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azsazz · 2 years

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A Court of Four Horsemen

Rhysand x Reader

Summary: Based off of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse featuring Rhysand as Conquest, Cassian as War, Eris as Famine, and Azriel as Death.

Warnings: War, famine, death, smut...a little bit of everything.

Word Count: 5,319

Notes: So so excited for this one. I've worked really hard on this and I hope you all enjoy it. Three parts to follow. Welcome Rhysand to Azsazz.

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I. The Lost Girl

It was the day the moon fell.

A cry that could be heard across Prythian, halting the townspeople in their tracks, conversations falling quiet as the hairs rose on the back of your neck, the pure anguish in the scream, streets shaking and birds flocking away in its wake.

The High Lady of the Night Court was dead.

Word had spread fast, the angry High Lord of the Night Court had lost the one thing in his life he thought he’d have forever, and now he was going to avenge her by taking over all of Prythian.

If they wanted a war over his declaration, he welcomed it, forming a group of his most trusted warriors, mounting their steeds and setting out across the lands, ready for whatever the other High Lords were set to decide. They could join him and perhaps rule under him, or they could die.

They rode for six days across his lands, spreading the word and dealing with those who did not agree. All four were skilled in the art of killing, each had their own interesting ways to convince the fae that did not want to stand under his reign.

On the seventh day they reached a small town, your town. It was nearing nightfall, and they had traveled for such long hours that day that they knew there wasn’t another city for hours, considering themselves lucky to have found this one, as not even the High Lord had known this little village thrived off of his lands.

Thrived was not the correct word to describe the settlement you lived in, but it would have to do until the morning.

He rode into your town on a horse as white as the freshly fallen snow with a babe on his hip. He was the stark opposite of the wild creature beneath him: smooth, tanned skin, hair as silky dark as the night sky, wearing only the most expensive onyx fabrics. He did not look ready for war, no, he was dressed to conquer.

Following him were his comrades; a warlord who donned gleaming crimson siphons, face set like he hadn’t smiled in centuries, eyes harrowed with too much battle. He sat atop a stallion reminiscent of the red mountains of the Night Court, a large, gleaming sword settled comfortably in his grip, as though he was born holding the saber.

An auburn haired male followed on a well fed dark horse, reflecting that of stormy midnight. Your eyes widened as you realized it’s mane and tail were made of flame, hot, red and wild like his spirit, carrying the weight of his torturous father, how he hoped to kill the male and any High Lord that stood in thier way, bodies turned to ash and swept away with the wind they left on.

Ending the pack of powerful males was death incarnate. A pale horse below him, its coat the sickly pallor of a corpse, and you knew without a doubt that he would be the last thing you see when your time comes. The animal's hair seemed alive, made of dark mist, curling around Death's ear like they were whispering secrets to him, and when his hazel eyes cut to yours from underneath his black hood, you looked down immediately, bowing your head in the presence of them.

They had come with word that your territory was now under the rule of the future High King, who passed his babe off into the awaiting arms of the warlord as he addressed your town. The crimson glow washed across the babes sleeping face as the commander shifted him in his arms, asleep against his chest, still looking as menacing as battle itself, even with the fragile child in his grasp.

No one dared object as his violet eyes scanned the crowd, waiting patiently for some poor soul to do so. Death’s grip flexed on his knife as his shadows slithered through the crowd. They stopped when they reached you, and you stood completely still as they twisted up your legs and torso, reading your body language. One stalled in front of your face and you stared directly into it, into death itself, before they skittered away and back to their master.

You watch intently, nervous, fingers clutching at the fabric of your pants as you observe what seems to be a silent conversation from the party above. They stand tall upon their steeds, eyes going unfocused for only a moment, before the leader’s stormy violet eyes fall upon you.

Something happens then, your muscles lock up and you can’t move, can’t look away from that intense gaze. You’d heard about him, his powers, the male upon the white horse could shatter a mind with half of a thought. Maybe that’s what he was trying to do with you.

Show us where we’ll be staying, his silky smooth voice echoes in your mind instead, his abilities caressing against the inside of your head, goosebumps breaking out across your flesh. You can’t nod, too tightly under the wrath of his powers, so you think your response and he lets you go.

You gasp a short breath, swaying in your spot. He’s not the sort of male you keep waiting, as you slink your way through the crowd and towards the four warriors. The closer you get the more you notice; the dark crown resting upon his head, the bow stretched across his back. They are all incredibly beautiful and command attention with ease. You are sure that they will not fail their mission. These are not males to be messed with, and the crowd is dismissed as soon as you break from the mass of people, stepping up to face his horse.

He looks down upon you, you eye the jutting structure of his jaw, he looks as if he himself is in need of a hearty meal and a good night’s rest.

“What is your name?” he asks, and it’s the same silky voice that had purred in your head only a moment ago.

“It’s (Y/N), my King,” you respond politely, giving them all a bow.

“(Y/N),” he tastes your name on his tongue and finds he quite likes it, smirks as he speaks next, “Lead the way.”

It’s nothing much, your town, small and poor and not even on any map. How they had found it and why they thought making the trip here was beyond you, but you didn’t question it as you led the way to the best inn for travelers.

The babe awoke with a cry and Death immediately took him into his arms, singing him a harrowing song in a beautiful voice, low and raspy until the youngling settled, staring up at the male with wide eyes.

The male on top of the black horse takes note of the fae within your town, most wearing ratty old clothes that do nothing to block out the bitter cold, their bones jutting out from hunger. He will not have much to do here.

The warlord scans the scared passerby, but stops only after seeing a few. He’s come to the same conclusion that the fiery haired male has, that these people were hungry, and they were not fit for war. He’d have to recruit warriors from somewhere else.

“This is the nicest inn we have,” you don’t know why you’re embarrassed. Perhaps it was the intimidating and spectacularly clean foursome before you, clothes thick and pristine, made for the harsh winters wind. You didn’t have a say where you grew up, how poor you were, but your cheeks reddened nonetheless as you gestured to the decaying boarding house.

The leader dismounted the horse with ease, landing lightly on his feet beside you, reins of the white beast held tightly in his hand as the horse shook out its blinding white mane. He was even more beautiful up close and you had to turn your head away to control the pounding in your heart.

“Where can I tie up Glory for the night?” His voice is soft, thankful even, as he pets his steed on his nose, admiring his animal.

“There’s a post just around the corner,” you start, turning on your heel to lead the pack to the stumps in the ground. The earth should be frozen enough to keep them upright all night, for you knew in the summer with the rain turning the dirt to mud the posts would fall over.

“No need to show us, (Y/N), I’m sure we can find it from here,” he gives you an easy smile, eyes gleaming like the stars about to appear in the night sky. “Though we are in need of something to eat, if you would be so kind as to point us in that direction.”

You swallow harshly, knowing full well that the only restaurant in your town was closed, the chef having succumbed to the illness that struck the town this time yearly. Thinking quickly on your feet, your respond just as nicely, “No need to worry about that milord, I will fetch you all something, even the babe. Why don’t you all get warmed up and settle in while you wait?”

He eyes you curiously and you wonder if he thinks you’re going to poison them. You wouldn’t, didn’t have the resources if you really wanted too, but you can’t help but fidget underneath his gaze.

“Very well,” he nods his head to his comrades, who take off on their horses in the way you’d pointed, “Formalities are unnecessary. Please, call me Rhysand.”

“Very well Rhysand,” your response is curt, and he dismisses you with his own nod, turning on his heel to follow the direction his friends had gone. You miss the glance he takes over his shoulder as you walk back towards your own home.

__________

You scrounge up just enough to make a pot of stew for the visitors after pleading to some of the people you trusted. When they were weary, needing food for their own families and thinking you wanted it for yourself, a simple lie on the behalf of the soon to be King helped you out. One of them even offered you milk from their family goat for the babe.

The owner of the inn you knew well, and offered up the dirty kitchen for you to use, even going so far as to scrounging up mismatched bowls and utensils to serve the food in.

One by one you ascended the rickety stairs, creaking with every step you took, delivering the food to the warriors.

Famine eyed the bowl and then you hungirly, as if it was you he wanted and not the food. You clutched the bowl and cup in your hands tighter to stop them from shaking beneath the gaze of the gorgeous male. He took the food without a word and closed the door in your face.

Death offered to help you, taking his own food as well as the babes bottle while you carried the warlord's portion. He moved silently and kept on your heels, your heart racing just a little bit faster as you felt his shadows swirling at your ankles. You shuddered as one slithered up the back of your spine, nearly tripping on the stair before you, but he steadied you and you caught a glimpse of his massacred hand, white-knuckled around the glass before he snatched it away, pulling down his sleeve over it with his teeth.

You couldn’t see the look on his face as he towered over you once you reached the top of the stairs, back pressed tightly to the wall behind you. Your breath was stuck in your throat, all you could see was the sharp smirk on his pink lips, hood pulled down and shadows swirling around the rest of his head. It was all you could wonder if his scarred hands matched the skin of his face.

You were both curious and terrified and you think he can tell by the way his smile lifts higher, catching the loud beating of your racing heart in his ears before he’s turning away, his robe swiftly following like his shadows down the hall.

The babe is with the warlord again, who’s shirtless, tanned skin glowing in the dim faelight. You know he could warm you in an instant if you were tucked up beside that large, muscular body, and your cheeks heat as you stutter out your words, passing him over the food.

He gives you a cheeky smile in return, looking you up and down once before stepping back and letting Death sweep into the room, thanking you for the meal. You nod once, spinning around on your heel as fast as you can before you’re making your way back down to the kitchen, nearly tripping down the stairs for an entirely different reason.

You lean against the counter trying to get your bearings. The utter beauty of these males was one thing, but they were dangerous, very much so, and you didn’t need to be getting caught up in the middle of it, no matter how desperate you were.

You scoop up the last of the hot stew and dump the pot into the sink – you’ll clean it when you come back down – you make for the stairs one more time, legs burning with underuse. You catch your breath at the top of the stairs, slowly making your way down past the other three rooms to his own.

You knock on the door with your foot, both hands occupied, and you need to catch your breath all over again once he’s opened the door.

His hair is slicked back and tousled, wet from washing up, like it was all he could bother to do to wrap a towel around his waist and run his fingers through his hair before opening the door. His skin is still dewey, and you swallow hard as you follow a drop as it rolls over his collarbone and down his pectoral.

“(Y/N),” his smirk is filled with mirth, eyes dancing with mischief, the very one that hadn’t been emoted from him since the passing of his mate. He hadn’t felt much of anything since then, only anger and the burn to avenge her the only way he knew how, to become the King of Prythian, and no one could stop him.

But you were something else. Kind and caring like his mate had been, treated so poorly by the people of your town, not sure where you really belonged, though you knew it wasn’t here. You were a dreamer and he noticed that.

“Here you are my King,” you bow your head once more, offering him the bowl and cup, praying that he takes it instead of staring down at you as he leans against the door like he’s doing now.

He likes the way you call him King, even if he hasn’t taken over the other courts yet. It has a nice ring to it, especially the way you say it and his cock awakens as you do. But you needn't call him King quite yet, for now Rhys will do just fine. He tuts, crossing his arms over his chest, causing those muscles to bulge and your mouth to run dry. “Now, now, I thought I told you to call me Rhys.”

“Sorry, Rhys,” you squeak, flushing bright red as you stare into his intense eyes.

The side of his mouth quirks up into a smirk as he finally takes the food from you with a gracious smile. “Tell me (Y/N), have you eaten yet?”

And you want to lie to him, to tell him that you’ve eaten before they arrived or that there’s more food waiting downstairs, to turn around and run and never look back. Surely you’d be gone from his mind by this time tomorrow, and you could pleasure yourself to the thought of any one of these males everyday until the end of your terrible life.

But you can’t lie, because he will know, and by the look he’s giving you now as he retreats a step backwards into the room, he already does.

“Ah, no,” you clasp your hands together in front of you nervously, wavering in front of the door.

“Come on, I don’t bite,” he grins as he settles on the edge of the bed, nodding for you to join him. His voice purrs in your mind, making your heart jump, Hard.

You fist your hands in your dress, taking a steadying deep breath that doesn’t calm your nerves at all, and you step inside of the room, closing the door behind you.

He was a beautiful male, and you wanted this – wanted to spend any amount of time with him that he’d allow, only if it even were just talking and sharing a bowl of stew. He needed this just as much as you did.

So that's why you join him on the bed, taking a seat on the edge, springs squealing as you sit, a leg tucked up under you. Rhys gives you a lopsided smile as you settle, cheeks pink with the embarrassment of your town’s awful everything.

He offers you the first bite, wiping the drips over the edge of the bowl and leaning in close and holding it out to you. As you part your lips you wonder if this is how he feeds his own babe, who’s being taken care of by the other members of his group.

You can’t imagine what he’s gone through, having lost a mate he’d spent so little time with. Finding your own mate has long since left your goals in life, exchanged for keeping yourself alive by any means necessary.

Taking the spoon into your mouth, you grimace at the taste, immediately embarrassed about serving this slop to males who had clearly eaten better than this their entire lives.

Quirking an amused eyebrow at your expression, Rhysand scoops up a bite of his own, and he tries to keep his face schooled in a calm expression, but you laugh when you see his lip curl slightly.

“It’s horrible, isn’t it?” you ask, though you know the answer. You want to know what kind of a High Lord he is, one that will lie to his people, or one who won’t sugar coat his thoughts.

“Oh, it’s absolutely awful,” he scoffs with a smirk and you glare back playfully, “But I won’t complain about a hot meal served to me by a beautiful female.”

And then you’re blushing again, looking down at where your hands rest atop your bent knee. This male…Gods, he was something. His sensual smirks and bright eyes, his way with words, you could see how he would be a great High King.

He reaches out gently, placing a hand beneath your chin and lifting so you’re looking into those earnest violet eyes again.

“It’s true,” his voice is soft but you can hear the raw honesty of his statement, the silent suggestion behind his words.

Maybe he was just hurting. Missing the mate that had been taken from him and his child too soon, wanting to think about something other than the gaping wound in his chest, the empty feeling where she should be…

“Don’t,” he shakes his head, “Don’t think that.”

“Rhys–”

He cuts you off with a hum, “Nuh-uh, please,” he requests, bringing the spoon to your mouth again, “Let’s just enjoy this.”

“As much as we can,” you mutter, taking the bite of food.

He huffs a laugh, eyes glimmering, but he keeps quiet.

And he won’t stop looking at you like that as you share the rest of the meal. It’s gone before you even know it, but it’ll be enough to last you until your next meal…whenever that should be.

“Let me,” you offer, trying to take the bowl from his hands but he’s leaning back, keeping it from your reach as you lean further and further into him until you’re nearly toppling over into his lap, using your hand on the bed to keep you upright.

“No need,” he whispers, and he’s so close his breath causes your eyelashes to flutter. You watch the dirty bowl disappear into thin air, swept away in a dark mist and when you look back at him you catch his eyes flicking up from your lips to settle on yours.

“That’s a–” you swallow harshly, suddenly all too aware of how close you are to him, but you don’t want to back away, “That’s a neat trick.”

Your heart is pounding in your chest and you can smell his arousal like the candle he’d lit across the room and you wonder if your own scent is as captivating as his. It’s all you can do to not shut your eyes and lean into his neck, sucking in a hearty breath straight from the source.

He clears his throat a little, leaning in just a bit more and you nearly go cross eyed looking at him as he purrs, “Do you want to see another?”

“That depends,” you murmur, “Does it involve anything else disappearing?”

Rhys’ smile is feline, “It involves my cock disappearing into that tight little cunt of yours.”

His mouth is on yours before the words even register, taking your face in both of his hands as he leans backwards to lie flat on the bed, pulling you with him.

