#and the perfection of these gilded bodies being more beautiful with these scars

[gaytedlasso]

kneeling before this gilded Altar

erected over a decade of longing

my God reaches forth

guides my lapsed soul with His own devout hand

.

oh blissful is this holy touch!

tracing the scars of my vessel

in reverence of my body's past inflictions

and remnants of my truest choices,

which He views to be most beautiful.

.

the sky holds no answers

for my deity reigns here on earth,

His eyes adorning me with equal adoration

until once again We are falling,

falling, falling into this sacred ritual of

requited worship.

.

soft skin illuminated in bronze light -

psalms uttered in the air between Our lips

as bodies entwined are raised in exaltation,

the sum of Us congregating to at last reach

that glorious peak of Our love incarnate

.

The Church of Castiel and Dean Winchester - E.G

#it's all about them seeing eachother as perfect and holy #and the perfection of these gilded bodies being more beautiful with these scars #the bodies they’ve formed for themselves #purposely wrote this to be either Dean or Cas pov because they both feel this way #sketch.art #elliot.poetry #kitchencule #destiel #deancas #spn art #spn fanart #destiel art #destiel fanart #seraphcastiel #castiellesbian #mdni #spn poetry #destiel poetry #transnatural #trans dean

[thequilledsabre]

The Beautiful Ugly

Seething rage rests within your chestnut eyes

At the news of my heart’s dearest confession.

I pray you give me leave to say all that must be said

& to see yourself through my own eyes for but a moment.

You said yourself that I could have others more beautiful,

Baffled at the thought a man would love

What you have deemed ugly.

I know that professions like this

Can be corny & messy.

I know that I appear to be vile & rotten,

As I bear every one of my scars & blemishes

Before your judging glares.

But I ask you to look beyond my filth,

To see me as I truly am in this moment of vulnerability.

Maybe your eyes have trained you to see a banshee in the mirror,

To perceive thick brown wires in the place of your hair.

While I have seen roses whose blossoms are red than your lips,

& I see no flowers blooming upon your cheeks,

I know within my heart that you are more splendid than these.

While a harp’s tune is more sonorous than your voice,

Please do not stop speaking to me.

I’m aware of the lies you’ve convinced yourself to believe.

There was a time I believed clothes fit better on others,

That perfumes were more pleasant than my company

& that no matter the labor I would perform,

There’d always be people who wouldn’t care.

But theirs is a kind I entertain no longer -

Only your presence I seek now.

While there are other faces constructed more delicately,

It is yours that has become the wanting home of my gaze.

I beg you not to believe that what I speak is mere flirtations,

For such candied words meant only to gild lilies

Have no place in these lines I write to you.

I offer no honeyed words to fill your head

Just as many others have no doubt done so.

Even with crooked teeth & lazy eyes,

Pocket faces like that of your namesake,

Voices that make others shriek in terror,

Grasps like that of the coldest winters

& bodies others have abused & cast aside,

I find you to be the most beautiful thing

Anyone has ever called ugly before.

I’ve seen the beautiful woman you are deep,

Deep down in the place you’ve locked away from all of the world.

You see the truth is,

Yours is a kind far harder to find than even the rarest of all gems.

It’s your laughter alone that warms my heart,

Your smile that makes every fiber of my being sigh,

& your star-lit eyes that captivate me so.

I speak from my tattered & tired soul,

When I tell you that your angelic beauty

is something that would make the Cosmos envious.

I’ve withheld these cautiously-chosen words to uphold our friendship,

But these I can no longer keep to myself.

Like exotic birds in a cage,

They must be freed from the prison of my spirit.

I might be the king of fools,

But I’ve found that it’s a fool’s heart

That loves the deepest & purest of all -

& it’s this fragile thing I gift to you.

While it’s neither worth neither gold nor silver

& it cannot grant you dominion over all the earth,

It will beat only for you.

I would do anything for your happiness,

Even if it meant burying these feelings deep within the sands of time.

You’ve told me that you’re imperfect,

So why would anybody love you?

But I think it doesn’t matter if either one of us is perfect.

Love can be enough,

If you only have the courage to try.

#poetblr #summer love poem #confession #beautiful #ugly #love poetry #dead poets society #the knight of quills #poem #poetry #spilled poetry #spilled poem #my poem #artblr #writeblr

[ecoamerica]

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

#ACLA24 #ACLA24Leaders #youtube #youtube video #climate leaders #climate solutions #climate action #climate and environment #climate #climate change #climate and health #climate blog #climate justice #climate news #weather and climate #environmental news #environment #environmental awareness #environment and health #environmental #environmental issues #environmental justice #environment protection #environmental health #Youtube

[naariel]

I re-read Crescent City (HoEaB and HoSaB) just to write down all the physical descriptors of all the characters

okay fine, the re-read was also to cure the book hangover

anyway, sharing here for anyone who are interested. This doesn't include bonus chapters

Under-King

I forgot to write this guy down, but iirc basically super tall and rotting

Sabine

Looks late 20s

Long silver blonde hair

Blue eyes (c. 6) Light brown eyes (c. 49)

Corn-silk hair

Narrow Pale face

Slender hands

Narrow shoulders

Danika

Metallic purple painted nails in dire need of manicure.

