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alottanothing · 4 years

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Left to Ruin: Chapter Nineteen

Summary: Nouke shares concerns with Kahmunrah’s freedom. Ahk learns of potential enemies and finds comfort from the woman he loves.

Previous Chapters

Word Count: 7360

Warnings: Little angsty, little smutty but not terribly explicit--18+ only just to be safe

Tag List: @xmxisxforxmaybe, @r-ahh-mi, @theultraviolencefan, @hah0106, @rami-malek-trash, @diasimar, @sherlollydramoine, @flipper-kisses, @ivy-miranda-2390, @txmel, @sunkissedmikky, @concentratedsassandcandy, @babyalienfairy, @edteche2 (Let me know if I missed you, or if you would like to be added to the tag list)

A/N: Long chapter this week! And it’s spicy towards the end! That doesn’t mean there’s no plot, there’s defiantly a shift in our dear pharaoh’s world that will carry through to the end, so YAY for that. This is also were I took some major historical liberties for the sake of my plot; so forgive me on that... Thank you to all of you who left comments or gifs or fun tags last week, you guys are the best. Hopefully the tags work on this chapter, I went through and readded them, if not, I’ll just reblog it again with the tags. Sorry tumblr doesn’t seem to want to cooperate with me. (There’s also a chance this will get flagged because of my choice of photos in my moodboard, hopefully not...but we will see). Once again as a disclaimer, I am not an ancient Egyptian expert and google only knows so much. So yeah, I took so historical liberties while writing this to make my life easier, but tried to keep it as “authentic” as possible

The mid-afternoon sun was high overhead, beating against the sands with sweltering golden rays that—even with the breeze—were beginning to slip into an acutely unbearable heat. Ahkmenrah, however, didn’t mind it.

The ardor of Ra’s rays upon his tan skin tingled with an effervescence that made him feel alive. Most of his days were spent confined in the halls of his great palace, shielded from the warmth as he went about his responsibilities as king. His childhood was rich with memories under the sun and against the capricious desert winds; and every day the pharaoh counted the hours until he could bathe in that luminous golden glow—even if it was only for an hour or two.

That afternoon had been auspicious; in that, the usual noise and obligations of his daily routine stood at a plateau. There were so few civic duties to see to in the throne room that just as Ahkmenrah had made himself comfortable in the garish chair, there were no other appointments to see to.

It was a relief Ahk chose not to take for granted. The previous six months were riddled with visitors—noble men and women—who came from near and far to shower their new prince with pleasantries and gifts. Each was a well crafted, almost wholesome, pantomime: a show of allegiance with the hope to somehow gain the infant's favor. It seemed ridiculous, but the king and queen played host as they were expected to for them all.

The last of the guests had left that morning on their boat or in caravans, traveling back to their home along the Nile. It felt good to be rid of them. All that remained for Ahk to see to with his kingly persona was the council meeting; even that would be simpler than hosting nobles. He looked forward to an easy briefing.

With the promise of a simple meeting on the horizon and a lax morning behind him, Ahkmenrah took to the grandest of the palace gardens (the very same he’d entertained droves of guests the night Nouke became his queen). The significantly quieter grounds offered a pleasant backdrop as he strolled leisurely along the sandstone footpaths with Kahmunrah at his side. Ahk preferred the serenity to the chaos.

Sharing walks with Kahmunrah had become something of a routine when their busy schedules would allow such a liberty. Each venture lent a catharsis that embodied all the evenings they shared together in the cells, and the lack of bars only seemed to amplify the abreaction of their conversations. Even when most of the topics they spoke of were political matters, the words they exchanged were meditative.

Often, Merenkahre joined them, adding his two cents where he felt was necessary, but mostly he seemed content to simply enjoy the jovial company of his sons. Although the former pharaoh never said it outright, Meren's demeanor was filled to the brim with joy, made evident by his immovable smirk. It thrilled him to see Kah free of his anger just as much as it thrilled Ahk.

In three months of freedom, Kah became a model brother and advisor. The years of over-aggressive solutions gave way to thoughtful guidance that Ahkmenrah knew his brother had always been able to formulate if he were to move past his anger. Only twice had Kahmunrah offered a less than ideal solution to a problem, and each time he caught himself to quickly remedy the blunder with an apology and an appropriate fix. Habits were hard to break and Ahkmenrah chose to be lenient, letting each folly pass with mild scolding.

Somehow, it was working; his brother was finally his brother. How strange it was for the pharaoh to think of all he held: an empire in his hands and a crown on his head. He had his parents—loving and wise—who strove to guide him through every day of his life. He had sisters who loved him, each of whom he loved dearly in return. Kahmunrah now looked upon him with respect. Sekmenrah, his son, was happier and stronger each day. And most of all, Ahkmenrah was blessed to fall into the arms of the woman he had always loved whenever he wanted.

Bliss couldn’t even describe what he felt. Blessed even seemed too rudimentary; though, in his heart, Ahk knew, his life and all he loved was a blessing. They were each of them gifts given to him directly from the gods themselves, and everyday Ahkmenrah prayed his thanks.

Merenkahre elected not to join his sons that particular afternoon, choosing, instead, to spend the hours before duty summoned once more with his wife.

The casual air of the palace fostered a calm that Ahk held on to gladly. With a limited list of duties to see to, there was very little for the pharaoh and his brother to discuss as they strolled through the grand garden, but Ahkmenrah was happy for the quiet company all the same as he thought dreamily of all the gifts his life held.

Their meditative promenade stretched into the early evening, and soon; Ahk's stomach grumbled in protest—tired of the walk and demanding food.

Kah grinned with a slight chuckle at the obnoxious sound and offered to escort his brother to the West Garden where the pharaoh took most of his meals with his queen.

The walk back through the palace was short and spent in amicable silence. Immediately a frown fought to turn Ahk’s lips, missing the sun against his face, but his smile came quickly once they reached the garden he loved and Ra’s golden columns once more warmed his skin.

Nouke was seated in the shade of a towering palm tree as she noshed on a plate of fruits and slices of bread laid upon the table in front of her. Her escort of Medjay and a single maidservant stood reverently nearby; a professional indifference painted on their features. The queen held the tiny prince in her lap, his wispy dark curls dancing in the breeze as he happily gummed his fist, making faint cooing sounds.

The picturesque scene worked through Ahkmenrah with a dizzying surge of glee, causing his lips to part in a radiant smile and his usually mindful gait to fumble as he descended the steps into the garden. Nouke watched his charming blunder with a chuckle and greeted him with a supremely more radiant grin that almost made him stumble again seeing its beauty.

The delight on her face waned however when the queen caught sight of Kahmunrah trailing a step behind her husband. She did her best to mask the sharp distaste, but Ahk caught it anyway.

After three months with no cause for alarm, Ahkmenrah had hoped Nouke would see Kah as the man he’d become rather than the one he used to be. Ahk understood her distrust, it was justifiable. Still, he longed for her to let go of the past, the same way Kah learned to do.

“My love,” Ahk bent to greet his queen with a long kiss before placing a gentle peck to the top of his son’s head, and seated himself across from them at the table.

“Hello, love,” she hummed, once again casting him in the light of her radiant smile, making a point to ignore Kahmunrah completely.

“We missed you,” she mused, gently combing her fingers through Sekmen’s curls adoringly. “Didn’t we, my little prince?”

As if he’d understood, Sek cooed loudly with a chuckle and reached across the table towards his father. Ahkmenrah beamed and reached too, until his son’s tiny hand wrapped around one of his fingers.

“I always miss you both whenever I’m not with you,” Ahk said marveling at his family.

“Well,” Kahmunrah announced and the suddenness made Ahk jump having forgotten his brother was still there. “I will leave the king and queen—as well as the little prince—to their meal. There are a few things that require my attention before the council meeting.”

Ahkmenrah’s brows knit together, wondering what business Kah had that didn’t concern the pharaoh.

“It’s trivial, brother,” Kah answered vaguely, reading the look of puzzlement on Ahk’s face, and waved his hand with a dismissive flair signaling the end of that particular thought.

“Until tonight's meeting,” he bowed to his younger brother, and again as he addressed Nouke. “My queen.”

She turned her head to ignore him until he laid a gentle pat to the top of Sekmen’s head as he spoke, “Nephew.”

Kah bid them all with another bow and made his leave without another word. Nouke’s eyes watched him go with a predatorial intensity—a lioness protecting her cub—as the once relaxed lines of her body suddenly became rigid and fierce.

Ahkmenrah had difficulty quelling the discouraging sigh that escaped him; perhaps not all aspects of his life were without tension.

“I’m sorry,” Nouke said quickly, some of the fire draining from her expression, however her distrust was still palpable.

“You don’t have to apologize," Ahk promised as his eyes fell to the table.

For all the wrong Kahmunrah had done to him; he'd done worse to Nouke. The wounds he inflicted upon her were worse than most, and time may never be enough to heal them. Ahkmenrah longed for peace in his family, but he feared Nouke would never be able to find that peace.

“I wish you would have ordered Medjay to watch him,” she expressed as gently as she could.

“To spy on him, you mean. “ Ahk did his best to swallow the abrupt influx of frustration regarding the topic; he didn’t want it to bleed into his tone and spoil their evening together.

Spies were deceitful, no matter how useful, and he wasn’t going to betray his brother’s trust like that.

“If spies are what it’s going to take to keep you safe—to keep our son safe.” She countered, fire engulfing her tone, making it clear that Ahk had unsuccessfully masked his own ire.

The pharaoh’s eyes rose from the surface of the table to watch the little boy in his wife’s arms; so small and innocent, once more gnawing on his balled fist. Sekmen was blissfully untainted by the evils of the world, and Ahk wanted him to stay that way forever.

Ahkmenrah sighed again, this time in defeat of his own principle; he would gladly become the master of deceit and lies if it meant Sekmenrah and Nouke would be safe.

“I know how long you have wished Kahmunrah to be your brother—that was one of the only things I remember you wanting as a boy.” Nouke’s tone turned soft, and she reached across the table to take his hand with a smile.

“Just promise me, Ahk.”

He met her eyes hearing the urgency and plea in her tone.

“Promise me you won’t let that childhood wish blind you.” There was a glimmer of doubt manifesting in the mist glistening in her eyes, as though she feared he would disavow her request.

Ahk placed his other hand over their joined one, meeting her gaze with a soft intensity he hoped was telling of his vow.

“I promise.”

The mist dissolved in her eyes as relief cast a lightness over her features. All the tension that threatened to sully the air between them drifted away the moment his promise passed his lips.

The remainder of their afternoon progressed quickly with a flurry of tender touches and musings of the youth they shared in the garden in which they sat. By the time duty beckoned the pharaoh back into the halls of the palace, Ahkmenrah’s heart was feather-light and beating with loving fervor as he made his way to the council chamber.

The levity of the evening was snuffed out much too quickly.

Something ominous hung in the air of the council chamber; something thick and rotten and odious. It was a sense that, in all his years, Ahkmenrah had never had the misfortune of experiencing. It clung to his skin like a greasy film, and he could feel its urgency in the abrupt way all the whispers hushed the moment his advisors saw him. Their sudden silence was entirely too loud.

Ahk could see it—whatever it was—in the collective of their dark, unblinking eyes; every pair laden with such dismay, they effectively dissolved all the remaining joy left for the pharaoh to anchor himself to.

Ahkmenrah froze only a few steps over the threshold, finding the dense air to be an invisible web difficult to maneuver under such scrutiny. His father alone seemed immune to the force that plagued the atmosphere, looking more pensive than usual.

“Why do you all look so forlorn?” Ahkmenrah asked in a careful tone he hoped wasn’t telling of his swiftly growing concern.

He wanted a quick answer, one that would rapidly thwart the anxiety brewing in the pit of his stomach. Instead, he was met with a wave of shared glances that swept around the long table, moving from man to man, making it obvious no one wanted to impart the unmistakably bad news.

Their mutual hesitance only made the situation feel more grievous and Ahk tightened his jaw, reinforcing his kingly façade. How fitting it was to have a day of carefree whim close on something portentous.

Finally, after he gauged all the men with an imploring expression, his father spoke.

“Please sit, my king. There is much that needs to be discussed.” Merenkahre’s features were guarded and difficult to make out. The only clue Ahk could derive from his father's face was the deep, ever-ponderous crease on his brow, indicating that something in the realm was, indeed, off.

Without a word, Ahk fixed himself at his usual place at the head of the table and gave a nod and a wave of his hand for them to begin their briefing.

The meeting progressed as it usually did, normal business of the crown that was dealt with every day; examined and discussed thoroughly, before moving on to the next issue. Everything felt tedious with something looming threateningly out of sight. All the new—old—topics brought to attention only delayed whatever lurked in the shadows of the room, and time felt frozen because of it.

By the time the unknown issue was brought to the light, Ahk’s nerves felt keenly exposed and on fire; his fingers all but clawing at the surface of the table.

The man who stood to speak was much older than most who sat on the pharaoh’s council. He was slender and his skin was wrinkled all over. His head held no hair, but his gray eyebrows were long and wiry and telling of his age.

Ahkmenrah had known him since he was a child; Merhet had been the Grand Consul for two pharaohs: Merenkahre, and Merenkahre’s father. When Ahk was crowned, the old man stepped down to allow Meren to take his place to help guide his son. Ahkmenrah repaid his loyalty by granting him the seat as Consul of Thoth; the pharaoh’s procurer of whispers and wisdom to help benefit the whole of Egypt.

How such knowledge came to Merhet; Ahk was unsure: spies—he figured, and the notion made him sigh.

It was rare Merhet had cause to speak, which usually meant all was right in Egypt's corner of the world, and when he stood from his chair, the pharaoh felt his stomach churn uneasily.

“Speak your peace, friend,” Ahkmenrah encouraged kindly when the man met him with a questioning glance.

Merhet bowed respectfully before he spoke. “My king, as your Consul of Thoth, it is my duty to inform you of happenings within your great empire.”

Ahkmenrah nodded, imploring him to go on with an attentive stare.

“I am sorry to bring you a troubling report, but it seems there are whispers of a possible uprising in the nation to our south.”

Ahk swallowed the lump that grew in his throat quickly before it could choke him and kept his sight focused on Merhet.

“The Nehesyw?” he asked calmly.

Merhet nodded. “Yes. As you know, it is from them that we mine our gold and a few other precious resources…”

The pharaoh’s eyes glanced tentatively, suddenly all too aware of the number of riches in only that room.

“…it seems they are tired of most of their land's riches coming to Egypt,” Merhet concluded.

Ahkmenrah’s focus fell to the wood grain of the table as his mind began to flood with thoughts of dread. The only promise to come from revolution was suffering, no matter what outcome was reached; someone would be made to suffer. Of all his duties as ruler, war, and waging it were the ones he feared most.

“These are just rumors,” Merenkahre said sternly, dispelling some anxiety. “My friend, you had us all under the impression that the Nehesyw were already taking up arms against us.”

Ahk’s blinking eyes turned to his father, seeing the calm air of his features and wished he could harness a fraction of that resolve.

“From who was it you heard these rumors?” Ahkmenrah asked, mimicking his father’s steady tone.

Merhet shifted uneasily where he stood, and his eyes scanned over all the men at the table, lingering on Kahmunrah as he thought.

“My—uh—network, your majesty," he said vaguely.

A somewhat irritated simper twisted onto Kah’s features; displeased by the answer.

“Your network? Please, elaborate.” Kah’s tone was harsh, but softened when he added, “Help us to understand.”

The room turned its collective eyes to Merhet for an answer.

“Merchants," he said quickly as though he’d made it up.

“Merchants?" Ahkmenrah repeated, eye's narrowing.

Something else felt off; like there was a piece of his story he was keeping to himself. The idea made the atmosphere even more unsettling, but in a different manner that was equally as foreboding.

“Yes, my king.” The old man nodded, this time sounding more sure. “They are employed to bring goods directly from the Nehesywian markets to the palace. They returned this morning with these whispers.”

Merhet’s eyes looked shamefully away from the pharaoh, clearly, there was more he wanted to say but feared to.

“What else?” Ahk demanded firmly but without aggression.

The Consul of Thoth met the pharaoh’s intense gaze for only a moment before his head fell again, apologetically.

“Forgive me, my king. But the Nehesyw also speak of you. They say the pharaoh is weak, and so must be his nation.”

Weak?

The word screamed in the back of Ahkmenrah’s mind until it grew so loud all his other thoughts were scoured away. Only one other person had ever claimed him to be a weak ruler, and the pharaoh’s eyes settled upon his brother. Suddenly, Nouke’s words and distrust began to scream just as loudly in his mind, and Ahk’s stomach twisted with knots.

Kahmunrah sneered, “Enough of this,” and ordered Merhet to sit back in his seat; coming to his brother’s defense in a timely fashion that deterred a bit of Ahk’s trepidation.

“Kahmunrah is right; I've heard enough,” Merenkahre stated with a finality that split the discomfort of the room.

“These are rumors,” he stressed, engaging every man at the table with intensity. “We will treat them as such, and nothing more.”

He turned to Merhet, kindness softening his eyes as he spoke. “We will look to your wisdom to keep us informed on these whispers—should they grow; we will move forward. Until then, I urge you to gauge them without panic. We could have started a war today over mere speculation.”

“Could we fight them?” Ahk asked, genuine curiosity and a tangible sense of dread driving the question past his lips.

His father’s stormy eyes shifted to him as he considered the answer carefully—the hesitation alone seemed to be the answer. If his reply was more than yes, then the answer had to be no.

“The Nehesyw are a savage people, their armies know no order. Were they civilized, they could take this city in a matter of days. Men, women, and children are all trained to fight, they outnumber the soldiers here at the capital three to one. But, they lack discipline, which is their downfall in the field.”

Ahkmenrah did his best to absorb all the information his father threw at him, unable to articulate a reply as his mind did its best to make sense of everything.

War—the word loomed like a dark cloud in his head making all rational thoughts veiled and difficult to find. The idea of blood on his hands was one that instilled him with such shame and remorse, tears were already threatening to swell in his eyes.

However, on the opposite side of the scale sat his people and his family; potential victims for their potential invaders. For them, Ahkmenrah would fight endlessly to protect all he cared about, no matter the consequences. He would endure a thousand battles, spill rivers and oceans of blood if doing so meant keeping them out of harm's way.

“Perhaps we should shore up our defenses as a precaution?” Kahmunrah suggested.

Before Ahkmenrah could respond, Merenkahre shot down the idea, “No.”

Ahk threw a quizzical look to his father.

Merenkahre had taught him many lessons: how to strategize war, however, was not one of them. Had Ahk been wiser in his youth, he would have urged his father to impart such knowledge to him, but he didn't, and now he felt lost. The pharaoh was at the mercy of those smarter than him.

“It would be unwise to do so,” Meren said, looking to his oldest son. “If word were to travel that the capital is gathering forces—that could be misconstrued as an act of war. It is important to carry on as usual.”

Merenkahre turned his sights to Ahkmenrah, “That is what a wise king would do.”

Ahkmenrah nodded quickly, wholly unfit to argue.

Kah sounded an irritated huff as his face contorted into a familiar guise Ahk could recall much too easily. Again, Nouke’s distrust drifted into the front of his mind, the sudden bout of alarm tightening the knots in his stomach.

He has changed. He is a better man. He is my brother.

Ahkmenrah took a slow breath as his mind repeated the chant in an attempt to alleviate the sour feeling in his gut.

He has changed. He is a better man. He is my brother.

***

The journey back to his chamber was one Ahkmenrah ventured countless times: a brief, pleasurable trek through open breezeways by lush gardens and through artful corridors that, on most days, treated him with a jubilant soulfulness that made all the worldly pressures seem to fade away. However, as his feet moved across the stone floor on that particular trip, he found the scenery did not coddle him as it usually did.

The newfound—dreadfully precarious—weight he carried on his shoulders wilted his regal posture, his head hanging pensively. He knew it was going to take more than a meditative walk to remedy his spirit; a notion itself that added to the burden upon him.

Ahk let his steps fall slower until his pace was more of a tired shuffle than a kingly gait as he fought to compel the tension out of his muscles and the anxiety out of his heart and head. He didn’t want his concern to bleed into the hours he devoted to his family while duty slept—those were joys he was most unwilling to sacrifice.

By the time he found himself at his chamber doors, Ahkmenrah wasn’t sure if he felt better or worse after his lengthened stroll. Or, perhaps, he found himself in limbo: stuck somewhere between the two, which was hardly encouraging.

“Goodnight, my king,” Kamuzu bid him with a bow.

He didn’t turn to leave right away, instead, the king's guardian lingered, watching Ahkmenrah with a parental vigilance that fostered a glimmer of comfort.

“Thank you for another day of loyalty. I bid you rest well, my friend,” Ahk told him with a half-smile to show his gratefulness.

The Medjay bowed once more, and as he left, Ahkmenrah caught the tail end of a similar grin on Kamuzu’s features. The exchange was quick but heartened enough to combat some of the pharaoh’s dismay.

As his hand lingered on the door of his room, Ahk took in a deep breath to help bring him peace and bid both the Medjay standing guard a goodnight as he entered.

The air of the chamber almost instantly drove that peace home. It was like stepping into a dream; the atmosphere was light, not suffocating as the council chamber had been, and Ahkmenrah filled his lungs to compacity over and over until he became lightheaded and high from the clarity.

Only a few of the wall torches were lit, their luminescence casting a calming glow over the space that was warm and inviting, helping the pharaoh relax. He stood soaking in, and savoring every delicate sense until the encumbrance of the past few hours drifted away.

Quietly, Ahk rid himself of his ornate accessories, placing his crown upon the table at the center of the room, leaving the majority of his gold and incrusted garments in a heedless pile. His spirit lightened with every layer he shed until all that remained was his belt and shendyt.

For a moment, he reveled in the freedom—the feeling of being wonderfully human—without the glittering raiment to remind him of the woefully burdened god-king he was.

As he stood, tiny snores caught his ears and prompted his lips to curl into a smile. With a glance, Ahkmenrah found his son fast asleep in his cradle under a protective beam of Khonsu’s light. The sight instilled the pharaoh with eagerness, drawing his feet across the floor in fluid movements until he stood crib-side, utterly captivated by the beautiful boy he and Nouke had created with their love.

Sekmenrah stirred, his chubby arms and legs stretching, but too deep in his slumber to wake even when his father swept an admiring finger over the boy’s soft cheek.

The amount of love in Ahk’s heart for his son was entirely too much to comprehend. He was certain his destined path was not to be pharaoh but to be a father. Being a father meant more to Ahkmenrah than any crown or any empire in the whole world.

A content sigh fell from his lips as the last of his worry dissolved into a tingling warmth that spread throughout his being, soothing his body, mind, and soul. He always found tranquility in the sanctity of his chamber, with his family.

He lingered at his son’s side, watchful and admiring, until a breeze caressed the bare skin of his back and shoulders, bringing with it the faint scent of lily, myrrh, and cinnamon. The fragrance tickled his senses with allure and pulled his smile tighter across his face, recognizing the perfume his wife favored.

Ahkmenrah spun to find her standing on the balcony, gazing out over the city with her back to him. She too had rid herself of the finery that made her a queen, leaving only the colorful linen of her dress, cinched at her waist with a simple gold braided rope. Wind tussled her long, dark hair and the light fabric she wore, causing it to hug each of her curves in such a way that made the pharaoh’s mouth water.

Nouke was radiant under the silvery luminescence of the moon. Each time Ahk gazed upon her, his heart skipped, and he was rendered breathless—dizzy with affection. He glided effortlessly to her, hypnotized by her silent siren call. And when he wove his arms around her, pressing into the strong line of her back, Ahkmenrah was certain he’d never felt more at peace.

With a heartened hum, he nestled and cherished her closeness. At that moment, the world stood still while the edges of reality blurred into a fog until they were the only two beings in the entire universe.

Ahk buried his nose in the hollow of her neck, letting the fragrant smell of her skin, and its softness under the tip of his nose infuse with his senses. His lips came to rest on that nectary hollow, unable to quell the need to kiss her sweet-smelling flesh. He hummed again, profoundly content.

“I missed you,’ he mused pulling her closer as he laid more kisses across her neck and shoulder.

Nouke hummed too as her hands came to rest over his, tilting her head to grant him a wider canvas to paint with his tender lips.

“As have I, my king,” Nouke murmured as one of her hands reached to grasp and tangle in the curls on his head.

Ahk purred, emboldened by the gesture, and the tug she gave caused a pleasurable warmth to shoot through him.

His hips rolled against her rear, an involuntary reaction to the fire pulsing in his veins, but his queen responded with another soft yank to his curls and a wanton sigh that encouraged every movement. Ahk drew his tongue over the taught column of her neck, suckling the skin behind her ear until she sighed again.

“The council kept you from me longer than usual,” she said idly as the undulation of her hips met his until his body froze with the reminder of the reality beyond the fog.

Nouke’s hand left his scalp, falling to cradle his arms wrapped around her.

“Is everything alright?” There was concern in her voice, and for a moment Ahk was too lost in the way her fingertips swept calming patterns over his skin—coaxing him out of the darkness she’d blindly summoned—to answer.

“For the time being," Ahkmenrah decided on, not wanting to ruin the tranquility he felt with Nouke in his arms.

She spun lithely in his grasp, never severing their closeness to look at him with smoldering amber eyes filled to the brim with compassion.

“Ahk…” she said imploringly, resting fingers along his jaw as her eyes searched his for reasoning of the shadow that plagued him. “Tell me.”

As much as he wanted to forget about the situation that threatened Egypt for a while longer, the pharaoh could not keep things from his queen.

“There have been rumors from the south. The Nehesyw talk of rebellion.”

The furrow on her thin brows pressed deeper with concern, and her hands fell open-palmed to his chest as he continued to hold her close.

“Rebellion?” Though she did her best to hide it from him, fear danced like flames behind her eyes.

A pang of anguish bit into Ahk seeing that frightened flash.

“Do not worry, my love,” he assured her in as light of a tone as he could manage, tucking stray locks of hair behind her ear. “For now, they are simply rumors. My men are keeping their ears open for changes should they come.”

A frown turned her lips to match the fear in her eyes, “Is there nothing more being done?”

Ahkmenrah sighed, wishing there was more to put her at ease.

“Kahmunrah suggested we shored up our defenses here in the capital, but my father said doing so may make us appear to be readying for battle, which in turn could provoke them.”

Nouke’s focus grew distant, but her thoughts drifted over her features clear enough to witness in the light of the moon. Finally, she nodded, her fear becoming only a smolder.

“Your father is right.”

“I hope so.” The pharaoh could hear his own uncertainty as he spoke. “He is far more knowledgeable when it comes to matters such as these.”

Ahk paused to consider all that he had learned, and not learned, as Nouke wove herself around him in a tight embrace. Instinctively, his arms enveloped her in return.

“Even my brother understands these matters better than I,” he admitted, suddenly feeling every ounce the weak king his enemies thought him to be, and he tightened his hold on Nouke.

They stayed wrapped in each other’s reassuring arms for a long while until the edges of reality began to blur once more, and the previous levity settled into the atmosphere. Nouke pulled away first, just enough to meet his eyes.

“Speaking of your brother, I have been thinking about what we spoke of earlier.” She took a deep breath to steady herself, as though what she was about to say warranted more effort than normal.

“You know I trust you completely.” She swallowed and took one final breath. “So, if you trust Kahmunrah, then perhaps it is time I learn to trust him as well.”

The look in her eyes betrayed her heartened tone. The air fell thickly silent between them as a knot formed in Ahkmenrah’s stomach. The gaze with which she held him begged for him to let her recant.

Ahkmenrah had so longed to have unity within the whole of his family. Nouke knew that—he knew she knew that. She stood willing to disregard her own prejudice and learn to trust a man she so strongly detested for all he had done to her family, all out of the love she harbored for him—a true testament to that love. It was selfless, which made it undoubtedly greedy for him to let her walk a path she only thought she could weather. It was wiser to continue as they were.

The pharaoh was torn; his words stained his tongue, unable to come out, as his mind was suddenly too overworked to process any more uncertainty.

“Okay,” he whispered finally.

The moment he spoke it; he was only too aware of how weak his one-word reply sounded fumbling from his lips. Even worse was the tangible disappointment in his queen’s eyes when she smiled at him. It was a momentary flicker—a blink, and you’ll miss it moment—but Ahkmenrah caught it, and his heart sank.

“I love you,” she reassured him after a moment of more melancholy quiet.

The smile she held then was genuine and comforting, and Ahk matched it.

“I love you,” he echoed, and she kissed him until all the uncertainty left them both.

The pharaoh drew his queen closer, letting the tips of her fingers press into his chest, drowning himself in every sensation of her until all the wickedness of his day was burned out of his mind. The billow of her breathless cry over his moist lips prompted a chill, encouraging him, and Ahk threaded his fingers through her hair to hold her in place.

He kissed her slowly and without urgency, and Nouke mimicked the lazy give and take; as if to memorize the very essence of the tender moment—the taste, the feel, the passion. Both were completely present for the methodical play of the other’s lips as their dance built to a perfect crescendo.

Nouke leaned into her king like he was the air, and she was gasping, and he was only too willing to grant her everything she desperately needed. The glide of his tongue over her plump lower lip caused her mouth to open with a hungry sound Ahkmenrah muffled with his own. His hands drifted from her scalp to explore every curve—his lips and tongue still drinking languidly from her giving mouth.

Her hips were soft under his fingertips, and they lingered there, pressing possessively, before scaling the ladder of her ribs—each rise and dip subtle under the thin fabric of her gown. Mentally Ahk counted each bone as his hands worked towards her breasts. Eagerly he palmed their new fullness, filling each hand as he stopped to squeeze them gently before continuing on until he found the straps fixated loosely on her shoulders.

His mouth moved to the angle of her jaw, suckling the hinge he cajoled a soft moan from his wife’s lips, and again when he artfully guided the top of her dress from her shoulders. The blissfully wanton sound caused his features to crook into a prideful smirk against her warm flesh as he blazed a trail of kisses down her stately neck.

Nouke’s breath hitched with a shaky whimper as the night air prickled over her chest in a wave of goosebumps upon the sudden exposure. Her body acted of its own volition, arching into him, and the feel of her breasts against his chest made the pharaoh’s cock twitch with anticipation.

He wanted her—he always wanted her. How long had it been since he truly had her? Buried himself deep inside of her until there was nothing but stars left to color both of their vision? It felt like ages.

When her hands found his scalp once more, the tips of her fingers massaging and scratching and pulling, he groaned from deep in his chest as his mind clouded with a lustful need. Ahkmenrah’s hand traveled to find her breasts, pausing only a moment to once again delight in their new fullness, wonderfully unobstructed by the fabric of her dress.

As his lips latched to her collarbone, he pinched the pert peak of her nipple between his second and third finger, grinning as her lewd cry met his ears. Hands tugged firmly in his hair in retaliation and Ahk bit the rise of her clavicle to keep from moaning too loudly.

Heat pooled lower, blood rushing to his center with every soft groan and accompanying gentle friction.

A shiver worked through his queen when the tips of his finger danced up her spine as he guided her backward until they bounced against the wide rail that kept them from falling to the garden below. The moment their eyes met, a lecherous smile pulled at each of their features. Without need for a demand, Nouke wrapped her arms around his neck as he easily lifted her onto the flat, stone wall.

Her legs locked around him, pulling him against her for a searing kiss that found her gasping. When their lips parted, Ahk’s kisses continued in a line down her throat and the center of her chest, sweet but sloppy. His tongue swept at the underside of her breast, trailing over her nipple and all the way to the base of her neck, provoking her to sound a moan that Ahkmenrah felt vibrate through himself.

With his hands and mouth (and no small amount of enthusiasm) he mapped every part of her exposed flesh: from the lobes of her ears to the middle of her abdomen where the rope at her waist kept the rest of her gown from falling away. He knew every sweet spot that never failed to coax a flurry of sinful sounds past her kiss swollen lips; every dip, swell and curve were an instrument he had mastered with avidity and loved more each time he played.

Nouke’s nails scraped over his shoulders, leaving marks he would wear with pride come the morning before trailing to fist the curls on his head once more—pressing his face firmer against her chest.

She arched against him—gasping—when he rounded a nipple with his teeth, before laving it with his tongue. Her nails scratched down his back and against his shoulder, every part of him she could reach. And when his eyes met hers, he found fire: a raw, unguarded lust in them that sent a wave of arousal straight to his groin.

“Ahk…” she breathed into his mouth as she pulled him to her lips again.

The cry of his name wasn’t a question, but a wanton demand that saw him reaching under her dress in search of her sweet center. He beamed with an arrogant delight when he found the skin of her inner thighs slick and coated with arousal.

She was quick to kiss his smirk away with her own pompous simper, her hands working down the lean plates of his body. The hunger of her kiss he matched with equal vigor and desperation. As he drank from her lips, the heat of her skin increased and exhaled a wild, untamed fragrance that was profoundly more intoxicating than any oil or perfume.

They moaned each other's name in a worshipful praise, both craving the inexplicably euphoric closeness of becoming one, yet; neither was willing to cease the pleasurable teasing.

When his hands drifted closer to her heat, her hands swept further down his torso, the slow build causing him to strain the fabric of his shendyt. He could feel Nouke’s fingers working to untie his belt, the involuntary sweep of them against his aching hardness making him hiss and bite his lip. The pharaoh’s entire body was on fire and teeming with anticipation as both their fingers inched closer, ready to offer pleasure and relief.

Then, a fussy cry from inside their chamber sobered both the king and queen almost instantly.

Ahkmenrah’s breath caught on a bereft huff, cursing with a ragged exhale. Nouke sighed too, with a soft, lorn chuckle, drawing her husband's head against her chest to soothe his obvious disappointment.

“I couldn’t get him to nurse before I put him to bed,” she confessed, sounding just as dissatisfied as he felt.

“He’s probably hungry.” Her lips moved against his scalp as she spoke, punctuating each word with a gentle kiss.

“Mmm, I’m hungry too,” Ahk quipped, and he felt her lips smile.

“Later, my love.” Nouke held his face in her hands looking deep into his eyes. “Later.”

Ahkmenrah steadied himself with a long breath, listening to his son’s cries grow louder. It was a few minutes before either of them worked themselves out of the haze well enough to move again.

“I’ll go and get him,” Ahk said, throwing Nouke his most charming smile and kissed her in parting.

Despite the interruption, the pharaoh grinned at his fussy boy, whose tiny arms were flailing and begging for attention. The moment he spoke the boy’s name; big blue eyes stared up at him, wide and inquisitive as his sobs faded into soft whimpers.