You settle across his hips, one leg thrown over each side of his own. The towel he miraculously still has tied across his waist is thin and you can feel his hardened cock beneath the cloth.

It’s dizzying. His feverish kiss, tongue poking out and asking for permission, his fingers gentle with just the right amount of pressure as he explores the length of your body. You’re in bliss, drunk on lust as you courageously swirl your hips in a soft circle, a noise of pleasure escaping the High Lord.

“Have you ever…” he asks as you kiss down his torso, licking a hot stripe against his freshly showered skin. You can feel his muscles flexing beneath your tongue and your pussy throbs with anticipation.

“No,” you admit, cheeks flushing as you look up at him, wide-eyed. The innocent look on your face has him groaning, tossing his head back into the pillow for a moment, his cock pulsing from it confines.

“Don’t worry,” he’s breathless, tugging you back up to his lips and kissing you desperately between words like you’re a drug he can’t get enough of, “I’ll take good care of you.”

He brushes your hair back from your face messily, fisting it at the nape of your neck as you climb back down his body. His other hand rips the towel away, his cock red and stiff and dripping at the tip. He circles a large hand around it, giving it a few rough tugs and you swallow thickly at the sight. He grunts, nudging your head towards his cock.

You poke out your tongue, giving the head a kitten lick that has him shuddering beneath you at the unexpected sensation. You don’t know why, surely he wouldn’t have been expecting you to take him completely when never having done this before. Your pussy clenches at his reaction and your heart pounds in your chest, nervous and excited to feel him in your mouth.

So you did another thing he wasn’t expecting, taking him as far into your mouth as you can, hitting the back of your throat pleasurably. Rhys’ hips bucked up instinctively, his hand holding your hair firmly in place and you gagged slightly, a wet squelch coming from the back of your throat where his cock hit and he rumbled with pleasure.

You plant your hands firmly on his hips, eyes watering as you let him take control, conquering your mouth and abusing it like he owns it. You whimper at the taste of him, heavy on your tongue, swirling around as much of his cock as you could, using your hand to twist around the base of it.

He moans. Your mouth is so warm, and so wet. It had been too long since he’d fucked, he can feel his orgasm building rapidly.

But he is nothing short of a gentleman, as he lifts you off of him with a hiss at the loss, the cool air of the room caressing his throbbing cock as he flips you over onto your back, a squeal leaving your lips, fingers scrambling for purchase, clawing as his back.

He kisses you because he can’t stop himself, moaning at the taste. You let your hands slide up his torso, smooth and soft as butter, and you moan at the feeling as he lowers his chest against yours when your hands wrap up around his shoulders and bury in his midnight hair.

He parts your legs with his own, rutting his firm cock against the crease in your pants.

You gasp at the sensation, mouths pressed firmly together, his tongue hot against yours. Your heart is racing in your chest and his hands climb up your sides, exploring, shoving your shirt up as he goes. You struggle to slip your arms from the fabric, lips still moving feverishly against his own, but your naked torso arches up into his, skin burning against yours.

Rhys moves from your lips, dragging them across your cheek, down under your ear, sucking a mark harshly into the soft skin while you turn your head away in bliss to give him more room. His hands snake up your body again, a fistful of your breast in one hand while the other jerks your thin shirt from around your neck, mouth back against your skin in an instant.

You moan as he sucks your nipple into his mouth, tongue swirling sensually around the pert nub as he rocks into you again, the material of your pants against his sensitive dick has him grunting. He needs you out of those immediately.

He takes his time, kissing every inch of you on the way down, fingers playing with the waistline of your pants, dipping below the fabric. It has your stomach clenching, swooping with want, whining when he removes his hands completely, only for him to rip at the laces of your pants a second later.

And he’s tutting as you clench your legs together, the coolness of the room an icicle against your exposed cunt. His large hands spread your legs apart and he eyes your pussy like it’s such a prize.

“You are exquisite,” he murmurs, kissing along your thigh, nipping and suckling, dragging his lips across the soft skin.

His eyes watch you, returning the favor as he licks tentatively across your clit, your low moan and arching up into the air has Rhys going back for a second taste.

It’s too much but not enough at the same time. This clearly is a male who knows his way around a female’s body, but it’s driving you nuts the way his tongue swirls and fucks, pulling you just to the edge but never quite letting you freefall into orgasm. No, he wants you to beg, like all of the High Lords will beg for their lives when he comes to take over their courts.

And you’re a female of survival, will do what you have to to make it through the night, to get what you want out of the High Lord who’s bowed down in front of your cunt, lapping into it like he was made for it.

“Please, Rhys,” you whine, burying your fingers into his hair and twerking your hips against his tongue, trying to get him in the perfect position. It almost works until he stops your movements with a palm settled across your midriff.

“Fuck,” he moans, licking a hot stripe across your pussy, “Say my name like that again.”

“High King Rhys,” you lower your voice, eyes half-lidded and looking down at him where his face is buried in your cunt, “Please let me come.”

He does, adding his fingers into the mix, fucking into you with abandon, dragging against the bundle of nerves that has your breath heaving, body tensing as he helps you topple over into your climax, fist in his hair, the other curled in the sheets, legs shaking as you come with a cry of utter pleasure.

He’s climbing up you while you try to catch your breath, sated from release. Rhys holds your face in his hands, kissing you too softly like it’s all over. It can’t be, you feel too good but you haven’t even felt his long cock inside of you yet, and you go to speak, but he’s pressing his cock into you and your mouth goes lax at the sensation.

It seems like it lasts forever, him pressing into you so slowly, the drag of his long cock pushing all of the air from your lungs.

And you feel so good that he can’t even kiss you, pressing his forehead harshly into yours as his hips settle against your own, nothing but the sound of your shaky shared breath filling the room.

Shit, you didn’t think you could ever be so full, and its pure euphoria, the starbursts behind your shut eyes, Rhys’ lithe body pressed firmly against yours, your legs wrapped around his waist, holding each other so tightly you don’t want to let go.

Can I move? He asks into your mind because he can’t speak. Because he’s using every ounce of resolve he has to keep himself from ravishing you completely.

Gods, please, you respond mentally, and then he’s pulling out and slamming back into you just as quick, ripping a moan from your throat that settles deep within his bones.

He sets the pace, rocking into you rhythmically and with fervor, like he hasn’t enough time. His kisses are all teeth and sounds of arousal, but you can’t find it in yourself to mind while he’s fucking into you like the God he’ll be when he takes over Prythian.

It’s nearly too much to handle, the way his chest glides across yours with each thrust, his lips searching for yours in a desperate kiss, his hands everywhere as if he’s mapping each and every single thing about you, admitting it all to memory like the first and last time you’ll be together.

And you claw at his back because it’s the only thing you can do besides moan. You can’t even put words together to form a complete sentence, a plea of his name here, a cry of pleasure there as the feeling of your orgasm starts building within you.

Rhys hits that spot everytime without fail, no matter what position he puts you in. Leg lifted up around his shoulder, flipped over on your stomach, riding him. It’s like he’s inside of you somehow, knows exactly where his cock feels the best, buried deep within your tight cunt.

You come with a howl of his name on your lips and you’re sure everyone in the inn has heard you begging the future High King for release. And he fucks you through it, drawing out your keen as long as he can, cock somehow even harder as he praises himself.

He pulls out with a grunt and then he’s coming all over your stomach, spurting across your chest until he’s spent, collapsing back on his haunches as he stares down at you. His pupils are blown wide as you look up at him through half-lidded eyes, swirling a finger around in the come on your stomach, then ever so slowly raising that digit up to your lips and sucking on it lewdly.

“Oh,” he breathes, and his cock twitches with interest even though he’s just orgasmed, “You’re coming with us, (Y/N).”

#rhysand x reader #rhysand/reader #rhysand #rhys/reader #rhys x reader #acotar #acotarxreader #acomaf #acowar #acomar #azsazz #a court of four horsemen #part one #rhysand smut

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tayrcse · 3 months

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LOVE IS A COWBOY

✎ summary: JJ Maybank taught you what love is. He taught you what heartbreak was too.

✎ characters: JJ Maybank

✎ word count: 415

Rough around the edges, stops you in your tracks

Wrecks you in the worst way when it looks like that

Knocks you off the horse, but it keeps you comin’ back

Love is a cowboy, mm-mm

You felt your world stop when you first laid eyes on JJ Maybank. He was a bit rough around the edges, but he had you captivated. Your world was never the same after you met JJ. Meeting him wrecked your entire life, but you couldn’t stay away.

You can wrap your arms around it, but you can’t make it stay

All the bad ones say they’re good, and all the good ones ride away

A little El Dorado, and a little bit John Wayne

You were never able to quiet pin him down. He was a free spirit if there ever was one. One second he was there, and the next, he was on another adventure.

Makes your heart feel like wild horses in your chest

Trying to catch, it’s like tryna tame a wild, wild west

And when I’m with him, it’s like ropin’ the wind

Love is a cowboy, mm-mm

The fluttering in your chest whenever JJ was around was almost unbearable. It was never as unbearable as being without him though. JJ was a hard one to catch. He was only ever around when he wanted to be, but every moment you were with him felt like you were on cloud nine. To you, JJ Maybank was love in human form.

Take you dancin’ in that neon, leave you cryin’ in it too

Yeah, gets ya drunk like whisper and higher than the moon

So when you get that feelin’, hold on to your boots

Love is a cowboy, mm-mm

The highs were the happiest you’d ever felt. Like when JJ snuck you away at midnight, the two of you dancing in the pale moonlight. The lows, well, they felt like someone was ripping your heart right out of your chest. Under that same moon, he left you alone and in tears more times than you can count.

It makes your heart feel like wild horses in your chest

Trying to catch, it’s like tryna tame the wild, wild west

It’s reckless and rugged, it’s sweet and it’s stubborn

Love is a cowboy, mm-mm

You were never quite able to pin down JJ Maybank. But he showed you what love was. Love it reckless and rugged. Love is sweet, and it’s stubborn. Love is JJ Maybank.

#Spotify #outer banks #jj maybank #jj maybank x reader #tayrcse

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use-your-delusion · 1 year

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𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐨𝐫 𝐀𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞 : 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

𝐒𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬:

" Soon enough, the suspected bounty hunter pulls his horse to a stop, a Tennesse Walker with a pretty brown and white coat. His rider slides off as he comes to a stop, and your eyes stay trained on the man as he enters your campground, his eyes taking note of your horse and belongings all left behind beneath the canvas of your tent.

You move quickly and quietly then, keeping your footsteps quiet as you round behind him. He was crouched down, rummaging through your belongings. Anger flared inside of you - trying to turn you into the law was one thing, but going through a lady’s things while she’s not home? That was just disrespectful.

As you near, he held something in his hand that made your heart clench, making it almost painful to breathe as you raise the pistol in your hand, cocking it behind his head.

“Drop it.” "

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 7K ish

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Mentions of domestic violence in this story! Lot's of it! As well as the death of a child, and general violence from RDR2 <3

Don't ever force yourself to read what you aren't comfortable with.

A cigarette hangs loosely from your lips as you raise a match to light it, inhaling deeply as the tobacco smoke fills your mouth and lungs. The match still burns, a bright, orange ember against the midnight blanket above you. Its stars shine down on you, almost mocking you in a way as they twinkle and rejoice with one another.

You wish you were a star. So far up in the sky that nothing from this plane of existence could touch you. Instead, you would be the one looking down on the world. Judging the poor souls who sell themselves to the devil to get by. Humans were nasty creatures. Lying, stealing, robbing, killing. All of it. Horrible business that you dream of getting away from, as if the opportunity would ever be so kind as to present itself to you.

Another drag of your cigarette, another minute of the stars judging you.

The moon sits high up on her pedestal, illuminating the world beneath her. She outlines the ridges and valleys of your face, obscured partly by the hat you wear. It had been your fathers; aged and worn but still as loved as the day he had given it to you. Two feathers were tucked between its ribbon, blowing in the wind that passes through your camp.

To think that this was your life now - you went from having everything, from being the woman others envied with your husband and son, a fine house and a fine source of income. Then it was gone, leaving you living out of a tent, cooking poor cuts of meat over a campfire. The only living thing that didn’t want to kill you nearby was the Andalusian who was absentmindedly grazing on a patch of grass, unaware of the danger he was in.

His dark bay coat is illuminated by the orange bath of light the fire gives off, its flames flickering high into the night sky as you stare wistfully into them, wishing you could wake up tomorrow and be anywhere but here.

All your life you’d sworn you’d never kill anyone, whether they deserved it or not, but in the past month or so that promise had been quickly thrown out the window and left to the wolves. Your body count was growing steadily each day, by no choice of your own.

Bounty hunters, traveling from all over trying to bring you in, dead or alive, as the posters read.

You’d learnt fairly quickly how to shoot a gun, and how to shoot one well, at that. Your husband would’ve had your head if you’d ever thought of using his rifle, and a part of you wanted to laugh at how he’d react if he saw you with it now, like an additional limb to your body. The other part of you saw no reason to laugh at anything anymore though, and so you didn’t.

Your face is solemn as you sit, losing yourself in the hypnotizing flames.

Your breath hitches as a flock of birds erupt from a tree, a little further down the trail of the mountain, and slowly you rise to your feet, grabbing the rifle without even thinking about it. Someone’s coming. The sound of heavy hoofbeats grew closer and closer, reaffirming the suspicion. Without thinking about it you throw the gun over your shoulder and run to the cover of some boulders behind your camp, crouching down low in the shadows as you wait for the bounty hunter to arrive.

Your hand swiftly moves to your holster, pulling out a cattleman, also having belonged to your husband not too long ago.

Soon enough, the suspected bounty hunter pulls his horse to a stop, a Tennesse Walker with a pretty brown and white coat. His rider slides off as he comes to a stop, and your eyes stay trained on the man as he enters your campground, his eyes taking note of your horse and belongings all left behind beneath the canvas of your tent.

As you near, he held something in his hand that made your heart clench, making it almost painful to breathe as you raise the pistol in your hand, cocking it behind his head.

“Drop it.”

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

Valentine was a dump, as Arthur had come to work out. Instinctively, his nose scrunches up at the smell of livestock and manure, although he was sure the smell was getting to the wagonful of girls behind him more than it was getting to him.

“Could pick yourself up some bounties in there Arthur.” Uncle nudges him, pointing toward the local jailhouse. Posters were lining the walls but he shakes his head and looks away.

“Got better things to do then go on wild goose hunts.” Arthur responds, his shoulders and jaw tight from holding onto all of the tension of the past couple of weeks.

As the wagon pulls to a stop, the girls filter out, all smiling and laughing and discussing what trouble they could get into in the town. It made Arthur chuckle, their eagerness to go and charm some poor fool into handing over his wallet.

The ground beneath his boots is soft and muddy, but he walks through it without complaint, trailing behind uncle as he complains about one thing or another. The general store sits in front of them, a small building about as run down as the rest of Valentine.

The wooden boards of the structure are weathered and rotting, and Arthur tips his hat at the two men who sit in front of it, lazily smoking their cigarettes.

“You need anything Arthur?” Uncle asks as the two men stepped inside, offering tight smiles to the man behind the counter.

“A drink, if I’m supposed to be putting up with you all day.” Arthur grumbles, walking over the rotting floorboards towards a shelf, with fine whiskeys and bourbons on display.

He reaches for a cheaper bottle of whiskey, taking it to the counter and digging through his pocket for a money clip.

He’s low on cash - the gang's money, along with most of his own, had been left stashed in Blackwater, and there’s no hope of retrieving it any time soon.

While he was a halfwit, Uncle hadn’t had a bad idea when he’d pointed out the bounties to Arthur.