Silvery blond hair, normally straight silken Sheet, though curled after a whole day of wearing her tight long braid, streaks of amethyst, sapphire and rose

Corn-silk hair

Caramel eyes

Sword strapped on back

Worn leather hilt, ancient leather scabbard

Worn motorcycle jacket

Black boot

Jeans 

Vintage band t shirt (Banshee band name)

Lean body

Slim fingers

Slim jaw

Slim shoulder

Pale

Taller than humans

Matching back tattoo

Angular planes face

Horned, grinning wolf tattoo on neck below jaw

Gray wolf small horse sized

Connor

Golden skin

Broad shoulders

Golden stare

Taller than humans

Sensuous mouth

Tristan Flynn (Fae)

Brown eyes

Charming as Hel

Classic Fae beauty

Handsome face 

Considerable muscles

Short chestnut hair

Earth magic

Golden-brown skin

Declan (Fae)

Amber eyes

Dark red hair

Red hair

Chiseled jaw

descripted as the "least insane" out of the Ruhn household

Ruhn (Fae)

One side of his raven black hair buzzed, straight black hair flowed to his waist

Striking Blue eyes

Silver hoop through lower lip

Sleeves of tattoos, colorful and beautiful

Line of rings in ear

Black t shirt, dark tight jeans

Black Boots

Muscular

Leather jacket 

Strikingly handsome

Golden skinned (but paler than Rhysand)

Starsword; dark blade, black hilt

Power to summon shadows and mist

Pose: slide hands into back pocket of jeans

Formal at Summit: Circlet of gilded birch leaves on head

Burn scars on arms covered with tattoos

Leather jacket

Tattooed throat 

Swirling tattoo on pec

Violet-blue eyes

face and posture identical to Rhysand

pointed ears

Hypaxia

Dark head of softly Curling hair

Thick night-dark hair

Dark eyes

Rich brown eyes

Arresting face

Not the cultivated beauty of a movie star, beauty in it's rawest form

Large brown eyes

Full mouth

High cheekbones

Near perfect symmetry

Radiating cool serenity and awareness

Glowing brown skin

Brown hands

Looks like humans

Queen aura

Curvy

Young

Sleek black curls

Sometimes tied back in a bun

Elegant brown face

Luxurious dark gaur falling in soft curls down to her Slim waist

Brown skin that glowed as id the moonlight ran beneath it

Large dark eyes that noticed too much

Full, inviting mouth

Lovely smile 

Bryce silky curtain of Wine-red hair, with slightly curled ends down to the top of her ass

Pointed ear

Freckled golden skin

Tan

Amber eyes

Whiskey colored eyes

Human (identical to her mother's) face; freckles

High cheekbones

Full mouth

Four inch white heels

Generously curved

Big boobs

Spectacular ass

Taller than average

Thick angry Scar on the inside left thigh, from being shredded open and stapled shut

Twilight ombre nails, pink to night

Red nails

Worn leather jacket with feminine colorful script

Heavier than she looks, tan skin covering more muscle than Hunt thought

Sleek, unnervingly perfect thigh

Silky skin

Long, delicate fingers

White Skintight dress

Tight Jeans and cream colored revealing sweater

Black leather ankle boots

Star, like an old Scar, white mark

Freckled, golden-tan skin

Long, muscled legs

Ample hips

Thick Scar curving along her thigh

Whiskey colored eyes

Super Powerful and Special Magic Starborn Princess

Tendrils of Horn tattoo

Lean, Long expanse of golden leg

Hunt

Black battle suit (built in medkit), intricate leather scales, black gloves, twin swirds peeking above his shoulders, boots, black hilted knife sheathed on thigh

Predator, Killer, Monster

Angular dark eyes

Black eyes

Onyx eyes

Not black at all, but a shade of darkest brown

Gray wings

Striking, handsome face Full of powerful lines and sharp cheekbones

Golden-brown face

Light brown skin

Skull-faced helmet, silver painted skull

Entwined thorns tattoo across brow, most hidden by his hair, but no concealing the thin black band 

SPQM tattoo on right wrist

Shoulder length Black hair slipping Over face

Dark, shoulder length hair

Sable strands gleaming like black silk

Broad shoulders

Towers over Bryce

Strong hands

Strong Jaw

Pretty

Stray locks of his dark hair curled around the edges [of the sunball cap]

Deep gold skin on hands

Strong tan column of his throat

Dark brows

Muscles upon muscles upon muscles

Gold dusted brown skin

Soft Gray t-shirt, black sweats, white sunball cap turned backwards

Powerful build

Tall

Powerful, muscled body

Cut hair shorter last month. Not too short, neatly trimmed to the nape, with only a few pieces in the front still unruly enough to peek through the hole of his sunball hat.

