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clone-trooper-cheese · 4 months

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Echoes of Ice and Steel: A Clone Wars Odyssey

Chapter One: Frostbitten Loyalties

CHAPTER ONE:

Frostbitten Loyalties

Word Count: 1,574 Spelling & Grammar: Checked

Snow. The frozen microcrystals coated the landscape like a blanket over a bed. It was just as beautiful as it was dangerous, easy to get lost in its beauty when the lines that separated the horizon from the sky were washed away by the pure white powdery crystals. It was nothing new to him. A clone Corporal that had been specially trained for cold climates and high altitudes, hence, the name he chose; Polar.

“Corporal? Sir? Are you there?” His comm link rang out.

“Oh, Um, Yes-” Polar stammered, “Yes I'm here, Butch… What is it?”

“You missed your check in… That's all, Sir.” The Clone named Butch replied. He was a stickler for protocol and orders, making sure to follow them exactly how they were supposed to be done.

Polar found it a little annoying, but endearing at the same time. “All good, trooper. I was just thinking, that's all.” He said before going quiet on his end again, staring back at the landscape. Rico, another member of his team, teased Butch about calling the Corporal out like that, since it had only been barely a minute since the check time passed. Butch was still a shiny, so doing things by the book was how he'd been trained. Polar listened to them go back and forth about things before finally stepping in.

“Girls, Girls! You're both pretty, Now cut the chit-chat on the main comms.”

“Yes, sir.” was heard from both of the bickering troopers after the other.

Polar stood on the outskirts of the base after checking the motion sensors and cleaning the icicles off of them. He looked up at the mountains, his eyes tracing the peaks and valleys. He started making his way back to the base, the cold was just now starting to get to him after hours of being out there. His phase I armor was the cause of that. It had built in life support and temperature regulation, unlike the new phase II armors, which were more cheaply made to be lighter and easily mass-produced.

The durasteel blast door creaked as it slid open, then closed it behind, as the cold Corporal came into the bay to warm up before going up to the control bridge with the rest of the crew. As his helmet Depressurized with a hiss, Polar thought about the first time it happened in an accident. He had been hiking a high mountain to recover one of his fallen brothers from a group of bandits who had stormed their base to steal their supplies and just wreak havoc in general.

His helmet depressurized, causing him to nearly suffocate as the oxygen was too thin for him to breathe. He ended up holding his breath for nearly ten minutes while he tried to fix the pressure seal on the rim of the helmet. After he arrived back at the base. He trained his lungs to be able to hold his breath for a long period of time to be able to survive like that if nobody was there to help him if his helmet depressurized again.

“Sir? You alright?” Ebony, the door guard trooper, asked Polar. Ebony was confused and concerned as to why his Corporal was just standing there, staring into nothing.

“Oh, yes, sorry… just lost in thought. Thanks for letting me in, Eb.” Polar answered while taking off his helmet. Thin strands of loose platinum blond hair stuck to his face from a tiny sheen of moisture that collected on his forehead from the heat of the helmet. He took a long breath and wiped his head, brushing back his hair as he and Ebony proceeded to the elevator. The filtered oxygen of the base was a lot nicer than the filters in the helmets; not only more pure, but warmer.

Polar and Ebony made their way up to the main control room of the base. Butch, Offbeat, Nonk and Rico, who were sitting in the room at the table playing cards, quickly stood at attention when they saw Polar enter the room.

“At ease boys…” He said, and they immediately slackened their posture and went back to casual stances. “Anything interesting happen while I was gone?” The light haired clone asked, setting his helmet down on a table before walking to look at the holo screens to observe the data logs.

“Nothing really important… Rico stubbed his toe and said swears that I didn't know existed, so that's cool I guess…” Ebony said in his usual apathetic tone and slumped onto one of the benches lining the table.

“That's not surprising… Are you sure he didn't just make them up?” Polar inquired, “Because it wouldn't be the first time he's done something like that.” He chuckled and shook his head as Ebony rolled his eyes and looked back at his datapad.

A chime came from the computer and a transmission request came through… it was from the chancellor himself. He answered it, and the others turned their attention from their tasks to the hologram display of the chancellor in a hooded robe.

“Execute Order sixty-six.”

“Yes sir.” The whole team, except for Polar, said and then went back to their business. There was no Jedi in sight, or even on the planet for all they knew, so there was nothing to do except continue with their other activities. Polar had a puzzled look on his face.

“Uhh…. What was that order again?”

“Order sixty-six is to execute the Jedi, Sir, they are traitors.” Brutus replied as if it was no big deal that they had just been told to kill the people they’ve fought with since the beginning of the war.

Polar exclaimed in an utterly confused tone, “HUH!?” and Brutus’s hand went to his blaster holster.

“Are you saying you’re not going to obey the order? Sir? Good soldiers follow orders.”

“No, I- was just- confused, that's all, Brutus…” Polar put back on his commanding voice and told Brutus to stand down.

He thought for a moment, before walking to grab his helmet and leave the room.

“I'll be in my quarters, if any of you need me… just come get me- or call me on the comms.” The Corporal said as he went out of the sliding durasteel door and into the corridor towards the team's quarters. A perk about their team being the only one at the small base was that they each got their own small, private rooms instead of a big barracks room like on Kamino or on a larger base. Being a clone, where your needs weren’t always met the same as nat-borns most of the time, having a private room was a small luxury, but still a luxury that he had. Taking off his armor, he thought about the order just given to him and all of his comrades. Polar tucked away his armor pieces, and his tattered cloak into the storage box, then sat on his bed in his blacks. He contemplated changing into his fatigues, or just into another pair of blacks, he ultimately ended up choosing the clean pair of blacks over the loose fatigues.

About two hours of reading a holo-drama novel, Polar’s eyes started to get heavy and droopy. He yawned, setting his datapad down on the nightstand and getting up to turn the lights down, still keeping the room lit with one single light so it wouldn't be pitch black darkness. As he was walking back to his bed, he took the elastic ribbon out of his hair, the piece that was keeping it up in a small bun, and let his hair fall down. He sighed in the slight relief caused by the release of the tension in his scalp. Scratching his head and sitting down on the side of his bed, he stretched one more time and laid down, pulling the blanket over himself.

Just as he was falling asleep, his comm went off. Beep beep beep beep beep beep.

He grabbed it and answered it with a tired voice, “This is Corporal Polar.”

“Hi sir, Um, we just got a request to come back to Kamino within the next two rotations for an event.”

“Okay? And you needed to tell me this now?”

“Well, I suppose I could have waited…”

“You could have, yes. Bright as always Brutus… Is there anything else you'd like to tell me while you have me on call?”

“Um, nothing I can think of right now, I’ll call you again if I think of anything, Sir!”

“Well, Brutus, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I would like to sleep, so only call me if it’s really urgently important, ‘kay?”

“Affirmative, Sir! Sleep well, Sir. The boys say goodnight too.”

“Thanks, Good night…”

The communication signal ended with a click noise, and Polar put his comm back onto the nightstand. He closed his eyes and tried to do his routine of tensing all of his muscles and releasing them with a deep breath, starting with his face; he scrunched it, making the scar across his nose bridge pull slightly painfully, but a bearable amount. After his routine was over, he was much more relaxed and closed his eyes, pulling his blanket back over his shoulder and settling into a comfortable position.

Chapter one end

Characters used:

Corporal Polar (Has Lieutenant privileges but thinks Corporal sounded cooler with his name)

Sergeant Rico

Trooper Ebony

Trooper Butch

Pilot Offbeat

Pilot Nonk

I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I'm kind of just making this for fun, so sorry if its inconsistent. I plan on posting the chapters all together when it is done on Ao3, but I have to wait for the invitation first.

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 6 months

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When The World Is Crashing Down [Chapter 10: Blame Everyone But Me For This Mess]

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

Chapter warnings: Language, warfare, violence, serious injury, alcoholism/addiction, references to sexual content (18+), Aemond-induced chaos, death and destruction, witchcraft! 🔮

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

Chapter title is a lyric from: “I’ve Got a Dark Alley and a Bad Idea That Says You Should Shut Your Mouth” by Fall Out Boy.

