head turns s l o w l y towards you wondering what might have triggered this response. It better be not someone’s fault or else they will have to deal with the Kazekage himself. But then as he focuses on what you’re doing, he sees you rage quitting on your game console. And before he can even say a word he sees you throwing it out the window “My Love careful. It's the 6th this month” He motions to you to come towards him and pats your head gently reminding you that next time it happens that you should just set it before you get angry.

Hashirama Senju : He is a bit shocked but finds your reaction funny as well. And a bit ashamed because he was actually enjoying the jokes of the show. But he had to know better after all. You’re such a lively and sunny person that he almost forgets how much you’re like his brother when it gets to the field of humor. That’s maybe why you've always gotten along well. He nudges you playfully to make you loosen up “Hey you’re married to the Hokage now stop acting like-” but all he gets is a dark glare and a kiss on the cheek, which makes him go dark red.

Tobirama Senju : He can’t help the corner of his lips from twitching upwards. It makes him feel better at ease knowing he is not alone not finding it funny. And knowing that you above everyone thinks the same as him warms his heart. He wants to scoop you in his arms and set you on his lap as he smells the scent of your hair. But for that he’ll have to wait for you guys to come back home. He just hopes his brother isn’t going to invite himself like he always does when Hashirama wants to have a quiet and loving evening with you “No one’s home, come back and try tomorrow !”

Deidara : We know him. He is such a drama queen. He is for sure going to follow you and start screaming insults without even knowing what got you starting in the first place. But it’s fueling your anger. And so you both end up filing the hideout with your screams. Sasori or someone else comes to y’all and tries to scare you for you to shut the fuck up “Nooooo but you don’t understand it’s fucking annoyin-” “SHUT UP BOTH OF YOU !”

Shikamaru Nara : He smirks. His eyes flashes a mischievous glance at you. Despite his laid back stature with his hands buried in his pockets, we can clearly see in his eyes a fire burn. He startles you when suddenly his arm wraps around your waist, bringing you closer to him, until your hip rests flush against his. He isn’t giving anything away to anyone that might have seen him getting closer to you. He nods mindlessly at what others are saying. It’s son going to be this time of the day when he needs you as much as he needs air. You feel his hand squeeze your hip and you know that sooner or later he is going to try to get you out of here to have you all to himself.

NSFW starts here :

Minato Namikaze : He is slightly taken aback when he hears your outburst. But he is used to it after all this time being married to you. And even after 4 years it always stirs this sparkle inside him. He feels all warm and fuzzy inside. It reminded him of the first time he ever saw you, and of course you were lashing out at someone who disrespected one of your friends. You snapped him out of his thoughts when your hand touched his bulge over his pants. He blushed as a moan escaped his lips. He should have known he would react that way. He always does “Princess aghh… keep going” he begged, his hips jerked up at your touch. He just wanted you to free his hardened length from the confines from his pants to touch him properly. It was your fault, now he needed you to take the matter in your own hands… literally.

Orochimaru : He roughly grabbed your jaw the moment he heard the words leave your lips. You were stunned but it wasn’t foreign. Even when you guys had sex and a curse would escape you he’d stop right away “Oh, such hideous words coming out from the mouth of such an obedient pet" You knew damn well what that meant for you. No cumming allowed until… well until he allows you. You felt his hands on your shoulders gently but firmly bringing you down on your knees “Open wide for me. You’re going to do your best to make me forget about this slip of yours”

Neji Hyuga : He couldn’t deny the thrill he felt when he heard you say those words. When throughout your childhood you're taught to keep up appearances, to be obedient and to look your best. When you grow up you want to look beyond these barriers and see what it would be like to behave normally. No restraints - especially when you've got eyes that can see through clothes - just pure instincts. I always did his best not to keep his mask on when he was with you. And today the hinges had popped. He grabbed you around the waist and pinned you against the wall. From there you could clearly feel the outline of his cock against your center. His hips moved in a teasing motion against you “Please let me have you against the wall” he pleaded. You could tell he was doing his best not to let any noise out. So what did you do ? You cursed again obviously. And he didn't need anything more to get off to a flying start.

Madara Uchiha : “What the f-” he doesn’t even let you finish your sentence. He puts his hand over your mouth to make sure you don't finish the string of insults he is sure was about to come “You’re an Uchiha now. I expect much more from you” He set his other hand on your shoulder putting a firm pressure on it as he lowered his voice. His breath tickles your ear “Once we get home I'm going to make sure you use up your supply of insults while I breed you mmh ? I just need you to be a little more patient” You nodded obediently and he released his grip on you. Leaving you hanging for more. But you didn't worry, you knew he was a man of his word.

Hidan : He laughs loudly at your curses. He doesn’t care for whom it is destined to, not why you said that. It fuels him. That’s it he wants to fuck now. With his it’s easy, you need a fuck ? curse in front of him. Regardless of where you are, he won’t even bother looking for an excuse. He’ll take you on his shoulder and bring you to your room “Such a slutty mouth you have my dear” he smirks throwing you on the bed “We’ll see how much more I can coax out from you. I’ll give you real fun” he says in a dangerous tone as he enters you with one deep thrust.

A/n : I hope you guys liked it ! 🥪🌭 Again my requests are open 🧇🧀

*Taglist : @foxxymunson, @cl0vr, @ilovemanypeople, @glossy1pearl, @jane57sstuff

661 notes · View notes

inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 6 months

Text

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

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

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

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

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

Word count: 8.4k.

Link to chapter list: HERE.

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

Let me know if you’d like to be tagged! 🥰💜

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Are you with child yet?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The Usurper allows you this much free rein?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And what about Vhagar?”

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

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

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

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

Your ever-obedient daughter, Baela Targaryen

~~~~~~~~~~

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

“I can’t.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes,” you agree, caught off-guard.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You mean Aegon.”

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

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

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

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

Your voice is hushed and heartbroken. “Aegon…”

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

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

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

“I was only gone for a few hours.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I really don’t think I can.”

“Aegon, please.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

~~~~~~~~~~

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

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

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

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

“Bitter,” she notes distractedly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“My prince…” Larys urges.

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

“Quite a bit,” Aemond says.

“To death?” Aegon asks hopefully.

“I don’t see why not.”

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

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

“And why is that?” Aemond says.

“Because she is dead of poisoning.”

“What?!”

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

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

“You wanted Baela dead.”

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

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

~~~~~~~~~~

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

“I think Aegon will walk again. Eventually.”

“But he won’t be able to fight.”

You shake your head. “No.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“She’s the queen now.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“This is serious,” Aemond says flatly.

“I’m entirely serious.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Lord Larys?” Aegon prompts dimly

“I could not agree more, Your Grace.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“He’ll be fine.”

“Aemond, I think you should prepare to—”

“He’ll be fine!” Aemond snaps.

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

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

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

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

~~~~~~~~~~

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

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

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

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

“You’ll still get the chance.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He’s going to make me…I’m so close…

“Aemond, what are you waiting for…?”

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

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

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

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

“Aemond, please, please, please…”

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

Again? Again…?!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

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

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

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

“Then I’ll be barren.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Aegon?”

“Yes, wife.”

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

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

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

He is mystified. “For what?”

