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theworldinclines · 3 years

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Title: family matters Pairing: Lan Sizhui/Lan Jingyi Excerpt: “You’re almost like another son to him anyway,” Sizhui points out. “So you’re the favourite child while I get tossed to the wayside?” Ao3 link

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The first time Jingyi meets Sizhui, they are each five. Zewu-Jun himself delivers the boy to lessons and asks that the children treat Sizhui with exceptional respect and consideration. That in itself isn’t anything new, as the Lans have written rules that explain why giving others kindness is one of the many keys to leading a decent life and acting as a role model to those in- and outside the sect. What was different, however, was the moment before Zewu-Jun took his leave from the students.

He gave a downturn of his chin to the boys and the teacher, but was unable to take more than two steps before little Sizhui had grappled to his robes, arms held fast around the Sect Leader’s left leg. Jingyi has never been known for necessarily obedient behaviour, but even he had never dared such an act toward Zewu-Jun, let alone in public. To the entire room’s astonishment, the man didn’t look put out in the very least. Rather than reprimand the child, Zewu-Jun put a gentle hand to his head and guided him out into the gardens. Jingyi knew he would be scolded were he to peek at them, and did it anyway when Laoshi’s back was turned.

Outside he saw Sizhui and Zewu-Jun, the Sect Leader in his immaculate robes bent to a knee as though they were in the cleanly confines of a hall rather than stood on a dusty path. Sizhui was staring at the ground, rubbing at his nose, and Zewu-Jun gave him a gentle chuck beneath the chin, murmuring words Jingyi couldn’t possibly hear. Sizhui’s nod prompted a smile from the Sect Leader that Jingyi, even at his young age, could tell held something more behind it.

He was quick to be facing the front of the room by the time Sizhui was led back into the class, much more collected and prepared to learn for the day. Jingyi understands, sort of; although he hadn’t wanted to begin lessons either, it’s just what is expected of children their age in the Cloud Recesses. He’d still stomped and whined, of course, but here he sits.

And he’s rather glad to have come once Laoshi dismisses them, because he gets to trot after Sizhui’s slow movements and say, “Hey!” He recalls in a split-second Zewu-Jun’s request that they show Sizhui respect, along with the rules, and adds quickly, “Welcome to Cloud Recesses. I haven’t seen you before.” Sizhui stares at him, uncertain. “Did you just come here? Where’d you move from?”

Sizhui gives a helpless shrug that is interrupted by the Sect Leader’s prompt appearance by his side. Jingyi immediately dips into a polite little bow that makes Zewu-Jun smile and he returns the gesture. Jingyi grins before he can bite it down and says, “Zewu-Jun, where’s Sizhui from?”

The Sect Leader hesitates a moment before his expression smooths into something less telling. “He is an orphan, A-Yi,” he says simply. “I trust that you will show him kindness.”

Jingyi looks at Sizhui with slightly widened eyes, nodding vigorously. “I will!” he promises the older man. To the boy, he says, “I’ll protect you. Don’t worry.”

For the first time, Sizhui’s lips quirk into the hint of a smile. “You don’t need to do that. I’m okay.”

“Too late,” Jingyi says firmly. “Tell me if anyone is mean to you and I’ll deal with them.” Zewu-Jun lowers his eyes to hide his amusement and Jingyi barrels on, “Better yet, I’ll stick by your side to save the trouble. Okay?”

Sizhui allows a little nod before Zewu-Jun murmurs that they should be heading home. The boy nods and Jingyi gives a wave, which Sizhui repays with a shy, squint-eyed smile. Jingyi beams. It may be Zewu-Jun’s request, but keeping Sizhui safe won’t be an arduous task at all, he thinks. Maybe they’ll even become good friends!

Jingyi finds Sizhui by the rabbits. It’s his friend’s favourite spot in the Cloud Recesses and if ever there’s a time when Jingyi can’t seem to find Sizhui in the main pavilion, he knows where he’ll be. Today is no exception.

Sizhui had disappeared just before he and Jingyi were meant to meet. They had each taken their meals as quickly as possible without appearing impolite to their families before the usual rendezvous by the rock garden’s bridge for a short break together, a daily update of all things Cloud Recesses. But when Jingyi arrived, Sizhui was nowhere to be seen and he’d known that something must have happened for his best friend to abandon him without warning.

Seeing Sizhui now, surrounded by soft rabbits, Jingyi hopes that he’d perhaps fallen into a brief mood as he sometimes does and all is in fact well, though he’d had to come here to get away from it all. He wouldn’t fault Sizhui that. However, when he calls out for him in approach, Sizhui wipes at his face like he’s been caught, and Jingyi begins to frown.

“A-Hui,” he says, coming to a stop beside him. Sizhui won’t look at him, gaze focused on the ground as he soothes a rabbit in his lap, and Jingyi can see that his eyes are red, cheeks tear-streaked. “A-Hui,” he repeats.

“I’m alright,” Sizhui says. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“It’s been four years and you still think I care,” Jingyi replies, the slightest sarcasm in his words. “What happened?”

“It really isn’t a big deal.”

“So some non-issue made you come here and cry?” Jingyi deduces dryly.

“They…” Sizhui stops.

Jingyi sombers and can feel his frown deepening. “They who?”

“Mingyu. And Pengfei. Rumours about where I’m from.”

“Sizhui, what’d they do?”

“They said…” Sizhui’s hands shake only slightly where they hold the rabbit, but it still makes Jingyi’s stomach hurt. “Just that they think I’m from that old sect that was eradicated years ago for their evil ways, and how it’s strange I’m not dead like the rest of them. A-Fei said if I’m evil it’s their duty to — ” Sizhui doesn’t complete the sentence as his voice catches, but Jingyi is already on his feet. “A-Yi!” Sizhui’s hand reaches for Jingyi’s ankle, though he’s too far to catch. “What are you doing?”

“What’s it look like?” Jingyi demands. “I’m going to challenge them to a duel and shame them in front of the gods and the Four Families. What else?”

“Jingyi, don’t,” Sizhui says tiredly.

“Why not?”

“We’ve only just begun sword-work, for one,” Sizhui quips, aiming for a joke. Jingyi crosses his arms over his chest and Sizhui sighs as he gently sets the rabbit aside to stand. “We’re barely 10,” he says. “You can’t fight another kid to the death, Jingyi.”

“I disagree,” he mumbles.

“Well, that’s allowed. I don’t expect us to agree on everything. But you’ll only get in trouble and I don’t want that.”

“They said horrible things to you!” Jingyi exclaims. “And I said I’d protect you. ‘Our word is our oath,’ remember? Never break a promise. If I don’t confront them, I’m betraying one of our rules. A punishable offense, you know.”

“Coming here to find me is enough,” Sizhui says, fond but immovable, per usual. “I’m not even crying anymore, thanks to you. I’d say you did your duty.” Jingyi grumbles his dissent, arms still crossed, but Sizhui just bumps their shoulders together as he stands by his side, twining an arm through Jingyi’s out of habit. “Let’s get back to class.”

“They’re lucky they didn’t say that stuff in front of me,” Jingyi says while they walk. “Those brats. Don’t think I won’t do it next time.”

“Yes, A-Yi.”

“Don’t ‘Yes, A-Yi’ me; I mean it!”

“Okay, A-Yi.”

“Sizhui!” comes the expected whine.

Because it is their shared space, another day finds the boys with the rabbits. Zewu-Jun had apparently shown it to Sizhui when he first arrived and was feeling lonely, and although Jingyi dislikes that Sizhui had felt sad, he’s happy that it had at least brought them a special hideaway that so few know about. There’s nothing like an afternoon of hideously dull lessons to remind Jingyi why he so prefers not being in class. As if he ever forgets.

“There’s no way Laoshi Qiren isn’t trying to kill us,” Jingyi deadpans. “I swear, leaving his class I’m always sapped of both energy and will to live. Not a coincidence.”

“You say this nearly every day.”

“And it’s true! A slow-burn murder.”

“I feel certain that if my Grand-Uncle was trying to kill me, there’d be more concern from my father and uncle.”

Jingyi makes a face and holds a rabbit up to meet her dark gaze. “What do you think? Who’s right, little one?”

Sizhui rolls his eyes, taking the rabbit gently from Jingyi so that he can return her to the grass with her family. “She can’t talk,” he says, “but if she could, she’d agree with me.”

“One of our numerous Sect rules is to reserve assumptions until proper evidence is drawn,” Jingyi recites, “yet here you are. What would your esteemed uncle say? Or your father, for that matter?”

“Zewu-Jun would say it’s worth it to tease you. Baba would say… I’m right,” Sizhui concludes proudly. “Because I’m his son.”

“Nepotism! Utter bias!”

“You’re almost like another son to him anyway,” Sizhui points out.

“So you’re the favourite child while I get tossed to the wayside?” Sizhui laughs at Jingyi’s affronted expression, and for that Jingyi takes his free hand where it rests across from him on the grass. “You know, that’s fine. If he already accepts me as a son, there won’t be any trouble when I request formal permission to court you.”

Sizhui turns red and pulls his hand back to pet the rabbit, glancing around as though someone might be watching all of a sudden. “You’re silly,” he says to Jingyi.

“We’re already going to be 15!” Jingyi pouts.

“Why are you so interested in discussing it today?”

Jingyi tugs a little at a few strands of grass. “Just the lesson earlier about cultivation partners.”

Sizhui’s cheeks haven’t lost their blush but he does look pleasantly surprised as he says, “You paid attention in class after all! A-Yi!”

“Only for today because it applied to me,” Jingyi insists. “To us, I guess.”

Sizhui seems to remember his shyness and ducks his head. “You want me to be your cultivation partner?” he asks.

“Don’t you want to be?”

“I never said I didn’t!” Sizhui says quickly, seeing that Jingyi appears disheartened. He carefully reaches for his hand despite his own red face and says, “Would I spend all my time with you if I didn’t want to?”

“Well, how should I know?” Jingyi asks, but he’s sitting up like he’s got less weight holding him down now. Back to his usual self, which is a good sign. “Some cultivation partners are platonic, you know.”

“Rarely.”

“A-Hui, are you questioning Laoshi Qiren?”

“I’d prefer to avoid lashing by oar if I can avoid it, thank you.”

“I thought you said you have nepotism on your side!”

Sizhui shakes his head and, somehow graceful even here, stands up from the ground. “We should head back, A-Yi,” he says, brushing invisible dust from his robes. “It’s getting late now.”

“Can’t we just stay here forever?” Jingyi asks dramatically, falling onto his back. At Sizhui’s look, he sighs and extends a hand upward for Sizhui to accept.

Instead of allowing him to help Jingyi to his feet, Jingyi tugs Sizhui down so that he tumbles back to the ground, half against Jingyi’s side. Jingyi laughs aloud in amused delight while Sizhui’s blush returns with a vengeance.

“Lan Jingyi!” he scolds, twisting away from him. “Shameless!”

“You sound like your father!” Jingyi laughs again.

Sizhui huffs and hurries to stand, putting distance between himself and Jingyi. “And if you don’t want him to give you the oar, you’d better just do as I say. Let’s go.”

“Bossy, bossy,” Jingyi says, though he’s following Sizhui obediently for the path. He sneaks a glance to his left and can’t help but grin at Sizhui’s flushed cheeks and the way his ears have gone pink at the tips. According to Sizhui, Hanguang-Jun’s ears do the same.

He gives a little poke to the skin of Sizhui’s ear, just to mess with him, and Sizhui huffs another breath that sounds suspiciously like, “Completely shameless!” before abandoning Jingyi altogether to hurry ahead of him.

If Wei Wuxian had been asked as a teenager whether he could ever envision making a life for himself in the Cloud Recesses, he’d have laughed in your face. He did, actually, when Jiang Cheng made the passing joke all those years ago, assuring his brother that this place would never feel like home to someone with Wei Wuxian’s habits. Now, what’s closer to two decades ago than Wei Wuxian would like to think about, he has to admit that his younger self hadn’t been nearly open-minded enough.

Circumstances that he couldn’t have foreseen changed his view of Cloud Reccesses, and he knows that he will be here for as long as he can be because being here means keeping his place beside his husband and son. He wouldn’t want to be anywhere else these days and the certainty of that sometimes takes him by surprise, when he considers just how different things are now but in a way that feels right, like it’s what always was meant to be.

He feels himself smiling when he sees A-Yuan and A-Yi in the woods near the rabbits. He knows that Lan Xichen had brought A-Yuan years before when he’d been new here, sure that giving the child a piece of Lan Wangji would bring him comfort in his three-year absence. It’s still Wei Wuxian’s favourite place in the Cloud Recesses — except for the rooms he shares with Lan Zhan, of course, but that’s a given — and it makes him even happier that Lan Sizhui had found solace here as his fathers had done at his age.

He watches from afar with a fond smile as the boys stand to be on their way home, but Wei Wuxian’s smile freezes when he can tell even from here that Sizhui is smiling sweetly with a hand in Jingyi’s, and his smile decidedly disappears when he realises their faces are far too close together. Wei Wuxian trips backward, a twig or five snapping as he does, and it must alert the boys to an outside present for when he regains his footing against the tree, they’ve fled the scene. A hand to his chest, Wei Wuxian stands there in astonishment.

This lasts for only a moment before he is all but sprinting for the Library Pavilion where his husband is sure to be writing this early afternoon. He forces himself to slow down so as to not alarm Lan Wangji, though he comes to a sliding stop inside the doors anyhow with heaving breath.

“What’s happened?” Lan Wangji asks, not lifting his eyes from his work. When it’s obvious that Wei Wuxian is still having trouble speaking, he looks up at him. “Wei Ying?”

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says. He goes to him across the room and drops onto the floor to clutch at his husband’s arm. He stares at Wei Wuxian with the slightest concern and Wei Wuxian says, “I don’t mean to be dramatic — ”

“Debatable,” Lan Wangji answers. “Say what you have to say.”

“Did you know A-Yuan is — that he and Jingyi are — ”

“They are what?”

“I’ve just seen them with the rabbits, which is ordinary, but afterwards, Lan Zhan — ”

“Baba? A-die?”

Both men look for the entrance where their son has appeared, hands folded in front of him and looking for all the world their dutiful, sweet boy. Wei Wuxian’s heart stops, a feeling he’s never enjoyed, and jumps to his feet.

“Sizhui!” he exclaims.

“I need to speak with you both. Is this a bad time?” he asks. He’s walked in on more than one longing glance between his fathers to know when he should make himself scarce, but Wei Wuxian waves his son’s worry away like a pesky gnat.

“Come here,” Lan Wangji invites him, and Sizhui does. He sits across from Lan Wangji, who looks up at his still-standing husband. Wei Wuxian hurriedly settles beside him and nods at Lan Sizhui in assurance.

“I wanted to tell you on my own, before anyone else, so that you would know I’m sure of my decision,” Sizhui begins. “With your formal permission, I… I will begin publicly courting Jingyi.” Sizhui’s ears have begun to redden but he doesn’t hesitate as he goes on, “We’d like to be married.”

The library is silent enough that a pin’s dropping would prove thunderous.

As calm as he normally is, Lan Wangji simply asks, “How long have you known?”

“A-die, you know he and I have been friends since almost the day I arrived here. He’s been there for me without my ever having to ask, and we… we’ve been certain of how we feel for over six years now.”

“Six years?” Wei Wuxian blurts aloud. Lan Wangji gives him a warning side-eye and Wei Wuxian tries to remain collected. “Sizhui, if it’s been so long, why haven’t you told us until today?”

Sizhui’s flush deepens but he forces himself to meet his father’s eyes. “Before all else, Jingyi and I are friends. We didn’t want the hassle of chaperones or rumours. I understand if our keeping this secret is upsetting, Baba.” He bows his head. “I… I’m soon to be 18, and I know we’re young. But I can’t help wanting to make the most of whatever time A-Yi and I have. You and A-die — ”

A pause. “From what I’ve been told of your story, it has kept in my mind that I shouldn’t live with this sort of hidden feeling any longer than necessary.” Sizhui looks up at them. “Jingyi loves me, and I love him. Will you allow our marriage?”

Wei Wuxian is crying, which he’d be embarrassed about if he cared, and he throws propriety to the wind in favour of opening his arms for his son, who gladly and in relief stands to accept the embrace. Lan Wangji is sort of smiling in a clear indication that he’s happy with these events, and Wei Wuxian leans to poke at his cheek just to tease him.

“I’m thrilled you’ve told us,” Wei Wuxian says to Sizhui. “I assume Jingyi is informing his parents?”

“Well, we wanted to wait until we had your blessing,” Sizhui admits. “It would be easier to tell them once we know Hanguang-Jun and the former Yiling Patriarch are on our side.”

“You little schemers!” Wei Wuxian says, giving Sizhui’s cheek a light pinch. “Go on, then. Tell Jingyi the good news.”

Sizhui beams and looks at Lan Wangji. His smile strengthens under his son’s eyes and he gives the slightest nod, which Sizhui knows to translate as wholehearted approval.

He bows to his fathers and disappears from the library. Wei Wuxian falls against Lan Wangji’s arm as soon as he’s gone.

“Ah, Lan Zhan. I rushed here to tell you about how I saw them kiss in the woods, but A-Hui beat me to it. I suppose they’d just decided at that moment to tell us, you think?”

“Mn.”

“If I didn’t already know Jingyi to be a good boy, I’d have to kill him.” Wei Wuxian sneaks a look at Lan Wangji, who doesn’t look amused. “No fun, Lan Zhan, no fun.” He taps a finger on the table and at Lan Wangji’s prompting expression says, “Well, I suppose they’ll be needing a chaperone now, eh? Can I volunteer to keep an eye on Jingyi? Break a leg or two?”

“Wei Ying.”

“Ah, Lan Zhan, I’m kidding,” Wei Wuxian says with a half-pout. “Huh. Maybe this is how Grand Master Qiren feels about me defiling the soul of his youngest nephew. I think I understand now.”

“You did not ‘defile’ anything,” Lan Wangji says without pause.

“My good husband.” Wei Wuxian presses a kiss to his cheek, followed by a gentle pat to the other. Although he’s smiling, it doesn’t quite reach his eyes and Lan Wangji covers Wei Wuxian’s hand carefully with his, wordlessly asking for Wei Wuxian to speak his mind.

“It’s nothing. Only what Sizhui mentioned about our past. I don’t want to marry away our son but I… I am grateful that they don’t have to endure… all we had to endure. No mortifyingly long wait to reach their happily ever after. I’m glad for it.”

Lan Wangji nods his agreement and brushes a kiss against his husband’s hand, making him blush. “A-Zhan!” he says with feigned astonishment. “Not in the library! Shameless.” Wei Wuxian knows he isn’t imagining the amused, pleased look on Wangji’s face, and he can’t hide his own smile at the sight. He still pulls out of Lan Wangji’s grip and says, “I don’t want to be responsible for any damage here, Gods forbid Qiren’s wrath finds me! Later?”

“Mn. Later.”

Wei Wuxian dimples at Lan Wangji, firing off a wink, before hightailing it for the Gods know where.

Lan Wangji returns to his writing, but pauses as he thinks about the hour’s events. His son will be married surely within a year, perhaps have children of his own. The thoughts of a new baby to hold and Sizhui being loved so dearly bring such an unexpected wave of warmth to Lan Wangji that he decides, for today, he can put work to the side. He goes off to find his family growing, or perhaps the ‘later’ he’d been promised.

#i love them to no end #also wanting to write nhs/wn but theyre such a rare pair lmaooo #honestly so are ljy/lsz so what am i saying dkjkfhdkj #my writing #zhuiyi #lan jingyi x lan sizhui #the untamed #ao3 #archive of our own #fics #mlm #c drama #cdrama

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daddywright · 3 years

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I have only recently got into the ace attorney fandom, and this story was the first story I read, and I feel spoiled! I absolutely loved every chapter, so I'm gonna word vomit here and tell you everything I love about this!

"She offers him a smile. It’s small, tentative, but it possesses a strength that makes a hidden part of him twist and burn with quiet envy." the first time we see nick's wish to be as strong as mia!

Considering the fact that nick didn't have any prominent figure in his life, it makes sense that he would look up to gregory so much

"Phoenix looks up, and starts walking towards Mia Fey

He doesn't stop for two years."

THE RELATIONSHIP THAT MIA AND NICK HAD WAS PRECIOUS AND DESERVES MORE THAN WHAT THE FANDOM GIVES THEM

"Larry’s arms wrap around him, squeezing almost too tight" People forget that Larry and Phoenix were good friends too, and Larry would help his best friend

"Nobody believed him, nobody but Mia" Maya is what Phoenix is to Mia and I adore that

"He wishes, desperately, that he’d said it while she was still alive. I loved you. For everything you did." Not you absolutely breaking my fucking heart

Also the first AA game felt unnatural in the sense of how seemingly unaffected Phoenix seemed at Mia's murder so I'm really glad you wrote it this way

"Expensive. Thoughtful. Too much." SHUT UP NICK YOU DESERVE ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING

Also quick break to mention how I absolutely fucking love your writing style and i wish I was literally half as talented as you cuz the last time I read something that made me feel this multitude of emotions was ocean vuong. And I practically worship Ocean Vuong. So now I worship you too

"You're a stranger to me // When will I stop hoping?" I never really realised just how badly nick musta been hurt by good ol' bratworth before this fic, but now that I have read it, it would have hurt him so bad

"Is this why you never answered my letters? Because I was a reminder? Because it hurt too much?" Honestly what happened to miles and phoenix's friendship hurts so much because it should have never happened, and miles didn't deserve that.

"Maybe Miles Edgeworth is not the man he thought he’d be, either." yo when I tell you this hurt I mean this huRT

Fun fact! My birthday is on the same day as DL-6 anniversary. Gregory Edgeworth died on my birthday. I feel horrible now

"monster. You were nine years old and he's a monster. " No one has made me feel this much emotion for what happened to Miles in a single sentence other than you. I commend you for that

"I love you," he says quietly. He has never said those words to anyone, except for Dahlia Hawthorne.

Maya sniffs in his ear, crushing him tight. "I love you, too."

He has never heard them back.

PHOENIX HAS NEVER HEARD THE WORDS " I LOVE YOU" COME BACK TO HIM ARE YOU FUCKING WITH ME WHY NOW I'M SAD

"Tell me everything. Every detail—" Miles is worried bout nick and why wouldn't he? gods you're so gay miles but tbf if I knew someone like nick irl i'd go ballistic too

"He determined the motive for his own assault...with amnesia. Naturally." My man's smart af and he is king

"Is that what she thinks of me? That I'm like that? That I don't care about who the bad guys really are?" Gumshoe noooo you're hella precious! Also this particular chapter was so well written! loved this soo much!

Also taking a minute to appreciate the pacing! Rarely do I ever come across an author who just hits that sweet spot of perfect pacing and you did! so thank you!

Alright so here are a few thoughts that I felt capcom needed to do which you did for us!

no. 1 - Address the trauma phoenix faced with not only dahlia but also with mia's death

no. 2 - Actually fucking flesh out a good relationship dynamic between larry and phoenix

no. 3 - actually! have! phoenix! be hurt! in bridge to turnabout! istg my man would not have dropped from a burning bridge to a freezing river only to have a cold

AUNT FRANZY AND PEARLS MAN!