Word count: 6.2k.

Link to chapter list: HERE.

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

Only 3 chapters left! 🥰💜

“Aemond!” he roars into the cerulean midday sky, knowing it is useless, that fate has already spoken.

All his life, fate has proven Criston Cole wrong. He once believed he could not rise above being born to a steward in the Dornish Marches. He once feared he would never be permitted to join the Kingsguard. He once felt in his twisting, self-loathing guts that he would never love any woman but Rhaenyra. And Criston once knew—without reservation, without complexity—that Alicent’s eldest son would never amount to anything worthwhile, could never be courageous, self-sacrificial, competent, a true king. Each time, fate had a different ending in store.

All around him, Green soldiers are dying in what will be known to history as the Butcher’s Ball. They are being slit open, disemboweled, crushed beneath the hooves of warhorses, stabbed and clubbed and speared. The Northmen have scorpions with them as well, with massive bolts to bring down dragons; but they are unnecessary. There are no dragons on the battlefield today.

Criston pictures Aemond as a boy, always so sullen, always so dutiful. He read and he wrote and he sparred in the castle courtyard until the blisters on his palms burst and bled and then turned to callouses, knots of dead-nerved scar tissue that grew over his wounds but never cured them. Criston did not just believe in Aemond’s abilities, his honor; he was certain of these things, he carried them as interminably as the lines in his palms. Criston knew Aemond and Vhagar would be the saviors of the Greens in this war. He knew Aemond would be here.

But he’s not. He’s just not, and there’s nothing I can do to bring him.

Cregan Stark is cutting through the Greens’ men. He is not a soldier, he is a force of nature, he is a thunderstorm or a famine or a rogue wave, he is winter coming to rip the trees bare and bury the weak in frostbitten earth. Arrows are loosed by the Northmen’s archers, lethal hissing rain. One hits Criston in the shoulder of his sword arm. Another pierces him through the small of his back, severing his spinal cord and dropping him to his knees.

Through the fray, Cregan sees the Kingmaker. He wants him, he wants Criston’s blood on his blade, his hands, his face; and what the Warden of the North wants, he is never denied.

Alicent, Criston thinks, and he remembers her lying in bed after giving birth to Aegon. She was a girl, just a girl, pale, sick, in terrible and unspoken pain, never the same in body, forever darker in mind, alone in a room full of tapestries of her husband’s house as the court celebrated her newborn son. She knew she had been used. She knew this was her life and always would be, a wheel that goes around and around and crushes the same bones until they stop mending, until the misery and desperation becomes so much a part of you that you could almost forget it’s there. It’s your shadow, it’s your religion, it’s a sigil or a ring.

I suppose now I have something to live for, Alicent had said, and Criston sat on the edge of the bed took her small, cold hand in his own. He raised her knuckles to his lips and answered: I swear to you that I will always protect him. That I will never let him die.