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

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

~~~~~~~~~~

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

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

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

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

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

289 notes · View notes

bakugoushotwife · 9 months

Text

Threads of Fate // s. gojo x fem!reader

a/n: the series is hereeeee!! thank you to my lovely discord server who helped me title this and listened to all my ramblings and plans for the series! I hope you guys love chapter one!

spotify playlist for chapter by chapter vibes!

here’s a Spotify playlist for the first chapter :)

cw: cursing, a little meanness, gojo, unedited

wc: 4.6k

series masterlist // chapter two

You were born special, that much was clear. A baby girl born to the Jujutsu Clan of Nashville sorcerers with the genetic gift of the Quelling Eyes, something your twin was not so lucky to receive. Your brother was fraternal to you, younger by just a few minutes. He had an equally terrifying and special ability, but it was apparent that his twin was destined for greater things. The two of you were number one and two in the western circuit, respectively.

It was lonely at the top, even if your twin brother was right behind you. The higher ups expected more out of you than your classmates. They gave you harder missions and even assigned task forces under your guidance. You were expected to do things with ease, blessed with powers and techniques that no one in America had seen before, other than the genetic Quelling Eyes, and not much was known about them. You were the first line of offense and defense in any unexpected situation, even though you were just a fifteen year old girl. They made it a point to keep your brother separate on his own teams, not keen to let you two rely on each other. American sorcerers were war machines, and nothing else. You were a perfect weapon.

Well, nearly perfect, anyway.

It was a day like any other, the humid summer atmosphere filling your lungs with rocks as you tried to train your hand to hand combat. The sky was especially blue and clear that day, the sun exceptionally bright. Your twin tauntingly blocked every kick and strike you threw his way, the two of you in a battle of ego. You were two sides of one sadistic coin, pushing each other to be the most powerful version of yourselves. He couldn’t stomach your designation as number one, and you were determined to not let him surpass you.

“Y/N. Pack your bags. You’re going to Tokyo.” Your drill sergeant said, interrupting your sparring contest just as you were starting to make him stumble. You groan and dramatically turn your nose in the air, not even really noting the words, just that your sergeant spoke. “You leave tomorrow. Be ready, L/N.” He read off a piece of official letterhead.

“Hah?” Your brother furrowed his brows in disgust. “Tokyo? What for?” He asked, unstrapping the velcro of his protective gloves.

You nod, tearing yours off with your teeth, unbothered to do it the easy way. “Yeah! What for?” You ask, perfectly manicured brow raised.

Your instructor seemed annoyed, though that was to be expected with you in his charge. A bubbly but egotistical teen girl with the ability to back up her loud mouth was hardly his ideal student. He glanced back at the paper. “The Commission thinks you’re ready for your own squad, but they want you to help our allies in Tokyo to polish your skills. Says something here about training with their number one sorcerer, Satoru Gojo.”

Your brother kicks the training dummy, discontent to see you sent off elsewhere. “She’s an American sorcerer. She should stay in America.”

You roll your eyes a bit. He was every bit as much of a dramatic egoist as you. You clap your hand on his shoulder. “Rest easy, bro. You know that means you get to be number one while I’m gone.” You tease, poking your tongue out at him.

He deadpans. “Whatever, dipshit. Try not to destroy the city you’re in, this time.” He huffs, cleaning up the equipment you two drug out onto the football field today. Jujutsu School of Nashville was much like any other American highschool, though it had a much more military-esque authority presence. The school was your average brick foundation, lengthy hallways that lead to empty classrooms to study techniques and the major clans of the United States. Being a part of the Southern District gave your education a questionable undertone, as the south hasn’t been notable for their schooling over the years. Perhaps that’s why the Commission sought to send you on missions like these every so often, getting you experience with other teachers and techniques. The last time they sent you away had been talk of the school for years, you took down two special grade curses but happened to destroy the Australian village you were fighting in.

“That happened once!” You huff, slapping your brother on the shoulder. “And the special grades woulda tore it up anyway, so I don’t wanna hear it!”

Your twin just smiles and shakes his head. Your teacher sighs at the bickering, and just tiredly waves the letter at you, repeating, “5pm. Tomorrow, L/N.” Before he walks away. He sighs to himself, hopefully you would survive this round of missions too, but he could never be too sure with the U.S. Commission seemingly testing to see how much you could take before you snapped.

It’s lonely at the top. You’ve known this since you were old enough to understand your power, and you’d estimate that realization at around five or six. You were able to overcome most of these struggles due to your bond with your twin and the repeated message that you were fated for a higher purpose.

Though your brother wouldn’t be coming with you to Tokyo. This would be for you to navigate alone, and you were feeling this loneliness on your sixteen hour flight to Japan. The Academy has been all you’ve known since you started there. Once the severity of your power was realized, the government paid a pretty penny for you and your brother. Family loyalty hardly meant anything compared to the almighty dollar, plus, you were quite the unruly pair.

Still, you had each other, and that had been enough. Until they separated you too, all in an effort to increase your power.

Power. Tch. You were the best there is, plain and simple. All their tactics worked, paired with your natural prowess, you were sure there was nothing left to learn and no one on earth who could beat you. Your brother was extremely strong, able to bend time to his will. It’s nearly unconquerable, yet you can still best him every time. So who was this Satoru Gojo and why do you give a flying fuck? Your higher ups constantly seeking to sharpen your craft would soon realize you were as powerful as they come. Yet still, you didn’t want to walk in blind, nor show all the cards in your hand when you meet your new classmates for the first time. Your brother scored some books about the Gojo clan of Tokyo, highlighting important sections for you to study on your trip.

You decide to pick up the heaviest book, leatherbound and dusty. It was about inherited techniques and idiosyncrasies within the clan, and your eyes land on the highlighted passage.

“Mukagen Rikugan: The Six Eyes. A genetic power rarely inherited within the Gojo clan. They are not a cursed technique that needs to be activated—”

That certainly piques your interest. Your Quelling Eyes are genetic as well, but they are very draining to your cursed energy. This means he has the opposite ability, you can’t help but chuckle through your nose at this. You read on to learn more about your future forced companion.

“But an innate technique that grants the user the ability to master Limitless. Several hundred years must pass in between wielders and there will be no two Six Eyes users alive at the same time.”

Hm, that’s certainly interesting. Your eyes were passed generation to generation, with no limits to how many wielders can be alive at the same time. You figure there must be massive amounts of powers involved, and already the mention of another innate technique that he surely possessed to be hailed as the best in the east.

“A Six Eyes bearer has immense perception and unrivaled visual prowess far beyond that of any other sorcerer. Their eye-sight is comparable to high-definition infrared vision, which allows them to see even when their eyes are covered. They can easily see from several kilometers away–”

You figure that has to be a large distance, and you know you’re in for trouble in Tokyo. You know enough of the language to work your way around, but conversions like these were never your strong suit. The power sounds insanely strong, and you find yourself excited to meet someone with as much natural talent as you.

“---and distinctively tell apart different figures within that range. The Six Eyes can see the flow of cursed energy, empowering their bearer with the ability to read an individual’s cursed technique in use and determine its function. They can even identify between different types of cursed energy.”

You smile to yourself. What an interesting ability. Your Quelling Eyes worked similarly, you too could differentiate between the types of cursed energy, but you specialized in repressing the circulation of it. Though the power took a lot of your own cursed energy to use for long amounts of time, it was insanely useful. Satoru Gojo would know what your cursed technique is upon meeting, but you wondered if he would discover your Quelling Eyes as well.

Next was the books about the Limitless technique. It too, was an inherited family technique, though it seems only a user of the Six Eyes can maximize its potential.

“Infinity is the base state of Limitless and is essentially the power to stop. The technique works the same way convergent and divergent sequences do in mathematics. The infinity is the convergence of an immeasurable series, anything that approaches the infinity will slow down and never reach the user. This is because the technique takes the finite amount of space between the two objects and divides it an infinite amount of times. The invisible barrier created by the Infinity can be expanded to keep harmful substances away from the user or to overpower someone attempting to neutralize their technique.”

You study some more notes on the subject, noting that the teen can’t actively support Infinity at all times just yet, having to decidedly turn it on and off at his choice. Either way, your ocular prowess should be enough to overpower it, and sneak your actual technique in, whether he’s expecting it or not. You hadn’t met the boy yet, but he was your new rival. It was clear he held tremendous ability, but you also wonder if he’s ever been challenged in the way he’s about to be. You hope to be a surprise, noting some records your brother tracked down that told of Satoru’s unbearable attitude and ego-centrism. You grin to yourself, knowing your teachers probably spoke of you in a similar fashion.

You gaze out the window of your airplane, wondering what this meeting would hold for you. Which one of you would be humbled in this affair? You can’t help but smile as you picture a boy out there just as if not more powerful than you. You wondered if he felt the weight of the world pressing in around him, too. You wanted to know if he experienced that same loneliness that you felt, with everybody looking at you like a superhero instead of a little girl. Would he be relieved to find someone who knew what that felt like?

When you step out of the terminal in Tokyo, you aren’t sure what to expect. It’s not as if your school gave you many details to begin with, though they probably didn’t receive many themselves. The Commission was the federal level of sorcerer authority, so they only gave out what they needed to. You look around for anyone reeking of cursed energy, figuring that would be your best bet. But you’re met with an older man holding up a sign with your name on it. You arch a brow, chuckling softly to yourself as you adjust your backpack on your shoulder. It made you feel like you were in some romantic comedy, though the driver definitely couldn’t be the main love interest.

You approach him anyway, dragging your suitcase behind you. He nodded his head to greet you. “Y/N L/N?”

You nod back, giving him a polite smile. “In the flesh.”

He seems unamused. He opens the trunk and loads your luggage in, leaving you grimacing awkwardly and debating if you should just duck into the sleek black car and eat the embarrassment or try to help with your bags.

“Go ahead and take a seat, Miss Y/N.” He says sternly, and you nod with a tight lipped expression. Already making friends in Tokyo, your brother would be so proud.

You sigh and shove yourself in the back, annoyed at yourself for being so nervous in the first place. Sure it was a foreign country, new people that only had a brief idea of who you are and what you can do, and the seemingly daunting task of learning aside Satoru Gojo. But you are a powerhouse. No amount of pressure can break a diamond. You can handle whatever Satoru Gojo and any other students of Jujutsu Tech have to throw at you.

You repeat this mantra to yourself as the car winds down a curved path, no doubt taking you to the secluded castle-like building of Tokyo’s sorcery school. You can see the outlines of three figures waiting on an open field. It almost reminds you of the football field back home, though it’s not as long and most definitely not used for football in its spare time. The driver stops before the field, looking at you through the rearview mirror.

“Go ahead. The teacher will guide you from here.”

“Kudasai, my bags?” You ask, sliding out of the backseat. The driver only waves you off and keeps driving. There was a tall man with sunglasses, the man you assumed would be the sensei of your squad. There were two other boys with him, both tall but opposite in hair color. One had the most striking white color and the other had long dark locks. You peered in at them through the slats of the fence, unsure how to make your grand entrance. You had planned to make yourself a spectacle, impossible to ignore as you burst on the scene.

“Ah! She’s here already! Come, come Miss L/N!” The teacher calls out as you approach, though the other two surely detected the magnitude of your cursed energy. The dark haired one seemed…surprised. The white haired one peered over dark circular lenses at you, expressionless.

You step into the gate with a smile. From what you could tell, they were both pretty attractive. Maybe you could have a little fun while in Tokyo. “You must be Yaga-sensei?”

He chuckles and nods. He waves you closer, brightly smiling as you stand just a few feet away from the group. The black haired man exchanges a look with the white haired counterpart, though now that you’re closer you can decidedly say they’re good looking. The dark-haired man’s hair was long, but he had angled layers that framed his sharp features. His eyes were kind though, and his lips curled into an inviting smile.

“This is Suguru Geto!” The teacher says, holding the boy by both shoulders. If possible, his warm face shifts into an even brighter smile. “Be nice to her, she’s from America! Tennessee!” The man chuckles as he pronounces the silly name.

“It’s nice to meet you, L/N-chan!” He beams, extending his hand for you. You smile easily, your features soft and seductive. You’re easily the prettiest girl he’s ever seen, though he knows Shoko would be devastated to hear it. You take his hand in both of yours, leaning forward a little to give him an adorable nose-crinkled smile.

“It’s lovely to meet you, Geto-senpai.” You hum, which flusters the boy a little. He averts his gaze from your shyly, clearly taken aback a bit by your forwardness. He shakes his head quickly.

“Oh–no, we’re the same age so you can call us san!” He chuckled, releasing your grip. The pink on his cheeks is still evident, but your eyes had already shifted to the boy staring intensely at you. He had the most peculiar eyes that you had ever seen before. They were bluer than the sky, glowing with an ethereal brightness. It’s captivating, the way he analyzes you without any trace of his findings on his face. Yaga-sensei moves to his shoulders. He’s a couple inches taller than the first boy, but not as broad. He’s much lankier, but you can tell by his cursed energy that he is insanely powerful. It all makes sense. You realize who this is as your new teacher says it.

“This is Satoru Gojo!” He says, and you see the hint of nervousness creep up onto his face. He clears his throat before announcing his next bit. “Satoru! You will train with her, she is on your power level!”

This makes the boy show his first emotion of the day, genuine joy. He laughs, a hearty, full- bodied chuckle. His head is tossed back, shoulders jumping, his hand over his heart enjoying the hilarity. Suguru looks at you apologetically, but you smirk, and hold your hand up as if to say, “I got this, buddy.”

This was the outcome you had figured most likely in your head. You’re extremely prideful and some would even say intolerably full of yourself based on your upbringing as a highly valuable military style weapon. After reading up on the Gojo clan and the powers their little Prince inherited, you figured he would be just as bad, if not ten times worse. Yaga seemed terribly embarrassed, but you gave him another award-winning grin.

“It’s nice to meet you, Satoru-san.” You grin, folding your arms over your chest as you weigh your options. You couldn’t tell if he knew of your eyes, or if his infinity was currently active. You extend your hand, hopefully answering one or both of those questions. His face was playful, those sparkling eyes, flickering from your hand and back to your face. He seemed amused if nothing else now, his rejection of your hand only answering the question about your eyes and his infinity. “Oh, don’t insult me. I know you can read my technique anyway, but I could always show you much more effectively.”

At this, Satoru’s grin spread. You seemed to understand his special eyes, and he wondered what else you knew. Your cursed energy was weird. It seemed like it was vibrating, and it didn’t course through your entire body. He thought that odd, but he knew he could figure that out with a brief spar. In his mind, he was also unbeatable. He stepped forward a bit.

“You’re on, Miss Americana.” He chuckled, thinking himself at the advantage since he can see how your cursed technique works.

Suguru stepped forward a bit nervously. “Now, Satoru, that’s rude, she just got here–”

“I’m okay Geto-san.” You hum brightly. “I think I can impress, if nothing else.” You say, tying your hair up out of your way and subtly activating your cursed technique. You don’t take your eyes of Satoru, knowing he noticed your activation.

“What’s your technique, anyway?!” Suguru asked, slightly panicked at the impression Gojo would leave on you on your first day here.

You arch your brow at your opponent. “Do you wanna tell him, or can I?”

Satoru is officially intrigued by you. You’re unafraid, he enjoys that, even if some poor American bastards lied and said you were as strong as he is. “The floor is yours.”

You hum, a sly grin on your lips. “‘Preciate it. You see, Geto-san, I have cursed threads, kinda like puppet master jutsu from Naruto.” You giggle, letting the invisible strings wiggle out toward your opponent. You knew Satoru wouldn’t allow them to meet his skin, so you hum some more. “I can control the speed, the number of them that appear. Ideally, I’d wrap these around your limbs. They’re sharp, so they cut as you wiggle against them, and it gives me some manipulation of your limbs. Of course, Gojo-san’s Infinity technique won’t allow that.”

Suguru seems intrigued. “That sounds powerful!” He says, eyeballing his friend's reaction to you understanding his technique as well.

Satoru is of course overjoyed by your knowledge. “Seems like someone did their research! Where were you from again? Hollywood? Brooklyn? Dallas! Yeah that’s the one.”

“No it’s not.” You chuckle, a little thrown by his derailing. “I’m from Tennessee–”

“Dallas it is. Listen Dallas-chan, I see you know your enemy. If that’s true, why’d you even step up to embarrass yourself?”

You roll your eyes at his nickname, deciding to fight that battle later. “Because I’m gambling.” You smirk, knowing this caught him off guard. He was striking to look at, really, and if he wasn’t such a dickhead you thought you may let him off the hook just for being pretty. You sigh, ready to show all your cards now anyway.

Satoru raises a brow now, curious to what you could mean. He knew about your second form activation as well, a much scarier and painful version of your cursed threads, if that’s what you intended to show. You wink at Suguru, blinking slowly. When your eyes open again, they glow with a purple flame-like visual enhancement instead of your normal color. The boys look at each other in surprise. Satoru knew there was something off about the energy at the top of your head, but he didn’t surmise another ocular power. Soon, he feels his infinity melt away, your threads speedily wrapping around his arms and legs.

He even chuckles when you thrust him to his knees, much to Suguru’s shock. “What did you do to him??” He asks, puzzled beyond belief, he knew your eyes must be behind it, but he didn’t understand how.

“She repressed my technique with those eyes of hers. It’s cute, but now that I know about it, you’ll never win again.” He sighs, unbothered by your show of power. Though part of him chills, knowing your second form was so painful and crippling that your domain had to be the cruelest one he’d seen. Another part of him is highly interested in this. He hasn’t seen anyone come close to your strength, the amount of cursed energy you had did rival his own, though it was clear your techniques consumed more of it. Your attitude interested him even more, unwavering against him. You would be fun to play with. “Good job, Dallas-chan.” He teases.

You roll your eyes and release your technique, setting him free. His cursed energy was odd. It seemed to flicker like a fire and call out to you, despite being repressed by your power earlier. “It’s Y/N. Nashville is nowhere near Dallas.”

