kingdom come - iii
king König x princess & assassin reader
2nd person, no y/n, she/her pronouns, afab reader, romance, enemies to lovers, arranged marriage, kind of age gap because König has been king for a good chunk of time but it's not really much of a factor, fantasy/medieval setting
7.7k words
tw: explicit smut, animal death, mentions of child death, violence, mild body horror, ableist language (use of the word "cripple")
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"I'm not going to sleep with you." -quote from woman who is about to sleep with him
There’s a portrait of a woman in your room.
Of course, König offered to have it removed or replaced, but you’ve procrastinated the decision because you never thought you would be here long enough for it to matter. Yet here you are, staring up at this lovely young woman on the wall.
You tilt your head, studying her. Her expression is neutral, almost pensive, but the artist captured a playful sparkle in her eyes, as if she’s keeping some sweet secret.
It’s the first queen, of course. König’s first wife. The one who died many years ago. It’s strange that after so long, he hasn’t gotten rid of the portrait.
What happened to you? you wonder. If someone had asked what you thought when you first arrived here, you would have said, without hesitation, that König had her killed. All your life, you had been taught that he and his father were evil, unfeeling tyrants. Now, this conviction has wavered.
You keep trying to tell yourself that it’s ridiculous, to be thinking better of his character. You only ever wanted to know him better to kill him. But the more you understand about what makes him tick, the less you think that he would do such a thing. Perhaps it’s true, then, that she died in childbirth.
Your eyes travel all over the portrait, poring over every detail of her features. Did you know him? Did you understand him? Did you love him?
Did he love you?
What did that feel like?
“Good. You haven’t left yet.” Calliope comes into the room, bustling with energy even before the sun comes up. You don’t know how she does it.
“We’re about to.”
“That’s why I’m here.” You notice she’s wearing gloves, but more importantly, she’s holding a necklace: a silvery chain with a small, intricate pendant. Vine-shaped pieces of metal hold a white, almost clear jewel in place, its various facets reflecting the candlelight in vivid colors.
“Jewelry? I’m going to be living in the woods for the next few weeks,” you tease as she lowers the necklace over your head. It does look quite durable, but you’re not exactly dressing for a costume ball here.
“Consider it a reminder that I await your safe return,” Calliope responds, securing the necklace behind your neck. “Look at it and remember me. You’re not to do anything reckless out there, am I understood?”
“Understood.” You give her a soft smile as she arranges the necklace on your collarbones. You’re grateful for the gift: though she can’t come with you, a small piece of her will always remain with you.
“Good. And don’t let that handsome husband of yours distract you and get yourself killed.”
“Calliope! What happened to ‘something’s not right with him’?”
“That doesn’t mean he isn’t handsome!”
You snort and roll your eyes, but there’s a smile on your face.
You used to think that living in König’s home already exposed you to an exhausting amount of the man. As it turns out, going on a journey with him is even worse.
There’s nobody else to talk to, nowhere to run or put distance between you two when he frustrates you. It’s not so bad for the first few days: the towns surrounding the capital are still populated enough to provide some respite from him. But once the two of you have made your way outside the bounds of civilization, it doesn’t take long for things to become stilted and awkward.
“You’ve been awfully quiet since we left the last town.”
“I don’t feel talkative.”
“Really? I’m out of my mind with boredom right now. Come, you’re not in the mood to get to know each other a little?”
You give him a look. “What else is there to know? I’ve lived with you for several months.”
“But we don’t talk.” König nudges his horse to walk closer to yours. König is such a large man, his horse is massive too: comically so, next to your normal one. You let out a sigh.
“There’s nothing to know about me.”
“I doubt that. All I know about you is you’re a princess trained to be an assassin. ‘Your whole life’, according to yourself,” he says with a touch of mocking.
You purse your lips, determined not to let him get under your skin. “There’s nothing else to know.”
“Truly? Nothing about what you like?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like…your favorite food. Or hobby.”
“Hobby? …I suppose I spend a lot of time at target practice.”
“That’s not a hobby.”
“It’s relaxing to hone my skills.”
He gives you an amused look. “You remind me of myself as a young man.”
Something about that irks you. “We’re nothing alike.”
“I used to have the same mindset as you, at least. I held one objective in my mind and didn’t seek purpose outside of it.”
“I…”
As much as you loathe to admit it, he’s right. You have been focused on one objective your whole life. If you probe deeper, you can’t remember having any friends outside of Calliope, nor any interests outside of the curriculum your father set for you. “It wasn’t as bleak as you seem to think it was.”
“Oh?”
“It’s not like I never had fun. I had my own way of finding it.”
“Such as?”
“Well, when my training progress stalled, I’d be sent to bed without dinner. Naturally. I eventually learned how to climb out of my window at night and go foraging in the woods for something to eat.” A smile curls your lips as you reminisce. “Eventually I even worked my way up to hunting—little things, like squirrels. I spent many a cozy little evening cooking for myself over a fire.”
You turn to find an abject look of horror on König face. “What? What’s wrong? Is there danger?” You turn around to scan your surroundings, but nothing immediately jumps out at you.
“No. No danger. I just…he sent you to bed with an empty stomach so many times you learned how to crawl out of your room and hunt squirrels to eat?”
You blink at him. “You’ve never had squirrel before?”
He looks scandalized. “Of course I have! That is not the issue with what you just said.”
You shrug. “It was important discipline. Besides, it gave me hunting experience at a young age. Squirrels are hard to skin, but I could do it in twelve seconds flat if you gave me one now.”
König looks like he wants to say more, but instead he looks up at the sky. “We should make camp soon.”
“Is it that time already?”
“It needs to be set up before it gets dark. We should also start hunting while it’s light out—not all of us can catch things in the dark, squirrel-girl.”
“Hey!”
Later, you’re both chewing on a rabbit when he speaks.
“You know, when you said you wanted to travel with me, I was quite concerned.”
“Yes, I know. You didn’t think I was capable of handling myself.”
“Not just that. I was worried you would be…unaccustomed to living rough.”
“You thought I would be a spoiled princess.”
“I wouldn’t have put it that way, but yes.”
You snort. “Well, now you know. I can handle myself in the outdoors.” You toss the rabbit bones you’ve just picked clean into a small hole dug into the dirt. When you leave, you’ll cover it with dirt to prevent predators from smelling the remains and following you on your journey.