Dark, Angular eyes

Light brown skin 

Tharion

Jaw length Auburn hair

Red-brown hair

Light brown eyes

Powerful body

Mer form: partially scaled arms, fingers tipped in sharp grey nails, massive body, gills beneath ears, claw tipped webbed hand, (roughly 2.5 meters tall? size compared to some long creature)

Muscled abdomen

Reddish-brown scales, catching the sun like burnished copper

Long tail

Black stripes slashing through tail, continuing up his torso and along his arms

Aquatic tiger

Bare skin of upper arms and chest heavily tanned

Taloned/talon-tipped hands

Mer form: Scales ripples along his arms and halfway up his torso. 

Long Muscular arms 

Long fingers

Dark red hair

Haunted, exhausted looking (Hosab)

Long body

Ithan

Powerful form

Onyx rose with 3 claw marks slashed through

Golden-brown hair (longer than the last time she saw him)

Towering, muscled male

Tall

Brown eyes

Gray t shirt pulling across the Considerable expanse of his muscled back

Handsome, charming features

Good looking

Built for speed and agility

Short golden-brown hair

Wolf: horse sized

Brushes hair away from face; longer than it had ever been

Isaiah

White wings

Black silk tie, charcoal business suit

Dark brown skin

Tight brown curls

Brown eyes

Pretty-boy face

Entwined thorns tattoo across brow

SPQM tattoo on right wrist

Naomi

Intense, ballsy, take-no-shit angel

Free (no tattoo)

Harsh planes

Black braided hair

Onyx eyes

Colourfully tattooed hands

Black wings

Sharp chin

Jet-black eyes

Viktoria

Dark haired

Navy suit

Graceful, stunning

Pale green eyes

Stunning green eyes

Halo tattoo

Wraith, graceful, flirty

Long legs

Alabaster hands (white skin)

Pale face

Narrow face

Slightly wrinkled

Justinian NOT A SINGLE PHYSICAL DESCRIPTOR IN EITHER BOOKS, except that he painted his wings a matte black during the Viper Queen meeting.

Micah

Gorgeous

Unfairly beautiful

Powerful

Snow White wings

Brown eyes

Icy eyes

Long legs

Strands of gold in his hair

Boots, dark jeans 

Fury

Long onyx hair tied in a high ponytail that brings out the sharp lines of her light brown face. (Pre death)

Chinlength hair

Sleek bob

Deep set chestnut eyes.

Black leather leggings,

Skintight velvet top

Ass kicking boots

Red lips, straight teeth

Slender

Angular eyes

Appears human

Delicate figure

Angular eyes like Amren

June:

Dark brown skin

Exquisite face

Curling Black hair

Long legs ending in delicate hooves

Sweet and mild

Striped legs

Gently arcing horns, nearly hidden

Curly hair pulled into a coiled bun

Beautiful

Thin but leanly muscled

Graceful, Tall, thin

Large beautiful eyes

Aidas:

Thrumming with dark power

Slender, pale-skinned... pretty boy

Blond hair fell to his shoulders in soft waves, loose yet well cut around his fine boned face. 

Eyes like blue opals

Thick, golden eyelashes

Full, sensuous mouth, too white teeth

Slender hands

Black, Closely tailored jacket and pants

Polished leather shoes

Jesiba:

400 yo

Lush female body

Curvy 

Flowing Navy dress

Pearls at ears and throat

Cropped Ash blonde hair, cut shorter on the sides, longer on the top

Effortlessly chic and casual

Blonde brows

Face both young and wise, bedroom-soft yet foreboding 

Young faced

Full mouth

Pale grey eyes

Silver nails

Autumn King (Fae)

Ancient, cruel Amber eyes

No sign of aging

Long thin nose

Black jeans, black long sleeved t shirt

Beautiful

Tall, muscled

Long Red hair, embers and molten fire

Onyx crown 

Einar

Viper Queen

Tall

Moon skinned

Gold jumpsuit

Emerald hoop earrings hanging lower than her chin length bob

Razor sharp bob

Glossy bob

Full lips painted purple so dark it was nearly black

Green eyes, marbled with jade and gold, that slit like a snakes

Well groomed eyebrows

Beauty mark just beneath the outer corner of her eye

Gold painted nails

Long thin canines (snakey)

Snake form: moon white cobra with scales that gleam like opals

Slim

Smokes

Tattoo of a snake twining around a crescent moon on her wrist

Wears only jumpsuits it seems

Blood darker than usual

Syrinx

Chimera

30 pounds (14 kg)