THEY CUTE

ok so I have a LOT of feelings for bridge to turnabout and HOO BOY BUCKLE UP

So I always thought that in this fic, miles must have felt fucking awful! I mean he very clearly hates who he was and what that has led to but that must have been doubled over with this case! Phoenix would have died if not for mia and it would have been indirectly miles's fault. I think about that alot

Like he said that he very much regrets whatever he did as bratworth in the phone call with gumshoe but i don't think he anticipated this. poor edgeworth

Also I think this was the final nail in the coffin for miles. Phoenix forgave him, after all the fucked up shit miles did, and that made that man go "how is this guy so fucking compassionate awwwww shit I'm in fucking love with this idiotic brave man".

my main thoughts were "holy shit phoenix must have been feeling awful." like to learn that you were in love with a person who turned out to be a murderer but then not a murderer cuz everything you felt about that was real and just...... it must have hurt. He never fell in love with dahlia. it was iris, always. and WHAT ABOUT MILES DURING THIS!!! Like to learn that the man you love was falsely led to believe that he was in love with a person he rarely met and then learn that his ex who is not murderous might still be in love with him because "that was real. that part was real." like damn. people just gloss over this

also I feel terrible for iris F in the chat for iris lads.

Dahlia literally haunting that courtroom scene. I felt mia's power. I felt her desperation. I felt everything and I am once again in awe of the absolute power your writing holds.

also godsdamn pearls had to go through all that shit huh. also FRANMAYAAAAAA THANK YOUUUU

I too, am a hoe confused as to what I should feel towards diego.

Ok anyways we jump to disbarment now

"He just winks at her and says Maya has other talents, and if Mystic Maya overhears, she puffs up at him like the fish from the aquarium she saw once, the one with all the spikes and silly eyes."

you know what constantly amazes me? your ability to change tones so effortlessly. When writing from edgey's pov, the language is sophisticated. precise. when writing from pearly's pov your language is simplistic, child-like. from phoenix's pov it's natural. grounded

"She never knew anybody who made faces like him, growing up in Kurain, and it’s one of the things that makes him special." Yo phoenix is the most amazing uncle ever and we all know it ok he's brilliant

I'M RUNNING OUT OF CHARACTER LIMITS

PEARLY CALLING EDGEY AT FIRST SIGN OF TROUBLE I'M SOFFFFTTTT

“I think I did something really bad." trucy baby no it's not your fault

pearl and trucy bonding supremacy. my girls would fuck shit up

"She’d meant to do this properly, one day." Thank you for giving importance to maya's feelings. thank you for treating her like a real human being. thank you

“Everything that happened...for what? It’s only gotten people hurt. Pearly. Our mother.” Me. Me." I felt so bad for maya here. I wish I could tell you in precise words about how this exact framing of the sentence is what broke me. "me. me" maya deserved more, but mia did all she could

"What do scared kids need? ...Food." not you breaking my godsdamn heart again. phoenix just knows what's it like being a helpless child, and he'll be damned if he ever lets anyone face that again

“‘Course, Pearls,” he says reflexively, before frowning. “What for?” reflexively. if every man in the world could be like phoenix wright then the world would be worthy of the gods

"Another one?" give it 2 years edgey she'll be your daughter too

"after countless hours creating the man’s living space in his mind from the background snatches he’d seen in the man’s ridiculous video calls." NOT ONLY DO THEY VC FOR NO PARTICULAR REASON BUT ALSO MILES ACTUALLY SPENDS TIME TRYING TO RECREATE HIS ROOM?? BECAUSE HE WOULD ONE DAY LIKE TO BE IN IT??? good gods these bitches gay. good for them

"because just as day is light and night is dark, Phoenix Wright is an honorable man." damn straight. you love to see it (it being a 27+ year old man pining for another 27+ year old man)

also hey miles! how do you feel about the fact that the man you love changed his fucking major and degrees halfway through college just so he could see you again only for you to be incredibly rude to him and make him end up in jail! (i bully edgeworth cuz i love him)

"Wright finishes, shrugging like it’s nothing, like his commitment and belief isn’t the most extraordinary thing that Miles has ever faced." it's more than pining at this point. it's incredible faith and trust. Miles had someone who cared about him even after all those years despite him having changed so drastically, ofc he would be surprised. Miles loves phoenix and so do i.

also HOT DAMN YOU WRITING IS JUST * MWAH *

Also the whole segment where they kiss is just !!!!! miles wants! it's beautiful! THEY'RE IN LOVEEE

receiving poisonous bottles which your ex tried to kill you with. My man can't get a break huh

Miles being chivalrous and protective and absolutely stealing my godsdamn heart (and phoenix's too)!

Klavier being the absolute king that he is we stan

The hostage situation section? gods miles must have been terrified.

Phoenix not being able to promise pearly that he'd always come back home and miles hearing it and like... ouch. my heart. you didn't need to do that (but i love your for it)

GODS THE CLIMAX WITH KRISTOPH WAS SOOO SATISFYING AND LIKE MY MAN PHOENIX REALLY PUNCHED THAT BITCH HUH

klavier baby I am so sorry

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL!

and thus my comment ends. I believe I have almost used up all of my commenting limits and i leave with these few parting words : HOLY SHIT YOUR AMAZING AND I LOVE YOU!

also I made a playlist on spotify for this fic! here's the link : https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3k8lRHiO8ZXQDLpiTUL7SN?si=fc3b35b4ab064867

gods this was long huh

GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY....WHERE DO I BEGIN...THE FACT THAT YOU BROKE THE CHARACTER LIMIT ON AO3 AND MADE A PLAYLIST? WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS?

thank you so much for all the amazing things you said....i am crying on a Wednesday morning knowing my writing was appreciated this much. thank you!

#ask tag #long post #my fic #nymphietonkslupin

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lossie92 · 3 years

Text

Analeptic - snippet

Decided to post this on a whim, because I don’t honestly know when I’ll be able to update. Part 4 is almost done, but I’m currently stuck at a very emotional moment and have no idea how to continue, so...

This is, of course, a part of a Madara-centric madatobi fic that I have been working on for a while now (Parts 1-3 are posted on my AO3). To be fair, the amount of romance in it is close to none. I mean, it’s so Victorian that it should be wearing a corset and I’m also pretty sure the slow burn is going to kill me one of these days 🙈

The below can be read as a stand-alone snippet, though some things will probably make more sense if you’ve read the previous chapters. Just saying 😉

Either way, hope you enjoy!

Scene set-up: Madara and Tobirama meet in the wee hours of the morning in the garden of the Daimyo's palace. Some revelations are had ✨

"Do you intend to lurk in the shadows till sunrise, Senju?" He asks, voice light with amusement. He smirks when he feels the other man’s chakra waver in surprise at being discovered and then called out so bluntly.

There is a moment of hesitation before the younger man steps out of what is possibly his room and onto the engawa that circles the spacious courtyard. Madara turns a bit to observe him.

Dressed simply in a light blue yukata, Tobirama looks like he belongs on the pages of a story book, fey and otherworldly with his pale colouring standing out against the dark backdrop of the night. There is something so ethereal about him in this moment that it makes him seem like a fantastical creature come alive, a bit like a yokai or a fae, and Madara catches himself watching him with interest, eyes sweeping over wavy white hair, high cheekbones, and skin so fair it seems to glow in the soft light of lanterns.

The Senju must be quite tall, not unlike Hashirama, he notices absentmindedly, but the lack of armour reveals a rather thin body with surprisingly slim shoulders – a body obviously built for speed and agility instead of brute strength. Madara is relatively certain that if they were to stand next to each other he would actually seem taller than Tobirama at first glance on the virtue of his much stockier build and much wider shoulders alone, and the notion is somewhat amusing.

After all, who would have guessed that the fearsome White Demon is actually a bit of a waif?

Come to think of it, there must be a lot of careful layering and strategic padding involved in making the other man look so intimidating and larger than life on the battlefield. The Tobirama Madara is currently looking at honestly looks as if a strong gust of wind could blow him right off his feet. It is a bit shocking to realize that there might be something fragile, something breakable about the Senju heir.

He looks back up at Tobirama’s face and, as always, it betrays nothing. However, the man’s chakra is buzzing with strangely unrestrained emotion, one of which is the almost palpable surprise. Whether it is surprise at seeing anyone up this early in the morning – if this ungodly hour can actually be considered morning to begin with – or surprise at discovering it is Madara is unclear.

“Don’t look so shocked,” Madara says in lieu of a proper greeting, breaking the uncomfortable silence that has fallen over them. “Not all of us are afforded the luxury of being able to sleep as deeply as that pest you call a brother.”

The sarcasm is maybe unnecessary, but Madara is tired, worried, and a bit out of it. There are also only so many pleasantries he is willing to extend and playing nice with Senju Tobirama at half past stupid o’clock is not something he will bother with after having to constantly bite his tongue for the last few days during peace talks.

The younger man’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t take the bait. Instead he continues to stand in the same spot and just looks at Madara as if trying to solve a riddle of some kind.

Amused despite himself by the other’s hesitance, Madara snorts. “You can sit down, you know. I won’t bite you,” he says. “In fact, if you are nice enough and get a hold of your chakra so it stops screaming at me, I may even offer you some tea.”

That, at last, seems to do the trick.

"I didn't know you were a sensor, Uchiha-san," the Senju says as he finally unfreezes and moves over to take a seat on the other side of the low table.

“I didn’t believe you would,” says Madara in response. “It’s not exactly something one advertises to the enemy.”

“And yet here we are.” The Senju’s tone is mild, but Madara suspects the man is rather curious about his reasoning, even if he is likely loathe to admit it.

Instead of answering right away, he busies himself with preparing a cup of matcha for his companion. His movements are sure and languid, almost elegant. The rites of a proper tea ceremony are something ingrained in his memory to the point he doesn’t have to think about what he is doing, though he doesn’t indulge in performing them as often as he used to. To be honest, there hasn’t been anyone he wanted to share it with in years and he has no idea why he is doing now.

Once finished, he places the cup on Tobirama’s side of the table, looking at the man with one eyebrow raised. “I was under the impression that we are no longer enemies. Pardon me for being mistaken.”

The younger man huffs, but says nothing. He turns to the table and then moves the fingers of his right hand over its surface, clearly looking for something, using touch instead of his eyes for some reason. Madara observes him, momentarily confused about the gesture and the meaning behind it, before realization strikes him.

His eyes widen in speechless shock as he takes in their shadowed surroundings, mind reeling from the revelation and scarcely believing it true even though it has to be now that he thinks about it for longer than a second in passing. After all, he has seen Tobirama squint at scrolls from across the negotiation table, nose almost touching paper as he tried to read, a few too many times for it to be a mere coincidence

The lanterns hung high above the engawa provide a bare minimum amount of light, mostly for the aesthetic purposes. It makes it just dark enough than anyone with impaired vision would have trouble seeing anything, never mind being able to locate a cast iron teacup placed on a dark wooden table.

And that’s what it is, is it not? Impaired vision. Near blindness. Either or, it doesn’t matter. What matters is it concerns a man who has almost killed Madara’s younger brother several times – a man whom Izuna considers his rival, his equal in strength.

It seems too fantastical to be true still. But it is true, Madara knows, because he can see it plainly now in the tension in Tobirama’s shoulders as he tries his best to be inconspicuous and probably knows very well he is failing miserably at it. Madara can also spot the displeasure at being so exposed in the downturned line of the man’s lips and he can sense trepidation and fear in Tobirama’s cool summer rain chakra. It is neigh indisputable, though not less astounding for it.

Senju Tobirama is apparently near blind. Madara has no idea what to do with this highly personal information, given away through circumstance in a startling show of tentative trust.

Still, he cannot just leave it be either, especially since he knows the Senju will burn himself badly if he just up and touches the cup now. Feeling a bit uncomfortable and yet strangely compelled to act, he slowly reaches over. His touch is gentle, hesitant, as he grasps at Tobirama’s slender pale fingers. The man startles, red eyes wide as he looks up at Madara. Or rather off to the side of Madara’s head.

“Sorry, let me just...” Madara mutters awkwardly as he directs Tobirama’s hand to where the cup is. He lets go as soon as possible, the weird tingle from touching someone else’s bare skin making him flex his fingers in discomfort.

If Tobirama notices, he doesn’t comment on it.

#madatobi #tobimada #uchiha madara #senju tobirama #analeptic #butterfly effect verse #naruto au #chapter snippet #fic wip #chapter wip #lossie writes #lossie92

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exactlyenoughglitter · 3 years

Text

Glastonbury

Pairings: Avallac’h/Ciri/Eredin Warnings: NSFW, elves, reality manipulation + unreliable narrator AO3 Link

The bells are ringing.

‘Galahad?’

Sometime in the night, the rain had stopped. Instead, a thick white fog had rolled out across the marshland. In such fog sounds travel far.

Where am I? the girl wonders. Everywhere. Nowhere.

Ciri treads along the soggy ground, unable to find her way either to the Roman road or the chapel. For there must be a chapel at Glastonbury – a chapel, where they toll the bells at dawn, midday, and sundown.

Why would anyone toll the bells at night?

Somewhere high above a wolf moon hangs above the marshes – glowing eerie red.

‘Galahad?’

She bounds against the echo of her own voice. The witcher-girl leans against a crooked tree, her warm breath melding with the fog. It is damp. The darkness rustles – everywhere, nowhere. There is a strange smell in the air... something putrefying and sickly sweet, or...

... apple blossoms?

She blinks.

Water touches her boots. Mist rises above the lake.

Faintly, Ciri mouths names; they belong to those she has given away to the cold, wet fog – a fog beyond which there is nothing more.

In the eldritch glow of the moon the mist swirls, milky white, like in a witch’s cauldron. She looks around for a boat. There is no boat. No unicorn. There is only the mist and the bells. And she cannot find the way.

Morgana said it depends on who seeks what the mists show. As man sees reality thus it becomes.

Looking down, the girl gasps.

The restless lake water slides underneath her boots like a fine dance floor. Her entire form freezes in incomprehension before a niggling thought occurs to her: people in this world say that fairies can walk on water. Fairies and unicorns. Finally forcing her foot to move, despite a quaint sense of foreboding that overcomes her, Ciri exhales like she has held her breath for an eternity; the dark swirling ground under her feet holds. It holds! With that, however, a tremendous gushing resounds in her ears and she realises that the lake water is pushing further in-land; the marshlands here flood periodically.

‘Ciri?’

It echoes in her mind quietly but clearly – like the ringing of icicles.

Through the mists, across the waters, the witcher-girl runs in the night until the echo of bells becomes more distinct and the putrid-sweet smell of apple blossoms strengthens. Until mussel shells crunch under her feet, until she finds herself on an alley of trees that are closing in on the entrance of the chapel under a bright red moon. Her mind though, is made up.

With the name of the knight on her lips and the images of the witcher and the sorceress in her head, she draws her sword. And bare hazel and alder branches crackle mournfully, giving way under her blade. Their remains rip at her clothes, but she cares not. She notices naught and can say naught, for her lungs are full of the smell of rot and the lake water clings to her footsteps like a smelly, dark ooze.

Yet in the mists, across the threshold to somewhere, Ciri’s voice dies a white death in her throat.

In the cold stone chapel under the Spiral Hill of Ynys Gwydrin, a knight lies in his soft white cloak, his skin snow white and his lips bright red as summer apples. You would think a kiss might wake him, but the ashen-haired girl knows it does not. She knows. She knows too that his lips taste of wine and not the blood of Christ, but it does not matter.

They stay like this before the altar while the bells ring in the fog – somewhere, everywhere, nowhere.

It’s because of that cup! It’s that stupid Grail, this stupid land and these stupid priests, and these stupid people who believe them. There is no justice, no salvation, and no grace given in the universe!

‘For once you understand, little butterfly.’

The soft, lambent hair on the back of her neck can barely rise, touched as if by the breath of a ghoul, before strong fingers crawl across her scalp and her scream pierces the air under stone-vaulted ceilings. He steps unceremoniously across the corpse of the knight, pushing her stooping form in front of him into the bright shaft of moonlight illuminating the altar. If not for the height from where his arm draws her upward, she would kiss her teeth against the stone.

She twists, grinds her teeth against the pain. The putrid aroma of sweet apple blossoms overwhelms her and she looks: at the height of her eyes, a locket of rubies glows on his chest.

A heart – everyone has a heart.

She reaches for a weapon.

Even corpses.

Yet in the looking glass image of enchanted gemstones a different world altogether unravels in a torrent of liquid fire, inside which the sword of the witcher-girl – the blade that does not discriminate – submerges back into the Lake.

‘Did I not tell you,’ the elf says, tightening his grip around her face, around her neck, at which her own arms shoot up, ‘we would meet again.’

Ciri’s heart races in her constricting throat to the fading echo of bells in the night in which small, even teeth smile at her before the altar stone of Ynys Gwydrin – the faeries’ glass castle, the Spiral Hill.

It depends on who seeks what the mists show.

Fey light plays in his green eyes, stirring its poison, making it drip on her lips as he watches from above – with indifferent curiosity – over her struggles. Red, red across his shoulders, red around his neck, red on his... red, red, red... Air rushes back into her lungs, sweeter than ever somehow despite the rot of the hunter in it.

She stumbles. For a moment it goes dark in front of Ciri’s eyes as the whistling in her ears grows to an unbearable level, but oblivion does not take her. That would be too graceful in a graceless universe. Instead, she feels the contours of the warrior’s arm brush hers, dragging slowly around her, back again. She shudders at the strange, new sensation his touch, now benevolently bestowed, instils and tries to move – only to have a solid thigh restrict her. It makes her realise. It makes her flush. Ciri opens her eyes.

Eredin Bréacc Glas is observing her over the edge of an elegant golden kylix.

The Grail...

She watches how the elf dips the chalice against his lips, how the prominent Adam’s apple in his neck jounces once, twice; she watches how the penetrating eyes of the Sparrowhawk close briefly in what looks like genuine bliss. He drinks. She cannot tear her eyes away from him even if she still tastes the faint notes of wine off of Galahad’s lips on hers. She is expecting for whatever is meant to happen to happen.

It never happens.

Her hopes never happen.

Only a grim, mocking smile visits the elf’s glistening lips. ‘Your turn, butterfly.’

‘What did you do to him?’ she growls. ‘Why don’t you die? Die! Why don’t you, damn you!?’

‘Do not talk nonsense. Drink.’

He pushes the kylix under her chin and some of its content sloshes onto her breast. Suddenly, Ciri notices herself: she is in an elaborate deep cut dress of dark red – finer even than what she had worn in the world of the elves – adorned with jewels. Royal is too soft a word for it. With horror she realises that she does not remember how she got to be this way.

‘Drink,’ he repeats.

And Ciri almost screams for the second time: refusing to confront the predatory gaze in front of her she witnesses instead how a faint smile spreads on Galahad’s blue lips. The knight’s lifeless eyes, previously full of inexplicable peace, stay glued on the ashen-haired girl while the blackening, algal waters of the lake begin to swallow him. With bubbling, as in a witch’s cauldron, the lake draws the Grail knight into its fathomless embrace.

‘Is our hospitality too good for you?’ the elf asks. She almost does not hear. She is trying to get away from the water.

Eredin lifts his hand, knowing she will not do anything to rebuke him, and stills her like one would a frightened animal. She almost does not notice. Almost. He traces a meandering line from Ciri’s jawline to her breastbone, to sternum, to the exposed curve of the girl’s chest where he lets his fingers toy with the lace trimming. Slowly, Ciri returns to the elf.

‘What more could you possibly want?’

With a rough movement the elf plunges his hand underneath the expensive fabric, his large palm spreading over the rounded out curve of the girl’s breast. She wonders if he likes it better this way. She wonders why she asks herself something like this. She will not escape his watchful gaze as he pursues the heavy intake of breath, the way her eyes fill with panic, desire, shame. The way she shifts away from her nightmare onto the altar stone – onto the ancient sacrificial stone of the Druids – unable to really do more than part her knees before his large form and allow him everything anyway.

Eredin knows. And she knows that he knows.

Ciri shuts her eyes and thinks, desperately, of a place – but all places are as one place and only place. Here is her place, the only place, and elsewhere there is nothing but fog, nothing but water which washes up against her bare calves, cold as the phantasmal hunter’s scornful laughter against the side of her inflamed neck. Cold as the frost left in the wake of the Sparrowhawk’s lips closing over the girl’s heated pulse, claiming the rapid thrills of her heart.

She moans. Cool metal touches her lips. She accepts.

She drinks and knows at once it is blood and not wine that coats her tongue, before tasting the precious nectar again when Eredin claims her mouth, washing away all false sacraments of humanity.

‘You belong to us.’

It echoes inside her skull like the ringing of icicles.

‘Turn around,’ the elf orders, placing the chalice in-between her shaking hands. ‘He wants to watch your face.’

Freezing stone greets her belly where his hand pushes down on the small of her back, leaning her small form over under the strange moonlight that shines from nowhere. Her mind fixates on his words and she looks curiously. By a fireplace that opens in-between the statues of two mother-of-pearl unicorns Ciri thinks she sees the Alder King lounging in a tall chair, legs spread wide apart. The darkness is rustling around itself, making it difficult to recognise things for what they are, but the girl remembers.

Eredin dips his fingers in the kylix in front of her nose. Some of it lands on her brow.

Ciri feels what these fingers do: how one firm hand traces up and down the back of her thighs, spreading her open until the fabric of the royal dress must tear, while the other dives in-between her legs; how a pair of demanding lips suck onto the side of her neck as her small frame is being subjected to a series of trembling pulsations at the merciless pace of his fingers over her clit; how she sounds like – how wet! – absolutely laving at the presence of the predator, at the feel of his solid weight against her rear.

‘What a prized prey you are, Zireael,’ he breathes.

Her eyes open and close against her will. She feels her lithe form being pried open for sensations, but her mind does not entirely comprehend everything. Firelight soaks the light hair of the Old King with its glow and in a daze she watches how a shadowy shape of a giant python winds its way around his broad shoulders, lazing about his neck in a slow, perpetual movement. The elf looks entirely undisturbed, perhaps even unaware. Something in her clamours to warn Auberon, to speak out in time – this time – against the danger in order to avert the course of such Fate as has already run its course.

Has it... run its course?

The girl hears cloth and leather rustling behind her. The red in the chalice, in the fires, in her – it joins in filling up her pupils with the desire pushing upon her from the mists. In a short moment her stomach floods with writhing warmth at the weight of Eredin’s cock in-between her buttocks. She doesn’t want to think, she wants... she wants. And bucks against one of his powerful thighs leaning on the stone beside her hip as he grinds himself lazily against her. The slap, when it comes, tears a genuine cry from her throat. It firms her up. Again! It disperses all traitorous thoughts in her head. Except one: she discovers she wishes to be embraced as suffocatingly as the elf who wishes to look at Ciri’s face as she is taken by his rival.

He can hear me, Ciri thinks. He can hear me whining like a bitch in heat for somebody young and strong, somebody who would steal away all from him – his throne, his power, that child...