“You want the other leg?” you ask. König seems startled, for some reason.
“You caught this one.”
“Yes, but you’re bigger than me. You need the food.” You reach up to pluck a leaf from a nearby tree and wipe your hands. Rabbits sure are greasy…
There’s a strange look in König’s eye as he regards you. You raise an eyebrow at him in response. “What?”
“…nothing.” He reaches for the rabbit while you shrug and walk off to find some water. The back of your neck prickles as you go, as if his stare is physically touching you.
You can’t stand to be near him nowadays, and you don’t know why.
Of course, you have no choice but to. There’s a tension that feels weighty, forbidden. You know he can tell, because he’s been more cautious around you, giving you as much space as he can afford to. Somehow, that irritates you even more.
Tonight, the two of you are camping in a dense, thick part of the forest not far from a road. It’s quiet, secluded: even the usual soundscape of ambient animal noises is silent.
The fire crackles and pops as you stare into the flames, as if you’ll find any answers in it. Instead, the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end as König returns from washing himself in a nearby stream, approaching you from behind.
“This won’t work if you’re constantly upset with me for some unknown reason.”
You don’t turn to look at him, though some invisible force compels you. “Why? Because it makes you uncomfortable?”
“I’m worried about your comfort too, you know. If you just told me what I’ve done wrong, then we can resolve it before it breeds resentment.”
“I’m just stressed.” Everything he does or says seems to irritate you nowadays, but you know in your heart of hearts that it’s not his fault. It’s your own problem—you assume camping outdoors for so long has taken its toll on your psyche.
He frowns at you, but doesn’t pry any further. You can’t help but watch as he walks around to the other side of the fire, drying his hair with his shirt. God, he is a work of art: all chiseled muscles and glowing skin. Your eyes travel down his torso, drawn by the line of his abs, down to the happy trail leading to the slightly askew waist of his trousers.
“You’re drooling, princess.”
Your eyes snap back up to his face. His eyes are dancing with mirth as he realizes he’s just caught you ogling him. You make a face at him, but it only makes him laugh. “Was not.”
“Incorrect answer. You should have attempted to strike at my ego. Now I know you were looking.”
“I think I’m just being driven mad by spending so much time alone with you in the woods.”
“I know several ways to drive you mad, sweetling.”
You slouch against a tree, your face hot—and not from the fire. In a blink, he’s standing before you, with a gleeful expression on his face like he’s just discovered a cure for dropsy.
“I know what’s making you sour as vinegar. You need to be fucked.”
You bury your face in your hands, unable to look at him. “I thought we had moved past this,” you groan, trying to ignore your rapidly quickening heartbeat.
“What, your ever-growing carnal lust for me?”
“You being a pervert.”
“I’ve never made a secret of it. You, however…” You suck in a startled breath as he leans down, trapping you against the tree just like he had the day you sparred with him. “You’ve been denying yourself.”
Your breath is ragged as he looks you in the eye, the tension between the two of you as taut as a bowstring. A familiar sense of panic rises in you, the same way you feel every time he’s close to you like this. Before, you thought it was because it felt dangerous to be so close to your enemy. Now, you’re second-guessing yourself.
“So what if I have?” you mumble.
“There’s an easy way to fix that.”
“…The last time you had me in this position, you were threatening me.”
He tilts his head slightly, a wicked gleam in his eye. “You don’t feel threatened now?”
You don’t respond immediately, and heavens forbid, he takes it as hesitancy, his demeanor instantly transforming. “One word. One word, and we will never speak of this again. But if you tell me you want this, I will fuck you senseless.”
“Yes,” you whisper, and his lips on are on yours.
It’s a strange sensation, considering half of your mouth is pressed against the cold, smooth surface of his mask. You don’t even ask him about removing it—it’s become a part of him in your mind. And maybe part of you even finds the mystery of it alluring.
You all but melt into the kiss, against him. It’s different, everything is different than that first awkward kiss from when you were younger. It makes you ache, makes you long for him in a way you’ve never wanted someone before.
You have to separate to breathe, but your reluctance to break apart from him is clear by the way you chase his face with yours. He laughs at you, but it’s not condescending at all. It settles in your chest, warm like honey.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” you murmur.
“Luckily for you, you’re in good hands.” It’s the cockiness in his voice that does you in, what makes you let go and give yourself over to him.
You feel flustered, awkward, and like the least desirable creature on earth, but he looks at you like he wants to devour you. Like there’s nothing else he wants more than to have you right now.
“You can trust me,” he says softly. You try to respond, but suddenly find you’ve gone mute. All you can manage is a small nod.
To your surprise, he lowers his mouth to your neck. You gasp, a full-body shiver running through you as he kisses you there, sucking and nipping at you as he goes. “W-wait, I’m—”
“Sensitive? I can tell.” You squeak as he continues to lavish you with attention, his fingers trailing down the front of your torso to undo your pants. His movements are deliberate but slow, giving you plenty of opportunity to stop him. But of course, you don’t.
You let out a quick little breath as he finds his way to your pussy, his deep chuckle reverberating against your throat. “You’re so wet…did I do that to you, liebling?”
You’re about to respond, but instead let out a sharp gasp as he dips a finger into your pussy. “How are you ever going to take me into this tight little hole of yours…” he taunts.
Oh, God, you hadn’t even thought about that. Your mind flashes back to your wedding night, and the first time you tried to kill him. You had mostly been shocked by his audacity, but only now do you recall how big he had felt between your thighs.
He’s gentle with you at first, patiently stretching you open as you whine and beg in his arms. You just about sob when he finally pays your clit attention, circling it with his thumb, and in what seems like no time at all, you’re cumming, hard.
“That didn’t take long at all,” he says with that awful smirk of his.
“Th-that’s not fair,” you stammer. “You know…”
“I’m only teasing you.” He presses a quick kiss to your forehead as you come down, shivering with pleasure.
He makes you cum twice with just his hand. Your legs are trembling by the time the two of you properly get undressed. You’re soft and pliable, helpless putty in his hands as he lines the tip of his cock at your entrance.
“Ready, liebe?” he asks.