“How dare you interrupt your king,” Ahkmenrah scolded gently as he picked up the boy. “A prince should know better.”

Sekmen’s whimpers turned to coos as Ahk sauntered back to the balcony.

“You get that from your mother, you know. Your rebellious spirit.”

Sek smiled at his father’s comment, a tiny chuckle parting his lips, as though he’d understood his father’s teasing.

“When was I ever rebellious?” Nouke retorted with a playful tone.

Ahk bit his bottom lip as he smiled, “I can think of a time or two.”

Nouke rolled her eyes fondly and reached for the bundle in Ahkmenrah’s arms, “Come here, my little prince.”

Sekmen cooed happily as she snuggled him to her breast.

The pharaoh found he could do nothing but watch; lips curled into a dreamy smile, completely overcome with love. Nouke had always taken his breath away, but under the veil of midnight, with their child in her arms, she was the most achingly beautiful creature he had ever laid his eyes upon.

“What?” Nouke murmured when she caught him admiring.

His reply didn’t come right away, instead he paused to sweep a delicate touch through his son’s hair.

“I just love you both, so much.” His mind was suddenly fraught with the dreadful outcomes of war.

“The thought of losing either of you…”

“Don’t,” Nouke stopped him firmly, running a finger along his jaw, tilting his chin, so he could share her gaze. “Whatever these rumors or threat grows to be; we will get through it together.”

A glimmer of sadness and fear sparkled in her eyes accompanied with a seriousness he understood.

“Because I can’t lose you either, Ahkmenrah. I simply cannot.”

“You won't."

Once the prince was nestled in his bed, the king and queen made love, and made love again; then after they had made love once more—quiet and passionate and without thought—then, like how the sun sank into the horizon, they fell into a deep slumber free of dread and quandary.

Next Chapter-> Chapter Twenty: Blinded

#Ahkmenrah #Ahkmenrah x Original Character #Ahkmenrah Fanfiction #Night at the Museum #NATM #NATM Fanfiction #Left to Ruin #Rami Malek Character #Rami Malek Character Fanfiction #Rami Malek Fanfiction #Rami Malek

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stumpyjoepete · 3 years

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I. Inspiration

It’s difficult to identify a great economic reason to explore space. There are easier ways to extract minerals, doing anything at all is terribly expensive, and Mars is a hard place to make a living. The benefits of space exploration are instead mostly inspirational. Few other human activities are so grand to captivate the imagination, and doing these uneconomic projects have pulled forward technological capabilities that may otherwise have languished.

It’s difficult to identify a great economic reason to practice socialism. Its historical results have ranged from catastrophic misallocation of talent at best to mass deaths at worst. But socialism still retains appeal to broad segments of many populations, which shows that it has considerable inspirational value. For better or for worse, there are still many advocates for the creation of some form of a more equal society.

This year, I read every issue of Qiushi (translation: Seeking Truth), the party’s flagship theory journal, whose core task is to spell out the evolving idea of socialism with Chinese characteristics. For those not familiar, Qiushi reads like a cross between the New Yorker and the Federal Register. Published twice a month, the magazine features lengthy essays, thick pages, and some of the finest writers in the party. Each issue starts in the same way: a reprint of a speech or essay by Xi Jinping—in a font distinct from the rest of the magazine’s—and then commentary and reports from the rest of the party state. Accompanying pictures feature either the country’s leaders making inspections, scenes of the people, or major pieces of infrastructure and heavy industry.

Its audience? People with nothing better to do than read the party center’s commentary (like retired cadres), or those who are keenly interested in Beijing’s priorities, like local officials. Reading party speeches with its various annexes and cross references echoes my main professional activity these days. That is the study of the US sanctions regime—namely Commerce’s Export Administration Regulations and Treasury’s IEEPA-based authorities. Party speeches and US regulations are both made up of arcane, formal language that make references to more obscure texts, which themselves hint at still more distant and terrible truths. US sanctions lawyers, I suspect, can have a splendid time with Qiushi.

Steady engagement with the journal throughout the year has forced me to think more deeply about the Chinese Communist Party. There are many things that Xi wants to do, I believe that his most fundamental goal is to make this Marxist-Leninist party an effective governing force for the present century. His patient work to reshape the bureaucracy are aided by a distinctive feature of the Chinese system: the use of propaganda to create centralized campaigns of inspiration. Some of Xi’s efforts have borne fruit: the country’s governance capabilities have markedly improved, a trend that is observable in daily life. At the same time, the state has grown much more repressive. A focus on repression shouldn’t neglect the improvement in the country’s institutional and commercial strengths; and appreciation of this improvement ought to be tempered by the party center’s growing mania for control.

When foreign commentators discuss the experience of reading state media, they rarely fail to attach a reference to its “turgid prose.” While some partyspeak is indeed unreadable, I’ve always seen that dismissal as a signal of contempt for the party’s pronouncements, thus deterring people from taking it seriously. But there is reason to treat its content with care. Propaganda might not matter to you, but it matters to the party. Anne-Marie Brady has pointed out that the leadership considers propaganda to be the “lifeblood” of the party state. Propaganda work is considered so powerful that the person in charge must be only a functionary. Brady shows that the head of propaganda always has a seat on the Politburo, but shouldn’t usually be allowed to reach the standing committee. He is not to be too imaginative, or he might dominate the entire political system. Propaganda is key to understanding the party, since it governs not in itself, but in symbiosis with state institutions. For the most part, the party’s role can be boiled down to two items: inspiration, by setting the ideological direction, and control, through its power to select personnel.

Qiushi offers an authoritative articulation of the central government’s priorities at any moment. Its job, like the rest of the state media, consists of repetition and explication of a few phrases. It’s easy to roll one’s eyes at crude sloganeering, like the two centenary goals of achieving a “moderately prosperous society in all respects” by 2021 and “a modern socialist country and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese people” by 2049. But the need to fix slogans makes good sense in Chinese governance: the party center has to speak to all local officials as well as the entire population. As Richard Epstein has argued, the greater the complexity in a system, the simpler the rules that govern it must be. One should allow, for example, extensive and nuanced bargaining between buyer and seller at the vegetable stall, but for an online marketplace to manage millions of transactions a day, then its rules must be very simple indeed.

[...]

Centralized campaigns of inspiration, which usually manifests through fixing slogans, is a distinctive feature of the Chinese political system. In the US, political candidates trot out slogans when they run for election; in China, one is never far from the next big named initiative. At its best, defining major goals is the essence of political leadership, and nowhere is this principle better illustrated than Apollo. John F. Kennedy announced the target in 1961: land a man on the moon and return him safely to earth before the decade was out. By fixing this clear goal, as well as committing the necessary spending, he accelerated the creation, development, and deployment of technologies that made the lunar landings possible.

Xi grasps this idea of leadership. In his tenure, he has unleashed a torrent of new initiatives. In my view, he feels that the practice of governing China under socialism cannot be an exercise in sustained mendacity. The political system can no longer continue to be an unstable structure based on ad hoc compromises; instead it must have a clear organizational structure, with the party at the top. And the ruling party needs to have the political consciousness of an effective governing force.

[...]

It’s easy to enumerate the grave problems facing the country, but critics tend to under-appreciate its strengths. Chief among them, in my view, has been the party’s surprising adaptability. At any given point, commentators have said that the problems have become too big for the government to handle. Meanwhile, the country has achieved a good record of pulling itself out of sticky situations: in 1992 when it restarted reform, after the financial crisis of 1997, and again in 2008. That record was validated most spectacularly again this year in the aftermath of the Covid-19 outbreak.

This year made me believe that China is the country with the most can-do spirit in the world. Every segment of society mobilized to contain the pandemic. One manufacturer expressed astonishment to me at how slowly western counterparts moved. US companies had to ask whether making masks aligned with the company’s core competence. Chinese companies simply decided that making money is their core competence, and therefore they should be making masks. The State Council reported that between March and May, China exported 70 billion masks and nearly 100,000 ventilators.

I’d highly recommend reading the rest (at least up until he switches to book reviews and personal reflections).

#chinese #politics

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solesurvivorpaigeargot · 4 years

Text

Loving Stupid - Chapter One: Sanctuary [Fallout 4 Fanfiction]

HELLOOO Tumblr! Now that I’ve got this blog up and running, I wanted to do what I could to expand the exposure of my fic and get it around to new readers. While it’s already up on Fanfiction.net , it seems to me that the majority of the community prefers Ao3 or reading directly here on Tumblr. So, I figure why not post it over here as well?

Though a heads up that this first chapter was first written entirely for personal enjoyment, and then a friend I showed it to encouraged me to expand upon the story cause they wanted to see more of the ship. XD It’s uh... lil spicy. Or lemony, depending on how old you are and how far back your fic vocab goes.

Story Title: Loving Stupid

Story Summary: Paige [Sole Survivor] and Hancock venture into the Glowing Sea in pursuit of a lead on the Institute, when a catastrophic equipment failure forces them to separate.

Rating: MATURE

Content Warnings for this Chapter: Sexual content, drugs, alcohol, cursing

Content Warnings for story overall: Sexual content, drugs, alcohol, cursing, violence, blood, injury, needles, limb mutilation

Genre: .... erotic romance-adventure? IDK shit goes down and there’s some spicy scenes, but also a lot of character building and relationship stuff. I’m bad at genre assessment. Open to suggestions XD

.:_Sanctuary_:.

“So these are your digs, huh? … can't say it's my speed.”

“Not historical enough?”

“Nah, it's...”

Paige watched Hancock's face twist as he struggled to pick out what word fit his distaste, ghoulish features creating sharp valleys along fault lines in leathery skin while the shiny dark of his eyes appraised the home she'd built atop one of the empty foundations of Sanctuary Hills.

It wasn't anything special, wooden planks coaxed together into floors, walls, and roofing with nails and elbow grease. This was the only settlement where Paige had a place that was specifically hers, where she kept the little knickknacks and oddities she collected; all dutifully looked after by Codsworth-- ever dedicated to his task two centuries after it had been assigned to him. She'd given some life to the wooden bones of the shack, however; recycled fabrics became rugs and curtains with only mildly clashing patterns, and she even managed to cobble a number of worn out flannel shirts into a workable set of sheets for a double-wide bed that was, in truth, just a pair of smaller mattresses pushed together to pretend they were a queen size.

What could she say? She liked to sprawl.

Generators lit up Sanctuary at night with bare bulbs, and her little shack was no different. It brought yellow light against the dark, and reflected off a multitude of glass bottles, lined up on the shelves of a bureau she'd rescued, mostly intact, from the home of a long-dead neighbor. Whiskey, vodka, wine-- she jokingly called it her liqueur cabinet, despite the thing not having doors to lock the alcohol behind.

She'd done her best to make this a where place she could sleep soundly, when she was in the area. It was little more than a bed, a roof, and a lot of junk on shelves; insulated from the outside world with some sewn-together fabric scraps... but stepping over the threshold always made her feel like she'd entered a sort of... bubble. Not safe-- nowhere was safe-- but... quiet.

She could pretend, here.

“Comfortable.” Hancock decided, grousing out the word. “Damn near cozy-- you put this together?”

“With my own two hands.” She informed him; trust Hancock to find an issue with comfort-- then again, she couldn't blame him. Comfortable people had a habit of being complacent people, and they both knew that was where a lot of ugliness could happen... but his opinion didn't stop her from stepping inside and divesting herself of the pieced together armor that she layered over a set of somewhat over-sized army fatigues, reclaimed after clearing an old base of ferals. There was a wooden bin by the door for that stuff; she'd have to strap it all back on in the morning... but for now she was grateful to take a load off, starting with an enameled metal helmet.

“I've watched those hands beat faces to a bloody pulp. I didn't figure they could sew.”

She scoffed at him, rolling her eyes as she heard him trudge inside anyhow, metal door closing behind him, and set herself to the straps that kept her secured within the bits of metal and leather that frequently kept her alive on the road. Left arm first, a metal shoulder piece coming loose, and the whole ritual making her feel as if she were shedding skin.

She didn't tell him that she might have been a housewife a few centuries ago-- that was a different life. The idea that someone could live so cushy as to devote themselves to home-making and nothing else was a fever dream in this age, and while Hancock probably had enough chems in his pockets to attempt imagining it, she didn't feel like trying to paint the picture for him.

She didn't want to know what he'd think of her, knowing just how... comfortable she'd been.

“I'm a woman of many talents.” She snarked instead as another heavy piece of metal thumped into the bin, freeing up the shoulder beneath to roll and stretch. “Don't worry about getting used to it-- this is a one night stop. First thing in the morning, I'm seeing to the upgrades on the armor, and then back on the-- ah--”

Hands-- surprisingly strong hands despite withered skin that clung to spindly bones. She didn't know how that worked-- Hancock wasn't a big man, and the ghoulishness made her think he'd be frail... instead he'd hefted a flamer onto his back when he set out with her, and carried it from one end of the Commonwealth to the other without complaint. Finding those hands suddenly assisting with undoing the straps at her sides so that her chest piece could come loose was a surprise; simple and sure movements causing the scavenged military combat armor to come loose and slide forward. Without an anchor, it slid forward until the hard edge of the back plate caught on her neck and stopped it from simply falling to the floor. Meanwhile, Hancock's hands had slid in along her ribs, pressing firmly into the rough fabric and reminding her that they were, for the first time in a while, blissfully alone.

“I'm aware of that.”

Her lips pressed together-- a low sigh was expressed with his rough whisper in her ear. She swore he knew how much that got to her, despite her very deliberately not telling him. It was a struggle not to react, not to lean back as he reeled her in, those spidery hands easily finding their way upwards beneath the hanging breastplate and his chin perching on her shoulder. He'd pulled them together, his body against hers, and punctuated the move with a mischievous chuckle.

“Sometimes a little too talented-- doin' everything yourself, despite having a public servant waiting in the wings.” He teased her. “Let a ghoul help, eh sister?”

It wasn't entirely unexpected, nor unwelcome, but his eagerness was something that caught her off guard. She usually had something to say, something sly to come back with, but for some reason all she could focus on was the ticklish clutch of her gut as his fingers gathered up the material of her shirt in their traveling to her bust, squeezing fitfully enough to expose an inch of skin at her belly.

“Hancock--” She muttered, squirming slightly, but not in earnest. “C'mon, we've got the whole night--”

“That's right.” He agreed, but it was with an entirely different tone. One hand remained up, keeping her tight to him, while the other traveled down. The thin ribbon of skin that had been exposed was soon graced with the specific texture of his skin; rough, but not terribly so. Like callous, only it was all over; somewhat leathery and unique. His entire palm invaded through that opening, hard against her belly as fingertips sought out a path further south. “We've got the whole night-- and I didn't plan on wastin' any of it...” His fingers were ruthless once they found purchase, shoving past the tight fit provided by a belt she was wearing. “Did you?”

Her breath shuddered. No part of her wanted to tell him no-- the rush was enough to make her ignore the metal edge digging into the back of her neck, and forget how doggedly exhausted she'd been after their long trek here... particularly lugging her own weight in lead along the way.

In her hesitation, he'd gotten far enough to make a more intimate contact-- damnably persistent, like ivy finding the cracks in brickwork to wheedle its way in.

He pressed in against her, too certain to be deterred by straps and clothes. Barriers had been passed without any show of manners, knowing her well enough that if he was unwanted she would have thrown him off by now... and getting a sweet gasp as his reward.

“There we go.” His smile was evident in his tone-- no, not a smile, a grin-- a smug, shit-eating grin. She could imagine how it looked on his face, and knew he'd be wearing it for hours just to make her glare at him.

It didn't matter. Everything he'd done so far was just testing the water in his puckish, incorrigible way. Now he had her, and his wrist twisted as he worked that hand just a little further into her pants before slipping a fingertip against soft flesh. The motion was a sort of rocking of his hand, sliding the single offending finger down between sensitive lips before drawing back upwards with the tip pressed in, working up a little warmth in general and offering up a little tantalizing pressure to wake up the sweet spot for later, stroking her like that as his hips pitched against hers to turn her away from the bin next to the door and instead face her against the closed portal they'd entered through, reinforcing that he had her.

Without thinking, her right hand came out to brace against the door. Cold metal barely registered, just that it gave her something to push back against as he leaned in harder against her back, idly kneading her breast as he stroked her beneath restrictive layers of cloth and leather.

“O-oh... damnit, Hancock--”

“I was thinking fuck it, actually.” He smirked, still right by her ear for that quip before finally leaning back the necessary inches and releasing her breast to help her get her armor the rest of the way off, falling to the floor with a hard thud instead of getting placed in the bin. Pitching his shoulders back, hips pressed forward, grinding against her to advertise himself against her rump. “... just like this...” He added, losing a little breath as he suggested it, that free hand of his coming right back as if magnetically drawn, this time landing at the top of her hip and sliding upwards to expose a few more inches of skin-- his palm on her back, pushing with his surprising strength to encourage her to bend forward.

Bend over, actually.

She got his meaning, groaning softly as his stroking remained steady. She didn't resist the push, her hand shifting against the wall as her body dipped lower and her own free hand fumbled with the latch for her belt. The strip of leather resisted her, frustrating her fingers for a few agonizing moments as the sensation of his hand brought on another faint sigh, slipping against her with more ease as her body reflected her own eagerness; building with the anticipation. Then, finally, she managed to yank it just the right way for the latch to loose, the pressure of having his hand shoved in where it was such a tight fit relived, and further tugging releasing the subsequent button and zipper before they became obstacles... and before her hands became utterly uncooperative.

The loosened hem could be yanked down on his side, exposing more precious skin to the evening chill that crept in through the walls. Gnarled knuckles hooked on the hem, and fingertips got her underwear in the same dragging motion that demanded quick access. The lower she bent, the more he leaned against her, miming what would come in due time. It wasn't until he had her ass bare, pants and underwear drug down below the swell of her hips, that he finally pulled his own body back the inches necessary to attend to a few layers of fabric himself... but he didn't let off touching her as quickly. The hand that exposed her lingered, fingertips ghosting the sensitive skin just below the curve of her rump and sending a tingle across her skin, before his weathered palm pressed up and squeezed hard, his thumb sliding up to the top of her hip while his fingers rotated down. Finally, he finished up the groping with a light swat, chuckling behind her.

“Fuck you look so good like this...” He marveled, and she could hear layers of fabric moving against each other. “I just wanna wreck you.”

“Shut up and-- nnnnnnnh--”

She couldn't see him, but she felt him; hard and hot against her skin, pressed first between her thighs before he adjusted himself upwards. His finger's rubbing of her had paused, that hand simply anchored there as, from the rear, he worked himself against her, dragging the tip of himself this way and that until he found just the right angle to slick himself up with her excitement... and making her crave him in the process as she flexed her hips back towards him, trying to make it easier for him.

Somehow, some fucking how, she'd gone from exhausted to needy in the span of only a few minutes. It was the kind of eagerness that usually belonged to the young and dumb-- insanity she thought she'd left behind in her teen years, but he always found a way to draw it out of her.

She had no idea how he did that, but she never wanted it to change.

“Yeah?” His voice had dropped, the word barely differentiated from the heavy sigh it was carried out on. “C'mon, you can moan for me... no one's gonna hear you this time...”

More of him, pressing between wet lips-- and then more; there was resistance, going for it quick like this always meant it was a little rough, but it was the kind of sensation that left her gasping aloud as she went from craving that feeling of him to having him sink into her and remind her just how good it felt. Imagination, memory-- it always fell short, not quite living up to what it was in the immediate reality of the moment. Friction and heat, bound up in an intimate need-- just as addicting as any of the chems he slipped into her pockets whenever he thought she looked strung out.

Out of reflex, her jaw clenched tight, denying the urge to moan aloud and her body clenching around him instead. Both hands had applied themselves to the wall, and her breath shook as teeth ground together, resisting.

“Oh shit-- fuck-- if you squeeze me like that, I'm gonna...”

His hips bucked forward after a short draw back, the hand he'd been using to guide himself against her now finding its way to anchor at the crease that formed between her hip and her body as she bent against the wall, yanking her tight against him with the same motion before coming to a sharp stop. She could feel him inside, throbbing and thick, and the jolt made her jaw drop open for a short exclamation to escape her.

Buried, he began to rub her from the front again, abandoning the long strokes he'd used to warm her up and instead zeroing in on where she was most sensitive. Where his opening moves had all been about pressure with maximum contact, he changed tactics to only flick across her with the tip of his finger, instigating another tightening of her body as her resistance to making noise produced a shudder instead.

“D-don't--” She finally managed to murmur. “Oh God-- Hancock, you don't have to--”

This was a quickie-- an opener. She didn't expect this kind of attention; he always made up for it later, after a little Jet got him going again. This was usually the part where he took her by the hips with both hands and went to town, but instead he held her to keep them both tightly together, all while--

“F-fuck--” A whispered curse, kept lower than a murmur, followed by a greedy breath. He wasn't letting up, despite her telling him he didn't need to bother. She tried to push herself back against him, to antagonize him, but his fingers only tightened their grasp on the side of her hip as he leaned forward over her, ensuring that he was the one in control.

A defined clutch passed through her, centered at her core.

“Oh fuck-- mmmm--!”

“There you go... c'mon, let it out...” He coaxed her, rocking himself back in another short motion before jolting back into her again, letting out a guttural sound of his own as he did so. “Lemme hear you...”

It was an old habit to hold back, to grit her teeth and hold her breath-- anything to keep quiet. Her own fingers, once splayed open against the metal door, curled inwards into fists as the sensation built up, deep and desperate gasps getting drawn in through her nose as her jaw remained tightly closed, lips pressing hard against each other as she hummed and swallowed. Her head dropped down, his touch taking more and more of her focus.

Old habits were hard to break, but he was a new habit. One that liked to push at her old habits and see how long they'd stick.

Toes curled inside her boots, eyes closed without thinking. There was no thinking-- no, just her perception of him; the weight of his body against hers, the grip of his hand, and sound of his breath, all as her body underwent jolts that made her hips continue to try and rock back against his, one of her hands eventually lifting and banging back onto the door as the sensation turned briefly sharp, jaw loosing for a raw gasp between her lips and a guttural groan. “F-Fuck Hancock, you're gonna--- oh-- oh-- shit--”

“Rub you raw?” He completed the thought she was trying to articulate, drawing in a heavy breath of his own. His own hips rocked now, a minimal motion of a man that could barely help himself. “Wouldn't... wouldn't dream of it... just love the way you squeeze...”

The rocking changed things, introduced that delightful sensation that scratched the ineffable itch he'd aroused in her. Pressure and friction as he kept up his assault on her sensitivity made her knees wobble with a threat to give out, breath viciously driven out of her lungs in a single erotic moan.

“Fuck...” He murmured emphatically. “Sing for me babe... it's so pretty...” He encouraged her, pressing his face against the back of her neck as he kept a steady tempo. He was fully against her, laid over her back and abandoning his grasp on her hip to reach forward, those thin fingers of his stealing beneath the buttoned blouse of her fatigues and taking a demanding grasp on her breast; stalled only momentarily by the worn elastic band of her bra. The heel of his hand ground upwards at first, pressing in against her ribs, before he was pulling on her again, ensuring she remained anchored against him as he kept up the rocking motion he'd adopted over more conventional thrusting.

“Ah... ah shit... shit- shit-- J-John, oooooh... oh fuu...”

She lost the thread of why she'd been protesting in the first place. Her jaw fell open, and another moan came out; louder as everything began to come together. The movement, his insistent grasp, that very specific sense of fullness within her body and the craving it both satisfied and aggravated at the same time--

“Yeah?” He breathed against her ear. “You gettin' there, sweet thing? … good... I wanna feel it... And once you're over the edge, I'm gonna rail you until I burst.”

A thrill ran through her, like electricity that danced along her spine. Now that he'd articulated his intention, she wanted it, too.

“C-close...” She whimpered, nodding her head faintly. “J-just like that... l-little higher... rub a little higher... little circles around my-- oh- oh god- there- fuck yes-- there--!!”

Feverishly murmured coaching that directed his stroking where the craving was strongest sent her further than she expected to go, her head and chest dipping lower as her elbows bent and her forearms joined her hands in being braced against the door, a defined shaking running through her person as she went up to her toes and the rubber soles of her boots dug into the floor, further flexing her hips back in the desperation to have that sense of fullness as her body seemed to anchor itself on where they were intertwined. More than just laying open, her jaw stretched for her cry out with the rush.

His grip on her changed. He wasn't leaned over her anymore, but pitched back as both of his hands found their way to her hips.

God, she could feel him; the meeting of their bodies dominated her brain as she felt him throb within her shortly before he changed to much more active motions. There, again, was that surprising strength as he drew back and adjusted himself just low enough to begin taking her roughly, groaning between sharp breaths as his hips shocked against her rump with every thrust.

Her body was still squeezing, still rippling from what he'd just put her through, aware of the force in his every motion as he drove into her tightly clenched core.

“A-aah... aaanngh--!!”

A hitch, and his voice gave out for a more primal noise, his motions growing more hurried as she felt his nails digging into her hips. There'd probably scratches to attend to later-- not the first time. His breath juddered, followed by a gasp before it was held a moment. All at once, everything came to a halt, a shuddering swell moving up through his flesh that came shortly before a certain warmth spread within her; passed from him to her.

He claimed a sharp breath after, followed by a relieved exhale as his hands loosened. He didn't release her just yet, but he wasn't clutching quite so hard anymore.

“...shit that felt too good...” He muttered faintly as she tried to regain her own breath. One hand and forearm remained braced on the door, but the other had released to reach backwards for him, flexing her fingers to show she desired another kind of contact, and getting one of his hands in return for the non-verbal gesture. Once intertwined, she squeezed him, and let out a faint and almost girlish giggle.

“Too good...?” She quested, surprised he'd ever entertain the concept.

“Damn right.” He lobbed back, squeezing in return. “It's the kind of good a guy gets addicted to... Gotta find us some privacy a little more often.”

Don't have to tell me twice.

This was about the point where bodies needed to come apart; signaled by their hands drifting away from one another after that comforting squeeze... but that process was interrupted.

There was a knock at the metal door Paige was braced up against.

“General? Do you have a moment?”

… Preston, your timing is a disaster.

She recognized the voice in a heartbeat, and it was exactly the sort of person who had previously voiced his disapproval of her and Hancock's partnership... and he didn't even know about the more intimate details of said partnership. There was a shock associated to hearing his voice at this particularly compromised moment, one that made her face flush as she was excessively thankful for the solid door between them.

More thankful that he hadn't shown up a few minutes ago, when he might have heard a thing or two through that door.

Behind her, she more felt than heard Hancock's muted chuckle.

“I'm a little occupied at the moment, Garvey.” Paige answered back through the door; not entirely a lie. “Is it urgent?”

“Just a couple questions I'd like to ask, that's all.” Preston's voice answered back. “Security concerns.”

That was code for yes, it's urgent to me. Preston had been very particular about security ever since she assigned him to it. Making him wait would prompt more questions later, and possible lost trust with him and his group.

Despite very much not wanting to, it sounded like she was going to need to put her clothes back on for a little while.

“Just a minute, I'll be right out.” She informed him.

“Yes, sir.”

“Awee...” Hancock quietly cooed, easing himself away from her. “No cuddle time?”

Finally able to straighten up, she shot a look back at him that encouraged him to shut his face before she broke some part of it in lieu of his mostly missing nose... before cracking a smirk. “There's a bathroom behind that partition--” She directed him quietly, muting her voice to lower the chance it would carry. “No hot water, but it's clean.”

“Heh, ritzy.” Hancock smirked back. Looking at him, she was able to see exactly how ruffled his coat and blouse had ended up, with trousers only shifted just enough out of the way to get away with what they'd just done. He hadn't made any motion to arrange himself back into those trousers, though, appearing all too comfortable to just let it all hang out. “Is that your way to telling me to put it on ice? Cause if anyone needs cleaning up right now, it's you.”

He was right; she was a sticky mess between the thighs, and standing upright allowed for dripping between her legs. Usually she would have insisted on some clean cloth and water to manage that with, but at the current moment? She reached down and simply pulled pants and underwear back up, zipping, buttoning, and straightening both bra and blouse until it was impossible for anyone to know what they'd been up to by simply looking at her... and with only him aware of the specific nature of what was probably going to end up staining her undergarments.

“I'll make you clean it up, later.” She informed him playfully. “It's your mess.”

“Oooh... dirty.” He chuckled. “Don't threaten me with a good time.”

Her look hardened, making a motion at him that encouraged him to shoo-- the last thing she needed was to open the door and have Garvey catch a glimpse of her companion with his dick out. Hancock pouted at her, but ultimately obeyed.

With a sigh, she turned herself back towards the door, hesitated a moment, and then finally grasped the handle to push it open and head out.

Doing so was not unlike a splash of cold water to the face. Twilight was a good hour past, and the night sky was filled with stars without a single cloud to obscure them. There was a stiff wind tonight; enough to snap Garvey's trench coat against his legs and make the man pull up the swell of his scarf a little more to protect his nose and cheeks.

Going from the relative comfort of her little home-made haven, as well as the heat of her recent encounter, into the abrupt chill of the night with a sharp wind in her face could have only been more of a shock to the system if it had been raining.

As she emerged, Garvey looked back to appear in profile to her. The man was always at the ready, laser rifle held upright over his chest and his eyes brightly aware despite the dark of the night. Paige's shack was at the far end of Sanctuary; away from where she'd built housing for the other residents, as well as where she'd set up crops, power generators, and water. Looking down the slight hill her shack sat upon at Preston meant also seeing the lights of the settlement beyond him; the faint yellow glow of something that could almost be called a town as the back-drop to his silhouette and shining gaze.

“Garvey.” She greeted him by his last name; it felt more professional, what with him always insisting on calling her General since she'd helped him revive the Minuet Men and retake their old headquarters. “What can I do for you?”

“Like I said, I just had a few questions...” He answered, peering further up and towards the shack. She couldn't see his face; her abode featured no outdoor lights, and with the glow of the settlement behind him his features were cast in shadow. “... where's the ghoul?”

The ghoul. She could practically taste the disapproval on that one.

“Hancock is taking this chance to wash some of the wasteland out of his clothes.” She responded. “Is your security concern about him?”

“No, no, of course not. If you trust him, that's enough for me.” Preston assured her. “But, uh...”

“Out with it, Garvey.” She ordered sternly.

“I was manning the watch when you came back to Sanctuary, General-- I saw you brought back your power armor, and it looked like you were carrying a heavy load of supplies. I know you'd tell me if anything were coming for us here, but... I didn't see any of it go out with the traders, and that made me worry. So, I've gotta ask; do you think something nasty is coming up this way?”

She blinked. Preston thought she was stockpiling for an incoming threat. She almost wanted to laugh aloud, but couldn't manage it. Instead, she stepped down from her place above him on the hill, coming to stand at his side while still looking out at the settlement.

“No,” She answered him. “Nothing's coming here. I'm preparing for a journey into dangerous territory... I need to upgrade my armor before we head out, and we needed a safe place to rest our heads before we committed. I want every advantage we can get under us before we go.”

A pause. Whatever he expected to hear, that wasn't on the list.

“... General, you know all you'd have to do is say the world, and I'd--”

“I'm going somewhere you can't follow, Garvey.” She responded flatly. Of course he wanted to go with her, probably wanting to convince her to take him instead of Hancock. He considered himself more capable, more trustworthy; the better choice on all fronts.

She'd disagree with him outright, but Hancock also had a very specific advantage over Garvey that would leave him no grounds to argue on.

“I'm going into the Glowing Sea.”

Silence. The pause stretched out for several beats, no doubt as Preston processed what exactly it was she was saying.

“... I see. The armor will protect you from most of the radiation, and your companion is immune.” He observed. “... smart choice.” He added, begrudgingly, before asking, “But why are you going in there? Even with the armor, you're going to need to be carrying your weight in medicine to even have a hope of making it back alive...”

“It's important. That's all I can say right now.”

A month or two ago, she might have told him. Before getting involved with the Underground Railroad, before encountering a synth and the person they were trying to replace at the same time and very nearly killing the wrong one during the confrontation, before learning exactly how the institute dealt with people they didn't want to have around anymore... But now? There was doubt in her mind, about almost everyone. Was Preston really Preston? Or was he just another set of eyes and ears for them? If she mentioned a defector, hiding out in the Glowing Sea, would they somehow beat her to that defector and kill them?

She couldn't risk it. This was her line on Shaun, on her son. Right now, the only person she trusted was the one who was going with her; Hancock... and even he didn't know exactly why they were going.

Granted, he hadn't asked.

“... You're sure about this?” Preston quested quietly.

She scoffed. “... barely.” She answered back. “But it's the only way forward I have right now.”

She'd already decided on a direction. Her doubts didn't matter anymore.

“Then I suppose the only thing to do is wish you luck.” He sighed, turning to face her and taking a hand off the stock of his laser rifle to offer it to her. She, in kind, turned to him and took it, sharing a firm shake. “Whatever you're facing, if there's anyone who can survive it, it's you. You already provisioned?”

“Been buying out all the Rad Away and Rad-X I can find.” She confirmed. “Cleaned out every trader between here and Diamond City. Tomorrow morning I take all the lead I've collected and upgrade the power armor to withstand the radiation... and then we'll be suiting up and heading out.” She paused, withdrawing her hand from his. There was something else that had to be said; something she'd been hoping to save until they were on their way out, so there'd be no space to argue about it... but now was probably the kinder time to say it. “Garvey, if I don't come back--”

“You're coming back.” He interrupted.

“If I don't,” She pressed. “You'll be back in charge of the Minute Men. You can't hesitate from that. We've got enough supplies to last a day out there-- maybe two or three if we find a place to shelter that's not soaked in rads, like a cave or a pre-war bomb shelter that's somehow intact. If I don't come back to Sanctuary within that time? You need to take over properly and keep up the fight.”

He was quiet. He didn't like it.

“... I don't know if I can live up to what you've done for us, Paige.” He admitted, softly. “But... if it comes to that, I'll do my best by you.”

“... that's all we can do out here, Preston.” She affirmed in kind. “I know you're the man for the job.”

“Let's try not to find out.” He rebutted.

That time, she let out a faint laugh. “Don't worry.” She told him. “I'll be doing my best, too.”