Here in the Riverlands as Cregan Stark descends upon him, Criston looks up again and sunlight spills over his face, warm and kind and golden; but the sky is still empty.

~~~~~~~~~~

In the gardens of Dragonstone, on a bench carved out of gloom-grey basalt, you pull Aegon’s legs into your lap and roll up his loose cotton trousers to inspect them: scars that have knit shut the gashes bones once cut through, muscle mass that is slowly building itself back again, good circulation, able to carry him if only for short, hard-fought distances. You have bled twice since Aemond flew back to the Riverlands to seize Harrenhal. Here under flinty autumn skies and pine trees that sway in brisk wind that smells like saltwater and metal, you think that perhaps the earth is done giving things. This is the time for harvests, not blooms. This is the season of endings, long nights full of cold stars, firelight, reaping.

“Stop,” Aegon says gently. He’s clutching a thick wool blanket around his shoulders. He’s always cold now, pale and shivering. His silvery hair hangs in untamed waves around his face adored with only a single small braid that you weave for him each day. “I don’t want you to do it.”

No; he only wants the maesters to see his weakness, his suffering. “I like taking care of you. It’s the only thing I’m good at. It’s how we met, remember?”

“Oh, I remember.” Now he smiles. “I have no idea what you saw in me.”

“An exemplary cock, mostly. Better than any in my medical books.”

Aegon laughs, a sound you rarely get to hear anymore. Then he is grave again. His hair blows in the gales that roll in off the ocean; his eyes, a tumultuous blue like waves in a storm, are ringed by shadows. “Angel, listen to me.” He places a hand over yours where it rest on a knot of scar tissue just below his kneecap. “If I don’t…” He pauses, and you think as you look at him: He’s nothing but scars now, he’s nothing but pain that is calloused over but never forgotten. “If I’m not here when the war is over, I want you to know that you’ll still be protected. Aemond knows. Larys knows. You are to be provided for. You will reside only where and with whom you choose to.”

“Why wouldn’t you be here?”

Aegon shrugs, avoiding your gaze. “We should be realistic.”

“You’ll be here. You have to be.”

Aegon stares into a thicket of rose bushes, blood-red petals and twisted thorns. And he says faintly, like something a strong wind could carry away: “I’ll try.”

“We’re winning, Aemond and Criston and Daeron and the Greens’ armies. They might have won already and we’re just waiting to hear the words. Aemond will end the war and then we’ll all be together again in King’s Landing.”

Aegon gives you a wry smirk as you roll back down the legs of his trousers, concealing his roadmap of harm. “A man like Cregan Stark would not be such a disappointment. He would be able to ride into battle. He would not have compelled you to bloody your own hands. He would not be feeble and deformed.”

“It can’t be anyone but you.”

Overhead, half-shrouded in mist, there is an immense reptilian shadow and a rumbling like the earth splitting in two, cracked and forced apart by eruptions of steam, lava, trapped toxic heat. Gingerly, Aegon returns his boots to the earth, stony and barren. He winces and groans before he can bite it back to hide it from you.

“I’ll go,” you tell Aegon, skimming your fingers through his hair and touching your lips to his temple. His wave-blue eyes are watery, grateful. “Stay here. I’ll bring him to you.”

You hurry through corridors and down spiral staircases, watched by dragons of iron and stone with fire burning in their mouths. And of course, there is more than one reason why you want to greet Aemond by yourself. You don’t know what he will say to you; you don’t know if he’s still angry. But when he strides through the entranceway of the castle to meet you—his hair in one long white-blond braid, his black coat billowing around him in the sharp wind—he is not alone.

There is a woman with him.

“…Aemond?” you say, staring at her: hair like onyx, skin like snow. She grins at you beneath eyes that are pools of ink, dark and glassy and with hardly any whites. You do not believe she intends to unnerve you; still, there is a blade-cold shudder that tumbles down the rungs of your spine.

Aemond replies with pride that is hushed, pure: “This is my wife.”

“Your…?” You cannot look away from her. Her gown is black lace with long, dragging sleeves and a train that curls around her like a dragon’s tail. You can see glimpses of her starlight skin through the fabric, her forearms, her waist, her thigh. Isn’t she cold? You are wearing heavy velvet, pine green like Aegon’s banner, and still the impending winter needles at you. “Who…?”

Lord Larys Strong arrives, his cane tapping on the stone floor. When he sees the woman, he jolts to a halt and gawks. “Alys?”

“Hello, brother.” Her voice is deep, smooth, melodic. She speaks the language of ocean currents, roots in dark fertile soil, the revolving of the stars.

You turn to Larys. “Who is this?”

“A bastard daughter of my father,” Larys answers, slow and disbelieving. “Alys Rivers. She…she was at Harrenhal, last I saw her…years ago…”

“And now she is here with me,” Aemond says. “She is precisely where she belongs.”

Silence fills the room, the world, the space that has opened up between you and Aemond. Wife? Bastard? Harrenhal? At last, you manage shakily: “Aegon is in the gardens. He’s waiting for you.”

“Good,” Aemond says. He wears something you have never seen on him before: not just pride but serenity, consolation, contentment. “There is much to discuss.”

As slate-grey wind whistles through rose thorns and cranberry bushes, you and Larys step out into the gardens with your uninvited guests. Aegon’s eyes snag on Alys, widen, and then dart to you. He mouths: Who the fuck is that? You shrug, bewildered.

Aemond says: “Allow me to present my wife, Lady Alys Rivers of Harrenhal.”

“Your wife?!” Aegon exclaims, like he couldn’t possible have heard correctly. “Your wife?!”

“Yes.” Aemond’s arm snakes around Alys’ waist. She folds into him, palm to his chest, lips to his throat, something creeping and boneless like ivy or mist or smoke. “You’ve had two now. I’ve only just found mine.”

“Rivers,” Aegon echoes incredulously. “A bastard from the Riverlands.”

Larys notes: “One of my father’s natural children.”

“A Strong bastard?!” Aegon cackles and looks to Larys. “Where is Daeron presently? Can he be summoned here? He should see this.”

“It is no jest, Your Grace,” Aemond says calmly. “It is a true pairing of souls.”

“And you were not at liberty to give yours. You have to marry Borros Baratheon’s daughter. That was the deal, that’s why he has pledged his army to us.”

“Daeron can do it.”

“Daeron won’t be old enough to marry for years, and that’s not the point! This is a slight, an egregious slight, to reject a Baratheon noblewoman in favor of a…a…what was she, a serving wench? A wetnurse? What happened to your pathological obsession with self-righteous duty? And why aren’t you and Vhagar with Criston?! Is this what you’ve been doing for the past six weeks while I was trapped here, suffering and useless? You’ve been hiding in the crumbling towers of Harrenhal with your so-called wife? What was so fucking crucial that it kept you from the battlefield—?!”

“She carries my son,” Aemond says.

A gasp spills from you before you can silence it; Lord Larys covers his mouth with one hand. Aegon stares numbly at his brother, not warring with envy or spite but raw astonishment. This is an asset to the Greens, it is a detriment, it lifts a burden from his shoulders, it imperils all of you. “You have no way of knowing what it is yet.”

“I know. We know.”

“And why have you flown to Dragonstone?” Aegon demands. “To torment me with your disobedience, to illustrate so vividly how all that relentless, calculated striving has finally cracked your brain in half—?!”

“No.” Aemond glances to you. “Something has happened. And I wanted to be here in person to deliver the news and…express my condolences.”

“Condolences?” you say, fearful, alarmed.

“Lord Larys will not have received word yet,” Aemond continues. “It has only just transpired. But Alys has seen it.”

Aegon shakes his head. He doesn’t understand. “Seen it…?”

“She sees things. The future, the past. Not every detail, but some of them. She’s seen Mother in the Red Keep, a prisoner but still alive. She’s seen Jaehaera safe and well at Storm’s End. The child has a protector, though Alys isn’t sure who.”

“She’s a witch?” Aegon says flatly. “This bastard Strong woman that you have taken to wife is, among all her other deficiencies, a witch?”

And Alys answers in a voice like the night sky, dark but threaded with glimmers of stars, moonshine, comets: “I am a woman who lives between two worlds. Your Angel is much the same, I think.”

Aegon blinks at her, not entranced or awed but fighting the instinct to flinch away.

“There have been riots in King’s Landing,” Aemond says.

“Yes, obviously. Everyone is aware of that. I think the Wildlings north of the Wall have heard.”

Aemond ignores the jab. “The Master of Coin, Lord Bartimos Celtigar, was travelling through the city in a carriage when…” He trails off, uneasy. He glances at you again. His sole remaining eye—river-blue and without any malice—shimmers with grim compassion.

“What?” you say. “What happened?”

Aemond speaks to Aegon in words you cannot comprehend, swift ageless High Valyrian.

Aegon sighs testily. “Slower. Enunciate.”

Aemond tries again. Aegon repeats a certain word, unable to decipher it. Aemond offers him several others, what you can only assume are synonyms.

Aegon’s face goes even paler, the last of the blood draining out of his cheeks. Then he reaches out a hand to you. “Come here,” he beckons softly.

“Why?”

“Angel, come here now.”

“They killed him, didn’t they?” you ask Aemond. Your voice is trembling, icy, choked. He was an architect of Rhaenyra’s war effort, but he was your father first. He was a beast with blood on his hands, but now you are too. “The common people hate Rhaenyra and they hate my family. So they murdered him.”

Alys says: “They did not just murder him.” And she is not taunting you, though she grins like she might be; she has lost pieces of what it means to be human. She is no longer fluent in anything as trite as sympathy or decorum. Her obsidian eyes gleam, polished, glowing. Her long black hair blows in the wind. There are raven feathers in it, you notice now, and twigs, pine needles, earth, sand, ashes. “They bound and tortured him, they sliced off parts of him to keep as relics, they rode on horseback through the streets swinging his severed head and cock as they celebrated an end to all taxes—”

“Will you shut the fuck up?!” Aegon shouts at her. “Angel, please, come here.”

“Your brother was there too,” Aemond says solemnly.

Yes, of course he would be. He was always Father’s favorite. “Clement,” you whimper, pressing a palm to your chest. Your lungs burn as they drink down chill autumn air that cuts like a blade.

“No,” Aemond says. “The other one.”

“What?” No. No, that can’t be true.

“Not Clement,” Aemond insists. “It was the other brother. The burned man.”

No. No no no. I can’t believe it, I won’t believe it.

“Angel,” Aegon pleads, still reaching for you.

“Everett,” Alys says, dreamy, not knowing how cruel it feels, like splinters of glass beneath your skin instead of arteries and muscle, like shattered bones. “He was not difficult for them to catch. He could not run.”

Your words escape in a hoarse whisper. “I don’t believe you.”

Alys offers her hands. They are long, lithe, white like a skeleton’s. “Would you like to see?”

“No.”

“I can show you. Then you will trust what I say.”

“Alys, my love,” Aemond warns.

“No, you’re a liar,” you snarl at her. “You’re not a witch, you’re not some prophet, you’re just a liar and I don’t believe you—!”

And before you can flee she’s crossed the space between you, she’s gripped your wrist with those slender claw-like fingers, she’s pouring her magic into you like poison down a prisoner’s throat. The vision surges into your skull and fills it, sight and sound and scent: Everett screaming as he is dragged from the carriage, the hoard ripping at his clothes and his eyes, dull kitchen knives pulled from pockets, the coppery ether of blood in the air. You can feel the feverish heat of the crowd. You can feel their boiling-over animal rage. You can feel everything, but you can’t stop it.

Beyond the grisly mirage, you can hear yourself shrieking, muffled and distant; and you can hear someone else bellowing for Alys to let you go. Her hand is yanked off of your wrist and you are abruptly back in the gardens of Dragonstone surrounded by indomitable flora that warps and tangles and endures. You are kneeling on the cobblestones, tears flooding from your eyes. Aegon is on the ground with you, his arms circling around your waist. He is calling Alys a bitch, a monster, a demon. He is threatening to feed her to his dragon.

“Forgive me,” Alys says to you, peering down with a vague sort of regret etching lines into her brow. “I did not intend to cause any distress. I only meant to help you understand.”

Aegon seethes at Aemond: “Take your witch back to Harrenhal.”

“No,” you protest; and Aegon studies you, puzzled, as you gaze up at Alys, this half-human phantom that dwells between realms, something like a dark mirror image of an angel. “What else have you seen?” Tell me Aegon lives. Tell me the Greens win and we have a chance at a better world one day. Tell me this was all worth it.

“She has seen Daemon and Caraxes meeting me at the Gods Eye,” Aemond says. “She has seen me taking flight to join them in battle.”

Aegon is stunned. “When?”

“Soon. Three days from now.”

You sob, thinking of Everett; and Autumn too, wherever she is, who will reappear when the war is over searching for home but forever unable to find it. Aegon holds you and you pull yourself into him, arms slung around his neck. His silver hair brushes your face; his scarred right cheek is rough against yours. When you breathe in violent hitches, you inhale rose oil and wine and salt and warmth and misery, you taste the war that built him and now has returned to claim the debt.

“It’s Rhaenyra’s fault,” Aegon whispers, fierce and merciless. “We will kill Daemon and Cregan Stark. We will retake King’s Landing and capture Rhaenyra. And I swear to you that she will burn.”

Aemond is saying: “Do we have permission to stay the night or not? We’ve traveled a long way. My wife is tired, and so is Vhagar. Another flight so soon would tax her.”

“You can swim,” Aegon pitches back.

Lord Larys Strong—ever servile, ever composed—clears his throat, both hands resting on the handle of his cane. “Would anyone care for some soft-shelled crabs?”