“That is not going to fit,” you say, eyes wide and fearful. There’s absolutely no way, you think, staring down the absurdly thick and long monster between his legs.
“Trust me, remember? We’ll take it slow,” he reassures you. You bite your lip and nod, giving him the go-ahead to sink into you.
Instantly, you realize that no matter how well König could have prepared you, there was no chance that it would have been enough to ready you for the stretch of him. You feel like you can hardly breathe as he splits you in half with his cock, your mouth dropping open in a wordless cry.
“Fuck, you are tight,” he groans, but he keeps his promise to go slow, feeding himself inch by inch inside you until he’s sitting snug up against your cervix.
The two of you stay there, suspended in a moment in time, connected to each other in the most intimate way two people can be. It makes your head spin, makes you dizzy with the sensation of his body pressed against yours.
You nod, and he starts to move.
If you had thought before that his fingers felt good inside you, then his cock is something else. The delicious stretch of him is almost electrifying, and you wonder how you went all your life without it.
All you can do is let him take control—you don’t have the presence mind to do anything but hold onto him, gasping and moaning. He’s all around you, above you, inside you, and it feels like nothing else in the world matters, or that there is a world other than König, König, König.
Your third orgasm surprises you, waves of pleasure flowing through you as you cry out, your pussy sucking him in as if it wants him to stay inside forever. That’s what seemingly pushes him over the edge too, a string of expletives bursting from him as he floods you with his cum.
You’re limp and weak, all but purring as he shifts to lay next to you and pulls you into his chest.
“You are sweet when underneath me like this,” he purrs.
You swat him in the chest, but it must feel no heavier than being hit by a branch, because he just laughs.
“There’s no reason to be shy now. I’ve seen everything at this point.” You pout at him—something that only seems to bring him delight, because he pulls you in for a kiss.
“This isn’t how I wanted to take you the first time,” he says, a hint of shame in his tone.
Your heart twinges with affection. This isn’t how you imagined your first time, either, but the idea of him wanting you so badly he thought about it beforehand, fantasized about it even…“I’ve slept in trees before, this is nothing,” you reassure him.
He shoots you a concerned look. “You continue to share alarming events from your childhood.”
You sleep together that night, curled up against him with your legs tangled with his. He falls asleep first, the slight rumble of his chest as he sleeps against your cheek. You lay awake a little while longer, watching him, breathing him in. Now, you have no choice but to be confronted with the truth that you’ve been refusing to acknowledge this whole time.
You don’t hate him anymore. You don’t even dislike him now. And you certainly don’t want to kill him.
On one hand, things are easier. Crossing the line feels more like having torn down a wall, with no more need for pretense. On the other, König is somehow even more insufferable than before. Or perhaps insatiable is a better word for it. You go from having daily sexual tension with him to daily sex, period.
It’s like the floodgates have opened. He’s always loved to tease you, but it gets a hundred times worse now that he knows just how to make your cheeks feel warm.
“I was thinking…” he muses one night as you cuddle by the fire. “You may have to start riding on my horse.”
“Don’t I already do that?” you ask, sleepily playing with his hair.
He snorts. “Your susceptibility to my corrupting influence is truly something to marvel at.”
“You’ve been enacting psychological warfare on me for months.”
“Anyhow, as I was saying.”
“Your horse is quite large, but I don’t think it could handle me astride it as well.”
“Well. Certainly something else that’s large could handle that…”
You sigh. “Get to the point.”
“It’s becoming quite distracting, watching you moving up and down with the horse’s stride.”
“I cannot believe you. Innuendos twice in a row?”
“This is a legitimate grievance!”
“Riding on your horse would not fix the problem. Unless you plan for me to sit behind you in the saddle, which I refuse to do.”
“You’re no fun.”
You lean forward to kiss the corner of his mouth instead of responding.
Your newfound…activity, however pleasingly distracting, can’t eclipse what comes next.
The mood is somber as you arrive in the village: it’s a quiet, sleepy place, just a scattering of simple houses dotting rolling hills and one singular street lined with buildings in the center of it all.
In sharp contrast to his playful, almost jubilant mood on the road with you, König instantly snaps into his authoritative persona. It especially suits him when he puts on the hood: it makes him seem that much more intimidating and threatening. Almost inhuman.
The first order of business is to hold counsel with what passes for the leader in this tiny village: a local merchant patriarch. He’s a sturdy man in his older years, face lined with both wrinkles and scars. He must have been quite the warrior when he was young: you can tell by the way he carries himself.
He gives both of you the lay of the land, and it’s a grim predicament indeed. Herding the livestock is a job most often given to the children, as it’s a relatively safe job with less skill required than the tasks the adults take care of. That’s changed, of course, with the arrival of the beast a few weeks ago. He confirms the most gruesome details that have been brought before König by previous messengers, and it turns your stomach just to imagine it. Those poor children…
The two of you set off early the next morning, with directions from an experienced hunter who had been keeping track of the beast and reporting its movements. At first, it feels normal: just another walk in the woods with König. The solemn silence between the two of you serves as a stark reminder that this isn’t like normal—followed promptly by increasing signs of a presence in the woods. Snapped branches, giant pawprints, and worse, streaks of blood.
Then you break though into a clearing, and your blood runs cold.
The beast before you could only be described as a wolf for lack of a better descriptor. It’s monstrously large, being König’s height and half again, with all of its proportions just slightly wrong: its legs scrawny and just slightly too long for its body, the snout lean and far too sharp to fit the rest of its head. Dried old blood crusted into the fur of its muzzle and chest belies the savagery of the creature, even streaking onto the fur along its neck. And the most obvious tell-tale sign of an unnatural creature is that fur: a dark, rusty blue that shifts with impossible pinpricks of light, like the night sky is ensnared in this feral animal’s coat.
You heard its growl before you saw it. But now when it lays eyes on you and König, it opens its snout and…speaks.
“What do we have here?” The voice comes out as a broken, reedy croak, as if stretching vocal cords that haven’t been used in a long time.
Something about it raises your hackles, like your body’s responding to an ancient, ingrained fear. Fae.
“Don’t listen to anything it says.” König’s voice is suddenly soft, dangerous. “None of it is trustworthy.” Slowly, deliberately, his hand moves to his back and draws his sword.
“Ah, the boy king,” hisses the beast. “You simply couldn’t help yourself, could you?”