__________

Chapter One: You are here Chapter Two: [hasn’t been posted to Tumblr yet, will add link when I’ve got it up... oor you could just go read the story so far on Fanfiction XD]

If you enjoyed reading this, please consider reblogging it to help me find a wider audience! <3

#Fallout 4 #f!sole survivor #sole survivor #hancock x sole survivor #John Hancock #Hancock #Loving Stupid #fanfiction #fallout 4 fanfiction #female sole survivor #Paige #Paige Argot

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dotthings · 4 years

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Okay SPN 15.04, here we go, where I feel weirdly self-conscious about posting a meta post about an ep that had so much meta on itself and now I’m going to write meta about it, so it’s meta on meta on meta, while I’m having my feelings.

THAT COLD OPEN HOLY CRAP DIRECTOR JENSEN. As a director Jensen always pulls out warm performances from actors and he’s a really kinetic director too. That opening fight sequence I held my breath for a lot of it.

BENNY OH NOES IT’S BENNY (this must be the character Jensen said was one of his favorites and the actor came back to set for one day to do it). “I’ll see you on the other side, brother.” Thanks so MUCH, spn, I thought I was over this and then you come in and reopen that and now I’ve got feelings gdi. Benny was a good friend to Dean. My heart hurts.

Ohshitohshitohshitohshit demon blood Sam. Noooooo. And he kills Dean. I can never erase these images from my mind, thanks a LOT spn.

Just a nightmare of Sam’s except no probably not given Sam’s god-wound, so wow this maybe happens on one of Chuck’s other worlds, that’s fine, oh that’s okay I’m fiiiiine, it’s fine. *covers face*

So we have a flip on early S14 here where Dean was turtling to cope with his trauma which is a healthy thing to do but hiding from the world wasn’t going to fix anything so Sam coaxes him out with a hunt. Dean coaxes Sam out with a hunt only I don’t think hunting works for Sam the same way, it’s not Sam’s mental comfort food the way it is for Dean, but still I appreciate the mirroring there.

Sam’s struggling with Rowena’s death and I think those horrific AU nightmare visions aren’t helping much either, but it’s clear he’s feeling the loss. Her loss, all the recent losses.

Dean trolls Sam with real bacon, which seems like Dean is maybe trying to cheer Sam up by pranking him and trying to cheer himself up via food pranks. Dean has quite the case of the munchies in this ep.

I noticed almost every scene Dean is snacking or drinking from his flask. How’s that whole “Cas walked out and left apparently for good” working out for you Dean, wow, you’re suspiciously chipper while stuffing your face and drinking and Not Talking About It. Did Sam and Dean talk about where’s Cas? Who knows, the ep didn’t mention it, hey SPN you needed a Cas mention, OH WAIT THE EP IS GOING TO CALL ME OUT FOR SAYING THAT.

Seriously though, this is very Dean MO, and I have thoughts about his mood in this ep and how Cas’s absence was felt, and what it means, I’ll get to that later, but even before the last scene Impala talk, I was thinking Cas is a reminder of pain--and no it’s not all about Dean’s anger at Cas, it’s not because Dean is angry at Cas. Cas is a reminder of some things Dean just isn’t coping with very well and part of the problem is Dean cares so much.

So Dean’s snacking and drinking and Sam is feeling the weight of them knowing all the scary things out there while people go on obliviously with their lives and I’m not sure if Sam is envying them or Sam is feeling some existential angst about the state of the world, how people can go about their lives unaware there are real monsters ready to pounce and tear their lives to shreds. And feeling the weight of the job they do in every bone of his body. Sam’s in a dark headspace.

Ok I admit I was not thrilled to see Becky again given her previous episodes and role. SPN’s later in-canon fan characters were much more nuanced and successful and respectful depictions of fans. But as with many other things, this era of SPN is revisiting some things to move them forward in a different way than before, and subvert some things that needed subverting and Becky has had--wait for it--character development. How about that.

Yes, Becky, run, you do not want anything to do with Chuck. Run, Becky run. I’m rooting for her now. RUNNNN.

Along with finding a more constructive way of channeling her interest in the Winchesters’ lives, and having a satisfying fandom creative life and a full life of her own, Becky has funko pops of Sam, Dean, and Cas. LOL. I see you spn.

Dean, still with the case of the munchies. So this is like the eating a whole pint of ice-cream after a break-up, only Dean does it with junk food while hunting vampires.

I enjoyed this conversation between Becky and Chuck about writing immensely. Becky is actually right. Speaking myself as someone who’s suffered from writers block for a while, it’s miserable, and not writing just perpetuates the cycle. You feel cut off from an important part of yourself. And--oh here we go getting meta within meta--I find writing meta on SPN a positive outlet.

“Writing is writing.” Damn Becky’s takedown of Chuck’s derisiveness about fanfic was sizzling and oh excuse me Chuck, what is it you think you were doing with those Supernatural books about your favorite story. Even though he’s the creator, I know. But still. Also seems to be a sly comment on how male-authored “fanfic” based on someone else’s characters or historical characters gets to be professionally published novels and nobody wants to admit it’s fanfic but it is, but women write fanfic and women write novels based on someone else’s characters or historical figures and it gets derided.

Did not expect commentary celebrating the creativity and validity of fanwork of women in particular an episode of SPN, especially not with Becky of all people, but here we are.

Uhhhh is Chuck writing this episode, as it happens? I am seriously uneasy now. What is going on. What is real. Which is what I think Dean is going through because of Chuck and OUCH the Winchesters think they’re free but they’re not but also they are their own people and Chuck isn’t controlling them but it’s like he’s still making the framework?? Or would this case just be happening on his own and Perez is just messing with our heads in this script right now.

Oh damn because this ep wasn’t sadness enough now here we go with the Jack parallels. “I can’t control this.” “I’m a monster.” “I killed someone I love.” Parents doing anything to save their out of control teenage kid or does he need to be killed, so the parents are Cas, while Sam and Dean are Dean.

Interesting that Dean lowered the gun and didn’t kill Jack, but tells Sam they would do that for Jack if it was necessary. You didn’t, though, Dean. You couldn’t go through with it any more than those distressed parents of the vampire teen.

Becky is voicing various non-dire fan complaints here, every lane of the fandom is being gently called out right now. Hahaha including lack of Cas mentions in an ep that pointedly is not!Mentioning Cas because it’s not a mistake there’s actually reasons for that which is just lampshading how much Dean is pointedly Not Going to Talk About Cas.

“Where they sit around doing laundry and talk” -- again every lane of the fandom should feel very called out right now. Seriously, fandom lanes that hate each other’s guts all have that common factor of craving more domesticity, and would like to see the laundry ep of SPN and for many, it has better include Cas, or we’re working through our need for this via fanfics or fanart. Even Jared and Jensen have expressed interest in a “Winchesters do the laundry” kind of episode.

But here’s the thing--here’s the thing about SPN...it depicts domesticity. In small bits of pieces. Even in this ep there’s domesticity. SO HA. It’s not that SPN is against depictions of domesticity, it’s definitely in the toolset of its storytelling, to give the characters more layers, to make their lives seem more real, but there needs to be mostly an action plot because that’s the genre so they mostly kill monsters and we only get nibbles of domesticity.

Becky and Chuck arguing about Chuck’s incredibly dark story ending, after Becky criticized him for the story not having enough bite, was so interesting. While the episode’s dark story ending was actually quite well done IMO and not overdone and yes it’s bleak but it’s supposed to be. So it’s not that sad is always terrible writing, no. It isn’t. But its overuse has been a raging hot topic in spn fandom for years and SPN is a hopeful narrative as well as a bleak one. Overuse of loss of hope and misery can hurt the story, causes a number of fans to become desensitized and lose their emotional engagement for it (which has happened to be at a couple of points in SPN’s long run). So that conversation interested me a great deal, yes it did.

So.....SPN had its current biggest of the biggest of ultimate big bads, the ultimate power God himself, the author, and made him the enthusiast for overuse of the misery pr0n like that’s the only smart way to tell a story. The season’s big bad villain is a misery porn enthusiast.

I’m just gonna....sit here and absorb that for a moment.

Oh and this while all the PR for the show keeps warning us about how sad this story is and how bleak the ending will be, not a happy ending show. Are they warning us? Are they trolling us and misdirecting? Because they made their villain a misery pr0n fanboy and this intelligent, self-aware positive depiction of Becky the fan taking him to task for it.

I feel like could be headed for every story needs its darkness and its light, you need the darkness to appreciate the light, and you need some light or the story is less meaningful. We’ll see.

“I’m a writer,” says Chuck and then takes away everyone Becky loves and then unmakes Becky. This is a purposeful depiction of a writer creator as a sadist. It’s a diabolical reversal on the Stephen King’s Misery scenario. Becky played the deranged fangirl in the past, who kidnaps an object of obsession, now she’s the victim of the deranged sadistic writer who breaks into her home, destroys her life, and then effectively kills her because of his own obsession with making Sam and Dean wretchedly miserable because he thinks that’s the only way to make the story exciting.

*blinks*

In the last scene, oh thanks Sam, for vocalizing the Jack connection.

Hey Dean, that’s really a nice speech and yes Sam did give you a great pep talk but Sam wasn’t the only one who told you what you did still has meaning. This is like 15.01 where Dean is pointedly erasing Cas again despite Cas very obviously having done something Dean refuses to acknowledge. In 15.01 it was Dean leaving Cas out of his us vs the forces of evil speech to Sam, despite Cas having spent most of the ep shooting ghosts in the face and saving Sam’s life twice. Sam and Cas both have given Dean pep talks about the meaning of what they do but only Sam pulled Dean out of it...uhhh yeah that’s not writer error or canon ignoring Cas. That’s Dean trying to push Cas out of his mind. Something there hurts so much Dean isn’t dealing with it right now.

As I said, as I’ve been saying, it’s not so much that Dean is that angry at Cas. It’s not just about Mary. Or about Cas keeping things from him. Although those are all valid reasons for Dean’s hurt and anger. Dean seems to be afraid or hurt over more than that. And his love for Cas, IMO, is part of why this is weighing so heavily. What does he fear. I think it’s connected to the whole existential crisis about Chuck. What if none of this is real. I’ve talked about that in other posts, if none of this is real, if Dean still doubts, then what if what’s between him and Cas isn’t real, what if Cas doesn’t really care about him because none of it real.

Dean valiantly puts a brave face on things here, they keep going, they keep fighting for the sake of those they lost, no matter what, “keep putting one foot in front of the other.” Which makes sense. That’s how you honor those you’ve lost. It’s just that I don’t think Dean has really reached that. He is Not Dealing with an awful lot of stuff here. And we have seen again and again how hard Dean reels from losing loved ones. So what’s going on with Dean here. This is a healthy concept, but not if Dean is just whistling past the graveyard again. This might look like character development except look at what’s been going on with Dean. How deeply losing Mary, losing Jack affected him. The impact of those losses needs to be acknowledged and dealt with in order to truly move on and move forward. It’s like Dean is voicing a healthy outlook but isn’t actually experiencing it. I think Dean is posturing because if he lets all the hurt it right now, it will devour him.

There’s also the part where Sam and Dean have in the past displayed a lack of ability to just keep on keeping on if they lose each other, so they used to sell their souls, or violate the other one’s wishes and autonomy, or let the darkness free, but we’ve also seen them let each other go, and “keep putting one foot in front of the other.” Sam and Dean have done both ways with each other. Dean didn’t exactly just keep on keeping on no problem when Cas died at the end of S12.

Sam voices the other side of things, he can’t just move on right now. He’s feeling all the losses. They’ve piled up and piled up and it’s crushing him. Sam says he "can’t breathe” at times. He brings up Jessica, a loss he suffered 14 years ago.

So Sam and Dean are airing the two aspects of loss and grief on SPN. One the one hand, you don’t just give up and quit because of loss. Honor who you’ve lost and keep on fighting. But losses are deeply felt, and it’s not all okay either. Sam and Dean don’t just shrug off these losses because they have each other. That’s not how this works. They need more than just each other and SPN is increasingly having more and more open dialogue about all of this.

S15 so far has been so much about the impact losing people they love has on Sam and Dean, and why their isolation isn’t a good thing.

And there’s Chuck, the big bad, typing away to add more misery. Because Chuck gets off on giving them loved ones and taking them away, over and over and this isn’t presented as a good thing or a satisfying thing or a desirable thing or a celebration of anything.

#Sam Winchester #Dean Winchester #Chuck Shurley #Becky Rosen #spn #supernatural #supernatural spoilers #meta #Sam and Dean: a work in progress #Destiel #Team Free Will #Jack Kline #Castiel

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briek58454521 · 4 years

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Cancel Culture?...

Okay.

I’ve seen this shit going around for a while. I feel obligated to correct the record.

In the wake of multiple Breadtube users being eviscerated by the public in the last year, I’d like to talk... about “cANceL cULTurE”.

But first, some back-round. I’ll be brief.

Over a year ago, Youtuber Lily Orchard’s video about Steven Universe blew up the internet, invoking praise from many facets of online culture, as well as a sizable backlash, as any video criticizing Steven Universe will invariably do. In an attempt at a response, Breadtuber Sarah Z uploaded a video titled “Bad Media Criticism”, which around 17 minutes in, talked about said video.

The response was filled with, let’s face it, lies and actual bad faith criticisms towards the content, misinformation, omission of context in important bits, and general shoddiness in action (yes, I’m biased. Reality is biased, sometimes). Criticism was swift to arrive, and the video provoked Lily herself to respond. And in the face of the factual corrections, and legitimate criticisms... Sarah doubled down, and in her infamous Twit-Longer, decided to continue to assure herself and others that her criticism was valid because regardless of whatever Lily actually said, it was still bad faith criticism.

A short while after that, fellow Breadtuber Lindsay Ellis uploaded a video discussing Black Ariel, claiming that the decision to make Ariel black was entirely a decision made because of “Woke Branding” to make more money off of people and continue raking in more and more cash, citing HBomberGuy’s “WOKE BRANDS” video essay. Many commented that this was rather racist, considering that Cartoon Network is just as much of a greedy bastard corporation as Disney was, yet, denounced criticism of Steven Universe, a show of Cartoon Network’s body of work, because “support minority voices”, with the same people commenting that this looked rather selective.

Lindsay doubled down on the criticism, and would continue defending it and publicly shitting the bed as more shitstorms (PLURAL) would erupt (lol).

After THAT, Breadtuber CONTRAPOINTS/ NATALIE WYNN would publish many videos that kept pissing of trans and non-binary viewers with a fuck-load of back handed remarks and general derogatory comments about them, as well as getting pissy that people ask for her gender and pronouns in public safe-spaces. In “The Aesthetic”, Natalie had a character playing the role of the people who make the CORRECT claim that gender is eternal and that you are what you say you are, and ANOTHER who was a truscum who would repeat the arguments that “kinda hypothetical” and, “kinda a weak argument”. This would create a backlash, and Natalie would respond with a thread that, contained a lotta shit, but also contained THIS BULLSHIT. Straight from the horses mouth, fam.

“I’m sure this is not the experience of many NBs. I’ll leave it to them to articulate what NB existence looks like in a binary world. I do not and cannot speak for them. But surely(sic) an account that begins and ends with “I’m not a man because I don’t identify as one” is pretty weak”

Later, after deleting the thread and getting more shit for it, she would upload an absurd non-apology video called “Pro-nouns”, where she would dress up like a fucking clown-ass Oompa-Loompa who just escaped from Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, and make several dumb-ass claims and a fuck-ton of truscum arguments, including stating that she “wants to be a convert” to “believe” NBs, and that she would listen and respect NB people’s beliefs “so long as those beliefs are valid” After more backlash to that happened, she would continue this trend, platforming actual truscum like Buck Angel, selling anti-semetic reptilian agenda merchandise, and hosted a Patreon stream where she just... basically shat on everyone. She shat on people like HBomberGuy, for performativity in regards to the meme “Donkey Kong said Trans Rights” (yes, she is that desperate. She will accuse people who raise 340,000 fucking dollars of performativity and virtue-signaling), stated that older trans people would be considered truscum, and even that most of her friends were truscum.

The one thing that was consistent in these stories was the insistence that the criticism was just an attempt at Cancel Culture.

Cancel Culture is essentially the point where in an attempt to either exclude, harass, or target others for political views, religion, ethnicity, race, sexuality, gender, etc., people will devolve into many forms of online harassment and abuse of the media outlets, among other things, in order to silence the target, or deter the target from making an argument. It can even happen just because people don’t like someone.

For Sarah, this took the form of accusing the people criticizing Steven Universe of having a dishonest double-standard, because if a straight, white, cis-dude made it, no one would be saying shit about it. Even though the show is historically praised by WHITE progressives, and criticized by EVERYONE else.

For Lindsay, it was that the people making this claim were just fooled by the “Woke Brand” train.

For Natalie, it was “the Left is eating itself”.

I would like to say this right now. The only time I actually saw Cancel Culture in action was during the shitstorm that erupted with VivziePop and her pilots for Hazbin Hotel, and Helluva Boss came out and everyone was looking for a bunch of shit to bring up about Vivzie personally, her apparent “transphobia”, “homophobia” as understood by Steven Universe fans, and generally just a bunch of bullshit that Rebecca Sugar got away with when she pulled the same shenanigans.

That is Cancel Culture.

And the only reason I can see for it was just because Vivzie (to my knowledge, at least) isn’t a member of the LGBT community. (Those same people would respond to her stating that she plans on having Alistor, the Radio Demon, be ace with “Hey, did you hear something?”, btw)

(EDIT: I initially stated, as shown above, that Vivzie wasn’t a LGBT community member. She is. She’s bi. Apologies for getttin that bit wrong. I’d also like to mention that she’s Latin as well, but is also shit-talked for apparently being too white to be Latin.

So......yeah. Can’t begin to imagine why all of those mentioned weren’t given the same treatment.... Was there any doubt when Lindsay said she was Native?......)

And that wasn’t the case with any of the aforementioned. Natalie wasn’t “cancelled” until she kept shitting on people for the fiftieth (hyperbolicly fiftieth) time. Sarah was never cancelled. She got away with slander, and was quickly forgiven just because she’s a leftist. Lindsay is getting away with excusing away, and flat out DEFENDING PEDOPHILIA, AND IS STILL POSTING. She ain’t cancelled.

Cancel Culture may happen sometimes, genuinely, like with Vivzie, but those are the exceptions that prove the rule. It’s mostly just “this person said I sound completely contrary to what I believe, it must be (insert cause)”

It’s Lily’s fault, it’s a dishonest double-standard, it’s the radicals, it’s Woke Brand brain-washing, it’s “bAd faITh cRitISIsm”, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...

Let me tell you something. In Sarah’s case, not all criticism is because there’s a dishonest double-standard. And even if it were, that doesn’t make doing something horrible because of your identity the right thing to do. Because NO ONE should be putting in the most racist, bigoted, and frankly gross and disgusting shit in their work, regardless of whether you’re white, black, gay, lesbian, trans, NB, Gen Z, Boomer, etc. Like the human zoo, the Amethyst-Garnet fusion, Bismuth, the Pearl-Rose dynamic, the Nazi woobification, and the blatant disregard for the very people the show claims to be an ally too.

See also, the N-Word.

Despite the belief that white people can’t say it while black people CAN, black people don’t use it in a conversation formally, and can’t really use it ANYWAY because it’s still a fucking slur. And if you say it in public, there will be consequences, whether it be social repercussions, or legal action. And people have been saying it less and less as a result of this attitude becoming more present.

In regards to Lindsay, we know, bitch. We fucking know. We know that Disney wants our money like crazy. We know that this could be just another woke branding thing. We know that brands aren’t our friends, we know, we know, we know, we know. We know, Lindsay, we know. But, don;t chat shit about it if you aren’t going to criticize Cartoon Network for Steven Universe, Amazon for selling Pride merch, and Target for Pride clothes. Because then we know that you’re being very selective about what you’re labeling as “woke branding”.

In regards to Natalie, SHUT THE FUCK UP. SHUT THE FUCK UP. That is literally all you have to do. Just SHUT. THE FUCK. UP. And accept that you aren’t as woke as you like to think you are. The left isn’t eating it’s own by disowning shitty people. It’s doing itself a favor for it.

Remember R. Kelly? Everyone said that black people were just turning on each other when actual, legitimate evidence came forward, showing that he;s a FUCKING PEDOPHILE. And that attitude would continue for almost three decades before someone FINALLY said, “No, this man is dangerous, lock him up”. You know the phrase “A few bad apples?” People only say that, and just ignore the rest when defending shitty people on the Left, mostly because they don’t want to disown them. The phrase, however is ACTUALLY “A few bad apples SPOIL THE BUNCH”. If you don’t weed out the bad ones, they’ll spoil the tree.

Most of this bullshit would have been solved easily if ANY of the aforementioned had looked at their behavior, ACTUALLY apologized, expressed due diligence, and STOPPED FUCKING DOING THE SHIT.

The only reason people get away with this is because A LOT OF PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET HAVE FUCKING TERRIBLE PRIORITIES.

People take more offense to someone shutting down an opinion rather than someone being a scumbag.

People jut decided not to care about Sarah’s lies ENTIRELY because “It’s Lily”.

People defended Lindsay entirely because “Fuck Disney”.

People defended Natalie because “The Left is eating itself, we need to support minority voices”.

Because the myth of Leftist-Cancel Culture is just an excuse to not have to change. To not commit. To not put in effort. To not expand time to bettering yourself or the environment around you. To jerk off to how woke you are while criticizing others who tell challenge that. To wax poetic because it’s good for your ego.

It’s not just them. It’s many of their fans, and hundreds of thousands, if not, millions of people on the internet. And by far, their worst deeds aren’t that they inadvertently or otherwise attract Nazis, keep sucking off incels, truscum, TERFs, pedophiles, and other facets of human garbage while disemboweling others for far, FAR lesser crimes on the basis that they aren’t woke or nice enough for their liking, or EVEN the harassment that they’ve engaged in, caused, and instigated.

It’s that they’ve convinced themselves that by doing all of the above, that they are in any way superior to the people they cry foul against. The people who call them out on their bullshit when it arises. The people who raise $340,000 for their OWN people while the most they’ve done is play dress up and recycle Eddie Murphy’s shtick for the 500th time. The people who are part of the very minority voices they claim to support yet disregard on the basis that they said some mean words, or argued in bad faith, or just have a personal grudge against the people that they criticize. The people of color who FLAT OUT know better than them, yet, who they write off at every possible opportunity as just believing that companies care, or that Disney is good, or even just write ‘em off as having the wrong priorities or being stupid, as if they are in any way super clever and superior for coming to a conclusion that many more talented, creative, intelligent, and just frankly BETTER people came to years ago.

They are MORE PERFORMATIVE, more ENTITLED, more ARROGANT, more IGNORANT, more UNAWARE, more BIASED, more SELFISH, and more SELF-INDULGENT than a good 98% of the people they criticize.

They hate these people so much...because they hate looking in mirrors.

And Leftist Cancel Culture is just a manifestation of that psychological projection. Simple as.

If you skipped to the end, fuck you. No TL: DRs in this neck of ‘da fuckin woods

#wokebrands #lindsayellis #lily orchard #contrapoints #cancel culture #entitled brats #entitled people #lgbtq #vivziepop #projection #steven universe #r. kelly #n-word #bad faith #breadtube #sarah z #briek (not that one)

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blarrghe · 4 years

Note

“don’t look at me like i’m a hero. you’ll only disappoint yourself.” For my stabby revolutionary Lavellan Lyanna? Born to a clan, but grew up in the shadow of Halamshiral. I’d love to see how she gets along with Taren and Theo. ❤️

Oh what a badass! I hope you don’t mind that there’s quite a lot of Taren/Theo in this and not a huge amount of Lyanna, I just thought this made a very excellent introduction line for her! Also I haven’t written them fighting together yet so that was neat.

“Who are we going to meet again?” Theo asked the question through a long, drawn-out yawn, stretching his arms over his head as they walked. The road was clear of travelers still, and a thin fog was being slowly lifted from the ground with the rising sun.

“Don’t you ever listen when I talk?” Taren scolded in reply, walking ahead of Theo. There was a brightness to his step, despite the fact that they had both only just woken from sleep.

“Not when it’s this early.” Theo grumbled behind him, shuffling in the way that he thought was more fitted to grogginess. Not that Taren would know anything about grogginess. Maybe all those mean spirited letters were on to something, and his brother really was some sort of insane demon who never needed rest. More likely though, it was the entire pot of coffee that Taren had opted to take for himself, after Theo had rejected the bitter liquid, that gave him his pep.

“Leliana only gave a nickname - “Fox” - but she claims some link to us.” Taren explained again, and Theo distantly remembered hearing the information before. He raised an eyebrow at “us”. Taren meant the Dalish us, not the Inquisition. The latter connection was a given for Theo, these days, but his inclusion with the former was more complicated.

“You mean the clan.” He countered quickly; not a question, more a reminder. Neither he nor Taren had been in the company of their clan since the breaking of the world began, but for Theo, the connection had been tentative long before that.

“Yes,” Taren replied, some of what Theo teasingly called his Keeper Voice breaking through in the remark, “that us.”

Theo sighed, it was too early for an argument. “So why are you bringing me?”

Taren shrugged. “I needed a scout,” he answered, “seemed like your sort of job.” Theo nodded along, already forgetting to listen to the answer to what he had just asked, as his mind attempted to wander away into sleepy daydreams again. Taren stopped and looked back at him, waiting for his attention to return; the bobbing of his head must not have been a very convincing response. “And you do have some connection to the clan, too.” Taren’s words were pointed as he linked one of his arms with his, keeping his gait quick as Theo stumbled to keep up. He was talking about himself, Theo realised with a pang of regret. Of course he hadn’t meant to exclude that.

“Did you know her?” He asked, letting Taren lead them on with his quick steps. It wasn’t that hard to keep up, his long legs could outpace Taren easily, if not for his endless supplies of energy.

“How would I know? All we have is a nickname.”

Right. He had said that. Did Taren not realise that it was still not even really dawn?

“Leliana thinks she could be a useful ally, and if the reports are right, I agree.” Taren was still talking, and Theo nodded along again, more of the information returning to his memory.

“Because she works for that elf you met in Orlais.” He had synthesized Taren’s explanation of the political machinations of Orlais into some few simple notes for his memory - elven revolutionaries were fighting against imperialistic nobility; everything was pretty much terrible, and it was mostly the shemlens’ fault. Taren had a somewhat more balanced view of things, one that took into account the relations of other countries, various historical battles, and all sorts of secret knowledge gained through complicated espionage. He appreciated that it was complicated, and if it wasn’t so early he might even have been willing to dedicate real intellectual thought to the discussion, but for his current purposes the categories “elven rebels” and “human jerks” made sense of things well enough. They were off to meet an elven rebel. He supposed that was indeed “his sort of job”.

“Didn’t sound like she works for anyone, from the report. But yes, she has a reputation.” Taren said.

“And you think you can get her to work for you.” Not a question, he knew exactly how Taren thought; and he knew Taren would be there anyway, even if he didn’t want the revolutionary’s help.

Taren shrugged. “She’s still a Lavellan.” Good old predictable Taren, putting on his Keeper Voice again.

The conversation was interrupted by the sounds of a violent commotion ahead. Horses neighing, shouted voices, and the clashing of steel echoed down the road, and a flock of birds lifted itself noisily from the trees. Theo and Taren sprang apart, each quickly reaching for their weapons. Taren cast a barrier over both of them while Theo nocked an arrow, and cautiously, keeping to the edge of the forest which lined the road, they approached.

The commotion was caused by an ambush of highwaymen, who had apparently jumped out to rob a caravan which traveled down the road. The victims of the attack appeared to be but simple travelers - refugees, probably. Theo saw pointed ears poking out of hoods, small bodies huddled behind larger ones. Two of the older looking travelers had shoddy weapons in hand, struggling against the bandits.

His throat tightened, anger flooding him as loosed his arrows at the attackers, catching one in the face before the brute could bring down an axe on a struggling civilian fighter. He wasted no time in joining the fight, aiming careful arrows at the gaggle of unlucky bandits. Taren had sprung to action as well. More protective barriers sprang up around the refugees without weapons, and roots and rock rose and shuddered from the ground under bandits’ feet.

Then as they fought, another entered the fray. She seemed to drop from the sky, two long blades flashing brightly in her hands. She moved quickly, zigzagging her way from one bandit to another, leaving them clutching bleeding wounds or lying motionless in her wake. One of the men ran, and Theo found himself in close combat with the large brute, wrestling against his arms to try to keep a blade out of his face. A couple stabs to Taren’s barrier over him had weakened it, another would likely break through. Their faces were close. The man was big and burly, with dirt-caked skin and wild hair. A sinister grin spread over the bandits face. Theo was taller, but not as broadly built, and his arms wouldn’t be able to hold back the blows for long. He shoved a knee into the man, staggering him long enough that he could attempt to draw his own short blade from his belt, but the bandit rebounded before he could land another blow, and he narrowly dodged a swing of his dagger.

Before he could dodge another blow, the fast fighting woman spun quickly in and out of view, shoving the bandit away, spinning around behind him as he struggled to keep his footing, and stabbing him in the back - a quick succession of stabs under the ribs - the bandit dropped clutching his wounds, tense, and then limp.

Theo took a couple steps back, catching his breath, and looked up at the woman who had come to his rescue. Bright red hair and eyes still narrowed for a fight. The rest of the attackers had fallen now, and Theo let out a breath. “Thanks.” He said to the woman, whose expression was changing now from a grimace to a proud smirk. “That was amazing.” He could have gotten out of it, of course, but credit where it was due: this woman could fight.

“Don’t look at me like I’m a hero, you’ll only disappoint yourself.” Replied his saviour casually, turning away from him to stoop over the now-dead bandit’s body, she rummaged in the man’s pockets, adding what coin was there to her own. As she went about pickpocketing the dead, a small fennec scampered over to her, following her and making circles around her legs.

“But you are one, aren’t you?” Taren stepped toward her, his eye scanning the scene. Theo looked again at the fennec. Oh. Fox. Taren went on talking, listing a few accomplishments that Theo again vaguely remembered from an earlier briefing. The woman stopped gathering spoils and stood to meet him.

“And who the fuck are you?”

Theo tried not to laugh at Taren’s expression. To anyone else, he seemed always to do a remarkably good job of staying calm, but Theo saw him twitch. He was really starting to like this Fox woman.

“Taren Lavellan,” he answered her with stress on the clan name and without giving his title. Not that he needed to, everyone in the world knew his name by now. But maybe he was spending too much time in Orlais, because it seemed to Theo that the words Taren chose when he met people always meant something.

“Oh.” She sounded surprised, eyes widening a little as she spoke, but Theo couldn’t tell if it was a happy sound. “No offence, but I expected you’d be taller.”

That time, he did laugh. He tried to stifle it with his sleeve, but it didn’t matter, Taren was laughing too. The woman’s smirk returned to her face, and her eye landed on Theo. He cleared his throat, banishing the rest of his laughter.

“Theo Lavellan,” he offered in introduction, “I uh, work for the Inquisition.”

“Lyanna.” Replied the woman with a curt nod. She returned her smirking gaze to Taren. “Can I help you, Inquisitor?”

“Actually,” Taren began with a smirk that mirrored hers, but it was amused, more than cocky, “I think we can help each other.”

Introductions over with, Taren broke the conversation to help the refugees return to their feet, and Theo heard him making generous offers of aid as he sent them on their way again. Lyanna was watching him work, the smirk not leaving her face even as her eyes narrowed again in careful consideration. Theo, meanwhile, watched her fox, and idly wondered where he could get one of his own.

#lyanna lavellan #lavellan bros #theo lavellan #just let all the elves be friends ok #my writing #dragon age fanfic #dragon age #dai #writing prompts #I hope u enjoy!!#midnightprelude

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roseamongroses · 4 years

Text

W.A.L: “Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing,” (12)

Summary: Eden was the lowest of the low, a monster, hardly human, and was set to be executed. Roman was on trial, perpetually stuck in time until it was time to atone for his families sins.

Neither cared much for staying trapped.

So when a Stranger offered freedom, offered peace, offered power, it was hard to say no.

Even if it put them on the wrong side of history.

Vibes/ Tags:time is irrelevent, homophobia who?, magic and beasts, demigods

Warnings: Imprisonment, Mentions of execution, Blood/ injuries, Mentions of past Death, minor character death/suicide, repression, cursing,

Characters: Deceit(Eden) Sanders, Remy Sanders, Logan Sanders, Virgil Sanders, Patton Sanders, Roman Sanders, Emile Picani

Ship: Roceit

1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

(6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11)

(13)

Emile wasn’t overly fond of the Chambers.

Some might even describe him as immensely uncomfortable by it’s endless, blinding whiteness. One might even make the presumption that he even disapproved of its almost deafening solitude and how it could silence even the loudest and unruliest prisoners with the flash of a key. But those are assumptions, ones that relied on the opinion that Emile sought the best for his prisoners, which he did under certain circumstances.

He strolled across that emptiness, the only indicator that he was moving being the distinct clacking of his leather oxford shoes and the jingle of his thirteen keys in hand. He passed the occasional Council member, but they didn’t talk or linger. Not even the passing nod. It wasn’t like Emile wasn’t on friendly terms with other Council members it was simply the Chambers. It was not a place for passing nods or chit-chat, it was oppressive with the crimes of the prisoners and the ones who turn the keys.

Emile took his keys, feeling their weight even as he flipped through them effortlessly. Their weathered metal warm as he raised one key to the blank expanse and turned a lock clicking. A door opening.

Inside was more blankness, but of a different kind. A bright face now materialized in front of him, the Guard’s shadow’s sinking into reality.

“Dr. Picani!” The Guard greeted him, his words muffled.

Emile regarded the Guard, uneasy, noting the stubble patching across their blank face and the slightly asymmetrical tilt of their head. Almost like they had a personality.

��They must be new here.

“Oh, hello, “ Emile answered politely, gesturing to the white door beside the Guard, “He hasn’t been giving you any more trouble, has he? He’s rash from what I’ve heard from the nurses.”

The guard shook his head, face still an unreadable mask, but movements lively, “No, no--well I mean,” He scratched his head, “Deceit’s a tricky one, kinda rude too--Do I sound like a middle-aged Divorcee who ignores their kids' concerns in favor of idealizing the adoration I received from them when they were younger? Do you think that’s what my past life was?”

Emile ignored the question, “Deceit?” he frowned, “I’m afraid I don’t know them?”

The guard caught on, “Oh that’s what we call him!” he explained, scratching his jaw, “He doesn’t respond to any names and he changes faces often, both girl’s n’ guys--Though he doesn’t like changing his pronouns all that much--- ”

“Interesting,” Emile sighed, “Anyways... I’m here to do the interview, so if you may…” he nodded stiffly towards the door.