“Hey Uncle,” Arthur calls across the store to him after tucking the whiskey away safely in his satchel. “Keep the girls outta trouble, I’m gonna go have a look at the bounty posters.”

“Thought you said they were ‘wild goose hunts’.” Uncle laughs, mocking his earlier words in his best impression of Arthur.

“Shut up old man.”

He exits the store and unhitches his horse - a Tennesse Walker he’d stolen from some O’driscoll. He wasn’t Boadicea, but he was doing the job for now.

The thought of Arthur’s former horse bought a low, sinking feeling to his gut. There were few things he got to call his own and care about in his dying way of life, but that horse had been one of them. Everything he did, and all the women he saw come and go- Mary, Eliza, she was there with him through it all.

Pulling up in front of the Sheriff's office, he hitches the unnamed horse. At this rate, it’s name was gonna end up being ‘Horse’ if he didn’t think of something better soon.

As he approaches the door, yelling can be heard from inside.

“C’mon! Just head up there and try again, would ya?” A man’s voice asks, almost begging.

“You outta your mind sheriff? Four of us went up there to drag her in and I’m the only one who came back! I don’t care how much your payin’, find someone else to bring the crazy bitch in.”

The second man burst through the door, almost running into Arthur before shooting one last dirty look at the sheriff and walking away.

The sheriff had his hand pinching the bridge of his nose, sighing and muttering something incoherent under his breath, but when he notices Arthur approaching he perks up, a bright, fake smile overtaking his features.

“You a bounty hunter boy?” The sheriff asks, standing up to greet him.

“I can be.” Arthur shrugs. “For the right price.”

“Two hundred dollars sound like a good enough price for you?”

A low whistle left Arthur’s mouth. “Two hundred? You gotta damn serial killer you want me to bring in or somethin’?”

“She may as well be. Nasty woman, that one is. Her poster’s over there on the wall. Y/n Cole.” He points in the direction of a cork board, and sure enough a poster is pinned to it.

“Wanted dead or alive?” Arthur asks, pulling it down to get a better look. A photo of a well put together woman was printed on it, beneath the large sum of money. She was wearing a fine dress, decorated with lace and frills, her neck adorned with an expensive looking pendant, and some silver earrings dangled from her ears. Her hair was curled and pinned back into an impressive up-do, and she looked more like the wife of a mayor than she did a serial murderer. “She don’t look very dangerous.”

“That’s what all the other’s said.” The sheriff sighs dejectedly. “Don’t put anythin’ past her though, she’s been guttin’ the boys like pigs up there. Crazy bitch.” The last part was muttered under his breath, and Arthur was unsure of whether or not he was meant to hear it.

“What’d she do in the first place?”

The sheriff lets out a humorless laugh. “Killed her husband and her son. Shot them both in cold blood. When the in-laws confronted her, she shot them too. She’s been hiding up in the Grizzlies for boutta month or so now, and any man who goes up there lookin’ for her doesn’t come back.”

“Sounds like quite the risk you got me takin’ than sheriff.”

“Pretty little wad of cash will be waitin’ back here for you if you do it though. Shoot her, stab her, tie her up and drag her back here kickin’ and screamin’, I don’t care how you do it, just bring us that Mrs. Cole and we’ll pay for your troubles.” The sheriff shrugs with a sly smile.

Arthur mulls it over for a minute, studying your portrait. You were a pretty woman, he realized, put together and wealthy too, by the looks of it, how hard could it be? The reward was highly encouraging too, two hundred dollars would make quite the difference for the camp, and it would make Dutch pretty happy too.

“Alright.” Arthur mumbled, tucking the poster into his satchel. “You said she was in the Grizzlies?”

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

“Told you to drop that, Mister.” You reiterate your words, pressing the cold barrel of your pistol against the back of the man's head. He drops the photograph, and his hands come up in surrender as you use your free hand to reach into his holster and pull out his own gun, tossing it away into the snow.

Despite the darkness, you train your eyes and ears into the surrounding forest, listening out for any other presence. No one else had ridden up with the man, but none of the other bounty hunters had come alone so far.

“Where are your friends?” You ask, still scanning the area in search of other men. Your heart pounds heavily in your chest - he seemed far too relaxed for a man with a gun to his head. Something had to be wrong.

“Came alone.” He mutters, before letting out a grunt as the heel of your boot came into contact with the middle of his back, harshly. He’s a strong man, but the kick takes him by surprise and he tumbles forward, landing face first in the snow, your gun never leaving the back of his head.

“Bullshit.” You hiss, landing another harsh kick to his side. “If you came alone then you’re an idiot.”

“I am an idiot, lady!” He protests, hand coming to clutch the side that had just met the end of your boot. “Now stop kickin’ me!”

You still, listening out for any sign of company, but you’re only met with the sound of insects and the crackling of your campfire. Your horse, Shergar, lets out a short whinny, pawing at the ground and clearly annoyed by the strangers presence - a mutual feeling.

“You’re really alone?” You ask, unable to stop the tone of confusion from seeping into your voice.

“Yes goddammit. Clearly a mistake on my part.” He sounds more inconvenienced by the situation than anything, like he was being pickpocketed rather than held at gunpoint.

“Clearly.” You agree with him, your voice quiet. “I gotta admit, I don’t really know what to do now.” You say to him, almost laughing. “Most the time, about five other men come runnin’ outta the bushes, guns ready and knives out. You really were stupid to come alone, y’know?”

“I realize that now.” He rolls his eyes, trying to find a way out of his situation. “Look, you can kill me if you want, but the only thing that’s gonna do is send more men up here on a witch hunt for you, and they won’t mind bringing your limp body back to Valentine.”

“None of the others have managed to so far.” You shrug. “Don’t see why I shouldn’t leave you here with a bullet and keep runnin’.”

“Cause your luck is gonna run out soon, lady.” He points out. “That or you can let me bring you in while you're still breathin’.”

“Bring me in alive today so I can swing tomorrow?” You ask with a humorless chuckle. “I don’t think so.”

“You really are a piece of work, huh?” The man asks, his blue eyes shining with something unreadable.

Before you can respond to him, he flips you over, diving for you and knocking you into the snow. The ice burns your face as you writhe and struggle beneath him until he has you where he wants you. He has you on your stomach, his knee pressing into your back to hold you still as his hands fight against your own to wrestle the gun out of your grip.

“Hey!” You yell out as he manages to wrangle it away from you, placing it into his holster to replace his own gun that you had thrown into the snow. Your hands blindly dart out behind you, trying to reach for him but he keeps his strong hold on you, and one of his large hands comes up to catch your wrists together and pin them on the snow in front of you. “Get off of me!”

“I didn’t like laying in the snow either lady, suck it up!” He retorts as he digs through his satchel for something with his free hand, and you feel your heart drop as he begins looping rope over your wrists, tying your hands together before getting to work on your feet.

Before he can start, your legs come upwards, and your feet come into contact with the man’s head, knocking his hat into the snow and eliciting a yelp from his mouth.

“You really are a crazy bitch.” He yells at you as you roll over onto your back, grinning up at him with a dangerous glint in your eye.

“And you’re a damn idiot like the rest of ‘em!” You shout back, spit flying from your mouth as you let out, perhaps the most ill-time laugh in history.

You aren’t quite sure why you’re laughing, maybe from anger or sadness, or from the dread of the gallows that were waiting for you, but you laugh, your head tilts back to face the night sky where the moon sits and watches you from her pedestal.

Your laugh soon turns into a choked sob though as you bite your lip and shake your head. “Do you feel big and tough, huh? Sending an innocent woman to her death?”

“You ain’t innocent.” The man shakes his head, spitting a bit of blood from his mouth. It taints the snow with its crimson color, ruining the innocence of the white sheet. “You killed your son Mrs. Cole. Did you feel big and tough while you shot your own baby? Huh?”

The world around you stops for a minute as anger clouds your mind, and you grind your teeth together so hard you’re surprised they don’t break.

“I have killed many people, but my son was not one of them.” You spit at the man through your clenched jaw. “You don’t know what the hell you’re on about, bounty hunter.”

“All I know, is that they’re gonna give me two hundred dollars for bringin’ you in. Innocent or not.”

“I’ll double it!” You say, not even thinking about the repercussions of your words as the reality of your situation dawns on you. This man holds your life in his palm - he chooses whether you live or die right now, and for the first time since you’ve been hiding out here, you’re powerless and at the mercy of a bounty hunter. “I’ll double what they pay you to let me go.”

He stops fussing with the rope at your legs at that, narrowing his eyes as he looks at you. Without his hat on, you can clearly see his face now. He looks to be mid-thirties, although he’s aged from the sun and the stress of his life, you’re assuming. His eyes are hooded, the bright blue color peeking out from beneath his strong brow bone. A couple days worth of a beard has grown along his jaw, enough to hide his lower face but not enough to hide the sharp jawline, or the scar on his chin.

“What did you say?” He asks quietly.

“I said, I’ll pay you double.” You reaffirm, your eyes pleading as you meet his own. The ice blue color gives away no indication as to what’s going through his mind, and in that moment you gather he’d be a great poker player.

“You’re gonna pay me, four hundred dollars, if I let you go?” He asks incredulously.

Now that he says it out loud, you realize how impossible your promise is, but nonetheless it looks like your only chance of surviving him.

“Yes.” You nod with a thick swallow. “Four hundred dollars.”

He lets out a low whistle, thinking about it. “That’s a lot of money.”

“I am innocent. And I’ll pay you to prove it.”

“And how can I be so sure, Mrs. Cole, that you’ll actually pay me. That you won’t run off the second I cut these ropes.”

“I’ll stay with you. Pay you back as I make the money.” You say, all but begging the man who appears to be considering your offer. “Most bounty hunters are travelers. I’m guessing you’ve got a camp set up somewhere too that you’re livin’ out of.”

“I might.” He shrugs. “But then what? I take you and your promises back to my camp, and then you run off in the middle of the night? You can’t be trusted. You’re a murderer.”

You weigh out your options, wondering what you could do to convince him. You had nothing of value on you, nothing of monetary value at least. The only thing you could offer him as collateral was something you would rather die than part with, but at this point, you dying was seeming more and more likely.

“Untie me.” You say softly, holding your hands out towards the man. “Untie me and I’ll give you some collateral.”

He considers it for a moment, eyeing you carefully, like he was trying to pick up on a lie or trick, but eventually he pulls a knife out of his belt and cuts the rope from your hands. “Don’t make me chase after you.” He warns as you stand on shaky legs and make your way to your bedroll where the man had been digging around earlier.

You drop to your knees, quickly finding what you were after, laying right where he had dropped it. A photograph of your son, when he was only two years old, held up high in your arms as you planted a kiss on the side of his cheek. A wide smile was covering his features, and in the photo your eyes are crinkling with a happiness they haven’t known in a long time.

“Here.” You begrudgingly hand him the photo. “It’s the only photo I have of me and my son. It’s the most important thing in the world to me. I get that back when you get your money. And if I run, I’m leavin’ that behind as well.” Your words are soft, almost defeated as he gently takes the photo from you.

His brows are furrowed as he inspects it, running his thumb along where you stand in it. After a moment, he must deem it worthy because he tucks it away safely into a pocket on the inside of his jacket.

“Grab your things Mrs. Cole.” He says softly, making his way over to his discarded hat and placing it atop his head. “You’re comin’ back to camp.”

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

“You never told me your name.” You point out as the two of you amble side by side, Shergar traveling through the mountain ranges with ease after having spent so long up here with you. The bounty hunter's horse, on the other hand, was skittish, hyper-aware of his surroundings and the cliff edges that surrounded him. A couple times his foot had slipped and a sharp whinny had escaped him, his head throwing back high in the air with the whites of his eyes showing, clearly unnerved this far up in the mountains.

It wasn’t just a fear of falling though, occasionally a wolf howl or a roar from a bear could be heard, causing Shergar to prick his ears nervously towards the sound and add a slight spring to his step, eager to escape the predators.

“Arthur.” The man grumbled, blowing his breath into his hands and rubbing them together to warm them up. “Arthur Morgan.”

“Arthur Morgan.” You tested his name on your tongue, the name slipping out easily.

“And I know your name, Mrs. Cole.”

You shook your head. “That’s my married name. I have no business using it anymore.”

“So what do you want me to call you then?”

You told him your name, your real name, from before you made the terrible mistake of marrying Evan, and he repeated it with a small nod, as you had done with his own earlier.

The sun was up now, beating down on you harshly but still not enough to melt the ice that ran cold through your veins. You had grown used to the freezing temperatures after spending so much time up here, but you could tell Arthur wasn’t enjoying himself at all.

His blue coat was wrapped around himself tightly, the collar brought up to protect his neck from the biting winds.

“You couldn’t have picked a warmer spot to hide out?”

“Not many people wanna come up here unless they have to. Figured it was safer for me than some place down there.”

“Suppose.” He hummed. “You would’ve been up there during that god awful storm then?”

You snorted. “Yep. Though that was the end of it for me. I could barely see three feet ahead of me let alone find or cook food. That and the fact that I probably got hypothermia.”

“Yeah it was like that for us too.” Arthur said solemnly. “We were camped out by Colton for a week or so, me and the rest of my…” he trailed off. “Family.”

“Not a nice place.” You offered. “Hell were you doin’ up there with your family anyways?”

“We’ve both got our secrets.” Arthur shrugged, and you gathered that you wouldn’t get anything more out of him.

“I suppose.” You agreed.

“I mean, I’ve got my secrets.” Arthur corrected himself. “Your crimes are plastered all over the state.”

“I didn’t kill my son.” You said harshly.

“What about your husband? And his family, huh? Suppose you didn’t kill them either.”

“Like you said, Mr Morgan. We’ve both got our secrets.”

The ride continued in silence, a tense air settling over the pair of you as the snow gradually melted away. The mountains grew smaller and smaller behind you, and the air grew warmer. Birds sang and deer hopped about, taking off as you and Arthur trotted beside one another along a makeshift dirt road.

You crossed a shallow point of a river, the water coming up and splashing against your legs and tickling the underside of Shergar’s belly. It washed away the mud that had been caked against his hide from weeks in the mountains, where the only creeks and rivers were frozen or too cold and dangerous to enter.

“Nearly here.” Arthur’s low drawl broke you from your thoughts as he steered off of the road onto a worn trail through the grass. It led through forest for a few yards until you spotted a clearing up ahead, where wagons and tents were set up like a miniature village.

You could hear voices, men and women, even a child, all talking and laughing with one another.

He pulls to a stop before you completely leave the safety and privacy of the woods, a somewhat concerned gaze on his face. His eyes are narrowed and you can see he’s thinking hard about something with his parted lips, his tongue coming out to dart them with moisture momentarily.

“Y’know how we mentioned those secrets that you and me both got?” He asks, turning to look at you and you narrow your eyes.

“Yeah. Why?” Worry seeped into your tone at his own. For a man so sure of himself, he almost seemed hesitant to bring you into the camp.

“This- This family of mine ain’t the best, ok?” He started, stumbling over his words a little. “You owe me four hundred dollars, but that means you also owe Dutch Van Der Linde.”

Your eyes widened. You’d heard that name more and more frequently in your travels lately, and not for anything good.If you could remember correctly, him and his gang were wanted dead or alive for some ferry robbery gone wrong down in Blackwater. Come to think, you’d also heard Arthur’s name thrown around a lot.

“You- You’re in the damn Van Der Linde gang?” You asked, your tone growing in pitch as your arm comes out to slap his bicep.

“Hey, what-”

“You murder and rob your way across the whole country, you’re wanted dead or alive and yet you come here and you judge me for my crimes? Crimes I didn’t even commit!”