Wiry golden coat

Long tail, tufted with dark hair at the end like a lions

Folded ears

Round, fuzzy head

Wrinkles of fat

Longer hair at neck, not quite a mane

Too big paws ending in birdlike talons

Squishy dog face

Dark eyes

Slightly bigger than a terrier

Stout little body

Pointy teeth

Ember

Mid 40s

Tiny Scar on cheek

A knockout

Long black hair

Freckled skin

Full lips

High cheekbones

Dark depthless eyes

Bryce's face, just different coloring

Slim shoulders

The Embrace silver necklace

Tan

Randall

Attractive

Brown skinned

Black braided hair streaked with silver 

Brutal scars

Friendly eyes

Dog tags

Sandriel

Dark haired

Curling hair

Eyes the color of fresh tilled soil

Sharp cruel eyes, death

Thin arms

Full lips

Slim, tall

Pollux:

Golden haired

Tan

Dead cruel smile

Handsome

Cobalt eyes

White wings

Golden skin

Brutal, sadistic

Motherfucker Number One

Pretty-boy face

Flowing golden hair

Thick lashes

High cheekbones

Goddess vibes, still and lovely, like Chtona

The harpy:

Thin

Pale

Dark haired

Jet black hair

Angel

Narrow-featured

Black wings

With a wildness like the western wind

Slim waist

Thin lips

Built Wiry and Long, face Narrow and eyes a bit too large for her features

Baxian Hellhound: 

Stone-faced

Black wings

Dark haired

Closely buzzed hair

Brown skinned

Tall and finely muscled

Jet-black, faintly shimmering wings, like a crows feathers

Old Wicked Scar snaking down his neck, forking across the column of his throat, given by hunts lightning.

Obsidian eyes

Tall, lean angel

Natural elegance; not beautiful but striking. Intense and focused

Lightweight black armor of overlapping plates - reptilian version of hunts suit.

Nearly as fall as hunt

Rigelus

Slim

Teenage boy

Lanky

Slender chin

Bony elbow

Fae boy 17 yo appearance

Dark haired

Gangly

A weak facade to veil the ancient monster beneath

Amelie Ravenscroft

Dark hair in a tight braid

Sharp angled face

Gold eyes

Emile

13 yo

Tall, gangly, bony

Small

Sofie

Short brown hair

Nordic descent? (fjords of her homeland)

Pippa

Fanatic

Cold hard armor covering her breast

Golden sun bracketed by a gun and a blade (ophion logo) + red sinking sun above it (lightfall squad).

Brown haired

Freckled

Cormac Donnall (Fae)

As Agent Silverbow; Imperial armor (has cap) (hair peeking from beneath the cap he'd donned)

Handsome

Broad hand

Golden-haired

Towering

Shadow-magic

Fire magic

Tan face, ruggedly good-looking

Void of feeling

(Dead, humorless) Light brown eyes

Thin, tight white sweater over black jeans and combat boots

Blond

Muscled chest

Tattoo of strange symbols encircled his left biceps, black ink

Broad shoulders

Rubbish at pool

Perfect blond hair

Short blond hair

Immaculate blond hair 

Unfailingly arrogant angle of his chin

Serious

The Hind

Golden haired

Silver torque around neck

Deer shifter

Beautiful

Amber eyes

Golden eyes

Red lips

Pale face

Polished, knee-high boots

Imperious face

Grey Uniform

Light footsteps

Most beautiful female Ruhn had ever seen

Unscarred, Elegant hands

Gold ring crowned with a square clean-cut Ruby

Upswept chignon

Spitting image of Luna

Regal angle of neck and jaw

Coldly serene as the moon

Beautiful and terrible

In flame: large eyes, swept upwards at the edges

Long legs

Red lips

Slim, manicured fingers 

Slender, on the Taller side, delicate frame

Lush hips, full breasts

Mordoc

Hulking

Dark haired

Towering

Muscle bound

Dreadwolf uniform - boatload of silver darts

Golden eyes

Dark claws at fingertips

State between human ans wolf

Scalp gleaming through buzzed hair

Thick fingers

Too long teeth (wolf teeth)

Powerful

Craggy face

Marc

Leopard shifter

All Sleek muscle beneath dark brown skin

Topaz eyes

Celestina

Beautiful

Skin as dark as Onyx

Light brown eyes

Delicate mouth

Patient smile

White wings

Voluptuous, lush-bodied

Tightly Curling Black hair

Curls spilling down her bare arms like a waterfall of night  

Silver jewellery, pink and lilac gauzy ethereal robes 

Feminine strength and beauty

Barely reaches Hunt's chest

Soft pink nails

Elegant as a swan

Caramel eyes

Ephraim

Handsome

Black hair cut close to his head in a warrior lite fashion 

Light brown skin Radiating health and vitality

Dark eyes that noted every person in the room, like a soldier assessing the battlefield

Genuine smile for Celestina

White wings

Toned Powerful body

Thanatos

Tightly curled black hair was Cropped close to his head

Handsome, unsmiling face

Powerful body bedecked in dark, ornate armor

Dark eyes

Prince of death

No slickness or smug arrogance

Wolf lady Mystic Fendyr Alpha

Long chestnut-brown hair

Pale

Too thin

Dark eyes

Face that mightve been pretty if it wasn't so gaunt and Haunted

Dragon lady, Ariadne

Human sized

Hair like darkest iron falling in Curling waves

Delicately featured face

Tan

Burns stuff with touch

Crimson eyes - like boiling blood

Black eyes like coal

Ripples of what seems like red and gold scales Flowing beneath her skin

Curvy

Beautiful

Fae female bodytype

Short, Curvy

Wavy black hair, waistlength

Ample backside

#crescent city #SJM sure is scanty with her physical descriptors #two whole books and this was it