“You’re eating my subjects,” König responds. Your eyes flit to where his hand tightens its grip on his sword. “This is not personal.”
“But it always is, is it not?” The beast and König circle each other, like two combatants in an arena. “You are as ever driven by your past mistakes.”
“König, what is it talking about?” You feel like you’re witnessing a conversation you shouldn’t be, but you feel helpless to do anything about it. If you tried to make a move towards the beast now, it would have its jaws snapped around you in an instant.
“It’s lying, liebling. It’s what they do. It’s trying to throw you for a loop so it can catch you off guard.”
“Liebling now, is it?” The beast lets out an awful, barking laugh. “My, the two of you have come far. But not far enough, it seems.”
König gives you a quick, sidelong glance, then tilts his head back towards the beast. The message is clear. We need to distract it. I’ll keep it talking.
“From her response, it seems you’ve been keeping secrets from your lovely little bride.” The beast shakes itself, its fur puffing up to look larger and more intimidating.
“There’s nothing to keep. None of that is important.”
“I would beg to differ. And if your liebling knew what it was, she would disagree as well.”
“You know nothing about us,” König growls. Yes, you’re in a life-or-death situation right now, but the viciousness in his tone sends an excited shiver up your spine. You’re opposite König now, almost completely hidden behind the beast’s monstrous form.
“You know nothing about each other!” Before either of you can react, the beast whips around. Its glowing-white eyes are fixed on you. “Not that it matters any longer.”
You barely have time to scream before the beast is upon you.
“No!” König’s voice rings in your ears. You can feel the creature’s hot breath, its vile drool spilling onto your clothes, its teeth closing around your neck—
Time slows to a crawl, the events unfolding one after the other in sequence. The first thing you’re aware of is the beast’s roar of pain, booming deafeningly all around you. I’m inside its mouth, you think numbly. The second thing you notice is your necklace: it’s glowing red, as if the metal has become molten hot. But you don’t feel any burning sensation, just a faint tingle.
The third thing you see is König shoving himself between the two halves of the beast’s snout, physically holding it open with his body.
It’s truly an impressive sight, like watching Atlas hold up the sky. For a brief moment, all you can do is stare up at him in awe.
“What are you doing?! Get out!” he yells, and you snap back to your senses.
You roll aside out of the beast’s range, scrambling to get back on your feet. König dodges out of the way just as the jaws snap shut.
“Is that..?” the thing wheezes. You rush to help König up as it glares balefully at you. Its beady eyes focus on the pendant around your neck, narrowing in disgust.
“Calliope,” it spits. “I should have known. This bears marks of your meddling all over.”
Your blood runs cold. “What did you just say?” What does your lady in waiting have to do with this?
“You—” The beast doesn’t get a chance to finish its sentence, because König takes advantage of its consternation to stick his sword into its neck. The creature bellows in pain and lunges at König, who barely manages to dodge the strike but loses his grip on his sword in the process. The monstrous animal whips around and around, attempting to grab hold of the sword with its teeth.
“Strike, now!” König calls before promptly getting clocked in the head with the pommel of his own sword as the beast thrashes and screams.
You don’t hesitate to spring into action, unsheathing a wicked-sharp blade as long as your forearm and sprinting towards the creature. König’s left you a perfect opening: as long as the beast is trying to get ahold of the sword, its chest is wide open for attack.
You don’t waste the opportunity. With the running start, you leap forward, sinking the blade into the wolf’s chest, right where its heart lies. The long, keening wail that the beast lets out is confirmation that your blade has struck true.
You have to throw yourself into a roll to get out of the way before the massive body crashes down on top of you. It lies on the ground, its heaving breaths growing shallower by the moment, its wounds staining the ground with a faintly shimmering golden ichor. So the fae do have golden blood, just like the old legends said, you think, watching the macabre scene with stunned terror.
“Brought low by two fae-touched mortals with barely a fight…” the beast huffs. It sounds weary and resigned to its fate, strange for a creature that had seemed so deadly and menacing just moments before. “Fate is cruel.”
“Fae-touched…what do you mean?” you ask, eyes widening. “Wait! What do you mean by that?!”
The beast doesn’t respond, its chest now hardly moving with its breaths. It’s not long for the world, now.
Behind the hulking, dying animal, you spot König staggering into a standing position. “König!” You gather yourself and rush towards him.
He’s visibly unstable on his feet, swaying slightly and looking dazed. The sword must have hit him hard, because his hood has been partially torn away. Despite everything, though, you can’t see any visible blood or injuries from this angle. Until he turns.
A bloodcurdling scream tears its way out of your throat. König cringes slightly at the sound, but you can’t help yourself. The sight is terrifying.
The skin above one half of his mouth is simply gone. He has no lip, not even any flesh up to his nose. His upper teeth and gums on one half of his mouth are just exposed, giving him a grim, unnatural appearance. He looks like Death itself, resembling the skeletal depictions in the manuscripts.
You should be afraid—scratch that, you are afraid. But you realize quickly your fear is not of him, but for him.
“Did it do this to you?!” you say, panicking. You dash forward and grab ahold of his face, turning it so you can examine the injury more closely. The act seems to startle König, who simply looks down at you in confusion.
“What are we going to do? There’s no way this village has a healer who could dress this wound…” you fret. An injury on this level is almost certainly a death sentence if he doesn’t receive adequate attention immediately, and he certainly won’t last the night if you’re forced to travel by horseback again—
“Schatzi…” König grabs your hands with his and removes them from his face. “I’m fine.”
You stare at him in shock for a moment. “You—how can—you—”
He heaves a heavy sigh, as if a massive burden has been placed on his shoulders. “I’m alright. The wound is…not new.”
“How can it not be new.”
König screws his eyes shut for a moment as if trying to gather his composure. “It’s been this way since I was young. Look,” he says, touching the area with a finger. “There’s no blood.”
On closer inspection, you realize he’s right: not only is there no blood, but the skin around his mouth and nose appear to be completely healed. And not even as if it were a true wound: there’s no scarring, no uneven flesh. The skin and muscle are simply…missing.
“What…how…” You’re at a total loss for words. Since he was young? What happened? How had he survived such an injury as a child? You have a million questions, but you find yourself unable to ask any of them.