The Guard’s eyes widened as he nodded quickly in agreement, knocking on the door.

The White Door swung open, the Guard was now gone. Emile stepped inside, the door disappearing soon after leaving him in silence.

Deceit sat in the corner of the room, perfectly silent as well, and almost blending seamlessly into the room if not for the soft glow of his slitted, yellow eyes.

Emile did not let this unnerve him. He did not falter, striding the room in front of where he presumed them to be and waving a hand, a chair appearing.

Emile sat down, throwing on his brightest smile, “Do you how do, I’m Dr. Emile Picani and I’ll be conducting your interview for today,” His fingers twitched and a second chair appeared right across from him, “It’s nice to finally meet you son.”

Deceit watched from the floor.

“Now, I know we’re strangers, but I doubt that's comfortable,” Emile raised a playful eyebrow and Deceit stared impassive, “Now, son… I understand, this,” He gestured to the Nothing, “ Is a lot to take in, but I’m here to discuss your options not to interrogate you.”

“Then why won’t y’all tell me where Roman is?” Deceit said, squinting unimpressed.

“Roman’s situation is different from yours,” Emile explained softly, “His family’s activity is concerning and requires an investigation. An investigation that needs the Heir’s full cooperation, but as you might have seen… Roman has remained uncooperative.”

“Yeah,” Deceit snorted, “No shit, “ his eyes floated from the corner of the room, not yet sitting down, but at least he was standing. He was...pacing?

Emile clicked his pen, “Would it make you comfortable if I answered any other Roman related questions first? While I can’t promise I can answer all of them I--”

All at once, Deceit appeared in the chair, “Where. Is. He.” He growled, all teeth.

Though Emile was certain they weren’t his, the form he’d taken flawless at first glance--almost identical to the head nurse Mrs. Tae. Yet anyone who’s seen her on the daily would recognize the foreignness of the dimples in her cherub cheeks and how Deceit’s anger seemed to bleed and sharpen her soft shoulders and intensify her doe, brown eyes.

“He’s safe,” Emile said immediately, Deceit’s relief hesitant, but visible, “Normally he’s kept at the estate, but his latest… escape has put a strain on his already pre-existing health conditions. He needs supervision and he needs to recover.”

Deceit slumped in the chair, “He’s… sick?” Deceit’s face soured, but mostly he looked...confused, “Was he always…?” he swallowed thick.

“He’s been sick for a very long time,” Emile said, “Though it isn’t my place to tell you any more than that,” Emile pulled out a small notebook and began writing.

“So what can you tell me?” Deceit said, disgusted with how small his voice sounded, with how he felt everything draining away from him all at once.

“That he’s being cared for,” Emile offered, “And that we’ll take care of you too, as long as you cooperate,”

“And why would you do that?” Deceit scowled.

He didn’t trust it one bit.

“You could say I feel personally responsible,” Emile admitted, “I’ve known the Stranger and his...habits for a long time. Longer than most. I should’ve stepped in earlier…” Emile sighed, “He has put you through a lot hasn’t he?” he said, “And… you’re young, Deceit. You still have a chance, while he threw him away a long time ago. He’s paying for that now. You’re safe and I want to make a deal with you.”

“Cause that worked out so well the first time around.” Deceit drawled, rolling his eyes.

“And that,” Emile gestured with his pen, “Is precisely why we must try again.”

---

Dr. Picani’s training hall was simple compared to most other Council Members. Most preferred to… borrow the aesthetics of a significant, war centric historical period, but Dr. Picani’s was relatively modern if that word had any real standing.

Meaning that there was electricity, but it didn’t work the way that you thought it should. There were weights and showers, but none of the fancy computers you could normally find in “Younger” council members. Dr. Picani did have a preference for pastels and an obscene amount of windows, but at least it wasn’t a fucking collesium.

Virgil ignored his throbbing headache, strapping on his leg braces. He ignored Logan and Patton as they came in---Logan because fuck him and his stupid note. Patton because Virgil was still terrible and couldn’t muster the courage to apologize like before. They all went through their warm-up routines.

Separately.

Silently.

It was suffocating. Virgil’s skin crawled thinking about how dinner was going to be, but he didn't linger on that thought for long as the doors opened with a flourish, the distinct tap of Dr. Picani’s shoes following as he strode into the room looking all too bright for this early in the morning.

“Good Morning lovelies!” He cheered, “Did you all get a good night’s rest?” Various groans responded, “Fantastic. Well, today we’re doing something special,” Patton excused himself to get water, “Think of it... like a bit of challenge…” Virgi’s face fell flat, scowling, “Some friendly competition.” Logan cursed.

“Oh don’t be like that, “ Dr. Picani scolded, smoothing his collar, “My surprise guests aren’t that bad...And,” He looked between Logan and Virgil critically, “You are in the need for a bit of bonding. It’ll be great!”

Virgil’s eyes turned predatory, spotting his face rapidly as small beady orbs, “The sonofabitch Kai set me on fire, Picani. Fire!” he hissed from his corner.

“No name-calling, Virgil,” Emile frowned, “And Kai...he apologized.”

“I don’t even know why they keep him around, it’s obvious he hates this place--”

“Virgil, that’s none of your business, be nice,” Emile said, ignoring Virgil’s hushed mocking, he turned his attention to Logan, “Any opinions you want to express before our guest is ready?’

Logan sucked in sharp, “Kai also set me on fire,” he said, finishing up his stretches, “It was unpleasant. I’d prefer to avoid a repeat,”

Emile deflated, “Yes of course…” he muttered, “Deceit, come in.”

“You called?” A voice said.

It took a few seconds for them to register the fact that space next to Emile was no longer empty. A short, black-haired…. Girl…? Glinted into existence all at once, her frayed black dress seemed to swallow her.

Virgil was the first to recover, “Who the fuck is she?” he bit out, peeling himself from the wall

Deceit flipped him off.

“Not she,” Emile corrected, pushing Deceit’s hand down, “This is Deceit. He will be staying with us for a few...days.”

Logan and Virgil exchanged exasperated looks before Virgil caught himself. Virgil crossed his arms, “Is this the same Deceit you picked up from the Stranger?” he raised an eyebrow, “Y’know, the same one we--” He scoffed, “they found canoodling with Roman Sanders, y’ know the criminal.”

“Canoodling?” Deceit echoed, confused.

They ignored him, “He’s technically not a criminal,” Logan corrected, “He’s never gone to trial, so it’s an odd classifica--”

“What? Now you're defending him because his little boyfriend’s here,” Virgil sucked his teeth, not amused, “Grow a pair.”

“Virgil,” Emile warned.

“That’s...highly uncalled for,” Logan looked defeated.

“So was leaving me behind,” Virgil snapped, “You didn’t even bother telling me to my face--you just left,”

“I left you a note,”

“I left you a note,” Virgil mocked, unimpressed, “I’m getting water,” he said stiffly, leaving before Emile could protest.

Logan looked over to Emile to ask him if he should go get them, but Emile was already gone with a flash of light. Leaving Deceit and Logan alone.

I guess that’s their cue to spar.

---

“Do you know the rules?” Logan said, settling into a stance on the mat.

Deceit stretched his arms, an audible crack echoing, “Rules?”

Logan pursed his lips, “Yes, rules,” he said, “What? Did the Stranger not train you?”

“He trained me, “Deceit said, words clipped “Not with humans though.”

“I’m not human,” Logan snapped.

Interesting.

Deceit took the time to look at him.

Exceedingly practical in every meaning of the word with the same generic gym clothes Emile attempted to give Deceit. His eyes were silver in the same way Roman’s were, but his hair wasn’t as bright. The dull, red locs the faintest of grey at the ends--odd considering he was younger than Roman. Even more odd was the fact that Deceit could see scars.

He may not be human, but he was certainly more human than Roman.

“Sure. “ Deceit said, falling into a stance easily mimicking Logan’s own, and Logan tensed, “Easy now, darling I don’t bite. “ he rolled his shoulders carelessly, “What are these rules?”

Logan relaxed a bit, “Yes, well, first of all, there is no biting,” he recited, the familiarity of the words comforting, “You can use any limb at your disposal, but try to refrain from drawing blood or being unnecessarily cruel. Whoever pins the other for 30 seconds is the winner.”

“Oh, vague. Perfect. Magic?” Deceit asked, glancing to the side a bit surprised.

Logan followed his gaze, “It’s allowed, though it isn't the purpose of these--”

Deceit had already disappeared.

Wonderful.

Logan focused, ignoring everything and listening to everything. Watching. Waiting. Going over what he did know about Deceit.

Logan knew Deceit’s shifts were imperfect. If only Logan had a stronger connection to the Goddess then he’d know exactly what that imperfection was with a glance. Not even a glance, he would just know. The ability to Know was something he wasn’t naturally gifted in, but he trained. He mimicked with books, with knowledge, and anal attention to detail, but you couldn’t fake a bond that strong, he couldn’t be Ro--No, focus.

He watched the long, creeping shadows in the training room.

Then he struck.

Logan caught the raised fist of Deceit. The air sparked, Deceit’s scales glinting angrily as Logan twisted their arm behind them. Deceit struggled. He was relentless and Logan grunted, digging his heels in, trying to shift his weight enough to pin him.

Deceit twisted unnaturally, their head reeling back and slamming into Logan’s. Pain shot hot across his forehead and Logan gasped, sprawling back as Deceit stumbled out of his grip. Logan staggered to his feet, eyes dotting with black and glasses askew.

Deceit caught himself fast, but his shift still suffered, the dainty shoulders now broader and all-around less human. His pinched face now a fuzzy mess of splotches of scales and skin.

Someone that size shouldn’t be able to knock Logan off his feet without finessing, but Deceit did not finesse. He smashed into Logan without hesitating like he could afford to take the hit. Deceit was stronger than Logan thought, even without magic.

That was fucking concerning.

Logan assessed, then reassessed as Deceit’s form settled. Still short, even though he easily could gain an advantage with both height and his natural strength. Logan made a quick and likely bullshit assumption that Deceit probably didn’t have much experience being tall and that he didn’t want to throw off his center of balance too much. Which meant that Deceit had to get used to these bodies. Which means Logan had a chance.

Logan didn’t let Deceit have any more time to think. He got in close and swung, Deceit nearly catching his fist with his teeth. Deceit dodged, just barely, hooking his fingers into Logan’s shoulder and pulling the other to the ground. The two hit the mat, the fight dissolving into something rather juvenile if Logan were, to be honest.

In the End, Logan was on top.

Sure he was slick with sweat, aching all over, and was certain that if his lungs didn’t collapse surely his heart would do its due diligence, but he fucking won. Deceit, having returned to the first form, was pinned. Logan normally wouldn’t use this specific pin on someone this small seeing as in most circumstances it would surely be overkill, but for Deceit it was infuriatingly necessary.

Logan gripped them tighter as if to emphasize this, leaning down, “Do you--” he needed to catch his breath, “ yield,” he asked.

Deceit snarled, “Fuck you,” Though his face was equally red, chest heaving.

“You’ve been pinned. It’s been 31 seconds. I win.” Logan decided, peeling himself from Deceit, feeling all sorts of bones crack, “Now scurry along, wash up and go back to the Chambers.” he mumbled. He had a hot shower waiting for him

Deceit didn’t seem to move he seemed rather amused, somehow managing a sharp grin as he sat up rubbing his red, raw wrists.

Logan felt an unmistakable sense of dread, “What?” he asked, “Do you enjoy losing?”

“Oh, it’s--” Deceit snickered, eyes wide and innocent, “It’s funny. You think that’s a good thing.” he cocked his head, voice snide, “He didn’t tell you, did he? That seems to be a trend with these mentors, but Me,” he pointed to himself dramatically, "And Dr. Picani made a deal.”

Logan closed his eyes and inhaled, “And what was that deal?”

---

“So, what you’re saying is…” Deceit clasped his hands, “That if I beat your little prodigy the council won’t fuck with me,” he laughed, “As if I’m going to believe that.”

“So you won’t do it?” Emile asked.

“W…” Deceit paused, taking a look at the bare walls that weren’t even walls. And there was no point in staying here if Picani was telling the truth and Roman wasn’t being kept here.

Emile’s a bastard at he knows it,

“Fine, fuck it,” Deceit relented, “But it’s only going to embarrass you.”

Emile twirled that little pen of his, “And it’s only going to show you that you still have a lot you can learn. If you don’t win, you’ll become my apprentice, a proper apprentice. And you’ll be Logan’s partner in this year's Offerings.”

---

This had to be a joke. Logan always missed the punchline of those, this was a joke that this-this, criminal was pulling and Dr. Picani would clear it up.

He just had to talk to Dr. Picani.

#ts sides #sanders sides #roceit #ts roman #ts deceit #deceit sanders #roman sanders #sanders sides fanfiction #fanfiction #Winners Among the Losing

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smellycinnamonthundahfudge · 5 years

Text

5 gifts peter got for mj and 1 she gave him

im still alive bishes haha. am i really just choosing to participate in a different prompt that i barely have anything planned out for instead of finishing the one i was late in following up on? yes i am. prep urselves for some gift giving spideychelle to develop their relationship pre-ffh hehe

after hoco and peter starts to gain a work spidey life balance, he finally starts to notice that mj apparently... cares... about... him???

it wasn't obvious at first, hidden under a layer of deadpan sarcasm and witty comebacks, but the interest seemed to be there

which was why every time peter would miss a meeting, he'd actually feel bad this time because he really did want to be there this time

he'd feel terrible every time mj would ask him where he was, why he didn't show up. she was hoping he'd show and he let her down.

the first couple of times it happens, mj's understanding enough.

but it happens a couple of times too often and back to back and something snaps

you see, peter and mj have developed a bit of a rapport over the couple of months after hoco.

peter finds out mj likes coffee and tea, she read a stephen king book one time, he noticed, and they talked basically all week about king (and some of the issues surrounding him, his work, and their adaptations ofc)

soon enough their talks extend beyond school and they start meeting up in the library, at their places, at coffee shops, pizza places, an arcade one time where mj managed to beat peter at air hockey. her lil energetic whoop and almost doing a victory dance (before realizing she was in public) was worth losing for.

but admittedly, peter was just a tinge bit stressed and overextended and he unfortunately let his time with mj fall by the wayside.

he'd accidentally left her at seen for days after he completely forgot she sent him a message. she called, he answered, a robber was currently running away from some cops, he hung up on her...

suffice it to say, peter became a bit of a bad friend and he completely understood why mj reverted back to their previous relationship, he did it first

which was why peter decided enough was enough

mj has been a great friend to him, a true one, and an underappreciated one at that

which was why he decided he'd spend as much time, effort, and thoughtful gestures necessary trying to make it up to her

problem was, they were currently on clipped one word reply speaking terms right now. mj barely looked at him, she went back to sitting all the way to the other side of the farthest table during lunch again...

he needed a way in

so he went back to basics, the next day, he knew mj had a 7 am class so peter went to school at 7 am too, just to give mj some much needed caffeine

trouble was, was that mj was running late and when he gave the coffee, she left just as quick as she came

she said a quick "thanks, parker" and swoosh she sprinted to class

and peter was left there with 3 hours to spare til his next class. oh well, at least the effort made her do that quick lil toothy smirk

his efforts would work eventually won't it?

but if an omniscient narrator were watching him for the following days, they probably would have said no, no they wouldn't

one of those days, peter brought a thermos of tea only to find that mj had brought her own

"great, i thought the point of these gifts were to make things less awkward between us" peter thought to himself as he winds up walking away in slight shame from the awkward interaction

he winds up sharing the thermos with ned instead, who promptly responded "wow i get your secondhand gifts, you sure know how to make a guy feel special, peter"

"shut up, ned, do you want some or not?"

"no, come on, give it to me. free drinks are free drinks even if it's essentially just warm leaf juice. besides, i heard this helps with a sore throat."

"well, at least someone's happy with my gift"

they clink their cups together and peter begins brainstorming his next probably bound to fail gift idea

as he was walking home from school that day, and saw mj heading to the library, said idea lights up in his head in the form of bookmarks

those were cute right? and mj would probably use em all the time cus she reads so much and she reads multiple books at a time, so she'd probably use multiple bookmarks as well, right?

bookmarks it was, peter decided

he thought he'd print a bunch of personalized ones. ones that were photos of them, had quotes from significant historical female figures, and of course science puns

he knew mj didn't appreciate them as much as he did, but a part of him thought she'd like them nevertheless and would think of him when she'd use them

peter knew this gift giving crusade would be... heavy on his wallet, but as he stared at the price for laminating a couple of personalized bookmarks. he concluded lamination was a scam and believed mj would be careful enough with her books, and consequently, her bookmarks, to not need some flimsy piece of plastic to protect it

so peter opted for some folders and cardboard to make said bookmarks instead

it's only later after he got tossed into a sewer by a dude in a mechanized rhinoceros suit that he learned a valuable lesson: always laminate bookmarks

ok he was kidding (lamination was still a scam and bad for the environment and you couldnt write on the things after you laminate em)

but really tho, he did learn something. he realized he hasn't had the best of luck keeping his gifts intact in time to give said gifts to mj

so he decided to employ reinforcements

once peter's saved enough money to buy his next gift (a sketch notebook that he saw at a cutesy old crafts store), he decides that he should take ned with him when he buys it and that ned should just give it to mj instead

(better safe than sorry)

but peter still wanted mj to know the gift was from him tho, so he decided to write a letter and insert it within the notebook.

so he writes, or more like incoherently rambles and apologizes really

but peter thinks he got to the crux of the importance their relationship had to him and really, he just wanted to make things up to mj

that's what mattered

here's the thing tho, halfway thru writing said letter, he realized that having ned give it to her was kind of a cop out.

not to mention, not giving it personally but writing this long ass sort of confessional letter?

pfftt peter liked to think he was better than that

talk about sending mixed messages

so peter decided that he would still have ned keep the notebook and the letter, right up until the point that he was going to give the gifts to her.

and finally, peter parker, in this whole gift giving crusade, is finally given a fucking break.

at lunch time, the three of them are now all sitting at the same table

(peter and mj's relationship have mostly improved in the time it took him trying to give all those gifts, but he still felt guilty and he still wanted to show his appreciation for her)

ned "slyly" (mj saw it, how sly could he have been?) passes peter the notebook under the table

and peter braces himself

"i can do this" he repeatedly quietly mutters to himself until he finally approaches

"hey, mj"

"greetings, parker" casually replies mj without so much as looking up from her book

"i uh... got you something"

"is it something ned gave you?"

"what?"

"cause if it is, he can give it to me himself, you know" says mj in a semi shout to ned as well (ned looks at peter with a facial expression that said dude wtff?? how did i get in the middle of this???)

"what? no no no this isn't from ned. i bought you this."

"so why did ned have it?" says mj in her cool suave investigator mj interrogatory tone

"well..."

peter had officially maybe five? six? seconds to decide whether to share his embarrassing tales of failed gift giving woes to mj or to make up something on the spot

screw it, embarrassing failed gifts it was instead. truth shall set you free and all that, right? plus maybe it'd help him practice for when he tells her his biggest secret

peter sighs in defeat and tells mj in an almost quiet mumble "all my other gifts were destroyed when i kept them so i decided to have ned keep them instead"

"i'm sorry what?"

"it's just that the last time i tried to get you a gift, it just wound up getting ruined so i thought i'd just have ned hold onto it until it was time to give it to you."

peter can barely look mj in the eyes, the cafeteria just seems so interesting all of a sudden.

"oh"

that made peter look back at mj cus she seemed... shocked?

mj is.... shocked????

"soo... you bought that... for me?"

and god forsake peter parker because mj just gave him the cutest shyest little happy smile that he never knew she was capable of having.

"yeah yeah i did" and peter finally gets to give mj his gift/s (im counting the letter as the 5th gift cus im lazy af hahaha) and all the other trials and errors and failed gift attempts completely made the end result worth it

until ofc mj opens the damn thing and finds said letter that peter had completely forgotten at the moment was there

"what's this??" mj asks in an overly sarcastic teasing tone that kinda makes peter want to die

as mj opens the letter right there during lunch in the school cafeteria, peter suddenly lunges to block said letter's contents from mj's sight

"petet what the hell are you doing?" asks mj with the sweetest laughter that peter would totally googoo eyes about at any other moment had he not been focused on trying (and obviously failing) to keep his dignity intact

"uhhh can i ask that you just read that some other time, mj? and uh not right here, right now, in the cafeteria? it's just really embarrassing" peter shyly requests of mj, scratching his neck and looking at everything in the cafeteria but her

to that, mj simply has a sympathetic look on her face in reply

"sure, peter" says mj with a reassuring smile

and with that, peter breathes a big sigh of relief and finally lets go of his feelings letter for mj

mj closes the notebook up, keeping the letter safe inside it in the process, and secures the notebook safe inside her bag inmediately

suffice it to say, for mj, that notebook is precious cargo and she shall treasure it as much as she is capable of treasuring something

because peter parker felt guilty over not getting to spend time with her as much as they did and kind of pushing her to the sidelines and so it was just a genuine thoughtful gesture that showed peter valued their friendship/relationship as much as she valued it

PRECIOUS. CARGO.

but speaking of said cargo...

"hey peter"

"yeah?"

peter had gone back to his seat right next to ned

"sooo what was the other gift you tried to give me?" asks mj, getting back to their playful teasing banter ways

mj's question sends peter facepalming himself with the table

"don't think i've forgotten about that, i'm probably not going to stop investigating til i find out so might as well just spill the truth, parker"

peter stops his repetitive headbanging onto the table and sighs

"fine, mj"

and peter goes on to explain his bookmarks idea beginning all the way from the thermos incident

the three of them spend the rest of their lunch looking at the photos peter was going to use for the bookmarks, fondly recalling memories upon looking back at the some of the photos and laughing at all the corny science puns peter had planned on using as well

things were finally back to normal, if not better than ever.

time for some cliche corny af happy end quote ending about how their friendship and the memories they shared together was the real gifts they had buuuttt i did mention mj would be giving peter a gift didnt i? soooo mj pov epiloooggguuueeeee

here's the thing, mj had an inkling peter parker was trying to attempt something

he was at school at the same time as her crack of dawn class and gave her some much needed caffeine

he tried to share his thermos of tea with her

it seemed like peter was trying to make amends and it really was sweet and thoughtful so ofc lil by lil she began to soften back

but as mj was printing the bookmarks peter had planned to give her

mj requisitioned the idea for herself since they actually were good ideas if she's being honest

tho she would never tell peter that, ESPECIALLY the science puns one

she'd reserve those for only when she's at home, the least likely place peter could ever see her use that

ok so back to- as mj was printing said bookmarks, she began to appreciate peter's thoughtfulness

and it is totally not because of any feelings said gifts and gift attempts gave her

but right now, as she had finished printing bookmarks and got nostalgic and reread the letter of peter confessing to her how much their relationship meant to him again, she suddenly had the unscratchable itch of needing to sketch peter

and a balancing of the scales gift idea was born

because you see, rn, peter had the upper hand in terms of the morality of their friendship and mj couldnt have that nooo

mj was sketching a screen cap of a video she took of the class while they were waiting for a professor and peter gave her that impossibly adorkable smile

because she HAD TO

she couldnt let peter hog all the gift giving glory

she didnt do it because of feelings or whatever ppfftt

this was just to balance the scales, mkayyyy???

or at least that's what mj told herself once she's finished her sketch and proceeded to look for all her old ones of peter

just to even things out

and that's exactly what mj told him as she shoved said sketches that were currently inside a plastic envelope onto peter's hands

(1. less likely for them to be ruined that way. 2. she was not going to have those sketches out in the open for everyone to plainly see wtf)

"this is just to make things even between us, no need to make a big deal about it"

peter was in awe for a while, his jaw slightly dropped, but he smiles in adoration of the girl of his dreams and gives a genuine "thank you, mj"

"you're welcome, peter."

mj even smiles a little before the bell rings and she hightails out of there

mj lightly sprints away, still slightly in shock and unsure of what she just did and what just happened

while peter is left looking at mj's direction fondly and looking back at her gift for him

and as he peeked inside the envelope to see its contents and saw all those sketches of him

peter felt like he truly didn't deserve someone like mj

and he felt like all the gifts in the world he could think of and muster up wouldn't be able to make up for that fact

holy fucking shit i cant believe i actually finished one of these things again. it's like pulling fucking fingernails and teeth at the same time, i tell you

but honestly i'm just really really happy i finished it and it's so pure and fluffy imo and nothing im just. i love these two sm.

this fic was supposed to be for 5+1 things day but since they're also a bunch of headcanons i like to think i'm just posting these in advance for headcanons day tomorrow hahahaha

IM BACK ON THE SPIDEYCHELLE MONTH TRAIN BABY TOOT TOOT TOOOTTTT

and i have a couple of fics left in me so whew keep a lookout for those if they decide to come hahaha

all hail spideychelle everybody. i'll be back i dunno haha

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ctl-yuejie · 5 years

Text

the grandmaster of demonic interior design or mound squatting & a smitten renovator

⇨ for @howdydowdy who wisely suggested a home renovation tv series au based on my crack gifset

Ia . IIa . IIIa . Ib . IIb . IIIb. Ic . IIc . IIIc . Id . IId . IIId . Ie . IIe ⭐︎ . IIIe ⭐︎⭐︎ . extra

Id.

He hadn’t expected to see Lan Wangji again. Meeting him on top of Burial Mound was even more of a peculiar twist of fate. During their school days he’d never been sure whether Lan Wangji liked him or was just too well-mannered to tell him to get lost. Well, he had been told to get lost at one point, but that had been after a rather crude practical joke so maybe it doesn’t quite count.

However, being a nuisance on purpose had let to the great discovery that beneath his cold demeanour Lan Wangji’s way of thinking was quite alike to his and he had gotten to enjoy detention, Lan Wangji proving to be a worthy opponent in an argument when riled up enough. There had been a lot of detention. He’d just correctly assumed that their relationship wasn’t to be long lived after they graduated and went different ways. The family heads sometimes met at conferences but Wei Wuxian was never interested in attending those. Lan Wangji must have sat there every single year, looking attentive while possibly being bored out of his mind. How couldn’t he have been without him there.

He hadn’t realized that he had actually missed the level stare he often was the recipient of.

People who follow the old customs talk about Lan Wangji with the greatest respect. Nevertheless, most accounts of meeting him don’t miss a pitying comment on his icy stare and aloofness. These people are just not able to see what he does. The warmth that radiates off his good deeds, just a vague taste of how compassionate Lan Wangji truly is, and the way his face pulls into a tiny smile when he’s truly happy.

Wei Wuxian tries to remember Lan Wangji’s smile.

It’s way past midnight, and while he long has gotten used to the eerie silence on Burial Mound he’s still rolling around in his sleeping bag, not able to stop the thoughts running in his head. The stone plateau he’s sleeping on doesn’t help in the frontline of comfort either. How soft Lan Wangji’s hotel bed must be.

He could bet that Lan Wangji doesn’t even appreciate it properly. No jump test, no pillow fights. Lan Wangji would just lie down, perfectly still on his back, hands folded over his chest and fall asleep immediately. As if hotel beds could be exchanged with just any bed. Whenever he and his siblings had shared a room at hotels or traditional inns, they had pushed their beds or futons together to create one giant cushy paradise to roll around in. He’d always wake to Jiang Cheng laughing at his weird sleeping position, mocking his hair that always looked terrible in the morning before smacking a pillow back at him in retaliation.

Lan Wangji would look pristine in the morning, no puffy cheeks and no grit in the eyes. Very boring. Maybe if they’d share a room some time he’d be able to see it. Have Lan Wangji’s immaculate face turn to him to take in his disheveled state. Would he have to smile? Would he scold him? At five in the morning he’d probably have to deal with a very grumpy version of himself. He might lie down in Lan Wangji’s bed and pull him down with him just to get him to sleep some more.

Now he regrets not pestering Lan Wangji about sharing a room during his stay at the Cloud Recesses. If Lan Qiren would have ever found out he’d crawled into his nephew’s bed he would have burst with anger. But down at the hotel they could’ve just slept in, take their breakfast in bed and Lan Wangji would’ve definitely fixed the strands of Wei Wuxian’s hair that were in danger of falling into his coffee. Would his fingers feel soft against his cheek? Or calloused from his Guqin practice? Wei Wuxian falls asleep to the thoughts of Lan Wangjis fingers carding through his hair.

The shooting starts early in the morning with Wei Wuxian guiding an unusually meek Nie Huaisang through the outer area of the compound. His excited voice easily carries over the soft footsteps of the elderly who tend to the fields.

The air is still cold and crisp, morning dew lazily gliding to the centre of lotus leaves, waiting to get scooped up by the tiny hands of Ah-Yuan.

It’s the first time that Nie Huaisang is commenting on something other than the lack of Wei Wuxian’s sense for interior design. He looks genuinely amazed, voicing his confusion at how Wei Wuxian had managed to build a lotus pond in this hostile environment. He is rather proud of the pond and even though the seeds are inedible it is a piece of home in this wasteland.

Around noon Wei Wuxian finds himself rambling on about the importance of the cause, his inventions, what farming has taught him, the community in shared values, and really just how brilliant his inventions are. Sometimes the producers have to intervene because he gets too caught up in his stories, and name dropping the Wen family as one of the instigators of the astronomical rents doesn’t help either.

Throughout shooting, Lan Wangji doesn’t say much. He’s mostly tagging along, having quickly gotten used to putting in minimal effort to fulfil his sole role as eye candy. After all, most people aren’t that well-versed in cultivation anymore and it might be for the better not to dig too deep into the demonic kind.

Even so, despite not saying much and the cameras definitely not being able to catch it, his silence is contemplative. It looks like Lan Wangji is actually listening to him. Listening very attentively. Just really listening. And that hasn’t happened before.

Wen Ning just enjoys the company in general and spending time with Ah-Yuan. Wen Qing is brilliant but also can’t be arsed to put any ounce of her energy into humouring him. Shiejie is supportive as always, but he knows that she doesn’t fully get it. Jiang Cheng, well, he listens and somehow understands totally different things. The other squatters are mostly just fondly exasperated. He doesn’t blame them. For them the cause is much more important. This project means their survival in the city.

But it is nice to show someone how he views the world, to share his interests and light eyes meeting his in understanding. He shoots a cheeky but appreciative wink back but Lan Wangji simply looks away. Well, that’s not fun then.

Nie Huaisang is filming a solo-portion on appropriate colour schemes. While the remodelling itself is unnecessary in Wei Wuxian’s mind, some of the ideas on how certain colours can improve moods actually don’t sound half-bad. He has to admit that he has underestimated Nie Huaisang and his dedication to deliver not only a perfect house remodelling but genuinely try to improve the lives of the inhabitants as well. Nie Huaisang is obviously stumped by how little he has to work with in terms of traditional architecture but he makes a commendable effort, even venturing into the historical significance of the statue guarding the cave.

Lan Wangji steps a little bit closer, robes flattering in the afternoon wind. “Isn’t this illegal?” His whisper tickles Wei Wuxian’s ear. “Lan Zhan-ah, Lan Zhan-ah, of course it is. That’s why it’s called squatting.” He can’t believe that now is the time for Lan Wangji to question the legality of this project. “Wei Ying. You could get in trouble.” He sounds forceful. “That – is the point?” Lan Wangji looks like he has trouble finding the right words. “Wei Ying could just leave, you have a home!” Something squeezes him on the inside and his arm shakes when he points to the collective around them. “You know I can’t leave them behind.” Lan Wangji doesn’t relent. “You could take class-action. My family’s firm could help. If you are willing.” His voice goes soft at the end. “What the Wen’s do isn’t against the law, they are just using the system to their benefit. Much as I hate them, they’re not that innovative...and Lan Zhan, you are great–“ Lan Wangji’s face softens in surprise– “but I know your dad.” Lan Wangji’s eyebrows ever so slightly draw together. “He does pro bono work.” Wei Wuxian laughs in delight at this. The confusion on Lan Wangji’s face that’s just visible to him is hilarious. “Money isn’t the issue. Would he really want to have his firm’s name associated with going against the Wen clan?” The associated with me part is left unsaid. Lan Qiren is wise and righteous, but had never been fond of seeing Wei Wuxian pestering his nephew.

It seems like Lan Wangji has many things he wants to say. Maybe berate him like he used to. Wei Wuxian is amazed that even though they haven’t seen each other in a long time, he has gotten better at reading Lan Wangji. Standing this close he not only sees the inner fight Lan Wangji’s seems to be having for the second time today, but how despite the diffused light his eyes are gleaming, how his long hair softly falls against his cheeks, how long his eye lashes are.

The cultivator world calling him the second most eligible bachelor really is a deserved title. Zewu-Jun might be attractive to other people, but compared to Lan Wangji he appears to be rather boring.

No mask to crack with playful banter, no smile to coax out with a teasing remark, nothing Wei Wuxian could do that would make Zewu-Jun wear the same expression of soft surprise, to have that something in his eyes that almost seems to shine through when he is looking at Wei Wuxian and that Wei Wuxian can’t seem to pin point even after 13 years.

Even after getting better at reading him.

“It’s against the law.” Lan Wangji’s voice interrupts his musings. “Well, the law is bullshit,“ he retorts pointedly. Wei Wuxian knows that what he’s doing is the right thing. They stand in silence.

The last scene of the day features the last chamber of the cave. Wen Ning is delighted at Wei Wuxian’s invitation to join them. The crew has already set everything up for filming and Wei Wuxian, Nie Huaisang and Lan Wangji are politely ushered inside.

Lan Wangji halts in his tracks immediately after entering the chamber. Wei Wuxian is very much delighted at surprising him successfully. “I tried to go for a hyggelig vibe,” he says cheerily as if nothing was amiss. It is very hard to not just laugh out loud at how everything about Lan Wangji screams ‘incredulousness’.

“Wei Ying – there is a demonic blood pool – in your cave!” Wei Wuxian is very adamant on finding out how much it takes to break adult Lan Wangji, so he just hums in affirmation. “Wei Ying, too much blood,” Lan Wangji says with stronger conviction. “It does go great with Wen Nings goth attire!” That is a good enough reason to have a spring spew blood into a big pool in your home in Wei Wuxian’s books. Wen Ning pats down his black, heavy robes in satisfaction.

There is a tiny smile tugging at the corners of Lan Wangji’s mouth.

“Beautiful.”Is the only thing Wei Wuxian manages to think.