He shrugs. “I dunno, I think Dallas suits you better than Nashville though. Your real name sucks.” He grins when he says it, but Suguru covers his face with his hands. He was going to be cleaning up Satoru’s mess forever. He almost comes up with something to say, but you remain undeterred by the boy’s relentlessness.

“Whatever you say, Gojo-san. I think I’ll show myself around your training facilities now. I’ll only answer to Y/N.”

You wave to your new teacher, who sat and observed your confrontation with his most troublesome student. He decided then that you would be the best thing or the worst thing to happen to Satoru, and he had desperate hopes for the former. Then you wave off to Suguru, turning to walk past Gojo on the narrow track. He stepped in your way as if to shoulder check you, but instead of you stumbling back and him giggling at you, both of you looked at each other in shock.

The place where your bodies touched sparked, and you didn’t know what to make of it. You eye his cursed energy, and the flames pull towards you again, like a magnetic field. Satoru is just as concerned, realizing that your energy’s hum was getting heavier and heavier, like a metal detector discovering gold. There was an unfamiliar connection formed, but neither of you knew what to think about it. You tear your eyes away, heart thundering in your ears. Your body had grown warm, like his energy was an actual fire that your energy accepted as a source of its own. He hums, tucking this in his mind to explore later. That is until you start walking away from him and he feels like he’s left naked in the snow. His body goes cold, and his feet scream at him to follow you, as if it’s the only way he can get warm again. The sparks start to intensify as he grows closer to you. He stops himself from following any further, growing confused as his body slowly becomes cold again as you disappear from view.

What the hell was that? He felt drawn in and he didn’t like it at all, it must be some innate technique of yours. Whatever it is, he has to figure out how to shake it off of him.

For the rest of the night, all you can think about is each other. You lay in your new room, staring up at the blank ceiling, wondering what could have caused your energies to have a physical reaction to each other. You knew you were both incredibly strong, maybe it was due to that. Perhaps you two were too strong to interact! Yeah, that makes sense. But you were sent here, deliberately partnered with him. How could you complete your missions if you avoid him all the time? You wouldn’t be able to, and then you wouldn’t be able to go home. So whatever happened out there tonight, you had to put it behind you and focus on the missions to come. Even if he was remarkably handsome and stupidly cunning, what did that have to do with you? His ego is a huge turn off anyway. He couldn’t handle you and you couldn’t handle him. That’s why your energies sparked. You’re sure of it. You would prove yourself to him time and time again. And you had to start with training practices tomorrow morning.

Satoru mirrors your position in his own bed. He figures this must be your doing, maybe there was more to you that his Six Eyes couldn’t register, just like your ocular abilities. Although, the image of your smirking face and the unabashed way you flirted with Geto came to mind. Maybe he was interested in your power, maybe he was just interested in you. Either way, it was incredibly frustrating. All he can focus on is the way his shoulder burned from connecting with yours, and the intensity of your eyes locked on his. This isn’t like him. He’s met a plethora of gorgeous women, and sure your foreign American charm must play into it, but geez, he felt pathetic. You seemed so sure of yourself and your energy made it clear how strong you really were. He hated having you on the brain. He would see you again for training, and there he could put an end to his stupid wonderings by smacking you down for good. He’ll expose your power for the cheap ploy it is and send you back to America with your attitude adjusted. Then he won’t have to deal with your strange effect on him or your annoying ego. And he’ll start with practice in the morning.

tags: @aepinkoutsold @purpleguk @ddora-kken @naorizenin @makiville @getosbigballsack

#jjk x reader #gojo x reader #gojo saturo #gojo satoru #satoru gojo #satosugu x reader #jjk #jjk gojo #gojo series

395 notes · View notes

exitpursuedbyavulcan · 9 months

Text

A Companion (Otto Hightower x Young Widow!Reader) Chapter 1

At the wedding of of King Viserys and the Lady Alicent Hightower, the father of the bride has an unexpected meeting with a young widow.

Series Masterlist Here

Pairing: Otto Hightower x Young Widow!Reader (No use of Y/N)

Warnings: discussion of spousal death

Author's note: PEEPAW TIME

Chapter 1: A Meeting

The Great Hall was full of laughing, happy people, many well on their way to true celebratory drunkenness.

Otto Hightower was not one of them.

He had been enjoying the celebration of his daughter’s wedding. But that was before his son, Gwayne, had gotten so raucously drunk that two members of the Kingsguard were required to force him back to his quarters. And before the bedding ceremony was called for, and despite earlier agreements, several pieces of Alicent’s ensemble had been left on the floor of the Great Hall.

It was enough to tempt him into a second goblet of wine, dulling his mind just enough for him to begin to enjoy the music – and to be grateful the Princess Rhaenyra had sullenly slunk away before she could shove any young maidens at him. Perhaps she had entirely forgotten about her plan to arrange his marriage or given up on getting her revenge.

Then again, perhaps not.

Otto passed the time observing the remaining guests, noting who had spoken to whom and about what. It helped him discern who would make a potential ally, who needed more convincing, and who needed to be removed from court. He had just dismissed the grumblings of two minor lords as inconsequential when his eye caught on two people – a man and a woman - that he did not recognize.

They both seemed familiar, yet Otto could recall no name to match their faces. Perhaps he had seen them in passing during the events preceding the wedding – the tourney possibly, or even the morning feast. Though if it had been one of those, he likely would have remembered them.

Still, something about them was scratching insistently at the back of his mind and bringing an unpleasant feeling to his chest. More so the Man than the Woman, but still. If they were somehow a threat, as his instinct suggested, it would be prudent of him to watch them closely.

The Man wore entirely ostentatious clothing, the dyes obnoxiously rich and bright. A gaudy purple shot through with the whitest white silk Otto had ever seen. He was clearly trying to impress his peers and ensure his house was recognized. Still, Otto could not quite place the heraldry, an irony he allowed himself a moment to delight in. The purple and white were relatively unique, but stars were so common that they offered no hint of who the man was.

Northern, most likely, judging by his thick dark hair, hard gray eyes, and stocky build. His features, individually, were well-formed, yet it made an unpleasant whole. A man of brutality and brutishness. A man who smiled rarely. And when he did, his smile likely indicated something wicked. A thoroughly unpleasant figure.

But the Woman – the Lady…

A pretty young thing. A very pretty young thing, likely only a year or two older than Alicent. She wore no heraldry save a small silver pin on her breast. Her clothes were simple, all made of dark fabric that could easily be mistaken for black if one did not look closely. Though she bore no ring on her finger, her hair was worn braided and pinned back like a married woman’s.

With the sinking feeling of both realization and pity, Otto realized that there was only one reason why she would be wearing such clothes at a royal wedding, of all places – she was in mourning.

Yet her companion seemed to hold no pity for her. They were far enough away that Otto could not hear the words, but from the deep furrow of the Man’s brow and the Lady’s tired, resigned eyes, he knew the conversation was not pleasant. He had only just made the decision to stay out of whatever family squabble this was when the Man turned to look at him, then seized the Lady’s arm, hissed something into her ear, and thrust her in Otto’s direction.

At least this did not seem to be the work of Rhaenyra. No, this was all the work of the unpleasant man. It no longer mattered what house he was from or if he could be used as an ally. It only mattered that he was desperate to raise his station, and that Otto did not like him.

The decision was easy to make – he understood her pain, having lost a love himself. He would be kind to her but would not impose himself on such a lovely young woman in mourning any longer than necessary to temporarily sate her companion’s apparent social climbing aspirations. No matter his promise to the King, or his burgeoning desire for a companion of his own, this girl deserved better than an old man. Once he spoke to her, perhaps he could even introduce her to more suitable bachelors.

For he certainly was not the match for her.

If you thought the nearly month-long journey to King’s Landing was insufferable, it was nothing compared to the cacophony that was the capital during a royal wedding. In the last five days, you were forced to endure a parade in the sweltering heat, three days of brutal tourney events, and a “woman’s breakfast” the morning of the ceremony, during which no one spoke to you. And at the end of each day, a grand feast in the Great Hall.

Not that you could partake in much of the exquisite and exotic food, for your good sister Sybelle would not let you eat more than a few bites in worry that you would appear gluttonous and unladylike. Any respite that would have come when she inevitably flitted across the hall to grovel at the feet of the well-esteemed ladies from better-known houses was quickly squashed when her husband – your good brother, Gryff – whisked you away to present you to suitors like you were a prized cow gone to market.

Fortunately, your mourning clothes and shy demeanor meant that very few of the men were enticed by you. And any that were interested were quickly put off when they learned how small and insignificant your house was and that there would be little benefit for them in a match with you. Lord Jason Lannister even expressed surprise that you had been invited to the wedding. Gryff’s sputtering after that had made your evening.

But the more you were rejected, the more insistent he became. Desperate was perhaps the better word. Either way, it led you here – standing to the side of the hall with a still-empty stomach and Gryff hissing in your ear like the viper he was.

“Six days,” he spat, the smell of alcohol lingering on his breath, “six fucking days, and you have yet to tempt even one suitor! From among the two score I’ve introduced you to!” He scoffed and took another swig from his goblet. “Soon, I’ll have to start offering you to young twats whose stones have not dropped. At least they won’t be able to tell how hard you’ve already been ridden.”

“You are vulgar,” you said softly, not entirely wanting him to hear you.

But, of course, he did. Gryff rounded on you, his face reddened and blotchy from his imbibement. There was no pity or warmth in his eyes. There never was. “Vulgar it may be, but if that is what it takes to find you a new husband so you can finally get off my land and stop draining my coffers, so be it.”

You took a deep breath, trying not to cry or scream. It wouldn’t be proper at an event such as this and would provoke even more anger from Gryff and Sybelle. While they would not dare to harm you, they had found several other cruel and creative ways to make you miserable. Best to calm the fire before getting burned.

“I have done my best. I have been kind and amiable of every man you’ve thrust me upon,” you knew your attempt at reasoning with him would likely fail, but at least you would have tried. Locke would not have stayed silent in the face of such insults, so neither would you. “It is not my fault that they are well-mannered and civilized and therefore do not wish to court a woman in mourning.”

Gryff barked a callous laugh, drawing the attention of several of those around you. For once, he did not notice; he only continued to sneer. “But it is your fault, good sister. You may recall that before we left, I commanded that you leave your mourning clothes behind. That you wear something more attractive. Yet you disobeyed me, just so you would have a good excuse to continue living off my generosity!”

In truth, it was because your lady’s maids had known how much you still grieved your beloved husband and refused the order their new master had given. Though you were grateful for their thoughtfulness, you were very close to wishing they had not done it.

Pressing your lips together to stop them trembling, you replied quietly. Weakly. “You know that is not true. Locke was – ”

“A fool to fall for your little act,” he interrupted, smiling triumphantly when he saw tears forming in your eyes. “Always so sentimental and trusting. He may have put on a convincing façade, but he was weak. I have no doubt he would have squandered our fortune and destroyed our reputation just to please you.” He leaned forward to whisper in your ear. “Perhaps it is fortunate, then. That he met such an untimely end.”

A monster. That’s what Gryff was. To say these horrid things about anyone was terrible enough, but to say them about his own brother?

Your revulsion was almost enough to make you throw yourself at the next man you saw and beg him to take you on. But you could not, for you still saw Locke around each corner. The bright smile he always bore when he saw you. The way he held you close and kissed you, propriety be damned. The way he looked at you as though you were the Maiden herself.

He was no fool. He was not weak.

He was a good man. A good husband. Your great love.

And he was gone.

The crushing weight of the grief shattered any retort you had. Not that it mattered anyway – something had caught Gryff’s eye. He seized your arm, making sure his nails dug into your skin even through the layers of black silk, and leaned in to again spit his venom in your ear.

“It seems there may yet be one man remaining who is wealthy enough to suit your tastes,” he laughed gravely. “Do try to make a good impression, or else I shall have to start sending inquiries to the heathens in Essos.”

With that, he shoved you away, towards a shadowy alcove against the far wall. Partially hidden amongst the dimness and the curtains was a tall man. A very tall man. Lean for his age, but with an erudite look about him that suggested his prowess was not of the body, but of the mind.

He was a man you recognized immediately, having seen him in a place of honor at every celebratory you had attended in the capital. Even without that knowledge, you would have immediately known who he was by the golden pin on his breast.

Otto Hightower. The Hand of the King.

And he was looking directly at you.

Oh, Gryff was reaching far too high. And now it seemed you would be the one to weather the fall.

But there was a spark of kindness in Lord Hightower’s eyes – eyes as wise and perceptive as an owl’s – that assuaged your fears enough that you did not tremble as you weaved through the crowd to reach him. Still, you turned your eyes down and prayed he would not recognize you from the pin you still wore. Pity given for your mourning was bearable, but the Hand would know…

You reached him before finishing the thought and lowered yourself in a curtsy. “My Lord Hand,” you began, thankful that, for once, you were able to speak for yourself, “I offer my congratulations to you and your daughter on this joyous occasion. You must be very proud.”

“Hmm, proud indeed.” He held out a large hand to help you rise, a kind gesture you had not expected from a man of his station. When you met his eyes, they were searching your face for something. He did not recognize you then, a relief.

“Thank you very much for your kind sentiments, Lady…?”

A short relief.

Steeling yourself for the pitying coos and well wishes you were sure were coming, you told him your name, then added, “Born of House Fenn, now of House Whitehall.”

And there it was, that hateful glimmer of recognition in his eyes as he remembered the story of the unfortunate girl from the swamps of the Neck, plucked from her humble origins among the crannogmen to wed the dashing young lord of Highpoint.

It was a story fit for a fairytale. That is, until it was over within a year, when your husband was killed in an ambush by the wild men of the Northern mountains. Gryff, your late husband’s younger brother and presumptive heir, was intent upon sending you back to the swamps before he was stopped by his mother, who insisted that though the marriage was short, you nevertheless had all the rights accorded to the Dowager Lady of the hall, and as the potential mother of the new heir – should you be carrying one. After all, you and Locke were truly, deeply in love, and there was no reason to believe his seed had not found root.

Thus, Gryff had you confined to your rooms until your moon’s blood arrived – or didn’t. You were allowed no servant but the guard he had commanded to watch your every move and were forced to endure extensive examinations by the Maester daily. And when your moon’s blood came, Gryff had a carriage waiting to take you back to your father.

Unbeknownst to him, your good mother had sent a letter to both your father and Lord Stark at Winterfell. As a crannogman whose title of nobility was scoffed at by those outside the swamps, your father could do very little to help. But with Lord Stark also on your side, Gryff could not dismiss you so easily. He could, however, appeal the Lord of the North’s order to the only higher authority available, requiring that all involved – except you, of course – journey to King’s Landing to present the case to the King himself.

After hearing both petitions, the King – and Otto Hightower – had not only commanded that you be allowed full rights as a widow, but placed restrictions on how Gryff could treat you. Namely, he could not banish you from his lands or force you to remarry.

He could, however, make your life at Highpoint so miserable that you would wish to leave and be desperate enough to get away from him that you would marry of your own accord. It was something he and his wife were more than happy to do.

Still, as miserable as you were there, it was Locke’s home. The lands he loved so much he spent four whole days showing you the whole of it. And you quickly grew to love it, too, despite it being so drastically different from your home. It became your new home. Aside from the ring he gave you, the land was one of your only reminders of the great love you had lost.

How could you abandon it just because of two unpleasant people?

How could you marry someone else, like Locke had been nothing?

Even if you could, how were you ever to find a husband when every man you met looked at you as Otto Hightower did now?

His brow was furrowed above his water-blue eyes, and his mouth was pursed in thought. No doubt trying to find the words to offer you his pity, as if you had not already heard everything there was to say.

“I am very sorry for your loss, my lady,” he said gently. At least his voice was lovely enough to make the repetition of the words you had heard a thousand times more bearable. “I lost my wife only two years ago. To lose one you love so dearly… is a pain without description. I confess that, when I first heard of what happened to your husband and what was done to you, I could not understand why the Gods would do such a thing to someone so young and innocent and…”

He nodded, seemingly to himself. “I prayed for you, Lady Whitehill. In fact, I still do.”

Then he turned away, looking past you and into the crowd. Had he not still been holding your hand, you may have taken it as a dismissal. You almost wished it was as you felt his fingers tighten around yours and his face turn from pensive to grave. But the second most powerful man in Westeros was holding you in place. Gently, but still. Who were you to disobey him?

“I am surprised I forgot his face,” Lord Hightower mused, only half-speaking to you. “He is easily one of the most unpleasant men I have ever met.”

You turned, following his gaze back to Gryff, who was doing a very poor job of pretending not to be watching you. Turning back to Lord Hightower, you saw his lip curled in disgust. Something about that expression on the face of such a serious, incredibly important man tickled something inside you that you thought had died with Locke.

So, you laughed. Short and weak, but still a laugh. The sound drew Lord Hightower’s eyes back to you, and he smiled curiously. “I did not intend that as a joke, Lady Whitehill. Was I mistaken?

“No, forgive me, my lord.” You shied away from him, looking down at your joined hands. “It is only that I don’t often hear people speak of him with such… honesty.”

“Yes,” he murmured as he, too, looked at your hands. After a moment, he dropped his and crossed his arms behind his back. “He is not a man I would expect to tolerate criticism.”

You sighed, briefly missing the contact, the warmth of his hand. “He is not a man who tolerates many things. But criticism is one that… none at Highpoint dare even contradict him.”

Lord Hightower looked at you thoughtfully, as if you were a puzzle he couldn’t quite sort. “I have had the misfortune of meeting many such men, and I am very sorry you have had to meet even one.”

He was quiet for a while. Long enough that you began silently crafting your farewell and considering how you would explain the fruitless meeting to Gryff. He would not be happy with this particular failure, and you could not decide which of his threats he would follow through on – offering you to mere boys or to Essosi men. Either would likely take you far from home and had no guarantee that your situation would improve. Perhaps –

“Why did he bring you here?” Lord Hightower said suddenly. When you lifted your head to face him, he was again looking not at you but at Gryff. His face betrayed nothing, but a dark gleam in his eyes sent a chill through your blood and yet… made you feel safe. Protected. Like you could tell him the truth.