[kiljoytrout]

Some thoughts about Kaz and Kanej’s popularity

note: this meta might be a bit half baked since I’ve not read Crooked Kingdom yet, but I’ll do my best and no spoilers pls! highkey was just going to let this languish in my journal but i had a feeling that @sanktaofknives​ would enjoy this, so here ya go!

One of the most notable aspects of Six of Crows is what we come to feel for Kaz Brekker and his relationship with Inej Ghafa. At first glance, it may appear to some a typical YA trope, intended to pander to Bad Boy™ enthusiasts who dream of being whisked away from their ivory towers by fallen angels in black leather.  But this brushoff doesn’t hold up under closer inspection: Kaz is broken and twisted in ways that even the most fanatical of admirers would take pause at, a man whose edge is not simply a conduit for salacious sex scenes (in fact as a ramification of his frightening back story, he feels revulsion for most skin to skin touch), and Inej the Wraith with her dark skin, glowing knives, and refusal to bow down even to the Bastard of the Barrel (but not in a sold to Harry Styles way) isn’t a typical YA self-insert. So why do we long for love to blossom in these two most of all? Nina and Matthias’s homicidal banter and Wylan and Jesper’s flirtatious clownery both have their charms but there is no arguing which romance hangs in the stars, encompasses our minds to the point that for many fans, the rest merely orbit around it. It’s because we as readers and as human beings are drawn to contradictions. We like the beautiful roses that rise from our perfectly tended gardens, whose thorns are an afterthought, for what trouble would ever approach it? But we gaze in awe at the flowers that bloom in between concrete cracks, battling stone and drought and the world trying to crush it back into the ground. Kaz Brekker (which isn’t even his real name) is a staircase of contradictions, with each step into his psyche taking you higher and higher until you’re so far up that you wonder how he ever started from the pure, lowly ground. He has seen unspeakable things, done unspeakable things, and while thoughts, especially in a place like Ketterdam, by rule remain unspoken, we can see through his POV chapters that Kaz’s are worst than most. Yet we root for him as he devises treacherous schemes, guns gangsters down, and rips eyeballs out of sockets to be thrown into the cold, briny sea. Why? Because as the story progresses, we get to see his armor fall, his mercy counseled, his past unhaunted by a 16 year old Suli girl that he rescued on a glance from the brothel house worse than death. Kaz will never get back his brother, his childhood, his grit and suffering that paved the gilded steps of the Crows Club. Inej shall never get back those lost years, undo the violations she suffered in the Menagerie, or erase the scars that have made her body and mind a map of places she longs to forget. But what makes this story worth telling, heck what makes life worth living, is when you line up these broken pieces together, conjoin contradictions, and step back to reveal a perfect paradox. Nothing will ever be enough to banish the past. But together Kaz and Inej, more than just Dirtyhands and Wraith, beat the past back long enough to cultivate a crop rarely found in the Barrel: the whisper thin, deeprooted seed of hope. 

everyone who reads this, love ya bunches and i love respectful discourse and SOC topic requests! (i’ll also be reading CK soon so thats not off limits, but preface w/a spoiler warning pls) 

over and out- kiljoytrout 

#soc #kanej #kaz brekker #grishaverse #six of crows #soc meta #shadow and bone show #six of crow spoilers #shadow and bone ships

[pantomatique]

His Return

The small cottage came into view. Azriel slowed down, his feet touching the cobblestone path without a sound. The balmy summer air was a welcome compared to the near-constant freeze of the Winter Court, even if it made him soak his leathers through with sweat. He had built the cottage for Elain as a gift when they got married; built it in a field of wildflowers outside of Velaris. He remembered her smile as he flew her there and surprised her with it.

It has been three weeks since he stepped into his own house, the smell of peonies and sunshine wafted around him- his wife’s scent. Three weeks without his wife. He was sorely tempted to wake her up and makeup for all of that lost time. He let her sleep, she needed it and he needed to hone the whirl-wind of thoughts flying through him.

The last three weeks were spent interrogating spies caught trying to cross the border between the Night and Winter Courts. Spies from the Continent. They were apprehended in Winter, but Kallias allowed Rhys the courtesy of his own interrogation… as long as it was in Winter. Rhys stayed a week, using his daemati gifts to quicken the process. After the week, Rhys left him with Lucien to try to open up the last two spies who had been shields. Fae gifted with protection against daemati.