~~~~~~~~~~

Mist hangs heavy over the castle the next morning, a cool metallic grey like steel; the sun is muted, only a wisp of itself, a memory that is swiftly fading. Alys Rivers stands in the surf fetching seashells and stones that she plinks into a basket. Locks of her long, wild hair dip into the roiling water and emerge sopping and heavy, sticking to her ink-black gown. Aegon is curled up with Sunfyre at the edge of the beach. The dragon breathes with rattling, labored heaves and Aegon pets his golden face, wishing the beast’s wings to knit themselves back together and his own legs to be strong again, murmuring to Sunfyre in some clumsy patchwork of High Valyrian and the Common Tongue to assure him that he’s served his king well.

You and Aemond walk down the windswept beach together, your boots sinking in wet sand and leaving imprints like bruises on flesh. Your gown is a deep, vibrant red like the sigil of the newly decimated House Celtigar; Aemond’s hair is wavy and damp and blows loose in the breeze. You are reminded of the night you shared with him six weeks ago, though you don’t want to be. Neither of you have mentioned that indiscretion. You believe you have silently agreed to forget it. You ask the prince regent: “How many people do you think you’ve burned in the Riverlands?”

“Why do you care? They’re not you. They’re not me.”

“Perhaps each life we take robs something from us as well. It carves a piece of the soul away and leaves it less than it was before.”

Aemond raises his eyebrow, intrigued.

“I am less than I once was,” you explain. “Acts of love feel like violence, violence is mistaken for love. Things that horrified me a year ago are now what give me solace when I dream of them. Vengeance, slaughter, fire and blood. Aegon grows more bitter, more ruthless. And so do you.”

“We will have the luxury of reforming ourselves when the war is won and Aegon is the undisputed king of the Seven Kingdoms.”

“If there’s any part of us that remembers who we were supposed to be.”

“I remember exactly who you were.” Aemond grins. “Fawning over Aegon, weaving braids into his hair. Scurrying around with your bandages and vinegar and honey. Always seeking to take his pain away. Always waging your own little war against the agony of mankind.”

“That feels like a different person,” you say, peering out over the ocean.

“We will build monuments to those we’ve lost,” Aemond promises. “Jaehaerys, Maelor, Otto. Your brother and my sister. You say you dream of fire and blood? I often find myself dreaming of Helaena.”

You turn to him, startled. And you recall the warnings her ghost gave Aegon before Baela and Moondancer arrived on Dragonstone: Don’t fall, don’t fall. “Does she say anything?”

“She keeps telling me I’ll lose my left eye.” Aemond smiles wistfully. “And I answer: Helaena, that’s happened already. But when I try to comfort her, when I try to embrace her, she turns away from me and says it’s too late. That I’ve ruined myself.” He walks with his hands linked behind his back, his face thoughtful but not brooding. “I still miss her,” he says. “And I still feel responsible. But things are easier now.”

You follow his eyeline to where Alys is plucking a starfish from the frothing waves and placing it in her basket. And doesn’t it make some strange bit of sense that Aemond’s match would be someone rare, bizarre, gifted in ways that are in equal parts mesmerizing and fearsome? “I’m glad you found someone who eases your burdens.”

“She has suffered tremendously. She knows what it is to be unloved and overlooked. She had to reinvent herself, just like I did. She had to shed her skin and step into a new one that she stitched together herself.”

“Perpetual Resurrection,” you say softly.

“Perpetual Resurrection,” Aemond agrees.

Now Alys is trekking up the beach to join you, her soaked hair whipping in the wind and her basket slung over one arm. From where he sits with Sunfyre, Aegon watches her with narrowed, disapproving eyes. “This belongs to the king,” Alys says to you, opening her hand. In her palm rests the ring of gold wings and jade eyes. “You should return it to him. He does not like me.”

You gasp and take the ring that you last saw before Aegon fell from the sky and shattered his legs, his spirit. “How did you find this?”

“It spoke to me. I spoke to it.” She smiles, more like a leer, though she does not mean it to be. Her eyes—onyx, jet, black moonstone—are bright with amusement. “See? You do not understand. Sometimes it is best not to ask.”

You slip the ring onto one of your fingers for safekeeping until you deliver it to Aegon. From the stone staircase that leads up to the castle’s main entrance, Larys waves Aemond over to him. Aemond kisses the woman he calls his wife farewell—a deep, burning kiss—and then departs. You say to Alys: “How did you become…like this?”

“I surrendered to it. Anyone can, if your life is hell and you are willing to burn it down to the foundations. You go deep into the swamp and then it goes into you. It grows through your skin and into your veins. It tangles up with you, vines climbing your ribcage and spine like ivy on a trellis. It changes you. It makes you greater than you were before. The victim becomes the victor. The weak turn watchful and wise.” She is gazing at where Aemond stands with Larys, exchanging theories and plots. Aemond shakes his head at something Larys says. “I always knew he would find me. The man whose fractured pieces fit with mine. Yet each time I thought I glimpsed him only to realize he wasn’t the one, I would think: How long must I wait? I have buried so many children. Will I ever have more? Will he come to me before it is too late? Is it too late already? But no, he flew to Harrenhal just as my hopes were giving out like a dry well. And Aemond was worth every second, minute, month, year. He was worth the beatings and the contempt, the rapes and the blood. He was worth all of it.”

Alys reaches out to touch your cheek and you recoil; but she is not giving you a revelation this time. She is merely tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear with a fond, maternal smile. There are mottled plumes of violet and indigo on the side of her throat, you notice only now. Alys catches you staring.

“Aemond can be rough, domineering,” she says with a sly smirk. “You know how he is.”

You know how he is. You know how he is. Horror strikes you like lightning; you imagine what other visions she has swimming in her changed blood. “It was a mistake. Aegon must never learn of it.”

“Of course not. That would kill him.” And you are gutted by a blade of cool serrated treason. Alys does not appear to be aware of it. “If I can ever be of service, please do not hesitate to summon me. I can appear and speak to you briefly, perhaps for five or ten minutes. I will be like a mirage, a ghost. Find a closed door and write my name upon it in blood. Then knock three times and open the door. I will be there.”

“A door? Which door?”

“Any door.”

You contemplate her. “Why would you believe that you owe me loyalty?”

“Because of Aemond,” Alys says simply, without any trace of resentment. “You mean something to him. So you mean something to me.”

He doesn’t crave me anymore. He has his own prize now. “I think you’re mistaken.”

“I never am.” Then Alys glides off to rejoin her husband.

Hours later as you are helping Aegon into bed—he must be carried up and down the castle steps by his guards in a litter, something he considers mortifying—you weave a new braid for him and then pour him a cup of milk of the poppy when his glazed eyes keep listing to the glass bottle of pearlescent relief, deadened nerves, liquid dreams. You crawl into bed beside him, curl up against his scarred chest, listen to the slowing thud of his heartbeat as his arms enfold you and draw you in ever-closer. His dragon ring glints on his hand, returned to its rightful place.

“Your legs?” you ask, kissing the gnarled scar tissue that has grown over his collarbones like climbing roses, like ivy. He can’t really feel your touch there, that’s not why you do it. You do it to show that you aren’t repulsed by his wounds and could never be, could never think of any part of him as something less than wondrous.

“That’s most of it,” Aegon murmurs drowsily. “I’ve started getting this ache in my back too. It won’t go away.”

“What?” You bolt upright in bed. “Show me where.”

He gestures: the curve of his spine, just above his hips. Panicked, you begin pressing lightly over where his kidneys are.

“Here? Aegon? Does that hurt?”

But now he’s realized how frantic you are, how upset. “Oh, no, never mind,” he says, clutching his pillow and feigning being too tired to speak on the subject for even a moment longer. He yawns dramatically. “It’s just a sprained muscle, I think. You know I’m always crawling around now like some kind of vermin. It’s nothing serious. It will heal in time.”