IId

#the untamed fanfiic #mdzs fanfic #the untamed #lan wangji #wei wuxian #wangxian #the grandmaster of demonic interior design #now proofread #sorry for the mistakes in the earlier version :D i was more tired than i realized

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thebethbits · 5 years

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what is art?

Art is something I have always found an easy appreciation for. Aesthetically, visually, physically, all avenues of art have something specific and special to offer to its viewer, and that interaction has always fascinated me. I think that I have always leaned towards appreciation, especially when it comes to art, mostly because I’m terrible at it. Art is a constant battle, while writing, something I have practiced far more often for a far longer period of time, comes easier. So maybe it is in this inexperience that boosts my appreciation for art because at the moment, the skill and talents and styles of all artists feels so out of replication’s reach for me. Or maybe it’s all emotion, how art can change you. Maybe it’s both, or in everything we’ve learned about in this course about the world of art, all communicating with one another.

Through this class, my perspectives have shifted. Art is something within us that we can’t name, but only feel. Blind light. Like the lexicon of art, we are all trying to speak to the same thing. When considering the most important thing I learned in this course, I believe it’s that it has helped me come to the conclusion that art could go on forever. Even when we feel like there is nowhere else to go, or that everything has already been made, everything has already been said, the glass breaks, and a new color bursts forwards, and makes the whole room bright. Art is a place for the things that are not sayable in just one way. It’s the perfect place to express the things that are hungry, or empty, within us that we don’t like to talk about, because it makes us vulnerable. People come to art with a different mindset, approach, and appreciation. Viewing a piece is never the same twice.

In Advance of the Broken Arm, Marcel Duchamp. 1964. The Museum of Modern Art.

Perspective is the biggest component of art that I learned more of through this class. We spent a lot of time going over what makes art different from everything else, domesticity versus the prestige that comes with pieces hung on gallery walls. In the Art Assignment’s Art or Prank video speaking about the inclusion of everyday objects, to take legitimacy into what is perceived as to be art, and what it can become: “We take simple, everyday materials and subject them to transformations large and small, as large as making a blank piece of fabric into a painting, or as small as positioning an object in an art gallery. These transformations ennoble these materials, making them into something more than the sum of their parts.” (Art or Prank) This can be directly seen through Marcel Duchamp’s Readymades – pieces of mass-quantity produced objects that became art because of the artist’s intent. This highlights my favorite component in art: that it exists everywhere. That as overstated and oversaturated as it is, the saying “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” actually has somewhat of a legitimate basis, a standing in art. That the fact of a viewer’s opinion in this question being “what makes art, art” – is actually an incredibly influential and important part of the answer when questioning society as a whole.

Learning this validation of subjectivity and participation within art, changed me. Like new ways of seeing a piece brought new ways of being. I was seeing meaning, everywhere. In color, in form, in origin. Like art was, is, something crafted out of the quiet, the loud. Each stroke, each layer accumulates into a symphony, with unique voices, each with their own message, their own ways of existing. Like a speech after a long silence. Even when visiting the Art Institute halfway through this course, art had already started to shift in my head. I wanted to ask questions about what is the piece trying to say, and how do I feel about it, aesthetically, meaningfully, structurally? It still feels like I walked in with questions and came out with hundreds more.

We’ve spent eight weeks speaking and learning about all of these aspects about art, and I still have questions. That’s something I learned for certain in this course: there will always be more to ask, more to know, there is always the presence of curiosity. To abate that curiosity, we spent a majority of our time researching, always alongside every piece we did. In reading all about the art of non-western cultures, beauty, craft, history, modern day artists, among many other topics, it all accumulated into this eight week crash course into what felt like every nook and cranny of the art world. The best part: whatever I didn’t research and look into, someone else did, and I got to see it through their eyes, what they found, what they felt about it. It felt multi-perspective, which is my favorite way to view art: from all angles.

Parthenon, Athens Greece. 1978. Wikipedia.

One of the most intriguing things I learned was after we’d done both the comparison of Arts and Crafts, as well as the Prehistoric and Ancient Art Forms discussion, where I studied Ancient Greece’s Hellenistic Art. The study of these in close affinity of one another brought up realizations I hadn’t seen coming: I love the look of old historic objects and art pieces, but especially ruins. This wasn’t the surprising part, though, the suprise was in the fact that the impact of time is utterly unavoidable, and we see it upon so many objects from places all around the world. I love the fact that we still celebrate them despite them being worn away, that even in whatever shape they’re in now, broken, missing pieces, weathered away, they’re still considered art. From domestic objects to commissioned pieces and everything in between, they’re put behind glass cases and shown to the world under the name of art.

But ruins are something else entirely, aren’t they? Ruins are hard to put behind glass cases. They’re hard to move, to bring home in our pockets and showcase. They’re not portable, and they’re not what they once were made to be shown as,. They’re ghost stories in the shape of puzzle pieces, where we take stories to fill in the blanks. Ruins may be different from their original forms, but they’re still art. They’re accidental aesthetics, echoes of what they used to be. This distinction comes in the aftermath, of what they look like now, the fact that they are not seen as the original intention. But are they still art, in the same way? Is it the memory that makes them art, the comparison? The before and the after? Or is it the inspiration, the way that so many styles of architecture can still be seen in modern structures today? Or that people still go and visit these places, half-gone? What is art then: the pieces that are missing, or the way we fill them in, or the pieces that are still there?

Replica of the Parthenon, in Nashville, Tennessee.

In asking these questions, the Parthenon is one of the most interesting ruins to think about in this way, because we have the original, what it looks like today, time-weathered, but we also have a replica that’s been recreated. The version of the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee, is what the structure may have originally looked like at its prime. We have the direct before and after, present and open, and are free to compare the two. To have this direct comparison, we are able to ask questions, some along the lines of how time affects the meaning of the piece, and if the face-value of the image of a piece impacts how we see art at different points in our lives, or even different points in our history? And what do we do when we have two pieces of weathered ruins, neither looking like what may have been the original? What then?

If you’d asked me anything about Institutional Critique before we researched it for last week’s discussion, I wouldn’t have assumed it to be so prominent and active in the art world. Academia, maybe, politics, absolutely, but not so much art. Not to the intense details that art’s Institutional Critique does. But as with all money-headed empires, it’s easy to assume that there is institutional disconnect between groups within, but work that contributes to the theme of Institutional Critique in art goes farther, tying in meaning, place, and time. It includes all members of interaction with a piece: the artist, the audience, and the owners of the place showing the art itself. It is all-inclusive in its assessment of the current state of art.

I’m always asking questions, now, when I try to look at art in this new distinctive way given by the designated sections of Institutional Critique. What is it trying to say, what isn’t it saying, what are the ways I could see it differently, or similarly, or completely off the rails in a way that wasn’t the intention at all? But also broader questions, as well, for example, should artwork be read in any kind of sequence? If there is a way that galleries are organized to have a pre-set path for visitors to follow, and even if this is something that artists do as well, in their pieces? Should we categorize art in a way that confines its meaning, its impact? Is there any way to speak about art that doesn’t do this in some way?

Art changes depending on – everything. Who you are, as the audience, the artist, your experiences, your values, your world-views. The way you approach art and the way you let it affect you. Art, in this way, is immensely subjective. It comes in the door one day, built by the artist, and left to be morphed and changed with each pair of eyes set upon it. In this way, art can change people. It can change places. It can change everything, even if by just a little. I never realized how much the simple action of looking at art in a space could impact a piece so heavily. Sometimes the subjects are nearly unrecognizable in the way we look at them, compared to the artist’s vision, or even another person’s view of the same object.

Pieces that have political or societal implications can comment and voice opinions in a way that may have otherwise been routinely silenced. It is within these new ways of making art, and new ways for art to provide a commentary on our lives, that art continues to expand. By this, art can be so much more than pieces in a gallery. Art can be influential, political, changing. In this way, in the words of Suzanne Lacy on her 1977 performance piece that highlights public gender-based sexual violence in Los Angeles, Three Weeks in May, “We are making an art that’s not just for art’s sake, or an art that’s about personal expression, but an art that’s about changing the world, and we believe – I do believe that art can change the world.” (Three Weeks in May)

But changing the world is a difficult thing to do, especially if powerful ideas within the world are working against you. To combat this, art becomes political. Art becomes action. Erich Fromm’s 1963 essay “Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem” attests to this. Fromm speaks about the conviction or principles that revolutionaries follow when being disobedient to the order of things, that it is the presence of those principals or values that are absolutely necessary for their actions, to distinguish them from rebels. (Fromm)

Fromm cements this way of thinking with commenting on the stagnation of emotional progression lacking behind progression of the material, saying: “If mankind commits suicide it will be because people will obey those who command them to push the deadly buttons; because they will obey the archaic passions of fear, hate, and greed; because they will obey obsolete clichés of State sovereignty and national honor.” (Fromm 1) This directly coincides with a later piece, Andrea Fraser’s “From the Critique of Institutions to an Institution of Critique,” where she speaks about the inability to separate the art from the art world: “But just as art cannot exist outside the field of art, we cannot exist outside the field of art, at least not as artists, critics, curators, etc. And what we do outside the field, to the extent that it remains outside, can have no effect within it. So if there is no outside for us, it is not because the institution is perfectly closed, or exists as an apparatus in a "totally administered society," or has grown all-encompassing in size and scope. It is because the institution is inside of us, and we can't get outside of ourselves.” (Fraser)

How Fraser phrases that last piece, “the institution is inside of us, and we can't get outside of ourselves” (Fraser), is the perfect phrasing of the problem. If art is an expansion, expression of ourselves, how to we display that without including the pieces of ourselves that others take issue with? The original meaning behind it, whatever that may be? A piece can be rewritten by location or surrounding pieces, but the original creation’s purpose will always be the same. What do we do, when suddenly that becomes a problem? How are we supposed to respond?

Sunflower Seeds, Ai Weiwei. 2010. The Tate Modern.

Revolutionary art can be made in many ways. Physically, within art that is illegally installed, art that exists to question the way that things are, art that raises questions about art itself. Banksy’s work of shredding his painting after it’d been sold, Ai Weiwei’s pieces of combining both political and cultural sentimentalities in works like Sunflower Seeds, Jenny Holzer’s Truisms pasted up like anonymous street posters questioning the state of society, among many others, have merit in being revolutionary pieces. Some of the other works we’ve discussed this semester, especially pieces like Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, exist and were made specifically in the action to challenge preconceived notions of art.

After everything we’ve learned this semester, art is more than what I thought it was at the beginning. Then, I believed that art was an awareness, a way to reshape our consciousnesses into concepts, to give it tangibility and perspective, specifically saying: “[art] gives way to different forms of thinking, of approaching media, of going about our everyday lives. Art, in this way, changes us. It snaps us awake.” (Berg) Art is that – but it’s also so much more. It’s the key to connection, to history, in every narrative, worldwide. Art can influence, widen perspectives, bring finality, or even, usually, mountains of more questions to answer.

Being an artist is an increasingly paradoxical profession as time continues. It is both as powerful as it is vulnerable. Artists are standardized by society in the near-same way it has standardized craftspeople, in the way that their work is open to being over-simplified, alongside the popularized gate-keeping notion that if you don’t understand the way you’re supposed to look at, or appreciate, art the very first time you lay eyes on a piece, you won’t ever understand; which is the farthest thing from the actual truth. Art is a learning process. Art changes with you, whenever you come again and see with fresh eyes. Art lives alongside humanity. We create when we have something to say, or something to hide, or even if we just want to capture a color, a feeling, in a new way. Art, in society, is something that changes with us, and can tell us about what we used to value or what we used to prioritize, even within our own domesticated everyday objects, even within ourselves.

We live our whole lives looking for something. Everywhere, we are always searching. Sometimes we call that something love, or fulfillment, or contentedness, and other times we have a laundry list of other epithets for it. In this search, we try to find parts of ourselves in everything: names, connections, but especially within art, because there is no greater expression than that of what shakes and deforms and ripples with every perspective. In creation, we put pieces of ourselves on display, our dreams, our despair. There is intention, in this, to art. There is meaning, purpose, story, narrative. It is the human effort, in a way, that we come to art to give pieces of ourselves to a name. That we try to share, in this way. Art is telling. Art is there, and maybe it holds within it what we’re looking for, and maybe it doesn’t – but art knows us well enough to still be this extension, because it is us, it came from us, it continues to become us – but art is always there. It has always been there, from the very, very early days to right now, right this second, in this word, this syllable being written and being read. Art exists everywhere, because we know, that even when we look away, we are still looking, and in having art and beauty everywhere, in everything, it becomes a constant. Whether it is in the world of prestigious galleries, or even in our domestic everyday lives, art is always there, looking back.

Works Cited

“Art or Prank? | The Art Assignment | PBS Digital Studios.” YouTube, uploaded by The Art Assignment, 27 Jul., 2017. URL.

“Three Weeks in May by: Suzanne Lacy (1977).” YouTube, uploaded by LACE, 5 Feb. 2016. URL.

Berg, Beth. “Expanding Our Ideas of Art.” BlackBoard, 28 Aug. 2019.

Fraser, Andrea. “From the Critique of Institutions to an Institution of Critique,” New York: Sep 2005. Vol. 44, Iss. 1; pg. 278. URL.

Fromm, Erich. “Disobedience as a Phycological and Moral Problem.” On Disobedience and Other Essays, Harper & Row, 1981.

Art Cited

Parthenon, Athens Greece. 1978. Wikipedia. URL.

Duchamp, Marcel. In Advance of the Broken Arm. 1964. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. URL.

Weiwei, Ai. Sunflower Seeds. 2010. The Tate Modern, London. URL.

#what is art #5

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wtf-taeyong · 6 years

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The Stars // Sicheng

Word count - 29.7+ (madness)

Genre - angst, fluff, smut

Warnings - Brief descriptions of violence. I think that’s all.

Fantasy!au, Historic!au

@stormae Thank you for all that you are and all that you do. Thank you for giving me my passion back and cheering for me across the planet. You mean so much to me.

Sometimes, when the time of the year was right and it was the correct hour in the evening, the sun would rest between the twin peaks of the mountain range your village lay under as if they were only there to hold the sun up in all its fading majesty. Your village and all the land surrounding it was dusted in the most glorious golden light, erasing all signs of difficulty and struggle, and caressing all with the final tendrils of warmth before the mountains encased the sun, and it was hidden from view until the morn broke.

The land you were treading, however, did not get this honour, and dusk soon arrived without the familiar sight of liquid splendour bathing everything in light. You missed the burning presence of the star so far in the sky, but you knew that you would see it again soon enough.

When you were little and the sun would shine and your mother was lighthearted enough to let you play in the meadows, your father would read fairy tales to you and your brother about an ancient race that lived hundreds of years ago, before man could remember. He told you that they were beautiful, and smart, and fiercely loyal to their own, and you can remember the wonder on your brother’s face as you both learned about the rise and fall of a race you could hardly fathom. You saw the pictures, the crudely drawn ink sketches of the beings, and you were instantly enthralled by them; by their tall stature, their long and lithe figures, and of course the wings that protruded from their backs.

They were impossibly large, with wingspans doubling the height of their bodies fully extended. A gorgeous plumage of pure white that you had only seen of the regal swans that sometimes drifted down the river and you would entice towards you with seeds and dried fruit.

You were hooked on them, eager to find out more from your father who seemed to know everything - only to be told that they didn’t exist any longer. They had been killed off, slaughtered for the pretty price their wings would gather from kings and queens of distant lands, and your young heart was thoroughly broken. How could such magical creatures just disappear like that? How could we humans do such a thing to gentle beings?

You had lived for just over a decade longer when dark tidings came from the East, poorly hushes whispers about creatures unlike any other spotted in the deepest woods; the woods so far away it became unchartered territory. They said that the beings were brutal, savages that decimated all that they came across, but something in the bottom of your heart thought otherwise. But, the rumours grew, and so did curiosity. Countless hunting parties had rode through your village from the city, boasting loudly about the treasure they were going to bring back, always returning haggard looking and beaten, empty handed.

Months had passed, and none of these mysterious beings had been caught, and you thought it was going to stay like that. You were certain that the tales of the creatures you had once loved so passionately was exactly that: just a tale to make the dark evening hours pass quicker.

Until one cold night, you stepped into the inn on your way back to your home after a long day at work. Some mead would do you good after a hard day tending the fields, and your muscles thanked you in earnest as you heavily sat in a wooden chair. Rosaline, one of the barmaids, was quick to settle a tankard in front of you and you gave her a copper in return, and she stayed for a while to chat.

“Have you heard anything interesting lately?” you asked, taking a heavy drought from your drink. The familiar sweetness of the honey in the mead warmed you straight to your core, and your mood lifted instantly. “Nah, not much - although, I ‘eard that gentleman what’s o’er there ‘s goin’ on a trip. Up in the North, he says, one of them things bin spotted,” Rosaline gestured to the man sitting on his own in front of the fire, a pipe in his mouth. He looked relatively nondescript, with no features sticking out to you in particular - until he turned his head minutely, and the glow from the fire allowed his heavily scarred face to leap into life.

You hadn’t seen someone so weather beaten since you visited the great city, and seen war veterans for the first time, with their gnarled smiles and eyes filled with sorrow. The man had seen some terrible things in his life, and there was something about him that intrigued you.

“Up North?” You asked, eyeing the man with interest. “He’s going alone, you said?” Rarely ever did travellers go alone, finding the roads too lonely and silent to keep your head screwed on properly without someone to have conversation with. “Yep, it’s wot he said. Blimmin’ mad if you ask me.” Rosaline said, shaking her head slightly and moving away from your little table to serve other patrons.

You were pensieve for several hours, staring into the depths of your drink and wondering. You had never had a great adventure in all of your life; the furthest you had travelled from your village was to the other side of the lake and back when you were a little girl, barely six summers old. What harm would it have, to see more of the world you lived in? Even if it did take months and you came back with nothing to show of your journey, it would be an experience like no other.

The old man stood up, and shuffled out the door as if he could hear your thoughts, and you were up and after him like a whip. You were wondering, now, what you would be doing if you hadn’t chased after the man that night. If you hadn’t asked Rosaline whether she’d heard any rumours. If you hadn’t chosen to go into that inn that night for a rest before returning home.

You imagined it would be a lot less thrilling than what you were doing now.

Weeks had passed, sending you further into the deepest bowels of the forests that even your father - a well travelled man and a formidable storyteller at the best of times - had never visited, and now you finally had something worth going home for.

“Shit, oh my God-!” you cried, seeing the tall figure crumple painfully to his knees. You darted forwards, trying to lift him up from under his armpits, but you were sent keeling over backwards as a heavy force hit you in the chest and shoved you backwards. Your lungs were emptied in a rush, but you still struggled to your feet, sending a glare at the old man you had grown to dislike heavily since that night in the inn before softening your gaze as you looked up at the being that had righted himself and now looking at you like you were a steaming pile of dog shit.

The old man had yanked the angel forwards by the chains that ensnared him, and such cruelty rubbed you in entirely the wrong way, but your attempts to help had gone unappreciated, evident in the heavy blow you had received to your chest.

“I’m- I’m sorry, he isn’t at all patient and you just stopped walking an-and he yanked on the chains. I think your knees are bleeding...” He didn’t bother looking in your direction, merely turned his head and continued after the hunter that held his chains. You said nothing, sighing, and followed after the figure that tried his best to act like his pride wasn’t wounded by this entire situation.

The angel was beautiful, you mused. Despite his absolute disgust and abhorrence at being in your vicinity, and the constant downward curl of his mouth, he was the most stunning thing you had ever seen in your life. With his perfect blemish-free porcelain skin, the elegant slope of his nose and the rounded apples of his cheeks that were visible even through his disgusted expression, up to the elven points of his ears, you thought he had a rare kind of beauty that wasn’t often seen anymore; a kind of beauty from stories that had been read to you when you were a child. You were incredibly familiar with the tales of the angels, but you never thought you would ever see one in your lifetime - you were positively vibrating with poorly suppressed excitement. However, they were notoriously hostile towards humans, and, as your eyes raked over the chains encasing his wrists and the skin beneath that was beginning to turn red and sore, you thought they had a good reason to be.

“At your personal cost though, girlie,” the old man had said when you had run after him into the darkness of the night and begged him to take you along. You had thought he meant money or the like, but instead, you had been made to walk behind his horse the entire way there, no word of any payment needed leaving the mans gnarled and flat mouth. Four weeks straight into the deepest bowels of the forest, on foot. It was almost worth never returning to your village and merely starting a settlement here to avoid making the journey back.

At least now you had a walking companion, as standoffish and murderously angry as he was.

The ribbon of the path you were all following tapered to a passage akin to a thread, forcing the silent and mostly disgruntled party to walk single file, with you taking up the end and trying your hardest not to stare at the back of the angel’s head. His wings were as big as the ones you had seen in the drawings you had seen once upon a time, so many years ago. You thought his wingspan must be nearing eight feet, and you knew seeing him fly would be something magnificent.

Unfortunately, no human alive today had seen such a spectacle.

Nose wrinkling at the saddening and intrusive thought that this wonderful creature might never fly again, you sped up slightly to keep up with the lithe angel and the swiftness at which he walked. Surely his towering height was an advantage over your frustratingly short stature, and the old man on the horse was unrelenting in his rush to get back to the village and start collecting bids for the chance to glimpse such rare beauty in some disturbing and vulgar display, as if the angel wasn’t capable of thinking or feeling.

The leather of your boots had long since been broken into and moulded to the shape of your feet, but the ache in the muscles and bones of your legs was constant, barely being alleviated by a good night’s rest under the canopy of trees and the watchful gaze of the stars. You had brought along minimal belongings, only a few changes of clothes and as much food as you had in your shack of a house, being grateful that the old man seemed to know where most of the rivers that carved their way through the earth were.

Squatting side by side, scrubbing and beating your clothes dry with a rock was the most interaction the two of you had.

“The woods are no place for a girl,” he’d kept reminding you before you set off from your village. “You’d do well to stay home and settle. Find yourself a nice, hardworking boy and start a family.”

You took no heed of his words, the idea of being trapped in Dawnstead your whole life making fear and horror spike through your being, instead merely packing your belongings up and waiting for him to gather his things and untack the horse to start the journey.

The harsh bracken and gnarled oak trees that stood sentry on either side of the gradually thinning path provided you with a false sense of comfort that the three of you were protected within the forest, that they were hiding you from view from malicious forces, but soon the firm ground gave way to muddy bogland that made squelching noises when you stepped through, sucking in your foot and putting up a fight when you tried to take it back.

This terrain was no issue for the man on the horse or the divine being, both continuing along, entirely oblivious to your struggle. The distance between you was steadily increasing as the mud began to seep into the top of your boots, but you said nothing, not wanting to be a burden on a party that was already unimpressed with your presence.

Eventually they disappeared amongst the silent trees and the shrubs, both of which suddenly seeming entirely too malignant in your eyes to be rational. You knew that you would catch up to the other two when the ground became solid again, but until then, you were all but on your own.

Slogging through the mud for what could have been an hour, ignoring every single noise that echoed through the trees around you that would have scared you if you hadn’t spent a month travelling in the opposite direction, the pathway finally swelled to a much wider clearing, allowing you to see that the old man and the angel had stopped quite a way off, finally having noticed that you weren’t behind them.

As you neared them, the angel scanned your face and took in the ugly flush of your cheeks and the sweat that was beaded at your temple, his lip curling in disgust at the sight of the caked mud reaching your knees. A brilliant flush lit up your entire face in embarrassment rather than the sudden physical exertion of fighting against the earth, and you knew that you looked like an absolute state compared to him in his pristine glory.

He said nothing, letting his facial expressions do the work for him, and he noticed the way that your eyes flickered to him and then danced away, the flush deepening as you saw that he had caught you looking at him. Lip curling even further at the audacity of this human to even glance at him, Sicheng barely noticed the words that came from the old man. “Fall behind again, girlie, and I’ll leave you to the wolves.” Your face didn’t change, telling Sicheng that such callous words were commonplace amongst your people, and his hatred for your kind deepened. What an odd way to speak to their young. Perhaps violence equated to friendliness?

For another hour or so, the party of three continued to travel through the woods that never ended, not a single word shared. Even though there was more than enough room for you to walk alongside the other two, you felt uncomfortable, like that was breaching some unspoken rule, so you continued to trail behind them.

You felt that you were more useful that way, out of sight and able to keep a broader eye for any danger that might threaten you.

Mostly, though, you kept your head down in case you accidentally made eye contact with the old man who occasionally glanced back to see whether you were there or had gone to meet your maker. You supposed the fake concern should have been mildly flattering, but you rather saw it as an insult. You had no plans to be killed any time soon.

You had only around a month left of this. It would all be fine when it was done; you would return to your usual routine in Dawnstead of working on a farm, staying out in the sun until your skin cracked and peeled, ploughing the ground that had long since lost the fertility that had once produced luscious bounties of the finest harvests seen that side of the lake. All of your constant labour resulted in a pittance at the end of the week, but you supposed that was enough for you; it kept a roof over your head, no matter the drafts or the leaks, and you didn’t go hungry as often as you used to since your parents died and your brother had left to work in Greater Dawnstead. You had a lot of friends, all as weather beaten and callous ridden as yourself, and you would all have merry lunches under the shady elm tree by the water mill, often removing your boots and dipping your sore feet into the cool rushes. You would be eternally grateful to Mr and Mrs Jacobsen for extending what little they had to include you.

It was a small life, with minimal excitement, but it was a good life.

The scenery around you changed as you travelled, breaks in the tree line allowing you to enter wide fields of wildflowers, wood mice dancing over your feet and scurrying away and hiding in the thicket of the tall flowers and grass that made your exposed skin itch. The three of you waded through shallow streams, the rushing water softening the mud that caked your boots and stripping it away, and you couldn’t help the laughter that left your lips as you kicked the water around, getting yourself soaked; sobering up immediately under the angel’s heated glare.

The sun set between the peaks of the mountain as it always did in the distance, bringing a chill that bit at your skin and caused you to withdraw further into your tunic and sheepskin jacket that did very little to keep out the cold. The angle was all wrong to appreciate the true splendour of the sunset, but you supposed you would see it again when you returned home. Despite being preoccupied with not slipping and falling, you didn’t fail to examine the ethereal silhouette of the angel in front of you, and the way that he glowed under the last breaths of the sun despite the failing light. You now knew exactly what the person all those years ago was thinking when they named them ‘angels’ after God’s divine messengers.

Not enough was known about these beings to actually know whether they came from the heavens, but everybody knew that their kind had been around for a lot longer than any human on this planet had. Entire civilisations had been built and they had prospered, but by the dawn of man their empires had collapsed and they had retreated into the deepest corners of the world. They had become elusive and they said that the sight of one was said to bless the beholder.

You didn’t feel particularly blessed, currently.

By the time night had properly fallen, coating everything around you in an eerie darkness and making your shadow dance under the moon, your legs and hips were begging for a rest and your eyelids were heavy.

You weren’t sure if the old man would stop for another while, but your tiredness was beginning to overwhelm you, making you start to drag your feet and barely realise that the terrain had changed yet again from soft forest floor to a more rocky surface as you started to descend the mountain side and into the valley.

The distance between you grew again but you didn’t even care this time, letting the darkness swallow you up, keeping your eyes trained on the moon above you.

Whilst you walked, dragging your feet against the stony ground below you, you wondered what the angel’s name was. You would never find out, knowing that being told an angel’s name was the highest level of respect that no human had ever received. At least, not as far as you knew.

You bet it was something beautiful. Something regal. Something-

Your face made contact with something solid, and you stumbled back, spluttering slightly and clutching your nose and chin. Blinking away the tears that accumulated from the sharp pain, you glared upwards at the angel who was already giving you a look so cold and murderous you would have shrunk back into yourself if you hadn’t been so pissed off, tired and hungry.

“Give me some warning next time.” you muttered quietly to yourself, not entirely intending him to hear but not being bothered if he did.

His lip pulled back into a snarl, revealing a pearly white set of teeth you wouldn’t find anywhere in your village, and despite yourself you were momentarily dazzled.

He was heartbreaking.

He said nothing, maintaining that stoic silence, and you just exhaled noisily through your sore nose.

“Watch your step here, girlie,” the man on the horse said. “It’s a long fall to your death.”

Rolling your eyes, you turned your gaze to the left, swallowing heavily. You’d walked the same path going the other way, but there was something jarring about staring downwards, no ground in sight as you descended the mountain side.

Rocks broke off and slid down in the chasm as the horse slowly traversed the terrain, the animal whinnying slightly and his ears swivelling. The old man had a hand on it’s neck, murmuring soothing words, and you wondered what he planned on doing if the horse decided to bolt.

The angel would be in a sticky situation, that was for sure, being attached to the old man that rode the horse.

You continued walking, your eyelids continuing to feel sore and heavy and your head drooping down slightly.

It was disappointing that you couldn’t find the energy within yourself to keep your head up long enough to take in the sight of the valley swathed in midnight, being a sight you would never get the opportunity to see again. You had heard from other travellers that would stop in the inn before continuing on their journey that the sight of the trees, bathed in the mist and standing silently under the moon was a sight like no other. It was something you had always dreamed of seeing, when the village was silent in the earliest hours of the morning and you were still awake, resting your chin in your hand as you gazed out the window towards the silhouette of the mountains, a gargantuan figure of darkness looming over your village.

Some of the others thought that the mountain range was cursed, stealing the spirits of people who had ventured too far from the village borders, never to be seen again, but you thought of it as a kind of guardian protecting you all from the horrors that lived in the woods beyond the mountain. As far as you were concerned, it was the only thing preventing any unsavoury type from descending onto your little hamlet like a plague and snatching the children, disappearing into the night.

Perhaps those were the words of the pastor that were finally beginning to sink into your head.

Maybe, you thought idly, you would set up camp somewhere soon and you would be able to take in the view of dawn breaking over the entire valley in the morning. To see such a vast expanse of land, trees, fields and perhaps the smoke from Dawnstead in the distance would be magnificent. If you were more artistically inclined, you would try your hardest to capture the sight with paints when you returned home, but such things were a luxury you could not afford, and so you would have to rely on your memory and your senses alone.

Your tiredness got the better of you and your foot disappeared from underneath you, caught on a rock and making you stumble, gasp loudly and lunge forwards to clutch onto the cloth that swathed the angel. His reaction was instantaneous and wholly unexpected.

Whirling to face you, his hands gripped the front of your tunic and thrust you backwards, holding onto you tightly as he dangled your body halfway off the precipice. Your chest was heaving in shock and panic, feet dancing crazily as they tried to find purchase on the land, hands clutching onto his wrists - to do what, you weren’t sure - and your eyes were wide, staring into his and silently begging for mercy.

You hadn’t meant to grab onto him like that, the situation causing you to instinctively hold onto something so you didn’t fall over the side, but you found yourself in a situation that was considerably more undesirable than falling off the cliff.

Still, he said nothing, his lips pulled back into a snarl that was almost too animalistic for you to fathom, and the sight of his perfectly white and quite possibly razor sharp teeth inches from your face did little to calm you down. Rather, it only caused your heart to hammer loudly in your throat and your voice to take leave of you.

There was a very tense silence for a few moments, all the while you were desperately clawing at the creature’s hands and wrists and praying to any of the gods that he wouldn’t let go and watch you fall into the abyss. It would be slightly too easy to merely pass your death off as an accident - a clumsy girl blundered off the cliff side, tripped and fell into a ravine, wandered off and was never seen again, eaten by wolves - but you had hoped that the old man wouldn’t just stand and watch as the creature he held the chains of dangled your life in front of you like it was nothing, merely a speck to be brushed away.

All the way through this, the only thing you could think was what your brother would do and who would tell him, if anybody. Perhaps he would visit for the first time in years and find nothing where he had left it, someone unfamiliar living in the shack you had both been raised in, his only living relative killed by a being he swore didn’t exist ever since your father first told you both about them.

You wondered if he would grieve or if he would shrug your existence off like he had since he had moved away and continue living his life. Perhaps the latter would be for the best.

“We’ll make camp,” the old man was saying despite the incredibly precarious situation. You would have gaped at him if you had the chance. “We’ll get some rest, find something to eat.”

At his words, the pupils of the being contracted from their blown out darkness and his fingers were latched onto your clothes a little less tightly. He pulled you forwards a few inches, allowing you to regain your footing on solid land, and didn’t even spare you another look as he continued on behind the old man.

The old man was already staring at you, an expression you hadn’t seen before on his face and you wondered what he was thinking now about the creature he wanted to put on display. A bubble of hope began to swell in your chest at the thought that maybe he would let the angel go, obviously quite volatile and unsafe around other humans, but he just turned to face forwards and continued on the journey home.

Both of them were assholes, you decided.

When you finally got to a bit of land safe enough to sleep on, the old man slid off the horse and tacked it to an old oak that wound upwards dizzyingly far, and started unloading the side bags from the animal. You shucked your own burden, dropping your leather pack onto a part of the grass that wasn’t covered in rabbit droppings, and rolled out your shoulders.

Firewood would be easy to come across as it hadn’t rained for several weeks and the wood was completely dry, but you weren’t sure what kind of food you might come across.

When you were younger, you and your brother would often venture into the woods to forage for food, scouring for berries in thick undergrowths, with him giving you a boost up to the higher branches of trees that bowed over with the heavy weight of fruit. You would drop them into his waiting hands below and clamber down, using your long skirts to pull up and use as a makeshift basket. Your mother was always scandalised when you came barrelling out of the woods with bare legs, but you never saw the harm in it; you were too excited to show her what you had gathered.

Unfortunately, you were never very good at hunting - only having the know how to make a basic snare that would kill a rabbit - so usually your brother and father would go further, into the thicker parts of the forest in order to bring down bigger game like deer, or even sometimes wild boar depending on the season, whilst you and your mother stayed home and prepared whatever other food you had managed to gather.

The angel sat down cross legged against another tree, and the old man sat down slightly further away, stretching his legs out in front of him. Wordlessly, you turned and disappeared into the tree-line to see if the forest had anything good to give you or if you were all going to go hungry tonight.

Usually, there would be things like mushrooms or even truffles growing in the undergrowth this late into the year, but you weren’t sure if they would be plentiful enough to fill you all up and you also didn’t know if the old man would be willing to unpack a suitable container for you to prop over the fire you’d have to build in order to cook them and make the mushrooms less rubbery. Hopefully you would find something that could be eaten cold, like fruit or berries.