A foolish feeling. You could tell no one the truth. Telling the truth meant leaving Highpoint – leaving Locke – and that was something you would not do.

“He brought me for the wedding,” you lied. “He thought it might cheer me.”

It was the worst lie you had ever told, though you’d never been very good at them. Though this one was particularly bad. Not only had you not been particularly convincing in your delivery – your voice wavered, and your smile was too tight to be sincere – but Lord Hightower had been at Gryff’s petition to send you away. According to your father, Gryff had been in fine, horrible form. So, Lord Hightower knew better than most that your good brother would never do anything for your sake.

And the fact that you were pretending he would apparently made Lord Hightower very, very angry. It seemed as though the shadows of the alcove itself swirled around him and darkened his eyes. Still, you felt safe with him. You knew instinctively that his anger was not directed at you.

Yet you did shrink away slightly when he turned that dark gaze on you. “The King expressly forbade him from forcing you to marry.” His voice had taken on a low, sharp quality, which you were reasonably certain had often made Lords and Generals quake in their boots. Indeed, you were sure you would do whatever he wanted, so long as he asked it in that voice. “Has he disobeyed this? Did he bring you here to find a husband against your will?”

It was hard to meet his eyes. “He…” you swallowed, summoning every bit of your will to not tell him the truth. But even if you did somehow manage to lie convincingly, you did not doubt that Lord Hightower would nevertheless be able to see right through you. This was a political mind at work, the keenest in the realm. He likely knew the answer before he ever asked the question. Which meant…

What he was actually asking was something different. Something he dare not speak aloud in the presence of others? No, not that. He was the Hand of the King, and this was the Red Keep – his territory. You doubted there was anything he would fear to say here, save open treason.

What was it?

If this was a political move, he must want something from you. Locke had once told you when you were alone in your chambers sharing a bottle of wine after one of his taxing journeys to Winterfell, that amongst lords and kings, nothing was ever free. There was no charity.

And yet, you could not think of a single thing Lord Hightower would want from you. You had no wealth of your own, nor did your father in any meaningful way, and Gryff would not part with a single sliver of copper. You held no alliances of your own outside of the crannogmen, and you doubted they would ever be of any help to him or the King. That left only… yourself.

He could not possibly want you. Yes, he was a widower, but his loss had also been recent. He told you himself how much it had pained him.

Even if he was in the market for a new wife, he would not want some penniless widow from the Neck. With his family name, position, and new status as the Queen’s father, he could choose any woman he wanted to wife. Though if he was looking for a distraction rather than a marriage… you did not let yourself consider it. He had made no advance on you, and his eyes held no sign of lust. You had seen lust in Locke’s eyes, burning like silver flames. There was no such flame in Lord Hightower’s eyes, only pity and concern. And something gentle, almost like hope.

Was it possible that his daughter’s wedding had made him feel charitable? That he had seen a sad young widow and decided that it was in the spirit of the day to help someone in need?

Help.

That is what he was asking – if you wanted his help. If you said ‘no’ right now, even knowing what he knew, he would walk away.

But if you said yes – if you asked for his help?

The Hand of the King was a powerful ally, the father of the Queen even better. If someone who could as easily grant Gryff the wealth and reputation he so craved as he could ensure it never came to be offered his support and protection, you didn’t know what would happen. But perhaps it would be better.

“Yes,” you whispered. The word could either save or damn you, but you said it either way. “He wants rid of the responsibility of me, so much that he’s willing to give me to anyone who shows interest.”

His dark expression was interrupted by a brief flash of confusion. Before you could inquire about what had disturbed him, he leaned down towards you. A strategic move. Anyone looking at you would merely see a man attempting to charm one of the last women remaining at the end of the celebration.

“Forgive me for my forwardness, my lady,” he paused to look you over again, “but I admit I find it hard to believe that no man has shown you interest.”

Another veiled question. This one easier to decipher.

You ensured you were positioned so that Gryff could not see your face before answering, for you knew you could not hide your smug smile. “The mourning clothes help with that,” you admitted, “as do carefully timed tears.”

Lord Hightower seemed to relax at that and smirked at you conspiratorially. “I imagine the prospect of a permanent association with your good brother is the most effective deterrent.”

It was not a deception for Gryff’s benefit when you began to laugh together. You had not laughed with someone in so long nor felt as comfortable around another person since Locke died. Not even with your good mother. She tried, but she could not separate you from her grief for her son, so laughing with her was a sheer impossibility.

The realization sobered you instantly. This moment was a gift, yes. But the very fact that a moment of laughter with a stranger was the happiest you had been in more than a year and would likely remain so for some time. You would be returning to the North soon, back to a life with very little joy.

It was as though Lord Hightower could read the thoughts in your eyes. His own smile fell, and he again took your hand. “When do you leave the capital, my lady?

“We will remain several days more,” you answered, the words tasting like bitter wine. “Gryff is eager to make alliances and raise his standing.”

“Hmm,” Lord Hightower hummed as he absentmindedly stroked the back of your hand with his thumb. From how his eyes darted back and forth ever so slightly, you knew that brilliant mind was formulating some kind of plan.

Unfortunately, it seemed he would not share that plan with you.

He simply raised your hand to his mouth to kiss it as a proper gentleman does, the hairs of his beard tickling your skin, before looking at you once more. “You may tell Lord Whitehill that I was thoroughly charmed by you.” Something about the way the corner of his mouth quirked up made you think it was not entirely a fiction. “I suspect that will satisfy him well enough that he will be less… overbearing, at least for a while. In the meantime, I shall endeavor to find a more pleasant solution to your woes.”

Your heart quickened with anticipation and hope, something you had not felt in a long time. While your instinct was to ensnare him in a tight embrace and perhaps even kiss his cheek, you forced yourself to remain civilized, simply squeezing his hand tightly in thanks before letting go and curtsying to him again.

“My Lord Hand, I cannot find words to express my gratitude,” you said breathlessly. “I have known such kindness very little of late.”

He smiled and reached for you before folding his hand behind his back again. “That, my lady, is a tragedy in itself. Once that I swear I will do everything in my power to end as swiftly as possible.”

“Thank you. I…” words failed you entirely. “Thank you so much.”

“It would perhaps be wise to save the majority of your thanks until after I have discovered a solution,” he jokingly chided. For a long moment, he simply held your gaze. “Now, as much as I hate to do so, I believe it is time to return to your family. I have much work to do.”

“Of course,” you said with another curtsy. There was more you wanted to say, but it was too much to sort through in only a moment. So, you gave him another smile and turned away.

As you walked back toward Gryff – who was looking sinisterly pleased – you were amazed to find that, for the first time in a long time, you weren’t dreading tomorrow.

Otto left the Great Hall immediately, though it pained him to do so. But he had not wanted to tell her – raise her hopes too soon – that he was fairly certain he had already found a solution. Perhaps the perfect solution.

But he wanted to pray on it first.

It was too late to call a wheelhouse to take him to the Great Sept. Besides, the servants deserved the night to celebrate, as well. So, he made his way instead to the Royal Sept, which had the added benefit of being close to his own chambers.

The Sept was empty, thankfully. It was quick work to light a prayer candle and to place it on an altar Otto had not knelt at for years – the Maiden’s.

“I come to ask your guidance, Holy Maiden,” he prayed aloud. “There is a young widow who needs my help. Very desperately. I believe I can aid her – I know I can aid her. But I must be sure that I am acting rightly.”

He sighed, staring at the gently flickering flame of the candle. “When I first considered her plight, an answer came to me almost instantly, as if it were an instinct. But I worry… I worry that if I choose to enact it, I will be acting not out of charity and generosity but selfishness.

“She is young and very beautiful, and I believe she has a keen mind. And she understands! She knows what it is like to lose a great love – a true love. She is like me; she does not want to marry again. But it seems for both of us that there is no other option. Would it not then… would it not be right for us to marry?

“We can fulfill the desires and expectations of those around us while remaining devoted to our lost loves. I would expect her to fulfill no wifely duties, nor would she expect me to perform mine as a true husband. We would be… companions to each other. Someone with which we can share a life of contentment without feeling as though we have betrayed those who are gone.”

Otto sat back on his knees and looked up at the face of the Maiden. “Would doing so be a sin? Marriage is supposed to be the true joining of souls in holy and eternal love. That is what I had with Madelyn and what I believe she and the late Lord Whitehill had. Would it not betray the very idea of our past marriages to seek the same again?”

He sighed and dropped his head. “I would, of course, not force her hand. If I propose the plan and she refuses, I will dedicate myself to helping her some other way. But I cannot deny that this seems like fate, that the two of us would find each other. So please, Holy Maiden. Please, tell me if I am right.”

For what felt like the entire night, Otto sat on the floor of the Sept, watching the candlelight dance across the marble floor.

Then the dancing stopped.

Bewildered, he looked immediately at the candle. It was still lit, but the flame did not waver. Instead, it was perfectly still and seemed to grow taller and taller.

As if a cool hand lifted his chin, Otto turned his gaze up to the Maiden’s face. Somehow, she seemed to be smiling. A trick of the light, perhaps. But if the light itself was something impossible… Otto snuffed the flame with his fingers, which did not singe as they touched the fire.

He had never received a more explicit answer from the Gods.

#A Companion #otto hightower #otto hightower fanfiction #otto hightower finfic #otto hightower x reader #otto hightower x you #house of the dragon #hotd #house of the dragon fanfic #hotd fanfic #hotd otto #house of the dragon otto #rhys ifans

307 notes · View notes

toapril-official · 1 month

Text

ToApril 2024

ToApril is once again upon us! Can you believe this is the third year this is taking place?

At this point we will assume everybody gets the concept of ToApril, but if you don’t, don’t hesitate to reach out!

Before we jump right into it, we want to emphasize the rules of toapril:

Please keep it TOA related. You can use characters from other series or your own, but the prompts were made with the characters of TOA in mind.

No NSFW. There are adults and minors alike participating and definitely browsing the internet within the fandom. Mature topics can be brought up, but anything graphic is not allowed.

Note: None of the prompts are ship based, but you are definitely allowed to include ships!

If you write a fic on ao3, please put it in the toapril 2024 collection. If you’re not sure how to do that, here are some instructions:

Option1: Go to the collection. There should be a button at the top right saying ‘post to collection’. Click that button and the rest should be as it would normally be when you post a fic.

Option 2: Post a new fic as usual, but in the associations section, type in toapril in the post to collections / challenges space and it should pop up. Make sure you add it in the 2024 one. It will stay open for a couple of weeks after April just in case you need more time to finish something.

If you want to post something on tumblr, please tag it with #toapril and #toapril2024. You can also tag this blog in your post, we would love to see all of your amazing works this year :D.

Have fun! If there’s any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

Prompts below the cut.

Text version:

Day 1: Missed Target

Day 2: Growing Pains

Day 3: Divine Intervention

Day 4: Facing The Unknown

Day 5: For The Best

Day 6: Hair Holds Memories

Day 7: Fathers Who’d Kill

Day 8: Moonlight’s Reflection

Day 9: The Hour Past Midnight

Day 10: This Isn’t Goodbye

Day 11: First Meeting

Day 12: Revenge Served Cold

Day 13: Curse of Eternal Youth

Day 14: Every Rose Has Its Thorns

Day 15: Without Requisite or Deadline

Day 16: Nymphs and Negligence

Day 17: The Cyclical Nature of Things

Day 18: In The Next Lifetime

Day 19: Haunted

Day 20: Chaos Soup

Day 21: The Sun and The Earth

Day 22: Never Forget

Day 23: Cheesecake & Demons

Day 24: Unexpected Allies

Day 25: Race Against Time

Day 26: Wilting Flowers

Day 27: Missing Objects

Day 28: Silent Thunder

Day 29: Lost City

Day 30: Fading Memories

Thank you to @okathleen, @star-flcwers, @worlds-oldest-teenager, @reostuffzies, @tsarinatorment, @nyaningthroughlife, @money-and-dandellions, @ferodactyl, @xxzephyrbreezexx, and @solahflare for submitting these prompts.

#toapril announcements #toapril #toapril2024 #toapril prompts #toapril 2024

89 notes · View notes

docgold13 · 5 months

Text

Profiles in Villainy

Hordak

There have been multiple versions of the malevolent menace known as Hordak. In the original continuity established in She Ra: Princess of Power (and by extension He-Man and The Masters of Universe), Hordak is an extremely powerful tyrant of mysterious origins who will stop at nothing until he conquers all of both Etheria and the neighboring dimension of Eternia. Heralding from the shadowy ‘Horde World,’ Hordak’s powers were derived from a strange combination of sorcery and science.

Hordak was originally headquartered in Snake Mountain where he had taken on the villainous Skeletor as an apprentice. When the forces of King Randor were closing in on Hordak, he fled to Ethernia, leaving Skeletor in charge of Snake Mountain (and thus leading to the longstanding conflict between Skeletor and Randor’s son, He-Man). Reestablishing himself on Etheria, Hordak took over the Fright Zone; and from here he and his Evil Horde began its war against She-Ra The Princes of Power.

In the 2018 reboot of the narrative, Hordak was shown to be a semi-defective clone of the entity known as Hordak Prime. This Hordak Prime sent versions of himself to countless worlds to conquer in his stead, all part of an effort to claim absolute dominion over the entirety of the cosmos.

Hordak’s ‘deficiency’ was his unexpected capacity for independent thought. This led to feelings of ambivalence that would manifest in malfunctions in his powers and the mechanical aspects of his physical form.

Although a cruel master who sent the forces of his Evil Horde to conquer Etheria and crush the Princess Rebellion, Hordak also struggled with doubt and was confused by his falling in love with his lieutenant, Entrapta. His other lieutenant, Catra, surmised these weaknesses in Hordak and used them to her advantage, ultimately unseating Hordak as the new master of the Evil Horde.

This ultimately facilitated the mighty Hordak Prime coming to Etheria. The villain was defeated by She-Ra and her various allies. In the wake of this, Hordak was free from his former master and he and Entrapta were reunited to forge a life together.

Actor George DiCenzo provided the voice for Hordak in his original appearances in the 1985 series, She-Ra: Princes of Power; the great Kevin Conroy voiced the villain in the 2002 series Masters of the Universe vs. The Snake Men; and actor Keston John voiced Hordak in the 2018 series, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.

#Profiles in Villainy #Hordak #She-Ra #He-Man #she ra and the princesses of power #cut-out #paper art #Villains!

108 notes · View notes

giuliettagaltieri · 3 months

Text

Masterlist

K. Bakugō • E. Jaeger • M. O’Hara • S. Gojō • N. Zen’in • C. Snow

Coriolanus Snow

♡ Hunt for Glory

Synopsis: After living under the shadow of legacy of your fathers, you and Coriolanus Snow decide it is time to climb to the top, to reclaim what was yours. You are a convenient ally, a dangerous and sly woman, and to his luck, it seems your heart was tender for him, until it no longer was

Chapter Count: 6

♡ Quest for Happiness

Synopsis: You got what you wanted. Power over Panem is on your hands. But after fighting in a battle of schemes and ruse, Coriolanus and you face a much more complex adversity. Together, you are a force to reckon with but when the odds seem to not be so much in your favor, will you manage to remain together?

Chapter Count: 7

Gojō Satoru

♡ A River of Honey

Synopsis: Navigating through life with your husband and son who both seemed to have developed an appetite for something only you can provide.

Word Count: 1142

♡ Where the Blue Roses Grow

Series Synopsis: Snippets from the life of Gojō Satoru and yours. Where the two of you journey on a path that was predetermined for you, with hearts bruised and unforeseen emotions blossoming.

Chapter Count: 9

Miguel O’Hara

♡ Project: Galatea

Synopsis: Allowing you sentience made things more complicated between you and Miguel. But Peter Parker from Earth-199999 decides to take on an unfinished impossible project of his late mentor, and possibly bring you and Miguel back together.

Word Count: 6218

♡ Project: Pandora

Synopsis: You are experiencing things for the first time and you can’t wait to explore what the multiverse has to offer, but for now, you’ll start with a messy college dorm room.

Word Count: 2174

♡ Project: Eros

Synopsis: It does not feel the same without your wings and halo and you turn to science to help you gain them back. But despite your angelic appearance, you find yourself allured by the weakness and carnality of the flesh.

Word Count: 5435

Eren Jaeger

♡ Sparkly Pink Skirt

Synopsis: When you are head over heels for Eren since high school, he finds it difficult to take in when you start to avoid him.

Word Count: 2586

♡ Be Careful Not to Spill

Synopsis: Eren does not agree with the euthanasia plan and he will show them, with a little help from you.

Word Count: 2149

♡ Home is Where You Are

Synopsis: As Eren’s past comes to pay him a visit, you come to realize that love can come in all shapes.

Word Count: 1526

♡ Just Kiss Her Already

Synopsis: Craving for academic validation, you find an unexpected challenger who might have hurt your feelings, just a bit.

Word Count: 1724

♡ Kruger and Vixen

Synopsis: Having a love-hate relationship is fun until Eren messes it up, driving you away.

Word Count: 7077

♡ Number One Fan

Synopsis: You have always been there to cheer him on, if only he would look at you the same way you look at him. But whho are you compared to the all too perfect Mikasa?

Word Count: 5496

♡ Cherry Flavored Kisses

Synopsis: The life as Eren Jaeger’s girl fascinated you, but it was nothing compared to the fascination you feel for the man, himself. He could be nice if he wanted. But nothing is as bittersweet as a love unrequited.

Word Count: 5862

♡ Doctor’s Order

Synopsis: You could not make your crush on Dr. Eren Jaeger any more obvious. And even though you can tolerate his usual cold demeanor, you also know when to draw the line. 1 of 3.

Word Count: 1792

♡ Progress Notes

Synopsis: You are having fun, trying new things and meeting other people while Eren disproves the saying, “Out of sight, out of mind.” 2 of 3.

Word Count: 1370

♡ Care Plan

Synopsis: You’re back from your trip and a certain surgeon finds it difficult to not be in the receiving end of your undivided attention. 3 of 3.

Word Count: 1269

♡ Road Rage & Malibu Barbie

Synopsis: You may look like a barbie doll who got lost on her way back to her dreamhouse but Eren never fails to break your front quite often than you like

Word Count: 2292

Bakugou Katsuki

♡ At Daybreak

Synopsis: Yesterday's rejection made an awkward morning more awkward. Mix in a ghost and a cookie jar, this morning is bound to be interesting. Who knew that the Bakugou Katsuki knows how to tease girls?

Word count: 1401

♡ Hero Too

Synopsis: Being a hero means so much more than just the career that Bakugou chose and you wanted to prove that to him and a series of unfortunate events might just let that happen, because dammit! You’re a hero too!

Word Count: 3,553

♡ Still Jealous

Synopsis: Bakugou tries his best to be a good boyfriend when you get hit with a jealousy quirk. And when cuddles don't work, leave it to Bakugou to come up with other ways to help.

Words: 712

♡ You call Bakugou “pretty”

♡ Manga omake

Naoya Zen’in

Coming This Summer

#giuliagaltieri masterlist #masterlist #miguel o'hara x reader #gojo satoru x reader #eren jaeger x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #coriolanus snow x reader #naoya zen'in x reader

75 notes · View notes

riacte · 8 months

Text

All the routes Renchanting could go in Life Series 5:

(Self sabotage along the lines of Ren burning his tower in Last Life, swearing, angst with a happy ending, 2k)