The mild chuckle that reaches her ears pours over the girl like cold water over a stray kitten – unsurprising, and yet absolutely petrifying. The fair-haired elf by the fireplace cocks his head slightly to the side; it is not the Old King who wants to look at her so. Why how could it be? The flame-kissed aquamarines glow rather, like icicles.

Ciri is really quite comically shocked.

A furious blush dyes her cheeks. Quickly averting her eyes, the girl’s breath nevertheless hitches in her throat, because unexpectedly she finds herself staring into an abyss opening up below in the depths of swirling black water. It is everywhere: bare, pathless, infinite. Starless. Shrouded in the mists. It is impossible to find one’s way in such a place.

Where am I?

She makes out a slow procession of shadows, curving like old bones as they tread their way toward eternity in the bowels of the lake. There are people she knows there; people she has killed and people she has loved.

‘You are where you belong, Loc’hlaith.’

Avallac’h’s voice rings familiar this time, and somewhere – perhaps only deep within this mirror realm – a seagull’s shriek carries through the thick white mists. Is it welcoming her? Or is the borrowed time leased with its life simply running out?

It is the elf from her nightmares who yanks Ciri out of the sorcerous whirlpool of illusions, though. By a leather noose, formed, it seems, of Eredin’s own belt. Simultaneously, the girl feels him withdraw his fingers from in-between her buttocks.

Like a mare. He will take me like a disobedient mare.

‘Drink,’ he says shortly. ‘Trust me when I say it’s for your own good, little butterfly.’

‘Go on,’ she hears in her head. ‘You know what the right thing to do is, don’t you, Zireael? I may wonder why others must die for your selfishness, but in the end, the choice is always yours.’

As she lifts the sacred chalice to her lips for the second time under the eyes of elves, Ciri almost does not feel how the dark-haired one sinks forward and inside her. Almost. She is shielded, she later realises, by the bright aquamarines burning into hers, feeling like a blissful caress against their dark brother’s bruising attentions.

Red trickles down from the side of her mouth at the first languid thrust. Her back arches, but Eredin keeps it incurved. Neither are his fluent fingers leaving her unattended, slipping ever so often inside her sopping entrance, but it is altogether more difficult this way around. And she cannot look away from the other one – from the fair one she had offered herself willingly to. As he pushes forward for the second time Ciri senses a strange spell snap around her and squirms, finally allowed to fall entirely back inside her body, into the hungering depravity of sensation.

‘Such funny thoughts guide you, Swallow,’ Crevan says quietly.

He has stood up, approaches, and Ciri shudders, feeling the commander move deeper inside of her and covering her small form entirely with his for a moment.

‘Behave,’ he whispers, drawing his lips along her ear. ‘And we shall reward you.’

As he pulls away and focuses on his own pleasure, Ciri faintly wishes to clench her eyes at the discomfort but can only groan softly. The surface underneath her is cool and smooth. The air smells differently too – of formalin. Through a haze of pleasure she glances up and sees Avallac’h standing over them, looking at her quite calmly.

‘Where am I?’

‘Does it really make a difference?’ the dark-haired elf threads his free hand softly through her hair. ‘Crevan designs such things on the fly. Or, “as Fate chooses”.’

Though sarcastic, for a moment he sounds almost like he could be pitying her. Almost. But instead of a heart in his chest, the King of the Wild Hunt carries a locket of precious stones.

She swallows. ‘It makes a difference to me.’

The girl’s head feels increasingly like full of cotton wool – like something or someone is calling to her from beyond the haze – and her eyes dart around wildly as she supports herself on her elbows. What had looked like a small stone chapel shrouded in the mists on an island of priests, in a world of the Knights of the Round Table, seems so no longer.

‘Has anything ever been as it first appeared?’

Crevan crouches before her. At first, he lifts his hand, curling his long fingers as if to stroke the girl’s cheek, but decides against it in the end and reaches for the golden chalice instead.

‘Do you like my magic, luned?’ he asks.

Ciri recoils: snakes crawl off the kylix and around Crevan’s forearms where they wind in an infinite green spiral, eating themselves. Aen Saevherne smiles gently, smelling what’s inside the chalice, and pours it away. For some reason his move makes her irrationally worried. As if it was all an illusion and a trick. As if Galahad had really died for nothing.

She also realises that the Sage is reading her like an open book.

‘Is this how you must be handled?’ Avallac’h looks at her from close up. ‘Like he thinks.’ He nods toward the other elf and Ciri hears a quiet chuckle among sounds of the flesh she is too ashamed to admit make her heady with want, even as her swallow heart rips in her throat with fear. ‘With a leash and a stick and a carrot?’

Ciri wonders how Avallac’h can stand this – to so calmly look upon her, who bears the eyes of his Lara, while she is like this.

Go ahead, look! Look and may you choke on it! Both of you.

A myriad of emotions seems to flash behind the sorcerer’s bright, pale eyes. He puts his palm under her chin, drags his thumb slowly across her lower lip. Then he stands up.

‘I wish I had met your ancestor who put this burden on you,’ he says, easing aside the robe under his belt. ‘In fact, I wish I had met him much like this.’

Ciri feels the touch of his hard flesh against her cheek. She looks up at him. She doesn’t... but the elf caresses her head insistently, looking at her reassuringly, and soon Ciri understands why people subject themselves to this. He feeds her his cock slowly and suddenly she feels so very small. And embraced on all sides – suffocatingly.

Avallac’h’s head falls back.

‘Beautiful.’

It passes in a flurry from then on.

He fucks into her mouth in a manner that does not allow her – not once – to interrupt the nestling of the weight of his flesh in her throat. What he has done to make it possible she does not know, but it does not hurt as much as she expects. He talks to her, too. She groans around him repeatedly, enjoying the caresses of his hands in her hair and along her bulging neck, and is tempted to simply close her eyes and yield entirely to the tight fullness, the pleasure in her belly. But he wants her to keep her eyes on him and the straining belt around her neck guarantees it in its own way. Thus, she behaves, and while taking both of them at once discovers that there is something comfortable in having something put in your mouth; right before Crevan’s hands tighten in her ashen hair and he leaves copious amounts of creamy cum under her tongue, on her lips, dribbling down her chin – he wipes it with his cock – and streaking against her rosy cheeks.

Avallac’h kisses her before she has swallowed, and she swallows. Drinking in him, as she has drank from the cup of god. And he laughs softly in-between rapid breaths as she writhes through her own orgasm, deaf and blind to the world.

‘Do you have anything at all in this laboratory, Crevan,’ she hears a familiar voice uttering once the buzzing in her head has subsided, ‘which does not scour the living daylights out of you, nor turn you into a mindless sycophant? To drink, I mean.’

‘Of course,’ the Sage replies lightly. ‘Many things. Who would I be if I did not know how to obtain and create things of which even you might not have heard of?’

The girl does not understand how Eredin responds, but she hears the Sage of the Alder Elves snort – quite good-naturedly.

Exactly so Ciri’s eyes flicker open, the press of the metal table against her cheek considerably warmer than usual from the presence of her own person on it. Avallac’h is beside her, cleaning his hands inside a small purple cloth. Noticing her staring, he offers Ciri a clean one for her own use, but the girl can do nothing but stare.

A crimson mage light hangs high above in the darkness, glowing with strange fey light as if it was the hour of wolf’s moon. Small milky-white mist is rolling out of several cucurbits at the edge of her line of sight. She smells formalin and apple blossoms. Fresh, sweet blossoms.

‘There is vodka in the disinfectants cabinet,’ the sorcerer says offhandedly to his collaborator, his attention entirely preoccupied by the girl whose emerald eyes have never looked quite as big and beautiful as in that very moment.

Perhaps it is the misty wetness of them that so makes them resemble infinitely deep and green lakes upon which white fog spreads like on top of a witch’s cauldron.

‘My darling girl,’ the elf coos fondly, taking her in his arms without much effort and seating them both where it feels more comfortable. ‘Did we frighten you?’

For a time that drags on into the infinite Ciri wonders if she has forgotten how to speak.

‘You are blushing,’ Crevan notes with a smile, caressing her face, her cheeks and scar, unbothered by the ugliness. Touching slightly upon her swollen lips. ‘That’s very good. Very healthy.’

Silently, Eredin appears by their side, swooping out of the darkness with a sought-after bottle in one hand and two glasses in another, one of them filled.

‘A drink for the Lady,’ he says with a small bow to Ciri.

Avallac’h accepts the glass for the girl, since Ciri sits on his lap as if frozen like a small marble doll in the most glorious ruined red dress. The commander shrugs and pours himself one, downs it, and flops down on a crimson couch.

‘Is this –’ she begins, too silently even for herself to hear. ‘Is this all about power for you?’

‘Of course it is about power, Zireael. Everything is. Even love.’ The elven sorcerer looks at her thoughtfully. ‘Though humans often like to mistake one for the other – and more often, I think, power for love – what you witnessed here, on your own skin, were different kinds of power and how power can be wielded. I am sure if you think about it a little longer you will also come up with some answers for the most important question of all – why is power wielded as it is? I will gladly answer all of your questions in this regard once you do so.’

‘You may think you can be more than you are because of your exceptional ancestry,’ Eredin’s voice cuts in from the couch. ‘But you are what you are, my butterfly. Do not ever mistake yourself as more to any of us.’

She doesn’t see Crevan’s almost imperceptible annoyance. Her thoughts flood with the Sparrowhawk’s rasping voice by her ear moments before he had spilled himself across her back. It is too real to be a dream. It is too close to skin. Too present... as if she is back in those moments again and again...

‘A dh’oine whore, whose little life cannot sustain much more than the one thing you know so little how to care for. Yet you crave it all the same, like a natural. You want life put inside of you. You want the Young King not the Old King. Fortunate little butterfly – you will never have to live long with the after-effects of all these beautifully intense first experiences.’

Avallac’h is scrutinizing her closely.

Her fingers are clutching painfully at the front of his robes, she realises. It seems she has nestled closer to him unconsciously in the middle of her thoughts. She can tell the elf likes it, though his expression betrays little.

‘Do you know what will happen now, Ciri?’ Crevan asks her quietly.

She looks into his clear aquamarines.

‘Now we will make a child with you,’ he whispers against her lips. ‘A beautiful fairy child who will make you and me very happy.’

He begins to lift her but she puts her hands on his chest, clinging to that shred of long-forgotten love that she has seen in his eyes – something that has twisted and snapped too many times to be quite right again.

‘But I am not –’

‘I know you are not,’ he cuts her off. ‘That is alright. My blood is very good too, you see. And those genes in you which truly matter will be more than enough.’

‘Please. Please, Avallac'h!'

‘Please?’ he looks at her kindly, at her hands clutching his bigger one. ‘What is it, Ciri? This is good, very-very good. It is good you came here to us of your own free will. I will be patient with you; gentle. Kiss you... here? Or do you wish me to put you on that table, over there,’ he nods with his head into the darkness from whence they came. ‘I don’t want to do that, luned. It will hurt us both very much this way and you and I have been hurt enough, don’t you think?’

He strokes her hands.

‘Can we not wait? Do we have to – right now...’

‘Right now is a very good time.’

‘Right here, with him –’

‘Who?’

She blinks and looks around. There is no one else.

Where am I? Everywhere. Nowhere.

The fair elf lord kisses her hand, his laughter ringing like icicles or tiny bells. A locket of rubies glows on his chest.

A heart. Everyone has a heart.

‘Oh, Ciri, you are so very adorable,’ his hands lift her easily as he positions himself at her entrance. ‘You’ll soon forget all about him. Now, relax.’

Ciri awakes.

Mist swims before her eyes.

Somewhere, in the mists, the bells of Glastonbury are ringing.

#civadin #cirillach #ciredin #ciri #avallac'h #eredin #cirilla fiona elen riannon #crevan espane aep caomhan macha #eredin breacc glas #aen elle #the witcher #wiedzmin #the witcher fanfiction #the witcher 3 #arthuriana #sorry not sorry

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masterjedilenawrites · 3 years

Text

Blueberries and Cowboys: Chapter 2

A choose-your-own-adventure style fic. First, 2 platonic chapters for set-up/build-up. And then, the story will split into 2 paths depending on your romantic pairing preference: You and Thrawn, or You and Eli.

Chapter Masterlist

Chapter 2: The Plan

Pairing: None...yet...

Chapter Warnings: Mentions of bullying

Length: 2k

AO3 Link (In case you like it better over there, it’s okay, no judgement)

The rest of the week saw the three of you using every bit of free time outside your classes and studies to gather information for Thrawn to build a solid plan.

Eli tailed his pesky classmate Arden everywhere, even skipping a class one day to break into his dorm, trying to learn anything about the guy that could be useful to get him involved in the plot. Thrawn analyzed the simulation software and protocols that would be used to administer the tests, mapping out every possible way Commander Burdick could hijack it. And you were the one spying on the Burdick himself. Since the commander didn't seem too interested in your grades, you were able to shadow him without suspicion, and had been able to slip a bug into his offices to eavesdrop on any potential conversations about his plans for sabotage.

Your classmates and the staff were none the wiser. That was the advantage of being social outcasts. Half of them avoided you all like the plague, and the other half already thought you were weird people doing weird things. So it wasn't long before you'd all gotten enough intel to work with.

It was late in the evening at the end of the week. You found yourself in Thrawn and Eli's shared dorm, which looked identical to your own in the opposite wing, because the Empire couldn't bother with things like individuality or comfort. Eli sat on the edge of his top bunk, his legs swinging casually, and his coat unbuttoned to reveal a wrinkled undershirt you knew he hadn't bothered to wash all week. Thrawn paced about in the middle of the room, his long strides only allowing him about four good steps before he had to turn around. He still had his uniform on, boots and badges and all.

You leaned against the railing of the bed, watching Thrawn as he went back and forth. Sometimes he sat still when he was scheming, with his fingers steepled and his gaze seemingly reaching into some unknown dimension beyond your comprehension. That usually happened when he was running through variables that didn't concern you, at least from his perspective. You and Eli had accepted long ago there would always be parts of his plans he would never share with you. He was kind of a control freak like that.

But tonight, he seemed to be more welcoming of collaboration, hence his steady rhythm of pacing in front of you.

"Only one variable remains, as I see it," he was saying. "We understand how the commander will manipulate the system to cause a redundancy in the simulation, thus rendering the test impossible to finish successfully."

You and Eli shared a glance; the only person who truly understood how that was going to happen was Thrawn. He'd tried explaining numerous times but when it came to codes and tech, the two of you weren't able to fully keep up.

"We also know through your investigating," Thrawn motioned to you with what you thought was an impressed look, causing you to feel a little pride, "that the commander plans to only sabotage my test, believing it will be too suspicious if Eli also fails. He will also manipulate his false code to originate from the computer of his former lover Eva Carroway, who currently works in HR. So if an investigation does ensue, it will be traced to her and not him."

You and Eli chuckled under your breaths. It had been a little amusing when you'd discovered Commander Burdick was using this plan to not only undermine Thrawn, but also get revenge on his ex-girlfriend. But even more hilarious was how awkward Thrawn treated the subject. He had been quite perplexed to learn people could be so vindictive after a break-up. And any time he explained that detail of the plan, like he was doing now, he hesitated over his word choice. You couldn't tell if he only pretended to be confused about romantic relations, or if that was truly an area he found himself lost in.

If Thrawn noticed your snickering, he didn't respond to it, only continued to recap the plan. "We have also determined how we will expose the altered code naturally, so it does not cast suspicion on us... What was the word you used?"

"Backfire," said Eli.

"Yes. It would not due to have anyone suspect that we altered the test ourselves, or to have our concerns disregarded altogether. Thus, arranging for the maintenance crew to get a mild case of food poisoning so their performance checks are postponed to occur right before the tests will take care of that variable. At the least, they will fix the altered code and I will take the test as normal. At the most, they will report it and the commander faces expulsion."

"So..." said Eli through a yawn as he stretched. "What's left to work out, then?"

Now it was time for you and Thrawn to share a look.

"Were you not interested in involving your classmate, Arden Fey?" asked Thrawn in his soft, contemplative voice.

Eli shrugged. "Yeah. But Burdick's already got his scapegoat, his ex. So it'll be easier to keep him out of it. Whatever."

You could tell he was trying to be nonchalant. But just this morning, he had spent the entire walk between classes ranting about some new insults Arden had come up with, and how badly he wanted to show the guy up once and for all. You knew your friend wasn't feeling "whatever" about it.

"It's not a matter of ease or difficulty," Thrawn stated plainly. He had stopped pacing and was standing with hands behind his back, highlighting the broadness of his shoulders and the height of his stance. His presence seemed to fill up the whole room, and not for the first time, you were glad to be his friend and not his enemy.

"Yeah," you added in encouragement. "We just have to get creative. Find a way to make Arden a more appealing scapegoat than Burdick's ex. In fact...."

You trailed off as an idea occurred to you. You darted out of the room, surely leaving your two friends perplexed, but you would only be a second. You sprinted down the corridor toward the lifts, where a bulletin hung against the wall with fliers and pamphlets. One notice was a bit larger than the others, a promotion of an upcoming gala event to celebrate the Academy's anniversary. You ripped it off and went racing back to the boys' dorm room.

Eli had come down from the bunk and held a concerned look, probably prepared to follow you if you hadn't returned so quickly. Thrawn was still standing composed, but there was a curiosity in his eyes that made you smile.

You held up the poster in front of your chest. "What do you think the likelihood is of us playing successful matchmakers this week?"

Thrawn understood your idea almost immediately, looking down on you with a pleased smirk. It made you flush a little, to know the Chiss was impressed. You rarely had a chance to contribute good ideas when his mind worked so much faster than yours.

Eli caught on next, and he started to grin, the happiest you'd seen him in a while. His smile was infectious and you grinned back. Happy looked good on him.

"We know Eva's not shy with younger guys," you explained. "Before Burdick, she was fooling around with some intern in the med bay."

"And Arden's vain enough," added Eli. "If he thinks anyone's interested, he'll go for 'em."

"So we get him to ask her to the gala as his date...." you said.

"Burdick sees the two of them together...." said Eli.

"And realizes he can get back at his lover in another way, by pinning the sabotage on another student...." joined Thrawn.

The three of you stood together, proud and satisfied that yet another plan had finally worked out. It was almost worth the stressful studying and petty bullying and all the other unpleasant things you had to endure at this god-forsaken school, just to have fun moments like this with trusted friends.

"We should attend this gala as well," Thrawn said eventually, holding out a hand for the poster. He inspected it thoughtfully. "It is only a few days before the tests, so I hadn't planned to pay it any mind. But now...."

"Yeah, we should make sure Burdick's as jealous as we want 'im," nodded Eli.

You were secretly pleased. The plan was already a win-win, but now you would be able to go to the event yourself, too. You hadn't mentioned your desire to go to either of them before, figuring they weren't interested and not wanting to sound silly if you suggested it. But you did love dancing, and it was so very rare you got a chance to wear something other than your Imperial uniform.

"It's a dance," you noted, in case they couldn't tell by the details on the poster. "We'll need to go in pairs."

"I suppose it would make the most sense for you and Eli to go together," said Thrawn quietly.

You looked between the two, realizing both of them were flushed slightly. Eli's cheeks were dotted with pink, standing out amongst his dark brown features, while Thrawn had more of a purple tint to his face now, a color you'd never seen there before. You could feel yourself growing warm and uncomfortable as well. It was only a dance... only a way for you to enact a much more important plan... but it was the first time your trio had had to engage in anything other than platonic friendship. The balance of your group seemed to be shifting ever so slightly in this moment, and you had no way of knowing if it was for good or ill.

You cleared your throat, pushing away any feelings that might have been brewing in your chest, and instead calling focus back to the mission at hand.

"Actually, I think I'd better go with Thrawn. Whoever doesn't go with me would have to find their own date, and no offense Thrawn, but I think Eli has the better chance of asking someone else."

You hoped they hadn't noticed how hollow your voice sounded, how hard you were trying to keep yourself emotionless.

Eli was pinker than ever. "Uh, I highly doubt that..."

"You're not completely hated around here, you know," you said quickly. "Definitely not with the girls. You're not bad looking, you can be charming if you try, and you're... you know, human." You glanced at Thrawn and added again quietly, "No offense."

Thrawn shook his head. His color and demeanor had already slipped back into his usual neutral self. "No, I agree. Those are the dynamics of our peers and we must work with it. I will take you to the gala, Eli will find his own date, and all three of us will push Arden and Eva together as well. It's a good plan."

You all nodded in agreement. But there was a knot in your stomach, a nervousness you didn't quite understand. You cared very much for both Thrawn and Eli. They were your best friends, your only friends. As a group, you were bonded by your ostracism, protecting and supporting each other on your journey out of this hell-hole.

And separately, you had something special with each, too. You and Eli came from similar backgrounds, and had the same need to disconnect from your surroundings and just have a bit of fun every once in a while. The two of you had spent many late nights together, either hopping between bars, exploring the city, making each other laugh uncontrollably, or quietly sharing the honest thoughts you both buried far too deeply inside. Some nights you'd done all of the above, and returned to your dorm feeling both exhausted and renewed.

But Eli didn't always appreciate the finer things in life, and that's where you connected with Thrawn. He wasn't necessarily an optimist, but he had this way of noticing the beauty that existed everywhere around you, even in the most simple or mundane of moments. Everything had the potential to be interesting. His calm but strong presence had kept you grounded and sane throughout your studies here so far. Sometimes you would talk, other times you would simply be in the same space. And either way, you felt better about life.

You didn't exactly want your relationship with them to change. But you couldn't help but feel this gala would do just that....

Next Chapter: The Preparation >

Blueberry Path | Thrawn x reader

Cowboy Path | Eli x reader

#star wars #thrawn #eli vanto #thrawn x reader #eli vanto x reader #choose your own adventure #friendship #romance #friends to lovers #mitth'raw'nuruodo

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silentexplorer18 · 4 years

Text

Lies: A Feitan Portor Short

Summary: In a cruel twist of fate, the world prevents you from lying to your soulmate. Each question acts as a truth serum, pulling the answers from your lips. Unfortunately for two secretive individuals, the inability to lie is more jarring than finding a soulmate.

Pairing: Feitan Portor x Female Reader

Warnings: Insults, allusions to fighting and injury.

Word Count: 1,000+

Note: Hello fellow Feitan fans! :) This is the first of (hopefully) many Feitan fics to come. I’m still on the Chimera Ant Arc at present, but I couldn’t resist trying to write something for the mysterious Fei.

Prompt: This fic was inspired by the prompt “You cannot lie to your soulmate,” by @sentence-prompts.

Read on AO3 ▪ Masterlist

It had been a fool's job. You knew that as soon as you'd taken it. But there was nothing else you could do. At the end of the day, you needed money. And being a bodyguard for a wealthy, stubborn girl was the price you had to pay to live another day.

Although you were involved with the team, Squala had recommended you take to patrolling due to your unusual Nen abilities. More often than not, it led you to danger rather than repulsed you from it. Every hour, Melody or Squala would call for information on your location, reminding you of your job to protect Neon. With that information, they would move accordingly, attempting to avoid your immediate vicinity for fear you were close to someone or something unsavory.