“Aegon—”

“I’m alright.” He grabs your hand and pulls you back down to him, buries his face in your hair, nuzzles and sighs contently as he whispers: “Shh. I’m alright. Stay, stay.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“You left him!” you hear Aegon yelling from his rooms, and you drop the book you had been reading in the castle library, an anthology of illnesses of the body, the mind, the soul. You sprint through the shadowy corridors towards the noise, the hem of your sapphire gown fluttering around your ankles. You are always dressed in jewel tones these days. You are anything but neutral.

In Aegon’s bedchamber, Larys has pressed himself to one stone wall like he wishes to disappear. Alys is observing with her strange, impassive, void-dark eyes. Aemond is being berated. He does not appear resentful or defiant; no, he is paralyzed. He is haunted, he is damned.

“You left him!” Aegon screams again, and hurls a full wine cup that strikes Aemond in the chest, spewing red through the air like blood spurting from slit veins. The king is standing, but with great effort; he is scrabbling through the drawers of his bedside table for things to throw at his brother. Yet the glass bottle of milk of the poppy remains untouched. “You abandoned him, you betrayed him, you fucking murdered him!”

“Aegon, what’s going on—?!”

“Almost a week ago, Cregan Stark’s army met Criston’s in the Riverlands,” he tells you. He is panting, red-faced, furious as he recounts Lord Larys Strong’s words, the news the Master of Whisperers only now received from one of his innumerable informants.

You stare at Aemond, horrified, already knowing what this means. “And Aemond wasn’t there.”

“He was at Harrenhal!” Aegon roars, tossing one of your medical books at Aemond, a volume on herbology. It strikes the prince in the nose, and blood gushes from his nostrils; ruby droplets freckle his hair. Aemond makes no attempt to defend himself. He is in shock, he is mourning. “He was fucking his witch while our men were being butchered!”

“Criston, he’s…he’s…?”

“He was slain in battle,” Larys informs you quietly.

Aegon staggers to his brother, shoves him roughly, receives no retaliation. “He was the closest thing you had to a father, he worshiped you, he loved you, and you left him to fend for himself after I told you over and over again that you and Vhagar needed to stay with him, and now he’s gone!” There are tears on Aegon’s face, crystalline tracks that bleed down his cheeks and jaw and throat. “You killed him, you killed him!”

“The Stark men?” you ask Larys, not wanting to know but needing to.

“Moderate losses. Now headed south towards Daeron and the Hightower army.”

“You fucking traitor,” Aegon hisses, sobbing, beating his palms against Aemond’s chest again. “Your whole life all you’ve wanted was responsibility and the second someone gives it to you, you throw it away! Why can’t I be the one with a body that works?! Why can’t my dragon be whole again?!”

And at last Aemond finds his voice. It is brittle and almost too hushed to hear. “I’ll make this right. When I defeat Daemon and Caraxes at the Gods Eye, it will be over.”

“It’s already over for Criston!” Aegon explodes. “It’s over for Helaena and Jaehaerys and Maelor, it’s over for Otto and Everett, it’s over for Sunfyre, we keep losing people and it’s all your fault! You started this war and you’re too much of a goddamn coward to end it!”

“He will end it,” Alys says in that deep placid voice like dusk, dawn, midnight.

“Don’t try that bullshit with me! I don’t want to hear about your delusions, I want him to do his goddamn job! I want him to act like the hero he’s been begging to be seen as since he was five years old! You know why no one wants to write books about him or carve his face into statues? Because he doesn’t fucking deserve it!”

“I’m sorry,” Aemond whispers, his mouth trembling.

“You should be!” Aegon hemorrhages, and then collapses to the floor, moaning with his face in his hands.

You go to him, try to soothe him, grab the wine cup from the floor and fill it with milk of the poppy, tilt it against Aegon’s lips. He gulps the numbness down with helpless, hated need. Aemond and Alys flee for the doorway.

Aegon says, suddenly more calm: “Aemond, wait.”

The prince regent stills and turns back, listening. Aegon, with great difficulty, begins to say something in High Valyrian. Aemond cuts him off. “No, that won’t happen—”

“Please,” Aegon rasps. “Listen to me.” Then he continues. And as he speaks, Aemond’s eye fills with tears, a glistening like ice over lakes in the winter, like gemstones in a crown. You look between them, searching for any clues you can read.

“I understand,” Aemond says at last.

“Good. Now get out.”

Aemond wipes his face with his sleeve and then disappears from the room. You tell Aegon as you rise to your feet: “I’ll be right back.”

Aemond is moving quickly; you don’t catch up with him until he’s passed through the castle entranceway. Down by the ocean waves beneath a blood-red sunset, Vhagar is already landing, leaving cataclysmic imprints in the sand with her claws, trenches and impact craters. From the edge of the beach, Sunfyre watches with dull, wounded interest. Alys is halfway down the staircase. Aemond stops when he hears your footsteps, waiting under the rising full moon and materializing constellations.

You demand: “What did he say to you?”

“Nothing.”

“Aemond.”

“He’s confused, he’s exhausted, he’s in pain. He doesn’t understand—”

“Aemond, what did he say?”

The prince regent sighs and looks at you. “He said he doesn’t think he’s going to get better this time.”

I can’t believe that. I can’t survive that. “Why did you have to do it?” Your voice splinters; your throat burns. “He’s right that you started this war. You’re the reason Rhaenyra will never negotiate. You’re the one who made this horror inevitable. Why did you have to kill Luke?”

The dusk is radiant on Aemond’s face like firelight. It is a long time before he speaks. “I never intended to.”

That doesn’t make any sense. “What?”

“I never gave Vhagar the order. She went after Arrax. I tried to stop her.”

It wasn’t murder. It was an accident. And you think of all the times people have told Aemond that everything that’s happened is his fault, and how he has never disagreed with them. “Who knows?”

“You. Alys.”

“No one else?”

“Who would believe me?” Aemond smiles faintly, profoundly sad. “And even if they did, would that make me so much more noble than a kinslayer? A Targaryen who can’t control his own dragon? A man who is reckless, ineffective, unworthy?”

Here in air the color of flames and gore, you tell him, perhaps more kindly than he deserves: “You’re worthy, Aemond.”

“I will end this. I will meet Daemon and Caraxes in battle. Alys saw it.”

“Did she see you win?”

“Are you worried about me?” Aemond teases, grinning crookedly. And he does something that he hasn’t tried in a long time. He swipes for your forearm and you snatch it out of the way just before his fingers can close around it, just before he can catch you. Aemond chuckles. “I don’t want you to worry. I’ll win the war for the Greens. We will return to King’s Landing, we will rebuild, Aegon will heal. He will live for a long, long time.”

“Yes,” you say, wanting so desperately to believe it.

“You know,” Aemond adds as it occurs to him. “If the king does happen to predecease you, in ten years or twenty or thirty…and you find yourself unincumbered…Aegon the Conqueror had two wives. Alys would always be first, but…”

“No, Aemond.”

“Fine,” he says, agreeably enough. He smiles down at you. “I will come back to let you know when it’s done. Then I will fly south to join Daeron in annihilating Cregan Stark’s army. And then we’ll all go home.”

Yes, yes, let that be true. “Good luck,” you tell him, soft like a whisper.

“I don’t need it.”

Aemond descends the staircase, climbs up the rope ladder into Vhagar’s saddle, takes flight with Alys into the late-autumn dusk; and you watch them vanish into the crimson horizon until the sky is empty.

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

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wickednerdery · 5 years

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Title: FrostBitten: Absolute Zero Author: @wickednerdery Fandom: Marvel Pairing/character: Loki x Jotun!OC (& Reader) Rating: Explicit Summary: “Just do it already.” Notes: This is a series/multi-chapter fic - Masterlist Here. Ulfr is a Frost Giant, more clearly so than Loki, and “played” by Lee Pace. The whole thing in general is dark and this piece is NON-CON DARK, involving violence, torture, and a public rape. Loki is literally the worst to Ulfr here guys so don’t say I didn’t warn you, haha! For all that and length it gets a “Read More”.