Ren moves on, and Martyn pretends he moved on too, but he really never left. Ren forms a partnership with different people, he declares himself as best friends with someone, but when Martyn strays into his path, Ren can't help but take notice of him. Can't help but trust him once more, can't help but to offer him a deal, can't help himself.

Ren's a seasoned veteran now; he understands that war is inevitable and he has to keep his friends safe in an impenetrable fortress. He's not as naive as he was the first time, when he freely let people into his enchanting emporium. If Martyn offered to be his marketing manager this time round, Ren might not have let him (but deep down, he knows he'll always let him in). Maybe Martyn's the chink in Ren's armour. If that's the case, then so be it.

Martyn's not jealous. He's really not. Of course he's glad Ren's found new partnerships and new allies this time round. Of course he knows you can't repeat the past. He's just relieved that Ren is here this time, and he finds a little guidance in him. Something is better than nothing. Even though he has his allies, Martyn's still a wanderer, but he makes his rounds back to Ren periodically, in search for something that he's too scared to ask.

It's not his place anyway. Ren belongs somewhere. Martyn's not in the equation.

So Martyn patches up the fragments of his soul, tucks away his puns and oneliners, packs up his monologues and vows, carefully puts the memories of Third Life back in that little part of his heart, and continues to roam across the world. Walls, corners, edges. Nothing has changed.

(Still, when an unexpected mob strikes, Martyn grabs Ren in a panic, their hands find each other instinctively, they run and they run, and for a single precious moment, it's them against the world again.)

(And when Ren inevitably dies, Martyn stands and blankly stares at what's left of his not-ally, not-partner, not-king. He wonders if it would've been different if he was Ren's Hand again. Probably not. They're all doomed anyway.)

Ren and Martyn ally, hands shook in a new agreement. It's not Dogwarts, but it's something.

They have new allies and new enemies. They're close, but not too close. They have a learned sense of self preservation. They crack their jokes, tend to their crops, enchant their gear, but it's not serious, right? Treating it seriously only results in more pain later. No one wants that.

Ren understands nothing good comes out of declaring himself as king. He always gets overthrown, his beloved defenders always get killed by the masses, his kingdoms always go up in flames. It's best to keep a distance from everyone. It's for the greater good.

This is a temporary alliance. They are all temporary alliances. It's just for fun. Once the end is near, it's time for them to drift away. Ren can't bear getting people getting hurt for his sake.

"We used to be something, don't you think so?" Martyn once asks Ren.

They're both thinking about Dogwarts. About a life a long, long time ago. A doomed life. A beautiful, wonderful, yet catastrophically painful life.

Is it better to have loved and lost, or better to not have loved at all?

They seem to have came to the conclusion organically. It's out of self-preservation, after all. Don't get too close. The story of the King and his loyal Hand is over. Let the dust settle on their storybook. Let the pages turn yellow. Let it wither. Let it die.

It's awful, isn't it? How they've finally found each other, after trials and tribulations, but they're too scared to try again. Where's that defiance against fate? Where's "give me a shield and I'll follow you to the ends of the world"? Where's "this is us now, this is us"? Where's the passion, the reverence, the reckless devotion? What beat it out of them?

"... We could be something, don't you think so?" is Ren's reply.

But they don't. They don't try anymore. Too tired, too drained, too timid now.

Somehow this feels worse than being separated. Not trying at all.

Ren's not here.

Martyn builds his own walls, builds his own tower, wraps the tattered scarf around him once more, the Hand frozen in time, sits and stays right where he's been left. Third Life never ended for him.

Ren showed him life, didn't he? Where is he now? Where's the life he promised him?

Martyn dimly remembers Ren sitting himself on fire when he was lonely in Last Life. Back then, Martyn had dropped everything to rush to Ren's aid. Ren's the one inflicting damage on himself, the prince locking himself in his burning tower, and Martyn, ever the firefighter, puts out his flames with a bucket of water.

In that life, Martyn leaped to Ren's defence. How could he not? Logically, Martyn should've left Ren. Stopped his damage from damaging Martyn himself. But Martyn's never been logical about Ren, has he?

Is Ren watching him, this time? Is his king out there, somewhere? Does he care? Does he care at all?

... Martyn reaches for the flint and steel.

3.5

(Someone— it does not matter who— knocks it out of his hand. It kicks Martyn out of his stupor. He blinks. His head hurts. What the heck is he doing there, mooning about a lost king? Why the fuck does he even care, when everyone moved on?

This has gone on for too long. If he can't pull himself up from the abyss, he'll have to go cold turkey. There's no other way. It's for his own good, Martyn convinces himself.

In a violent, swift move, Martyn rips off his scarf. He watches it burn.

... He swears he's only crying from the smoke.)

Martyn moves on. Ren thinks he moved on from Dogwarts and everything, but once he's back on the server, everything comes rushing back to him, as easy as running water.

He misses having a faction to protect. He misses being loyal to his people. He deeply misses his friends. He misses having Martyn by his side. He misses Martyn.

But Martyn's back to being a wanderer, cheerfully involving himself in everyone's business yet not staying with anyone, because he's permanently more selfish now, and nothing's going to stop Martyn once he's fallen off that edge. He's a cannonball, a tornado, a wild card. He's everywhere, but he's nowhere.

Martyn is cunning, devious, sharp as ever, still funny as fuck, but there's a wild look in his eyes now. He's untamed. He doesn't give a shit about anything. He lies. He backstabs. He's a nuisance. Thief. Plunderer. Shit-stirrer. And it's all for the heck of it.

Whatever happened to the loyal knight Ren once knew? Was Martyn always this way? Was Ren the only exception? Or has Limited Life broken him?

Ren still tries, with his kind smiles and elaborate gifts and offers of working with him, but Martyn seems to be avoiding him on purpose. What worked in Third Life doesn't work anymore.

Ren knows he should distance himself considering Martyn doesn't give a shit anymore, but a part of him can't help but look back. Maybe he can change Martyn. Show him life again. Maybe, maybe, just maybe.

("We can be allies again," he offers hopefully. Martyn laughs, and it's such a familiar sound that Ren can't help but perk up, but it's a harsh laugh. Twisted. Warped.

"No thank you," Martyn replies. Ren thinks Martyn's holding back calling him "boss" sarcastically. At least there's a line that he's not crossing.)

Ren knows he should let it go. It hurts, but dragging it only hurts more. Martyn doesn't want him, not even a little bit. His friends convince him. So Ren loyally sticks to his own circle of allies. He tries to forget about the permanent chink in his armour.

But when Ren carelessly steps into a trap, he thinks he hears an achingly familiar voice scream, "Ren! No!"

The world explodes in red and yellow. Fire. Dynamite. It's just like his first death, the one that turned him yellow the first time, the death that eventually led to his beheading, the one that started it all.

Now it ends. Now it all ends.

Ren's bleeding. He's on the ground. He thinks he hears Martyn's voice. That's nice. It's nice even if it's a hallucination. As his consciousness fades, he hears Martyn's voice,

"... If only you were there last time. If only I care about you as much as I did then. But the universe never lets it align, does it? You got over me when I didn't. Now I'm over you when you're not. I’m too early, you’re too late.”

Ren smiles. Oh, he sees through Martyn's facade. He sees it now. His lips part weakly.

"... Liar."

(Martyn's untamed. He doesn't give a shit about anything. He lies. He backstabs. He's a nuisance. Thief. Plunderer. Shit-stirrer. Liar. Liar.)

In response, Ren feels a squeeze on his hand. Comforting. Regretful. Apologizing.

"I don't deserve you. Don't forgive me, Ren."

I always do, Ren thinks. But by that time, he's already gone.

There is a simple rule to the Life series— everyone is doomed from the beginning. No matter who wins.

Ren is doomed. A kind, gentle man can't survive till the end. That's why Ren had to kill himself and let the Red King take over. Is that why Martyn won the season without Ren? Is that how Martyn won, without Ren holding him back, without Ren to guide him?

You either die a hero, or live long enough to be the villain.

Yet, none of it is pointless. The seasons are filled with joy, laughter, genuine connections are formed, and while it can be tragic, it can also be soul-shatteringly beautiful.

It's worth it. It's always worth it.

Once, Ren showed Martyn life. Because all Martyn knew back then was how to survive, not how to live.

But now, Martyn doesn't just want to survive. He wants to thrive. What good is surviving if everyone dies at the end, including his king? What good it is anyway, when Martyn ends up falling and falling again? What good is conquering the world when every tiny bit of it reminds him of Ren?

So when the new season dawns, Martyn decides to throw all of it away. His angst, his inhibitions, his self-pity. Sure, everything goes up in flames anyway, and this fragile world is temporary, but is that any way to live? To live without living, to live without trying at all?

They're all at spawn. Everyone's enthusiastically greeting each other and Martyn does the same, but he's frantically searching for someone, eyes wide. He's waited months and months for this. He can't take it anymore.

And then—

(A familiar chuckle, a flash of brown hair, eyes turning to meet his—)

Martyn remembers the precious vow they made in a parallel universe, under the moonlit sky, blood splattered on the altar, those bygone years and bygone lives, and he runs—

"REN!" Martyn screams like he's never screamed before.

Martyn's hands reach out. He doesn't care if Ren has moved on, doesn't care if Ren doesn't want him anymore. He only cares that Ren is here. Alive. In front of him.

And so he embraces Ren tightly, so very tightly.

"Martyn!" Ren sounds surprised by the intensity. "Dude! I missed you!"

And with those simple words, the shattered pieces of his world start falling into place again. Martyn laughs, a pure, genuine laugh from his heart. Everything's alright now. They can begin again.

"Welcome back, my liege."

#renchanting #rendog #inthelittlewood #treebark #trafficblr #ria.fic #this was meant to be short. like a tumblr post. it's 2k now soo 👍#if you recognise song lyrics. yes. it's probably intentional. i want to live not just survive (not just survive)#might put this on ao3 later #this is originally meant to have a sad ending but i couldn't bear it. renchanting forever and ever [explodes] 🔥🔥🔥🔥

186 notes · View notes

subterraneanna · 8 months

Text

S4 E2 — It's supply day at San Pablo, but when committee meetings hinder Curley's order, he makes an unexpected ally and ties up Mirror!Spock along the way. Thanks to @peridotsarelongterm for the suggestion:

The full cowboy crossover series

#star trek the original series #warlock #catlow #curley burne #mr spock #orville miller #deforest kelley #leonard nimoy #photo edit #painting the missing pieces of that corduroy jacket 😵#western!de #cowboy crossover

174 notes · View notes

pokichuwrites · 5 months

Text

Edit: adding a “read more” tab because scrolling through this beast is a nightmare. No tws except uhh traffic series typical mentions of death.

“You know Grian, I forgive you.”

Grian jumped embarrassingly high, and spun around to see Scar, who was smiling at him. Perhaps he was a little on edge now that the entire server was red. That’s fine. It’s fine. “You- Scar! Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

Scar giggled, and Grian huffed, crossing his arms. “Come on G, it was pretty funny.”

Grian sighed. “Ugh, fine. Well, you made your way all over here. What do you want?”

Scar cleared his throat dramatically, and threw out his left arm, his right hand was holding onto his cane, or else he probably would have held out both arms, as if he was silently asking for a one armed hug.

“I just want to talk to you, is that so wrong!” Scar smiled at him. It was frustratingly endearing.

“Nothing wrong, I just… wasn’t expecting it. That’s all,” Grian explained. He didn’t really believe Scar that he just wanted to talk to Grian. There was something more. Scar was going to… trick Grian, or something. He didn’t know. They weren’t exactly allies this season, and Scar hasn’t been very trustworthy.

“Haven’t you learned to expect the unexpected, G?” Scar asked, leaning against his cane and gesturing as he talked. “How about we walk to my base and I tell you about my day and you tell me about yours?”

“You know, if the session wasn’t over already I’d assume this was related to a task,” Grian said, not moving any closer to Scar.

Scar dramatically gasped, touching his hand to his chest. “I’m wounded, Grian, that you don’t trust me.”

“I literally watched you set our trees on fire,” he deadpanned.

“Funny thing, that actually was a task,” Scar seemed… nervous. Grian just noticed all of a sudden, Scar seemed nervous about something. “But right now I just want to talk to my good friend Grian. No shenanigans involved, I swear!”

“Alright, alright, but we’re talking here. I’m not following you to your base.” Grian turned, knowing Scar would follow him as he walked into the space he shared with Cleo and Etho.

Grian knew Scar was following by the sound of his cane tapping the path, then the wood. “You know I can’t hurt you outside of a session!” Scar argued.

“That doesn’t mean that I trust you. The rules have been broken before, you know.” He didn’t mean for his voice to get a little sharp at the mention of breaking rules, but it did anyway.

Scar made a disappointed noise, but relented. “That’s fair, I guess.”

They had entered the base, and Cleo, who was working on fixing a tear in Etho’s pants, noticed Scar, and frowned. “What’s going on?” She asked.

Grian shrugged. “Scar said he wanted to talk to me.”

Cleo fixed Scar with a look. That scary look she gives someone when she doesn’t trust someone to not hurt her allies.

“Wh- hey- come on, why’s everyone looking at me like that! I really do just want to talk!” Scar said defensively.

“You don’t have the best track record when it comes to these things, Scar.” Cleo set aside the pants to stare at Scar without risking pricking her fingers with the seeing needle.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Scar lied.

Grian scoffed. “Says the man who conned people out of their clothes multiple times. By the way, where’s Etho?”

“He’s in Bdubs’ bedroom,” Cleo replied, smiling slightly.

Scar looked between Grian and Cleo. “Well, would you happen to know somewhere we can talk without risking someone else listening in on us?” He asked, speaking slowly and carefully.

Grian crossed his arms. “Well, the zombie farm or the enchanter would work,” he started, “but I don’t see any reason to want to talk to you in private.”

Scar frowned. “Come on, I promise, no shenanigans! I just want to talk to you!” He sounded frustrated, and he probably was considering the conversation.

Cleo hummed. “How about this. Scar, if you and Grian talk, and you do any shenanigans, I’ll sick my dogs on you first thing next session.”

“Cross my heart and hope to die, no shenanigans!”

Grian considered it. After a bit of thinking, he gave up with a sigh. “Alright, let’s meet at the enchanter. If anything happens, though, I’m telling Cleo.” Cleo always makes good on her promises, so that at least made Grian feel safe.

Scar grinned. “Yay!”

—————

They chose the enchanting set up. That way it would be easier for Grian to run out and shout for Cleo if he felt unsafe.

He was closer to the exit than Scar, who was sitting on one of the bookshelves.

He leaned against the wall and looked at Scar, genuinely curious. “Why did you want to talk in private?” He asked.

Scar closed his eyes. “I’ve been thinking. About past seasons. I… we never really got closure, did we?”

Oh, that made sense. Grian almost felt bad for being so resistant to talking to Scar, now. Almost.

“I don’t think we did,” Grian replied. Scar was fidgeting with his cane.

“Well, I meant what I said earlier. I forgive you.”

Grian gave pause. Scar was forgiving him. After… everything. “For what?” He asked.

“Everything, I guess. For stealing a life from me in Last Life, for… the thing with BigB in Double Life, for killing me… multiple times in Limited Life. I forgive you.” Scar was quiet. It was so weird, Scar’s voice was quieter than he ever remembered it getting, save for whispering whenever he was sneaking around doing suspicious things.

“Even for Third Life?” Grian found that his voice was quieter too.

Scar looked at Grian for a moment, like the question was ridiculous or something. “What would I need to forgive you for in Third Life?”

Grian was incredulous. “Killing you? Two times?”

Scar giggled. “Oh, that? Grian, I forgave you a long time ago.” He paused, before adding, “I forgave you for that first kill pretty quickly. And I was never upset at you for winning that fight. We both said no hard feelings, right?”

Then he said something else. Very quietly- so quietly that he almost didn’t think he heard him. He had muttered something along the lines of “you deserved the win more than me anyway.”

Grian was sure that wasn’t what Scar said. It couldn’t be, right? There was no way Scar thought he deserved to win more than him. He didn’t push it, though. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know what Scar had actually said.

Finally, he remembered that he needed to respond. “Oh, so you. Really do forgive me for everything.” He looked down, fidgeting with his sweater. “Why?” He had asked that last question very, very quietly.

Scar was quiet for a moment, thinking about his response. “I think I understand. I didn’t, at first. I… specifically with BigB. Everything else I knew was just how the game was, but when you… gosh, I still can’t say it…” his voice wavered as he spoke. “Anyway, I’m sure you know that the secrets tasks have been causing some… situations. You know, doing bad things because you have to. I- well, you-” he sighed. “I think I realized in session 4, when you… you were so nice to me. You didn’t have to tell me not to remove the helmet, and you didn’t have to keep my secret.”

“Scar.”

“I’m not finished. You- I was so stressed. And you understood. I didn’t think about it immediately, I was just relieved to not have to wear that stupid diamond helmet, by I definitely realized by the end of the session. My tasks kept… my tasks kept putting me in situations I really didn’t want to be in, Grian.” He looked away. He touched his face, and he wondered mindlessly if Scar was crying. After a few seconds, Scar continued. “And I- I sort of gamified it. Like, I’m not actually doing bad things, it’s… well, I treated it like I was only acting like I was a bad person, because technically I was.” He turned to face Grian again. “It’s shockingly easy to justify betraying someone. To justify hurting your friends for your benefit.”

“Scar?”

“I don’t think… Grian, you never meant to really hurt me, did you? I mean, I think you knew that certain things weren’t nice, but you never meant things ro turn out the way they did.” Scar was definitely avoiding looking at Grian. Grian didn’t really mind, he wasn’t sure if he could stand looking at Scar’s painfully earnest expression. He was really putting all his cards on the table. “I understand now. And I still wish you didn’t do some of the things you did, but I forgive you.”

Grian walked over to Scar, and hugged him. He seemed surprised, jumping slightly, before wrapping his arms around Grian too.

“Scar…” Grian muttered.

“If you don’t accept my forgiveness I will cry,” Scar threatened, as if he wasn’t already crying. Grian didn’t comment on that.

“I’m not very good at apologizing, I’ve realized.” Scar chuckled in reply to that. “I’m sorry,” Grian added, “for not realizing sooner how much I’ve hurt you.”

Scar let go first, Grian did the same after a moment and stepped back. “Can we agree to never tell anyone else about this conversation?” Grian asked.

Scar nodded. “Yeah.” He reached for his cane, realizing suddenly that he had dropped it without realizing, and it had rolled away from him. He muttered under her breath in frustration. Grian picked up the object and offered it to Scar, who smiled at him and accepted it, standing up.

“You know this won’t change how we interact during sessions, right?” Grian asked as he wordlessly helped Scar up.

Scar began walking in front of Grian. “I do, yeah. I just wanted to let you know I forgive you.”

Grian smiled. “Alright.”

The two didn’t say anything else as they left the enchanting room. They didn’t need to. They had said “bye” quietly to each other, then Scar left to go to his base.

————

As Grian walked into the base, Cleo looked at him. She had finished her work on Etho’s pants, which weren’t anywhere ro be seen now. Grian assumed they had been returned to him. “Anything happen that I should know about?”

Grian walked over to her. “No,” he replied, “nothing.”

Cleo sighed. She looked Grian over, suspicious. “You sure? You know I will make good on my promise.”

Grian shook his head. “I swear everything’s fine, Cleo. Scar did have something important to talk about.”

“I assume you’re not going to tell me?” Cleo asked as she fed rotten flesh to her dogs.

“It’s… personal,” Grian replied.

Cleo nodded in understanding. “I get it.” She gestured to the staircase, which led to the bedroom they made for Bdubs while Etho refused to shut up about him. “By the way, your wings are a mess. Do you want Etho and I to preen them?”