Thankfully, the unconscious leash that led you to trouble had always existed. Rather than fight it, you'd trained to work alongside it. You'd grown strong, clever, light on your feet, but that wasn't always enough.

You should've turned around that day, walked to the other end of town. Instead, you followed your heart toward an old part of town, feeling the eyes on you well before you could see them.

In your defense, you put up a valiant fight. You zipped through the streets, excelling in hand-to-hand combat against a foe cloaked in darkness, almost impossible to see. It had been a misstep, an over-rotation, that led to your demise. Then he was smirking down at you, the urge to torture already tingling in his fingertips. But he didn't kill you.

Not at first.

The building was dusty and the chains were heavy, but that didn't matter much. There was no way to escape, especially not with the man standing before you, staring you down with a chilling gaze. This would be the end of your life, you were sure of it. But you'd fight to keep your secrets to the very end.

The worst part was the audience, though you didn't imagine that would stay the worst part for long.

"Who you work for?" the man asked.

You shook your head 'no,' before, "The Nostrade Family," fell from your lips. It was the truth. Your eyes widened. You'd told him the truth.

He noticed the panic in your eyes. Figured. Dying people often sold out their closest friends for another few minutes of air. You were no different. He'd make sure you remembered your decision accordingly.

However, before he could, you spoke. "What's your name?"

"We're wasting time," Nobunaga grumbled.

"Feitan." His eyes widened, expression nearly matching your own.

Shalnark sighed, glancing down at his phone. "Nobunaga's right. We should finish and find Uvo."

"When’s your birthday?" you whispered to Feitan, eyes boring into him in a desperate challenge.

"I not know." The words twisted from his tongue before he could stop them.

"Are you going to kill me?"

He stared at you with squinted eyes, as though trying to decide, trying to figure out exactly what he wanted to say. He cursed, clenching his fists at his sides before he spoke with resignation. He’d realized who you were to him, that was enough. "You go home."

Nobunaga whirled around at that. "What the hell did you just say?"

"What's going on?" Shizuku asked, looking up from her book in confusion.

"Feitan, now isn't the time to mess around." Shalnark watched in confusion as Feitan glared at you, feeling as though he was missing something important.

You clued them in, eyes filled with surprise and worry, focused solely on Feitan's eyes above his dark bandanna. "Lie to me."

"Not able."

You bit your lip, voice nearly trembling. "Is this real?"

Across the room, the boy's eyes lit up in understanding. "It's rare, but can happen," Shalnark explained. "Usually people don't find their soulmates. At least, not without some help from Soulmate Hunters. Finding them on the street like this is almost impossible."

"Feitan has a soulmate?" Shizuku's surprised gaze met Shalnark's confused one. "I guess I always figured he couldn't care enough to have one."

"Supposedly everyone has one."

"I have soul, Shizuku."

"Barely," Nobunaga grumbled.

She shrugged. "I suppose that means you would have a soulmate, then. It just seems so unlike you."

Shalnark stared at you, glancing at your face, your worried expression, before turning back to Feitan. "What should we do now?"

"Having a soulmate is a liability," Phinks interrupted, jumping down from the ledge to join the conversation.

Machi rolled her eyes. "What, so you just want him to kill her? He doesn't even know her name yet."

Phinks turned to her. "Which is why now's the best time to do it. I mean, it's Feitan. It's not like he won't get on without her."

“He has a point,” Nobunaga agreed.

The group began to debate in earnest, a chill running through your chest.

Feitan stepped closer to you, gaze less harsh than you anticipated. "You have name?"

You nodded, stating it quietly in fear of disturbing the others.

"Pretty." He nodded to himself, swiftly slicing the ropes at your wrists. He caught you with a hand before you could fall forward completely. "You leave now. Go home."

"What about…" you trailed off, glancing toward the Troupe members now staring at you. Nobunaga's hand was resting on his sword. Machi's hands stayed planted on her hips. Neither looked pleased.

"She leave." He stated, as though it were that easy.

Phinks shook his head, glaring at you as though you’d brainwashed his companion.

"No. She could tell anyone about this place," Nobunaga argued.

Shalnark reached into his pocket. "No fighting. We'll flip a coin."

"Tails."

"Head."

It was heads. You were free. It was decided.

You looked at him uneasily. You'd never imagined finding your soulmate, let alone like this. But now he was here, and you didn't know what you wanted. He was a thief, a criminal, a coldhearted person. But he was your soulmate; that had to mean something.

"Will I see you again?" you asked, trying to ignore the glares from those around you.

He shook his head, once, conclusive. "You live. That poetic enough."

That was that, then. He wasn't yours and you weren't his. It was all a matter of business, with a bit of humanity sprinkled in. You'd never realize how rare that was for him, how rarely he found something beautiful enough to spare. But he’d found it in you.

"I'm sure you can find me again if you need me, Feitan." You didn't look back, couldn't stand the thought of looking back on an empty heart, on your soulmate’s uncaring gaze.

"Yes."

And he would find you again. Because when a thief wants something, he takes it. Love being no exception.

Masterlist

A/N: Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! :)

#feitan #feitan x reader #feitan portor #feitan portor x reader #hxh feitan #hunter x hunter #hxh #phantom troupe #silent writes

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enkelimagnus · 3 years

Text

A Castle in the Forest

Percy x Vex’ahlia, Chapter 9, 3123 words,

A Modern AU, in which Vex is a park ranger taking over the Alabaster Sierras post, and finds much more than she bargained for

Read on AO3

---------------

“Well, hello, there. Who are you?”

The question is asked in two voices, one humanoid enough and the other dark and deep and fiendish. It resounds around her as if the room is much bigger than it actually is.

Vex can’t breathe. She’s made the biggest mistake of her life, and she’s going to die. This is the fiend, it has to be. The barbed devil from before seems ridiculously small and weak. It took seconds to bring it down, even if it was three against one. This one though? There’s no way Vex is coming out of here alive, if they start to fight.

Their arms are to their side, one of their hands resting on something on a belt around their hips. Sword hilt? She can’t think about what else it could be.

The door behind her is open, so there is somewhere for her to go. She could try to book it and run but she doubts she’ll be able to make it back out, unless there’s some sort of magical field keeping the fiend inside. She might make it to the tunnel.

Vex tries to make out what the creature’s shoes are, hoping desperately that they would make it hard for them to run after her but the smoke billowing on the ground makes it hard to see. The edges of the smoke are starting to reach Vex’s feet, too. She doesn’t want to find out what will happen if they start wrapping around her legs. She takes a step back.

“You came into my home, the least you could do is tell me your name,” they continue, taking a step forward, keeping the distance between them equal.

The unilateral blinking is unnerving. Vex has never seen something like this. She doesn’t remember learning about it in any class she’s taken either. It’s deeply wrong, but she can’t tell what’s happening, or what it is.

She doesn’t want to give them her name. Names have power, she knows that. She’s learned that. Staying silent isn’t a great option either.

“Wade,” she blurts out. She has no idea where it comes from, but it seems to work. Maybe she has a little bit of luck. Hopefully, she hasn’t burned it all on lying about her name.

“Wade…” The creature shifts a little, hand tilting to the other side, as they repeat the name she’s given them. “What brings you to me, today? You look… emotional.”

They would be emotional if they were in front of something like this fiend. A bit of rage rises inside of her. How dare they call her emotional? But she swallows it down. It’s not the fucking time. She can’t let her emotions ruin this for her too.

The clothing on them is beautiful, though old. It has seen wear without care for a while. The blue color is faded and the gold thread is scuffed, dulled. They look like a strange, faded version of a noble.

If they're noble, and standing in the basement dungeon of Castle Whitestone, there’s not a hundred different options on who they could be.

“Are you a De Rolo?” She asks bluntly.

A ripple of emotions erupts on the right side of the creature’s face, the side where the eye is blue. They seem relieved at first, then sad. Then worried. It's a rollercoaster on one side of the face. Once again, it feels wrong to Vex.

It does give her incentive to keep talking though.

“You have the clothing of a noble, but it’s old. And there haven’t been nobles in Whitestone for years,” she points out. “You have to be one of them.”

She wishes she’d researched them more, right now. If she knew their names, she could try to guess which one they were, she could try to appeal to their past to an extent. But she doesn’t know. All she knows is that this thing might be a de Rolo. Were they a fiend all along? Had they snapped and killed the entire family in one go after posing as one of them for so long?

Long enough to look like a twenty-year-old human. Vex is almost impressed. That sure was a long con. She wouldn’t have been able to handle pretending to be someone else for decades. She’d tried that for a couple of years as a teenager and it hadn’t worked.

“Are you from Whitestone, Wade?” De Rolo starts again. They don’t answer anything to Vex’s comments, but she’s seen enough. They shift and lean forward, taking a deep, loud inhale. “You don’t smell like the city. Like the dust and rot of this godsforsaken ugly little town. You…” They inhale again deeply. “You smell like woods. Like wild magic. Like Fey… it’s faded but it’s there, Wade. Why do you smell like Fey, when you’re obviously not one?”

Vex feels nauseous suddenly. She smells like fey. It has to be Saundor’s influence, still stuck in her, on her. His magic, his energy, his essence, wrapped around her and smothering hers still. It’s been seven fucking months. How long until she’s free? How many baths until she stops smelling like him?

The creature smirks. “See? It’s fun when someone reminds you of a painful past, isn’t it, little othlir?”

Vex takes another step back. She tries to reassure herself that they don’t know her, the term othlir is commonly used enough by full-blooded elves that it would make sense she’d been referred to by it once. It doesn’t have to mean they know her.

She raises her hands. “I don’t want to fight you,” she says. Her voice manages to be unwavering. “I will not tell anyone you’re here. I just want to leave.”

She wants to run home to Vax and never leave. She wants to stay alive. She wants to run from those words and the knowledge this thing seems to have. She wants to go and scrub Saundor off her once again. At least she doesn’t have to be careful of her burns anymore. They’ve healed months ago.

The creature’s mouth shifts as they smirk at her. It’s distorted and, once again, wrong. Vex’s hair rises on the back of her neck. They look predatory. And she’s the prey. She takes another step back. The creature follows, not letting her put distance between them.

She’s reaching for her bow when something changes. The black eye flickers, the darkness filling it seems to be shoved away and it turns to the same blue the other one is. The creature hisses loudly, bending on themselves. Something’s happening to them.

“RUN!” The voice is broken and desperate, but lacking the darker, deeper fiendish tone from before. It’s not both voices anymore, just one. And they seem to want her to leave.

Blue eyes meet hers as the body contorts, the smoke wrapping around it almost angrily. A struggle is happening. Vex feels so deeply out of her depths. She watches as their eyes flicker between blue with white sclera and fully black, the hissing resounding in Vex’s ears. They look in pain.

“Please,” they whisper again. When the eyes are blue, they look desperate.

Something snaps and Vex starts moving. It’s instinctive and she’s through the door before she can really realize what she’s doing.

The hissing gets louder and suddenly, there’s a beast snarling behind her, loud and angry. She jumps through the crumbled part of the wall and starts running down the tunnel. It’s dark and empty and the noises resound around her. They’re everywhere, the fiend is everywhere.

She turns with the tunnel’s path and she can see the outside light. She’s almost out. And once she’s out… Hopefully, it won’t be able to follow her past the tunnel’s exit. Once she’s out in the world, she hopefully will be okay.

She’s almost halfway there when a loud bang thunders through the tunnel. Her ears ring with the loudness of it. Barely a second later, her shoulder explodes with pain.

She screams. Tears rise in her eyes from the pain and she stumbles. Somehow, thank the Gods, she doesn’t fall. Her legs push her towards the outside. She can’t look behind herself. She can’t do anything but cry and run.

Vex bolts out of the tunnel and keeps going until she can’t stop anymore. Her clothing is dark with blood, the pain is horrible and she’s aware the only reason she’s alive right now is that it didn’t hit major blood vessels. Or at least, not too much.

Fuck. She stops for a second and reaches up. Her hands stumble through the motions of her Cure Wounds spell. She’s vaguely aware that she’s making noise, desperate noises of pain and fear. The magic wraps around her and seeps into the wound, managing to repair some of the damage but it’s not enough.

She isn’t sure how much more she can heal herself, and all her potions are at the cabin. She’s vulnerable, bleeding, leaving a trail behind herself, and the Parchwood Timberlands are notoriously dangerous. With a shoulder like this, she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to draw her bow correctly. She’s virtually defenseless.

She needs Vax. She reaches down for her phone. Thankfully, it’s intact and in her pocket. Her fingers manage to find the right places to click to send him her geolocation before she switches to her contact list. She hits ‘call’ and waits, and prays. She prays to anyone that can hear that he has his phone, that he has service, and that he’s still at the cabin and not in town the way he said he would be.

The call rings in the silence, for so long. Vex is almost certain he’s not going to pick up when he does.

“Vex?”

“I’m injured,” she blurts out. “Sent you my location. I don’t know where I am or how to get home, and I don’t think I can draw my bow.” Her voice is shaking.

This isn’t the first time she calls him in despair. Tears sting her eyes again at the thought. Useless.

“I’m on my way,” he promises. “I’ll take a healing potion.”

He hangs up then, probably to get everything she needs and get to her faster, but the silence is overwhelming. Vex looks behind herself, searching for a blue coat and dark smoke.

She desperately throws herself in her awareness. The fiend shows on her radar, but it’s far away. She finds herself relaxing a bit. Pain shoots through her shoulder again. She looks down at the hole in her coat, then at the hole in her body. It’s unlike anything she’s seen before.

What in the Nine Hells did this to her? Not an arrow, unless it was heavily modified. And the loud thundering bang… She can’t identify it. She knows a lot about weapons but that noise, she’d never heard before.

Another question that lacks answers.

She’s not going to get any answer right now anyway. She’s hopefully far enough away that she won’t end up face to face with the fiend and whatever caused that wound for now. She sighs heavily. With all of this, she hasn’t hunted. Fuck. She’s useless. She can only sit there and mope at her own stupidity.

Snow starts falling again as she waits, covering her clothes and her hair with little flakes of pure white that eventually melt from her body heat. She should be aware of the beauty of it, but right now, she’s not able to enjoy this. She’s hurt and tired and her mind won’t stop yelling at her. Vax is taking so much time.

She should check where she is. She doesn’t. Vax will find her eventually, he’s not that terrible in nature. She needs to stop giving him so little credit. He’s saved her enough times to prove his skills.

Everything is silent as the snow falls on her, and she sits there, quiet. She’s breathing. She’s okay. She didn’t die. That’s already something, right? She wishes she could stop her mind from working right now. It won’t shut up.

She doesn’t know how long she waits. She refuses to check her phone if it isn’t ringing. It’s not. She only has Vax after all, who else would make it ring? She just… sits there and waits, cold and tired and quiet.

The crunching of feet on snow makes her snap her head to see what’s coming. It’s Vax, all dressed in his black clothing, like a large ink stain on the white of the snow, purposefully not stealthy. Probably so she won’t shoot him. Smart.

Vex should be happier to see him. She’s not. It’s a bitter relief.

His eyes stop on the red stain of blood around her shoulder and barely move from that.

“I’ve given myself a Cure Wounds,” she calls out. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

Vax nods quietly and hands her the red healing potion. She uncorks it and swallows. It’s sour and sweet at once, warming her from the inside out, despite not being heated. She feels the warmth seep into her bones and gather around her shoulder, where the wound is.

The pain disappears. She doesn’t look to see if it’s completely healed yet. She doesn’t want to take off too many layers while in the snow.

“What happened?” Vax asks after a second, when she puts the empty glass vial in her pocket and stands up, probably looking much better than when he found her.

Vex sighs and picks up her bow. “I went after a fiend.”

Vax blinks at her, then rolls his eyes. “You, alone, against a fiend? Vex….”

“It was a mistake, I get it,” Vex snaps and starts walking. “I’m lucky I made it out alive. That’s what you wanna hear?” She hisses.

There’s a bit of bewildered silence. “Are you okay?”

“I think the potion healed the last of the damage,” Vex replies. She knows that’s not what he meant, but she doesn’t want to talk about her stupid feelings. Especially not right now, when he seems so fine about it all.

Vex keeps going forward, until she realizes she can’t hear his crunchy footsteps anymore. She turns around. He’s standing a hundred feet back, arms crossed.

“What the fuck are you doing?” She shouts.

Vax sighs heavily. “You’re going the wrong way, stubby,” he huffs.

Embarrassment burns hot on Vex’s cheeks. Useless, she can’t stop being useless. She starts moving back towards him.

“Tell me about the fiend,” Vax says once she reaches him. “I thought you’d dealt with one already a few days ago.”

Vex exhales. “I did. A Barbed Devil that had seemingly killed the ranger before me, Regae. I wasn’t alone. I found two others to help me, out-of-towners.” She explains. “I thought we were done.”

She tells him the rest of the story, at least the big lines. She doesn’t tell him she was screaming in the snow, or that she was searching for Saundor when she felt the fiend. She does tell him about Keyleth, about the path, about the fiend. The fiend that might actually be a person.

He’s silent while she talks, and she’s just done with the story of the wound and how she can’t tell what did it when they make it home.

Vax helps her out of her heavy coat and out of her blood-drenched shirt and undershirt. He draws her a bath and takes care of the stains on her clothing. Vex curls up on herself in the hot water. He takes care of her and her things efficiently and Vex wants to cry again. She should be able to do this by herself.

“Your things are gonna dry out,” Vax says, peeking out of the door of the bathroom. “I’m going out to hunt for that meat. I’m taking the crossbow that’s under the bed.”

“Be careful!” She calls after him.

He mumbles something she can’t really make out and starts walking away. The door slams and his footsteps disappear and then there’s only silence. Vex exhales. There’s a new fiend. It’s much stronger than the Barbed Devil. She’s going to need Pike and Grog on her side again. Maybe even more people. She’ll need to go back to the temples and ask for more. Fuck. She isn’t looking forward to that.

She closes her eyes. What was that thing? All that black smoke looked magical, but the body… the body was humanoid. The pale face, with those sharp features. They looked young, and humanoid. Blue eyes… Flickering between blue and black. And the two voices. The normal one, and the fiendish one.

Fuck. There’s a De Rolo in Castle Whitestone, and they might be possessed. They have a weapon that makes holes in people’s bodies, holes unlike anything she’s ever seen, unlike arrows from bows or bolts from crossbows.

The crossbow that’s under the bed.

There might be a crossbow under the bed. But there’s also Fenthras. And Vax might have seen it.

Panic overtakes Vex and she bolts out of the bath, opens the door and throws herself to the bed to pull the case out. She’s dripping water everywhere, and she’s thankful for the fire, because else she’d be freezing but that’s not what matters now. The case is there, a little dusty, except for the places where her fingers have undone the latches. She repeats her usual motions and opens the case.

It’s there. It’s there, in all of its glory. Vex feels like she’s breathing again.

Since the first day she saw it, in Saundor’s hands, she’s been in awe of it. Still now, it’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. Verdant green, dark brown leather, golden bronze inlay. The craftsmanship is breathtaking. It seems to breathe and shift on its own, alive with its own strange consciousness. Vex wonders if it knows it isn’t Saundor’s anymore.

She closes the case back and puts it under the bed again. She dries herself off and puts on some clothes. She doesn’t bother with stays right now, Just a shirt and some pants. She’s not going back outside.

Trinket comes out of a hiding spot he’s found under one of the chairs to climb on her lap and snuggle into her. Maybe she’s calming down a little now. She yawns.

When Vax comes back, he finds her buried under blankets, curled up on the bed, fast asleep. Trinket naps against her and she seems deep enough in her rest that he doesn’t disturb her to ask questions about why Saundor’s bow is under her bed. That’s for another day. A day where they both feel less like they’re teetering on the edge of a cliff.

#perc'ahlia #vex'ahlia #percy de rolo #vox machina #critical role #mine #fic

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irrealisms · 3 years

Note

Anonymous Darkfic Prompt: TGCF, BWX/XL, book 4 self-harm/self-sabatoge sex?

hahaha this is two weeks late but.

under a cut for, uh, the prompt. it’s bailian! i.... might end up posting to ao3. we’ll see.

Xie Lian had never been this drunk before. It was--freeing, almost, now that he was out of the grave.

The ghost fire is still pressed against him. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. It was nice, how the wine made things not matter. He should drink more of it, maybe it would warm him up, he’s pretty sure alcohol warms people up. It feels like it should, at least, like it should burn going down.

He’s laughing when he falls back down. At least it’s not into an open grave this time. The little ghost fire nudges at his arm. He laughs again when he stands up. He doesn’t want to be in this graveyard anymore, with this little ghost fire whose wine he had stolen.

It doesn’t surprise him as much as it should, to run into White No-Face in the woods.

“It’s you,” he gasps out, grabbing for his sword, but he doesn’t have a sword on him, so he just stands there, shivering and stupid, while White No-Face approaches. Xie Lian can’t tell if he’s walking or gliding. In a too-fast moment, there is a cold hand wrapped around the nape of his neck. He could die here, if White No-Face wanted him to.

For whatever reason, he doesn’t. He touches Xie Lian’s face gently with his other hand, cupping his cheek. Xie Lian shivers.

“Taizi dianxia,” White No-Face sighs. He sounds like a disappointed parent. “You’re harming your cultivation, to go around like this. Your cultivation demands purity.”

“Fuck off,” Xie Lian says. “Fuck you.” It doesn’t feel as satisfying as he had hoped it might. The words are swallowed by the forest. White No-Face just tilts the mask that serves as its head, pointing the smile towards him. Xie Lian can feel the creature press at his meridians.

“You won’t remember this,” White No-Face tells him. His thumb strokes circles on the base of Xie Lian’s skull, a reminder: I could kill you, like this. “You drank too much, dianxia. You should take better care of yourself. Just because they don’t value you doesn’t mean they’re right.”

Xie Lian wants to curse him out again but he can’t quite find the energy, just sighs and sways. Staying upright has suddenly become a challenge. "What makes you think I would take your advice?”

“Stubborn boy,” White No-Face says. His voice is fond. It’s hard to tell whether it’s a reproof or a compliment. “You’ll learn.”

Xie Lian hisses between his teeth. “I don’t want to learn from you. If you want me to perfect my cultivation, I’ll--I’ll--”

“What will you do, taizi dianxia?”

“I’ll ruin it. I’ll drink more, I’ll--” His voice drops to a whisper, head lolling to the side from the sheer weight of it, letting it rest in White No-Face’s hand. “I’ll have sex. I don’t care. I won’t give you what you want.”

White No-Face laughs. It’s a strange sound, light and fey, echoing off the leaves until it multiplies a millionfold. “Won’t you?” he says, quietly. “You won’t remember this, dianxia.”

A few minutes pass in silence, like that. “I’m cold,” Xie Lian whispers, at last, and White No-Face catches him in his arms before he falls. It helps, somehow. It shouldn’t help, Xie Lian knows that, ghosts are cold, and so is he, so so cold. Maybe he figured out how to be colder than a ghost, and now White No-Face is warm in comparison. The thought makes him laugh a little, high and giddy, sprawled out on the lap of his enemy where he has gently lowered them both to the ground. And hadn’t they said that this could warm you up? Xie Lian is drunk, and he is ruined, and White No-Face thinks he shouldn’t ruin himself, and he doesn’t want to give White No-Face what he wants.