Walking to the dining room, he noticed a light yellow rug with a floral print. Bright and cheery against the dark wood floors. How very Elain, he thought. In fact, he started noticing all of the details added since he left. The wedding portrait that Feyre had painted of them, rested on the mantle. Vases of flowers and other feminime touches graced the house. It was perfect. It reminded him of Elain, who made anywhere she was- home to him. 

They've only been in the cottage for six weeks- married that long too. He hated himself for being gone for half of their marriage, but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make to keep her safe.

Azriel poured himself a drink at the small copper bar cart near the kitchen, using a glass - not bothering with a shot glass. Ugly. That’s what those last weeks were. As a favor to his Highlord, Azriel begrudgingly worked with Lucien. When Elain had chosen the shadowsinger over her mate, the townhouse nearly collapsed due to the fight that took place. Lucien was still silently seething over the matter while they worked. Azriel’s shadows picking up the wrath thumping underneath the fox’s golden skin. 

As much as Azriel hated to admit it, he was angry too. Angry at Vanserra. Angry at whatever force decided to tie Elain and Lucien’s souls together for eternity.

 Pulling out a chair to face the three paned window, he took a seat at the end of the mahogany dining table. A gift from Cas, his reasoning being that the happy couple needed a big enough for both their families. Family. That’s what he and Elain wove themselves together to become.

Staring at the starry night sky, whiskey burned down his throat as he his mind circled back to that comment Lucien made to him when he found out Elain wouldn’t be accompanying them to Winter. Accused him of cloistering Elain, saying that the cottage Azriel had built her was nothing more than a gilded cage meant to keep her bound to him. 

He wanted to bring Elain with him. Wanted to take her gliding over the iced over ponds hidden in the Winter Court’s forests, to show her the snow-blooming flowers that flourished in the cold… He would take her one day. Where he could give her all of his attention, she deserved it.

In truth, Azriel didn’t want Elain to see this part of him. He couldn't fathom sharing a bed with her mere hours after he tortured fae barely out of boyhood. Resting his elbows on his knees, he cradled his face in his hands, the scars and calluses scraping against the light stubble that began to form on his jaw. He thought about gentle Elain watching her husband break trained warriors apart, watching someone usually so caring and loving to her- turn to violence and bloodshed. She knew what he did, what was required of him to keep the Night Court safe. He would not allow her to see that part of him. Not anytime soon.

“Az, is that you?” a gentle voice behind him flowed like water. He turned around to see Elain standing at the stop of the staircase. A cream shaw was wrapped around her shoulders, over the pale pink nightgown edged with cream lace - another wedding present from Feyre. He had blushed when Elain opened up the trunk full of scraps of lace and satin and then rolled his eyes at the note that Feyre had left him:

 “A gift for the groom. - your sister in-law”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.” Didn’t mean to, but he was elated to see her. Graceful as a doe, she glided down the stairs- towards him.

“It’s okay. I have trouble sleeping without you anyways.” A smile touched her lips as she talked. His heart ached at the thought that she had problems sleeping. The first night they shared a bed, she had told him that it was the first time she slept without nightmares. Did she not feel safe without him here? He had placed wards around the house before he left and even told her to sleepover at Rhy and Feyre’s if she was scared. Azriel would ask her about it tomorrow. 

 Placing his hands on her hips. He pulled her towards him, so that she was standing in between his legs. Resting his head between her breasts and wrapping his arms around her slim waist, he breathed her in.

“I missed you.” He whispered to her.  So very, very much, he thought. Elain threaded her fingers in his midnight hair and began playing with it. Twirling his locks around her thin, small fingers.

“I’m so glad you're safe.” she said. “That is quite a nightcap you’ve made yourself.” She let out a chuckle at the large glass of whiskey sitting on the table. “I’ll make you some tea to wash it down.”

“It’s fine, you don’t have to.” he responded, but she already untangled herself from him and was walking towards the kitchen. Azriel was content to just watch her. Placing the copper kettle on the stove, she turned and gave him the sweetest smile as she pulled out two mint mugs from the cabinet. She stirred extra honey into his tea, making a remark about how she heard it helps prevent hangovers.

She placed both mugs on the table and was about to sit down, until he pulled her onto his lap- so that she was straddling him. Elain let out a giggle as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

“I like what you’ve done with the place.” he whispered into ear, pressing a kiss right below it, as he eyed the velvet blue curtains enclosing the window.

“Cassian helped me hang them up. He said the blue would go with your siphons.”  She ran her fingers over the one in the center of his chest, before picking up his mug of tea and bringing it to his lips. “Drink.” He did what she said.

“Delicious, from your garden?” he inquired as he took the mug from her small hands and held it to her lips. He tilted it up as she took a sip.

“Yes, I starting growing herbs that help with sore muscles and fatigue… for you.” she said shyly, looking down. Azriel put the mug back on the table and then tilted Elain’s chin up with his hand. 

“Thank you.” he said as he stared into her chocolate eyes. Thank you for everything, for taking care of me, for loving me, he thought, hoping that his eyes conveyed what he felt.