Grian hesitated for a moment before nodding. “Yeah. Yeah that would be nice.” He moved upstairs, then avoided the hole from the tnt minecart as he entered the bedroom. “Hey, Etho.”

He looked up at Grian and Cleo. “Hey,” he replied.

Grian sat on the bed as Cleo explained to Etho that Grian needed his wings preened. And then the soothing motions of two pairs of hands running through his wings practically turned him liquid. His conversation with Scar had left him tense without realizing. The reminder of the past that Grian just wanted to put behind him. He remembered now, in this moment, something that he forgot a few seasons ago.

The gentle moments like this, the comfort of people he trusted enough to allow them to touch his wings in the first place, they would always happen as long as he let them. Grian had forgotten how it felt to completely and fully trust. He always trusted his allies, but not enough to let them preen his wings. Not enough to know, in every fiber of his being, that they would keep their promises. The last time Grian let an ally preen his wings was Scar, back in Third Life.

Maybe he could heal. Maybe he could peel away all the layers of distrust and hurt. Just maybe…

Grian realized he was crying, but he found that he didn’t care. He was comfortable and safe and happy. Next session would probably be the last session, on a server full of reds and animosity, the chance of anyone seeing a session 10 was incredibly low. But that would be a problem for later Grian. Current Grian was being preened by his friends, his allies.

#traffic series #life series #writing #grian #goodtimeswithscar #ethoslab #zombiecleo #secret life

127 notes · View notes

inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 7 months

Text

When The World Is Crashing Down [Chapter 3: We Drown Traitors In Shallow Water]

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

Chapter warnings: Language, warfare, people being aware of Daeron's existence, violence, serious injury, alcoholism/addiction, Aemond having feelings (not good ones), references to sexual content (18+), an unexpected field trip.

Series title is a lyric from: "7 Minutes in Heaven" by Fall Out Boy.

Chapter title is a lyric from: "Champagne for My Real Friends, Real Pain for My Sham Friends" by Fall Out Boy.

Word count: 6.2k.

Link to chapter list: HERE.

Let me know if you'd like to be tagged! 🥰💜

Aemond never tells you where you’re going.

You follow him—ivy-green velvet tunic, silver flood of hair like moonlight—to Grand Maester Orwyle’s chambers and up a narrow spiral staircase to the rookery of the Red Keep. Windows open out into all four cardinal directions: wests towards the Reach, south towards the Stormlands, north towards the Riverlands, east towards the Narrow Sea. Late-afternoon sunlight like the pulsing glow of embers paints you both in gold, in rust. As Aemond goes to the writing desk and begins drafting a letter—his penmanship is always slow and precise, painstakingly neat—you look at the ravens that tiptoe on talons like a dragon’s through the straw beds of their cages. Each enclosure is labeled with the castles that particular raven is trained to fly to. One raven knows the way to Lannisport, another to Riverrun, a third to Winterfell where Cregan Stark is gathering far-flung Northerner soldiers to help him march south and leave his mark on the world, something like a brand or a bloodstain or a bruise. You notice that a particularly clever raven—old, greying, fast asleep with his beak tucked into scruffy feathers—is assigned three separate strongholds, all in the Crownlands: Dragonstone, Driftmark, Claw Isle. It is not often that you see all the Valyrian houses of Westeros listed together; it is not often that House Celtigar is properly acknowledged. Generations of intermarrying with Westerosi bloodlines has camouflaged your Valyrian features, but still, the truth is inescapable. The fates of the Targaryens, Velaryons, and Celtigars are hopelessly intertwined. They always have been. You survived the Doom together; you are meant to prosper or burn together.

“Who are you writing to?” you ask Aemond.

He speaks without looking up from his letter, straight regimented lines and meticulous dots. “Eastbriar.”

The seat of House Thorne, your supposed kin. You choke down a dismayed mewing—it rises in your throat like stream from a kettle—and imagine the tone of your voice to be like a ship: vital to keep level and upright, even in the roughest of waves. “A summons for our soldiers?”

Aemond nods, his eye still on the parchment. “They have had ample time to mop up after Rook’s Rest. Those who have survived and are capable of battle will meet me and Criston as we lead our army north to the Riverlands.”

This is a compromise, you know. Aemond wanted to depart from the capital on Vhagar and pursue Daemon and Caraxes alone. Everyone was against it—Criston, Otto, Alicent, Orwyle, Tyland Lannister, Jasper Wylde, Larys Strong, the entire Kingsguard, Aegon when he was roused enough to pry an answer out of—and so Aemond relented. But there is still a restlessness that lives in the icy blue cave of his remaining eye like a caged animal. “You’re doing the right thing.”

“This brings me great confidence, the endorsement of a woman with no tactical proficiency whatsoever.” And you think: I might know more of wartime strategy than your own advisors. I have heard what the Black Council discusses. I have stayed up with my father and brothers until the dark, lonely hours of the early morning as they plotted, Clement rabid to see combat, Everett assisting Father with calculations of cost and gain. Aemond smirks and beckons you closer to the desk. “I’ve finished. Go on, leave a note at the bottom.”

“What?” You stare at him, then down at the parchment. “Me?”

“I thought you might like to include a brief postscript for your family. I assume you have told them that you are here and safe. They would appreciate further report on occasion, I’m sure. To read that you are perfectly well in your own words.”

“Right,” you agree uncertainly.

Aemond crosses the rookery and turns his back to you. His hand slips into a pocket of his tunic and reemerges with small pieces of crumbly bread; he feeds them to the ravens, voracious black beaks jabbing out from between metal bars. “I will give you privacy to disparage me as much as you wish to,” he says, and you can hear the teasing smile in his voice.

He’s not suspicious, you realize. He means this as an act of kindness, of esteem. He trusts me.

And you have grown to understand Aemond well enough to know that this will only make things worse for you if your treason is discovered. It is not just the Greens’ security or strategy that is implicated here. It is Aemond’s pride. Sometimes, you think, it is his grudging affection as well.

You pick up the quill and contemplate the letter to House Thorne. What do I write? What the hell do I write?

Then an idea occurs to you. You add to the bottom of the parchment, just below Aemond’s signature:

P.S. Please send any livestock that you can spare to help sustain Sunfyre at Rook’s Rest. His alertness and strength improve each day. The Greens cannot spare any of our dragons…and Sunfyre is beloved for his ferocity by all the loyal subjects of the realm.

You hesitate, then sign in a looping scrawl:

Aegon II, King of the Seven Kingdoms

This comes so easily, like breathing, like healing, a treachery as smooth and painless as milk of the poppy.

“Done?” Aemond asks.

“Yes.” You roll up the parchment and give it to Aemond. Without looking at what you’ve written—he trusts me, he trusts me, a chant that is in equal parts honored and horrified—he ties it with a green ribbon, attaches it to a twiglike ink-colored leg of the raven trained to fly to Eastbriar, and looses the bird out into the troubled world through the open window that faces Blackwater Bay.

The sunlight catches on something: gold wings, jade eyes. Aemond is wearing Aegon’s ring, the one you stripped him of at Rook’s Rest as he lingered at the gate between our world and the one beyond, above or below or wherever you believe it to be, ice or fire or clouds or void.

“You should give that back to Aegon,” you say. “His hands are no longer too swollen to wear it. And I think he has noticed it’s missing.”

Aemond watches you, twisting the ring where it remains on his finger. He is thoughtful in a way that you cannot decipher. “You have done your king a great service. I know you will be generously rewarded.”

“That’s not why I’m helping him.”

“Yes, I know that part too.”

A silence, deep and laden and uncomfortable. Then Aemond winces—a tiny gesture he is used to hiding—and touches his fingertips to his forehead just above the black leather of his eyepatch. You have never seen him without it. “Headache?” you say.

“Having pieces of your eye scooped out of its socket comes at a price. I’m still paying it, I’ll never stop.”

You see it clearly, the story you were told: Aemond climbing up the rope ladder into Vhagar’s saddle, his skull rattling with vengeful maroon glee, slate-grey storm winds in his rain-soaked hair. “Is that why you killed Luke?”

Aemond gazes out the open window over the frothing waves speckled with sunbeams, and there is something strange in his face: not gloating but a pensiveness that grows almost despondent. At last, he speaks. “Now he has his brother to keep him company in the afterlife.”

“Jace?” you say, shocked. “Jace is dead?”

“Larys just informed me. The rest of the city will know by nightfall.”

You remember Jace, self-assured and ambitious and looking nothing like a Velaryon. You’ve met him. You’ve met all of the Blacks, even if only fleetingly or from a distance. “How?”

“Corlys’ navy attacked the Triarchy’s fleet in the Gullet.” The Triarchy are Essosi allies of the Greens, won over by Otto’s diplomacy, notes and promises that Aegon was too impatient to wait for. At last, they have arrived. “Jace and Vermax were torching our ships. Vermax was struck by a crossbow bolt and crashed into the burning wreckage of a galley. He struggled for a while and then disappeared into the waves. Jace clung to a piece of debris but was shot by arrows until dead. His body could not be recovered before it sank.”

You don’t know what to say; it is a defeat for the Celtigars, it is a victory for Aegon, it is a tragedy for all humankind. Are we any closer to peace? Or is this a wound that rips apart its stitching again and again until infection turns all our blood to poison? “So Rhaenyra has two sons buried in the sea.”

“There is something else that Larys told me,” Aemond says. And he does not seem like a man just handed news of a triumph. “Vermax was not the only dragon at the Battle of the Gullet.”

Caraxes is with Daemon at Harrenhal, last you heard. “Syrax?”

“No. The bitch won’t fight.” He means Rhaenyra, not her dragon. Aemond looks at you with fear swimming in his river-blue eye, something he rarely lets others see. “Silverwing, Seasmoke, Vermithor, and one that was never ridden before. The Blacks call him Sheepstealer.”

“Four more dragons,” you exhale with terror. “Four battle-ready, full-grown dragons.”

“They can’t use them here,” Aemond says, like he’s comforting you. “Rhaenyra cannot sanction the burning of King’s Landing and keep the love of the people. The people’s fondness for her is halfhearted at best already.”

“But the Blacks can use their dragons against you and Criston when you march north.”

Aemond smirks, half-taunting and half-warm. “It almost sounds like you’re worried about me.”

You ignore this. You don’t know how to respond. “When are you leaving?”

“Soon. A week or two.” He swipes for your wrist. You pull it away just as his fingertips graze your skin. Aemond smiles. “I’ll leave it to you to inform Aegon of Jace’s demise. I’m sure it will cheer him.” Then he descends the narrow spiral staircase and abandons you in the rookery, surrounded by squawking, pacing ravens that claw at the walls of their cages.

You stop at Helaena’s bedchamber before going to Aegon’s; he drained his goblet of milk of the poppy an hour ago and is almost certainly still unconscious. He is trapped in a cycle of bitter disappointment. He has a day when he feels better, overexerts himself, and then spends the next three or four sleeping to escape the pain. It doesn’t matter how many times you tell him to be cautious, to be patient. You walk into his room and find him polishing his sword, trying to pull on his boots, crawling out onto the balcony after nightfall when the sun cannot burn his fragile skin.

The queen is sitting in a chair and staring at the wall. She is watching the shadows of birds flit across tapestries depicting the night sky, a flurry of butterflies, unicorns, ladybugs, Dreamfyre. Each day you bring her flowers from the gardens; they sit in vases all over the room gathering dust, lilies and irises and tulips and daisies, roses red like the crabs that scuttle across your true house’s sigil. “Your Grace? Are you alright?”

Helaena says nothing. When you move closer, you see that her ghost-pale eyes are wide and vacant.

“Helaena, come walk in the gardens with me.”

Her voice is quiet, as if from a great distance away. “Is Jaehaerys playing there?”

It takes you a moment to decide how to answer. There is no sense in upsetting Helaena; she has suffered so much already. You will not remind her that her firstborn son was beheaded in front of her. “We’ve sent him away to keep him safe. You will see him again when the war is over.”

“I’ll see many people again when the war is over. But not you.”

You hold out your hand to her. “Helaena, please. Let’s walk in the gardens before the sun sets.” Before the world ends, you think randomly, unwelcomely.

You do not expect Helaena to take your hand. She never has before, though you offer it frequently. But this time her delicate, feather-light palm finds yours. One of her children is dead, and she cannot bring herself to act as a mother to the two that remain. Her marriage never brought her happiness, her father never cherished her. You cannot change any of this. But you can remind her that she is not alone. When you have spent an hour strolling through lush greenery and past ponds that ripple with the splashing of fish, you bring Helaena to Otto—he has supper with her most nights—and then continue on alone to Aegon’s bedchamber.

You stand in the doorway watching him as he sleeps, this man that you as a Celtigar have no business touching, this man you cannot bring yourself to leave.

He is mending. He is past the worst of the danger. If I disappeared now, Grand Maester Orwyle would be more than capable of tending to him. And every second I spend in King’s Landing is another opportunity to be discovered, imprisoned, interrogated, punished, ransomed, killed.

So when will you go?

Today seems impossible. Tomorrow isn’t any better. A few days, a week, a month?

Never, you think, so abruptly and forcefully that it stuns you. I never want to be away from him.

Aegon stirs, his eyes opening in bleary slits. His mess of silvery hair cascades over his face; the scar on his right cheek spills across his skin like blood in snow. He spots you from across the room, smiles, reaches out to you with one seeking, unburned hand.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Aegon, you have to set it free.” It’s morning, days later. Outside the sun is bright and forbidden; in his bed across the room, draped in cool shadows, Aegon follows your eyeline to the glass jar on his bedside table, to the tiny creature Helaena gifted him. The once-caterpillar is now a captive butterfly with shimmering gold wings.

Aegon looks at it without much interest. “I’m terribly sorry. I was distracted by my many deformities.”

“Stop trying to lure me into complimenting you.” You remove the lid from the jar. The butterfly ascends through the opening, meanders around the room, and eventually finds its way through the window. “Besides, lots of women appreciate scars on a man.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Women in general, or one in particular…?”

“Quiet, miscreant.” You unwrap Aegon’s bandages and inspect the places you are most concerned with: the crooks of his elbows, the backs of his shoulders, his waist where the scar tissue strains when he moves. You begin massaging rose oil onto his arms, starting at his wrists. He is lucky the flames did not claim his hands; from what you have learned from books and maesters, keeping fingers nimble and stopping them from fusing together as they heal is nearly impossible.

“You’re always undressing me,” Aegon muses, gazing at you with hazy, murky blue eyes and a playful smile. “Maybe one day I’ll have the opportunity to return the favor.”

You won’t. But Cregan Stark will. And for the first time you are vividly aware that the thought of Aegon touching you—anywhere, everywhere—does not fill you with fear or dread but rather a sort of curiosity, maybe even willingness, maybe even the first pangs of a craving like hunger.

Aegon’s smile dies as you knead rose oil into his right forearm. He will require the use of it if he is to ever wield a sword properly again. “I did not mean to offend you. Allow me to apologize. I am thoroughly medicated, my judgment is impaired. And I confess that it was not so good to begin with.”

“I’m not offended. I’m…distracted.”

Distracted by the promise-prison of your betrothal, Aegon knows. “Angel,” he says firmly, and waits until you meet his eyes. “What can I do for you?”

“Nothing, Aegon. I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. You have enough worries already.”

“You’ve helped me,” Aegon insists. “Now let me help you. I may be weak and hideous now, but I’m still the king. Whoever he is, I can have him married off to someone else. I can have him sent to the Night’s Watch. I can fix this.”

Your words spill out in a mournful whisper. “You can’t touch him.”

Aegon shakes his head, stretches out his hand, skims his thumbprint across your cheekbone like shadows dance over walls. “Who the hell is he?”

There is a noise outside, a shrill reverberating shriek that grows louder as it nears the Red Keep. You and Aegon share a startled, knowing glance. It is the cry of a dragon, and not one already housed here in the Dragonpit. You do not recognize this voice: a high whistling, a tinny quality like a small bell being rung. Not Vhagar or Dreamfyre, not the reptilian infants Shrykos or Morghul…

Then Aegon begins to laugh. “Oh, Aemond is going to murder him.”

You jolt up off the bed and race to the open window. Down on the beach, it is landing: a shining lapis-colored beast about the same size as Sunfyre, lean, regal, sprightly, swanlike. A white-haired boy, perhaps fifteen, is climbing down out of the saddle as waves bubble up around his mount’s claws. “Tessarion,” you breathe, awed despite yourself. You have no fondness for dragons—you are too closely acquainted with their singular capacity for destruction—but her beauty is striking. You understand now why she is called the Blue Queen.

“And Daeron too, I assume,” Aegon quips. “Or has she eaten him?”

“No, he is presently uneaten. His hair is already longer than yours.”

“Yes, everyone’s is.”

You turn back to Aegon, sitting up in bed and wearing only his loose cotton trousers. “Why is yours so short and…” What is a polite way to put it? Haphazard? Irregular? Uneven? “Choppy?”

“Do not bully me, angel. I may perish and you will regret your harsh words.” He smiles drowsily. “I used to cut it myself. I have since I was eight or nine years old.”

He has servants for that. “Why?”

“I didn’t want to look like a Targaryen. I didn’t want to be one at all. But this inheritance cannot be refused, it seems. It’s written into parts of me that can’t be burned away. The whites of the bones, the chambers of the heart.”

It occurs to you as you say it: “Had you not been born a Targaryen, I never would have met you.”

He studies you thoughtfully. “Then perhaps it was not all a curse.”

There are robust, hurried footsteps, and then Aegon’s bedchamber door is thrown open. Daeron stands there. He is already as tall as Aegon. He is athletic, fussily dressed in seafoam green, more conventionally handsome than either of his brothers. He lacks something…an edge, a cynicism. He has a cape that flutters around him as ocean wind pours in through the open windows.

“Seven hells,” Daeron gasps as he approaches Aegon’s bedside, large blue eyes—a clear, shallow blue like Aemond’s—sweeping over Aegon’s wounds: gnarled thickets of angry red scar tissue, raw spots that are still weeping, a scorched landscape like the ruins of Valyria. “You look awful.”

Aegon chuckles. “I know. I’m a roasted pig.”

“A burnt-to-a-crisp pig, rather. A dragon might eat you, but no human would.”

Aemond and Sir Criston stampede into the room, blinking at Daeron as if he is a mirage that may vanish at any moment. Aegon tells Daeron: “Now we must stop discussing pigs.”

Aemond ignores this and addresses Daeron. “You’re supposed to be with Lord Ormund Hightower’s army.”

“That’s where I was. Until the Battle of the Honeywine.”

Aemond exchanges a puzzled glance with Criston. “The what?”

“Well I won it, you see.” Daeron grins, and you suddenly glimpse so much of Aegon in him it hurts, it feels like someone is digging around in the marrow of your bones with a rusty blade. “The nobles of the Reach who have sworn loyalty to Rhaenyra descended upon Lord Ormund’s forces and all hope was lost. Until Tessarion and I arrived. Our enemies look worse than Aegon now, if you can believe it. They are puffs of ash and memory.”

“We haven’t heard anything,” Aemond says.

“News never travels faster than by dragon.”

“But you’re too young to fight,” Criston says dully, his mind struggling to catch up.

“Am I?” Daeron replies with mock scandal. “Thank you for making me aware. I will free Tessarion immediately and take myself back to the nursery. Is there a wetnurse available for suckling? I’ve flown a long way, and I’m very hungry.”

“I’ll tell Mother that you’re here,” Aemond says flatly. “She’ll want to have a feast.” Then he strides out of the bedchamber, long hair streaming and aisles of daylight cutting stripes across his back. After a moment, Criston trots after him.

Daeron says to Aegon: “I heard he stole your crown.”

“No,” Aegon replies, as if he can’t quite believe it himself. “For some reason, he’s only borrowing it.”