At your voice, heads turn in your direction, curious gazes from the women, and bloodthirsty, threatening looks from the men. From behind the trees they still can’t quite see you properly, something Arthur is thankful for as he slaps a hand across your mouth, your hot breath escaping your nose and fanning across his fingers as he shoots you a warning glance.

“Keep your damn mouth shut.” He warns with a low voice, his eyes shooting back to the camp where everyone seems to have gone back to their business.

When he’s sure you’ll stay quiet, he removes his hand from your soft skin, his mouth opening and shutting while he tries to find the right words.

“Look, I’m not gonna take you to Valentine, and neither will Dutch when he hears about our agreement.” Arthur says pointedly. “But there are other men in this camp, who will jump at the chance to hand you over for two hundred dollars, so you keep your mouth shut, ok?”

“Ok.” You nod, feeling a growing pit in your stomach. Suddenly, you were unsure of whether or not coming here was truly the best idea. Maybe you had been safer in the Grizzlies. Maybe you should have taken your chance to run, leaving your treasured memory behind in Arthurs pocket.

As if he could read your thoughts he sighed, hanging his head and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Look, I’m gonna keep you safe here, ok?” He promises, and you can see in his eyes that he truly means it, although you know that to him, it’s nothing more than keeping the promise of four hundred dollars safe. “But not even I am gonna be able to stop some of these men when they learn the truth ‘bout you.”

“What are we gonna tell ‘em then?” You asked, throwing a worried glance at the camp. “They’re gonna wanna know who I am and what I’m doin’ here with you, won’t they?”

“Yeah they will.” A frown overtook his features as he continued to think. “Alright, we’ll tell ‘em your name is Miss Flinders, from Strawberry. Your daddy just got eaten by a bear or somethin’.”

“A bear?” You ask incredulously, one eyebrow raised. “If my daddy managed to get eaten by a bear, he might just be more of an idiot than you.”

“You got somethin’ better?” Arthur asks, a little offended that you hadn’t liked his suggestion.

“Yeah, I do.” You roll your eyes. “Miss Flinders from Strawberry was running away with her fiance, planning to elope. He took her money and left her stranded. You found her in the hotel there, with nothing left but her horse. Her family won’t take her back, and she’s got nowhere else to go.”

“I personally like the bear, but whatever works for you, Miss Flinders.” Arthur says in a mocking tone.

“We ain’t doin’ the bear.” You deadpan.

“Fine.” The outlaw relents. “But I found Miss Flinders like a drunken harlot begging for money on the streets. I was like her knight in shining armor, offering her a bed and some warm food.”

“Yeah you’re a real gentleman, Mr Morgan.” You draw out his name sarcastically.

“Don’t push me girl.” He warns. His voice had a way of sounding more dangerous than the growl of a wolf, you had come to notice in the short time you’d spent with him, and for all of your confidence you couldn’t deny the effect it had on you, leaving you swallowing thickly from his threat.

When he’s satisfied with your reaction, he gathers up his reins and spurs the Tenesse Walker forward, leaving you to trail behind.

“Uncle Arthur!” A young boy's voice is the first thing you hear when you emerge from the clearing, hiding in the shadow of the man in question.

“Jack!” It’s quickly followed by a stern woman’s voice, and you catch a glimpse of her grabbing a hold of the boy's forearm, dragging him off in the direction of a campfire, a pot of something cooking over it.

“C’mon.” Arthur says to you, dismounting from his horse and waiting for you to do the same.

You can feel curious gazes meeting you as you walk through the camp, Arthur’s hand finding its way to the small of your back to guide you.

“Keep your head down.” He instructs, his tone low as you near a group of men.

“Brought a whore back Arthur?” One of them lets out a drunken yell and a laugh, and you can hear the others laughing and whooping.

“Shut your mouth Micah.” Arthurs all but growls back at him as you continue to walk through the camp.

Some women offer you odd glances, looks that hold curiosity and even jealousy to some degree as you’re guided to a wagon with a canvas awning. Beneath the awning is a cot and a few other assorted pieces of furniture, holding belongings you can only assume belong to Arthur.

“Just stay here and sit tight for a minute.” Arthur tells you when you reach his wagon, giving you a small push toward the cot that was set up there.

“Where are you goin’?” You ask, making no move to sit down. It felt wrong to intrude on his space like that, whether he’d given his permission or not.

“Gotta find Dutch.” He explains. “Tell him about this agreement of ours.”

“Wouldn’t it be best if I came with you then?” You frown a little, not liking the idea of the two dangerous men talking about you and your bounty while you weren’t there. On some level, you know you can trust Arthur to a degree - after all, he’d had the opportunity to hand you over for the money, and he hadn’t taken it, but you were still doubtful, especially if Dutch Van Der Linde was going to have some hand in your fate.

You’d heard of the notorious outlaw, even before you were on the run. Robbing, murdering, leaving a trail of death and destruction everywhere he and his gang went. And yet, when Arthur, his right hand man came to get you, you weren’t met with a cold, heartless man who wanted to trade you for money at the first chance you got. Instead, he was open to your suggestion, and accepted it, albeit begrudgingly.

Of course you still owed him money, and lots of it, but he knew that would take time, and he would need patience, but in the meantime you would still be provided with warmth, food and protection from other hunters, something you were beyond grateful for.

“No, just stay here a moment. It would be best if I spoke to him alone.” Arthur sighs, a hand running down his face, as though he were deep in thought. And you suppose he is, how is he supposed to explain to his boss that they had two hundred dollars sitting in their camp, just waiting to be collected on, but they weren’t going to touch it in hopes of it giving them four hundred? With no plan or promise as to how you were gonna get that money?

It makes you wonder on some level why he hadn’t just handed you in when he had the chance to. It would’ve been easier, surely, than going through the trouble of bringing you here and convincing Dutch to let you stay. Of course the promise of double your bounty had some role in it, but now that you knew of the gang, you were confused. They could’ve gotten that money easily if they kept up old habits, which you were sure they did.

Arthur leaves you then, leaving you to awkwardly take a seat on a cot you could only guess belonged to him.

You hate to be nosy, but you aren’t left with much else to do as the rest of the camp carries on its life around you, occasionally throwing you a curious look. Instead of staring back, you let yourself gaze around Arthur’s makeshift room. You take note of the photos he has sitting on a nightstand beside the bed, one of them being a portrait of a beautiful woman with dark hair, perfectly styled behind her. He also has an assortment of weapons lying around, from guns to knives to ammunition. It makes you wonder what sort of business the gang has been getting up to since disappearing from Blackwater, but you figure it’s nothing good.

There’s a large tent set up in the middle of the camp, and you can see the familiar figure of Arthur talking to another man, an imposing looking man who you can only guess to be Dutch Van Der Linde. He’s smoking a cigar, and his face is set into a deep frown as Arthur speaks to him. You watch them with curiosity. Arthur has taken his hat off now, revealing his sandy brown hair that could probably do with a trim, and you watch as he runs a large hand through it, touselling the once smoothed strands.

With your eyes stuck on Arthur, you don’t notice as Dutch turns his head to set his gaze upon you, not until Arthur follows where he’s looking and then you’re quick to divert your eyes from the two men to the sight of some birds beyond them, nesting far up in the trees. Your heart pounds against your chest, trying desperately to leap out as Arthur places the old hat back on his head and makes his way across the camp to you.

Was he going to tell you that you were welcome to stay? Was he going to tell you to pack your things and leave? Was he going to tie your hands together and haul you all the way to Valentine to hand you over for the money? Possibilities run through your mind like a horse running from a wolf as Arthur approaches, and you can see Dutch in your peripheral vision watching the two of you like a hawk.

“You can stay.” Arthur nods his head at you. “Dutch is ok with it, but he wants to speak with you when he has a chance. Make sure he can trust you and all that.”

“I-” your throat runs dry at his words. You weren’t sure if it was from relief of having a place to stay, or fear of having to speak to Dutch Van Der Linde. “Thank you.” You settle on saying, your lips pursed together as your eyes meet Dutch’s from across the camp.

“It ain’t a problem.” Arthur says as he begins moving around his space and picking up several items you couldn’t quite make out. “You can handle yourself and a gun well, Dutch thinks you’ll be good to have around, once we know we can trust you. Until then though-” Arthur cuts himself off as he throws a handful of things towards you, “-you’re my responsibility.”

You furrow your brows and begin to sort through the things he threw at you, finding a bar of soap, some rags, and an old blanket you could use as a towel.

“Is this your way of telling me I stink?” You ask with a small chuckle as you stand up, cocking your head to the side to gaze at the man expectantly.

“You don’t stink, you just look like you could…” He trails off, thinking of a nice way to phrase his next words. “Freshen up.” He settles on. “And maybe run a comb through your hair as well.” He mutters, one of his hands absentmindedly reaching up to brush against your knots.

“Hey!” You say, a little offended, and you lightly slap his hand away. Despite your show though, you don’t protest when he adds a hair brush to the pile of items he’d handed to you.

“You got clean clothes on your horse?” He asks, ignoring the look you tossed his direction.

“What’s wrong with the clothes I got on?” You ask him, furrowing your brows.

“They’re still wet with snow.” Arthur says, like it should be obvious. “But if you wanna sleep damp, that’s your choice.”

Now that he’s mentioned it, you do still feel the dampness of the snow on your clothes, sticking to your skin uncomfortably. It was normal in the Grizzlies - there hadn’t really been any escaping it, but now you were dry, and much warmer than you had been in the mountains, and the thought of dry clothes that would stay dry made your stomach flip with excitement.

“Yeah, I got clothes on Shergar.” You answer him as the two of you make your way to where the horses are hitched.

“Kinda name is that?” Arthur asked, furrowing his brows as the two of you unhitched and mounted your horses.

“I dunno.” You shrugged. “It was his name when I got him, and I liked it.”

“Fair enough.” The man agrees with you, tugging on the reins of the Walker beneath him before gently spurring him forwards.

“Where are we headed anyways?” You ask Arthur, following him on the Andalusian, your hand reaching down to scratch at his neck with your nails.

“More private area of the river.” Arthur explains as the two of you trot out of the forest and onto the worn down dirt path. “You can clean yourself up a bit, and I’ll make sure no one else comes by.”

“So when Dutch said I was your responsibility, he just meant you were becoming my own personal little bodyguard?” You joke, your lips curling up into a smile as you turn your head to meet Arthurs gaze. You can tell he doesn’t want to smile but he does, shaking his head as the two of you trot.

“You’re worth four hundred dollars darlin’.” He explains to you, that low drawl sounding both threatening and alluring at the same time. “Of course you’re gonna have someone followin’ after you.”

The truth behind his statement stung a little. At the end of the day, these people could feed you, give you a place to stay, and keep you safe, but they weren’t doing it for you . They were doing it for your worth. After so long of being by yourself though, their motives didn’t matter to you. As long as you were safe and warm.

“You know I ain’t gonna run off.” You say to him after a minute of tense silence.

“How can we know you won’t?” Arthur asks incredulously.

“You think I’m gonna leave a bed, warmth, and a steady supply of food? Or that picture you’ve got of mine?” Your heart aches a little as you think back to the photo you had given Arthur of yourself and your son.

Subconsciously Arthur reaches his hand up towards his pocket, brushing his fingers over it as though he was making sure the picture was still there. You note that when you’d given it to him, he’d placed it in his coat pocket, and now as he rode beside you in nothing but his work pants and black button-up, he still had it on him.

The thought of him moving it onto his person made you worry a little less - at least you knew it would be kept safe, but still the fact that he held your most prized possession worried you.

“We’re here.” Arthur’s voice cuts you off, and he pulls his Walker to a stop as you near a concealed run off of the river. “Go clean yourself up.”

He turns the horse so that his back is to the river, and wordlessly you make your way towards it, shutting your eyes a little as the setting sun reflects off of the water.

For about the first time in a month or so - you feel safe . You have food and water waiting back at camp for you, and one of the most dangerous men in the country is currently keeping watch as you bathe, which in itself is a luxury you hadn’t been able to have in some time.

Perhaps this is a turning point for you, a chance to turn around the pitiful life you’re leading so far and make it into something worth so much more than just surviving to see the sun rise tomorrow. Perhaps you will be given your chance to prove your innocence, and tell the story of a woman who wanted nothing more than to avenge her son and was sentenced to death over it.