You watch him, stunned, as he walks past you towards the beast’s body. It lays completely still now, all semblance of life having fled from the corpse. With one hand on the grip and one foot braced against the beast’s body, he wrenches his sword free, then bends to pull your knife out.
“I know you must have questions,” he says, wiping the blood off of both weapons onto the wolf’s fur with a grimace, “but I can’t answer them here. Please, if I promise to explain, will you…will you wait until we’ve left the village?” He turns to look at you beseechingly.
“I…” Now that the adrenaline and initial panic is beginning to fade, your whole body feels heavy and exhausted. You don’t have the energy to be angry, or afraid, or demand an explanation now. You have no choice but to agree, nodding quietly. König seems relieved at your calm response.
“So that’s why you always wear a mask or a hood,” you say numbly as you watch him take the ruined hood off, shaking his head to get the hair out of his face. He gives you a sad, regretful look.
“I didn’t mean for you to find out this way.”
“Did you mean for me to find out at all?”
“I never meant for anyone to find out.”
The villagers throw a celebration. A modest one, to be sure, but the relief on the peoples’ faces is enough of a reward for you. You can tell König is glad to see it as well—though every time you look at his face, hidden once more behind his mask, you feel a twinge in your heart as you remember what lies underneath it.
You can’t find it in yourself to enjoy the celebrations, even as excited children and grateful parents swarm you to give their thanks. You give them all a smile and a kind word, but that’s all you can manage. Dread and curiosity mix to form a terrible feeling in your gut.
The days between your defeat of the beast and your departure go by in a blur. You’re grateful for the rest, but you can’t stop thinking, worrying, about König’s condition. You manage to stop being petrified that he’s going to drop dead of infection at any moment, but you can’t look at him anymore without thinking about it. About the secret that he’s kept from you, from everyone who’s ever met him. You can’t even wrap your mind around what it all means. You have no point of reference for what could have happened to your husband’s face.
Husband. What a strange thing, to be wed to someone whose full face you had only seen a few days ago, months into your marriage. You haven’t thought of him like that at all. He’s always been König: the king, the enemy, the annoyance. And your lover, you suppose. For the first time, you start to wonder exactly what kind of man you’ve bound yourself to.
Because it’s exceedingly clear to you now. You can’t kill this man. Not just because you don’t want to anymore, but because he might be unkillable.
The village hasn’t yet vanished in the distance behind the two of you when you speak. “What the hell?”
König’s eyes slide to you, then back to the road ahead. “Language.”
You sputter in indignation. “Lang—that’s not what I want to hear!”
“Forgive me. I couldn’t resist.”
“König, this is serious! You promised an explanation.”
“I know what I promised,” he says, a slight edge creeping into his voice.
“Well?”
König takes as deep breath. Inhale, exhale.
Then he begins.
“Well. What do we have here? You’re awfully young for this, little prince.”
He’s fourteen. He’s about to make a decision that will shape the rest of his life.
He had done as the crone’s old tome instructed. Bone from an animal slain in its youth. Flowers bloomed under the cover of pitch black night. A blade whet on the summoner’s own flesh. He’s knelt under the light of the full moon, round and blindingly white.
The ethereal creature standing before him is easily twice his height, with an unearthly glow to their skin and hair and a smile that could almost be mistaken for kind and benevolent on their unnaturally beautiful face.
He’s done it. He’s summoned a fae.
With no small amount of difficulty, he rises to his feet, leaning heavily on the cane that helps him walk. The fae lets out a noise of amusement as they watch the young boy struggle.
“Usually, mortals don’t gamble away their lives until they’re older, and greed begins to dictate their actions.”
He glares at the fae but doesn’t respond.
“Come, now. Do not look at me so. Give me your name, little prince.”
“…you may call me König.”
The fae’s expression sharpens, ever so slightly. “Clever boy. ‘König’…don’t you think you’re getting a bit ahead of yourself?”
“I want to make a deal.”
The fae sighs. “Straight to the point, I see. Well, I can’t fault your efficiency. Or is it desperation?” They smirk at him, their eyes taking the rest of him in. He knows he must make for a pathetic sight: a cripple with a harelip, spine curled and legs thin and spindly.
He doesn’t care. This is the last day he will ever be this pathetic.
“Let me guess. You wish to no longer be a cripple.”
“I want to be able bodied. I want to be strong enough to defeat my enemies. I want to be rid of my harelip.” Clear, concise language. He’s spoken these words to himself in the mirror countless times.
“You’ve certainly done your research. Then you know what price I will ask for such things.”
He swallows nervously. “Yes.”
“Very well then. Let us begin.”
It starts in his toes, the strange sensation that flows up through him that he will know all his days. He can feel the strength rushing into his limbs, feel his spine straightening, withered muscles coming to life.
Then comes the pain.
It’s white-hot torment, as if his body has become a living coal. He falls to the ground again, screaming and writhing as his bones crack and realign themselves. Somewhere, in the distance, he can hear the fae’s cruel laughter as they watch him suffer. For a brief moment, some primal, animal part of his brain thinks he’s going to die.
“Fret not, boy king. You won’t perish—I won’t let you until you give me what you’ve promised me,” the fae says, as if they can hear his thoughts.
He’s not sure how long he lays there on the ground, body wracked with agony. It feels like hours pass before he regains use of his limbs. But the pain does eventually fade away, leaving him dazed but still alive. Slowly, he manages to stand up again.
He stares at himself in wonder, legs and arms stretching. For the first time ever, he’s able to stand tall and straight on his own, his cane discarded to the side. And he feels strong. At last, he doesn’t feel weak for once.
“There. That wasn’t so bad, was it?” The fae’s face has changed: they still look the same, but there’s a beastly, ugly quality to their lovely features that chills him to the bone.
His hands fly instantly to his face. The harelip is still there, he notes with displeasure.
“You forgot something,” he says, frowning in his lopsided way.
“Oh, I didn’t.” Before König can react, the fae’s eyes hollow and grow dark, becoming two pools of endless void. Their teeth sharpen, their face grows gaunt.
“Remember what you owe, boy king,” they remind him. “On the day and the hour your first child is born, I will come to collect.”
He doesn’t even have time to scream before the fae reaches forward with black talons and tears off his mouth.