~~~~~~~~~~

A banquet in the Great Hall would be ostentatious during wartime when others are expected to ration their bread and send their sons to slaughter. Instead, Alicent settles for a private early supper with the royal family and only their most essential guests, of which there are three: Hand of the King Sir Criston Cole, Master of Whisperers Larys Strong, and you.

Daeron is regaling the table with the dramatic tale of his victory at the Battle of the Honeywine. He is using the chunks of carrots and squash on his plate to demonstrate military formations. Otto is beaming at Daeron with bright, probing eyes, suddenly aware of his worth. Alicent touches her youngest son constantly, his hands and his hair and his face. He allows this; perhaps he even enjoys it. He is the only child who does not make her feel like a failure of a mother; he is the only one she can love in a way that is uncomplicated. Helaena stares down at a tiny figurine in her hands, a bear carved out of wood. Aegon made that for her years ago. Aemond says little and frowns often.

Aegon was determined to attend. He wears an emerald green tunic over his bandages, his burns hidden except for the scarlet plume on his right cheek. He sits beside you taking frequent gulps from his wine cup, dripping sweat from his temples, glazed-eyed and exhausted by even the smallest motions: the tearing of a hunk of bread, the slicing of a slab of beef wet with gravy. As he saws with his knife, his movements grow slow and feeble and labored.

“Aegon, please, let me cut that for you.” You reach for his plate; he slides it away.

“I can do it,” he pants.

“Aegon—”

“Dignity,” he says. He wants to keep what little of it he has left. “But if your fingers are too idle, I have another task for you.”

You do not need to ask what he means. Smiling, you begin weaving a fresh braid into his hair; his most recent one was washed out last night. Criston observes this with awkward fascination. Aemond twists off the ring—Aegon’s ring, the golden dragon with jade eyes—and tosses it over. It lands on the tabletop, bounces twice, and comes to rest by Aegon’s wine cup. He picks the ring up and examines it.

“I was wondering where that went.” He slips it onto a finger and grins at Aemond crookedly, mischieviously. “You’re always developing attachments to things that are mine.”

Aemond tells you as you braid Aegon’s hair: “He can do that himself, you know. I’ve seen him. He just pretends he can’t when you’re around.”

“Do we know who the new riders are yet?” Otto asks Larys, and now the conversation has been monopolized by the machinations of war. Everyone—with the exception of Helaena, who is walking her wooden bear across the table like a child would—is listening to Larys.

“Vermithor is ridden by a Dragonstone bastard, the son of a blacksmith,” Larys says. He is eating red grapes with his pink, rodent-like hands; he peels each one completely with his fingernails before popping it into his mouth. “He calls himself Hugh Hammer. Seasmoke was claimed by a boy rumored to be the bastard of Corlys Velaryon.”

Daeron mutters to Aegon: “Goddamn, it’s bastards all the way down over on their side.”

“Silverwing is ridden by a man known as Ulf the White,” Larys continues. “He has the Targaryen coloring. And is supposedly a drunk and an unreliable character all-around.”

Otto casts a glance at Aegon, long and unsubtle. Aegon pretends not to see it.

“And the last one?” Aemond says. “Sheepstealer? Ridden by yet another undesirable dredged up from the slums of Dragonstone, I assume.”

“Interestingly, no,” Larys replies. “She is a girl from Driftmark called Nettles. Fierce, rugged.” He pauses meaningfully, reeling his audience in like fish on hooks. “She is now at Harrenhal with Daemon.”

“With Daemon?” Alicent echoes. “As an…understudy? Strategist? Accomplice?”

“As far more than that, if the rumors are to be believed.”

“Oh, may the Mother have mercy,” Alicent murmurs, gripping her gold necklace in the shape of the seven-pointed star.

“Daemon? With a teenager?!” Criston says. “He’s repulsive. He’s ancient.”

Otto laughs, a wicked low rumble. “Rhaenyra must be mortified! She must think of little else.”

Larys nods, smirking, conniving. “My point is, my lords…and ladies…these lowborn new riders—Dragonseeds, as they are being called—possess unsound loyalties. They risked their lives to claim the beasts for the promise of land and riches, not to help any particular faction win the Iron Throne. They do not love Rhaenyra or her cause. Already they are causing discord within the Blacks’ ranks. In time, they may prove to be liabilities more than assets, and if we could win even only Vermithor or Silverwing to our side…”

You peer over at Aegon as plots sail across the table. He is swaying in his seat, hands trembling, agonized and empty like a dry well. His eyes are dark and glassy; he gazes inanely straight ahead. He needs to leave soon, and you will go with him. But you have one question to ask first.

You say to Larys: “Do you think the Pact of Ice and Fire might be dissolved? Now that Jace is dead?”

Everyone looks at you; everyone, that is, except Aegon and Helaena. They are well-matched for once, equally present in body but not in soul. Too late, you realize that perhaps this was an unwise inquiry. You should not be attracting attention to yourself. You should not be expressing anxiety about Cregan Stark’s allegiances.

Fortunately, Larys does not seem to be wary. He titters, peeling a grape with those rat-like little fingers. “I don’t think we’ll get that lucky, Lady Thorne. Cregan fancies himself to be an honorable man, and he believes Rhaenyra—as Viserys’ allegedly chosen heir—to be the honorable choice. And I’m sure she will offer him some redress for his lost future daughter-in-law, perhaps a daughter of Joffrey.”

“Or Daemon and Nettles,” Daeron adds, snickering.

“In any case, there is another matter keeping Cregan on the Blacks’ side,” Larys says. “I heard months ago that he is apparently smitten with some Celtigar girl, and she’s been promised to him—”

Aegon groans and nearly tumbles out of his chair; you leap up to steady him. “The king must be taken back to bed immediately.”

Alicent stands and throws down her green cloth napkin onto the table. She’s wrung it with nervous hands into a tight little twist. “I’ll go with you.”

You and Alicent trail after the guards as they carry Aegon to his bedchamber. Grand Maester Orwyle meets you there and helps you undress Aegon, drug him, clean him, inspect his wounds for any new abrasions or signs of festering, apply honey to raw patches, work warm rose oil into the scar tissue around his joints, rebandage him with fresh strips of linen. Alicent watches all of this with tears brimming in her eyes, those vast shadowy pools of memories, so few of them good.

When Orwyle is gone and Aegon drifts in bottomless psychic darkness that he will likely not surface from for days, you ask Alicent: “Would you like to touch him? You can. On his hands, his face. It’s alright. You won’t harm him.”

Her own hands are clasped together so tightly her knuckles are a bloodless shade of white. “I won’t?”

“No. Come and see.”

She steps closer tentatively. She ghosts her fingertips across his limp left hand, where his dragon ring glints and his flesh is unscarred. Then she threads his braid through her hand. Her voice is so soft you can barely hear her, though she stands right beside you. “If he died, it would kill me.”

I understand. I’m afraid that’s becoming true for me too. It’s spreading like infection, like plague. “He’s not going to die. He is mending.”