This is your second chance at life, with Arthur Morgan watching over your back to make sure it isn’t taken from you too soon.

~~~

Any feedback or comments are MORE than welcome, and would help me a great deal with motivation to not completely abandon this, however if you're more of a sit back and enjoy the show kinda reader, I completely understand! I am too on some level.

Anyways, I plan on following the order of the missions, obviously starting with Chapter Two at Horseshoe Overlook, and then just moving chronologically and maybe twisting a mission here or there. I also have a few plans on things to add in because why would I ever make life easy for my characters???

Lots of love <3

#rdr2 #rdr2 x reader #arthur morgan #arthur morgan x reader #arthur morgan fic #arthur morgan smut #arthur morgan series #arthur morgan x you

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ofallthingsnasty · 1 year

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I hope you had a wonderful new year's eve and some time to relax during the holidays - because for me they're not quite over! Twelvetide is still in full swing and you know what that means: the Wild Hunt is still out and about ? I am always a sucker for getting whisked away by something supernatural… So let's go there for a bit, even if it is a little silly-

tw.abduction, implied noncon, yandere tendencies. just a little food for thought hehe

For me, Twelvetide is one of the spookiest times of the year, especially when it's really cold and snowy. But how about you? Maybe you don't even know about all the traditions surrounding the time between the years - or maybe you think it's all made-up nonsense, maybe you've never believed in it all. I mean, what a weird superstition not to do laundry (or hang up any sort of white fabric) during those days, not to play cards or go out after dark, to basically smoke your whole home with incense day by day by day. You definitely don’t have the time for that, especially when it’s back to work after the holiday trouble settles down again. So you go on with your life, as you usually would. Maybe you spent the holidays on your own, maybe you celebrated them with family- whatever it is, all the holiday cheer always comes to an end eventually and everyday life slowly creeps back up on you, mundane and repetitive. You forget about your nightly walks to clear your head, forget about the loads of laundry you popped into your machine just the night before the 31st, forget about the laughter you’ve had with friends and family. The long nights, the silence even during the day, the howling wind whenever you’re tucked in your bed - all that may be a little unsettling still, but midwinter has passed and slowly and steadily, the sun is coming back and the days get longer again. But there is this uncanny sense of foreboding, of dread, of restlessness - it’s like your body is trying to tell you something yet you just can’t catch it. It feels like you’re being watched, almost, as if something is waiting beyond your well-lit windows at night, quietly observing, quietly planning. You bury that feeling deep within you, chalking it up to the post-holidays jitters of too much food, too much socializing. You’re probably just tired and vitamine d deficient. You’ll be in for the shock of your life when you get dragged out of your bed the moment the clock strikes midnight one night - just grabbed by the ankle by one huge, calloused hand and yanked out of the covers without a word. For one split second you’re convinced it’s just a dream - at least until you bump your head on the edge of your bed frame, suddenly wide awake in the dark. You can’t even push out a single scream of pain, jostled around and manhandled over a very broad shoulder. The intruder doesn’t say anything - and all attempts at resistance are stopped by their iron grip. You can't get a proper look at them - not in the dark, not slung over their shoulder - but they're massive. And so you can only struggle against their hold while they stomp through your home, pushing outside.

Dragged out into the cold in nothing but your sleepwear and greeted by something out of your weirdest dreams, you quickly have to make peace with the things in front of you being very much real and very much dreadful: a ghostly procession of what can only be described as demons, one bigger and more grim than the other. It surely is enough to shut you up. Thrown on the back of a horse, you finally get a proper look at your captor under the pale moon - they look just as ghastly as the rest, clearly not human and clearly not to be taken lightly. Only when the figure spurs on their horse you find your voice again, screaming for help - you’re met with nothing but snickers and yips to shut up. Something is off - not a single one of your neighbors seems to be able to hear you, hear them. And through your panic and confusion, the intruder finally explains themselves, tells you you’re their possession now, that you all but called them to you with the way you were flaunting yourself during those days between the years, when the fabric between the worlds gets thin and the air dangerous to humans. They laugh at your shocked silence, low and cruel, laugh at your naivety, laugh at the way you gasp when they tell you they’ll also get to thoroughly enjoy their spoils of war.

#yandere teratophilia #yandere terato #fae x reader #the ... non english kind lol but still kinda fae #monster x reader #tw.kidnapping #tw.noncon #implied at least #tw.yandere

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khazadspoon · 4 months

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A little something, maybe gen maybe slash, between Rowdy and Jesús because I suddenly had them on my mind this morning.

———

“Jesús?”

He shifted on the bedroll, head turning on the saddle beneath it as he craned his neck to glance at his companion for the last couple of days.

“Yes, señor Rowdy?”

Rowdy was a shadow in the midnight gloom, just a sliver of moon and a few stubborn stars poking through the layer of cloud in the sky. “You ain’t going to ever just call me a rowdy, are you…” It wasn’t a question. Jesús smiled to himself and shook his head, hoping Rowdy saw it. “Guess it’s alright. But, ‘soos, why d’you stick around? You’ve got enough to help your ma out now, and she’s doing well, you could go home and- and settle down, y’know?”

He thought for a moment, taking in the curious tone of Rowdy’s voice and the huddled form of him under the blankets. It was a chilly night and they had set their rolls close to fight off the chill as best they could.

“Because I like it out here,” he answered after a long pause. “Wide open spaces, beautiful skies, horses that listen to me… it’s peaceful. A man can forget himself here and still keep what makes him himself.”

It was Rowdy’s turn to pause. He turned on his side, pale cheeks and bright eyes the only part of him not tucked under blankets or his hat. Jesús turned on his side as well and propped himself up on one elbow.

For all his attitude, all the times señor Favor had chewed him out for impulsive actions and angry words, Rowdy did a lot of thinking. He spent long hours on his horse with a contemplative look on his handsome features, often visiting the remuda just to talk to the horses about things he didn’t talk to the other drovers about. Jesús did his best not to pry, finding something to do to keep distance, but he heard snatches of worry and almost philosophical musings on the state of the world.

“Do you…” Rowdy paused, swallowed thickly, scratched at his cheek in the way he always did when he was nervous. “D’you think you’ll stay out here forever?”

Jesús smiled and watched as it caught on Rowdy’s face too. “Not forever. A while, yes, because I am young and there is a lot of life to be lived. Things to see, people to meet, perhaps even a love or two to have and lose.”

That got a chuckle as he knew it would. “Think I’ve had more than my fair share of that…” another scratch of his cheek. “I ain’t got much to go home to. Ma gets on fine without me, no sweetheart to worry about. I guess… it never felt like home after the war. It didn’t fit. Or maybe I just didn’t fit it. I came back like some lost child looking for family in a stranger.”

He shuffled closer, dragging his saddle so they could lean close like boys on a camping trip. Their knees bumped through their blankets. “The world is a strange place, señor Rowdy, and God works in many strange ways. Sometimes the places we are born and the people we are born as aren’t the ones we are meant to die in or as. I think that’s is what drives men to be vaqueros. We are nudged out of the door and onto the plains and prairies to find ourselves.”

Rowdy smiled softly at him, tucking the blanket under his chin. “You sure are a romantic, Jesús.”

He shrugged and smiled back, fingers idly plucking at the edge of Rowdy’s blanket. “I’m a lot of things.”

“All of them good,” Rowdy said lowly, the words almost a breath. “C’mon, we should at least try and get some sleep. No use trying to buy horses if we can’t see ‘em straight.”

Jesús let go of Rowdy’s blanket and shuffled the blankets back up around himself. “Goodnight, señor Rowdy.”

“G’night, ‘soos.”

#rawhide #jesus patines #rowdy yates #they’re both so young and I want them to be bestest friends forever

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warnersister · 16 days

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Chapter 3 - The Dead Man Walking

The Highwayman Series | Chapter 2 | Chapter 4

The pack had arrived at around midnight, the moon was high and the town was asleep, yet the only place jake could bare to look was your window; shutters open and curtains drawn as they billow in the cool wind and if he squinted, he could make out a faint shadow of your silhouette in your bed, shoulders rising and falling as you slept in a deepened slumber. Could even make out the shape of his Stetson on your vanity. Maverick pat his back, “c’mon kid” he allowed them to let their horses into your ranch and penny had made accommodation in the vacant rooms above the saloon. His room was opposite yours. He sighed heavily as he shut his eyes, ready for a sleepless night mere metres from his old love. God, what had maverick gotten him into?

The next morning your dad had been the one to wake you up, opening your door quietly only to start coughing “daddy? Y’okay?” You ask, shooting up “yeah yeah darlin’, you bought new horses?” He asked, nodding to the window and you crease your brow, heading to look at the new additions to your ranch and you bit your lip harshly “no daddy, one minute I gotta go talk to Mav” you say sweetly, before not even taking the time to change from your night dress and heading straight across the street to the saloon, running up the stairs and banging harshly on the door where you knew maverick would be.

“Pete, you get your goddamned ass out here.” You shout and the door swung open, your uncle stood with his arms crossed over his chest “y’ brought ‘im back?” You growl and he nods “his god forsaken mare in my field? How dare you-“ he grabs you and pulls you inside. “Shut up.” He says “look, your daddy ain’t gonna be round much longer and you ain’t gonna settle down cause you’ll always be in love with a goddamn highwayman.” He hisses “I ain’t leaving you with no man and I ain’t making you live wi’ me ‘nd penny. You don’t want that” he tells you. You inhale sharply. “Go home, get dressed and get ya head screwed on, girl.” He says and you pivot, walking away without a second thought to pad across the road again and back up to your room. Where inside, you find your father turning the hat in his hands. “Horses were a gift from uncle Mav-” “your boy back in town, girl?” Your father cuts you off and you raise your brows, realising you’d forgot to move his hat. “No” “don’t-” he was cut off by incessant coughing “don’t lie to me girl, is he back?” You shake your head again “no daddy, you think too much. Travellers came by yesterday, one was worried about me gettin’ heat stroke and left me ‘is hat. Ain’t nothin’ more.” You say, fibbing through your lips. He throws you the hat that you catch and he stands, towering over you as he points accusingly at you “so why’s it say hangman in the hat?” He asks quietly and your throat runs dry “you sure this ain’t your hat, daddy? You’re the hangman round here ain’t ya?” You ask, looking up at him as he grits his jaw. “You’re lyin’ to me girl. If I find ‘im I’ll cut his balls off; then I’ll fuckin’ hang him” he promises “finally finish my job” he stalks past you and slams your door behind you. You sigh, clutching the hat in your grasp as your thumbs run over the damaged lacing keeping the leather bound together.

You look up and find a pair of eyes looking back at you, there he stood. The hangman. He licks his lips, as if apprehensive to do anything first. You lift the hat up, silently offering it back and he shakes his head, small smirk on his lips ‘keep it’ he mouths, walking out onto the balcony as you do the same. “Y’ shouldn’t be here, Jake.” You say “stop callin’ me that” he says “what? Jake? Your name ain’t it?” You ask “you’ve never called me Jake” “alright. Y’ shouldn’t be here, dead man” he shakes his head and looks around, street still deserted “my daddy knows you’re here” you say and he nods “I know” “get out, Jake. Don’t do this again” you say, wordlessly turning and shutting the shutters on your window to block him out. He wasn’t going to do that. He wasn’t going to leave you. Not again.

Later in the day, you’d headed into the Hard Deck, Hondo having told you that Penny was searching for you. “Afternoon Pen, y’alright?” You ask her as she wipes down tabletops in preparation for the saloon’s evening. “Ah, just the lady I wanted to see” she grins “can you help me tonight? Natasha’s gone West with her mister for a week or two. Fridays are always a busy shift” you hesitate. “Penny-” “y’ can’t avoid him forever, darlin” she says with a small, sympathetic smile. You huff “I know” you slink into one of the chairs by the bar and slump onto the bar, Penny moving to occupy the seat beside you. “Why won’t ya see him? He was here a long time before I was and Mav says y’ were head over heels. Why not now?” She questions and your head drops to rest in your hands.

“Well,” you begin, ready to delve into your mind to extract the memories you’d pushed so far away. “He came to Miramar when I was eighteen, highwayman.” She nods “came looking to loot, take some stuff ‘nd run like they all do. He’d came in here, time before it was the Hard Deck” you continue “came in for a drink, I was alone, servin’. Friday, actually” you laugh shortly “and this other gang came in, nasty bunch they were. Cain they called ‘im. Old man too. Causin’ trouble, tried to touch me” you look at her seeing if she was understanding what you were implying and you nods, resting a gentle hand on your shoulder. “Hell, Jake came in and beat ‘im to a pulp, gave ‘im a whiskey on the house” you recall “walked me home, right across the street” you reminisced “daddy hated ‘im. Turns out he had some business with Cain but he’d never come back to Miramar and he blamed Jake. I started sneaking round with ‘im. Even bought my lightnin’ over there. Fine mare. Must’ve cost a fortune” you inhale “but then someone had a go at the bank, and daddy was so certain it was the Daggers causin’ trouble, came home so damn angry. Insisted it was Jake. I started callin’ ‘im hangman.” You laugh “daddy told me that if he ever saw ‘im he’d hang ‘im and take the gold back from his pockets.” You sigh “then one night he came into my room, Jake was there, nearly met with the devil, y’know?” And she nods in response “gave daddy a stroke and damn near a heart attack. Got the shotgun and told ‘im to get out of his house. Said he’d hang ‘im.” Your lip quivers slightly as you swallow harshly. “Promised me he’d be back. 'Soon' he said” you scoffed “never came back. Never.” You sigh. “Looked after my daddy, helped ‘im recover. Always felt guilty, he still can’t speak right. Now he’s dying. He’d be find if I’d never met Jake.” “You can’t blame yourself, sweetheart.” Penny coos, caressing the side of your face “your daddy’s ol’ and mean” she says and you nod silently, she was right.

“Do y’not know why Jake left?” She asked and you creased your brows, posture straight as he question got you shooting up from the bar “what? Yeah my daddy ran ‘im out. Lyin’ bastard just never came back.” You sigh “your daddy said he’d hang him and make you kick the bucket.” She tells you and you shake your head “no, that’s not-” “Maverick was there” she tells you and you don’t know what to say. “God that man was willing to get hung for ya, baby. But couldn’t let you hang him. Couldn’t let ya live like that. Never came back.” She says.

“So who are ya really angry at?” You look at her in question. “Your daddy or your man?”

Chapter 2 | Chapter 4

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othellho · 7 months

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— Horses At Midnight Without A Moon, Jack Gilbert

#poem of all time #to me #words #jack gilbert #on hope

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markantonys · 2 years

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towers of midnight chapter 17-29

juilin is leaving for tar valon with the 3 aes sedai 😭 as are egeanin and domon. so every single character in mat’s plotline who ever showed opposition and/or a backbone towards tuon/the seanchan are leaving in one fell swoop huh? perfectly allowing mat to bury his head even deeper in the sand now that none of the people who’ve been directly harmed by tuon/the seanchan (thera, the aes sedai, egeanin) will be around anymore to make him remember that his beloved wife is evil. not that their presence ever did much of that anyway.

also, i can’t believe my beloved rarepair thom/juilin is splitting up! devastating! the other week i was thinking about the series’ longest-running duo and came to the grim conclusion that it’s rand and min (books 6-14, since i assume they’ll STILL be together in 14 since min has nowhere else to go) with elayne and nynaeve in second (books 2-9), but Actually it’s thom and juilin (books 4-13)!

“‘highness,’ seta said, ‘is it true? you’re going to allow these to roam free of you?’ ‘best to be rid of them,’ mat said, wincing at her choice of titles for him.” oh there i was thinking he was going to be wincing at her referring to human beings (the aes sedai) as “these” but no

and he goes on and on about how sorry he feels for the sul’dam for finding out they can channel. the fucking sul’dam, they’re who he feels sorry for, not any one of the people they’ve enslaved, two of whom are standing right there with him. he shows the sul’dam more empathy here than he showed the aes sedai when tuon put collars on them in KOD.

“maybe someday you two can convince tuon of the truth [that she and other sul’dam can channel]. help me find a way to fix this without causing the empire to collapse.” WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK MAT???? THIS IS THE EMPIRE WHO HAS INVADED YOUR HOMELAND AND YOU’RE WORRIED ABOUT IT COLLAPSING???? the second half of the chapter is elayne fretting about the seanchan invading andor after tarmon gai’don, and mat going “i don’t want the truth about my evil wife to hurt her feelings or make her evil slave empire collapse uwu” is such a disgusting contrast. this is NOT my mat. my mat hates authority and imperialism and slavery and injustice and invaders and would jump at the chance to destabilize the seanchan empire (which was supposed to be the WHOLE POINT of the sul’dam secret and now you’re telling me that we hope they can handle that secret delicately in a way that won’t interfere with the empire going about its day?). and i can’t blame sanderson for it because rj already did this to mat and assassinated his character in COT and KOD. the great and good man who risked his own escape to free windfinders enslaved by the seanchan would be even more disgusted by the subsequent books’ mat than i am.