It’s a sick déjà vu with a twist, the roles reversed, as you stand at the back of the crowd and Ulfr up front with Loki. Only the crowd remains the same, gives the same sense of humiliation as public entertainment with its terrified women and amused men. You shake without control, both totally unsure and completely certain of what’s to come.

“I expect treason now and again,” Loki’s opening smile freezes your blood as eyes burrow into you, then drag to the crowd. “Even the best kings have those who think they may do better, those who dare to attempt assassination and revolution. Often their punishment is death.” He pauses to let insecurity and discomfort bloom. “But I am loving god that allows for such wretches to learn better. I am a king that is willing to show mercy to those who might deserve it, who show they’ve seen the error of their ways.”

Ulfr’s a strange mix of slumped and rigid, his lack of strength preventing even Loki’s magic from raising him up on knees properly. What little there is of his own energy seems dedicated to listening, watching through blackening eyes.

“Of course, one still must be punished for such an egregious act as treason,” Loki grins, drags a hand down through the air so the Frost Giant drops...just catching himself with his hands. “Crawl to me, Ulfr, like a good pet, and beg for my mercy.”

Stomach turns over, legs weaken, as you watch Ulfr grunt himself across the floor. He leaves it spotty with blood as swollen head hangs, seemingly too heavy to raise. You think to speak out, try to reason with Loki, offer to take Ulfr’s place, anything to stop it, but don’t for fear it’ll only make things worse.

"My king...my god...” His voice is soft, crackling with bloody lungs and raw throat. “I know I have done wrong, I have disobeyed and betrayed, for that I deserve to die...”

The speech is rote, given in a beaten monotone. You sense he’s slipping off, finding safe places inside his mind to go, even as he continues. Is this something Ulfr’s heard before? Had to give before? He’s not present, there’s no defiance or spark of life in the man’s eyes, yet he doesn’t stall or stumble. You flick a look to Loki, who seems pleased, but arrogantly unimpressed.

“...I beg that your justice be swift and true, your punishment help me to learn better, and you may allow me the chance to correct myself and prove my loyalty over and over until you have it once more.”

Loki grins. “Ah...Ulfr...” Crouches, runs hand through his second-in-command’s hair before gripping it hard, forcing Ulfr back and up on knees to look him in the eyes. “I don’t believe you.” His laugh holds a hollow, dark, amusement. “Give me your belt.”

There’s a rumble of twisted chuckles throughout the crowd, both eager and unsure, as your breath holds. You watch Ulfr undo and slowly pull off his belt without emotion, your heart jumping at every snap it makes through another loop. You swallow hard as he folds up it, presents it to Loki like a gift. “Loki!” you call out, unable to stop yourself. “You don’t have to do this, please...Please!”

Loki snatches the belt, then turns head with a malicious grin. “Oh, that choice will not be mine...or yours, my dear.”

You stop in your tracks, look over the crowd only just realizing you’re at the front once more. That you’re on display again, before everyone, with Loki only too-delighted to have you that way. Heart beats against your chest, driving you to flee until you shake with the urge. With shocking speed Loki loops the belt around Ulfr’s neck, yanks him up to stand. “Loki, please!”

“Silence, quim!” He snaps back at you before smirking at his leashed captive. “You want to prove to me how sorry you are? Where your loyalties truly lie?” Eyes narrow, nostrils flare as if sniffing for the truth. “Take her now.” Lips curl over Loki’s teeth. “Show me, show everyone, exactly how you betrayed your king...and destroy the thing that led you astray.”

Something in Ulfr’s detachment breaks; he comes back to the present, the situation as it is. His own eyes narrow, lips quirk up into a smirk, in a countermove. He knows what Loki’s truly requesting...and he imagines Loki already knows his answer.

It’s then it occurs to you...Ulfr can’t touch you anymore. Whatever he’d done the night prior, whatever turned his eyes frost blue, also gave him the power of control. It’s gone now and, if he touches you, he’ll burn you. He’ll kill you if he attempts intimacy. He’s being setup to refuse Loki, to worsen his punishment. You’re the pawn again.

“Take her, Ulfr, or I’ll take you.”

Something in the stillness of the air suggests they’re speaking to each other without words; their glares hard and unwavering so that the whole room shifts in discomfort. Are they arguing, goading each other? You half expect a brawl to start, a winner-take-all cage match to the death between the two beings. You move to back away, but the crowd insists you stay as they push back. The buckle clinks, insisting on an answer, and its captive growls back.

Ulfr’s lip splits again in his grin. “Just do it already.”

The god grabs and there’s a moment you swear you see them both go blue, lined, like Ulfr the night before. They both show as Jotun...then you blink and it’s gone. You look around, but no one else seems aware. They only see the awe of their king, their god, as he spins and slams Ulfr face first into the counter.

“LOKI STOP!!” You blurt out in utter desperation; in frustrated wish for this to be nothing more than a game of chicken between the two.

“If she opens her mouth again,” Loki scans the men of the crowd before focusing in on you. “I encourage you to stop it however you may see fit.” That your eyes tear, beg in silence, only seems to delight.

With belt held firmly, ready to choke, Ulfr doesn’t bother to fight, adjust, or say a word. He barely grimaces even as the head wound from the scepter smears its blood across countertop. He knows better...Loki wants signs of pain, fear. He wants the reassurance he’s the most powerful and scary thing in the universe. Well fuck that and fuck him.

Dark chuckles of the crowd rise once more and nausea bubbles up in your stomach, your throat. You think to speak, but one glance around shows men are waiting on it, on that opportunity to stop your mouth in the most sadistic ways they can. Instead you will your words heard. The begs, the pleads, the curses at Loki, the apologies and pleas to Ulfr. Neither seem to take note if they hear.

Whatever’s in him that might acknowledge the terrible cruelty of it, that he knows all too well the damage it will do, fades in rage and the drive to dominate. Loki only indulges in the feel of himself growing more in charge, more feared, more like the god and king he needs to be. He leans over the other, puts lips to ear. “I am a god!” He hisses. “You’re nothing without my stolen powers...just another frozen monster to be destroyed.”

“That what Odin told you before he tossed you into the abyss?” Ulfr growls back. He gives a heated chuckle before the tip of Loki’s blade slices up tailbone and small of his back, cutting fabric and flesh both.

“Do not think for one second that anyone will see such a thing.” Loki as a Frost Giant, he’ll never allow it. “They will see their god fucking his usurper into submission.” Hand undoes fly, reaches in to stroke himself to hardness.

The belt is stretched across the counter, held at the corner by Loki’s hand, so that every move Ulfr might make to fight, to resist, will only result in choking him. He’s also choked in Loki’s movements from behind. “Behave and I’ll let you watch all the times I take her,” he taunts, roughly stripping Ulfr from the waist down. “That is my mercy for you, you fucking traitor.”

Ulfr curses Loki’s harsh entry, eyes watering at the sheer shock of pain. No preparation, no easing in, just a snap of Loki’s hips that jolts what should be a solid island-counter. Waves of sickness that cause Ulfr’s head to spin overtake his whole self, heighten as his body instinctively fights the intrusion trying to rearrange his insides.

Your eyes fill with tears of shock and terror, mouth open to speak even as nothing comes out. Nothing can. Beyond his threats Loki seems to have taken your voice from you; words swirl and fill your throat, but none escape. Nothing does as you watch Loki do the unthinkable...listen to him cackle in delight as he does.

Blood runs down Ulfr’s thighs, works as the only lubricant while Loki shoves cock up his ass over and over. Every attempt to lessen pain, to slip away into his mind, is stopped by a sudden jerk of the belt or bark of his name. Loki wants him present, wants him to know exactly what’s being done to him - every painful, humiliating, thing. Hand once bruising his hip moves into hair, yanks until his head is bent back...bloody, tear-streaked, face and throat exposed to the world.

“Who is your king?” Voice snaps, demands, with Loki’s thrusts.

“You.” It’s barely a word, it’s a croak.

“My name...” Teeth bury into the back of Ulfr’s neck to break and mark the skin. “Say it, Hoarfrost.”