Alicent nods, sniffling, swiping tears from her flushed, puffy face. “What can I do? Anything?”

“Tell him you love him. And that you’re proud of him. That he is a true Targaryen and a worthy king.”

“Yes,” she agrees; but she looks as if you have given her instructions in a language she does not speak. She flees from the room in a daze, in a nightmare she cannot wake up from.

An hour later, you are sitting on Aegon’s floor in an corridor of late-afternoon sunlight and reading a book on herbology when Aemond comes to collect you. He never tells you where you’re going, and now is no exception. You follow him down hallways and staircases, through throngs of courtiers who wear green and toast to the deaths of Jace Velaryon and those traitors at the Battle of the Honeywine. Contrary to your best guesses, Aemond does not lead you to the council chamber or the rookery or the library.

“I have a surprise for you,” he says as he beckons you out into the gardens. There are a group of nobles clustered by a trickling fountain and chatting merrily. One of them is Sir Rickard Thorne. “Your family is here.”

Cold blood in your veins, a terror like a prey animal’s, legs that threaten to buckle. Your shoes halt mid-step. “Family…?”

“Some of Sir Rickard’s relatives came to visit him before we march north. I thought you might appreciate the opportunity to see your aunt and cousins—”

A woman screams, a sound like glass breaking. She drops the cup she was holding and wine floods across the cobblestones like blood. Her hands fly up to her face. You know her: Sir Rickard Thorne’s mother, a name like Clara or Cora or Camila. Her daughters yelp and gape alongside her. Aemond is baffled but not alarmed. The truth is too unthinkable for him to consider.

“Why is she here?!” Sir Rickard Thorne’s mother hisses through bared teeth.

Aemond looks at you, then to the woman. “She is not your kin…?”

“She’s not ours.” Sir Rickard Thorne’s mother points at you, a finger like a knife, stabbing, lethal. “She’s one of Bartimos Celtigar’s daughters!”

Someone is yelling, not you, but someone. People are making accusations and demands. Aemond is not listening to any of them. He is staring at you with his remaining eye wide and filling up with blade-sharp realization, shock, betrayal, hatred. You have no good options. You choose a not-good one. You bolt away from him and through the gardens, trampling flowers and ricocheting off marble statues. You can hear Aemond behind you, swift and deft like a falcon. You crash through a wall of scrubs and tumble blindly into a fishpond. You gasp for air as you burst up out of the water, your fingers scrabbling for purchase on rocks slick with algae. Panicked fish zoom by you, their fins leaving paper-thin gashes in your skin. Aemond is at the water’s edge, his hand closing around your wrist to drag you from the pond. And now there is nothing funny about it; now Aemond isn’t smiling.

You’re on the cobblestones and coughing water from your lungs, you’re being yanked upright, you’re being hauled through the gardens. You claw and shove, you fight him viciously. It’s just like when you first met. Except that now Aemond knows exactly who you are.

“Aemond, stop, stop, please listen to me—”

“You fucking liar,” he seethes. He is towing you out into the streets of King’s Landing. Where? Where? “In our bedrooms. In our council meetings. While your father bankrolls Rhaenyra’s treason.”

“I meant no harm to you—”

“House Thorne!” Aemond roars into your face. “I asked you which family was yours and you said House Thorne, you masqueraded as a Green, you deceived us, you lied to me—”

“So you would let me help him!” you shout back. “You asked me to save Aegon’s life and I did, I did and I was the only one who could, and you never would have let me near him if you knew who my family was!”

“A Celtigar.” He snarls it like a curse that can kill. “You never cared about any of us.”

“That’s not true.”

“A traitor, a spy.”

“I never spied—”

“Sending letters home to your avaricious demon of a father.”

You strike at Aemond’s chest as hard as you can, hard enough to try to get him to listen. “I never wrote letters! Not one! They don’t know I’m here, they don’t know anything, all I’ve done since the second I met you was serve your house, your king!”

“Keep moving,” Aemond snaps. Smallfolk and mule carts jostle by you. Street venders and shopkeepers bellow out the attributes of their merchandise. You are accustomed to the aftermath of battles, but not filthy and bustling city streets. You are overwhelmed by foreign sights, sounds, scents. People gawk and bow when they spot Aemond, perhaps genuinely, perhaps because they know he commands the largest dragon in the world and does not shy away from murder. Where is he taking me? Where?

There are women wandering in the streets now, their faces smeared with sweated-through makeup, their sleeves hanging off their shoulders. They simper at the prince regent, they reach out to comb their long painted fingernails through his hair. They are prostitutes.

No, you think. No no no.

“Aemond, where are we going?”

“Exactly where you belong. You sell lies. There are lots of women who make a living that way.”

“You can’t do this,” you say with horror.

“I assure you, I can do just about anything.”

“You found me!” you scream at Aemond. “You dragged me off the battlefield at Rook’s Rest and into that tent, you brought me to King’s Landing, every step I made was orchestrated by you, you found me, so don’t you act like I gained anything from this except the satisfaction of saving your brother’s life when you were incapable of it!”

“Your father funds Rhaenyra’s war effort,” Aemond says with chilling matter-of-factness. “Now you can help fund ours.”

“No!” You struggle against his grip, scratch at his face. Your fingers catch on the strap of his eyepatch and tear it away. Beneath is a sapphire that glitters cruelly in a nest of the frayed remnants of his eyelids. You shriek, but there is no one to help you, nowhere to run.

“Are you finished now?” Aemond demands, glaring ferociously: one eye of flesh, the other of cold earth-mined fire. He draws his dagger from his belt and lays the blade against your jugular. “Yes, you are. You’d better be.”

He brings you to a doorway. There is a woman standing in it: voluptuous, beautiful, middle-aged, hair long and braided and the warm brown color of a stag’s coat. She summons a practiced, enticing smile. She knows about things you do not want to imagine. “Hello again, my prince.”

They are already acquainted. Aemond does not seem pleased that she is being so forthright about it. “She will stay here,” he says, meaning you, this terrified woman with a dagger to the pulsing arteries of her throat.

“Yes,” the brothel madam agrees immediately.

“She will be put to work. Each week, someone will come to collect her wages.”

“Very good, my prince.”

“She must be watched closely.”

“All the girls are.”

“Especially closely. If she tries to escape, kill her.”

“Yes, my prince,” the madam says as you breathe in the sweat, salt, cries, moans, feigned pleasure, real pain of this place.

“Aemond, please don’t do this, please don’t leave me here, not here, anywhere but here—”

He flings you into the arms of the madam, tucking his dagger away. He gives you one last glance—dismissive, hateful, soulless—and then disappears into the swarming, anonymous streets.

Who will save me?

“You poor thing, you’ve had the fright of your life, haven’t you?” the brothel madam says, stroking your hair tenderly.

Clement? Father? Alicent? Aegon?

“Don’t worry, love. You can help in the kitchen tonight. We’ll get you situated tomorrow. I can’t have you running off clients with this hysteria anyway.”

No one knows I’m here.

“It isn’t so bad. You’ll see. We’ll take good care of you.”

How will they save me if no one knows I’m here?

#aegon ii targaryen #aegon ii #aegon targaryen ii #aegon targaryen #aegon targaryen x reader #aegon x reader #aegon targaryen x you #aegon ii x y/n #aegon ii x you #aegon ii fic #aegon ii x reader #hotd fanfic

342 notes · View notes

kingofbodyrolls · 2 months

Text

My Heart's Home (m) | pjm | teaser + drop date

Hi all you lovely people 🥰

I just want to give you an update on ‘My Heart’s Home’, because I said I’d hoped to be able to post it this week (week 9), but I have to push it one more week— IT HAS BEEN RELEASED; chapter 1 🥳

And then, a chapter will be posted twice a week! (on Mondays and Thursdays)

I want to thank each and every one of you— especially those on the taglist and @letjungcoook7! Thank you so much for being interested in the story, and Lua, for reading some of it and hyping me up 🥹 To be honest, I didn’t think anyone could be interested in it, or care. So I’m over the moon, and I hope you will enjoy it ✨

*the book cover is just me having fun lol, I couldn’t help myself 😂 Because you’ve been so patient and nice, I’ll give you a 1.2k teaser for ‘My Heart’s Home’.

Summary: You’d never thought you’d step foot back at the ranch– a place you used to call home a long time ago. When you are forced to go back, reconcile with your sister and a certain childhood friend that you had long forgotten, will sparks reunite?

Pairing: jimin x reader (main) and jungkook x reader (one time). There’s other pairings throughout the story, but those aren’t with the reader, but between the other characters— there’s one mxm relationship but it’s very minor.

Characters: female reader (isn’t mentioned by name and no “y/n”), Jimin, Jungkook, Namjoon, Yoongi, Hoseok, Seokjin, Taehyung and four female original characters.

AUs: ranch!au, slice of life!au

Genres: smut, humor, fluff, slow burn and angst (yes, it’s got everything lol!)

Rating: mature/explicit/R18 – this is mature/explicit content, so minors, please do not interact!

Word count for the teaser: 1.2k (approx. 180k for whole series)

Taglist: @kookswifesblog @kiki-zb @babejinnie @ownthesunshine @allie-is-a-panda @glllhjh* @bergandysam @13-manggaetteok

*tumblr isn’t letting me tag you! There could be a lot of reasons for that, please check out this lovely post about it.

Looking for the masterlist?

In the morning, you gradually rouse to the sensation of something firm pressing against your face, yet there's an unexpected tenderness, a gentle caress against your skin. Your pillow, typically mundane, now cradles your head in an oddly satisfying manner, prompting you to nuzzle into it, seeking additional solace. A contented murmur escapes your lips in fatigue as you attempt to stretch your limbs, only to discover the subtle ache that permeates your entire body.

Wait.

Your eyes snap open in realization. This isn't the familiar embrace of your bed, and the comforting pillow beneath your head is anything but ordinary. A surge of awareness courses through you as you come to terms with an unexpected reality – you're sprawled across Jimin's thigh.

More precisely, you’re nestled against his groin, where you abruptly discover the undeniable evidence of his morning arousal.

You spring to attention, the warmth of embarrassment coloring your cheeks, heart racing like a runaway train against your ribcage. In the hazy glow of early morning, you fumble for the most sincere apology you can conjure, breathlessly exclaiming, “Oh, goodness! I'm so sorry!”

As you settle onto the couch, your gaze locks with his still sleepy and drowsy eyes. The realization hits that you both must have drifted off in this intimate position, with you cradled in the warmth of his inviting lap.

Jimin's chuckle resonates like a melodious tune in the early morning, a soothing sound that plays a soft serenade to your ears. Despite your efforts to steady your heartbeat and contain the fluttering sensations, his laughter creates a symphony that dances through the awakening air.

“It's okay. I just woke up,” he rises and stretches, a lazy yawn escaping his lips. Why does he have to look this enticing? His blonde locks cascade in unruly curls, framing a face that's both soft and slightly puffy from sleep. Those pink lips, as if kissed by the night, slightly nibbled, beckon dangerous thoughts. As he stretches, biceps tensing and shirt teasingly riding up, a glimpse of his happy trail emerges, a sight your eyes try to resist but fail. Damn it, you scold yourself, but then his armpit becomes visible, and even that seems inexplicably appealing.

Oh, he smells divine—powdery softness, a hint of sweetness, warmth, and richness all mingling to craft an intoxicating musky scent. It envelops you, leaving your entire being tingling with an irresistible allure.

Jimin appears entirely unfazed, but you're left feeling utterly flustered, convinced your cheeks must be ablaze. “I'm so sorry for dozing off on you. I meant to offer you my bed, but I guess I fell asleep before I could say anything,” you chuckle, trying to shake off the lingering traces of sleep from your weary body.

A sudden realization strikes you like a bolt of lightning.

Oh my god. If you’re sore, Jimin must be too! You practically slept on his injured leg!

“I apologize for your leg—I can't believe I slept on it. I might have undone all the massage from yesterday,” you groan in frustration, scolding yourself for your apparent weakness for this man. He's your childhood friend, the one who came and told you that you belong— at the place you once called home, reigniting something dormant within you, a feeling that has slumbered for centuries, now awakening and blossoming slowly.

“It's really okay,” he assures you with a soft squeeze to your leg. His hand feels firm and warm, mirroring his comforting presence. You realize a desire for more, but you tread carefully on dangerous waters, doing your best to keep your more horny thoughts in check.

“I'll have to head back soon,” he says, punctuating his statement with another heartfelt yawn, a languid stretch emphasizing the inevitable departure.

“Do you like pancakes? I could whip up a batch before you head out,” you suggest, caught between the genuine desire to treat him to a hearty breakfast and the subtle hope that it might extend his stay, sparing him the long drive on an empty stomach.

“Absolutely,” he responds, his soft smile revealing a glimpse of those charmingly crooked teeth. As you rise from your seat and head into the kitchen to whip up the pancakes, a subtle urgency whispers in your mind, warning that if you linger too long, keeping your hands to yourself might become an increasingly challenging feat.

With a culinary flair, you whip up the pancakes in record time, the aroma of warm batter filling the air. As you both settle around the small dining table, the atmosphere is filled with the comforting clinks of cutlery against plates. Amidst bites of fluffy pancakes, Jimin unveils the captivating tale of wild horses roaming the ranch, a narrative that unfolds with tales of Yoongi's quest to tame these untamed spirits, turning them into dependable companions through a gentle, patient approach.

Fascinated, you ponder the intricacies of Jimin's story. “I had no idea such a thing was possible,” you muse, savoring a sip of water as if to quench not just your thirst but also your curiosity.

“Yoongi has a real knack for gentling horses, it's like second nature to him,” he shares, his smile lighting up the room as he effortlessly joins you in tidying up after the meal.

As the moment lingers, a subtle sense of farewell hovers in the air, but you're not quite ready to part ways with Jimin. The warmth of his company, the echoes of the past, all make you wish he didn't have to leave just yet.

Gratitude colors his words as he stands in the hallway, boots on, ready to step out into the world again. “Thank you for having me over,” he expresses, his gaze carrying a blend of sincerity and a hint of reluctance.

“No problem,” you respond with a soft smile, “having you here was truly enjoyable.”

“I hope to see you again, maybe back home?” His gaze lingers in your eyes for what feels like an eternity. There you stand, like a lovestruck fool, anticipating the one thing your brain has been yearning for since you glimpsed his softly bitten lips in the morning. The hope in his voice resonates, causing your heart to beat erratically in your chest once more.

Your gaze rises to meet his, and as he strides closer, his eyes lock onto yours. The proximity is electrifying; you sense his warm breath teasing your face, and anticipation builds as he leans in, closing the space between you.

You surrender to the moment, shutting your eyes as his warm hands cradle your cheeks. A delicate touch, his nose brushes against yours, setting off a delightful jolt that courses through your entire being. Then, in a tender ascent, his plush lips descend upon your forehead, leaving an imprint of warmth that lingers.

Instinctively, your fingers tighten around his biceps, a reflexive response to the unexpected closeness. A soft chuckle escapes your lips as the realization dawns – he's kissing your forehead, a gentlemanly gesture that leaves a trail of warmth lingering on your skin.

He withdraws, and as you open your eyes, his warm, smiling face is the last thing you see. “See you at home,” he whispers, leaving you with a fluttering heart and a lingering promise in the air.

As he gracefully exits the room, descending the stairs with an effortless charm, your heart beats wildly, a flutter of butterflies threatening to carry you away. Your entire being tingles, breath caught in a sweet suspension. A lovestruck smile plays on your lips, lingering like the echo of his presence.

Home.

He wants you to come home.

Author’s note(2): Thank you so much for reading! 🌸

57 notes · View notes