“learning that they could channel, worrying they might be a danger to everyone around them. that’s how rand felt, mat thought. poor fool.” normally i would be over the moon and crying my eyes out over mat showing so much empathy and understanding towards rand finding out he could channel (how far he’s come from his initial reaction in tgh!) but i’m too mad about the above bullet point, and the fact that mat is thinking about the sul’dam in this passage and how he feels sorry for them. you know what else rand has felt, mat? fear of being collared and enslaved by people like your beloved evil wife!

“[egeanin] did not like mat, for all he had done to save her skin. maybe it was because he had not let her take charge, or maybe because she had been forced to act like his lover.” or maybe because you’re constantly swooning over and simpering for the woman who stripped her of her name.

joline thanks mat for giving them horses and he’s all smug about it. it is so annoying how Those Ungrateful Women keep being forced by the narrative to be polite to mat, apologize to him, thank him for things etc. and he’s rarely made to do the same for them despite having always been just as bad if not worse in the rudeness and disrespect department (again, rj did this too - elayne and nynaeve have to apologize to mat for not thanking him for saving them in tear and elayne thanks him very sincerely after the gholam, but to my memory he never once has to apologize for being condescending and treating them like helpless children (i’m thinking more his attitude in LOC-ACOS bc in tear okay fair yeah they did actually need his help))

mat gives joline some nice pastries as a parting gift but it turns out that they’re pranked with something that’ll turn her mouth blue, so that’s very kind and mature of him

“he had a sinking feeling that the aes sedai had wrapped poor egwene up in their schemes so soundly that she would never escape. he had half a mind to ride up there himself and see if he could get her out. but he had other tasks. egwene would have to see to herself for now. she was a capable girl; she could probably handle it without him for a while.” 🙄🙄 mat’s hero complex was sooooomewhat amusing (and at times a little sweet) in the early books, but it has gone on FAR too long. especially when at this point in the series egwene has worked SO HARD and achieved SO MUCH yet still struggles to have others recognize her authority and competence because of how young she is - it’s incredibly frustrating to see people she cares about who SHOULD trust her also treat her like a child in over her head.

for this and the past couple of bullet points: mat has learned NOTHING. his attitudes towards women and towards aes sedai are WORSE than they were at the beginning of the series (once again, rj is responsible for this and sanderson just continued the trend he was given to work with). we have faile bending over backwards to think about how sorry she is for being so mean in the past, birgitte berating elayne for getting people killed because of her plan with the black ajah house (more on that in a bit), yet mat is allowed to continue all his shitty attitudes completely unchecked.

in conclusion, gofundme tuition money to enroll mat in a women’s studies course

“had that frightened wisp of a woman really been the panarch of tarabon? mat had seen mice that were less timid.” she was ENSLAVED and TRAUMATIZED by YOUR WIFE, MAT.

mat thinks oh so generously that maybe he can talk to tuon and get egeanin reinstated, because by now i guess he has fully bought into the seanchan hierarchy and believes that regaining/maintaining your proper place within it is desirable, rather than that the whole system is fucked and should be burned to the ground. “first you’ll need to convince tuon not to make you da’covale. he was half convinced she intended to see him as her servant, husband or not.” SLAVE, mat. da’covale are SLAVES. this just confirms our suspicions that the narrative has forgotten that channelers aren’t the only ones who get enslaved by the seanchan. didn’t you hear? da’covale are actually just servants!

now back to elayne thank GOD. that was definitely the worst mat section since KOD (at least his first chapter in TGS only had misogyny and not also pro-imperialism-and-slavery).

elayne is walking in the rooftop gardens which has a view of the lower gardens. “it was in those gardens that she had first met rand. she pressed a hand to her belly.” 🥺

now we have birgitte berating elayne for taking risks because apparently elayne can’t even take a fucking walk in her own garden? birgitte points out that elayne could lose a limb or get severe brain damage and still live to give birth to healthy children, which is fair enough, but then says, “and what about the people around you? give you no thought to the danger you could cause them?” “i feel bad for vandene and sareitha. and for those men who died to rescue me. don’t dare imply that i feel no responsibility for them! ...we discussed this, birgitte. we decided that there was no way i could have known that chesmal and the others would arrive as they did.” “we decided that there was no use arguing any further.” like ugh this exchange just feels like pandering to all the elayne haters who were so mad at her for having the audacity to get kidnapped after a genuinely well thought out plan - WHICH BIRGITTE WAS IN ON so why the fuck is she now acting like elayne just went haring off unsupervised - went unpredictably awry. to my memory birgitte didn’t at all blame elayne during KOD???? she was exasperated (yet also full of admiration) that elayne never once felt afraid during the whole ordeal, but i don’t believe she ever felt that it was elayne’s fault or anything like that. it just feels like an uncharacteristically low blow for birgitte to bring this up to guilt elayne into being more careful (yes, elayne’s the one who references the specific incident, but since they’ve clearly argued about it many times, birgitte likely knew what she was doing by saying “give you no thought to the danger you could cause the people around you”). can you imagine if a character used the deaths at dumai’s wells to guilt rand into being more careful? that would be an extremely shitty move, wouldn’t it? why the hell does elayne get victim blamed, both within the narrative and in the fandom, for her kidnapping but rand doesn’t? no, we all know why. like for real, if you asked WOT fans who was to blame for the deaths at dumai’s wells, everybody would say elaida or galina, yet if you asked who was to blame for the deaths after full moon street, a good chunk if not the majority would say elayne instead of chesmal and the other black sisters who, you know, were the ones actually kidnapping and killing people.

anyway. elayne wants the kin to be stationed in andor so that andor can offer/have access to traveling (which will be charged for) and healing (which will be free, elayne says very adamantly). clever clever! part of the reason is because she wants all the resources she can have at her disposal when the seanchan inevitably try to invade andor after the last battle. “she suspected that those who claimed to be artur hawkwing’s successors would never be satisfied until they held all that had once belonged to their ancestor.” glad to see that one (1) character is still considering the seanchan to be an enemy and serious threat. 2 because egwene does too.

but she also wants channelers who will fight in battles - she won’t force the kin to do that. “the only thing she could think of was the black tower. it was on andor’s soil...what would happen to them if rand died? dared she try to claim them? dared she wait for someone else to?” OOOOOOH this is an intriguing prospect!! and man, how much easier would it have been if rand had been in charge of the black tower all this time instead of going “i don’t trust taim at all. i think i will give him free rein over hundreds of dangerous male channelers and never check in on him.” then the black tower would be solidly behind him and he could just be like “everybody this is your new stepmom elayne, do whatever she wants” and all would be well.

“a careful trap using the asha’man and wise ones, and perrin could hit the Children so hard that they shattered. he could maybe even destroy them permanently as a group.” why do i feel like he’s going to decide not to do this for Moral Reasons and this is going to end up as another instance of “evil group is perfectly poised to be destroyed permanently but our protagonist intervenes to prevent it from happening”

“berelain pursed perfect lips. light, but the woman was beautiful! ...why had the creator made people as perfect as berelain?” faile? u good fam?

faile and berelain agree to pretend to be friends to put a stop to the rumors that berelain slept with perrin. WHAT was the goddamn POINT of this entire plotline? the fact that so many other characters have had min viewings/prophetic dreams/etc. foreshadowing all this epic shit and then perrin’s bird viewing was just that he was going to spend the majority of the series in a completely pointless love triangle that 2/3 of the involved parties did not want to be involved in and that ended up affecting absolutely no aspect of the story lmao i’m wondering if the show would even bother with this because a) removing it would affect nothing and b) with show!perrin’s extra trauma from killing laila the perrin/faile relationship will have plenty of obstacles already without needing to include the berelain love triangle.

MATLAYNE REUNION!!!!!!!!!!!! SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP!!!!!!!!!!! thankfully i read this a few days after the previous mat chapter so my annoyance at him had cooled and i could appreciate the reunion properly! we are diving into this chapter in extreme detail, let’s go.

mat shaves off his beard and is careful in his clothing selection before meeting with elayne 😌 although he picks out a respectable plain coat and then spends the rest of the chapter anxious and self-conscious and fretting that he should’ve picked a nicer coat to see elayne, baby boy! there is symbolism about the fact that mat was constantly wearing over-the-top lacy fancy clothes around tylin and tuon, but now he changes back into a normal coat to see elayne. because she sees and appreciates him for who he is and he doesn’t feel the need to add any false ornamentation or change himself around her! (altho she does kinda make fun of his coat later lmao)

“one of the holes had a bloodstain around it, but that had mostly been washed out. it was a nice coat.” literally “mat is even wearing his formal leather jacket” “it’s the one without any blood on it”

“just because a man marries someone doesn’t mean he suddenly becomes bloody nobility.” “mat, that’s actually exactly how it works.” kdjfg

mat wishes that his luck would for once see him, among other things, off somewhere with a pretty serving girl on his knee instead of, among other things, being married to a seanchan high lady. another one for the “mat is gonna cheat on tuon so fast” file folder

the band is getting attention in caemlyn because they’re the largest single group outside the walls, because they’re as organized and disciplined as a regular army, and also because they’re led by “a personal friend of the dragon reborn.” everyone in caemlyn knows mat is rand’s ~Personal Friend~ aka sugar baby (and mat’s men keep bragging about it and he wishes they wouldn’t jkfg)

guybon (random beautiful man who showed up out of nowhere with a huge army for elayne in the eleventh hour, aka the guy invented to fill the mat-and-the-band shaped hole in the story) meets mat to escort him. “too bad he had such a pretty face. a life in the military would probably end up wrecking that.” #BiMatRights

among the many rumors in caemlyn about mat, one is that he “won the dragon reborn the loyalty of the aiel” (by killing couladin), caemlyn is spinning out romantic tales about rand and mat’s devotion to each other!

talmanes is “crestfallen” that mat tells him to stay outside while he and thom go in to meet with elayne, and mat promises to introduce him to elayne later. talmanes really wants to meet his bff’s wife!

“mat stepped up to the door, taking a deep breath. he had fought in dozens of skirmishes and battles without growing nervous. now his hands were shaking.” he’s so nervous to finally see his crush again 🥺

“his eyes found elayne immediately...she looked radiant in a gown of deep red and gold. beautiful, full red lips that mat would not have minded kissing, if he had not been a married man. her red-gold hair seemed to shimmer in the hearthlight, and her cheeks were full of color.” THIS IS SO ROMANTIC AND FOR WHAT????? good GOD mat!!! he is straight up IN LOVE with her!! (also, another one for the “mat is gonna cheat on tuon so fast” file folder)

RADIANT!!! mat thinks elayne looks RADIANT!!! he’s never described TUON as radiant. also, conveniently placed light source to make a character’s hair shimmer my beloved

“‘thom, i’m so glad that you’re all right!’ elayne grabbed him in an embrace. ‘hello, dear one,’ thom said fondly. ‘i hear you’ve done well for yourself, and for andor.’” 🥺🥺

elayne is crying! she’s so happy to see them!! but we don’t get a matlayne hug even tho elayne hugs thom and birgitte hugs mat 😔

elayne thanks mat for all he’s done for her, and despite how sulky he was about not getting thanks and kisses from her sooner, now he just says “it really wasn’t anything, you know, elayne.” and when she apologizes for making him wait so long for a meeting he says “it’s nothing. you’re busy.” and when she offers to let the band move closer to the city and apologizes that there’s no room for them within the walls he says “that won’t be needed. letting us move closer is kind enough. thank you.” 1 page back with elayne and he’s already 10x better about being polite and respecting women! unlike when joline thanked him earlier, he doesn’t show or feel a hint of smugness about elayne thanking him now! she truly does bring out the best in him and i’ll always be bitter that he got punted off to a wife who turns him into the worst possible version of himself.

“‘burn me. you’re queen! how’s that feel?’ elayne laughed, finally releasing thom. ‘such a way with words you have, mat.’” they’re married!

mat says he’s not going to bow to elayne or bother with “your majesty” nonsense and elayne says she wouldn’t expect it, unless they’re in public because there she has to keep up appearances for the people. “‘i suppose that’s true,’ mat agreed. it did make sense.” he loves his wife so much and is now completely willing to bow to her in public and understands why it’s important that he do so! growth! trophy husband (complimentary) behavior! and, importantly, unlike with tuon, he does NOT intend to bow and scrape to elayne in private. literally a prime example of the “someone who will respect you in public but speak freely to you in private” ideal partner for a high-profile leader that egwene described to us previously!

MAT FINDS OUT ABOUT THE BABIES AAAAAAHHHH

“he looked accusingly at elayne. ‘does rand know about this?’” a bold attitude from someone who knows FULL WELL that rand has been fucking min for the past few months lmao i think sanderson’s mat forgot he had all those visions because he does not react in any way or think about rand and min at all or scratch his head wondering how rand has the time to fuck so many people. a common symptom of the series, whenever one of rand’s relationships is relevant to a scene, everybody present in that scene (including rand himself) forgets the other two exist.

“she laughed. ‘i should hope he isn’t too surprised.’ ‘burn me!’ mat said. ‘he’s the father!’” the fact that elayne’s been so secretive about the babydaddy’s identity but trusts mat enough to tell him straight off the bat 🥺 also, i will call bullshit if mat doesn’t say a word about this to rand when they see each other next book (tho at least “i should hope he isn’t too surprised” gives mat sooooome leeway in believing rand might already know)

okay let’s take inventory here

people who currently know elayne is pregnant with rand’s babies: elayne, mat, aviendha, min, nynaeve, egwene, thom, birgitte

people who currently do not know elayne is pregnant with rand’s babies: rand

like this POOR MAN lmao!! someone PLEASE tell him my god!

“how had becoming queen made elayne less high-and-mighty? had he missed something? she actually seemed agreeable now! well, that was unfair. there were times when she had been agreeable before. they had merely been mixed between times when she had been ordering mat around.” mat acknowledging that elayne was never that bad and he judged her too harshly! we love to see it!!

“he found himself smiling as thom related [the whole story since ebou dar]...mat almost thought himself a hero, listening to thom.” mat is smiling about getting to sit with elayne and catch up with her! elayne listening to the things he’s been through makes him feel like a hero!

“right before thom got to the part about tuon’s marriage words, however, mat coughed and cut in.” and he hastens thru the rest of the story and doesn’t mention the marriage LMAO he doesn’t want elayne to know he’s married. because he’s in love with her! “thom eyed mat with amusement.” and thom knows it!

“what trouble have you gotten yourself into, matrim cauthon?” “that’s not fair at all. i’m not the one who gets into trouble. if i-” “you’re not going to mention my getting captured in the stone of tear again, are you?” “of course not. that happened ages ago. i barely remember it.” THEY’RE MARRIED YOUR HONOR

“she laughed, the pretty sound ringing in the room. he felt himself blushing.” 🚨🚨🚨 ELAYNE MADE MAT BLUSH!!!!! 🚨🚨🚨 and he thinks her laugh is pretty!!!!!

like literally the way he thinks about elayne is SO MUCH MORE ROMANTIC than the way he thinks about tuon i can’t TAKE it!!!

“‘mat, i could kiss you,’ she declared. ‘this is exactly what i needed!’ mat blinked. what?” JSKDFHG AAAAAAAHHHHH and birgitte says “you’ll have to watch yourself, elayne. rand will be jealous.” BIRGITTE STRAIGHT UP CALLING OUT THE VIBES BETWEEN THEM LMAO but rest assured rand won’t be jealous if elayne kisses mat, birgitte! that would be his dream come true!

mat and elayne have some interesting negotiations about the use of the dragons! the final deal they settle on is: elayne will provide the money and resources to produce the dragons, 3/4 of them will go to andor and 1/4 to the band, elayne gets the band in a renewable 1-year contract but can’t force them to fight in any battle mat doesn’t want them to participate in, and elayne can have mat’s medallion for 3 days to study it.

“i don’t like having men who could leave me at any time.” “you know i won’t hold them back merely to spite you. i’ll do what’s right.” “what you see as being right.” “every man should have that option.” “few men use it wisely.” “we want it anyway. we demand it.” “you have it.” ❤️