He grinds his hips down once, experimentally, and then freezes.

He hadn’t known that ghosts could get hard. He’s not breathing. The forest is frozen, is silent. Nothing moves except for the ghost fire still hovering frantically nearby.

He has to start breathing again eventually. It comes out ragged, painful. “Why?” he asks eventually. His voice is slurred, tired. He can’t tell if it comes out accusatory or just curious.

“You’re beautiful, dianxia,” White No-Face runs one hand up Xie Lian’s spine so carefully that it’s almost possible to forget how easily he could snap it. His voice makes Xie Lian shake harder. The worst part of it, the worst part of all of it, is that he has no reason to be lying. “You shouldn’t make things worse for yourself.”

Xie Lian’s hand is already under his robes before he has time to realize that he’s crying. “I don’t want this,” he whispers before he can stop his lips from moving. It’s an admission. “I don’t, I don’t--” His hand is cold on his soft cock. He’s not sure why anyone likes this.

White No-Face tilts his head the other way, so that he’s crying too, so that they match. “Then why are you doing it? You don’t have to hurt yourself.”

Xie Lian doesn’t know what to say to that, just shakes his head. He can’t listen to White No-Face. White No-Face wants to destroy him. White No-Face destroyed his entire kingdom, would have destroyed Yong’an too given half of a chance. He has to remember that. He moves his hand the way he thinks is right. It doesn’t feel good. Isn’t it supposed to feel good?

White No-Face laughs again, quieter. It’s less eerie this time, just a quiet chuckle, and then his hand is moving behind his mask, and when it comes back out it gleams under the moonlight. “Dianxia,” he murmurs. “Why are you hurting yourself like this?”

Xie Lian shakes his head again. It’s starting to ache. He wants more wine. He’s not sure if he manages to communicate this. It wouldn’t matter either way. White No-Face’s hand is warm against his ass. He hadn’t expected it to go there, had expected it to join his own. It pushes up and he cries out and it stills. He shivers again and presses his head into White No-Face’s white robes. They’re soft. Even wet with tears, they’re soft. “Keep going,” he whispers.

When Feng Xin shakes him awake in an alleyway, two days later, the last thing he remembers is the graveyard.

#bailian #my writing #xie lian #white no-face #bai wuxiang #tgcf #Anonymous #when you go down all your darkest roads

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coldflame96 · 3 years

Text

Girl look at that body (I work out)

Prompt: During her time in high school, Pearl got majorly into sports and exercise in general, discovering that she was incredibly good at it. Even her spiritual training started to take a backseat to working out and playing sports to the point that by the time of her graduation, she was a powerhouse of muscle stronger than anyone else in her school.

Of course, in her downtime, she still often hangs around at the Wright Anything Agency. One day, she learns that Athena plans to go out to her favourite gym right after work, and so Pearl goes along with her. At the gym, Athena is shocked beyond words to discover the incredible physique that her quiet medium friend's channeling robes have been concealing.

Workout junkie that Athena is, she's also highly embarrassed to realize that she finds it incredibly attractive.

Rated: G

Can also be read on AO3

Athena was 14 when she discovered that working out was a very effective way of curbing her anxiety and stress. It had been 5 am and she'd woken up from a particularly crappy nightmare and she was buzzing with energy. So she strapped on her sneakers and went for a jog around the block, feeling surprisingly better afterwards and even managing to fall back asleep. So she started doing it more. After rough days at school, she would take a run, feeling significantly more relaxed by the time she got home to her empty apartment. When she was 16, she applied for a gym membership and had been a loyal member ever since, going atleast once, sometimes twice a week, to let off steam. It was only after she started working under Mr. Wright that she found herself going to the gym almost every day. She loved her job, she did, but man were some of the people she had to deal with a handful. Boss and Apollo never seemed to question where she went until a case that Apollo took the lead on that she swore caused them both to age atleast 10 years. "Well, that was fun!" she exclaimed cheerily after it was all over, "See you tomorrow, Apollo." Apollo gave her a funny look and she frowned. "What?”

"How the hell are you always so cheery?" he accused. "I feel like I'm one step closer to having a heart attack the longer I do this." She shrugged. "Maybe you need a different stress management." "Well what do you do?" She gave him a steady look. "I work out." He gave her a skeptical look. "Wouldn't that just stress you out more?" "Nah, I've been doing it for years and it's worked out pretty well." He seemed to ponder on that for a minute, his thinking face fully on. "Is that where you go every day?" She grinned. "Yep! You're more than welcome to come, if you want." She saw him wrinkle his nose at the prospect and suppressed a giggle. Her coworker was definitely that kid in school who had his nose in books constantly and got winded over running laps in gym class. But she couldn't help but be a little excited at his sudden interest. Maybe she would have a gym buddy. Those hopes were very short lived as by the end of her usual session, Apollo swore up and down he was never doing this again unless he wanted to keel over by 25. Drama queen. So she accepted that she was the only one who liked this sort of thing. She offered for Boss to join her once and he just grimaced and made up a lie about dinner with the Chief Prosecutor or whatever, so she just kept going on as normal. Atleast until that day... Pearly was visiting again, likely due to loneliness from not having Ms. Fey around, atleast according to her expert ears when she asked about it. She felt bad for her friend. It must be excruciating being alone on a mountain for most of your life. The spirit medium was just sitting on the couch with a cup of tea when Athena poked her head into her boss's part of the office. "I'm heading out for the day, Boss," she informed, "See ya tomorrow." "Got it," he waved lazily. "Have fun at the gym." In her peripheral vision, she saw Pearly straighten up on the couch. "You're going to the gym?" the girl asked her in interest. "Yeah, it's on the way to my place." She raised an eyebrow. "Why?" Pearly's eyes practically sparkled with determination as the girl flew off the couch. "Can I come with you?" And then she tacked on, "Please?" She blinked in shock. Pearly was so small and polite, soft-spoken even. She wondered if the other girl knew what she was getting into, or if she just wanted an excuse to hang out with someone her own age. Either way was fine with her. So she nodded. Whatever Athena had been expecting from her medium friend as a gym buddy got completely shattered into pieces almost as soon as they came out of the locker room. Objectively, she knew Pearly was tougher than she looked. But she wasn't prepared for the tiny girl to have abs. And well-defined ones. And not just abs, either. Also some back muscles that flexed under her tight tank top and arms that were hard with what was no doubt years of care. This wasn't the body of a girl only going to a gym to hang out with a friend. She was a pro! And she could probably kick Athena's ass and the knowledge of this made her fall just a tiny bit in love. "Athena?" The other girl asked. "Are you alright? Your face is really red." Athena felt a palm on her forehead. "You're not ill, are you?" "Please marry me," she blurted out stupidly. Pearly froze, face turning beat red. "What?" she squeaked. Good going, Athena, you gay disaster. "Nothing!" she tried to correct. "I'm fine. Let's just go stretch." Pearly put her thumb to her lip, biting her nail nervously. "If you're sure..."

Athena had never been less sure of anything in her life. She thought Pearly hiding that physique in the first place was bad enough, but actually seeing it in action was a new brand of torture. Between the way her shirt rode up to tease the abs Athena had seen earlier in the locker room and the way her shoulders and biceps bulged with every movement, it was looking less and less likely she would survive this session. Death by hot girl. A fitting but tragic end. Pearly was a foot shorter. She was tiny! And she could probably lift Athena with ease and pin her to a wall. That would be nice.. It was only when she was suitably distracted by her own pace (faster than usual because she refused to let Pearly beat her) that she was able to muster the braincells to ask, "Do they have a gym in Kurain?" She heard a steady breathing and then a "No, not yet. I was gonna ask Mystic Maya about it when she came back from her training." "So, then," she started, trying not to let on how she was checking her out, "How have you been keeping in shape?" Pearly, none the wiser at Athena's plight, smiled, quickening the pace again (Athena was really starting to feel it), and said, "I joined the sports club at school. Mystic Maya thought it would be a good way for me to make friends. I ended up having a lot of fun." She wanted to ask about it more, but her breaths were becoming more ragged, so she allowed a comfortable silence to fall, the only sounds being the whirring of the machines and their even breathing.

By the end of the hour, Athena felt more exhausted and sore than she had ever remembered being. "That was fun!" Pearly said, back in those deceptive robes that Athena couldn't help but resent a little now, "We should do that again sometime!" "Haha," she chuckled nervously, every step she took towards her car stiff with overuse, "Maybe." It was only when she saw the girl flounce out of her car into Boss's apartment, the insane workout they both got clearly not affecting her at all (was she even human?), that Athena allowed herself to rest her head on the steering wheel. She could not take Pearly to the gym with her again. Not if she wanted to live.

#phoenix wright kink meme #athena cykes #pearl fey #ace attorney #pearlthena #i heard that pearl fey had an 8 pack #that pearl fey was SHREDDED

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shnuggletea · 4 years

Photo

Ready for some Envy? I know my bf and beta loves some jelly Inuyasha. And jelly Mamo. She just likes some angry fueled confessions I think lol.

Thank you @clearwillow again for the artwork and @lemonlushff, @neutronstarchild, and @ruddcatha for creating and hosting this great event! Want more sin? Click here to go to the AO3 collection!! Sinfully Human is also on FF AO3 and Patreon if you’d rather instead of reading on Tumblr. Or if you wanna drop me a kudo, bookmark/follow/fave, or comment/review.

TAG WALL!!!!!

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Envy

"I envy people that know love. That have someone who takes them as they are."

― Jess C Scott, The Devilin Fey

It was interesting, watching Kagome slowly approach the wild animal before us. People were starting to scatter and a few looked as if ready to jump on Naraku. Even more so when Kagome started to approach. I glanced over at Inuyasha to see him looking super uncomfortable. Probably do to Kagome telling him to 'sit' before leaving him behind to face Naraku. The guy was nuts. The last thing we needed was to cart the two of them to the ER or have the cops show up. How the hell would we explain their lack of IDs and medical records?

No, this needed to be handled quickly and quietly. Hence why I stood back, keeping Inuyasha and Miroku from jumping to Kagome's side. Both of them were very protective of her. It had to be because of what Naraku said, about Kagome using her energy to create them? At least, I had to hope that was why my mate was chomping at the bit to go protect her.

A small seed of jealousy was in my belly but I stomped it out. It was pointless, I didn't care if Miroku had a thing for Kagome. He was just some stupid mistake, calling him here or creating him or whatever the fuck we did.

Now face to face with Naraku, Kagome kept her hands up near her shoulders in submission of sorts. Inuyasha growled but didn't move. Kikyo was on her fucking phone and I was allowing Miroku to press up against me, touching me as usual. I found it oddly comforting that, even in such a strange and stressful moment, Miroku still put his hands on my ass and groped me.

I would never tell anyone that but there it was.

My heart calmed with Naraku, his face paling slowly the longer Kagome stood before him. Inuyasha didn't calm at all, shifting his weight back and forth until it was so bad, it drew my attention from the scene before us. His ears were flicked back and even though Kagome was talking so soft, I couldn't hear her, I had a feeling Inuyasha could.

And he didn't like what was being said.

Naraku was calm so I guess he liked it. For a minute, because I knew the look on Kagome's face. She was scared. I didn't even see Inuyasha move, he was just there, putting himself between Naraku and Kagome. I managed a fearful squeak and that was it.

"We need to squawk back at him," Kikyo said, appearing at my side and speaking like that made sense.

"Huh?"

Phone in hand, she held it up for me to read. It was Wikipedia's Raven page on aggression. It went on and on but basically it said that a leader Raven will squawk a certain rhythm and it's expected the lower Ravens will squawk back. "I'm not doing that."

Kikyo looked genuinely surprised, "Why not?!"

"He's your Mate! You picked Raven, you squawk at him!"

"It's for the submissive to do." She replied, crossing her arms over her chest and popping out a hip. "I'm not submitting to him or anyone ever."

Miroku pushed me back a few steps. "For fuck's sake… I'll do it." I tried to stop him but it all fell flat, standing stupefied as he pushed Kagome and Inuyasha back. "Squawk."

There was no flare to it, no feeling. Miroku was just making the sound and it was really hard not laughing. Naraku was thrown, falling back a few steps before squaring up to Miroku. "SQUAWK, SQUAWK, SQUAWK!"

Tilting his head down in embarrassment, Miroku looked anywhere but at Naraku. I wasn't sure if it was intentional but it was pretty clever. "Squawk, squawk."

He was quietly squawking back at the crazed man. Naraku had truly lost it but Miroku was working hard to bring him back down. "You realize he's agreeing to be Naraku's bitch, right?"

My face slowly turned to a scowl as I moved it to look at Kikyo. "I know. When that's supposed to be your place."

Kikyo just scoffed and rolled her eyes. I knew she wouldn't be responsible enough for this. I should have never told her about it but I was sleep-deprived and manic when I rushed out of my room that morning. I didn't even put on pants and I was waiting for Kikyo to get her dig in about my ass.

It was coming, she would never let something like that go.

The only reason I was even friends with her was because of Kagome. Once roommates in college and Kagome didn't even try to shake the bitch. Kikyo latched onto Kagome because no one else would have her as a friend. Which meant I had to put up with her as well because I loved Kagome to death.

Now settled, Miroku, Inuyasha, and Kagome lead while Naraku followed, looking proud of himself. Inuyasha looked pissed, holding on tight to Kagome while Miroku just looked tired. As his reward for being the one to sacrifice his dignity, I let him hold my waist.

"We should go home. Before someone calls the cops."

Kagome's words sounded like magic, as there was nothing I wanted to do more.

oOo

Naraku wouldn't stop squawking at the startled people. Kikyo wasn't doing anything and Sango looked as freaked out as everyone else.

Taking a step got me nowhere as Inuyasha's iron grip held me in place. Looking up at him, he grimaced back down in disapproval. "I have to calm him down."

"No. You don't."

I flicked my gaze to Kikyo and his followed, getting my meaning in a split second. "There is no one else to do it."

He let go, reluctantly, and I stepped up to Naraku just as hesitant. His eyes landed on me and he slowed his caws for the moment and lowered his arms.

"Um… hi." I already knew I was falling flat and Naraku's frown wasn't helping. "Look… I know you want to be… a badass but no one here understands."

"They don't need to understand, they just need to fall in line."

Now I frowned, looking at him like the idiot he was. "No one is going to fall in line behind a man squeaking like a mad man." His mouth was set in a hard line so I pressed on. "You don't need all this, it's just more headache for you." The corners of his mouth twitched. "Besides, you have Kikyo…"

"That whore isn't good enough for the likes of me."

"But… you're her mate…"

"You're the one that brought us to life. Me to life. Not her. So I should be with you."

My heart twisted in my chest and my belly-flopped from nerves and discomfort. No way I was about to 'trade up' or something. I may have just met all of them but I was sure Inuyasha was meant to be with me and me with him. "That's not… how it works."

"Of course it is! You want me to be calm and complacent? Then you need to be by my side, Master. Not that Mutt's."

I did want him to be calm. The many eyes on us were seconds from calling the cops if they hadn't already. It had anxiety crawling through my body; a mixture of fear and nerves that made me wonder if accepting to be Naraku's was the only way out of this?

"If you will come with us and calm down then… we can work something out."

His eyes bore into me, blood red and it wasn't my imagination. "That's not good enough."

I was aware. Painfully aware of Inuyasha as he pounced between Naraku and me. The smell of him, like a forest of pine heated by the sun, it calmed me. I still grabbed him, clutching the back of his worn and thin t-shirt that did nothing to hide the rippling muscles beneath. And ripple they did, Inuyasha tense and very angry.

"Stay away from my Master." He growled.

I tried to peek around him to Naraku, but Inuyasha wasn't haven't it, backing us up as he snarled. "She's my Master too, remember. You need to share."

"Like hell…"

"Boys! You're creating a scene!"

The people were even more agitated now. Probably because now a dog was on the premises. We should have put a hat on Inuyasha's head, his ears were pressed back but twitching. Anyone could see they weren't fake!

"Wouldn't want to scare the humans, would we?" Naraku mocked.

"You're scaring Master, you prick!"

Naraku took a step, his eyes wild. I took a step too, pulling Inuyasha back with me. "Maybe I should? She was seconds away from being mine with her fear. If I scare her enough, you will be a forgotten memory of a mistake she once made…"

Inuyasha pulled at my hold but I refused to let go, wrapping my arms around his middle to keep him back this time. "Stop it! Both of you!"

This wasn't what I wanted, what I agreed to. I just wanted someone to love and love me. Not fight or scare others!

Naraku was red-faced and I didn't need to see Inuyasha's to know he was just as pissed. Any second now, they were going to brawl and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Because if I caved to Naraku, somehow found it in me to give myself up to whatever his needs were, Inuyasha would be the one going berserk.

I guess most women would be flattered but I was just terrified.

It was then that Miroku appeared, taking a stance between Inuyasha and I and Naraku. "Squawk."

There was no feeling in it, not like when Naraku did it. But Naraku's entire demeanor changed.

And he squawked back.

A few moments of squawking and Naraku was calm. I thought it was all over until Inuyasha turned to me. His eyes were red just like Naraku's had been. "You would go with him? Be his?!"

My voice was trapped somewhere between my chest and my throat and it hurt. Shaking my head was the most I could do and Inuyasha didn't like it.

"You were ready to be with him, be his Mate. Do I mean so little to you?"

"Nnn..no!" Finally, my voice found its way out. "It's not like that! I just wanted him to calm down!"

He stood back, leaning over me the entire time until now, and crossed his strong arms over his wide chest. "He's better than me. A Raven is smarter, stronger, and better looking than a dog…"

"That's not true!"

In a blink, my face was in Inuyasha's hold, cupping my cheeks with urgency but not hurting in the slightest. "I'm filled with a feeling that I don't know or like. I feel sick and it has everything to do with you. I don't deserve Master."

He was feeling something he didn't know? Inuyasha… he was so naive and innocent, he didn't even know how to express his feelings properly. I was pretty sure he was feeling envy but that was giving myself too much credit.

"What will make you feel better, Inuyasha?"

He looked my face over for a moment before diving headfirst to my mouth. It was different than last night, not licking my mouth as he had before. This time, his lips were firmly pressed to mine, pushing them apart roughly with his need. His tongue swept around my mouth as if searching for something or memorizing it. I wasn't sure but I enjoyed it, letting him do whatever he wanted to me and not giving a damn about anything else.

My tongue searched his mouth in return. And he let me, tracing his fangs while he groaned against my lips. When he pulled back, I felt dizzy. It took me a minute to get my bearings again, Inuyasha slowly coming into focus. His eyes were back to their beautiful gold color and I was swimming in them.

"Thank you, Master. I feel a little better now."

I think I was smiling but my lips felt numb and warm. "Then… how about you call me Kagome?"

He didn't say it and my soul felt like it was begging for him to. To hear him say my name again like he had last night. But he didn't, nodding and taking my hand to lead us back to the others. They were standing around waiting it seemed when there were far more important things we needed to be doing.

"We should go home. Before someone calls the cops." I offered.

Kikyo grabbed Naraku like the errant child he was but he pulled back harshly. "I'm not going back to that tiny little room."

I didn't know if he meant our place or Kikyo's. Both were pretty small. Kikyo reached out for Naraku again anyway. "Come on. I need to get you home!"

"Fuck. You."

Now Kikyo was the one to square up. "You already did and it sucked so maybe you should just go back to where you came from?!"

"Gladly."

He took off and damn he was fast! I barely blinked and he was gone. I caught sight of him as he turned the corner a few blocks away. All I felt was tired. I already had to talk Naraku down and now this?

"We have to go after him," I said loudly and Sango whined louder. "Kikyo?"

She was pouting and refusing to do or say anything. Yeah, now was the time for that.

"He's your Mate, dammit!" Sango screeched.

"No, he isn't! He's just an asshole! I think I got the wrong one."

Kikyo glanced around at the others, lingering on Inuyasha, strangely, and I had to grab Sango mid-flight. She was going to slap Kikyo. Probably for being lazy and as much as she deserved it, it wasn't the time for it. "Let's go before he gets any further away."

Sango's eyes went wide and Inuyasha growled. I had just calmed Inuyasha down and now he was irritable again. Something to deal with when we got back. Woo-pie.

"Kikyo should go, not me. Not us!"

My face was tired of all my grimacing and frowning. "She can stay and watch the boys. Get them back home."

"Kagome," Sango stepped forwards and whispered, "I think that's a really bad idea. I don't trust Kikyo."

"It'll be fine," I said, trying to assure myself as well as Sango.

I glanced back, Inuyasha pouting behind me. Kikyo walked over and patted his shoulder. The tension in his shoulders lessened a little as did my worry. Kikyo might be inconsiderate at times but she would at least make sure the boys got home alright. Because I would ask that of her and she was my friend.

"Kikyo, can you take care of Inuyasha and Miroku while we're gone?"

She nodded and we left.

oOo

Babysitting. Great. At least the babies were good looking. Inuyasha was filling out his shirt nicely. But his ears were freaking me out, twitching around like they were. And he was pouting which was a turn-off.

Miroku was still watching the distance Sango and Kagome left in. Sango and Kagome's place, aka home, was several blocks away. As much as I believed in my abilities, I wasn't sure how much longer I could stand the looks our way, their good looks gaining attention. It was Inuyasha's obvious ears that concerned me though, not the looks. I was used to that.

"We should get you a hat or something."

Inuyasha perked a little at that, confused. So I pointed to his ears and his hands shot to them as if he forgot they were there. "You have a problem with them?"

God did I ever. But Inuyasha was pouting enough and that was just not attractive. "No! But… others do… It would make, um, make… Kagome! It would make Kagome happy! You know? Not drawing attention?"

He didn't pout more but he didn't lighten up either. I wanted to see that sexy smile he was flashing earlier. But, he was flashing it towards Kagome.

I swallowed the jealousy I had burning my throat. I wouldn't be jealous of my friend. Not Kagome. She was my dearest friend. I just needed to chill and be good. She asked me to take care of them so that's what I would do.

After we got Inuyasha a hat, a bright red baseball cap that barely fit over his ears, the walk was relatively quiet. But Miroku was dragging his feet.

"Come on you two, let's just get you home." Inuyasha was watching his feet and Miroku was watching the world around them when it hit me. "Wait, you guys have never been here before right? You lived… elsewhere?"

I didn't want to know more. Where they came from or how they got here. It made my nerves flare and I really couldn't feel sick right now.

"Yes. We are new to this place." Miroku answered.

His word choice and the tone he took when he spoke told me he hadn't been here long. Something else they need to work on to blend in. Inuyasha barely spoke and when I had heard him, it was broken like he didn't know the language at all. Another thing that bothered me but no man was perfect.

"You've known Sango and Master a long time, have you not?"

Suddenly, Miroku and Inuyasha were beside me. Miroku's question was one they both wanted the answer to. "Yeah. Why?"

With one on each side, my head bounced back and forth, waiting for an answer. Inuyasha held firm. Strong silent type it seemed. Except when he was around Kagome and I was trying hard not to let that bother me.