You’re rendered speechless by his story. Where do you even start?
Your first thoughts are of the way he described himself as a child. König, weak and crippled? König? You look at him now, eighteen hands high astride his horse, the picture of raw strength and dominance. You can’t imagine it at all.
Your second thought is— “You made a deal with the fae? Do you know how foolish that is? Fae never give you what you want, and the cost is always far too high!”
“Don’t lecture me,” he says tightly. “I know what I was getting myself into. I had no other choice.”
“What do you mean, no other choice? You were the king’s son—you are the king! You could have had servants carry you everywhere if need be!”
“You don’t understand what it was like,” König snarls, turning to you with fire in his eyes. “Nobody would have accepted a cripple as their king. My life would constantly have been in danger, having to rely upon others. Unable to even defend myself if an assassin set upon me in my bed.” He’s getting angrier, more worked up as he goes.
“I told you that I was once poisoned as a child with nightshade berries. Did you wonder why there was such a plant in my mother’s garden? Why the royal heir was unsupervised for so long in the first place?” König’s expression is twisted, his voice turned bitter with betrayal. “It was a plot against me by some of my father’s advisors. They conspired with my nursemaid to make it seem like an accident…they expected me to die.”
“I…I’m sorry, König. I didn’t think.”
He glances at you and takes a moment to collect himself before speaking. “I was lucky. My father sent for the best healers he could find. My mother cried at my bedside for weeks.” His brow furrows. “My lot in life could have been worse: my parents loved me, at the very least. But it made me hate myself even more—that I was such a profound disappointment.
“My mother had a difficult birth. Some whispered that it was penance for what my father did: that the spirits of those slain during his campaigns had cursed my mother’s womb. She never was able to conceive again…so all their hopes rested upon my shoulders. My crippled, useless shoulders.”
The venom in his voice when he talks about himself makes your heart ache with sympathy. You move your horse closer to his and put a hand on his arm, squeezing him in what you hope is a comforting manner. His expression softens as he looks down at you.
“It would have been easy for you to kill me if I were still like that, liebe.” You feel your face grow warm again at the term of endearment.
“It makes sense, your strength being fae-given…Calliope said there was something not right about you.”
“Calliope is a perceptive woman.”
You study his face, eyes regarding his mask in a new light. “It really doesn’t look so bad. I only reacted that way because I thought you were injured.”
He shrugs. “Never was that good-looking anyway.”
You make a face. “Are you suggesting I sleep with ugly men?”
“You’ve only slept with me.”
“I’m trying to compliment you.”
“You think I’m handsome?”
“When you’re not annoying me.”
He huffs out a laugh. “Well, now you know.”
You study him. He seems relieved to have finally gotten this off his shoulders. “Do you regret it?”
He gets a faraway look in his eyes. “…No.”
The village’s leader had advised an alternate path back home: it might take you a day or two longer, but it was less remote and lined with other villages. You arrive at the first inn just as the sun is about to duck beneath the horizon, the sky streaked with orange.
It’s a serene part of the wood, and the inn is quite quaint as well. Whoever runs it has done well for themselves, you think absentmindedly as you and König dismount and prepare to unload.
A side door swings open, and a quite frankly huge man walks out, facing away from the two of you. Your sense of scale is attuned to König now, so he’s of course not the biggest man you’ve ever seen, but he’s broad-shouldered and thick with muscle. You can’t see his face from this angle, but you can just about spot his blond hair—
“Shit. Shit.” König instantly spins around so his horse is between him and the man who’s just walked out of the building. You squint. Is he…hiding?
“What’s going on? Should I be worried?”
“No. Yes. Maybe.” Is he cringing? “Do you think it’s too late to set up camp?”
“Set up camp? When there’s a perfectly good inn right there?”
“Yes!”
“What has gotten into you? That man is quite big, but he’s not that sc—”
“I’m not scared of him, I just recognize him. And I don’t particularly feel like seeing him.”
You’re agog at the scene before you. “You’re the king.”
“Even kings have their hangups, alright?”
“I am not sleeping in the woods.”
“As your husband and supreme ruler, I demand it.”
“Come now. I know you’re tired of fucking me outside.”
That gives him serious pause, which almost makes you giggle. Ridiculous man. You could probably lead him onto an executioner’s block if you held him by the cock.
“Please,” you beg, stepping forward to hold his hand and giving him the biggest, most wide eyes you can muster. “I’m not ready to go back to sleeping on the ground yet.”
His face scrunches up in a hopelessly endearing, almost childlike way. “Fine. But you have to go in and talk to the innkeep. I’m going to stay out here.”
“I don’t know what all the fuss is, but fine. You big baby.” You hand him your horse’s reins and make your way to the front door of the inn.
You’ve barely pushed the door very far at all before you hear a friendly voice from inside. “Welcome, traveler! Come on in.”
“It’s wonderful to make your—” You stop in the doorway, frozen with shock.
“It’s wonderful to make your acquaintance, your highness.” A pair of familiar sparkling eyes look back at you. “And you can tell his majesty that he can come inside, I’ve already seen him.”
König’s first wife stands before you, watching your reaction with clear amusement.
Forgive me for that smut. It's been years since I've written anything nsfw, and I wrote this at like. 5AM after a very long day because when I'm not exhausted, writing smut becomes impossible. It's quite the pickle.
Well...I did say that part 3 was going to be a doozy! I'm looking forward to all the reactions...🤭
Comments and feedback are of course always appreciated <3
@kneelingshadowsalome @crowbird @poohkie90 @cumikering @iytatsworld @papaver-decervicatus @anxietyrain @riotakire @ax0lotly @cookiepie111 @kacchasu @no1runawaymilkdad @chthonian-spectre @backwards-readings @yxllowtxpe @garbau @hexqueensupreme @queenthorin1 @violetstyless @her-majesty-theking @vegan-peppermint @peonytarian @ghostslittlegf @euuuuuuun @e1x03 @kokonoiwife @deaddainish @dragonfang @teehee-47 @keiva1000 @catluvwr @waves-against-a-cliff @channelsoph @cutiecusp @channelsoph @itsagrimm @dins-riduur-anthe @lexuria @complexivelovely
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💖 it's here, it's pink, it's sparkly, and full of fluff 💖
Hiiiiii and welcome to witness my attempt at an Olli/Allu Advent Calendar, in which I'll give you ~a cute little something~ about these two idiots in love almost every day until December 24! My plan is to use prompts from this list to either write a fic based on the prompt or just some good ol' delulu thoughts if all else fails. I cannot guarantee there'll be a post literally every day, but I'm really excited to try this out and I thank you for your support along the way in advance 💝
The biggest thanks and a million hugs go to one of my favourite human beings @kraeuterhexchen for making the adorable banner!! I mean helloooooo?? 😭 Go show them some love ❣️
For December 1, the prompt list is titled One True Pairing Moments, and the prompt I chose was 'calling just to hear their voice' 🥺 You can read the fic below, I hope you like it <3
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PS. Even though this is an advent calendar of sorts, I'm not planning on making this particularly Christmassy. I hope no one minds terribly!