but initially elayne wants the band to be part of andor and given a commission there permanently and to be officially backed by her, which i would’ve loved so much!!!! unfortunately, mat turns it down, in part because he doesn’t want the band beholden to anybody (which is fair), but not only for that reason. “it was actually tempting. just a little. but it did not matter. he did not think elayne would be happy to have him in her realm once she knew of his relationship with the seanchan. he meant to return to tuon eventually, somehow. if only to work out what she really felt about him.” SIGHHHHH. all tuon does is cut mat off from all his other loved ones. this passage implies that he’s pretty much turned fully traitor to the westlands and is aware that most of his friends will hate him for it, yet he still doesn’t manage to reach enough awareness to, you know, feel bad about it, or to have any guilt over the fact that tuon would collar elayne as soon as she met her (and swallow up her nation and people to boot).

but then mat does think that he has no intention of giving the seanchan access to the dragons, so that’s good! maybe not full traitor, then. like gawyn, he’s trying to straddle both sides at once lmao

“elayne raised an eyebrow at him. yes, she had become a queen. just like that.” ❤️❤️

“‘a serving man,’ mat said. ‘you know, to take care of my clothing. you’d do a better job of picking than i would.’ elayne looked at his coat, then up at his hair. ‘that,’ she said, ‘i’ll give you regardless of how the other negotiations go.’” “if you need to borrow money to buy a new coat, the crown can lend you some. considering your station, you really should dress more nicely.” and then elayne says she’ll see that mat gets a noble title. sugar mama elayne is out in full force!! god bless. all i want is for mat to be the sugar baby of both the queen of andor and the dragon reborn, it’s my greatest dream (and hey, there have been multiple instances where both rand and elayne have been mentioned as being able to cover mat’s expenses and give him noble titles so it’s all but canon anyway!)

mat tells elayne that the gholam is in caemlyn. we love to see characters sharing important information with each other about things that could be a danger to them!

elayne shares her plans to use the band to move on the sun throne, and mat is fine with it and even thinks it’s a good use for the band while he’s off rescuing moiraine! “i agree to that, but elayne, the band has to be free to fight in the last battle, however rand wants.” they said mat is a bad friend to rand and always runs away from him, i said bitch WHERE

elayne invites mat and thom to dinner later ❤️ and talmanes, at mat’s request. “taking dinner with you will have him dancing all the way back to the camp.” jkdfjgh

“thom spared a paternal kiss for her cheek before parting - good that it was paternal! mat had heard some things about those two that he did not want to believe. with thom old enough to be her grandfather, no less.” LMAO sanderson directly calling out whatever the fuck rj did with elayne and thom back in tfoh hjfkg i love it

“‘that went well,’ mat decided, hands on hips. ‘i worried she wouldn’t bite, but i think i reeled her in pretty well.’ thom laughed, clapping him on the shoulder. ‘what?’ mat demanded. thom just chuckled.” mat is the “anything for you beyonce” vine for elayne and thom knows it!

“‘might i suggest you move the ring to the third finger of your left hand?’ ‘you may suggest it,’ nynaeve said, but did not move the ring.” djkfjg icon

we see nynaeve’s test with the 100 weaves and it’s a wonderful full circle moment from her accepted test! i see her point that it’s important that she care about the people she’s protecting more than her own status and whether or not she’s raised to the shawl, but i’m still fresh off my annoyance at rand’s “you’re better because you’re Not Like Other Aes Sedai” speech and so i also see the aes sedai’s point that it IS important to remain calm in a crisis and it IS important to know how to prioritize and focus on your main quest - sure going off on a sidequest to save people in need would be more important than the main quest of doing a silly little weave to complete a test, but those people aren’t actually real and thus the test IS more important (and in most of the scenes we saw, the weave she was supposed to perform did end up saving the situation anyway). i love that nynaeve wants to save everyone but i do think she needs to learn that she can’t (a lot of WOT characters need to learn that, notably mat). but it is an interesting contrast to the mentality of some other characters and really shows that she could never be a large-scale leader like rand, egwene, and elayne, who by now are practiced in placing the greater good above individuals. and aes sedai DO have to focus on the greater good as well, that’s kinda the whole point of their organization, so just because that’s not how nynaeve is, i don’t think it’s fair to say that she’s Better than the other aes sedai, only that it’s not the right career path for her lmao

but of course it was shitty of the testers to purposely make the visions so cruel and to test nynaeve more brutally than anybody else would be, and of course nynaeve is right to say “i wonder if we sometimes put the white tower - as an institution - before the people we serve. i wonder if we let it become a goal in itself, instead of a means to help us achieve greater goals.” but then the rest of the speech strays too close to “women who don’t get married and have families are inherently less empathetic than those who do” for my liking, so overall the jury’s out.

i will say, it’s interesting how nynaeve and gawyn both choose concern for individuals over concern for a greater cause, yet the narrative (or at the very least the fandom) seems to reward nynaeve for it and criticize gawyn. something something gender roles women are supposed to be caregivers in the private sphere and men leaders in the public sphere something

also, nynaeve used balefire! i’ve been wondering if she ever would again. every now and then i go, “hey, remember that time nynaeve used balefire in TDR and it was literally never mentioned again?” glad to finally see that loop closed haha also, it’s totally fair for her to get in trouble for using an extremely dangerous and illegal weave (again, i agree with her that she may have to use balefire in the last battle, but the dangers in the testing visions weren’t real) and honestly i’m surprised the other aes sedai let it go so easily, but not complaining because the last battle is coming and things have gotta move along.

nynaeve gets myrelle’s bond from lan!!!!! i genuinely wasn’t sure if that would happen since i was never spoiled about it, though i assumed it was a pretty safe bet that it would. “do not press me. in the morning, i swear the three oaths. i’m free of them for one more night.” JDKFJGHJ DAMN

oh also i forgot to say: a chunk of nynaeve’s braid got burned off and it’s now too short to tug! heartbreaking! rip to a legend! as far as rj’s overused turns of phrase go, i always loved the braid tugging bc it’s so specific to nynaeve and her personality (birgitte’s done it occasionally but the narrator will usually remark that it reminds them of nynaeve). but Smoothing Skirts as a universal thing that every woman in the world does as a sign of hidden anxiety or annoyance, on the other hand...........

“so elayne is queen. that must make rand happy.” thank you perrin for a randlayne crumb!

perrin at the prospect of fighting the whitecloaks: “he felt a strange reluctance. it seemed such a waste to kill so many who could fight against the shadow.” see? i knew he was gonna wuss out of destroying the whitecloaks once and for all. sigh. yeah yeah they need all the hands they can get in the last battle but still. sigh.

“several sources indicate that [rand] has sued [the seanchan’s] leader for peace.” “but what did he do to his hand?” perrin is so worried about rand and his hand 🥺

you know what? i think balwer has earned a place in my favorite tertiary character list. he’s so uptight yet sneaky i love him. seeing as my favorite tertiary character list consists of balwer, lini, essande, mistress harfor, and norry, i think my favorite genre of minor character is just “no-nonsense senior citizens” jdkfg (and verin! tho she’s a secondary character not tertiary)

morgase finally finds out gaebril was a forsaken and used compulsion on her!!!! 😭😭 she gives such a powerful speech about it, but it’s wasted on fucking tallanvor. literally morgase is like “so i just found out that i was mind controlled by a forsaken” and tallanvor’s only reaction is “so you didn’t actually love him? nice, that means i have a chance with you!” fuck OFF dude. what i wouldn’t give for this moment to have been between morgase and lini instead, would’ve been so much more powerful. (update: a few chapter later i realized that lini was among the group kidnapped by the whitecloaks, so she actually couldn’t have been present for this scene. but still.) the tallanvor/morgase romance is so unnecessary!! sure it’d be nice for morgase to finally have someone who loves her selflessly, but as we can see from his reaction here, tallanvor doesn’t, despite all his whining about how he’s so good at loving her from afar and not expecting anything from her. you’ve been hassling her to get her to admit she’s into you for multiple books!

“i think thom and gareth loved me, but as something to be held and cared for, then released. i didn’t think you’d ever let go.” “i won’t.” is that...........supposed to be romantic? i would way rather a partner who holds and cares for and then releases me lmao that sounds great!

speaking of partners who won’t ever let go: “other than things to do with egwene, what is it that you want?” “nothing. she’s everything.” jkjfg every WOT secondary character who’s the love interest of a more important character be like

and now bryne does elayne dirty and gives galad too much credit: “you always were the passionate one, gawyn. like your mother and your sister. impulsive, never calculating like your brother...perhaps i spoke wrong - galad may not be calculating, but he isn’t impulsive. to be impulsive is to act without careful thought; galad has given everything a great deal of thought.” it’s not like elayne has become a powerhouse politician and galad has gotten brainwashed by a cult or anything! throughout this book, there’s been such a narrative of elayne being impulsive and not thinking things through, but that’s completely not true - obviously she takes massive risks, but they’re ALWAYS calculated and planned out fairly carefully beforehand, even if things end up going unexpectedly awry once the plan is in motion (more on this in a bit)

“find out who you would be without egwene, and then figure out how to fit her into that.” i love this. now can somebody PLEASE give this advice to min?

mat lists some rumors from the current caemlyn rumor mill, one of which is that rand “visited women in their sleep, getting them with child” hjdkfhgj CRYING everybody wants rand carnally and assumes that everybody else has had rand carnally. also, feel like this implies people are totally suspecting he’s elayne’s babydaddy despite her efforts to the contrary. add “the entire population of caemlyn” to the list of people who suspect, at least, that elayne is pregnant with rand’s babies.

“mat had offered to come up with a backstory for his act, but thom had coughed and said that he already had one worked out.” and later, “mat? i don’t know what you mean, my good woman. my name is garard, a simple beggar who has a quite interesting past, if you care to listen to it” let mat share his dramatic backstories you bastards!!!

what’s the point of noal. i know that he’s jain farstrider, and i don’t dislike him (he does add a fun Weird Grandpa vibe to the group) but he’s just such a random addition to the party. especially to be given the important narrative place of one of moiraine’s 3 rescuers! she’s gonna see them and be like “thom! mat! and............some old guy i’ve never met before!”

“and what of rand? mat saw him sitting on a fine chair, staring down at the floor in front of himself in a dark room, a single lamp flickering. he looked worn and exhausted, his eyes wide, his expression grim. mat shook his head to dispel that image as well. poor rand.” 😭😭❤️❤️ mat loves and misses and worries about rand so much!! “mat is a bad friend to rand and abandons him and never shows him any empathy or understanding” WHOMST??? also, i will note that hilariously in the prior paragraph mat thought about perrin and only said that an image appeared and he banished it, he did not describe a single thing going on in that vision unlike the rand vision. mat is always so much more hung up on the rand visions than he is on the perrin visions or than perrin is on the rand visions.

“mat did not want to go back. there was no tuon back in the two rivers.” sweet, then i’m sprinting back to the two rivers. “light, well, he would have to figure out what to do with tuon. but he did not want to be rid of her. if she were still with him, he would let her call him toy without complaining.” 🙄🤮 like, every single thought mat ever has about tuon ALWAYS feels so jarringly out of character and nonsensical.

the phenomenon of plays (slash operas) has arrived in caemlyn! perfect for mat’s post-last-battle life as a playwright in caemlyn under sugar mama elayne’s patronage!

“the queen sat with a calm demeanor, watching the play. at times, birgitte felt more like a nursemaid than a bodyguard. how did you protect a woman who seemed, at times, so determined to see herself dead?” she’s literally just sitting in a chair watching a play birgitte fucking RELAX. the other characters’ overprotectiveness of elayne is FAR more annoying than her viewing-induced plot armor recklessness has ever been! birgitte complains about feeling like a nursemaid - well, maybe elayne would consult with you about her dangerous plans more if you treated her as an intelligent adult rather a foolhardy child! birgitte is not buttering my bread this book, i have to say.

she does redeem herself a bit a moment later tho: “and yet, elayne was also so very capable. like tonight; she’d somehow convinced her most bitter rival to attend this play...it whispered of a political maneuver by elayne that was thirteen steps more subtle than birgitte had a mind for. she shook her head. elayne was a queen. volatility and all. she’d be good for andor.” that’s my girl! ❤️❤️ (but also, elayne is not “volatile” lmao?? sure, she has her moments of letting out a single primal scream of frustration, but on the whole she’s very good at keeping an outwardly even temper when it’s important to do so.)

mat arrives to see birgitte, but birgitte’s first assumption is that he’s here to see elayne. she knows they’re married! “birgitte held up two fingers to order drinks - [the bartender] knew that she took milk these days” the mental image of the captain-general walking into bars and going “bartender, i want a glass of your best milk” is SENDING me jkfjgh

also, reason #783745 why mat should be elayne’s warder. can you imagine the act of love it would’ve been for mat to swear off drinking for 9 months because he worries it might have a negative effect on the babies thru the bond? 🥺

“one in a thousand is good odds. for me.” “bloody ashes. you’re as bad as elayne!” 1) mat and elayne are the same and they are married ❤️ 2) this is exactly what’s so infuriating about the narrative and the fandom punishing elayne for “recklessness” - because they reward mat for the very same thing. mat is just as bad if not worse when it comes to coming up with wild dangerous plans, yet his plot-mandated protagonist ta’veren luck plot armor means that they almost always work out, or that if they go wrong it’s in a way that still allows them to work out in the end (like the escape from ebou dar). elayne will have a very solid plan that goes awry due to unforeseen circumstances, while mat will just charge into something with half a plan cobbled together with duct tape and then it works out, with the result that everyone’s like “elayne is so stupid and reckless and gets people killed! i love when mat makes crazy plans that work out against all odds!”

“could she, perhaps, give one of the copies to mat? he’d never know, since he couldn’t channel himself...no, she thought, squashing that temptation before it could fly too high. she had promised to return mat’s medallion, and she would. not some copy that didn’t work as well.” ❤️

elayne disguises herself as a forsaken as a means of getting the black sisters to spill information to her. this is genuinely clever! and it works exactly as intended for quite some time until the impossible-to-foresee betrayal of the secretary! and even when things do go awry, elayne holds her own against 3 black ajah and 2 other darkfriends fantastically well! and she did 100% intend to tell birgitte about the plan, but birgitte was out drinking with mat, so why does the narrative later insist that elayne’s at fault for going behind birgitte’s back? she literally wasn’t there! granted, elayne does think “well on the plus side if birgitte’s not here then she can’t object to my plan!” rather than waiting to do the plan at a different time after birgitte comes back, but like maybe she wouldn’t feel the need to think that way if birgitte treated her like an intelligent adult rather than a foolhardy child.

elayne learns that darkfriends are hunting mat and is so worried!! ❤️ and also that the shadow is planning an invasion of andor, uh oh..........noooo andor is like the LAST place that hasn’t yet been invaded by either the shadow or the seanchan! caemlyn is my only Home Base in a series where all the characters are wandering around and making me feel adrift because i never did like travel-based fantasy series where there’s no Home Base! it’s gotta stay strong! it’s gotta!

mat comes charging in with birgitte after she sensed elayne was in danger! protective husband!!!

speaking of protective husbands, gawyn fends off an assassin from egwene’s room and goes to check on her and gets caught in the traps she’d laid to catch the assassin jdkfjg peak comedy. once again, i sympathize with both sides of the argument - gawyn’s interference let the assassins know that egwene’s onto them and cost her the element of surprise, but he wasn’t actively Trying to interfere, he just went to have a quick look in her corridor to reassure himself that all was well bc he was anxious and then unintentionally ended up fighting an assassin. i agree more with egwene, bc gawyn wasn’t even supposed to be in that corridor in the first place since he’d promised not to, but i do understand his being anxious and wanting to check on his beloved. (and i forget whether or not he was aware that egwene had set up traps in her room? if not, then his anxiety would be doubly understandable bc he’d think she was leaving her rooms completely unguarded and vulnerable with assassins walking the tower.)

“her cheeks were flushed with anger at him. that made her even more beautiful than usual.” gawyn’s just exposing his kinks to us huh jhdkfjg

gawyn goes to caemlyn!!! he’s gonna see elayne!!!! i’m gonna get my reunion!!!!!

“birgitte stood in the doorway, mat in the room beyond. he’d stepped out for melfane’s inspection, but otherwise he’d hovered near her almost as protectively as birgitte.” HUSBAND BEHAVIOR!!!! 😭😭😭 where is talmanes to tease mat for being husbandly when you need him?

“we don’t have time for much, these days. risks must be taken.” exactly! the last fucking battle is nigh, if you all hadn’t noticed! nigh, i tell you!! elayne can’t afford to just sit in a glass tower not taking any risks! fandom shits on elayne for unintentionally endangering others by risking her own life to accomplish necessary goals, yet they’d think just the same if she sent other people to take those risks in her stead. if elayne HADN’T gone into the black ajah house, it would be all “elayne’s such a coward sending other people to die in her place” like if you don’t want elayne to go up against the black ajah herself but would also criticize her for sending others to do it, what do you want her to do, just ignore the black ajah and let them get away with whatever?