‘She is thinking you’re welcome.’ a wisp of a shadow whispered in his ear. One of the reasons he loved Elain was that she didn’t push him to talk. The two of them seemed to exude their thoughts and feelings to each other without words.

Azriel released her chin, running his hands over the silky material of the nightgown, he pulled her flush to his chest- into a passionate kiss. The shaw around her shoulders, fell to the floor forgotten. Her soft, doll lips parted allowing their tongues to intertwine along with their souls. Her hands stroking his chest, his shoulders, his wings. Desire flooded his loins.

He moved his hands over the curve of her hips, down to her knees. Then he moved them back up over her creamy thighs, up to the hem of her nightgown which was pushed up from straddling his lap. Lips parting, she began to pepper kisses along his jaw and neck.

“Arms up.” 

Elain obeyed. Lifting her arms up, as he pulled the nightgown over her head and let it drop to the floor. Unconcerned of where it landed. She wouldn't be needing it for the rest of the night. 

The primal, fae part of him hummed with pleasure at the bare skin before him. The moon beams streaking through the glass windows behind her, making her pale skin glow like back-lit alabaster. Clad only in a pair of pink lace panties, she whispered his name. Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful, the word echoed in his head as his eyes roamed over his wife’s body- exposed only for him.

Lips meeting once again, Azriel cupped her breasts, his thumbs moving in circles over her nipples- peaking them. She moaned into his mouth as her hips began to move in a soft rhythm against his own. Reminding his body that they spent three weeks without touching each other. Those days apart had left him ravenous.

He trailed one finger down the valley of her breasts, the center of her naval- until he got to the waistband of that scrap of lace she wore. Perhaps she expected his return tonight with those seer powers of hers, he thought, that would explain the… ensemble. 

A purely male smirk appeared on his face, as he realized that she was soaked through.  Before he could insert a finger into that wet heat of hers, she crawled off his lap to pull off her underwear. The shadowsinger sat back and enjoyed the sight. Stepping out of them, she kneeled before him. Kneeled before death incarnate.

Her nimble fingers began pulling at the laces of his leather pants. A groan escaped his lips, as his aching length sprang into her awaiting hand. He nearly lost his mind when she kissed the tip. Unable to wait any longer, Azriel hauled her up onto his lap and buried himself deep inside her in one smooth stroke.

All five hundred of those years he had spent in heartbreak and trapped in lust, had been worth it. He would have waited an eternity to wait for her. His one true love.

Azriel thrust up into her, still clad in his fighting leathers, while she writhed atop him naked. Her head dropped to the nook of his shoulder, her sweet little moans and gasps echoing in his ear.

Inside her, he forgot his sins. Forget the dark shadows of his past that leeched on his very existence- she burned them away. Outshining every star in the sky.

Azriel would give her everything.

Bringing his hand to that bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs, she fell off that shimmering edge into a pool of starlight. And as she gasped his name as she found her release, he stood up- wrapping her thin legs around his waist.

When the tremor in her stilled, he pulled himself out of her and sat her at the edge of that giant table. Pushing her shoulders so that she laid flat on her back, knees bent, legs spread and feet perched at the end of the table. Exactly where he wanted her.

       “Az?”

“Soon, love.” pressing a chaste kiss to her mouth to quiet her.

Before he could take what he needed, he began unstrapping the armor from his shoulders and forearms and unbuckled the leather tunic. And as he threw the tunic to the ground, he leaned over her, guiding himself into her. His pants slung low over his chiseled hips.

Enjoying the feeling of her small bare breasts crushed against his chestt, he set a punishing pace that would take them both over the edge. Elain’s small hands traced over his back, feeling the muscles flex and tighten as he thrust into her. Azriel grabbed her wrists, twinning their fingers together as he pinned her hands by her head.

No language could describe how good it felt to share this intimacy with her. But gods, he tried. Whispering in her ear about how much she pleased him, how amazing she felt wrapped around him. A blush spread from her dimpled cheeks to those perfect tits of hers.

And as her fingers tightened around his own, release found her again that night. At the sight of his wife moaning his name below him, he found his. His siphons flaring as he spilled himself into her.

Elain wrapped her legs around him, holding him close as pleasure shot up his spine. Foreheads pressed together, noses touching, he pressed an open mouth kiss to her swollen lips. 

“I love you.” she said. “So very much.”

Azriel hoped that he was enough to keep her safe, strong enough to make sure they had nights like this again and again.

#acotar #elriel #a court of thorns and roses #azriel #elain #smut #a court of mist and fury #sarajmaas #fanfic

[alkcmist]

hey folks, i’m emma ( 23, she/her, pst ) ! mother to one chain-smoking russian man in a fluffy tuxedo cat’s body ( holland vosijk / the architect ) & one capitalist papillon named lilou. a double libra ( yikes ) and recovering kpop stan who knows too many memes and can’t convert fractions to decimals. i read the grisha trilogy when i was fifteen & scheduled an entire day off work a month in advance just to binge watch the tv show... but enough embarrassing things about me. give this a like & i’ll send ya a message for plots !