Vaguely you wondered whether the old man was knowledgeable in berries too, or if you could have easily poisoned him this entire time.

Banishing the thought from your mind, you stopped not too far from the clearing you were camping in and started gathering small twigs and bits of wood that had fallen off the tree. You would use the smaller branches as kindling, bring them back to the camp and then go and find some proper firewood. Food would come after.

When you had a decent amount of twigs and branches, you started to head back to the clearing and prayed that the night stayed clear enough where you could use the moon to guide your way back. Otherwise, you’d be lost in the woods on your own until the sun rose again and that sounded particularly unpleasant.

Returning to the clearing, you saw that the old man and the angel were still in the same positions you had left them in, except now the old man was smoking from his pipe and the angel had his eyes closed. Whether he could sleep sitting up like that you had no idea, and as you set the wood down in the middle of the clearing you wondered if his wings got annoying whilst he was sleeping or resting or anything else.

Although, you supposed he would be used to them if he’d been born with them.

As you turned to exit the clearing and go and find some proper firewood, his eyes snapped open and met yours, surprising you enough into stopping in your tracks. He didn’t say a word, merely letting his gaze drift from your meagre collection of kindling and back up to your face, eyes completely devoid of anything other than mild curiosity.

There was something uncomfortably magical about standing in his gaze. Even though you were standing and he was sitting, you felt that he still managed to look down on you from a thousand miles above. His irises were like molten lava and you felt hot all over, even if there was a noticeable chill to the air. He was entirely enchanting and you were loathe to admit that you were completely enraptured.

He was the first to break the eye contact, his eyes drifting closed again, and some unfamiliar feeling of dejection washed over you. It was almost as if he had closed his eyes on you entirely, as if he was dismissing your entire existence, and you couldn’t understand what caused you to feel like that. All he did was close his damn eyes for crying out loud.

In order to shake off the uncomfortable and unfamiliar feeling, you returned to the safety of the woods where he couldn’t see you, and set about gathering larger branches of sticks in order to build a fire that would keep all of you warm throughout the night. It was a quick job, seeing as the most useful branches were the ones that had already fallen and had dried out, and soon enough you were back into the woods with the aim of foraging for food.

If the previous month or so of your unspoken agreement continued, the old man would be building the fire whilst you looked for food. Despite this, you couldn’t help but feel that the workload was unequal, with you doing all of the work. If you weren’t there, would he just starve? Or would he have gotten off his ass in order to find food?

Shaking your head, as you crouched down next to a promising looking bush, you almost failed to notice the soft tinkling music that met your ears.

Head snapping up in the direction, you could see that there was the warm glow of light, bringing with it the promise of warmth and friendship and, quite possibly, food. Hunger gradually started to gnaw at you, an ache striking through you like never before, your feet started to take you towards where the light broke through the trees.

Voices drifted towards you, too; song and dance and merriment that you suddenly craved more than anything. Who were these people? Where had they come from? You hadn’t heard or seen anything of them the first few times you were foraging in this area for wood.

You got closer and closer, their voices getting louder and catching the scent of something marvellous. They had obviously cooked something for you to catch a scent like that and it was completely mouthwatering. Hopefully they would be willing to share with you, allowing you to gorge yourself on the feast they were having.

You had never felt such a temptation like this.

Just as you were about to pass a hand through the edge of the clearing they were occupying, eyes trained firmly on the table laden with food and paying little attention to the strange figures that danced around it, you almost leapt out of your skin when a hand latched around you upper arm. Whirling, an exclamation of shock died in your throat when you found you were staring up into the face of the angel you had been travelling with.

“What-” you started but he held a finger up to his lips that silenced you immediately, even against your wishes. Your mouth was still moving, still trying to sound words, but they would not come.

He didn’t say anything, eyes trained on the bright spectacle that was now behind you, and before you could turn to gaze at the happiness that you were nearly a part of, everything vanished.

Just like that.

The table was gone, the unclear, shadowy figures that danced around and called you in were no longer present. The food was gone and you could have wept in frustration. All that was left was the empty clearing and the smell of burning wood and succulent meat in the air.

“Wood elves,” the angel said, and you turned to face him again with your mouth hanging open and your eyes bulging out of your head. He had spoken to you! You didn’t even have time for this adjustment to settle into your mind before he was speaking again. “They lure in foolish travellers that are never seen again. Do not let your mind wander.”

With that, he turned and headed back to the clearing and in the back of your suddenly hazy mind, an alarmed thought passed through wondering how he had gotten away from the old man in order to come after you.

You traipsed after him, exhilarated and thrilled that he had chosen to speak to you, even if he had called you a fool. You hadn’t heard of any stories where angels had talked to humans in this lifetime and your mind was reeling. What did this mean? Why did he speak? Why did he even bother coming after you?

As you scoured the area for berries and other edible goods, a smile would not leave your face. His voice was lovely; like the richest velvet caressing your skin; like the bubbling rushes you would dip your feet into after a long day tending to the fields; like finding a cool bit of shade to laze in on a particularly hot day. You couldn’t even define with words the feeling his voice gave you, but it felt like something you’d never get to experience again - a fleeting glimpse of the heavens, almost.

He was magical.

By the time you returned to the camp, the fire was crackling wonderfully in the middle of the clearing and you saw that the angel was sat back in his spot, eyes still closed and wrists still firmly in steel manacles. You were confused, and more than a little alarmed at the fact that he could apparently free himself without being noticed at will, but you were left in such a daze that he had actually said a string of words to you for the first time since his capture to do anything about it.

You sat down on the grass between the angel and the old man, unfurling the bottom of your shirt and revealing what lay within.

You had found chestnuts, whole and protected in their spiky shells, along with blackberries and even a few wild strawberries so large you were convinced only a handful would fill you up.

“I think it would be best if we roasted the chestnuts,” you said, looking down on your collection with a warm kind of pride. There was something wonderful about knowing that you could survive on what the world gifted you alone. “But I’m not sure if we have anything we would be able to roast them in.”

The old man hummed but offered nothing, and despite his willingness to talk earlier you didn’t bother turning to the angel to see if he had anything to suggest.

Refusing to sigh and show your exasperation with the two men, you simply split the food into piles and presented only the berries to the old man, making sure enough were kept aside for yourself and the angel.

He accepted them without a word, cupping his hands in order to receive them and gave you an appreciative nod, and you turned to the angel in order to give him some. He wasn’t even looking at you, instead staring at the fire with such an intensity you were convinced that his gaze alone was what sparked the flames in the first place.

“I’m sorry it’s not more substantial,” you offered. “It’s too dark to see if the trees bore any fruit, and I don’t have the right equipment that I could use to make a snare or anything.”

He finally turned to look at you, but he didn’t make eye contact, instead choosing to look only at the fruit you offered him. He blinked, but showed no emotion on his face as he shuffled slightly closer to accept the berries.

You were careful not to touch him in case you caused the same amount of offence as earlier, and you couldn’t help but continue to stare even after the exchange was over and done with. He didn’t start to eat, but the way that the light from the fire danced across his face truly took your breath away.

You were almost annoyed at how often you thought how beautiful he was, but you had never seen anybody that looked like him. Even the woodcutter’s son who had soft features and plump lips didn’t hold a candle to the being sat next to you.

Suddenly you were stressed about how grimy you looked next to him in his perfectly flawless glory. Hopefully tomorrow you could come across a stream and you would separate from the two of them in order to give yourself a proper scrub. In your village, you were more likely to catch gout than have a bath, but when you got properly grimy you could always take a dip in the river. Throughout the warmer months most of the village children would play and frolic in the water too, splashing each other and playing games whilst their mothers watched warily for any signs of danger as they chattered happily with other women.

You were in the odd grey area where you were too old to play in the water, having other responsibilities on the farm to attend to, and you were also too young to socialise and gossip with the housewives and other maids without getting bored. So, you and a few others around your age would retreat into the treeline and find a great oak to laze under, exchanging tall tales and dozing in the warmth of the sun.

Your stomach lurched with homesickness.

Whilst you were too busy daydreaming about your homelife, the angel had eaten his food and was sitting quietly next to you, staring into the fire as you did. Even though you weren’t even sitting particularly close, he emanated a warmth that you knew wasn’t coming from the fire. It was calming and reminded you of the sweet embrace of your mother, and that unsettled you more than anything.

He was stunning, yes, but there was something mysterious about him that made you feel that you couldn’t ever trust him fully.

You wouldn’t be quick to forget that he could leave the metal that bound him any moment he wanted to.

As you gorged yourself on your berries, the old man lit his pipe again and you wondered where he had stored enough tobacco to keep himself going throughout this entire journey. You didn’t bother to enquire, however, knowing you’d be fixed with a hard stare that was becoming all too familiar, so you reached into your leather pack and pulled out your water skin, still mostly full from the last stream you passed.

You sipped some of it, knowing to drink enough to keep you going but little enough to sustain it should you not pass by another stream for a while, but you knew that the angel hadn’t drank anything today either. Turning to face him, your eyes immediately fixated on the way that the fruits had stained his lips a darker blood red and made them look almost unfairly kissable.

You had spent most of your childhood playing rough and tumble games with the boys of your village, finding yourself too bored with too much energy left to burn by the games the other girls would play, but that didn’t mean you hadn’t run off to the woods and played childish kissing games with them, too. All of you were too young to properly grasp the meaning of a kiss, but you knew better now. You understood from experience; when you had presented the woodcutter’s son, Lucas, with a gentle kiss on the cheek in the town square, barely ten summers old, the word ‘betrothal’ had been tossed around carelessly for weeks.

Nowadays, his eyes were firmly on the baker’s daughter and you were only too supportive of their budding relationship, paired with flushed cheeks and secret glances, fidgety fingers and the feeling of spring in the air.

You passed your water skin to him, ensuring he had a proper grip on it before you relinquished it to him entirely. He pressed it to his lips, gulping hungrily, but you didn’t say anything to slow him down. If he was this thirsty, you didn’t know how long it had been since he had last drank any water at all. You’d try your best to persuade the old man to find a stream so you can collect more water for the angel.

He passed it back to you with nothing more than a small nod in your vague direction, but that was alright with you. Perhaps he didn’t want to speak in front of the old man; either way, you knew it was incredibly uncommon for one of their kind to speak in front of any human, let alone two. That would be asking too much of him.

The old man reclined backwards, still puffing away at his wooden pipe that looked about the same age as himself, and you retreated to the other side of the fire with your pack. Dropping it onto the floor, you knelt down and tried to arrange it into a somewhat comfortable shape for you to rest your head on. Then, lying down and using it as a pillow, you basked in the warmth the fire provided you and lay on your back, staring up at the sky embezzled with a million stars, and wondered what the next day would hold.

Four more days passed in a similar fashion. You would wake up, eat whatever you could find around whatever camp you had set up, and then you would walk until you couldn't anymore. Then you’d set up camp, gathering more wood and more food. You’d always make sure that the angel had enough to eat, knowing that he was much bigger than you and probably needed more sustenance.

He would hesitate less and less each time you offered him any kind of food, whether it was herbs you’d picked from the forest floor, even more berries or even a rabbit that you’d roasted on a stick over the fire. Each time he would sit minimally closer to you and you pretended that you didn’t notice, but internally your mind was screaming at you.

He wasn’t exactly your best friend, but the way he would slow down his stride when you were travelling over a particularly rough terrain and he would spare you little glances to make sure you were still there made your heart and your cheeks feel warm.

The situation was unsavoury for the two of you, but it wasn’t until the sixth day that you made proper progress in your incredibly strange and unexpected camaraderie.

It was the caw of a crow that woke you up.

Jerking upright, your head swimming with the speed at which you rose, you glanced blearily around your little camp. The old man was still sleeping, snoring heavily and completely dead to the world, but the angel was completely gone.

Clambering to your feet in panic, you looked crazily around the campsite as if he had merely sat and waited for you to catch him, but it was empty. There wasn’t a single sign he had ever been there. Hissing a curse through your teeth, you didn’t bother waking the old man just to face his wrath and instead decided to check the area of forest around the camp to see if he had merely decided to sleep under the safety of the trees. Perhaps he had left footprints that you would be able to follow him with, but with wings that size, you doubted he ever really walked anywhere if he could avoid it.

Surely, if he could slip out of the cuffs so easily, he would have done when he was initially captured? Why did he stick around for so long?

Traipsing through the woods, your mind was completely filled with shouted curses and expletives that would make your parents turn in their graves if they ever heard them. Did he wait until you had both fallen asleep before making his escape? Did he take anything with him? Was this his whole plan, to make you give him food and water that would sustain him before returning to where his kind resided and exchanging tales of the two bumbling humans that thought they could keep him ensnared?

Your mind was cut off when you reached what looked like an orchard.

Hundreds of trees - which wasn’t unusual to you, being as you were blundering through a forest - but each of them heavy with fruit, ripe for the picking. Apples so red it was as if the sun had focused all of its energy on just this plot of land, caring for it and raising these trees from saplings. They were all systematically planted, all in perfectly straight lines that would make Mr Jacobsen weep with joy, but your eyes zeroed in on a tall, pale figure a few trees away from you.

Making a beeline for him, you opened your mouth and started complaining before even reaching him.

“By the gods, you scared me! I thought I’d have to wake the old man up and tell him you’d run off!” He didn’t respond, not that you expected him to, but he turned to you with a face of complete blankness as if he’d expected you to be there.

Maybe he’d heard you stumbling through the forest a mile away.

“What’s this orchard, anyway? I didn’t know there were farms this far east of the mountains. Is there a village nearby?” You glanced around as if you thought the farmhouse would materialise out of thin air before your very eyes. “There’s nothing like this on the maps and I’d’ve heard of an orchard of this size from travellers.”

He was still silent, merely gazing at you as you looked around cluelessly. Your stomach grumbled and your cheeks lit up brilliantly with embarrassment, but you bit your lip as you looked up at him.

“Do you think they’d notice if we took a few apples? Just enough to keep us going. We’ll have to bring some back for the old man, too, or he’ll die from his own bloody laziness.” Your mind was already made up, morals be damned. Lifting your leg up and yanking off one of your boots, knowing you’d be able to climb the tree better if you could use your toes too, you approached the tree he was standing silently under and gripped onto the lowest branch and heaved yourself up.

Your brother wasn’t here to receive the apples you dropped, but you figured the angel had to be useful for something.

“Here,” you called down when you were high up in the branches of the tree. “I’ll pick the best ones and drop them down. You try and catch them so they don’t bruise!”

Reaching out towards the furthest apple, you twisted it carefully off the branch so you didn’t cause unnecessary damage to the tree. Looking down, you saw the way the angel’s eyes stared at you from below and for a reason unknown to you, you held your breath as you dropped it down to him.

He was still and you thought he was just going to let it drop, preparing yourself to lecture him angrily for it, but at the last moment his hand snatched out and grabbed the apple from mid air so quickly you nearly missed it. It looked almost as if the apple had completely vanished from thin air until you saw it in his hand at his side.

“Don’t worry,” you teased from above him. “I’ll make sure I pick plenty for you too, you don’t need to covet them like an apple hoarder!”

You picked all of the best looking apples from the tree, hoping and praying that the landowner wouldn’t suddenly appear below you and demand payment for the goods you were stealing. When you thought you had picked the good ones from this tree, you climbed down the tree and rejoined him, all of the apples in a small pile at his feet. He was looking down at it with a curious expression, but to your surprise, you didn’t even have to ask what the matter was.

“I think we will need more than this.”

Just as it had before, his voice took your breath away, but this time you noticed how careful his words were, how hesitant he was to speak, as if he was afraid of making a mistake. Perhaps his kind spoke a different language and he wasn’t too familiar with this one? You had never heard of them speaking something other than the tongue of this land, but perhaps that would explain why they didn’t ever communicate with humans.

Shaking your head at yourself, you led him to another tree and he watched as you climbed this one too.

“The best apples are always the ones at the top,” you called down to him. “They get the most sunlight. I think they taste better too, but I suppose that’s a matter of opinion.”

You continued dropping apples to him, watching in silent awe as he would always snatch them out of the air before they could hit the floor. His reflexes were very good, you mused, and you wondered what he usually did that allowed him to refine them to such perfection. The day before you wouldn’t have bothered asking him anything about his home life, but it seemed he was more likely to talk when he was away from the old man, so you tried your luck.

“Do you eat apples?” you asked, and he turned his blank face to you again. “I mean, back home. What kind of stuff do you eat?”

He was quiet, and you thought he wasn’t going to answer you at all, but then his shoulders lifted as he inhaled a deep breath and his mouth opened.

“We eat the same food as you but,” he paused. “I am not a… food man.” Realising that he might not know the word, you helped him along as you continued to pick more apples. “You don’t gather? You don’t hunt or anything?” There was an even shorter pause this time as he carefully chose his words and crafted his sentence in his head. “No, I am a scholar,” he told you. “I do not… Gather or hunt.”

You hummed thoughtfully. Never before had you heard of angels having different social roles within their communities, but you supposed they must have done.

If this one was a scholar, he must know a lot about your kind. There was endless literature and information about you and humankind as a whole, and although you didn’t know how he would be able to get his hands on these things, you guessed he must have if he was quite proficient in your language.

You felt even stupider and more inadequate than you did last night.

“Well, I’m no scholar, but I could tell you which berries can kill you and which can’t. That’s a kind of smart.” “Yes,” he said. “A kind of smart.”

You didn’t have much to say to him after that, despite everything. You didn’t want to press him for more information about his kind, knowing that they were probably quite secretive about their existence, but he seemed unconcerned about the information he had already shared with you. He was a scholar. Your village was small and poor so you didn’t get too many educated folk come through - as far as you knew, the apothecary and your father were the only men that were or had been able to read in your entire village - but sometimes monks and religious people on pilgrimages to the cathedral in Greater Dawnstead would pass through. Sometimes you had seen them read from large, ancient books they lugged around, or scribbling something on parchment by candlelight in a quiet corner in the inn.

You weren’t sure if those men could be counted as “scholars,” but picturing the angel doing similar things made you feel uncomfortably hot.

He suited it, you decided. He looked like a scholar.

When you felt you had gathered enough apples, you clambered down from the tree and pulled off your sheepskin jacket, placing all of the apples into it and pulling the edges together into a makeshift bag. Then, you gestured him to follow you back to the camp to deposit the apples and wake up the old man.

Before you could bend down and nudge the man awake, you were suddenly hit with the chilling thought that this person was not supposed to be out of his handcuffs.

You whirled around to pin him with an accusatory stare, but you saw something you would have sworn came straight from a fairytale.

He was crouched next to the old man too, his hands extended as if he was about to receive a gift from him, palms facing towards the sky and fingers slightly curled as if clutching onto something. It was as if he was carefully enticing the chains from the old man; like coaxing a rabbit out of its burrow. The chains snaked like vines towards the angel of their own volition, trailing towards him and up into the air, wrapping around his wrists and capturing him again like poison ivy.

You had never seen anything like that in all your years, and all you could do was gape at him as he sat down calmly, as if he hadn’t just somehow animated mere metal with a thought.

You were dazed, staring cluelessly at the angel who didn’t even raise his eyes from the ground that he was so focused on. Not wanting to think too hard about what you had just seen, you busied yourself with splitting the apples into two piles; one for you and the angel, and one for the old man. You crammed most of your pile into your bag, knowing that the angel couldn’t carry his own, and when you had safely stowed away all you could carry you wandered over to the old man and nudged him gently with your foot. He snorted, trying to swat your foot away, but you merely sank the tip of your boot further into his side and rolled him over. He awoke with a start, peering around the camp as you had when you woken up and found the angel missing.

When the old man’s eyes landed on you and he started his usual early morning griping, your mind drifted away to the events of merely several minutes ago. Turning your attention to the silent figure still sitting cross legged on the floor, you thought that maybe it had been a trick of the light; that he had reached for the chains and reattached them himself, but your sleep deprived and exhausted mind and made it seem that they had moved on their own towards him. That had to be it, surely?

Yet, you couldn’t help but remind yourself of the creatures you had seen in the forest less than a week earlier, and how he had pulled you away from them, calling them wood elves. There was something incredibly humbling about the realisation that humans were not the most powerful beings on the earth, and that there are forces much more dangerous at play than you could have possibly imagined.

By the end of the first week, the three of you had made a good distance into the valley, leaving the largest of the mountains behind. For a reason unknown to you, the old man had deemed it unsafe to continue travelling through the mountain pass, and so you had started to travel further West on flat land before looping round the lake. Apparently, you were to avoid Greater Dawnstead and would instead travel all the way around the lake and back up to Lower Dawnstead, where you lived.

Whenever the old man was sleeping, or had for some reason left you and the angel unattended, you would have short conversations. For obvious reasons, you did most of the talking, filling him on your unexciting life in the hamlet, but he would contribute where he thought he could.

You told him all about the fields in the summer, how lush the grass was and how pleasant a breeze felt across your uncomfortably hot and sunburned skin. He particularly liked hearing about the animals you had helped rear, the lambs you would receive in the spring and the calves you would lead around the paddock, encouraging them to build their strength and stamina. In return, he told you about his life in seclusion, how he and his brothers would spend hours at a time pouring over old tomes, spending most of his time indoors. He told you that he didn’t often venture outdoors, finding no need to, and preferred staying in the dimly lit caves where his colony lived.

Vaguely, it registered in your mind that the only caves for miles around were far in the East and it would take months for you to travel there, even by horse. You wondered what he was doing so far in the North, but by the time you had thought you ask him, the old man reappeared from the trees, a few rabbits dangling from his hand by their feet, or on the best days, an entire deer slung around his shoulders like a trophy.

“Are you lonely?” you asked one day when you were crouched in a stream, boots removed and trousers rolled up to your knees. The old man had disappeared once again and you were trying your hand at fishing, although you didn’t know if this stream even had any or if it was the right time of year. The angel was still chained up, secured to the horse that was grazing on the bank and the angel was sat with his feet in the stream too. He didn’t make any complaints, but you knew that his feet were as sore as yours were after all this walking, even he only had leather sandals to protect his rather than your hardy boots.

“What do you mean?” he asked in return, and you were quiet for a few moments, tasting the next words that were on your lips. “Do you miss your family? Do you have family?” He looked thoughtful, tracing his fingertips through the water and humming. “I have family,” he told you. “I have lots of family, there are a great many of us.” “Do you miss them?” “Yes, but I will see them again.”

You were unsure what to say to that, not knowing how to tell him that the old man planned to have him caged up and his very nature restrained.

“I don’t have any family,” you said, turning to stare down at the water again. No fish had passed by and you knew this stream was depleted, but the coolness of the liquid felt good where the leather of your boots had rubbed your feet and there was a strange kind of serenity around the area. The angel was watching you with an emotion you couldn’t decipher in his eyes. “My Dad was killed in a bandit raid when I was only fourteen, and my Ma perished of a fever not even three moons later. By the time I was fifteen, my brother left to Greater Dawnstead to seek his fortune. I haven’t heard from him since.” “Where is Greater Dawnstead? You have mentioned it before.”

“It’s further up the river, on the side of Lake Solaius. It’s a city, surrounded by stone walls and protected by men in steel armour. Travellers I’ve met have told me that only blood and gold flow through their gilded streets, but I’ve only been once when I was young, so I couldn’t tell you whether that was true or not. My village is called Lower Dawnstead because it’s further down the river, therefore poorer, which is why my brother moved on to bigger and better things.” “I am sorry.” “No need. At least I know how to support myself, and fend for myself, if need be. Most of the lads back home can’t even claim that.”

“You are so…” he trailed off, struggling to find the right words. He wasn’t even looking directly at you but you felt the weight of his unspoken word heavy on your shoulders. What was he trying to say? Was it derogatory? Was he trying his best to put down your kind, to criticise them for not having the same kind of bonds with each other as his own people?

Before you could find out, the old man returned, this time empty handed. You didn’t have a clue what he did whenever he disappeared for gradually longer intervals, and you weren’t interested, but you were always enraged whenever he came back. In an odd sort of way, you wished he would wander into the forest and never return, leaving you and the angel to converse about everything you didn’t know about each other. You had come to treasure the moments you could spend alone, and you never wanted them to end, even after you returned to Dawnstead.

On the other hand, the angel would have no reason to stay, and you would rather free him than continue escorting him to a life you were certain he would rather not live if he could avoid it.

“Few more leagues West and we can start looping back South again.” he told you both, and you only nodded in reply, quietly disgruntled by his very existence.

How could he do this? Why did you think to come along? This was what caused the first empires of the angels to collapse in the first place; the brutality of man, and their murderous, barbaric ways. Only a human could be so callous as to enslave such a wonderful person. Only a human could throw around their authority like this, as if they were the ones with dominion over all other living beings.

Why was he still here? He could leave at any time he wanted, and yet, it seemed he chose to stay, he chose to be at the mercy of this man who was clearly considerably dumber than himself.

You didn’t understand.

On the sixth day of the third week, when you were approaching familiar land and could recognise some buildings - an abandoned windmill, an old silo with the roof caved in and spilled animal feed long since eaten by birds - it rained like you had never seen.

When you woke up on hard ground, the first thing you saw were the heavy looking clouds above and instantly knew that it was going to rain.

Leaping up to your feet, you were quick to wake the angel from his slumber, heart stuttering pathetically at the way he blinked up at you and smiled warmly. Cheeks slightly flushed, you woke the old man next, informing him that the forest was too quiet and the clouds too dark for you to feel comfortable lying out in the open like this.

You were in the deepest point of the valley, there was no chance for you to venture to higher ground, so you would have to brave whatever you were faced with.

Admittedly, it was more than you expected.

By noon, you were absolutely drenched to the bone and shivering like a stray cat. Your hair hung limply at the sides of your face and you had wrapped your arms tightly around yourself in a pathetic attempt to conserve as much warmth as possible. It was fruitless; if you didn’t find shelter soon, you were going to become incredibly sick and travelling the last stretch until you made it home would become impossible.

“Hey,” you called ahead, trying your best to be heard over the cacophony of the rain pelting against the trees and the muddy ground ahead of you. The angel turned to face you immediately, holding fast onto the chains until the old man turned to see what the hold up was. Nodding at him in thanks, you slogged through the mud so you were alongside the horse and stared up at the old man that was just as drenched as you were. “We need to find some kind of shelter and wait out this storm, or we’ll all get sick and add another week to our journey.”

He didn’t say anything, regarding you with the hard critical look you had been receiving since you met him that one late evening.

He swung the horse around, heading back in the direction you came. At your questioning look, he finally opened his mouth and graced you with his voice.

“Saw a few promising looking overhangs in the rocks we passed about half a mile back. Should be decent enough shelter.”

You stepped back, allowing him to pass you on his horse, and goosebumps rose along your flesh when the angel’s arm brushed against yours as he passed you too. Taking up your usual position at the back of the group, all the way to the overhang the old man mentioned, you were transfixed by the sight of water dripping off the feathers of his wings. This, you thought, was surely the benevolent beauty you had heard your priest crow about all hours of the day. There was nothing in the world that was more exquisite than the figure that walked ahead of you. Nothing in the world.

The overhang the old man had brought you to was just a small part of rock that jutted out from the rest of the rock surface in an uneven manner, meaning that you could only fit at most two people to a little outcrop. Resigning yourself to be separated from the other two, you almost dropped dead in shock when the angel moved to join you, despite the chains that held him to the man.

The man himself had an odd look on his face, as if he couldn’t decide which emotion to show the most of towards the angel for whatever kind of insubordination he had just displayed, but decided that it wasn’t worth the hassle. Merely handing the chains to you and retreating to another part of the rock face he could shelter under, you were flabbergasted at this turn of events.

You could free him right now, and then flee into the woods. The man could try to chase you, and would probably catch you on your way home if he was on horseback, but you would have done the right thing and so your conscious would be clear.

The angel moved past you, retreating under the shelter, and you were quick to join him, sharing a small space and trying your best not to focus on the heat that was radiating from him. He was impossibly warm and if you didn’t already know that from previous encounters you’d be terrified that he’d already caught a fever.

As it was, he was already looking rather comfortable as he settled on the floor, careful not to crush his gargantuan wings against the wall.

“Are they just like normal limbs?” you asked, dropping the chains in a pile at his feet and sitting next to him, dumping your pack at your own feet.

The floor was mercifully dry and you wondered how long it would take for the rain to ease up until it was rational to go out in it. However, you also hoped that it would take hours and hours, giving you more time to spend with him.

“My wings?” he asked, looking at you with those dark eyes you were incredibly fond of. “Yes, I suppose so. A bit heavier than an arm, though.” “They look it. Do you have to, like, groom them?” “Groom?” “Yeah, y’know, pluck them and stuff when they get messy.” You had seen poultry do the same on the farm, but you weren’t sure if he would be offended by you likening him to a chicken or not.

“Oh, yes. But I don’t think I have to right now,” Then, surprising you, he extended the one furthest from you and pulled it round in front of him so he could examine the feathers. They weren’t as beautiful as they usually were, being as he had been caught in the rain alongside you, but they still had an ethereal quality about them that stole the very breath from your lungs.

Mindlessly, you reached out to touch it with your hand, but rather than react in the aggressive way he had previously when you had grabbed him to save yourself from plummeting to your death, he moved the wing even closer to you as if he was encouraging your touch.

They were unbearably soft, if a little damp, but you enjoyed the sensation of raking your fingers down them slowly. The whole situation was incredibly overwhelming, and the way your bottom lip trembled showed that you were about to lose the tight hold on your emotions at any moment.

Pulling away, you settled back against the rock face and grinned up at him, with him giving you a gentle smile in return as he turned and tucked the wing safely behind him again.

“They’re incredibly beautiful. I wish that I had a pair, but I’m just a boring human.” You were saying it in jest, of course; you were aware that there were privileges to being a human that he didn’t have, but he was so exquisitely beautiful that you couldn’t help but want to look even slightly like he did. “I think that you are wonderful.” he said, so innocently that you almost didn’t believe he’d said it at all.

You turned your head to stare at him in shock, surprised that he would say such a thing in the situation he was in.

“W-What?” Your cheeks were uncomfortably hot and you were beginning to become annoyed at how easily he could make you all flustered. Back home, you spent most of your time around other men, but nobody had ever made your heart feels was weak as he did.

“You are wonderful,” he repeated as if you hadn’t heard him very well the first time. “But…” you floundered around in your head, desperately thinking of ways to dispute what he’d said. “But you’re chained up! I was there when you were captured and I just stood there and I did nothing. I’ve been helping him bring you home where you’ll be caged up and put on display like you’re, like you’re just a trophy! I’m not wonderful, please, don’t say that. The guilt will kill me.”

He remained calm all the way through your little explosion of emotions, and initially you weren’t sure if he’d understood everything that you’d said to him as you’d said it quite quickly. Then-

“You are not the one holding my chains,” he told you, gesturing to the pile you’d left at his feet. “You have given me companionship, and food. You’ve been a comfort on this journey.”

Just as you were about to open your mouth to give him more reasons why you weren’t a good person and he shouldn’t think of you as such, he placed one hand on your left cheek, shocking you into silence.

“You are not like the man,” he told you, staring so deeply into your eyes you were afraid he could read your mind and feel how hard your heart beat for him. “You are a friend.”

Tears lined your eyes and started flowing down your face, much to the angel’s dismay. His second hand cupped your other cheek and he tried his best to wipe away your tears, but it proved to be a useless mission as more took their place.

“Don’t cry,” he cooed repeatedly at you. “I did not mean to offend you.” “You didn’t,” you cried pathetically, hands reaching up to hold onto his wrists. It felt a little like deja vu, the way that you were clinging to him tightly, but this time you weren’t afraid for your life; you were terrified for the state of your heart. “I’m really happy.” “You cry when you are happy?” he asked, bewildered. “Humans are very peculiar.” “Yeah.” you agreed, smiling through your tears and sniffling slightly.

His face was unbearably close to yours, and usually this would have embarrassed you, but you felt nothing but comfort. He was familiar to you now, and as magnificent as he looked, you felt safe. This comfort was disrupted, however, by the way he tugged your face ever so slightly closer to his own and you could see each individual eyelash and the way his pupils were blown wide, darkness swallowing the chocolate warmth of his irises.

You stopped breathing.

Closer and closer he drew you, his sweet breath washing over your face, and you think that if it were anybody else you would have jerked away and sprinted into the woods, but you were intrigued. You were fascinated. You were completely enamoured by him.

“What’s your name?” you whispered just before his lips met yours. “Winwin.” He told you, and then he was kissing you.

Other girls had told you in the past that when they were kissed by their sweethearts, it felt hot. They said that they felt it all over their bodies, and that they felt within themselves a carnal desire that you had never experienced before.

Kissing him didn’t feel like that; it felt like so much more.

It was that first peek of sunlight through the clouds when it had finally stopped raining; it was wrapping yourself up in a blanket you’d warmed by the fire on a cold winter’s night; it was the feeling you’d get when you find a bush laden with fruit and you’d sit and gorge yourself until your cheeks and chin were stained with juice and your heart would feel lighter than air; the feeling you’d get whenever your father would take turns swinging you and your brother into the lake on the hottest days of the year.

Kissing him, kissing Winwin, felt like all the good things in the world had come to you at once, and you never wanted it to stop.

He seemed to feel the same, judging by the way his hands dug into your hips and lifted you, swinging you over onto his lap as if you weighed no more than the pack you had been carrying all this time. He was everywhere on your body; his fingers tangled in your hair before sliding down and resting on your hips, then rising again and cupping your cheeks, angling your head so he could kiss you deeper. You were unusually pliant under his hands, allowing him to do whatever he wanted to do with you, and you had never been in such a transcendent state of euphoria in your life.

If you weren’t careful, you would become dangerously addicted.

Yet, by the way he let out a groan from deep in his throat when you fisted your hands in his hair and tugged gently, making a heat burn through your body, you worried that you were already too far gone.

You ended up staying in your little shelter all the way through the night, and by the time the rain let up, the morning had broken over the mountains again and your stomach was uncomfortably hollow. You blinked yourself awake, wondering how you could possibly be so warm when you hadn’t been able to light a fire last night with all of the wood being sopping wet, and then realised with a start that you were encased in the safety of the angel’s arms.

You had never slept in a man’s embrace before and waking up to the fact that you had done - and in the arms of a man that looked like Winwin, no less - filled you with the strangest emotion. It was like a slightly nervous excitement; apprehension, if you will. Truthfully, you were terrified that the old man would notice the complete change in the dynamic of your relationship, particularly when you were reduced to a silent, blushing mess when you made eye contact. He didn’t, though, and off you went on your journey, ensuring that you had scoured the area for any food you might be able to take from the land to fill your bellies.