He considers holding out, not giving him the satisfaction, before Ulfr feels that soul-breaking heat once again. As if turning into fiery metal Loki’s length starts to burn deep inside him, hits prostate so that Ulfr finally gives up a wail of pain in the form of the other’s name. “LOKI!!” That fire in his veins starts to spread into his heart and head once more...He cannot not repair or even protect himself if he wishes now.

“Who is your god?”

“LOKI!!”

It doesn’t lessen Loki’s drive, only spurs it on. He fucks faster, harder, demanding his name be said over and over. He wants nothing more than his newest pet’s pleas and cries...he wants it to beg him for death. Death should be the mercy, not life. His grin goes psychotic, actions wild, as he slams the Frost Giant’s head into the counter and grabs limp dick, squeezing until Ulfr screams...until Ulfr can’t make sounds he’s in such pain.

Whatever else is happening in the room blurs in inattention as you focus on the two men. On Loki’s seeming reenactment of your introductory rape with Ulfr. No, it’s worse than that...Loki was trying to scare you, hurt a little, yes, but not like this. With Ulfr you’re not so sure death isn’t the goal. That Loki won’t suddenly slit him open or snap him in half. And, for all your desires to stop it, to protect Ulfr, you’re frozen to the spot utterly helpless. Hopeless.

Loki spills with a growling shudder and smile, letting himself fill Ulfr’s ass with the heat he denied you. For a moment he simply stays inside, heavy-lidded and panting, as if shocked himself at what he’s done. Then he pulls out, white cum flowing after to mix with the red blood already running down the thoroughly owned Frost Giant’s legs. Loki cleans and does himself up swiftly. “Am I not merciful?” He looks over to see faces of shock and awe. “AM I NOT MERCIFUL?!”

As much as the crowd cheers its response, it’s also stepped back a fair ways. It’s left you out in the open, alone. The only one refusing to answer, to obey, Loki. Even knowing Loki’s glaring right at you, through you, you don’t catch his eye. Your eyes stay on Ulfr as he tries to hang onto the counter and what little dignity he might still have with knees giving out, starting to buckle.

Loki closes in once again and Ulfr cringes away. “You heal a single wound before its time, I’ll do the same to her ten times over,” he hisses before shoving Ulfr to the floor with belt still around his neck and turning back to his people. “He should remain warm for the next few hours.” Only when you look up does he add. “Do with him what you wish...just don’t permanently damage or kill him.”

You rush forward, hoping to get to Ulfr first, to get him away if at all possible, but Loki catches you around the waist before you get more than a few steps. You fight and squirm to get out of his hold, more when you see the crowd start to close in on the Frost Giant, but not even biting stops Loki from hefting you over his shoulder and carrying you off in the direction of his quarters...

First, Hoarfrost is a real word; it’s definition, pronunciation, and usage is here. Second...I told you it was dark and Loki was terrible in this one, ha! Ulfr will survive this, but he’ll most certainly not be in top form or even his regular self for some time afterwards. The summary quote, the one Ulfr says to Loki, is a repeat of what the reader told Loki upon his initial public rape of her...I like parallels and Ulfr couldn’t resist, lol! I have two major possibilities after this: going on to Loki and The Bold One in his quarters just after or a small time jump of a few days to get Ulfr mobile again...not sure which I’ll do yet, but if you guys have thoughts/opinions I’d love to hear them! ^_^

(Gif created from two others found on Google!)

Tagged: @succumb-to-your-king @chibiyanai @wadeyouwitch @creedslove @lady-crowned-with-stars @moonfaery @annievvv7 @ladyfluff @holykryptonitekitten @lokilvrr @janebrownnie @lokis-little-kitten @alexakeyloveloki @theangelsfightwithdevils @the-blue-tiefling @lokis-lady-death @dangertoozmanykids101 @prometheasmother @vethrvolnir @wintertink @amethyst-dreams-and-candy-canes @drakonwild @starscreamloki @fassyownsmyassy @hiddles-rose @the-lady-witchitery @galaxies-inside-my-head @jackheart180 @lukeevansandjdmobession @endlessstairway @steph-1986 …Think that’s everyone, you want on the list, just lemme know!! (Also @manip-loki, whump!)

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wickednerdery · 6 years

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Title: FrostBitten: On Thin Ice Author: @wickednerdery Fandom: Marvel Pairing/character: Loki x Reader (& Jotun!OC) Rating: Mature Summary: “You’re sick.” Notes: This is a series/multi-chapter fic - Masterlist Here. Ulfr is a Frost Giant, more clearly so than Loki, and “played” by Lee Pace. This piece goes back an forth between Loki/Reader and Ulfr with each line designating a switch in focus. The whole thing in general is dark, this one’s mostly just angst with a bit of murdery violence…For consistency and length it gets a “Read More”.

Loki returns to his quarters satisfied. By tomorrow you will surely be gone and all will be right once more. Ulfr will be without your distractions and so will he. Free from your amusing boldness, foolishly soft looks, and that naive belief he’s good. Loki hasn’t been good a day in his life, he was born wrong. Born to be wicked, manipulative, cruel. Loki was born a monster, just as his second-in-command was, and no sweet smelling Midgardian with gentle eyes will change that..

That strange feeling of weakness you give him crawls back inside as he sleeps. Starting at the base of his skull, spreading down spine in a shiver, across face in an unsteadiness of lip and tearing of eyes. His dreams go from that of rule to ruin. Himself on high dragged into darkness, through pains unknown, as fire and ice scorch his skin. His dozing form fights, seizes, as the sensation takes over his body.

Ulfr did his research long ago - location, routes, codes, risks - it’s just the ability to pull it all off he’s been waiting on. He looks down at his sleeping body, then his own projection. It isn’t perfect with its slight transparency and wavering features, but with the pressure on from Loki he doesn’t have an option. It will fool a Midgardian well enough, he supposes. Calculating the time he has, the time it’ll take, Ulfr moves to act.

With long, sure, strides he makes his way to the section of the building-come-palace where the Hunters lived. Hunters: those sent in search of whatever their king’s whims decides, including men and women to be used as Loki wishes. Those like Jacob, who purchased you and whose wall Ulfr simply walks through now.

Two birds, one stone.

The god stares at your door numbly before shocked confusion blinks into him. How did he get here? What possibly drove him and how could he not recall the walk? Was this you? Did you draw him in? How?!

‘I know there’s a good king, a good man, in you Loki…’

How dare you unravel him with your stupid, foolish, words! He will not be controlled by some pathetic little Midgardian. He will not fold to something he can crush under his boot. That is not, cannot, be how this goes!

Loki is a good king because he is not a good man. Like Laufey, like Odin, like others...even the Mad Titan. He’s feared, followed obediently. No one dares betray him. Not even by those who might still be capable. Everyone’s loyalty is unwavering because they understand what will happen if they step out of line. What Loki, King of Midgard, will do to them.

You, with your weak Midgardian mind, simply don’t understand, can’t comprehend the danger as it stands before you. If you did you’d clearly not show any hope, any kindness towards him. Kings have no need for kindness; it’s better to be feared than loved. He needs to make things clearer for you, obviously you won’t understand until it’s made plain.

He looks at the man with a vague sort of hate, willing Jacob to wake until he does. Ulfr smiles faintly as the Midgardian stares dumbly. A finger to his lips, then a crook of two, and the Frost Giant has the mortal following him almost without thought.

Careful to offer Jacob first passage through doorways, to suggest to him the elevator code, Ulfr hides his astral projection as reality. Down halls, down floors, all the way down to the former heart of Stark Industries. As elevator dings open Ulfr leaves lingering instructions in Jacob’s mind before bringing himself back to his body.

Jacob steps out into the lab alone. The place is dark, littered with tools, bits of metal, and unfinished or destroyed projects. It’s awesome and awful both, realizing he’s in the workshop of the late Iron Man. He turns to ask what this is all about, but there’s nothing, no one, there. “The fuck?” He mutters, facilitating between shock and confusion.