"I would just… I don't know… how does one know if a woman is attracted to you?"

I giggled a little and they both paled. "They both asked for you to be here so I'm pretty sure they like you if that's what you mean."

"Could you…" Inuyasha suddenly speaking threw me a little. "Could you maybe…. tell us what they like?"

"Same as any woman. A man that can handle and care for them."

"How do you know if you can do that?" Miroku asked.

It hit me hard. "Neither of you have had sex have you?!" The blood rushing to their faces told me the answer. "Okay, okay, I can fix this. Look, don't worry. I'm going to help you both. I know exactly what you need."

I’m hope to have more for you tomorrow but it’s not looking good. Keyboard is out again.

#inuyasha fanfiction #inuyasha sins #sinfully human #envy

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spectralscathath · 4 years

Text

Flip a Coin or Two

Fair Game Week, Day 1: Semblances/Flirting

A walk in the park, a couple of hot beverages, and a cold night. What could go wrong?

If you're Qrow Branwen, the answer is 'everything your semblance can get its grubby gremlin hands on'.

Ao3 link

It was just a walk in the park. Well, actually, it had first been Qrow wandering the halls of Atlas Academy with a healthy dose of mild insomnia and an urge to move, to travel, to explore. He was a rover at heart, never was able to stay in one place forever without suitable chaos or company to keep him entertained, usually both at once.

So he’d left, not even Atlas’s heating system able to fully take away the bite of the nightly chill. He didn’t mind. It was bracing. He’d walked down the entrance of Atlas Academy, considering turning into a bird just to stretch his wings, when a friendly holler had caught his attention.

Clover had been awake, fuck knows why, and had apparently noticed Qrow’s general lurking. An invitation to grab a hot drink had turned into a nightly stroll around one of Atlas’s many parks, and the largest one had the heating lowered enough for actual snow to fall, creating a permanent winter wonderland.

It was nice, to watch ribbons of colours dance across the night sky like oil paints, the shattered moon hanging above. Trees and lanterns lined some of the pathways, and if Qrow looked beyond them he could see the outline of some kid’s snowman.

He also saw small things moving in the darkness, which he found way more interesting, especially when one white shape darted across the path in front of him and he realised it was one of the snow rabbits that filled this park in droves. It was cute (reminded him of Summer, with her white cloak and shy eyes), a welcome distraction to try spot them as he and Clover chatted about random topics, the conversation flowing in the way only conversations do and never faltering.

It was right when Clover was righteously trying to convince him of some sort of strange, obviously deeply personal argument involving sugar and tea (Clover fell on the side of ‘would rather eat his own hands then have sugar in tea’ and was very emphatic about it), that it happened.

And by ‘it’, Qrow meant his usual stupid luck.

Qrow felt a shiver go down his spine, like cold fingers tracing each vertebrae, Lady Luck’s hand gently raking her nails over his nape, and he did a quick step back on sheer reflex. Good for him, he managed to dodge the sudden weight of snow that had fallen from one of the trees he and Clover had been walking under, the packed powder too heavy to stay on the branch.

Unfortunately for Clover, the Ace Ops captain was now sporting a very fetching cap of snow across his head and shoulders, and on top of the lid of his (incredibly stupid, shamrock-printed, green) travel mug.

Qrow winced and sipped his own coffee, one hand sequestered safely in his pocket while the other curled tight around the warm beverage. “… Whoops.”

Clover looked over his shoulder, teal eyes almost comically wide as he seemed to be processing what happened, before they twinkled in amusement and he shook himself in an almost-canid motion, the snow in his hair splattering everywhere around him.

Qrow squawked a curse as he moved to shield his mug, the snow hitting his arm instead. “You son of a- what was that for?”

“Apologising,” Clover grinned, his hair an absolute mess that still had melting snowflakes clinging to the brown tufts. “It’s not your fault.”

“It was my semblance.” He knew it for a fact.

That got him a quirked brow. “I thought you said you couldn’t control it.”

“I can’t,” he shrugged, already feeling defensive. “I just-” how to explain. He didn’t remember explaining this to anyone. Raven, Tai, and Summer had been there on this little journey of discovery.

He muttered a few random swears under his breath as he tried to pick the best words, stealing a glance at Clover. Clover was just standing there, with his stupidly open smile, a friendly glitter in eyes like a shallow sea in sunlight, and endless patience to match Qrow’s reticence.

So he took a breath and decided to just say it. After all, if anyone on Remnant could understand, it was this dork of a soldier. “My semblance is passive. But it’s more like… random spikes of misfortune. I can sorta control the frequency, and intensity, but I can’t stop it completely.”

“So… that was one of those uncontrolled ones?”

“They’re all uncontrolled. But if I’m in a fight, I can-” don’t make it sound dumb- “turn the knob, make them more likely. Skew the probability that my semblance will spike and something will happen. But it doesn’t discriminate between me, my allies, and my enemies.” That was the worst thing about it. The liability it made him. He didn’t even go into hospitals, most of the time, because all it would take was his semblance hexing one machine and someone could very well die.

Clover nodded to himself, taking it in and chewing it over, being just as careful with his words as Qrow was. While he thought, he unscrewed the lid of his travel mug and upturned it, spilling the most-likely-spoiled tea out as he flicked snow off the lid.

“So if that was random, how did you jump back so fast?”

Qrow scratched the back of his neck, where the skin still prickled a little bit. “You ever get the feeling that someone walked over your grave? Like the hairs on the back of your neck stand up?”

“Once or twice. I’m sure everyone has.” Clover studiously examined his travel mug before he screwed it all back together and clipped it, with the fucking side attachment, to his belt. Right next to the honest-to-gods rabbit foot. Weirdo. Weird, weird weirdo.

“Most of the time, unless it’s something really small,” a tire popping, a table leg breaking, a window cracking, a log falling out of a fire, “I feel that right before a spike. Split-second warning, I guess.”

“Makes sense,” Clover nodded and fell back into step beside him, hands folded lightly behind his back.

Qrow slouched a bit, taking a swig of his coffee (black, no sugars, double shot) in a familiar motion but without the familiar burn of alcohol down his throat. “Heh. I guess.”

They walked through the park in silence for a minute, a cold breeze whipping a flurry around their ankles and making Qrow’s tattered cape flutter behind him. He glanced at Clover out of the corner of his eye. “Your turn, Shamrock.”

Clover gave him another one of those quirked brows. “My turn?”

“Well, I talked about how my semblance works. Tit for tat, right?” He swirled the coffee in his mug to check how much he had. “I’ll get you a new tea.”

“Well, how could I refuse?” He grinned at him. “Alright. Mine’s random too. It’s usually small things, like Elm happening to have just finished baking something if I drop by, or the television plays the funnier commercials during ad breaks. My favourite chair in the rec room is free, or I find some Lien on the ground when I walk to work.”

“I’m not even jealous at this point,” Qrow chuckled, even if he was a small bit. Sometimes it hurt a little bit, because he was a petty, cranky grump and his heart wasn’t exactly gilt and gold. But Clover’s semblance was just… luck of the draw. They both got it, opposite sides of the coin.

Clover smiled a little awkwardly, a concerned tilt to his brows. “Not my intention. But I can amplify it, somewhat. Same principle as when you flip a coin and hope it’ll land on heads, only it almost always does for me. And before you ask, no. I don’t affect anyone else like you do. My semblance only works for me.”

Qrow noticed what looked almost like guilt sweep across those green eyes for a moment, before it disappeared back under Clover’s armour. “Yours ever tire you out?”

“Only when it does something really crazy,” Clover chuckled. “That’s the only time I can actually tell it was me. For most of the small to intermediate stuff, the only way I know it’s activated is when something fortunate happens.”

Qrow pulled his hand out of his pocket to hide a smile. “Hang on, are you telling me that my unlucky arse has more control over my semblance then you?”

“Would we call a warning system ‘controlled’?” Clover teased, light and airy, unlike the jabs that Qrow usually got from anyone willing to ever mention it.

“You’re just mad cause I got one.” Qrow thumbed at his chest with a cocky smirk.

Clover laughed, deep and real and warm, his head tossed back and his bird’s nest hair outlined by lantern light, and Qrow felt a squishy feeling in his chest that was probably a bad sign.

“Sure, I’d like to be able to know in advance if my semblance is about to drop a meteor on a grimm next time, I nearly passed out from how quick my aura dropped.” Those green eyes locked onto Qrow’s red with a fey-like sparkle and Qrow smirked in challenge.

“A meteor?”

“Well,” Clover grinned sheepishly. “Technically falling debris. But a meteor sounds more impressive.”

Qrow barked a short laugh of his own, the fingers of his free hand brushing daringly against Clover’s for a moment as they walked. “More egotistical, I’d say.”

“A little bit of exaggeration makes a story more interesting, there’s no ego involved.” Clover defended, traces of laughter lingering in his voice.

Qrow snorted. “Keep telling yourself that, Shamrock, maybe one day I’ll believe it.”

Clover’s smile softened. “Maybe one day. I like that.”

The tips of Qrow’s ears warmed slightly and he felt a prickle on the back of his neck, semblance spiking in tandem with his skipping pulse as he tripped over himself. Clover’s hands fastened on his arm immediately, keeping Qrow from faceplanting into the trodden-down snow.

His half-empty mug took the fall instead.

Both men stared at the remnants of the coffee as it leaked sluggishly out into the snow, Clover’s hands warm on Qrow’s bicep. He hadn’t let go and Qrow was in no mood to tell him to.

“… So, more coffee?”

“Ew, no, you owe me tea.”

Well now, this is a fluffy, heartwarming surprise compared to my usual fare. Stay tuned, folks, I’m hoping to get some good stuff out for this week.

Until tomorrow, luvs.

#Fair Game #fairgameweek2020 #Clover Ebi #Qrow Branwen #rwby #my writings #this one goes out to my fair game friends

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wardencommanderrodimiss · 4 years

Text

the branches and the roots

post-Spirit of Justice. Maya, still in Khura’in, looks in old records hoping to learn a little more about her family.

[on ao3]

----

The heavy wooden door, when it creaks open, dislodges pounds of dust from its frame and its intricately carved face. Maya sneezes into the sleeve of her robe. She lifts her face up out of it, stares into the dark windowless room ahead of her, and sneezes again.

“Just wait a moment, if you think it is dusty now,” Prosecutor Sahdmadhi says.

He told her to call him Nahyuta, so there’s a teasing Cuz or Yuty on the tip of her tongue, because family is family however distant, and family she calls things like Sis and Pearly and Nick. But she can’t quite access it. The tip of her tongue hits the back of her teeth and her jaw sticks shut and she’s avoided addressing him as anything. Plus he still calls her Miss Fey so it’s not like he’s figured it out either.

She covers her face with her sleeve. “Okay,” she says. “I’m ready.”

Prosecutor Sahdmadhi arches one perfect eyebrow. He reminds Maya of what all the hanging scrolls of the former Masters depict; the old portraits are consolidated in the manor, a forest of women whose flaws are brushed away as they are enshrined in traditional inked artistry. He, and his mother, unreal, beautiful, the kind of elegance that Maya was told all her life to emulate and never could. The kind of regal grace that Pearly performed as soon as she was able to walk.

(Poor perfect Pearl, such a prodigy, but of the branch family, forever damned to be nothing. Morgan was the only one who acted on making Pearl the Master, but Maya knows with the way other elders of the family looked at her when she started spending longer and longer stints down in the city, months at a time with Nick, that they hoped she’d be just like her mother and never come back. That the city would eat her too.)

They step into the darkness, their only light a flashlight that Maya holds, and a lantern Prosecutor Sahdmadhi brought. “I wonder when it was someone last came down here,” he says. His voice is muffled a little by his scarf pulled over his face to shield him from the initial wave of dust. The orange-ish lantern-light turns his skin and his hair and his clothes gold, all gold, and warm and alive, a reminder that this is not a tomb and they are not buried. “I suppose I can get estimate a range…”

He turns to the shelves on the left, closest to the door, and picks up the first scroll-container there. This dusty room in the basement of the palace - Maya kept calling it the dungeons, and Nahyuta didn’t laugh, and she felt a pang of homesickness for the family that laughs at all her stupid jokes, and then she wondered if there are actual dungeons that Ga’ran and Inga used and that’s why he didn’t laugh, and her homesickness turns to sorrow - is an archive, of a sort, but the only information they are keen on recording in here is geneaology. Carefully preserved scrolls sit stacked on shelves around the room’s walls, a number she can’t estimate because she can’t see them all at once swinging the flashlight all around. A solid-looking wooden table stands in the center of the room. Prosecutor Sahdmadhi sets his lantern down there and spreads out the scroll.

“How did anyone do anything down here before batteries existed?” Maya asks. She shines her flashlight up at the ceiling, almost expecting to find eyes or a face leering down at her, like this is a horror movie and not still part of a very lived-in palace. Much as this room hasn’t been lived-in, or walked in, and certainly not vacuumed or dusted in.

“There are oil lamp holders on the walls,” Prosecutor Sahdmadhi answers. “And candles.” He doesn’t quite sound disparaging but he’s pretty close to it.

“And risk setting everything on fire?” Thousands of years of the royal line up in smoke because someone was clumsy. Someone like Maya, who makes movements too quick and too big and takes up space in an unrefined manner.

Prosecutor Sahdmadhi doesn’t answer and moments later he’s murmuring, almost to himself, “So it’s been at least fifteen years since someone cared to come here and update anything,” he says.

“What do you mean?” Maya lowers her flashlight from examining the lamp holders on the walls so she won’t shine it straight in his eyes and approaches the table, to where he is pointing at something. The names are tricky to decipher, even after two years of extremely immersive study of Khura’inese, but one she knows is Ga’ran’s even without the little crown drawn above it, and the other is very, very long, so that must be Inga. A family tree.

Prosecutor Sahdmadhi taps his fingers between the two names, where a line is drawn between them to signify marriage, but no other line extends from that one, no other name beneath theirs. “They never put Rayfa down as their child, or as existing at all. There were rather more pressing matters when kidnapping your sister’s daughter, and forcing your sister to live as a nursemaid and your double, else you’ll kill them both.”

He says it all so dry, deadpan, because he must have gotten used to living with that over his head, become resigned to the reality of that, the way Nick almost laughs when he’s talking about his poker-playing years even if it’s an obviously bitter laugh, and like with Nick, Maya wants to hug him, but she doesn’t think he’d appreciate that. Certainly she would ask first but he’s already saying something else and the time for asking is passed. “This will have to be redone afresh on a new scroll.”

“Why?” Maya asks. “They didn’t write the princess down at all, so you could just add her under—”

Under your parents, but her eyes follow his fingers brushing across the parchment and all the muscles in his hand tighten when he reaches his mother’s name and the blackened, burned holes next to and beneath her name.

“Another reason candles are so practical for this work of genealogy,” Prosecutor Sahdmadhi says, and this time he isn’t dry or deadpan. His voice is dripping, anger barely contained, not swallowed and barely held in his mouth to stop him from spitting that fury that’s justified if unbecoming of a monk and prince regent. (Unbecoming of a Master, too. Maya’s spent two years in Khura’in trying to learn to be the Master, and she’s a stronger medium than ever but she still only sometimes knows how she’s supposed to act, how to become the Master and not Maya. Maya has too many feelings, Maya has too much righteous indignation to be as calm as the Master is supposed to be, but Her Benevolence Princess Rayfa is also full of fury and still a beloved princess, so maybe that’s okay. To feel things. To be angry.) “Fire right at hand to burn out the sinful heretics.”

“Cut off the branches,” Maya says. Morgan tried to do that literally, with her last plan, pruning the tree violently, and Ga’ran literally used fire to burn the Sahdmadhis out of the royal family. “You were a baby. You didn’t do anything wrong. You were as much the queen’s child as you were Dhurke’s.”

“I’m sure there would have been some contention over my expulsion from the family had I been a girl,” Prosecutor Sahdmadhi says. “You can’t turn a potential medium loose into rebel hands, after all. But I wasn’t, and so the only blood of mine that mattered was that of my allegedly criminal father.”

“How did you ever become a prosecutor like that?” she asks. She asked to come down here searching for something about their family long ago, wanting to find the place where Khura’in and Kurain broke apart forever, but the affairs of a thousand years ago suddenly pale in importance to what happened a month ago. What happened fifteen years ago, and twenty-three years ago. Living family more important than the dead.

(Especially since she hasn’t ever gotten the chance to speak with Nahyuta one-on-one before. Not even talk with him and Princess Rayfa and Queen Amara together. Prosecutor Prince-Regent Sahdmadhi seems to be everywhere at once, trying to do everything all at once, the way his brother is trying to take up every criminal and civil defense all at once. Maya’s spent more time with Apollo than she expected to, but she’s got more legal experience than Datz and Ahlbi who are also trying to help him run his law office, and they need someone who knows all about it. Putting on the skin of co-counsel and legal assistant is easier than trying to find the skin of Master. And she wants to help her family, and Apollo is family, two different ways. Via Nick, and via her distant Khurainese cousins.)

“When I emerged from the woods claiming to renounce the rebels and wanting to work as a prosecutor to bring an end to them” - Prosecutor Sahdmadhi snorts, his hands curling tight around the edge of the table - “Ga’ran made a great show of being a benevolent queen willing to forgive the child of her sister’s murderer and integrate him into her regime’s legal system. And then she dragged me out of earshot of her guards and snapped a leash around my neck and told me it would be Rayfa’s noose if I ever dared step out of line.”

Maya thinks of Shelley de Killer. A sword hanging overhead to force the desired result. Her mouth is dry. She nods. Prosecutor Sahdmadhi isn’t even looking at her anyway. “Her claims of forgiveness changed the minds of no other prosecutor, and there is a reason I started prosecuting internationally. Not just because there was no fear of facing my father’s friends on the stand and damning them in this farce of justice, but because my colleagues would not be cruel for my name, and because the leash choked me a little less when I did not have Ga’ran’s eyes constantly on me. Do you know, some of the other Khura’inese prosecutors called it favoritism that she had for me. Special treatment, that she often called me to the palace, tasked me with giving the princess a cursory understanding of the legal system or assisting her at crime scenes - it was all a sick game to her. I could spend time with my sister and no one must ever know it. I imagine she enjoyed watching me try to stay detached. Watching me squirm.”

“She’s a monster,” Maya says.

“Unfortunately not.” Prosecutor Sahdmadhi rolls the scroll back up, his fingers tight around it crumpling it, because this sheet is already tainted, already wrong, and it doesn’t matter if he ruins it. “She’s human, just as the rest of us are.” He sets the scroll aside, near his lantern, rather than put it back. There’s no reason to put it back when it needs to be redone. She wonders if he’ll burn Ga’ran and Inga out of the tree in retaliation. Like Pearly splattering gravy on the hanging scroll of her mother - destroy the records of the family that some other family didn’t want around. She doubts it, somehow, that Prosecutor Sahdmadhi would do that.

“Now,” he says, curtly, businesslike, like a prosecutor, “this ancestor of ours who founded your channeling school, how long ago did she live?”

There is not necessarily a guarantee that Ami Fey will appear anywhere in the genealogy of the Khura’inese royals. It may have been her mother or grandmother who left for Japan, and simply Ami who once there decided to turn their spiritual power again into real power, not as a queen but as a Master. A wise woman with the wisdom of the dead in hand. Or Ami Fey may not have been known as Ami in Khura’in; it may have been a name she took upon leaving.

Or she may, as they come to realize, have been a branch burned from the tree for leaving and taking their spiritual secrets with her.

“I suppose this must be her, then,” Prosecutor Sahdmadhi says, “as we have been through everything else and…” He gestures at the shelves on either side of them. They have searched the generations that lie around the era that Ami should have lived, finding no trace of her name or a Khura’inese equivalent. What they have found, what Prosecutor Sahdmadhi concludes is the junction where their families broke apart, is another searing burn, blackened edges of a hole through the parchment, the sole person to have been stricken from the family in half a dozen generations on either side. A daughter; in the scorch marks, when they squint, the light right on the page, both of them hunched over it and struggling to keep their long hair out of the way, they can see that this disavowed disgrace was a daughter.

“Her,” Prosecutor Sahdmadhi repeats, “or whoever came to bore her, and taught her of the powers of our bloodline. Perhaps she had only some limited knowledge some mothers before her carried out of our homeland, that she came to make her own.”

Our homeland. Does he mean that Khura’in is home to her? It is tradition in the village for the Master to study in Khura’in; did her mother think of it as her homeland? (Did she keep secret her blood’s connection to the royal family? It would have been Amara’s mother on the throne then. How did she rule - did she lay down a hand of fear that would have left Misty cautious to confess her identity, as Maya had been?) What is home - is it Kurain, or Khura’in, or Los Angeles? Is it the village she grew up in, or the city where she found her truest self? She and Apollo share a fond longing for the perks of the city, of one kind of home, and the confusion of not knowing whether to call that place home, or instead consider home the place in the mountains where each of them formed their first memories.

“They disowned her for leaving, then,” Maya says. “They - they do that too, in my village. If you’re gone for twenty years, you’re considered dead and stripped of your rank and titles and - everything.” That’s what they say, anyway. No one has actually fully disappeared like that to test it. Her mother almost had, and then Maya would have found out whether the elders truly meant to erase Misty from the halls of the manor and the scrolls of the Masters, or simply, finally, pass her title along.

“Spirit channeling is a powerful tool, jealously guarded by individuals who want to hoard that power for themselves,” Prosecutor Sahdmadhi says. “For there to be some outsider who know the secret undermines its exclusivity and its power. It does not surprise me that the act of leaving would so be considered a betrayal, enough to leave one little more than ashes.” He touches his fingertips to the parchment.

“Or gravy,” Maya says. Prosecutor Sahdmadhi’s eyes dart suspiciously toward her. “Never mind,” she adds hurriedly. “So then, um, we read these right to left, when it comes to ages?”

Prosecutor Sahdmadhi nods. He taps his fingers along all of the other names in a row with the burn mark, the siblings of this persona non grata, and then the row up above, their mother’s siblings. “Yes,” he says. “And our subject here was the youngest daughter of a youngest daughter, and each of them with several sisters. Ami - we will presume, for ease of referring to her, that this was your Ami who has been stricken from the tree - had nothing in her future, no position of prestige or power waiting for her.” He sighs, stepping back, closing his bright eyes and pondering for a moment, as though he may begin a recitation. “Our royal line and our country was founded on a story of two sisters - the elder, a medium so powerful she was revered as a goddess by the people she led, and the younger, who lacked the power to channel spirits but nonetheless stood as the country’s loyal and beloved protector.”

His eyes open. “It should be a position of honor, even to be a younger sister, or even to be one who could not channel. But somewhere that was lost, and being unable to channel or become queen became a source of great shame - as though the only worthy and admirable position there ever is to hold is Queen.” Shaking his head, he continues, “My aunt should have been our people’s great protector, our country’s loyal guardian. Instead she nearly destroyed us, out of jealousy, because our family has come to be such a way that for younger daughters such as Ga’ran and Ami, no future awaits.”