Thankfully you had been able to make a snare out of a branch you’d broken in half and a thick cord of ivy you’d cut from a tree, but you’d only been able to catch two rabbits by the time the pathetically small fire you’d been able to construct from thankfully dry twigs and leaves was burning hot enough to cook anything on it. Not wanting to waste time, you quickly skinned the rabbits and speared them with longer, sharper branches, propping them over the fire and handing one off to the old man and the other to Winwin when they were properly roasted. You were content to eat only the few berries you had managed to gather, and the last of the apples you had picked with Winwin a few weeks prior. However, Winwin obviously thought differently, shuffling closer and brandishing the rabbit towards you.

You shook your head, gesturing silently towards what you were sure would fill you enough until dinnertime, but he was adamant. When you continued to refuse the rabbit, he huffed a heavy sigh and sank his teeth into it’s flesh. Relieved that he had started eating, you were incredibly shocked when, as you opened your mouth to pop a wildberry in, his quick fingers shoved a chunk of rabbit into your mouth and then pushed your jaw closed so you had no choice but to chew and swallow.

When you gave him your best outraged look, he had merely blinked innocently at you, continuing to eat the rabbit. However, every now and then he would physically force a piece of it into your mouth and you found it easier to just accept it than silently fight against him.

At least he looked proud of himself.

For the most part, everything was just as it had been since you met - you would all walk in silence, with you taking up the end, and the old man would rarely spare you any words unless it was to demand something of you, or tell you how far you were from home.

The only difference were the kisses Winwin would steal from you, the affectionate caresses of your face and any skin he could reach when the old man wasn’t looking, and you couldn’t help but feel that a storm was brewing. You didn’t know what you thought you were doing, having such a relationship with an angel, and you had no idea how it was going to play out when you finally arrived in Dawnstead.

Honestly, it had crossed your mind a few times that Winwin was only entertaining you, humouring you as a means of protection - that you would try and fight for him to be free when you were released from the old man’s company and he would be caged up like a pet bird. But, you thought, if he wanted to be free from his chains, he could easily just make them fall from his wrists like liquid silver and escape.

So, what was it that he wanted from you?

By the time you arrived at the far side of Lake Solaius in the fourth week of your journey home, night had fallen again and you were readying yourself to try your best to gather more food.

An exhaustion that you were familiar with had started to settle into your bones, and you would be grateful for the warmth of your bed and a few days of rest. However, your heart felt impossibly heavy; the time for you to say goodbye to Winwin was drawing ever closer, and you didn’t know if you’d be able to do it.

You gathered the firewood as you always did, depositing it with the old man who moved quickly to assemble it and attempt to spark some flames, the chill in the air becoming more and more biting with every passing day. Instead of returning to gather the resources in order for you to build a snare and catch a small animal that lived in the woods for you to cook and serve, you stood there and stared at the gradually assembled fire.

You didn’t see anything particularly profound, and you weren’t pondering the meaning of life, but you were thinking about Winwin. You would have to free him. It wouldn’t sit right in your stomach to leave him to whatever fate the old man was keen to send him to, and your heart would bleed for days if you let him suffer. How you would do it, you weren’t sure, but you knew that you would.

How long the old man would stay in Lower Dawnstead, you would have to find out. Perhaps he would take Winwin to Greater Dawnstead in search of a bigger fortune than one he could find in the dirt tracks of your little village, and maybe even your brother would be attracted to such a rare spectacle. The idea of your own flesh and blood paying money to ogle Winwin made you feel faintly sick, so you turned your body away from Winwin so he wouldn’t see the distress on your face.

Yes, you would free him. You’d kill the old man if you had to do it, and live out the rest of your days as an outlaw, but your heart belonged to Winwin now and you would not allow it to be caged up alongside him.

Tonight was a good night for hunting it seemed, as you had been able to catch no less than five rabbits with strategically placed snares. Truthfully, you were sick of the taste of rabbit and if you could avoid it, you’d never eat it again, but it was this or starving to death. The old man didn’t seem to be in the mood to try and hunt for a deer or a boar, even if it meant that your stomachs were fuller and you could even carefully wrap the excess up in some cloth and carry it in your bag until the next mealtime.

Making quick work of skinning the poor animals and propping them up to roast against a large stone you lugged over from within the forest, you disappeared again into the trees even though there wasn’t really a need to.

You needed to come up with a plan to get Winwin away from the old man and back into freedom, whether it killed you or not. You knew that you wouldn’t be able to just yank the chains from the man and shout at Winwin to run, because the old man would surely clobber you so hard over the head for it you’d see stars. As well as that, you felt in your bones that you would have some difficulty convincing Winwin to leave at all, judging by the way that he seemed insistent on returning to his chains whenever he melted them off his wrists to join you with gathering food or whenever he felt like it, even. You still didn’t understand why he didn’t just go, just fly away and never look back. Whenever you asked him, he just shrugged, hummed, and changed the subject.

Perhaps even he didn’t know.

As you walked, muttering to yourself, your foot smashed painfully into something solid and you looked down, raising your leg up to clutch your poor toes and glaring at the rock that caused you harm as if it was animate. Your eyes drifted from it to another very similar one standing next to it, and then another, and then you noticed that they had all fallen from a clumsily built stone wall that span beyond what you could see.

It was just a low wall, probably more designed to inform people wandering through the trees that the land beyond was owned by someone, but this part of the wall was broken. Feeling bad about leaving it behind like that, you scooped up the rock that you had smashed your foot against and placed it back on the wall, bringing the others with you until the wall looked whole again. Your toe really was beginning to throb painfully and you wondered how fast you were walking to cause yourself so much pain.

Then you wondered how far you had stormed from the camp and whether the rabbit was going to burn without you turning it every now and then.

You sighed, resting your weight against the wall for a few moments. It was beginning to get incredibly dark, and you couldn’t see the light from the fire peeking through the trees even as you turned to face the direction from which you had come, but you didn’t feel panicked. In a strange kind of way, sitting on the rocky wall made you feel more at ease than you had felt for a long time, and you wondered if you would ever bother to return to the camp.

What was the point? You wouldn’t be able to save Winwin, anyway. If he couldn’t be bothered to help himself, then why should you! It was all futile, and everything you would do anywhere but sitting on this wall would be entirely useless.

The sound of your name rolling off his tongue didn’t make you feel as good as it usually did, and the sight of him, his pale skin and fantastic wings stark against the gloom of the forest, failed to make your heart speed up. Rather, your entire body felt sluggish, as if your very energy was being drawn from you. “You always find yourself in bad situations.”

“What?” you snapped, confused by his words. You were too tired to deal with him right now. You wanted him to leave you alone. “Go away.” “You are sat on a witches wall,” he said, ignoring your comment and merely crossing his arms, smirking down at you. “It would be best if you stood up.”

You didn’t want to stand up. You wanted to sit here on this wall and keep the weight off your feet forever, witches and angels be damned.

He said your name sharply this time, his voice demanding attention. “I am being serious, you need to get up.” “I don’t want to.” “I know you don’t, that’s why you need to.” “How does that make sense?” “Just trust me.” “Why?” “By the gods,” he sighed. He stepped forwards and wrapped a hand around your upper arm. You were quick to try and shove him off, but he was too strong, and he tugged you up and off the wall before you could even right yourself. “There. Do you feel better?”

It was as if you’d just woken from a long nap. The irritated cloud that had settled over your mind dissipated and you were left staring at Winwin as if you’d never seen him before, and it was if you could feel the energy you had left in your body coursing through your veins.

“What the hell was that?” you barked, stumbling towards him and whirling to face the seemingly innocent wall. “I said, it is a witches wall. They sap your energy out of you and you are stuck there sitting on that wall until you starve, or worse.” “Really? A real witch built this?” You tried to look beyond the wall for the sign of any kind of house. You hadn’t thought that witches were even real, merely horror stories designed to make children fall in line, but now you were thoroughly spooked.

“They build their walls all around to sustain their magic,” he told you, wrapping an arm around your shoulders and smiling brightly down at you where you were huddled against his chest. “We should get back to the camp before the old man notices that I am gone.”

You nodded, blindly following after him and still slightly shaken from your strange ordeal with the wall. Now that you thought back, you had been unreasonably moody even in your own head. Scoffing in amazement, you wondered what else there was about the world you didn’t know about. Maybe Winwin knew about it all, being a scholar. He was obviously incredibly familiar with such things, saving you from first the wood elves and now this quietly malicious wall.

“Is there something on your mind?” he questioned when you could just see the flames of the fire through the trees. Your shoulders tensed and his fingers splayed over them, trying his best to massage the stiffness back out of them again. “No, not really,” you told him, the lie tasting like ash on your tongue. “I’m just nervous about going home is all.” “Are you sure?” he asked, placing a finger under your chin and raising your head so you could look nowhere but him. “You can tell me.”

Honestly, you wanted to cry. You wanted to cling to him and bury your face into his chest and refuse to let go of him, but he wouldn’t understand. No matter how many times you tried to make him see the reality of the situation he was in, he refused to understand why you were so upset about it. Did he not know that he wouldn’t be free anymore? Did he not realise that he wouldn’t be able to return home to his family, ever again?

You had to do something. You had to.

You leaned up and pressed a gentle kiss against his mouth, making him move his hand up to cup your face.

“I’m fine, Winwin,” you whispered, enjoying the way his eyes turned up at the corners as he smiled at you. “Everything’s perfect.”

It took another few days for you to finally arrive in your village. When you did, the atmosphere of unrest could be felt all the way to the church and back, and you tried your best to ignore the stares of the other villagers as they stopped and gawped at you and your unusual travelling companion. Winwin seemed to be just as fascinated with them as they were with him, staring back at them with equal curiosity and drinking in as much as your village as he possibly could, head spinning this way and that in order to take everything in and not miss a single thing.

You hoped he didn’t think too poorly of it, as shabby and run down as everything was.

You heard your name shouted across the town square when the old man had finally deemed it an acceptable spot to stop. You turned to face whoever it was that had called you and your heart soared at the sight of your friend, Johnny. His face was blackened with soot from the furnace and his apron was slightly more marked than it had been when you left, but he looked well, if you ignored the few extra burn scars he had acquired on his arms.

He was the blacksmith’s apprentice and he enjoyed his work, but he enjoyed his drink more, alongside the services of the women that worked in the tavern closest to his house. Even so, he was a steadfast and loyal friend, and those were hard to come by.

“What…” he was gaping at you, eyes flitting between yourself and Winwin, and you turned to face the angel with a nervous laugh. “Yeah, um… Long story?” you offered, scratching the back of your hand with your other.

“Look away, boy,” the old man snarled at Johnny and whilst Johnny would usually never back down from confrontation, whether it was with an elder or not, the burning animosity in Winwin’s eyes was enough for him to lower his head and retreat.

By now quite the crowd had gathered around the three of you, but you were too concerned with how Winwin was faring under all of this attention to even bother feeling self conscious for yourself. Even though you were probably caked in mud and you hadn’t bathed properly in two months, Winwin had never been around so many humans and they had never even gotten a glimpse of one of his kind before. You had no idea how they would react to him, other than staring.

Truthfully, you looked more terrified than he did; his shoulders were relaxed and he was comfortably making eye contact with everybody he looked at, even if they broke it and looked away first. You, on the other hand, were a mess. As the old man tacked his horse up outside the inn, you were shaking your knee as you willed him to move faster, and your fingers were trembling with adrenaline. If anybody made any kind of move towards Winwin, hostile or not, you were worried you would snap and have some kind of a breakdown.

You just wanted him to be safe.

Before too long, the old man beckoned you both to follow him - as if Winwin had a choice - and you all disappeared into the inn. Mistress Elda was visibly startled by the three of you, or rather Winwin, but she readily accepted the gold the old man offered her and ushered you up the stairs and into one of the empty rooms available. The old man shut the door firmly behind you and locked it to keep any unsavoury folk out and you could finally feel yourself begin to relax slightly.

“Right,” the old man started and your hackles raised again. Here it was: here was the blow that would break your heart. Winwin obviously thought the same thing, and he shifted subconsciously closer towards you to, the muscles in his arms beginning to tense up. The veins of his forearms were bulging and you wondered whether he had been more freaked out by so many eyes on him than you had initially thought. “We’re headed upriver in the morning, so food and rest is in order. Girlie-” This was it, this was it, this was it. “You’re to stay here overnight with it; I have some business I need to attend to.”

Subconsciously, you were outraged at the way he referred to Winwin as ‘it’, as if he was just an inanimate toy he was coveting. However, you were too shocked by what the old man had asked of you and before you could even ask him to clarify, he had exited the room and was stumping down the stairs.

Before your mind could even wonder what the fuck, Winwin hands were on you, spinning you around to face him and drawing you into his chest. You latched onto him without even thinking anything of it, and you wondered how it had come to be that he was so comfortable with you that he was initiating physical contact like this. It had happened effectively overnight; one moment he was too angry and quiet to even look directly at you properly, and suddenly he was trying to feel your skin at every given opportunity. You didn’t know what had changed, but he was electrifying, so you couldn’t find it within yourself to particularly care.

“You are coming with us,” he said and you could hear the smile in his voice. “You are coming with me.” “Yeah,” you were laughing now, elation flooding your veins and making you feel almost giddy. “Yeah, I’m going with you.” “You are staying here?” he asked, tugging you away from him so he could lean down and look you in the eye. “With me?” “I guess so. That’s what the old man said, at least.”

His arms wound around you again and you remained in his arms, hearing the metallic thump as his chains hit the floor behind you and you heard nothing but the sound of his breathing and the beating of his heart, reminding you that he was real and he was right there with you.

It hadn’t been particularly easy to convince him it was safe for you to leave, even for just a few moments to go and get some food from Mistress Elda or one of the other barkeep, even if it was just bread and mead. You hadn’t tasted the sweet explosion of honey on your tongue for so long and you wondered if Winwin had anything like this back home, or if this was completely new for him.

By forking out a few coins from the bottom of your pack before leaving Winwin alone in the room you were able to stretch Elda’s hospitality to providing two pheasant legs, basted in duck fat and served with leeks, carrots and potatoes. It was much more substantial and luxurious than anything you’d been able to rustle up on the journey, and your mouth was flooded with saliva before you even made it back up the stairs.

You knocked on the door with your foot and Winwin pulled it open slowly, peeking just an eye out before opening it wider when he saw that it was you.

He looked impressed with the dinner, but decided after a few mouthfuls that he didn’t like leeks at all and so he moved them onto your plate, stealing one of your potatoes in exchange. As you ate it was mostly silent and when he had scraped his plate clean, he let out a content sigh and patted his stomach with satisfaction, drawing a laugh from you and another heartbreaking smile from him.

“Are you excited to go to Greater Dawnstead?” he asked as you were lying side by side on the shabby rope bed. It was threadbare and provided little to no cushioning, but it was still a thousand times more comfortable than sleeping on the ground again and your bones were thanking you for the reprieve. He was playing with your fingers gently, his other arm under your head as you were using it as a pillow, tucked up into his chest.

“No,” you answered honestly, heart dropping at the thought that you were delivering him to his fate and hadn’t yet done anything to prevent it. “Are you?” “No,” he told you, one of his fingers winding around three of yours, tugging them back and watching at they sprang back into place one by one as he released them. “If you are not, then I am not.”

You were on the brink of grabbing him by the front of his clothes and shaking him, shouting at him that this was it, that he was going to be nothing more than a tourist attraction to those people, but your words failed you and your heart choked you.

“We could leave,” you whispered into his torso. His hand was still dancing around yours, tangling your fingers together before untangling them. “We could just run away.”

He hummed thoughtfully, before shaking his head and then planting a kiss in your hair. “I need to-” he stopped. Then, “I need to see.” “See what?” you asked, pulling your head away from him and staring up at his face. He didn’t look at you but his brow was heavy, troubled. “Greater Dawnstead? We can go in the night, see the sights, and then leave. Winwin,” you propped yourself up, turning his face towards you with one hand. “The old man would find us.” he said, eyes sad and mouth downturned. “I don’t care. We’ll run away again. We’ll run away until there’s no more land to run on, and then we’ll swim,” you were desperate now. “Please, let’s leave. Don’t make me watch him take you.”

He sat up, hand coming up to cup the back of your head and rested his forehead against yours.

“That’s not the life that you deserve.” he said, and you scoffed, pushing him away and creating more distance between you. “And this is the life that you deserve? Being locked up in a cage and paraded around like you’re an wild animal?”

He slid forwards to hold onto you again, but you yanked yourself out of his grip and stood up off the bed so your mind wouldn’t become clouded with his sweet presence.

“I was captured,” he said, and you winced at the reminder. “This is my punishment. I deserve this because I was arrogant, painfully so.”

You shook your head, turning away from him and staring sightlessly out the window. It was too grimy to see anything through it and for some reason, this only made you more infuriated.

“My family wouldn’t be too happy to accept me back if they knew that I had…” he trailed off, his voice fading into nothing and you turned to look at him again, arms crossed firmly against your chest as if you were trying your hardest to protect your heart from any kind of damage he may cause.

“That you had what?” you demanded. “Developed… feelings for a... human.” “Then you leave me behind,” you answered, chin raised defiantly. “If it’s what keeps you safe, then you leave me behind.”

He was up on his feet before you could even see him move, his face suddenly incredibly close to yours and hands clasped so firmly on your cheeks it was almost a threat.

“I will never.” he stated, voice like thunder and the meaning of his words striking through you like a white hot blade.

You hadn’t realised just how quickly the two of you had come together, and even though you had only known each other for a short part of your lives, you already knew he had become a defining factor on the rest of your life. You hoped that he thought the same.

His hands were entwined in your hair, his forehead pressed against yours, but you couldn’t look him in the eyes. You were afraid he would see into your soul, your heart, and then he would know that you were embarrassingly weak for him.

You tugged away, sighing heavily at the loss of contact, and declared, “I’m taking a bath,” you said, gesturing to the iron tub in front of the fire that was making your skin feel sticky in the small room. “I’m going to ask Mistress Elda for a bucket or two. You just… You just stay here.”

You felt his heavy gaze on the back of your head even after you shut the door behind yourself, and plodded heavily down the stairs and back to the bar.

For a few more coins, Elda was happy to supply you with five pails of water, calling the cook’s son to help you lug them back upstairs.

Your muscles were still lean and firm from your labour based job, so you had no problem with carrying two buckets in each hand. The boy was waif thin and drawn looking, so you felt bad for making him lift something heavy, promising him a silver for his services.

Opening the door with your foot and setting the buckets on the floor in front of the fire, you turned to relinquish the child of his burden - dismayed at his shocked and wide eyes as he took in the figure perched on the bed and staring at him in equal fascination.

“Leave, now, child - return to your other duties,” you said, taking the bucket from his hand and pressing a coin into it, folding his fingers over the metal and pushing him back towards the door. “Tell nobody of what you’ve seen, understand?”

He nodded dumbly, still staring at Winwin with awe, his gaze only being broken by the door you shut gently in his face.

“Human children are quite open with their expressions,” Winwin commented, and you nodded, turning to the bathtub without even glancing at him. “You are angry with me.” “That boy’s sweet, but gormless.” You didn’t answer his observation, busying yourself with pouring the water into the iron tub.

You knew that most people would prefer to hang their pails of water above the fire to warm the water, but ever since you were little, you had preferred to submerge yourself in cold water. It was invigorating and refreshing, and made your muscles loosen up before going to bed. That way, the ache didn’t last as long and you could continue working as hard as you could for the Jacobsens.

You would have to visit them before you ventured on to Greater Dawnstead.

You toed off your leather boots, grimacing at the sight of your grimy and sore feet, then shirked your jacket onto the floor. Modesty overcame you before you could undress further, and you spoke to the room, “close your eyes.”

Turning briefly to check that he had done as you said, you untucked the fabric of your tunic from your breeches and pulled it up and over your head. Unlacing your breeches, those were quick to drop to the floor too and you dipped a toe into the cold water, letting your body adjust as you slowly slipped into the water and sank down to sit.

It was a little colder than you were used to due to the freezing weather, but you immediately began to unwind and relax, hardly caring that Winwin was barely four feet from where your naked body was, and scrubbing roughly at your body to get the worst of the mud and general grime off yourself.

When you deemed yourself clean enough, you relaxed back onto the side of the tub and released a loud and long sigh.

You had spent longer than two months wandering into the forest, further than anybody you knew had ever travelled, but you didn’t feel different. You didn’t feel smarter, or more experienced, or that you actually had travelled as far as you had. All you had to commemorate your journey were the calluses on your feet and the weight that you had lost from your stomach and thighs. Was it supposed to be like this? Weren’t you supposed to return in glory, with stories to share, like those knights in the books your father would read?

No tales of glory and splendour were floating to the front of your mind. Your experiences would stay your yours, kept inside your memories like a treasure nobody would be able to plunder.

He was most likely watching now, his eyes wide open, but yours were firmly closed. You didn’t think that you were angry at him, not really.

You were just frustrated.

How could he possibly think like this? To think that, just because he was captured, this was some sick way of being punished for his mistake? To atone? You didn’t understand, and you wouldn’t understand no matter how many times he tried to explain to you. It didn’t make any sense.

“Y/N.” He whispered, and the proximity of his voice made you jump, the water shifting around you. He was kneeling next to the tub, staring into your eyes with such intensity that you’d feel naked even if you currently weren’t. Instinctively, your legs closed together and your arm raised to hide your breasts - before his hand caught yours. “You are so beautiful.”

He brought his face closed, gliding his lips up your jawline and making your head tilt back and release a sigh.

“So beautiful.” he whispered again, making goosebumps raise against the flesh of your entire body and you tensed slightly as he brought his hand lower, only to rest it on your hip under the water and tug you slightly closer to the side of the tub he was leaning on.

His fingers smoothed out on your flesh, and he brought your mouth to his in a gentle kiss. It was sweet until you remembered your previous exasperation, and you sank your teeth into his bottom lip roughly. He jerked away in shock, tongue peeking out and wetting his lip and staring at you, but you just shrugged and smiled innocently, bringing your knees up to your chest defensively.

He was on his feet in a second, hands hooking under your knees and holding onto your back, and quicker than you could blink he had hauled you out of the protection of the water and was cradling your naked body to his chest.

“Gods-!” you exclaimed, clinging closer to him as the ground disappeared from under you, and your cheeks flamed red as your entire body was revealed to him.

He said nothing, turning to the bed and dropping you ungracefully onto it, and you scrambled pathetically to try and cover as much of yourself with your hands as you could. It proved to be fruitless, however, and Winwin’s eyes still roamed your entire form with greedy eyes.

You had never been so embarrassed in your entire life.

“Winwin, what the hell!” you demanded, hands still scrabbling around on your body.

His form crawled up the bed, his entire body weight resting carefully on top of yours and you stopped breathing again. His lips were dancing across your neck, hands supporting himself on either side of your body, and his teeth were grazing your flesh so suddenly that you inhaled jerkily, anticipating - though you weren’t sure what for.

He said nothing, just fluttering little kisses up your neck before nipping gently, pulling your skin into his mouth and sucking languidly. A gasp was torn from your throat, your hands shooting up to knot in his hair and hold his head close to your skin. Darker and darker bruises bloomed up the column of your throat and by the time he was done, you were gasping for breath and a devilish smirk had graced his face as he stared down at your form below him.

“Are you okay?” he asked, and the innocence in his tone of voice aggravated you. He looked smug, and you wanted nothing more than to wipe that look off his face.

Shoving him backwards and taking a little joy from the surprise on his face, you pressed him back into the mattress where you lay and straddled his hips, pressing your lips hurriedly to his. It was messy, with too much tongue and teeth and biting and gasps for air, and your hands were exploring his firm torso with glee, memorising the long planes of his body but wishing for skin to skin contact.

He obviously thought the same thing, pushing you back slightly to yank his tunic up and off his head, slinging it somewhere into the room behind you before reconnecting your mouths again. You dragged your hands slowly down the smooth, taut skin of his torso, down to his abdomen and back up again, flicking a nail across one of his nipples and drawing a gasp from him. His muscles flexed underneath you and he angled his head, his tongue delving further into your mouth and wrestling with your own as your hands blindly attempted to unlace his trousers.

You were taking too long, so his hands halted you, bringing your hands back up to rest on his chest to brace yourself as he sat up, burying his face in your chest and sucking your right nipple into his mouth. He swirled his tongue around it, coaxing it into a hardened bud, and you arched your back, moaning wantonly into the small room as he nipped at your breast and tugged the other with his free hand, his eyes focused on all of the expressions your face made.

You had never been in a situation like this with another man, but something about Winwin made you feel safe. You were confident that this was right; that this felt right.

The wetness between your legs was beginning to pool and soak into the fabric of his trousers and you shamelessly ground your crotch into his, making him stutter in his rhythm and moan against your breast, pausing in his ministrations as you started grinding steadily over his hardening length. You could feel the heat of it through the fabric of his trousers and the friction that pulled against your clit made you gasp, your eyes screwing shut as his hands gripped onto your hips and aided you as you ground against him, a deep groan coming from somewhere low in his throat.

“Y/N,” he whispered, eyes shining as he took in your features and how they all screamed for him. “Y/N.”

All he could say was your name, not knowing the correct words in the tongue you spoke to properly tell you how you made him feel; the pleasures of the flesh alongside the warmth that encompassed him whenever you were near.

He was convinced there was nothing more beautiful than the sight of you above him, sweating and panting his name over and over again.

Your hands dropped down to his trousers again, fumbling at the strings and sighing in frustration when you failed again. Chuckling at your exasperation, he made quick work of them with one hand and you were quick to shove them down, with him lifting himself slightly so you could free him of his trousers entirely.

You knew that your eyes were wide as you took him in. You had never seen a bare man before, always being careful to avoid accidentally looking when you would venture into the river and swim with some of your friends. Despite this, you knew that he was as blessed as the rest of him, and when you returned your gaze up to his and saw his smug smile, you grinned.

His hand gripped the base of his length, pumping himself once and then twice, and then you were pushed over onto your back again. You landed heavily, hair splaying around your face, and all you could do was stare at the ceiling as his fingertips met your entrance, feeling the wetness that had gathered there.

His fingertips glided up and down your clit, making your hips buck up towards him as a whiny moan left your mouth, sparks and electricity shocking your body and making you curl your toes.

If you had your way, you would be doing this all the time.

“I do not think that I can wait any longer,” he told you, his voice uncharacteristically hoarse and shaky. You nearly cried with relief at his words. “May I?” “For the love of- Yes!” you exclaimed, head raised to look at him.

You had never seen anything as glorious as Winwin kneeling between your legs, hand wrapped firmly around himself.

He shifted slightly closer to you, pulling your legs slightly further apart to accommodate him.

“If I cause you any discomfort, you must tell me immediately.” He sounded solemn and you nodded immediately, eyes rolling back into your head when his length met your entrance and he slid it up to your clit and back down, coating himself in your juices.

“Winwin…” you gasped, your walls clenching around nothing and your teeth gritting together. “Please…”

Slowly, agonisingly slowly, he sank inside you, inch by inch as your head lolled back and legs started shaking. You held your breath at the sharp ache, the throbbing, and nearly wept as he bottomed out inside you, stilling completely and hands reaching up to grip onto yours. Your fingers were laced and you were clinging on tightly as you could, his lips dusting kisses up and around your chest, murmuring words in a language you didn’t recognise but soothed you all the same.

Never in your life had you ever felt so full, so complete, and you were already dreading the moment morning arrived and you were forced to separate.

“Can I…?” he left the question open, jerking his hips slightly and you gasped at the sensation of his length kissing something deep inside you, nodding your head frantically.

He raised up, his hands moving to grip onto your hips, and slid himself out before slowly inching back inside again. Your eyes were screwed shut, head tilted back onto the pillow and your mouth releasing a cacophony of moans that you’d usually be embarrassed about. He repeated his actions again and again and again, sliding in and out of you at a gradually quickening pace that stole the very air from your lungs.

To you, nothing else existed. Outside of this room, the world had stopped turning and everything was frozen in time as Winwin made love to you, swallowing your gasps and moans with his mouth pressed sweetly against yours, sweat beading at his temple and grunts leaving his throat.

He drove into you harder and harder, a hand coming up to clutch at the flesh of your breast, and you were convinced - no, you were certain that he truly was an angel. To be with him like this, to be encompassed in his arms as he murmured sweet nothings in your ear, the sensation of your walls clamping down on him tightly as your erupted around him, muscles spasming and a loud cry being torn from you, was to receive a glimpse of heaven.

He was moving faster and faster, his fingers digging into any part of you he could reach, leaving red marks on your hips, your arms, your breasts, your legs. His head dropped into your neck, bringing your flesh into his mouth again and sinking his teeth into it as he stilled, filling you with his seed as his muscles trembled and he choked a moan into your neck.

Your hands were carding through his hair, your walls throbbing around him as he emptied himself inside you, and when he was done he slid his softening length from you and planted a sweet kiss on your lips.

“Do you feel okay?” He asked breathlessly, chest heaving and face slightly flushed. He was sitting back on his knees now, staring down at you with eyes filled with something you hadn’t seen before and blood rushed to your cheeks, legs clamping shut and pulling your weight up so you could face him properly.

“I feel…” you stopped, taking in the marks that littered your body and the sight of your mixed juices leaking from your womanhood. Adrenaline was still making your fingers shake slightly, your heart hammering in your chest, and you grinned up at him who smiled gently in return. “I feel perfect.”

Just before the sun broke over the mountains, he was sleeping soundly on your chest, your fingers stroking rhymically through his hair. He had never looked sweeter, his cheek slightly squashed into your chest and lips plump. He was glowing, and you swore that by now you had everything about him memorised, even each individual hair of his eyebrows.

The sun was up, and with it came the crushing realisation that you would not be able to wake up with Winwin in your arms again.

The thought of it brought tears to your eyes and you desperately tried to blink them back, but then your chest felt tight and your breathing was heavy, and Winwin was blinking sleepily up at you with the stars in his eyes and they were dribbling down your face.

“You are crying,” he said, pulling away from you slightly to rub his eyes with the palm of his hand. More tears fell down your face at the very thought that something so sweet was going to end up living such a sad life, and Winwin’s hands were cupping your cheeks in the next instant. “Why are you crying?”

You didn’t say anything, just staring at him through your blurred vision. What could you say, though? He was adamant that he would do this, even as much as you tried to resist him. You didn’t think he would be changing his mind any time soon.

“Y/N.” He was smoothing his thumbs over your cheeks, trying desperately to wipe your tears away, but they kept coming. You didn’t want to say goodbye to him when the old man came to get you. You didn’t want to let go of him.

At this point you were afraid that it would kill you.

“This will not be the last time we will be together,” he said, pulling your body upwards so you were held tightly against his chest. The nip in the air made you shiver and burrow closer to him, his body warmth keeping you snug, and he tucked your head into his neck so he could rest his head on top of yours. “I will make sure of that.”

“How, Winwin?” You asked, sniffling and wishing you had a handle on your emotions. “How will you do that?” “I will find a way,” he said, his voice firm and leaving no room for argument. “I will find my way back to you.”

The early morning was spent like that, cuddled up into his chest as he sang softly what he told you was a lullaby his mother used to sing to him when he was restless and couldn’t sleep. It worked, for the most part - until you remembered that you might not hear his singing voice again, and you dissolved into tears once more.

The old man came for you both when the inn downstairs started to wake up, Mistress Elda crowing through the building and demanding all her staff wake up. One by one they tramped down the stairs, and you were still clinging to Winwin and terrified of the moment the old man’s heavy fist would land once, twice, three times on the wooden door that separated you and Winwin from your inevitable fate.

Winwin stood up first, heading to the door as you frantically pulled on some clothes and then leapt back into bed, and the old man entered the room, his form seeming imposing despite Winwin’s superior height and stature. Before you could even think about, the chains snaked around Winwin’s wrists like they’d always been there and the old man barely glanced in your direction.

“You have two minutes to right yourself, girlie, then we’re setting off.”

“I was wondering if, before we left…” your voice died slightly when the old man turned to look at you with a glare of fire. The thought of the Jacobsen’s hearing that you had returned to your village but not going to see them made your heart feel sick with guilt, so you pushed on despite your subconscious screaming at you to do as the old man asked. “I was wondering if I could visit some people. Just quickly, for like five minutes or so.”

The old man was instant in his reply. “This isn’t a touring group, girlie. You’re coming now or you’re not coming at all.”

That was not the reply you wanted to hear, and Winwin’s dark glare at the side of the old man’s face did nothing to alleviate your sadness. You hoped that Mrs Jacobsen wasn’t upset with you when you returned. You would make sure that you made it up to her when you got back.

Two minutes later the three of you had left the inn, your head down and your heart somewhere near your ankles. It felt rather like you were headed towards the executioner's block, and your feet were dragging behind you in your own little show of defiance. Maybe if you lagged behind far enough the old man would get frustrated with you, and you could buy Winwin some time to escape.

Glancing at him and the way that he was walking straight ahead with his head high as if he was proud of the fate that awaited him made you think that he wouldn’t take your few moments even if you handed them to him on a silver platter.

You didn’t know too much about his people and the way that they lived, just little bits from what Winwin had told you, but their ideas of pride and atonement were completely fucked.

He didn’t turn to look at you once as you made your way out of the town square, ignoring all of the bleary eyed and awed people that walked past. Travellers from other cities and villages, mothers that gathered their flocks of children into their skirts. Carts drawn by oxen and donkeys trundled past, hay stacked up and children sitting up on them, gawping at Winwin as they rode past.

The smells of spices and baked goods drifted towards you on the breeze, and you couldn’t help but inhale deeply and feel saliva explode over your tongue. You had lived in this village for your entire life, but you never failed to get more and more excited with each step you took towards the market. Even if all you bought were the bare essentials, sometimes being able to barter for cheap meat such as chicken or even a pheasant from farmers that ran their own stalls, you enjoyed the presence of being in such a lively and happy place.

You loved your little village, even if it was small and poor.

The road to Greater Dawnstead was thankfully short, only about two miles of walking before arriving at the stone walls that separated it from the outside world. The portcullis gate was up, allowing citizens and travellers to pass through freely, and as more and more people swarmed around you to get on with their days, you found that less people stared at Winwin. There were, of course, the hissed whispers between friends and the gasps as they realised what was among them, but then their eyes would find the chains that bound Winwin and they would avert their eyes.