There’s a faint blue glow in a room beyond the main area and it draws him forward. That’s where he’s supposed to go, what’s in there is what he’s to see. A great secret, an immense power, that calls to him as much as Ulfr’s memory pushes him.

He passes smashed screens and broken bits of robot, sketches and models, before reaching the glass-walled office. Inside is Tony’s dead heart - the arch reactor gone inert - and Loki’s false beating one in a glowing, blue, box. It brightens, lighting the room and beyond, as it seems to call Jacob like a moth to a flame.

That nightmare shiver comes back when Loki’s eyes land on the ring of bruises around your neck in the shape of his hands. It seems unduly harsh to him now; now that your mouth is still, your tears slipping out and down your face. Now that he sees you shiver, shake, whimper, and writhe in your sleep just as he does in his.

“P-P-Please...” you croak out under your breath. “Sssstop-p-p...” your voice breaks apart into a weep.

He thinks to wake you from the terror, to kill that pitiful expression, but then realizes waking to him will only make it worse. Even if a good king, he’s surely a terrible creature. Loki sighs, turns out to leave you be.

“NO!” You startle awake before senses catch up to body and you groan in pain. Breath shudders out as you spot the god come to get his due. You made him feel; he’s about to make you wish you can’t. Swallowing dried blood and decency in favor of wanting it over you cast gaze down. Once he has you to his satisfaction maybe you can return to sleep. Or die. Either way, it will surely be over quicker if you don’t fight anymore. You work shaky limbs to begin disrobing.

“No.” Loki’s voice vibrates insecurity through the silence as he turns back to you. Your eyes are wide with surprise, confusion. “Why do you think me a good man?”

This is why he crept into your room? You almost wished it was just to have his way with you so he could do it and leave. Muscles ache in your shift, head spins as you rest against the wall for support. “Because you go out of your way to prove you’re not.”

With long, swift, strides Ulfr heads directly to Stark’s former workshop with unwavering determination. He rides the elevator, humming, singing. “Stop, drop, shut 'em down, open up shop...Oh, no...That's how Ruff Ryders roll...”

At the ding Ulfr continues on towards the back of the lab where The Tesseract is tucked safely away...or was. Now the office is unlocked, wide open, and the powerful weapon exposed to anyone who wishes to take it. Jacob wears a spare pair of Stark’s work-gloves in another foolish attempt to touch the cube. He doesn’t get the chance as, in five steps, Ulfr reaches him. The Frost Giant lifts him off the floor with a single hand, then slams him to the floor like a rag doll. The man kicks up, attempts to escape the burning-cold, but it’s no use. A flick of the wrist and Ulfr snaps necrotic neck like a toothpick before kicking body through the plate glass and into decommissioned Iron Suits at the other end of the lab.

Ulfr smirks at a plan setting perfectly into place. Those watching - The Chitauri, Thanos’ men, perhaps Thanos himself - will see exactly what he wants them to. The Tesseract left unprotected; their greatest desire, the thing Loki promised to keep safe while attempting to find more Stones for them, left in the open for any pathetic mortal to stumble upon and attempt to touch with their nasty, unworthy, hands.

Red eyes shine as they crawl back to The Tesseract. Ulfr only glimpsed it prior, watched as Loki tucked it away, but otherwise he had no interaction with it. Loki made sure to keep it out of his range; out of everyone’s range save his own. While the effort to figure out where it was hidden proved minimal, it took more to decipher Loki’s complex security codes. The greatest effort taken was in patience though...all that waiting and now here Ulfr stands before The Cube and its immense power.

It seems to call to him...

“I’ve considered having Ulfr rape you to death tomorrow, you know.” It’s almost said with pride; you roll your eyes with a sigh as he proves your point. “Did you hear me, Midgardian?”

“Yes.”

“Well? Don’t you have anything to...say?”

You shrug.

Loki’s frustration makes him scream. "You are the most foolish Midgardian I’ve met!”

“You took over an entire planet and you’re here trying to convince one ‘stupid, fucking, mortal whore” to be afraid of you?!” You shift, crawl towards him in rage-fueled adrenaline. “You rape, strangle, demean, one foolish Midgardian because she doesn’t see you how everyone else does?! How you want to be seen?!” Fighting through arguing body you get up on knees in front of him. “A real king, a real man, does what he thinks is best and fuck everyone else!”

“Fuck everyone else?!”

“Yeah. Fuck everyone else!”

“Fuck you!”

Whatever your right mind might’ve done, it isn’t what you do. You slap him. Hard. Hard enough a stinging bloom of pain bursts from your palm out. With nowhere else to go but onward you slap again, then shove. The effort throws you off balance, you fall forward.

Loki catches you only to pull you into a kiss that you fight with a replied one. A biting of his lips, his tongue, as you growl. Hands once shoving now pull in, dig nails into leather, before you push away with churning stomach. Breath tears from your throat, tears flow from eyes. “I hate you.”

“I’m sorry.” His eyes are a bewildered green; he’s not confused in his statement though, he’s apologizing.

“You’re sick.” You sit back on the bed, unable to remain kneeling. “Whatever’s here, doing it....you need to get rid of it.”

The first touch is tentative, filled with wariness of pain, alerting Loki or others. The second is more sure. On the third time Ulfr lifts it from its cradle to examine. It seems to look back at him through its heart, its eye, the Stone itself.

Pure power rushes through as he goes from human to deep blue Jotun. The Cube starts to blacken his skin as he works to keep himself cold enough to handle it; frost crawls across the floor, covers Tony’s arch reactor, shatters the glass room, screens, turns suits to icemen. Ulfr’s red eyes begin to blaze blue.

“Ah!” He drops it in favor of his blackened hand as it splits at the palm. He examines the wound, works fingers from his other hand across to heal himself. A scarred line remains, disrupting the roots and vines of his markings. Feeling the power coursing through his veins he concentrates, tries again, and his hand heals completely, returns to blue.

Out of the corner of his eye The Tesseract pulsates and almost in a panic Ulfr returns it to its cradle. He immediately wants it back in his hands, wants more of the power it holds coursing through him, but he holds back. He’s already pressed farther than he should. Nevertheless, Ulfr can’t look away as the thinks to try something. He closes his eyes in focus, thinks of the spot in detail, and...

A rush of air and Ulfr opens his eyes back in his room at Stark Towers. He grins wide, amazed and thrilled both. He warms himself, the room, until everything is as it would be for any other person on this planet. Everything except his eyes...they burn blue, glow just as the scepter in Loki’s room and The Tesseract in the lab.

Loki’s look to you is sad, longing. “I can’t.” You hear his utter defeat as tears fall from jade and jaded eyes.

“Loki...” You start another approach before the god’s eyes blast sapphire and Loki himself seems to hold his breath. “Loki?”

“No!” It’s more a beg than an order and you want to ask, but....

He’s gone.

Okay, so lemme unpack this a bit. I think Loki’s sorta caught between the good, sweet, side of himself and who/what Thanos, the two stones he’s in possession of, and his own experiences (especially in the abyss), made him. That the reader might see his softer side, the side often buried even to himself, is a connection he is both terrified of and wants desperately. And, for this story, I have a headcanon that any infinity stone can both draw in and affect a person personality-wise with its power - especially if said person is power-hungry. ...And, no, I’m not going tell you what’s happened to Ulfr or Loki at the end, that ruins the cliffhanger, LOL! 😉

(Gif made by me via two gifs I found on Google; Ulfr’s singing DMX’s 1998 Ruff Ryder's Anthem.)

Tagged: @welcome-to-fangirl-hell @chibiyanai @wadeyouwitch @creedslove @lady-crowned-with-stars @moonfaery @annievvv7 @ladyfluff @holykryptonitekitten @lokilvrr @janebrownnie @lokis-little-kitten @alexakeyloveloki @theangelsfightwithdevils @the-blue-tiefling @lokis-lady-death @dangertoozmanykids101 @prometheasmother @vethrvolnir @wintertink @amethyst-dreams-and-candy-canes @drakonwild @starscreamloki @helayes @hiddles-rose @the-lady-witchitery @galaxies-inside-my-head @jackheart180 @lukeevansandjdmobession…Thinks that’s everyone, you want on the list, just lemme know!!

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