The equating of the two of them - Kurain Village’s revered founder, and the evil queen - makes Maya uncomfortable. Yes, they were both the younger sister, as was Lady Kee’ra, and Lady Kee’ra the younger of two as Ga’ran was, but that is all that Ga’ran shares with either of them. And that is all that Ga’ran shares with—

“I’m the younger daughter,” Maya says. Prosecutor Sahdmadhi looks at her straight on again. Honestly, even Maya has gotten bored sometimes - often - with Kurain Village genealogy and whatever else, even while she’s come to be curious about Khura’in. She wouldn’t blame Prosecutor Sadhmadhi for not wanting to hear it. But he appears genuinely intrigued by what Maya has just said, to be waiting for her to continue telling him about her family tree in Kurain. Something in his eyes urges her to continue, but she can’t get more than one more sentence out through the tightness in her throat. “And so was my mother, the Master of the village before me.”

“What happened?” he asks. She wonders what his guess is. It would be reasonable to assume that they both had older sisters who died - reasonable in any other family, but they are not any other family, the Feys and the royals. If there’s anyone in the world who could make a guess that lands close to the truth of all that Morgan Fey did, it would be Nahyuta. He could know.

And she knows when she tells him, he’ll understand. “Aunt Morgan, my mom’s older sister, wasn’t a very powerful medium. So when the elders convened, they passed her by and gave the title of Master to my mother. And Aunt Morgan had been counting on the power and status that being Master would give, and her husband had too. Her - her first husband.” The implication there tells the rest of that story. It’s exactly what Prosecutor Sahdmadhi can assume it is. “And then my mother was consulted on a murder case, and was disgraced, and she decided that should mean that she should disappear—”

“That was the DL-6 incident of 2001, yes?” Prosecutor Sahdmadhi asks. Maya blinks. “After we witnessed your channeling prowess in your trial, and I returned to Los Angeles, I researched Kurain Village and your family.”

Yes, she was going to tell him about it all - but something about the fact that he already knows it feels like a betrayal of trust. Like she was going to welcome him into her house and then he pushed past her and pulled out a copy of her front door key and used it because he’d stolen it from her a week ago and had a copy made. Except in this analogy her key is a matter of public record. “So you know about all about that ton of murder cases we’ve been caught up in,” she says, and the words still fall out of her mouth bitter.

“Your aunt tried to frame you for murder,” he replies.

“Guess why.” That sounds bitter as well, but she didn’t mean it to. Morgan’s motive wasn’t part of the actual case as was presented in court, as became part of the transcript. But Nahyuta could know.

“I suppose I may reason that she had, at that point a daughter capable of channeling, whose only path to inheriting the title was through you.” He speaks with confidence, but his expression is puzzled. He wouldn’t know why she has suddenly soured on the conversation. She shouldn’t be mad - it saves her at least ten minutes of explanation if he knows DL-6, and then the incident in Kurain Village, beforehand - but that emotion reared its stupid head anyway.

“My cousin Pearly,” Maya says, shaking off her frustration. She can’t stay mad at one of the few people who can truly understand. “She’s about as strong as me and ten years younger. A real prodigy. But she was - we call it the branch family, the ones descended from whichever sisters didn’t become Master. And branch family meant, she’d be nothing. She doesn’t care about the titles, but Aunt Morgan sure did.”

“And your aunt was the older daughter,” Prosecutor Sahdmadhi muses. “And passed by despite it. She acted as she did because you were the one to inherit the title - yet you are, as you said, the younger daughter, who should not have had that in her future.” He doesn’t ask a question, but his tone and his eyes make it clear that this is an inquiry.

“You said you researched my family,” Maya says. His family too, at a distance. “If you dredged up every court case with a Fey involved, you know why. You know why this younger daughter gets the title, and it wasn’t anything about who was the stronger medium.”

“I am sure I do,” Prosecutor Sahdmadhi says, “but please, I would like to hear from you - tell me about your sister.”

Maya swallows the lump in her throat and blinks to dispel the burning behind her eyes. “She was amazing,” she says. “She was - she left the village, for me. To try and find our mother, and so she wouldn’t have to compete with me to be Master. So we wouldn’t end up hating each other like our mom and Aunt Morgan did.” Her eyes burn again, after a few seconds’ respite. “I hated her sometimes anyway, for leaving me alone, but that was different than hating her like - like our moms and aunts.”

The plural emerges from her lips without really thinking, but when she does think, she realizes she doesn’t know how her mom felt about Morgan. Did she hate her for all she tried to do? Or did she love her older sister with both pity and anger instead? How did Misty and Morgan feel about each other when they were children? Did Ga’ran love her older sister or spare her only out of the practicality of needing a stand-in to channel spirits?

“She was a defense attorney,” Maya adds, knowing that Prosecutor Sahdmadhi knows it, but now he can hear it from her, like he asked. “She was Nick’s mentor, and she saved him, and she taught him all of his tricks that he used to beat you.” She grins, despite herself. A faint shadow of a smile crosses Nahyuta’s face. He’s glad he lost. She knows that now. “I wish you could’ve met her.”

The smile fades. “Do you?” he asks. “I put you through hell, and that I did it because I thought it the only way to protect my sister is no excuse, one I cannot imagine her tolerating, not when I am sure that she too must so have loved her own sister.”

Maya runs her hand over the beads of her necklace. Mia wore a magatama until the day she died, and every day she returned after; she kept that connection to a home that she abandoned not because she hated the place, but because she loved who remained there. “I’ve been accused of murder a lot,” Maya says. “Like, a lot, you know.” She glances away from him, doesn’t see if he nods. “And you know, some of the prosecutors who did that, tried so hard to get me convicted of murder because they had perfect win records to maintain?” Tried to act as heartless demons like Nahyuta did, because it’s easier that way, easier to turn cold, to never feel. “We became friends. And are, still.” Edgeworth paid for the flight, after all. “I forgave them. I forgive you. I’m sure Sis would too.”

“You think so?” Nahyuta asks. He sounds honestly concerned that a woman who’s been dead for more than a decade wouldn’t like him.

“Yeah,” Maya says. “She - I mean, she had experience with the blackmail thing. She spent years on a case like that. Building a case against the horrible man who leaked the news of our mother’s involvement in DL-6 to the press, building up evidence of all of the people he blackmailed to suicide and ruin. She knows you have to strike at the top. And she’d know that you loved your sister. That - that does mean something.”

They didn’t talk about it, really, but Maya knows that, like she herself did, Mia forgave Godot-Diego for his stupid, prideful plan that ended with him killing their mother. People with good intentions and hurting hearts do ugly, painful things for love. People get trapped and can’t see another way out. She’s forgiven Tahrust Inmee for framing her for murder. People do desperate, mad things for love. Khura’in is a country of mountains and on another mountain on the other side of the sea, years ago, Maya learned a lot that she carries with her.

“Did she ever find your mother?” Nahyuta asks softly. She thinks he must be thinking about his own lost mother who he only just found. She imagines the anguish he felt when she was shot, not knowing if he would ever see her again to catch up on the lost years. She remembers lying on a courthouse couch, her sister with Pearly’s robes smoothing Maya’s hair back from her face and telling her that their mother is dead. Maya remembers not knowing how to mourn a woman she never knew and couldn’t recognize. Nahyuta knew his mother for a time when he was old enough to remember; his situation wasn’t the same, and it didn’t end the same, and Maya is so glad for it.

“No,” Maya says, and Nahyuta’s eyes sadden. “She - she didn’t. Sis thought, I guess, that -

that if she could find out and expose that blackmailer for everything he’d done, then - then our mother would come out of hiding, I guess. Would come home. And instead, that horrible, horrible man murdered my sister, and tried to frame me, and Nick, for it.”

There it is again, the pain behind her eyes of sharp tears gathering. “Nick and I took him down but it was too late for Sis. And she was so - she was so young, I keep thinking now, because I’m - I’m older than she was when she died. Does that make me not the younger sister, anymore? I’m older than my older sister. Am I - what am I, then, by birthright? Of course I’m going to be the Master someday, because I’m - I’m the oldest daughter now, aren’t I? Only because I’m the one that lived.”

Nahyuta doesn’t say anything. What is there to say? More than almost anyone else in the entire world - more than anyone but Queen Amara herself - he understands, has lived such a same awful nightmare, and there’s nothing to say. There’s no consolation.

“Sometimes I think I shouldn’t have kids,” Maya adds. “Most of the time I think it. And if Pearly didn’t either we could just - put an end to this. Is it worth it? For the world to have this - us, to channel the dead, is it worth it if it keeps ruining the living?” How many more neglected sons and dead daughters will their bloodline see? Why are they the sacrifice for this power to continue to exist? Why should the dead be prioritized over the living mediums who call them back?

“Maybe I’ll adopt,” she says. “If I ever want kids. Like - Nick adopting a kid worked out really well for them both. Then I could get to have kids without perpetuating this - this cycle.”

“Our shared blood spilled again and again,” Nahyuta says.

“One of my cousins, who can’t even channel, still became a nun because our family is so fucked up,” Maya says. And that’s a bit of a simplification of Iris’ choice and situation, but it’s also exactly what happened, isn’t it? Shut herself away to atone for the crime of loving her sister and also those other crimes - willing to do whatever it took to protect Maya from Morgan’s plot because she knew no other way to atone for the sins of herself and her sister and mother. “I don’t know. Am I overreacting to say that we need to swear a pact, like you and me and Pearly and Her Benevolence, to not have any biological children so that we can end the bloodline? Like is that - is that blaming the wrong thing? The blood and not—”

Not us?

“Is our family always so damned to turn out this way?” Nahyuta asks, rephrasing her fumbling questions so elegantly. “Do we have a choice in what we become? Or say perhaps we should swear to do better - and perhaps we do, for a generation or two. And then what? The Holy Mother and Lady Kee’ra gave us the best example they could of how to protect Khura’in, how to rule and serve its people while loving each other, and look how that became corrupted. Look how Lady Ami left, and her descendants set out across the sea, and still in your faraway village older and younger sisters go to war with each other.” He gives her a sad smile, his eyes even sadder. “Of course it seems the inevitable fate of our bloodline, given what both your branch and mine have lived through, Cousin.”

“Shit sucks,” Maya says. She needs to ask Datz to teach her some good curses in Khura’inese. All she knows is how to damn people to various hells, and sometimes that just isn’t the vibe she’s going for with her swearing.

Nahyuta laughs softly. “Indeed it does.”

Maya reaches out and pulls the scroll back closer to her. Ami, the daughter who founded her branch of their ancient family, nothing more than a nameless scorch mark. What else should Maya have expected to find? She knows how her family is, home and here. Why not a thousand years ago, the same? She should have expected it, the fire and the pruned branches. Then and now.

“Does that mean you’re on board with the no-kids pact?” She glances back at Nahyuta. “Or do I just like, really not want kids actually and I’m just trying to find justifiable excuses when ‘I don’t want kids’ can be its own excuse?” She’s babbling. The Master is not supposed to babble. “Have you ever thought about if you want—?”

Something dark and sad crosses his face. “I have no idea what I ‘want’,” he says, making a sarcastic quotation mark in the air with one hand, and Maya almost laughs because that’s some of the most informal expressiveness she’s ever seen from him. “Until a very recent time, all I could hope to ‘want’ for the future was that I would die before I was thirty and be freed of this, for no hell in death I’ve ever heard of could be worse than the one I lived.”

Maya regrets asking. “Oh,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

“I suppose that is some argument in support of your suggestion,” he continues, like the way Nick talks about being disbarred, where he blithely talks past anyone’s sympathy or acknowledgement of how fucked up it was. “Given that it was a hell my own aunt made for me. Is there anything else you wished to examine down here?”

Nick talks past it because he can’t let himself pause to consider how fucked up it was, because he’s treading water and has to keep moving and if he stops to think he’ll drown. Maya knows this because she’s done the same. She kept a smile on her face and kept moving because she had to keep Pearly’s head above water, again and again. Nick has Trucy. Nahyuta has Rayfa and the entire country of Khura’in. “No,” Maya says, rolling up the ancient scroll to return it to its place. “That’s all I was looking for down here.”

Nahyuta nods. He points her to the spot on the shelves, the carefully ordered archive of their family’s burdensome history, the spot where Ami was excised from. They stand there, after, silently, eyeing the shelves in the gloom, as though both reluctant to leave it. “I suppose,” Nahyuta says softly, barely more than a breath, “that it is not quite true to say that I have never given thought to the matter of children. What I want, I do not know. But that I am regent now, I have wondered too, as we said before, what will be next? Holy Mother forbid my sister ever become a tyrant, but what of her potential future daughters? What of - what, perhaps, of mine? How shall we safeguard our country from our own descendants?”

“I hear democracies work okay sometimes,” Maya says. And sometimes there are the Paul Atishons of the world who commit murder in the course of running for a village council position. Sometimes, there are people - greedy, selfish, ambitious people - and everything goes wrong.

Nahyuta’s mouth twists in a small smirk. She’s certainly hedging her bets with her phrasing, she knows.

“I guess even if you decided to not have kids so they or your grandkids or great-grandkids can’t ruin everything for everyone again,” Maya says, “you and Her Benevolence would still have to restructure the entire government because—”

“Because our entire line of succession is based on spirit channeling, yes,” Nahyuta says. “Thousands of years of tradition and direct descent, and we stand poised to overturn it all.” He shakes his head. “My most immediate concern has been piecing our legal system back together and undoing all the false verdicts that Ga’ran’s rule has wrought, as you and my brother are well aware, but I have had some discussion with my mother and sister about introducing a parliamentary system.” He folds his arms behind his back, shifting his wait like he is about to start moving, and then he doesn’t, and they remain there in the dark. “Even if our family should play out its bloody feuds again, we may at least limit the casualties. Our people should not suffer from a despot’s unilateral decrees just because one sister so envies the other.”

Envy, yes - it was jealousy, and ambition, and selfishness, and people died. It was Morgan expecting that she was owed her birthright and unable to cope when her more talented younger sister overtook her as Master. It was Ga’ran expecting nothing and wanting it all the same, desiring for herself the admiration that Khura’in’s people had for her older sister, the beloved queen, but only able to make herself feared, not loved. People are dead because one sister got what the other wanted.

Kurain Village teaches that channeling is a gift from the gods, but a gift shouldn’t come with a price to pay.

“What does Her Benevolence think of that?” Maya asks. She respects Rayfa, the princess wo held too much responsibility at such a young age and now has had her world shattered several times over and stepped up from it stronger, and she never should have had to live any of this. She should not have had to learn that her mother was not her mother and was a monster, and her father who was not her father by blood was a monster, and the other father she could have had was already dead. Like Pearly, if such a tragedy ever had to befall her, why did it have to be when she was so young? Everything Princess Rayfa went through, Maya thinks, might make her understand the same facts that Maya and Nahyuta understand.

“She agrees,” Nahyuta says, as Maya thought she would. “Lady Kee’ra and the Holy Mother were Khura’in’s great protectors. Perhaps this is what protecting our country means now - protecting it too from the worst of ourselves.” He sweeps a strand of hair back behind his ear and the shiny gold earrings there. “And I owe a great many thanks to Phoenix Wright, and you, for first helping Rayfa on the path to understanding these such matters. For teaching her what I could not.”

“I’m glad we could,” Maya says. “I really am glad. I think Khura’in is lucky to have you both now.”

Nahyuta glances away, like he doesn’t really know how he’s supposed to respond to genuine concern and compliment. How long was he under Ga’ran’s thumb? How many years of being unable to have a heart, because it was his heart that Ga’ran used against him - how many years was he in a pit of vipers with no one who was allowed to care about him? If Maya knew she doesn’t quite remember.

“I will do whatever I can to support Her Benevolence, and to repair all the wrongs that have been done to our country,” Nahyuta says stiffly, forcing the words out. “I owe - for all I stood complicit in, I—” He is still staring at the far wall, and he squeezes his eyes shut and takes a moment to compose himself. “I owe my father so much more, but this much I am able to do. This I may change.” He blinks his eyes shut again and twists his beaded prayer necklace around his fingers. “I cannot make it up to him, but I will try.”

Maya’s stomach sinks.

Only once has Apollo ever broached the topic of the three days she spent channeling his father, and that was just to know if she had any awareness of what was going on while she was channeling. The answer is no and a noncommittal vague shrug, because her soul vacates her body but spirits leave behind traces of feelings on their departure. When Tahrust left her she felt at peace, a sense of justice imparted and no regret remaining, for about three seconds until she remembered where she was and that she and Nick might be executed depending on what the high priest did or didn’t say.

After Dhurke left, she was exhausted, mostly, and a bit confused why he was already gone because she didn’t think he had yet accomplished all he meant to - but more than that sense of unfinished business, there was love. Love for all three of his children, love for his wife, love for his rebels and his country. Everything he did was for love, and for once, the choices made for love weren’t stupid and messy. And still they ended with such pain.

Talking to Apollo then, she remembered how much Dhurke loved his son, enough that for a moment she couldn’t breathe with it. (She wondered if this was how much her mother loved her.) And talking to Nahyuta now—

“You don’t need to make anything up to him,” Maya says. Nahyuta turns his head so that she can’t even see the pained expression on his face, but she can see his hands curled up to his chest, clutching the dragon tattooed on his palm close to his heart. “He loved you. He forgave you from the start. He understood why, and he loved you.”

“Don’t,” Nahyuta whispers. “You can’t say that—”

“I know he - hey!”

Nahyuta spins on his heel, heading for the door. Maya runs after him, grabbing onto his arm and hanging firm even as he twists in her grasp and slams the heavy doors behind them with a thunderous thud that makes the floor beneath their feet shudder. Nahyuta scowls at her; Maya scowls back, and when he breaks eye contact first, his shoulders slumping a little, Maya risks releasing her cousin’s arm. He studies his boots instead of leaving.

“I’d channel him so he could tell you himself,” Maya says, “but for one thing, I don’t know if that actually - helps. With getting closure.” Nahyuta looks at her from the corner of his eyes. A question. She goes on, her eyes stinging as she does. “Me and Nick with my sister, that whenever I’d channel her, or Pearly would, I wondered like maybe we were just picking at a scab and it’d never heal because she was here again, but she wasn’t here, not enough. She was always just out of reach, even when I got to hug her and tell her I loved her, I - I don’t know.”

She never considered asking Pearl to channel Misty so that Maya could talk to her mother for the only time ever in her life. Both because she thought that Pearly would find the guilt unbearable, and Pearly feeling in any way responsible for what happened on that mountain is the last thing Maya has ever wanted, and because she doesn’t know what to say or how to get closure with a woman she never really knew. She had never come to terms with her mother’s disappearance, really, but then just the knowing - knowing that she was dead and no longer somewhere just at the tips of Maya’s fingertips if she reached far enough and looked hard enough - was the closure. Not closure enough, never enough, but the best Maya figures she could ever get in that situation.

“Ask Lady Inmee if she felt the chance to say a final goodbye to her husband made the loss any less painful,” Nahyuta says. “To hear from him one last time that she loved him, when she knew that, and to tell him one last time that she loved him when he knew such.”

“Yeah,” Maya says softly. When Nahyuta resumes walking, it is to set a pace that she can easily keep beside him as he leads her through the maze of halls. She swallows her nerves, shoves aside the little bit of her mind that is convinced she is overstepping bounds, because when has she ever cared about that, and she already did once this conversation so why not finish it off?

“And for the other thing,” she says, and Nahyuta turns his head sharply, his hair swinging, to look at her, like he’d forgotten that she started talking in a way that signaled that she had more than one point about channelings and closure, “I don’t think it would really change that much about how you feel, for you to hear your father say he’s forgiven you.”

Nahyuta stops, but doesn’t make to flee. He just stops, waiting for her to finish before they ascend to the ground floor of the palace, out of the records of the dead and back to their living family who still need their help. “I think you need to forgive you,” Maya says.

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t say anything as they stride through the palace, passing guards in the lived-in halls, and she expects when they reach the front gates that he will throw her unceremoniously out. But he instead steps with her into the sun, out into the colorful, bustling streets of the capital, where here in the land of the living the people they pass have nods and bows of acknowledgement - for Nahyuta, mostly, of course but Maya too, and it never fails to amaze her. She spent two years here coming to know the people while hiding a part of herself, and now they know, and that and so much more has changed.

Nahyuta stops to chat with a sweet bun vendor, and through the quick conversation Maya gathers that the woman was one of the Dragons. They come away with a pastry for each of them, and it seems like Nahyuta has waited for her to take a bite and be unable to speak for him to finally say, “You make it sound so simple. As though it is easy to - how? How am I to...?”

Joke’s on him; Maya can easily talk through a mouthful of bun, even if it’s not helpful. “Wish I knew.”

Rather than stuff it in his face, Nahyuta breaks off a small piece of the bun and pops it into his mouth. The delicate, refined mannerisms he sometimes shows almost make Maya snort when she thinks about him learning manners while living in a shack in the mountains, that chaotic, feral childhood that Apollo has described a few times. Instead of laughing, she swallows her mouthful and says, “No, really, trust me, I do wish I knew.” How to forgive oneself a guilt of the kind so deep and painful it could drive a person to consider choosing death instead - that would be a power far greater than channeling spirits. Maybe that would be a gift that didn’t come intertwined with pain, but it isn’t the one Maya has. “I wish I was any help at all.”

She waits a moment to see if Nahyuta will reply right away, and when he doesn’t, she takes a large bite of her sweet bun again and raises her eyebrows in the best disdainful look she can muster, in response to Nahyuta watching her shove pastry down her face in the most undignified of ways. He rolls his eyes. She is still chewing when he says, “You were. Thank you, Maya.”

This deserves more dignity than talking with her mouth full can merit. The delay is at least two seconds until she can say, “Oh,” a reply that still surely lacks dignity. “You’re - you’re welcome.”

A warbaa’d roars and they both jump. A dog barks, and then another, another layer of noise over the loud bazaar. Maya closes her eyes to take in the ambience, all the voices chattering, catching up with neighbors and bartering for their groceries. “It feels different here now,” Maya says.

“What do you mean?” Nahyuta asks.

“I didn’t notice until it wasn’t, but there was always - this kind of tension, in the air, here. Even when everyone was trying to act normal, we were all - not. We were scared and - and hiding things.” Rebels, rebel-sympathizers, secret police, and Maya the spirit medium from abroad. “It feels like I can breathe now. It feels like - well, it doesn’t feel like home. My village is so damn quiet. Not like—” She waves a hand at all the bustle around them, looking over the shop storefronts, and then she is hastily halted when Nahyuta throws an arm out to stop her from walking into the path of a yak. “But it feels like it could be a home, more than it ever did before.” Even when before had the Inmees’ lovely hospitality. How hard as that is to look back on now, with all that happened since. “The thing I miss most though, besides Pearly and Nick and everyone - I wish I could get a burger. And ramen, but mostly a good burger.”

She watches the yak trundle of sight. Nahyuta looks briefly offended on its behalf until he asks, “Have you ever been to Burger Barn?”

“I can’t,” Maya whines. “The lines. I go in and I’m hungry and I smell everything and I’m so much hungrier but then I have to wait so long, and by the time I’d get to order I’d probably have eaten my own sandals, so no, I’ve never actually had one of their burgers.”