The skin on the back of your neck was beginning to become itchy with the stress of the situation and you wondered vaguely whether it would be easier to say goodbye now rather than watch him get ripped away from you.

Passing through the portcullis gate, you were jarred at how different the city was from your own little hamlet. The streets were paved with stone, houses made of the same material and they all even had glass windows. Little alleyways and winding pathways led off from the main street that you were all following, and the insatiable curiosity to know what was on the other end almost overwhelmed you.

Neat flower beds lined the streets, attractive arrangements of flowers in stone boxes rising from the floor, and you knew that no expense was spared when it came to this city; this hub of trade and leisure. It made you wonder what the lord of this city was doing about the starving children in the harshest winters your little defenceless village saw whilst these people were hiding in their stone houses and thanking their deities it wasn’t them out there. Your stomach was twisting uncomfortably at the thought.

As you walked, the houses became bigger and greater, becoming shops selling all kinds of fineries. An entire shop devoted to different kinds of silks baffled you, and you were close to turning back and leaving this foreign place. Was a shop selling only shoes necessary? These people lived in the lap of luxury and it made you feel physically nauseous that you could hardly afford to keep a single roomed house in your name.

Greater Dawnstead had many of the same travellers as Lower Dawnstead, the same wooden carts being pulled by struggling animals, but you were surrounded by rich and the well known, dressing themselves in silks and jewels, hopping over puddles like flapping geese to protect their fineries. To walk amongst these people made you feel ill, but you wouldn’t leave Winwin to walk alone in a place that was completely new and unusual to him.

He had maintained the stoic image you had gotten to know well when you first met, but now you could see that his shoulders were visibly tensed and he was trying his best to make himself shrink into something less noticeable, to no avail. He still attracted attention, as was expected with his superior stature and gargantuan wings, but no questions were asked of either you or the old man, each of them averting their eyes as if you were the walking dead or they had committed a misdeed against you.

The way that the roads cleared around you like the red sea made you nervous, a building pressure rising in your chest that you had to swallow down in order to avoid crying out. You had never felt this unsafe anywhere in the wilds you had just come from, even sleeping surrounded by the darkness and unknowable depths of the forest. There was something about the people that were moving around you and refusing to make eye contact that made you feel sick.

These were the kinds of people that had caused Winwin’s race to scatter and go into hiding in the first place. These were the kinds of people that would buy his wings, severed from his body, without a second thought about the person they came from.

The gilded streets you had heard so much about seemed so evil to you; an unguessable danger lurked in every corner, and if you didn’t keep thinking of how scared Winwin was you’d have turned and pelted back down the street and all the way to the safety of your little home. As it was, you set your shoulders and grit your teeth, glaring at anybody who ventured a little too close to you for comfort and wishing you were back in the dingy little inn you had spent the night with Winwin in.

At least there you didn’t feel the looming threat that something awful was going to happen.

By the time you made it to the main square far in the middle of the sprawling city, the crowds had gotten thicker and it was a struggle to keep close to the pair of them without being jostled and shoved to one side. The noise was deafening, the shouts and the jeers at nothing in particular ringing in your ears and for the first time, you desperately missed the peace and quiet you got far on the other side of the mountains. You missed the sounds of the birds in the morning and the steady beat of Winwin’s heart when you laid your head on his chest. You missed the freedom of being able to splash around in the rushing brooks you passed, flinging water at an outraged Winwin and ensuing a furious water fight that nobody seemed to really win, collapsing in a heap of exhilarated laughter on the bank.

You missed Winwin. He was right in front of you but at the same time, he had already been ripped from you.

The town square was much grander than anything you had in your small hamlet, lined with shops and graced with a huge water feature that looked like something out of your dreams. Three beautiful women were standing in a circle with their backs to each other, contorting their bodies in graceful ways and arched, water pouring from their fingertips in an arc that pooled at their feet.

You were enraptured, keeping your eyes on the stone ones of the closest woman, but as you got closer and closer a sickly feeling of dread washed over you.

These were not women.

The pointed tips of their ears gave away their race, and the happy, laughing faces suddenly contorted into shrieks of horror, severed stumps protruding from their backs parallel from each other on their shoulder blades. Eyes scanning wildly - searching for reason, or at least an explanation for this vulgar display of power - you couldn’t help but focus on the shackles that encased their feet, chaining them down into this stone structure that had originally seemed so beautiful to you. Winwin wasn’t looking at it.

This was a sick place.

“You are late, Godfrey.” a gruff, heavy voice startled you out of your internal revulsion, and you turned, dismayed to find a man in steel armour with the crown’s emblem emblazoned onto his ailette. The craftsmanship that went into each and every stitch of his ailette astounded you, but the way the sun glinted off the steel that flexed over his hand, clasped firmly - yet somehow still seeming relaxed - over the hilt of his sword that rested in his sheath made your breath stutter in your throat and you knew that you could never trust this man.

“There was a delay,” the old man said, his voice less stern than it usually was, and oddly shaky. You were perturbed. “No matter. You are here now,” the man’s eagle eyes zeroed in on Winwin from his perch on a stallion, and you had to physically restrain yourself from flinging yourself in front of him to shield him from view. “This is the specimen, I presume?” “Yes. We caught him in the forests of Tay, in the North, my lord.” “We?”

The old man turned to you, gesturing you forwards wildly and suddenly you were also under the scrutiny of the man that had managed to demand respect from the most stubborn man you had ever met.

You were fully dressed, wrapped in your warmest coat, but under his stare you felt terribly naked, as if he could see right through to your heart and your soul.

“There was a complication.” the old man, Godfrey, added. “I can see,” the man in armour said. “It matters little. Take it.”

At his words, there was a surge of activity that surprised you, men dressed in a similar rich fashion emerging from the crowds around you and clasping their metal hands around Winwin’s arms.

You were indignant, surging forwards only to be grasped equally as roughly and shaken slightly, but you didn’t cease the cries that escaped your lips at the sight of a woven bag being shoved over Winwin’s head and obscuring him from your view.

“Let go of him! You bastards, he’s defenceless!” you shrieked, attracting the attention of the people around you.

The man above you, obviously in a superior position of power, rolled his eyes as if you were little above a pesky fly.

“Take the girl, too. Best to erase a problem before it grows and gets worse,” he said monotonously, as if he were merely dictating the weather. “She already knows far too much for my liking.”

You shouted and cried out, but not a single person seemed to hear you or they were determined to ignore what was happening. Hands dug into the flesh of your upper arms, restraining you completely, and another bag was shoved over your head, quieting you and making the hot air you screamed out make the bag become stifling.

“My lord… There is the matter of my payment…” the old man was saying, and you could have hurled curses at him. What a yellow bellied snake! He had misled you this entire time! “Payment, Godfrey?” the man - this lord - was drawling as you were shoved forwards, being lifted and placed onto a horse. You couldn’t even search in front of you with your hands to find something to cling onto in order to maintain your balance, your arms still being gripped by a man on the horse behind you, tugging them slightly back.

Your shoulders were burning at the uncomfortable position you were in, and you were entirely bewildered by this sudden turn of events but far too concerned for Winwin’s well being instead of your own.

You knew that he wouldn’t say a single word in front of them, but a huge part of you wanted to scream out for him just to get some kind of reply that would tell you that he was okay. That he was unharmed.

Before you knew it, the horse you were perched on took off at a canter and you were on your way to somewhere unknowable. At this point you were completely disorientated so you couldn’t even guess where it was they were taking you, but you had a pretty good idea that it was going to be somewhere unpleasant.

All you could hear were the gruff voices that were too muffled for you to make at individual words, and the sound of the itchy material of the sack over your head scratching against your head. With any kind of luck, the journey would be over shortly and this absurd thing would be taken off your head so you could breathe some kind of fresh air.

You did not get that opportunity.

As soon as your feet met solid ground again, you were swathed in the most putrid stench you had ever smelled in your entire life. You worked on a farm and this made your stomach churn and bile raise in your oesophagus.

You were forced forwards by the man that was holding onto your upper arm, your body turned slightly to the side to try and accommodate his height. He was far taller than you, and was seemingly unwilling to relax even a little bit if it meant that your feet could be planted firmly on the ground. Instead, you were half dragged across the flagstone floor, still completely unaware of your surroundings, but judging from the moisture of the air around you and the jeers and shouts coming from all sides, you were definitely in some kind of a prison.

Your heart was beating uncomfortably hard in your throat at the sudden situation you found yourself in. You weren’t entirely certain of your crimes but whatever they were, surely you could be let go soon. Lower Dawnstead was calling your name and if it wasn’t for the overwhelming affection you had for Winwin, you’d be pleading with them to let you go so you could return to your tiny world.

All of this would be forgotten if it weren’t for Winwin.

“Here we are, little lady,” the voice slightly above you said, yanking the sack off your head and shoving you slightly forwards into the cell. It was completely bare of everything, including a bed or even somewhere you could relieve yourself, and it was dark and suspiciously moist. It was everything you had heard about the prisons under the beautiful city, of the disease and pestilence, but you were still startled and bewildered.

Winwin was nowhere to be found.

The heavy iron doors clanged shut behind you, dragged close by the soldier that brought you down here, and you scrambled over to the bars, clinging onto them.

“Please,” you pleaded, catching his attention momentarily. There was nothing particularly defining about his face. You supposed that in a past life you would have found him somewhat handsome, but Winwin was the only person you could think of. “Where are you taking him?” “Him?” the soldier barked a laugh. “The beast? Got you fooled, has it?” “Please, I just need to know if he’s okay.” “You’re naive, little lady. You’re a bloody fool if you think that creature is asking anything about you.”

You rolled your eyes. “With all due respect, sir, I don’t think any of you are worthy of him speaking to you.” The man’s face contorted, slamming a steel clad hand against the metal of your cage, the resounding noise shocking you and sending you stumbling backwards.

“I’d watch your smart mouth if I were you, little girl. It’ll be your precious creature that suffers the consequences for it.”

You could do little more than glare hotly at him, his smug smirk sending fury shooting down your veins, but if what he said was true then you could do nothing about it. If you could do nothing else, you would keep him safe.

The soldier left, and you rested your forehead against the bars of your cell. Thankfully the two cells on either side you were empty, but the voices that called to you from in front and all around were distracting and threatening.

You had nothing to do but sit against the stone wall on the far side of your cell, letting the cold sink into your flesh and bones. Before long, you were too stiff to do anything other than play with your fingers the same way that Winwin had that morning, and pray to whatever gods that were listening to protect him.

The sun fell after what felt like several days, the bars leading to the outside world preventing you from feeling the last tendrils of warmth from the day. It got significantly cooler and goosebumps broke out over your skin, not even huddling closer into yourself being something that could preserve your body heat.

You hadn’t moved very far from the position you had been sat in since you first sat down, standing up once in order to shake out the cramp that built in your thighs, but there was no movement from your part. Nobody had been to deliver you any food, skipping your cell when they brought the rations to the other prisoners.

You supposed that they had all been in here a lot longer than you, judging from their manic looks and filthy skin. It had not been that long that you had last eaten a proper meal anyway, so the others most likely needed the food more than you did.

In the distance you could hear the bells of the cathedral tolling for every hour that passed and it seemed that the longer you sat there are stared at the loose flagstone in the floor of your cell, the longer it took for the next hour to pass. By the time the sun rose again, you were frozen stiff to the floor and there were no signs of anybody coming to speak to you anytime soon.

You wondered vaguely where your brother was.

Food had been distributed to the other prisoners and with it came another soldier you didn’t recognise, leading the way for the Lord of wherever and he peered into your cell, glancing around in a way that made you instantly raise your hackles in alarm.

“No need to look so offended, girl, I’m just here to get some things straight,” His voice dripped with contempt and his nose was wrinkled with disgust at the scent that you still hadn’t gotten used to. It was too… Much. “I also have some questions about the creature you arrived here with.” “I’m not telling you anything.” “You will be quick to change your mind.”

The Lord turned to give a quick nod to the other soldier, who nodded in return and then left you completely alone with this man. Your cell door was wide open but you’d be stupid if you tried to get past this man, his hand resting lackadaisical on the hilt of his sword. He wasn’t doing anything to harm you directly, but the threat was there.

“I’ll tell you again. I’m going to ask you a few questions about that beast, and you’re going to tell me everything you know.”

You stayed silent, staring up at the middle aged man.

He must have been around the same age that your father was when he died, but there was a lack of warmth in his eyes that you had loved in your fathers. There were no visible scars or battle wounds but the man carried himself with an air that suggested he had lived a violent and weary life. Again you were reminded that you couldn’t trust this man as far as you could throw him.

“What is its name?” “I don’t know.”

You heard it before you felt it. The floor met your head with a resounding crack that caused you to cry out, and the exploding pain that erupted across the other side of your face told you that the man had backhanded you with his armoured hand.

If you were lucky, you would only be moderately bruised and you would manage to keep all of your teeth.

“Wrong answer, girl. What is its name?” “I don’t know.” You kept your voice flat, completely even with not even a slight waver despite the overwhelming throbbing agony in your entire head. “You think he would have told me?”

The man was silent, his jaw set and flexing, but seemed to accept your words.

“Where did it come from? Where are the others?” “I don’t know.”

Another smack was landed across your face and you felt the blood burst into your mouth. A split lip.

“Where did it come from?” “I still don’t know.” “You’re wasting your time protecting it, girl. It’ll sell you out the moment it got the opportunity.”

Your thoughts were becoming hazier with each blow that the man delivered to your face, and articulation was difficult with your lips swollen and bleeding.

“What is he doing in Greater Dawnstead?” “I don’t know.”

He leaned down to seize you by your throat, slamming you backwards into the stone wall and snarling into your face. You were dangling pathetically, clutching onto his metal arms, but you wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of making a single noise to show how much pain you were in.

He’d have to tear the cries from your dead body.

“Don’t lie to me, girl,” he spat. “You arrived at the same time. You arrived together. You know what he’s doing here, and you know why Godfrey brought him here.” “I just told you, old man,” you hissed through your bleeding lips. “My memory is hazy.”

He dropped your body to the stone floor and you landed in a heap, gasping for air and massaging your throat in vain. The feel of his fingers digging into your flesh wasn’t going away no matter how hard you tried to massage the sensation out from under your skin.

Before you could even get your breath back, his hand was fisted in your hair and he had yanked your head back, exposing your neck, and bringing his face uncomfortably close to yours again.

“You can act as tough as you want, Y/N, but you’re only going to make things worse for yourself.”

He released you and you slumped back down, rolling onto your back and staring up at the ceiling. It was far too dark for you to see anything, but staring at nothing brought an odd kind of calmness over you.

“I look forward to it, whatever your name is.”

You didn’t want to know how he knew what your name was. You didn’t want to know. You refused to know.

He spat on the floor somewhere near you and left your cell, dragging the door shut and slamming it closed, making a show of locking and laughing as he walked away down the hall.

In hushed whispers and drunken slurs, you had heard of the brutality of the guards in the prisons of Greater Dawnstead but to experience it first hand was startling. You couldn’t even bring yourself to be angry about it, and you wore your resilience and protectiveness like a shield.

As long as they kept probing you about Winwin rather than suggesting he wasn’t alive anymore, you would be fine. They’d have to kill you before you let anything he had trusted you with go.

As you gingerly raised a hand to feel your face and the strange shape it had formed from the swelling, you wondered if that was their plan.

The sun set and rose again, like always, and you were convinced that you were going to die of boredom before anything else could kill you. Listening to the conversations of your fellow prisoners was becoming monotonous and gradually their voices faded into little above white noise.

You were bored beyond belief, your stomach was achingly empty, and you found that you were asleep for as long as you could be just for something to do that didn’t involve you sitting and staring into nothing.

This day was the same as the last, with the Lord of somewhere you weren’t aware of trying to beat as much information out of you as he physically could. He was unsuccessful, of course; your lips were entirely sealed and at this point, you were sure they would stay like that until you died on this disgusting stone floor.

On what you think was the fourth day of this, your cell door was dragged open and a young woman you had never seen before entered, crouched down next to your motionless form and pressed her fingers against the underside of your jaw. When she confirmed that you were, in fact, alive, she pressed a bowl of water to your lips and you barely had the energy to prevent yourself from drowning. The water was the most heavenly thing you had ever tasted and all you could wonder was whether Winwin was being fed or if he was suffering the same way you were.

Not for the last time, you wondered who would tell your brother that you had died in the prisons under the city he lived in.

Only a few more days passed when something out of the ordinary happened again. The moon was high in the sky and you could just about see it from your slumped position against the wall. You were convinced that your bones had set into position, too sore and stiff for you to move at all and you knew that you had broken some ribs, perhaps you skull and your collarbone. The pain had dulled into an angry throbbing, and you were becoming more and more used to it. You didn’t even have the energy to return a quip to the Lord when he demanded all sorts of information from you, and each day, when you peeled your bruised eyelids open you were shocked that your heart hadn’t stopped beating yet.

A small part of you that you were trying your best to ignore wished that you would hurry up and die already.

It was nighttime, and you weren’t expecting it when your cell door was dragged open again and two soldiers came rushing in.

You were lifted up onto your feet, a bag made of the same rough material as the one that you had been brought here wearing shoved over your head. All of your body weight had to be carried by the two men clutching onto your upper arms, and they were murmuring words to each other that you couldn’t be bothered to focus on.

In the back of your mind, there were distant alarm bells, but you didn’t have the strength to fight against the two men. They were taking you somewhere with surprising speed and you wondered what the urgency was. Maybe the Lord decided that nighttime meetings added to the ambiance of the situation as he tried to cave your skull in.

Who would tell the Jacobsens? What would happen to your home?

“We’re going to get into trouble for this,” were the first words you heard when the bag was ripped off your head, some of your hair going with it. Who was going to tell your brother?

“You heard the man. Knight Captain is on a murderous rampage and we have to get it over and done with.”

“Then the Knight Captain will string us up by our fucking entrails. Bloody hell, a midnight lynching? What is Lord Godalming thinking?” Who was going to tell your friends? Lucas with his eyes shining for the baker’s daughter, Johnny with his fiery passion and strong arms perfect for hugging when the going gets tough, or even Mistress Elda with her stern face but with a heart of gold?

“I don’t give a shit. Asking questions isn’t what gets me my gold at the end of the week, is it? Hurry up, man, and then we’ll deal with the Knight Captain when he gets here.” “What’s happening?” you managed to murmur, feeling your hands being drawn behind you and laced together quickly and efficiently with rope. The bondings were uncomfortably tight. “That hurts…”

Who would tend to your parents graves, weeding and laying flesh flowers each week?

“Jesus, man, look at her! What could she have done? She’s completely harmless.” “What did I just say? Have you got cow dung for brains? Get a bloody move on.”

It was silent then, and one of the soldiers pulled you gently forward. You weren’t sure when you had lost your shoes, but the feeling off wood under your toes was a welcome change from the freezing cold flagstone of the prison floor. It was considerably warmer, despite the freezing chill in the air that came with autumn.

Blearily, you stared around you at your surroundings and were dismayed to see that god awful fountain that had unsettled you so much the first time you saw it. The three elven women with the horrific grimaces.

It felt like one of them was staring directly at you, screaming out for you, and you managed a wry smile that something so tortured was crying out for you.

Who would tell Winwin?

The wooden platform you were displayed on made you feel as tall as you imagined Winwin felt at all times.

Would he ever fly again?

The rope was secured around your throat.

“STOP!”

Would he see his family again?

He was crying. He was slumped down on the floor, fistfuls of white feathers clutched in his hands, balled up and pressed against his chest.

There was no pain. There was no heaviness, and there was no sadness. Only emptiness.

A gap where his wings should have been.

They were brutal with their technique, restraining him and hacking away at his precious appendages with whatever weapons they had. It was blinding, and it was agonising, but it was over quickly and now he had nothing left that made him who he was.

The heavy wooden door was open, and he stumbled out of it, balancing all of his weight on the wall. He had to drag himself, finding his limbs too sluggish and heavy so he was leaning on the stone and praying that he’d be able to make it before it was too late.

He liked to listen when he refused to talk, but there was something intensely terrifying about overhearing what would happen as soon as the moon was high in the centre of the sky.

He was so blind with fear that he couldn’t even think properly.

His feet carried him down the suspiciously empty corridor, wondering where all the usual guards were but too preoccupied to give it much thought. Maybe he was lucky enough to fall out of the room when they were in the middle of switching shifts.

Those thoughts were quickly snuffed by the shouting of a voice he had never heard further down the hallway. His voice was angry, but Sicheng could tell that there was a sheer panic; more emotion in those few shouted words than anything he had heard from the guards assigned to watch him in his room.

Despite the danger, Sicheng continued his journey down the hallway and towards where all of the shouting was coming from.

Through another room decorated as lavishly as the rest of the palace, Sicheng found the source of all of the shouting and his heart dropped into his stomach.

The man had your eyes.

“Where is she?! Where did you put her?!” the familiar man was shouting, somebody that looked like his subordinate being clutched in his hands and dragged towards him.

The man was obviously murderously angry, his eyes alight with a fire he had only seen in your own, and Sicheng found himself stumbling towards him with his hand outstretched. His shadow was huge and looming from the light coming from the crackling logs in the fire, and it was that which the man saw first, dropping the younger boy in shock and watching as he scurried away like a mouse.

“You…” Sicheng coughed, tripping over nothing and crumpling to his knees. “Her…”

The man was standing in front of Sicheng, but Sicheng’s eyes were closed. He didn’t want to see this man’s eyes. He couldn’t look at your eyes.

“You’re the one she came here with. Where is she?” The man was crouched down in front of Sicheng when he opened his eyes, and Sicheng found he could only stare at a random point of his face. “The other guards. They’ve taken her.” “Where?” The soldier laid his hand on Sicheng’s shoulder, shaking him slightly to try and get him to focus.

All Sicheng could hear was the blood rushing past his ears, and all he could see was the molten fear in your eyes in front of him.

If this how you looked? Is this how you felt? Sicheng was going to be sick. He had eaten recently and it was coming back to haunt him.

“To the square, they said,” Sicheng said, still refusing to meet the man's eyes. “The square with the fountain. Where they got her.”

The man swore, standing up and Sicheng saw that he was only slightly taller than yourself.

“Why are you telling me this?” the man asked. His breathing was heavy and Sicheng was vaguely aware that he was sitting rather uncomfortably on the floor.

Before he could even respond to him, all he could see was you.

You were smiling at him, submerged in the water up to your knees, and you were bracing yourself on your knees. Sicheng was sat a safe distance from you, his feet also in the cool water and relishing in the rare burst of sun that warmed him to his bones.

He wasn’t sure what you were smiling at, but instinctively his own cheeks upturned and he was giving you a grin of his own.

The sound of your laughter was like music to his ears, and he couldn’t help but release his own laughter as he watched you pathetically smack your hands against the water in some vain attempt to splash him with water.

He stood to his full height, unfurled his wings and unleashed a furious torrent of water that drowned out your screams and then your laughter.

“God’s arse, Winwin! It’ll take me weeks to dry properly!” you shouted, putting your hands out to balance yourself as your feet sank into the muddy bottom of the river and you nearly overbalanced.

“Come here then,” Winwin said, returning to his spot lounging on the bank. “The sun is nice.”

You sloshed over, flinging yourself onto the grass next to him and rolling onto your back and shielding yourself from the glare of the sun.

He was staring at you, his heart fluttering pathetically at the way your nose scrunched when the brightness of the sun was too much and you were annoyed. He admired the slope of your nose, ending in a rounded little point, and he loved the way that your lips were downturned into a grimace. Even the smudge of dirt on your cheek with unknown origins was unbearably endearing to him.

“You’re really beautiful,” he informed you and you snorted. “The sun has addled your brain.” He didn’t know what addled meant.

He thought about another time when you were humming a song he had never heard. Your voice was sweet, if a little out of tune, but you were merrily making neat incisions into the skin of a rabbit so you could peel the skin from it. Your tongue was poking out of your mouth slightly and Sicheng couldn’t reach out and push it back into your mouth under the watchful gaze of the old man.

He shuffled in place where he was sat and shot a furtive glance at the old man who was reclined against a tree, and Sicheng shot his hand out and slammed his finger straight onto the tip of your tongue that was exposed.

Your eyes widened and you were spluttering in indignation, tongue retracting behind your teeth and preparing yourself to shout at the angel that more often did things that would be outrageous in polite company. However, at your shocked noises, the old man's eyes flickered towards you and your lips pursed together, eyeing Winwin with anger and a hint of betrayal.

He could only just about control his expression. You were so cute.

He thought back to the last evening you spent together, and the way that your body looked underneath his. Your chest was heaving and your skin was littered with red marks, evidence that he had been there and covered you in his love and adoration for you. His hands were clinging onto your hips, driving himself into you quicker and quicker, tearing the gasps and the moans from your lips until he had to hunch over you, resting his forehead in your neck and kissing the skin on your collarbone. Your hands were carding through his hair, dragging your nails down the flesh of his back and he gasped, the sensation of all of your skin being pressed to his being almost overwhelming.

“I love her,” Sicheng cried, still clutching the last of his feathers in his tight grip. His hands were sweaty and his heart was beating painfully hard. “I love her.”

Taeyong was staring down at the defeated figure with pity, finding his situation upsetting. He had been out of the city travelling when you and this angel arrived, and he heard of your presence only that morning.

He should have been overjoyed that he had gotten the chance to see you again, but that you had arrived in somewhere like this made his mouth feel dry and his heart weigh heavily in his chest. You were far too good for a city like this.

Squaring his shoulders at the being on his knees in front of him, he braced a hand on the angel’s shoulder and shook him gently.

“Then we’ll go and get her, yeah? We’ll go and get Y/N.”

The angel was nodding with a glazed expression and Taeyong wasn’t sure that he was even seeing him, let alone hearing him. Nevertheless, Taeyong hoisted an arm under the angels and heaved him to his feet.

Taeyong wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but the sheer height of the angel startled him. He was far taller than himself and he was incredibly lean, a kind of physique Taeyong only saw within the guard. The angel could probably throw Taeyong out the window if he was so inclined and Taeyong couldn’t help but feel a little intimidated.

Trust you to form a relationship with simultaneously the most terrifying and beautiful thing he had ever seen. Typical.

Shaking his head in shock, Taeyong started taking tentative steps towards the exit with the weight of the angel balanced on his shoulder. The angel was trying his best to support his own weight, but he was obviously weak from having his wings cut off.

Sighing heavily, Taeyong wondered what you would think when you saw the bloody stumps of bone and cartilage protruding from your lovers back. You’d probably get angry before anything else and Taeyong could certainly wait to see that.

“Name’s Taeyong,” he murmured as he gently led the angel down the stairs. The weight of the bigger creature as well as his armour was making him already start to sweat and his hands became slick, struggling to have purchase on the skin of the angel. “Y/N’s older brother.”

He winced. Did he deserve to call himself that?

“The Knight Captain,” the angel said, and Taeyong’s heart dropped into his stomach.

He had worked harder than anything to alleviate himself to this position in order to provide a good, happy life for you but had pushed you away from him in the process. He wanted to write you letters, to visit you, but chance had taken away the only free opportunities he had and he wasn’t sure if you had learned how to read.

He thought about you often, though; whenever he heard a woman laugh, or when the flowers bloomed in spring. He saw you in the chrysanthemums the Lady of the city liked best, and he saw you in the way that the forest bowed over in the fierce winds. He felt you in every apple he ate and every time he skinned a rabbit.

“We need to hurry,” the angel was saying, and he had Taeyong’s full attention again. Something about the angel’s voice, perhaps the timbre, made Taeyong think that the words he spoke were for Taeyong only, and nobody else in the entire world. “They’re going to hurt her.” “Hurt her?” Taeyong questioned, but raised the angel slightly higher on his shoulder and quickened his speed. By this time, they’d made it out of the tower and were making their way across the battlements towards the stairs.

He wasn’t sure if anybody would be walking around the streets at such an early hour in the morning, and he was praying that his position of authority would prevent any questions from being asked. If anybody did have any queries, he’d just have to tell them he was transporting the angels to the prisons outside of the manor grounds due to safety problems.

That would work on anybody half witted, but he wasn’t sure what he was going to do if he bumped into Godalming. Probably try to take the man’s head clean off.

The first step down to the square was unsteady and tentative, but the angel was keen to keep going even if it meant tipping himself and Taeyong down all of the stone steps. Not willing to be injured in such an avoidable way, Taeyong yanked the angel to a stop and forced him to take it slow, even if the angel was fighting against him every step of the way.

“What did you mean? Who’s going to hurt her?” “Those two guards. The ones that always bicker. They wear different colours.” Taeyong felt his heart stop. “Fuck!” he exclaimed, yanking on the angel and beginning to walk as fast as he could. If what the angel said was right, then those were Godalming’s men and you were in very imminent danger.

He had to do something.

The angel pulled himself out of Taeyong’s grip and Taeyong only glanced back momentarily to make sure the angel could keep up before breaking into a sprint, the angel hot on his heels.

Taeyong could hear him stumbling every now and then but he couldn’t afford to ask if he was okay when your life was in very real danger. He wasn’t going to make it. He wasn’t going to make it in time and you would die without him ever telling you how sorry he was that he left you behind.

“C’mon!” Taeyong murmured angrily, reaching up and unfastening his cuirass. It was only weighing him down at this point and, as he ran through the streets and alleyways, he needed all the speed he could get.

Next went his gauntlets, followed swiftly by his pauldrons, hitting the floor with a harsh clanging noise that startled a nearby dog into barking and lights to flick on in windows. He paid them no mind, choosing instead to keep at an even pace. He couldn’t find the time to stop and unstrap his greaves, so he chose to clatter through the narrow alleyways and hope that the angel kept up with him.

His heart was hammering harder than it ever had done before, even throughout all the years of extensive training he had suffered through, and he knew he was going to vomit. The bile was raising in his oesophagus but he still didn’t slow down his run for even a moment.

The angel behind him was in the same situation as himself, stumbling behind Taeyong and matching his speed despite the blinding pain and the blood loss causing his pulse to throb behind his eyes.

Through the alleyways and making several sharp turns, the angel couldn’t even take in the sights, tunnel vision making Taeyong the only thing he saw. He had a similar gait; both you and your brother’s left foot turned in ever so slightly. It was such a minor thing, something that only a mother would really notice, but Winwin clung to it as hard as he could. It was like he was running behind you, chasing you through all of the winding alleyways just for fun. Just because you could. Just like the way he chased you through the woods, through the meadows, splashing through brooks and racing each other to the tops of trees and back down.

Winwin was crying.

“STOP!” Taeyong’s voice roared through the town square, and despite himself, Winwin was startled. They had arrived without him even realising it, and the vulgar fountain with the three of his kind made his stomach churn. The same disfigurement that had befallen them had been suffered by himself and the brutality of the humans sickened him.

There was a male shouting, another one protesting, the grind of wood against wood and a thunking noise, and Winwin was delirious.

He should have listened to you. He should have heeded your warnings and abandoned his mission, telling his brethren that it was too dangerous for their kind to make contact with the humans again.

It was too dangerous for them, he reminded himself, as he crossed the town square to the wooden platform.

It was too much for him, he chanted in his mind, as he stared up at the way you were displayed with a rope hanging around your neck. It was bad for their kind, he swore to himself, watching you swing lifelessly from the gallows as if you were nothing more than a puppet, a doll hanging from a child’s grasp.

It was bad for his existence, he reminded himself as he launched himself up onto the platform and his fingers delved into the eye sockets of the man closest. He barely registered the blood that burst from the punctured eyeballs, the screams and the shouts, and he didn’t even think anything of the chunks of flesh he gouged from further and further into the head of the man. The body went still, and Winwin was still crying.

A gentle hand lay on his shoulder and he didn’t even have the energy to smack it off and destroy the person it belonged to. They could take him, if they wanted. They could take him and chain him up and torture him for all he knew but they wouldn’t get anything. Sicheng had nothing left to give.

They had stolen his everything.

“S-Sir…” the other man was pleading. Winwin didn’t look. He didn’t care. “P-Please, we, we had orders, we were just-” “You killed my sister,” Taeyong was saying, his voice hoarse and emotional. “You killed my baby sister.” “Sir, I-I had no idea-” “You killed her,” Taeyong was repeating it over and over again as if he was trying to convince himself of the reality. “I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you. I’m going to fucking kill you.” “No, no, please! I have a family! I have a family, please!” “She was my family.”

Winwin didn’t listen. He didn’t care.

It was silent now, and the sun had risen long ago. The usual hustle and bustle of the town square was subdued, hushed, innocent eyes taking in the horrors of the hanged girl, savaged body and the beheaded guard. The angel was sitting incredibly still, hands clasped together and his lips moving in a frantic prayer.

Taeyong was stood behind him, a silent sentry with both hands clasped firmly over the hilt of his sword that was unsheathed, the tip buried into the wooden floor.

They would come for him, he knew. He wouldn’t get away with killing one of Godalming’s men, and he would have to leave Greater Dawnstead. He’d’ve left anyway, everything about this accursed place reminding him of the life he had lived without you.

The angel moved only when the guards started to swarm, forming a circle around the gallows with swords drawn and standing ready for the order to attack to come from the man that Taeyong wanted nothing more than to slaughter.

“I’m taking her,” the angel said in a voice so soft Taeyong would have missed it if he was paying attention to anything else. “She is mine, so she will be honoured as one of us.”

Taeyong’s heart tugged heavily, but he knew this was right. He had no right to arrange a burial for you when he hadn’t been a part of your life for god knows how long. He would have to let you go, just as he did all those years ago when he was barely a man, desperate to prove himself in a world he knew now didn’t care about him.

“Treat her well.” Taeyong said, grasping the angel’s shoulder heavily and squeezing. He knew the power of love, and what it did to people. He saw the way his mother deteriorated after the death of his father and he prayed that the angel wouldn’t meet the same fate.

He heard of the way you fought with your protectiveness and your silence until the very end, and his heart swelled with admiration for the little girl with stars in her eyes and twigs in her hair.

“Always,” Winwin said, standing up to his full height and taking Taeyong’s sword the cut you down. Your body resting in his arms again made him want to scream out at all of the humans surrounding him. All he was willing to do, all he was willing to show them, was the fire in his eyes and the agony in his soul as he descended the steps with you encompassed tightly in his arms.

They let him pass.

He didn’t think much of it. He didn’t think much of anything.

Nobody said anything as the angel passed through their streets, as silent as death itself, clutching onto his lover as if it was the only thing that kept him grounded anymore.

Nobody heard anything from the forests and the mountains in the East again.

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