~
Falling for Aleksi had, in a way, sneaked up on Olli, at least if he fooled himself a little. He could pretend he didn’t feel any different about the man than he did about, say, Joonas or Tommi, but that strategy only worked for so long – that is to say, approximately until Aleksi as much as smiled softly at him from across a room or bumped his shoulder into his jovially when walking down the street and Olli would feel his breath getting caught in his throat or stumble in his words, his tongue tangled like shoelaces, which was so unlike him as well and frustrated him to no end. It really took a special kind of fool to not only develop some level of feelings for a friend, a colleague, a bandmate for Christ’s sake, but also become so hopelessly enamored with him that you rolled awake in bed in the dead of night, grabbing your phone and tossing it back on the nightstand again and again because you couldn’t decide whether or not you should, on some erratic 2 o’clock impulse, call him to let him know he was the very reason for your insomnia.
Turning on his back, Olli groaned (only a little desperately) as he remembered losing himself in the lingering hug they had shared just before the arrivals lobby at the airport, inhaling Aleksi’s scent and wishing they wouldn’t have to go home just yet, even if Olli was more than ready to finally sleep in his own bed again. Ironically, ever since they had returned home from tour, Olli had spent night after sleepless night missing Aleksi terribly: his stupid jokes and playful banter that bordered on being flirtatious if Olli allowed himself the benefit of delusion; his quick, subtle smiles that probably meant nothing; his little touches Olli hoped meant something; his smell and his touch and the softness of his hair at the back of his neck, compared to which the blanket Olli was grasping in his fist was like sandpaper. (How he had come to know of the qualities of Aleksi’s hair in such detail, he preferred not to dwell on too much to save himself from the heartache, so let’s just leave it at ‘stressful, emotional week far away from home’ and ‘a little too much to drink’).
Above all, Olli missed Aleksi’s voice. He hadn’t even thought that was possible, until the other morning when Olli had woken up to a voice message Aleksi had left just hours earlier, rambling about a song idea he had gotten in the middle of the night – something he did from time to time – and Olli had spent the next several minutes replaying it over and over again as he had lied in bed procrastinating getting up and and instead closing his eyes to better imagine Aleksi lying there beside him, turned on his side to face Olli, talking to him sleepily like they often did when they shared a room on tour and were just too lazy to join others at breakfast. Much like the hug at the airport, Olli wished those moments would have lasted way longer than they did, often ending abruptly when either of their phones would go off with Santeri’s name on the screen, a passive-aggressive interruption to the soft, low tone of Aleksi’s early-morning thoughts. (Sometimes, when Olli was lucky enough, he had been blessed with the bliss of feeling the light touch of a fingertip tracing along his collarbone, cut short just as frustratingly by their well-meaning tour manager politely enquiring whether the two of them had plans of dragging themselves downstairs for some toast and coffee, or if they’d rather starve until lunchtime, for which he wasn’t at all sure they’d even have time that day.)
The lovesick idiot that he was, his thumb hovered over the ‘play’ button of Aleksi’s voice message, probably for the millionth time that week. The chest-carving hesitation turned into a heart flip when he noticed Aleksi was online.
Then Aleksi began to type, and Olli held his breath the entire time until a new message appeared in the thread, anticipation holding him by his throat.
You awake?
Olli exhaled and typed his affirmative reply, leaving out the reason why.
He blinked at the screen, waiting for Aleksi to ask him a random question that clearly couldn’t wait until morning, or perhaps talk about something related to another late-night Twitch stream (from what Olli had gathered, Aleksi had been doing a lot of those recently, and with his last remaining braincell Olli had managed to resist the temptation to watch every single one of them, because he knew that if he did, it would only dig his grave of pining and longing deeper, seeing Aleksi smile and giggle about but not being able to do that with him or snuggle up next to him when he was wearing that flannel Olli often used as a blanket in the tour bus). But instead of another text appearing on the screen, Olli’s phone began to vibrate in his hand, and it took him an embarrassingly long while to understand it was because Aleksi was calling him.
“Hi,” he sighed when he finally collected himself enough to speak. He prayed he’d be able to hear what Aleksi was going to say from the thumping heartbeat echoing in his ears.
“Hi,” a soft voice said. “Sorry, I know it’s late…”
“No, not at all,” Olli hurried to say, “I mean, I wasn’t sleeping. Not even close, actually.” Part of him hoped Aleksi wouldn’t ask about it, but in some foolhardy way the possibility intrigued him.
Nothing much, he would have likely said anyway, but what would happen if he told Aleksi how it really was? That he squeezed his pillow imagining it was him instead, or wailed into it because something had reminded him of a moment-that-was-probably-not-a-Moment™ they had shared? What would Aleksi say if he knew Olli sometimes touched himself the way Aleksi had touched him That One Night they never talked about? The only obstacle between Olli and that knowledge was a bottomless ocean of cold sweat and cowardice, and Olli had never been a great swimmer.
“So, ummm…,” Olli said when Aleksi’s end stayed silent. “What’s up?”
A short breath of laughter sounded through the phone line.
“Honestly? I don’t know, I… It’s just been a… weird week, I guess.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, like… my head’s just been so full of… everything and… I’ve been so busy and kinda tense and… fuck, this is going to sound crazy,” Aleksi laughed that brief laugh again, although to Olli it didn’t sound particularly cheerful. Tired, more like. Strained, somehow. Not sad, but definitely a little troubled, and Olli intended to find out why.