The law office comes into sight down the street; Maya has had trouble remembering where it is, and then Datz redid the outer walls yesterday and she barely recognizes it, but she can find her way now by the dragon he painted on the wall, to go with the office sign. Nahyuta’s eyes widen and he comes to a halt, and Maya realizes that he must not have been down here yet. She gives him a moment to take it in; she’s not going to try to get used to this visage yet, not when Datz is talking about redoing the roof too. “So,” she prompts when Nahyuta tears his eyes away and they resume walking, “you’ve been to Burger Barn?”

“I recommend going before you are hungry,” he says. “Then by the time the wait is over you are not positively famished. But I find it surprising that the wait would prove to you a challenge - it should pale in comparison to activities such as meditation beneath a freezing waterfall. The Burger Barn is only slightly cold from too much air conditioning.”

“I cannot believe you went to Burger Barn before me,” Maya says. “I can’t believe this! Was it as good as they say or is it overrated? I guess you probably haven’t had enough burgers to know—”

“I made it a point to visit several other burger joints in the time while I was in America, intending to make such a comparison,” Nahyuta interrupts, and Maya cackles at the thought, remembering Apollo lamenting his brother’s habit of obsessively over-researching anything that may tangentially cross his path. Like all the trials Maya has been involved in. Like burgers. Nahyuta raises his eyebrows at her outburst but continues, “From the samples that I have experienced” - experience a burger, that would be a great restaurant tagline, and Maya nearly laughs again - “I would rate it as the best.”

“Huh,” Maya says. She’s spent years convincing herself that they have to be overrated. “I guess we’ll have to go. And with Pearly too, it can be like another dimension of our training. I can’t believe I never thought of that trick before! Just treat it like training. I’ve been locked in cold mountain caves before, like oh no, the burger line is difficult somehow.”

“Oh Mystic Master of Kurain, cousin of mine, all your wisdom yet you missed this simple fact.” He says it so deadpan, only the corners of his eyes turning up with amusement.

Maya sticks her tongue out at him. “Nick’s got a challenger - that is the most sarcastic way of calling me wise that I’ve ever heard. But I’ll—” She stops as something occurs to her. “You - you will come back to LA someday, right?” He isn’t running from an evil queen any longer. He has a home to stay in.

“Of course,” he says. “I have people there I must ask forgiveness of, and I should like to visit your village someday, as well, to meet our cousin Pearly.”

She’s called her that so much that Nahyuta not knowing her doesn’t know that isn’t quite her name. She smiles. Maybe once she goes back to the village, she can convince Pearl that his name is Yuty and watch what happens when they meet. That would be funny. “And I would like Rayfa to be able to meet her, as well,” Nahyuta continues. “And for her to see more of the world beyond Khura’in.”

Pearl is only four years older than the princess, has had her world upended in much the same way to learn that her mother was not what she seemed, and by following her instructions Pearl was not doing right by the people she cared about. “That’d be good,” Maya says. They stand on the doorstep of the office, stare together up at the hand painted sign above the door. “I bet Pearly would love to meet you and show you around. Go to Burger Barn. Have a fun cousins hang-out. Get to know each other a little better.”

See if together they can find a way to do better than their mothers and aunts. Change the fate of their family.

Nahyuta smiles. “I would like that.”

#roddy fanfics #ace attorney #maya fey #nahyuta sahdmadhi #the fey family and the khura'inese royals pass down 1. the ability to channel spirits and 2. trauma #and sometimes their descendants don't even get the ability to channel spirits #i've been poking at this on and off since september but wrote the back half in the past two days. the working title was 'younger daughters'

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toartemis · 5 years

Text

Come on Love, Draw Your Swords - Part 5

Read on Ao3. Check the notes there for more details.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 & 4.

Summary:

Sing to me, Moonlight For you, dear, are honey-tongued I dream just for you.

Or: The one where Jude finds out she's pregnant, and Cardan begins collecting a thousand plants.

Word Count: 4,039

Warnings: Non-penetrative sex while pregnant. That’s all I’m gonna say. If you don’t feel comfortable reading this, please don’t! I’ve gone into detail about the potential dangers of sexual activities while pregnant on Ao3.

Preview:

He looks so eager as he kneels before her, like she’s an altar and he’s preparing to worship.

-------

The next week, Jude receives a message from one of her guards that Madoc is requesting to see her. In person. In the Tower of Forgetting.

She debates it the entire day. Cardan says he can accompany her, but in the end, she’s alone in a carriage with two of her most trusted knights. His calm facade is transparent to her when she leaves. She knows he's concerned. So is she.

Jude knows why Madoc wants an audience with her. He’s had to have heard by now, somehow, has probably known since the beginning when it was announced. It fits his ego that he would only summon her when she is nearing her final month of pregnancy.

They arrive promptly, the journey feeling like nothing at all, as if time had skipped just to screw with her. One of the knights, Mivian, a tall, thickly built fey with glittery green eyes and one of her closest friends, takes her hand to help her out of the carriage. Jude wears a billowy, plain, yet luxurious dress with a short train that cinches above her stomach and ties together in the front. The sleeves stop just beneath her elbows. It’s the color of red wine, and her most comfortable formal attire. Her crown sits daintily atop her brow, her hair falls in waves down her back.

When she looks up at the tower before her, she tries to remember the last time she was here. Two years ago, maybe three. She avoids visiting often. It reminds her of nightmares.

More royal guards line the entrance and stairway, each and every one she knows by name and trusts. She passes cells as she ascends the stairs, bars separating her from the creatures they hold inside. Jude gives no mind to the whispers that carry after her, trying to put herself together and prepare herself for what's about to come. It doesn't help much at all; she's scatter-brained and restless, thoughts like elusive cats that refuse to be herded. The only thing she can manage is steeling her features into her perfected mask of a queen. Her shoulders roll back, chin held high.

Madoc’s low chuckle reaches her before she steps in front of him. It's chilling to hear after so long.

“Daughter,” he says, malicious and hollow. “You came.”

Jude says nothing, hoping she comes across as unbothered as possible, and just stares at him. He looks older, somehow. His skin sags around his mouth, hair grown out. He looks pitiful, the shell of the general he once was.

He deserves this, Jude reminds herself.

Madoc’s eyes rake her form, unforgiving, lingering on her belly. “Years ago, when you were small, I would think about how alike you were to your mother. You always had her fire. Wild and untamed. Now look at you,” he grits out, meeting her gaze. He looks as if he wants to carve her heart out. He probably does. “You look just like she did when she ran.”

Jude’s stomach drops, but she keeps her face neutral. He openly scowls at her.

Madoc says nothing more to her. They hold each other’s eyes for long enough that Jude loses track of the minutes. Separated by bars and years of spite, a battle rages silently between them. In the end, Jude never says a thing. She feels like if she speaks, he will know just how his few words have unsettled her. She rests a hand on her belly, trying with all her might not to project what she’s thinking.

I hate what you did, but no matter how hard I try, I will never be able to hate you.

She steps away from him and feels herself truly breathe since the guard first told her of his request.

When she leaves, it feels like letting go.

--------

As she waddles back through the palace, Folk skirting out of her and the swarm of guards' way, she’s still bothered. The feeling lingers even when she’s back in her chambers, loosening the strings of her gown after sending her attendants away. She pulls on a thin, flowing dress that she wraps around herself, one side tucking into the other, and she begins to pace—to the best of her ability—with her hands pressed to her lower back. Lately, she’s had nothing much else to do but pace.

Jude barely sits next to Cardan while he’s on his throne, anymore, finding herself too uncomfortable in her own. She attends certain meetings, but mostly, if she needs to hear something, someone will visit her in the parlor of their apartments and inform her right then. Thus, she’s usually in the her and Cardan’s private library, or in her garden, or in bed. It’s starting to annoy her, not having much of anything to do, being banned from certain activities by the midwives. Having the sense of being helpless and restless at the same time is not on Jude’s list of acceptable feelings.

She begins to feel dirty thinking back over her visit with Madoc, so she goes to one of the bowls in their room filled with fresh, warm water. It has sweet-smelling flower petals floating on the surface, and she dips a cloth in to wash herself after slipping her dress off. When she wipes the fabric over her stomach, she makes sure to take extra care, smoothing it over with swooping motions. She hums a random tune to her baby without thinking, and feels a flutter near her ribs. Jude smiles. She imagines It’s like her baby is telling her to keep going. For a minute, the thought helps calm her spiking emotions.

Cardan finds her soon after, dress back on, pacing once more. He looks as alarmingly pretty as always, and for a reason she can’t hope to fathom, it annoys her the moment she sees him. Pregnancy hormones, Vivi would say. Jude can clearly hear what tone she would use.

He’s wearing red, much like she was earlier, and gold hangs from his ears. As she looks him over, she sees there’s nothing especially extravagant about the clothes, it’s just... him that has her heart racing in her chest. Still, it’s annoying.

Cardan only glances knowingly at her before walking to a tall vanity set against a wall and begins removing various pieces of jewelry. And, with his back turned, he asks, "Are you alright? What did Madoc want?" Jude knows he's approaching it gently, purposefully giving her a wide space, completely nonthreatening, but she wants to scowl anyway.

"I'm fine, he just wanted to taunt me. I was prepared." She wasn't, really.

Jude catches his eyes in the vanity mirror for a moment before he looks away. She continues to pace.

"I thought as much," he says cautiously.

“You have look perfect every single second, don’t you?” Jude blurts. She's momentarily embarrassed before she remembers how annoyed she is. Cardan pauses in the middle of removing a fine gold chain from around his neck, turning to face her, small traces of amusement in his eyes.

“Was that supposed to be a compliment?” He tries smirking, taking the necklace off, then his many rings, placing them at the table in front of him.

“No,” she says curtly, still pacing. Cardan looks perplexed, then understanding crosses his features. He approaches her slowly.

"Are you truly alright?” He stands before her, watching her strut back and forth.

“I’m fine,” she says. Then, with some effort, “I’m just... anxious.”

His hand closes gently around her elbow the next time she crosses in front of him.

“We have discussed this,” he says, thumb brushing over the crook of her arm. “We will be together through it all.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Jude snaps halfheartedly. There’s no real bite behind it. Cardan raises a brow, gaze searching her face. Her pulse thrums where he touches her. She runs one hand over her belly absentmindedly. “I know… I know we’ll get through… this, and we’ll do it with each other.”

For a second, she almost laughs as she thinks of how ridiculous this would all seem to her teenage self, before the great game of kings and princes, of queens and crowns even began for her. Jude cannot imagine what her younger self’s reaction would be if she found about what her life would be when she got to be twenty-five-years-old.

“But that doesn’t erase the doubt I have about myself,” she continues. Cardan sighs. Jude glares at him, but lets the look fall almost immediately after. Before she can swallow it down, she forces herself to say, “I have never felt more vulnerable in my entire life. Madoc said so little to me earlier, yet managed to make me feel small from inside a cell, and I just…” She gestures to the air in front of her.

Cardan folds her into his arms and Jude lets him do it, not even trying to pretend that it doesn’t instantly affect her, limbs shivering at his touch. She places her hands on his chest and rests her cheek above them. He murmurs to her, hands stroking against her spine and shoulders. Though she’s not paying much attention to his words, what he’s doing is just what she needs.

Jude realizes that she really only wants to be held. She doesn’t need his perspective on the matter, or his anger at Madoc, or anything of the sort. She just needs him to hold her, because there’s nothing he or anyone else can say. It’s a comfort to her simply that he knows. They stand there for some time, barely swaying.

“Jude,” he says, pulling away to look at her. “When was the last time you felt relaxed?”

She snorts and doesn’t answer, closing her eyes instead. The press of his lips against the corner of her mouth causes here to jolt. She couldn’t sense it coming. He places small, feather-like kisses against her cheek, then her nose. Jude feels a blush spread across her face. Cardan smells like the forest on a fresh day, like soft spice and the first breeze of Spring. If she let it, being this close to him could make her dizzy. Usually, she does not allow that. Usually.

Cardan steps around her, then, and Jude would deny instinctively leaning after him if she were younger. His chest presses against her back, solid and present.

“Let me take care of you,” he murmurs, fingers dancing lightly over her arms. He places more kisses against the crook of her neck, then against her jaw. Jude tilts her head to the side, baring her throat for him. Every part of her sings yes to him, but Jude can’t help but glance down at herself, belly blocking her view of the floor. She frowns, and Cardan follows her line of sight closely.

“Do you know what I see?” he says, nose brushing her temple. “Each time you enter a room, every eye is drawn to you. All of Elfhame succumbs to lust at the mere sight of you.” He smiles against her skin, fingers nudging at her chin, guiding her face towards his. A flush takes over her at his words.

That can’t be true, but it must be if he’s saying it.

“I want to ravish you, Jude. You’re so beautiful that I ache, and I am not the only one that feels so. But you are mine. This—" he splays his hand on her stomach, “I did this.”

Jude’s heartbeat pounds so loud in her ears that Cardan must be able to hear it too. Part of her is self-conscious at his words, but another, deeper part preens. She can’t meet his eyes anymore, so she looks over his shoulder at the wall instead, feeling the tips of his fingers at her throat when she swallows.

“You carry my child,” he says, voice low, releasing his hold on her and leaning in to her neck again from behind. “The thought fogs my mind every moment.” He nips at her shoulder, places a hand on her hip, and Jude’s thoughts turn to puddles.

“I can’t think of anything else but you. Your skin—” he presses his lips to her cheek. “Your hair—” he begins unraveling strands from the braid she has it in, and she just has to look at him, nerves forgotten. “The flush of your cheeks when I—”

Jude turns around, then, and sees him smiling in a way she can only describe as… goofy. Childish. It’s entirely endearing and arousing at the same time and she struggles against the laughter bubbling up in her throat. Part of her wants to smack him on the arm like a teenager. It’s so rare that he acts this way, and Jude is so, so gone, like putty in his hands.

“I’m afraid I might be losing my sanity,” Cardan laughs, eyes bright. “I want to—” he runs his fingers along the junction of her thigh, his other hand cradling her face. Jude trembles. Her skin has never felt this sensitive before, and he’s mostly touching her through clothes. “Let me take care of you, Jude,” and he kisses her, hot and open. It sears through Jude like sweet acid, burning her throat, coaxing a sound from her that she barely manages to choke back. He pulls away too soon.

“Please, I want to make you feel good,” he sighs into her mouth, and Jude’s doesn’t even feel herself nodding her head.

Then she’s saying, “Okay, yes, yes—”

Cardan’s hands grip her arms while her fingers fist in his crimson shirt and he’s walking her backwards. She would normally be afraid of falling with all of the extra weight of her stomach throwing her off, but she knows she doesn’t have to worry when he’s so near. He’ll catch her if she falls. He always will.

His hands unwrap her loose dress from her body and she shivers from exposure to the cool air. The intent set deep in his eyes is overpowering; she can't look away, torn between wanting to kiss him again and wanting to be lost under his stare forever. The backs of her legs touch the side of their bed and he lifts her onto it, the thing too tediously tall for her to hop onto with the position she’s in. She sits at the edge, wondering for a moment what’s going to happen, then he’s reaching for the pillows at the head of the mattress, snatching a plush one and sliding it behind her at her lower back.

“Lean back on your hands,” he says, sounding breathless, eyes not leaving her body. She does as she’s told, finding the normal pressure she would feel in her back lightened immensely thanks to the pillow. Then his hands are on her, spreading over her chest, on her waist, caressing her thighs, and he sinks to his knees in front of her, sitting back on his heels. He’s slack-jawed, eyes hooded as he presses a kiss to her knees.

Cardan is turned on by this, she realizes. The thought makes her want to scream. He looks so eager as he kneels before her, like she’s an altar and he’s preparing to worship. Another open-mouthed kiss is pressed to her leg, his tongue gliding over the sensitive area at the crook of her knee, and he bites, the shock of it sparking through her.

Again, she has to hold back a moan. The sensitivity of her body is like nothing she’s ever experienced, every touch she feels like strikes of lightning.

When Cardan slings her legs over his shoulders, her arms begin to shake from anticipation. He presses more kisses to her inner thighs, scooting himself forward, and Jude lets her head fall back, waiting, waiting, wanting. She feels him suck a bruise into her skin, then another, and another. He switches to the other side before Jude can process it, and she gasps.

The room feels dense, a cloud swirls in Jude’s mind, blocking out anything but the sensation of what he’s doing. A well-placed nip over her bruised skin has Jude jolting, breath coming out heavier and quicker. She throbs when she feels him hover over her, and he’s so close to where she wants, so close, so close—

Then his mouth is back at her thighs and Jude sighs shakily. It most definitely does not sound like a whine.

A sheen of sweat covers her and she subconsciously tries spreading her legs, but Cardan’s hands wrapped on the outside of her thighs keep them in place. His palms slide underneath, and her legs shift wider just barely, then his thumbs knead into the soft flesh near her center and Jude bites her lip so hard she almost breaks the skin. His tongue presses into the marks he leaves, and everything feels so good that for a moment Jude thinks she’s going to fall apart just from this, without him needing to touch her where she needs him to most.

Her hips twitch forward, trying to catch his mouth, and he sinks his teeth into the junction of her thigh in response.

Jude can’t hold her moan back, now. She feels so incredible. Somehow, her back doesn’t hurt, and the swell of her stomach makes her feel sensual. The way Cardan is being so attentive makes her feel precious and wanted, if only he would just—

His hands shift in more, thumbs spreading her folds, and he licks one long stripe up her middle. Jude feels it in her entire body. Her thighs tremble, one sliding off of him before he catches it, and she locks her ankles together, leaning further back onto her arms, stretching her torso. She’s so, so close already, right on the edge, toes curling where her feet hang behind his back.

He places his mouth against her in an open kiss, tongue rolling over her clit, and has tears springing to her eyes. Pleasure scorches through her, and he does it again, kissing her and sucking lightly when he pulls back. His mouth feels so warm and wet and she can feel his hair grazing the soft, tingling bruises of her inner thighs. Then his thumb presses at her entrance, adding just the right pressure as his mouth moves over her again and that’s all it takes for her thighs to squeeze around him, muscles tightening, face screwing up, a stream of curses leaving her mouth.

Cardan groans against her, working her through it.

She comes back to herself slowly, fingers unclenching from the coverlets, legs falling from her husband’s shoulders. She feels Cardan rest his cheek against the top of her thigh, and when she opens her eyes, his gaze pierces hers, mischief twinkling in his midnight eyes. One hand brushes against the swell of her hip, the other grazes over her dripping, sensitive middle, causing her to jerk.

Jude sits up straight, flexing her wrists, hands going to Cardan’s hair and yanking his head up to hers. Even as he stumbles to his feet, he still manages an ethereal grace. His mouth crashes to hers, wild and hot. She can taste herself on his lips and it sends a thrill through her. Jude slides her tongue against Cardan’s eagerly, gasping when he tilts his head and leans her back just so, exactly the way she likes.

They break apart, foreheads resting together. Jude makes to pull away, but Cardan moves with her, his lips attaching to her jaw and moving down her neck. It steals whatever air she had left in her lungs from her. He slides a knee onto the bed with her, the mattress dipping underneath him. His arm wraps around her back, hand sliding into her hair at the nape of her neck, and with the other, he pulls her sideways, up and into his lap.

Jude still can’t catch her breath from just a minute ago. Cardan pants over her skin, his nose brushes against hers, fingers sliding over her waist.

“I love you,” he says, that and nothing more, and it strikes Jude fiercely. Years spent together and he still doesn’t say it often. He spells it for her through actions, sings it to her with his eyes, but he knows she secretly craves to hear the words. They’re saved for moments like this.

Jude relaxes into the hold he has across her back, keeping her propped up. She traces the point of his ear and fiddles with the jewelry there until he kisses her again. She feels a bit like a child with the way she’s in his lap, legs on the other side of him, but the thought leaves her quickly when his fingers dip between her legs.

When he runs them over her clit, she shakes against him, mouth hovering over his, much too sensitive from her orgasm, but pleasure spreads through her nonetheless. Cardan watches her face closely as he moves a bit lower, pressing just right, two long fingers slipping into her. Jude shudders, eyes slipping shut because it feels so damn perfect.

Her legs shift open of their own accord, making room for him, and she reaches to twist her hand in the shirt at his chest.

Cardan kisses her again, sweet and slow, and he curves his fingers inside of her, wrenching a gasp from her. Jude accidentally bites his lip.

He just kisses her harder, and it’s like the sun dripping onto her mouth, heating her from the outside in. His fingers start a push and pull within her, curling and slipping in and out, and it’s heaven to Jude. She's so wet from earlier and her walls feel so good clenching around him. Her hips shift over his lap, grinding onto his hand, and it’s his turn to gasp, now. The line of his cock is hard and hot beneath her.

Sweat drips along the indent of her spine as he slowly takes her apart, massaging into the spot that feels so right inside her, coaxing a warm, overwhelming tension into her belly. When his thumb presses against her clit, Jude’s sanity goes out the window. She writhes in his arms, hand sliding from his chest, around her stomach, to grip his wrist beneath her, trying to anchor herself.

“Look at me,” Cardan says. And she does, finding his face flushed just like it is after too many glasses of wine, his eyes like pools of ink she wants to bathe in forever. Jude can feel the muscles of his forearm flexing as he moves, and she struggles to keep her eyes open. Heat coils in her, building and building, and she loses herself in the rhythm he sets.

Cardan lets out a shaky breath when she squeezes his wrist, pulling his hand harder towards her. He gets the message, pumping his fingers faster, thumb circling tighter, and Jude’s back arches, thighs clamping around his arm. Her sensitive bruises twinge in pain at the pressure, but she can’t help it. It only makes it all more intense.

Jude feels her second orgasm rise in her, cracking like a whip, and she shatters with it, moaning brokenly, vision blurring as she tries to hold Cardan’s gaze, inevitably failing.

It’s one of the fiercest things she’s ever felt, her whole body tightening. She doesn’t feel Cardan stop or hear him say anything, but the next thing she knows she’s lying on her usual side of their bed, Cardan’s weight pressed behind her.

A pillow is tucked in her arms and between her legs. Something soft brushes her outer thigh and she registers that it’s his tail. He must have changed clothes. She doesn’t remember him moving her, but she doesn’t really care, too exhausted to think much about it.

His knuckles drag over her waist and on her belly, and, to Jude’s delight, Cardan is humming in her ear, deep and pretty. A sleepy grin splits her face. She’s so comfortable like this; positively content.

“I love you,” she whispers. “So much that it hurts.”

He buries his face into her hair and continues to hum. She can hear the smile in his voice.

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Okay, it took me years to post this on here, but what matters is that I’ve finally posted it. Thank you so much for reading, didn’t think this fic was gonna lead to this scene though ahhh.

#literally could not wait to post this so i dont have to think about it anymore #kind of hated this but what can you do #tfota #tfota fanfiction #the cruel prince #the wicked king #the queen of nothing #the cruel prince fanfiction #jurdan #judecardan #jurdan fanfiction #jurdan smut #tcp #twk #tqon #jude duarte #cardan greenbriar #my work #my writing

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