“you made me your warder, but you won’t let me protect you! how can i be your bodyguard if you won’t tell me when you’re putting yourself in danger?” she TRIED to and you WEREN’T THERE, birgitte! and she DID tell you the whole plan for the black ajah house incident and you AGREED - reluctantly, but you did agree - to let her go in without you! i definitely feel like there’s an attempt to retroactively make the black ajah house incident be elayne’s fault in-narrative in a way that it wasn’t at all in KOD.

“at that moment, a scarf-wrapped head appeared in the doorway. mat had his eyes closed. ‘you covered up?’” see? mat is so much more respectful of women when he’s around elayne! doesn’t even consider trying to sneak a glance of her naked!

elayne warns mat that darkfriends are after him and tells him to be careful ❤️

“‘well,’ mat said, shrugging, ‘you’re alive, and three of them are dead. seems like a reasonably good outcome.’” fucking thank you mat for acknowledging that elayne accomplished something rather than getting on her case about taking risks! king!!

“‘mat,’ she said, taking off his medallion. ‘here, it’s time i gave this back. you should know that it probably saved my life tonight.’” ❤️❤️ this is now TWICE that mat’s medallion has saved elayne’s life (with the first being the gholam in ebou dar) this ship literally writes itself! [nynaeve voice] why aren’t they married!

of all my should-have-been ships, mat/elayne truly does feel like The One That Got Away. obviously rand/mat and elayne/avi would never ACTUALLY have happened canonically in the books (tho avilayne is a shoe-in for the show and i can’t wait!) but mat/elayne absolutely could have happened within the heteronormative confines of canon. and they spend more time together and have more relationship development than elayne has with her actual love interest, and elayne fills the same “everything he thought he hated” tropes as mat’s actual love interest but in a much better and more effective way and challenges his prejudices about channelers rather than enforces them.

i once put this whole canon matlayne scenario in the replies of a previous recap, but you’re gonna hear it again! SO they could’ve had their Big Damn Kiss and love confession post-gholam in acos and then fucked and then got tragically separated, and elayne having to leave mat behind in ebou dar for the sake of getting the kin away from the seanchan would’ve been a beautiful angsty heart vs. duty moment for her. then elayne finds out she’s pregnant, mat’s escape from ebou dar now has the concrete goal of wanting to get back to caemlyn and elayne, and then they finally reunite in this book and mat finds out he’s gonna be a dad and he realizes that the idea of commitment and kids doesn’t make him feel leashed anymore because he loves elayne and the twins and wants to have that family and knows that elayne would never deny him his freedom like tuon would and now mat has had actual positive and believable growth as a person and character! maybe he could even also become her warder for a “hates aes sedai -> warder to an aes sedai” arc, esp since he’s always been so obsessed with protecting elayne and there was so much foreshadowing of Warder Mat that went nowhere! and elayne gets her challenging-preconceptions-of-mat arc expanded and gets to actually have her babydaddy around for at least a few days of her pregnancy! i love randlayne with my whole heart, but if canon insisted on doing them so absolutely dirty, then i would’ve preferred a meaty matlayne storyline like this. (and again, rand/mat/elayne/avi is Actually the way, but i’m thinking specifically in terms of what would have been genuinely plausible for rj to write.)

anyway, back on topic. slayer wins the award for most pointless WOT villain. literally every single time he shows up i go “wow i completely forgot this guy existed” jfgk and he’s rand’s (and galad’s) presumed-dead uncle who is actually alive and has somehow become evil and somehow has TAR powers! that should’ve been interesting!

we see rand again, but again it’s from min’s pov. can i get some rand pov please? he feels like too MUCH of a jesus figure in this book, with us just seeing him perform miracles etc. from other people’s povs rather than actually getting to be in his head and see how HE’S feeling post-epiphany.

rand goes back to bandar eban intending to fix the starvation he shrugged at and ran away from in the previous book. min keeps simpering that it wasn’t his fault and that he isn’t responsible for the people he literally rules and, when a domani is rightfully angry with him, yells at the guy that rand is too busy and has had more important things to deal with, though rand cuts her off and accepts blame. she was always enabling him or avoiding him when he was at his worst, and now that the time has come to make amends for the bad things he did, she tries to coddle him and shield him from any blame or regret. whereas i just bet that elayne and aviendha would go “yes you did a bad thing but you’re a good person and you can fix it” because they understand leadership and responsibility and honor.

rand still refers to tam as “tam” instead of “my father”! even post-epiphany, even now that he’s reconnected with his humanity! smh!

rand to min: “you’re more vital than them all [the kings, aiel chiefs, aes sedai, asha’man, and ta’veren who follow him]. you remind me who i am.” FOOTAGE! NOT! FUCKING! FOUND!!!!! tam was the one who got him back in touch with himself! nynaeve, mat, perrin, egwene, and elayne were the ones rand was thinking about in the last book when missing his old life and hating how much he’s changed! min does not KNOW who he is because all she’s interested in is having sex with him and never wants to actually have meaningful conversations with him! she met the sheepherder fucking ONCE let’s not act like she’s the only one who can remind him of who he is!

“besides, you think more clearly than most of those who call themselves my counselors.” footage not found, she’s incapable of thinking about a single thing but rand and how hot she wants to look for him. “you could be a queen, if you wished it.” LMAO elayne has not been out here busting her ass for the past 6 books only for rand to claim that useless helpless skill-less min could be a queen! she would not last one HOUR in elayne’s shoes!

“all i wish for is you, stupid looby.” yeah, we know, min. we know.

and then rand’s like hey i wish you didn’t call me names so much and min’s like “well life’s tough isn’t it” what a supportive partner. not that mat/tuon hasn’t already clearly shown us that the narrative does not understand the difference between “cute nicknames to call your partner” and “continuing to call your partner nicknames they have told you they don’t like or want to be called”

min really does exist only to provide outsider pov of rand. the vast majority of her pov chapters since joining him could be summarized without having to even mention her hardly at all. because she never actually DOES anything, she just sits there watching other people do things and tells us about it. she’s a narrator, not a participant. in this scene, rand and the domani are hard at work getting the city back in order and min doesn’t even HELP she literally just sits on a crate and watches everyone else work! i hate her so much. elayne and aviendha would be rolling up their sleeves and going right into the thick of it!

“i have heard some of what these men in white have done in the wetlands. i think they wear white to hide what is dark inside of them.” go off edarra! “we shouldn’t be fighting them, not with the last battle coming. if we squabble among ourselves, we will lose to the dark one.” “i would like to have seen someone suggest that to you when [the shaido] still held your wife!” go OFF edarra!

and so perrin wusses out of killing the whitecloaks, as i predicted, however they’re gonna have a lil trial and that actually sounds fun, i’m excited! but that’s getting a little ahead, so back to earlier in the chapter.

GALAD AND BERELAIN ARE IMMEDIATELY SMITTEN WITH EACH OTHER JKFJG I’M HOLLERING hot people supremacy! the bisexual population of randland is shaking! literally the parks and rec “they would make the most beautiful super baby, but what if super baby became too powerful?” meme!

“‘elayne’s fine,’ perrin said gruffly. ‘last i heard - which was only a few days back - she’d secured her claim to the throne. i wouldn’t be surprised if she’s looking to marry rand by now. if she can pull him away from whatever realm he’s conquering.’” thank you perrin for another randlayne crumb but also i’m hollering again jdkfgj poor elayne has worked so hard to keep her relationship with rand under wraps and perrin is out here blabbing about it to two entire armies! perrin and min shaking hands meme on spilling every single detail of elayne’s personal life to half the continent

ok but like fuck man i would LOOOOVE to see randlayne go public now that elayne’s secured the throne and doesn’t have to worry as much about being seen as tdr’s puppet. they would be the power couple of randland!!! even moreso than berelain and galad!! crying over the wasted potential!! tho i guess making it known (or at least heavily suspected) that the babies are the dragon reborn’s kids is still definitely a concern since it would put targets on their backs. but if so many people already fucking know anyway then what is there to lose lmao

also, it makes me incredibly smug that pretty much every single one of rand’s friends would definitely be team randlayne over team rand/min if given a choice - elayne is mat, nynaeve, and egwene’s bestie, and perrin at least knows her from a few weeks in the stone as opposed to min whom he met for a day. egwene has no idea rand even has a relationship with min, and mat seems to have forgotten he saw them fucking and perrin doesn’t seem to have ever seen min and rand being romantic since he’s so confident rand’s going to marry elayne (which leads me to conclude that he thinks about rand way less than mat does and thus has way fewer visions of him)

“had aybara intended insult by indicating a relationship between elayne and the dragon reborn? unfortunately, galad knew his sister all too well. she was impulsive, and she had shown an unseemly fascination with young al’thor. ‘my sister may do as she wishes,’ galad said, surprised at how easily he contained his annoyance at both her and the dragon reborn.” oh i can’t wait for galad and gawyn to both show up at the palace and be like “elayne! what’s new?” and she goes “oh, this is my husband the dragon reborn and my husband the general of the dragon’s armies and my wife an aiel channeler, and also i’m pregnant with the dragon reborn’s twins!” and they just lose their shit

perrin’s like “the whitecloaks attacked me and killed my friend” “the woman who was with you?” “no, a wolf” kfgk cracking up over this (i should note that is an approximation of the conversation, not a transcription hjdkf)

“wolves hate shadowspawn” “and how do you know this” [silence] why is this entire conversation so funny!!

and then galad’s like “ok well i don’t think that killing a wolf is grounds for murder so........” he’s so tired, can’t help but sympathize with him a little in this convo jdkfjgh

“he glanced at [berelain] for a moment, and found her blushing as she regarded him. it was faint, but he was sure he saw it. he found himself blushing as well.” oh my god wholesome!!!! the 2 sexiest characters on the continent (objectively, anyway - in my heart i know it’s actually rand and elayne who hold those crowns) turning into shy blushing messes because of each other, i’m! 🥺

morgase-galad reunion!!!! “that was his stepmother. that red-gold hair he had tugged as a child. that face, so beautiful and strong. those eyes. those were her eyes.” “hesitantly, galad reached out and touched the apparition on the cheek. the skin was warm.” “she cut off as he seized her in an embrace.” 😭😭😭😭

galad HAS redeemed himself somewhat in this chapter, mostly because i am a sucker for his and morgase’s relationship (and also because his new thing with berelain is adorable). however, still thrilled to see morgase drag his ass a little bit: “i’m taking you back to my camp, mother. then we can discuss the way you were treated by [perrin].” “an order, galad? have i no say in the matter? ... i have more to fear from your...associates than from perrin aybara.” you tell him!

galad and perrin decide to have morgase be the judge in perrin’s trial. “both men turned to morgase. she stood in her simple yellow dress, looking more a queen by the moment.” ❤️❤️❤️ i do love morgase’s arc! i just wish it had been less trauma porn-y during the middle books, and also that tallanvor did not exist.

“[egwene] loathed [the seanchan] with a hatred that sometimes worried her.” you hold onto that hatred egwene! everybody else is going soft on them, you better hold onto that hatred!

scenes of egwene absolutely owning the hall my beloved! “‘i believe the hall acts in wisdom,’ egwene said, speaking very carefully. the sitters turned to her. some looked relieved. those who were more familiar with her, however, looked suspicious.” that’s my girl! ❤️❤️

the hall doesn’t want egwene having control over the war against the shadow, so they propose that they have sole control over the war and egwene have sole control over dealing with monarchs. but then SIKE the dragon reborn IS a monarch since he’s the king of illian, so egwene has sole control over dealing with him!! cackling and pumping my fist!

“he will need a firm, familiar hand” suddenly i am hoping that the show beefing up randgwene will result in some kinky Authority Issues and Asserting Dominance late-series fics for them jkfjg

egwene also gets a proposal passed that meetings of the hall can’t convene without every sitter and the amyrlin present (unless someone can’t be found or has sent word directly that they can’t attend), so no more secret meetings where some sitters can sneakily get things passed without their opponents there to prevent it (such as siuan’s deposition)

“the last battle is here. i will not withdraw my proposal. either you will stand now, or you will be known - through all time - as one of those who refused. at the dusk of an age, can you not stand for openness and light?” no one does inspirational and/or guilt-trip-y speeches like egwene! ❤️

i don’t caaaaare about ituralde. he was introduced way too late in the story for me to get invested. his plotlines should’ve gone to bashere instead, i care about bashere! bashere’s actually been super underused the past few books, now that i think about it. probably because a new great general was invented to get all these plotlines!

“[morgase] remembered her first impressions of [galad], long ago when she’d married his father. the young child had simply been part of the deal, and while morgase had adopted him, she had always worried that he felt less loved than his siblings.” 🥺

“[as a child, galad had been] quick to point out when someone did something wrong. but unlike other children - elayne especially - he had not used his knowledge as a weapon.” no need to do elayne like that wtf! she’s one of the most generous and empathetic characters in the series, not someone who weaponizes other people’s mistakes! the only person she does that to (besides her enemies ofc) is mat, but a) he usually starts it and b) egwene and nynaeve, who ARE judgmental in this way, influenced her attitude towards him, and even so she was always much fairer to him than nynaeve was.

“galad, listen to yourself. you name them witches? you went to train with them, perhaps to become a warder!” get his ass!

“what is the point of this, mother?” “to make you think, son. in ways that i should have encouraged before, rather than leaving you to your simple illusions. life is not so easy as the toss of a coin, one side or the other.” get his ass! “the Children like to speak of the light protecting them, of guiding their judgment and leading people to justice. that isn’t how it works, galad...sometimes a good man can do wrong. at times, it is appropriate to punish him. at other times, punishment serves nobody, and the best thing to do is to let him continue and learn.” get his ass! such a great convo, but i can’t believe that a 30-year-old adult needs this explained to him lmao galad’s Lawful Goodness really does stretch credibility at times.

tam tells perrin that aes sedai have summoned him to see rand, so we get a nice little timeline matchup milestone here

elayne is carried on a litter to the city walls to watch the dragon demonstration because she promised melfane that she’d stay off her feet but NOT that she’d stay in her bedroom jkjfg i love her!!! an icon!

“she spared a moment to feel guilty for making the poor men, in dress uniform, carry her through this early-summer heat. but these men would ride to battle in her name; they could stand a little warm weather. how often did guardsmen get the honor of carrying their queen, anyway?” this feels like the type of Spoiled Entitled Noble Caricature that mat thinks elayne is but that we have never seen elayne to be in her own pov (or in non-mat povs). i just keep getting the sense that sanderson doesn’t like elayne lmao or is exaggerating/criticizing her flaws in a way that doesn’t feel true to rj’s elayne.

the theme of this recap is: is sanderson actually being harder on elayne than rj was, or have i just by now seen so much elayne hate online that it makes me extra hypersensitive to even the tiniest perceived criticism of her?

“she had to find a way to seize the sun throne without mixing to much in the local House politics.” okay, so sounds like it would be a great time to have a randlayne reunion in cairhien so rand can publicly give her the sun throne and the cairhienin nobility won’t be able to say shit about it (since elayne has said earlier in this book that openly accepting THIS throne as a gift from rand is no problem at all, unlike the lion throne). i always love to see elayne shine on her own and am excited to find out how she snags the sun throne, don’t get me wrong, i’m just saying that throughout this series, so many things would get done so much faster and more easily if characters actually made use of Traveling/TAR to be in constant contact with each other so they can lend each other a hand sometimes! and if rand ever actually bothered to pop in and visit his own girlfriend from time to time!

“someone [on the next tower over] raised a hat into the air and waved at her. mat wanted to watch from the tower with the working dragon, it seemed. foolhardy man. what if the thing exploded like a nightflower?” mat waves at elayne! elayne is worried about mat being too close to the dragon!

“elayne focused on [the people in the other tower] with the glass. one carried a small torch. mat watched with a curious expression.” elayne i see you going “oh let me look through my little looking glass so i can see the dragon” and then just checking out mat instead

“mat was holding his ears and scowling, which gave elayne a smile. he really should have watched from her tower.” elayne wishes mat was in her tower with her 😌

and so cannons have been invented! i will end the recap with an ominous quote from birgitte on the nature of warfare: “the world just changed, elayne. it just changed in a very large way. i have a terrible feeling that it’s only the beginning.”

#wot #wot book spoilers

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