“I’m all for crazy, you know.” Olli hoped his sorry attempt to lighten Aleksi’s mood would work, and so he smiled in relief when he heard Aleksi chuckle at his comment.
“I know,” Aleksi said softly, in that tone of voice that had Olli melt against his bedsheets. “So yeah, it’s been a rough week, but… in between all that stupid shit, I’ve been thinking a lot about… umm… well, the tour and– and… about you, for some reason,” (the troubled laugh made its return) “and… yeah. That’s sort of helped me a lot recently.”
Olli listened to the words carefully, not fully believing what he was hearing, yet clinging on to them until they were all but swirling around in his otherwise empty head like dry leaves in October wind.
“And tonight I just couldn’t fucking sleep for some reason and nothing I did seemed to help and so I thought I’d call you. And I’m–” If it hadn’t been dead silent otherwise, Olli wouldn’t have heard the shaky breath Aleksi paused to take, “I’m sorry I’m calling you at this hour and bothering you with this all but I guess I just… wanted to hear your voice. To see if that would help.”
“Does it?” Olli asked. Aleksi’s confession had made him clasp his blanket close to his chest, as if that would do anything about his rapidly beating heart.
“Yeah. It does. So maybe just… keep talking?”
Despite his mind living a life of its own, completely unfit to form a single coherent thought, for Aleksi’s sake Olli tried his best to think of something to say, but everything he came up with was something he was not ready to tell him quite yet.
“Uuummmm…” he said to buy himself some time, but while he waited for his useless brain and mouth to form any actual words, Aleksi spoke again.
“Fuck, I’m– I’m sorry, this is too weird, I shouldn’t have– I’ll let you go back to–”
“I miss you,” Olli blurted before Aleksi would hang up on him. He squeezed his eyes shut when Aleksi went silent, too silent for too long for it to mean any good.
The line stayed open, however, which Olli took as a positive sign, even if the seconds during which all Olli could hear was Aleksi's quiet breathing seemed endless.
“And I you,” Aleksi finally replied. “A little too much, probably, or at least that’s what it feels like,” he chuckled. Olli almost missed the quiet sniff that followed.
He had to steel himself for his next question.
“What do you mean?”
“Just… forget it.” Aleksi said quietly. Contrary to Aleksi’s request, Olli knew he was going to all but ‘forget it’ for the next 3-5 business days; mentally he booked all his evenings as well as most of his mornings and noons for pondering what exactly had been in Aleksi’s mind in that moment or why he had sounded so sombre, almost disappointed. He’d probably never come to any satisfactory conclusion about it though, at least not without a little help from Aleksi himself.
A ridiculous idea popped into his head, and before he could stop himself, the words flooded out of his mouth.
“Do you wanna come over some time? To hang out? When your schedule’s a little less tight, I mean.” He sucked on his lips and closed his eyes as he waited for Aleksi’s answer, ready to hang up the moment he’d decline the offer on some obvious and logical reason for why Aleksi couldn’t possibly make nor want to take a trip to the north to see him, such as ‘didn’t we just spend over two months on the road together?’ or ‘damn, buddy, I miss you alright but not quite that much, I’ve done enough sitting in public transportation for one year, thank you very much lol’ or ‘what about Rilla?’
“You could take Rilla with you, you know.” Olli hurried to say, just in case, the deranged part of his brain thinking there might be a chance Aleksi might be at least considering it.
“Oh! Well, umm… I actually might have time next week? If– if you’re actually being serious about this.”
Funny you should ask, Aleksi; I’ve actually never been more serious about anything in my entire life than I am about having you here with me so that I can hold you and be held by you and see your face when I wake up in the morning and say goodnight to your annoyingly cute face instead of via text message and maybe, if the stars are in position and the northern wind won’t discourage me too much, I might actually be brave enough to torment you with the knowledge of just how miserable I’ve been since we last saw each other.
“I think it would be cool,” he said, because he had a feeling what he wanted to say would’ve been a tad too much and sudden. “I mean, if you’re up for it, of course. I understand if you can’t make it though, I know you have all those side projects.”
“No, I think it might actually do me some good to get out of the capital area for change.” Then there was a muffled ‘ouch’, followed by a laugh that sounded much brighter than any of the other ones Olli had heard from Aleksi that night. “Sorry, correction, it might do us some good. Rilla just told me she’s most definitely coming too. Rilla, stop nibbling on my toes!”
Olli smiled tiredly at the mental image that was painted in his mind of Aleksi and Rilla cuddling in bed, both minding their own business from what it seemed while still minding each other as well, very much indeed.
“I’ll be sure to set up a bed for her in the guest room.”
“The guest room? Do you not know her at all? If she’s not getting the master bedroom, she’ll ruin all your rugs and most of your shoes. Probably also gossip about you to all the neighbourhood dogs. And she’s brutal.”
Olli held his stomach as he laughed, tears almost forming in the corners of his eyes. In his defence, it was late and he was finally becoming tired, thus too far gone to help himself, let alone feel embarrassed about being in stitches about something Aleksi had said that was only mildly amusing. (It wasn’t the first time that had happened either, and likely not the last time.)
“So yeah, ummm, I can take a look at some flight options for next week and let you know, alright? I’m gonna let you sleep now and… I should get some myself too.”
Olli wanted to tell Aleksi he’d love to stay up chatting until dawn, but the yawn he let out when he opened his mouth to speak implied Aleksi had a point.
“Yeah, let me know. And… thanks for calling, I… you have no idea how much I needed this tonight.”
That was as close to a confession as Olli was able to get as of now.
“Probably not half as much as I did.”
Olli chuckled at Aleksi’s response, mostly to hide his own agony.
If only you knew. If only I knew how to tell you.
It didn’t take long for Olli to doze off after they hung up, and when he woke up to the kids from next door having a snowball fight under his window in the morning, he noticed new messages from Aleksi, sent half an hour after their phone call had ended, complete with screen captions of airplane schedules.
Would these days work for you? I might be free all week actually 😇
Olli cuddled into his pillow while typing his reply, hoping it wouldn’t wake up Aleksi.
yeah I’m free as well. I’ll pick you two up from the airport 🖤
From then on, Olli started counting the days until he’d see Aleksi again.
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