[ yelizaveta yahontov ], a [ forty ] year old grisha in the little palace. she is an [ alkemi ] and is known in the little palace as the [ black widow ]. she is known to be [ shrewd ] and [ unyielding ] and vaguely resembles [ keira knightley ].

statistics. 

𝐓𝐋𝐃𝐑 ;

young ravkan alkemi who enjoys the war a little too much leaves the second army to fulfill her arranged marriage to a kerch merchant. surprise ! she’s in ketterdam producing narcotics for her husband ( & not very happy about it ). but tragedies like the plague happen every so often in ketterdam.  she says goodbye to johannes vos on the bank of the reaper’s barge.  the poison is untraceable. life goes on. 

𝐇𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘

abuse tw, death/murder tw, drug mention.

ten minutes separate her & thomas. when she arrives ( screaming ), the yahontovs gaze upon her with an unbalanced cross of disappointment ( from her father ) and dread ( from her mother ). then, promptly passed over to the nanny in favor of the one true heir.

it starts with ballet and doesn't end until she can play both piano and violin, speak ravkan, kerch, and passable shu, and point out the obvious differences in fine art to uninterested parties. she sees more of her caretakers—tutors, maids, and the widowed kaelish governess—than her parents, and she’s ever so grateful.

she is an energetic child impervious to the words “no”, “don’t” and “stop”, yearning for a scrap of warmth and attention. old enough to recognize the odious, disapproving look in her parent’s eyes and register it as something normal. her torment increases with the same intensity she’s struck, scarred, locked away in a closet for hours, screamed, and glowered at.

despite liza’s rebellious behavior, their parents put off thomas and liza’s grisha testing for as long as possible. their father doesn’t want to lose his only heir to the darkling’s second army, but eventually the twins are shipped off like a packaged deal. 

combat training is a short and minor requirement for alkemi, but liza takes to it like breathing. even when she is breathing blood, even when she is breathing dust. she learns to spit without shame, to yell without insecurity, to be herself. she calls it freedom. her mother calls it a problem.

liza tries not to pay too much attention to it -- the disapproving glances, the hushed whispers between her mother and her friends. her mother isn’t sure yelizaveta yahontov fits well enough into high society, and yelizaveta’s not sure she's wrong. lady yahontov’s solution comes in the form of a wealthy otkazat’sya merchant all the way from ketterdam. an advantageous marriage. 

enlisting in the second army feels a lot like running away. she can put off her marriage for as long as she serves in the darkling’s army. shockingly, liza rises in the ranks rather quickly for someone with an issue with authority. her talent for combat ( particularly poisoned knife throwing ) places her closer to the front lines and farther from her fiancé. 

the wedding party, however, is lavish and debauched, lasting for days. nonetheless, liza threatens to leave johannes vos the day after they arrive at ketterdam. her new husband desires an alkemi more than a wife. liza reminds herself this is not technically indentured servitude and begins working for the small business her conveniently husband failed to mention. for a while, liza makes the most of it. she perfects her craft, learns the business, finds a thrill in rubbing elbows with the dirtier side of the barrel. but over time her husband irritates her. he chews with his mouth open, asks too many questions ( why is the gardener in our bed ? did you blow up the kitchen again ? ) ,  & ( worst of all ) doesn’t let her visit her brother in os alta. 

kasimir is born without complications following a history of miscarriages and a turbulent pregnancy. a wholly restored and reformed woman, liza distances herself from her old life to focus on her new family.

she doesn’t miss johannes when he’s gone. tragedies like the plague happen every so often in ketterdam.  she says goodbye to him on the banks of the reaper’s barge.  the poison is untraceable. life goes on. 

she returns to ravka & raises kasimir on her own ( plus the help of nannies, tutors, her brother, and the recurrent visits from handsome men ). pills, caviar, & four bumps for breakfast. a wild feline pacing a gilded cage. she still doesn’t feel more alive than when she’s in a warzone. 

𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘 + 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐒

anyone who knows her as a trainer and mentor rather than a peer will tell you she was sent straight from hell. 

( she was, in fact, sent straight from hellsgate. )

at first, liza comes off as cold, strict, & brutally stubborn. affectionate & maternal with only a select few.

silent & intimidating as a shark, slipping by entirely unnoticed until you feel a cold chill prickling the back of your neck & you realize she’s right behind you.

[ walter white vc ] i am the one who knocks.

outside of work, liza is a bit more relaxed. built on champagne bottles, makeup, jewels, furs, and coke spoons. she never picked up the spartan indifference to decadence and beautiful things the army tried to instill in her. truly, if she can’t show to to the function in a custom ball gown, shaping the latest trends of the season to her tastes and destroying other women’s self esteem in the process, is it even worth attending ?

tries to be the carefree “Cool Girl”.  a brand™ first, a yahontov heir second, and a person last. this can make her easily dismissible as frivolous and vapid, and liza usually lets them. she likes to surprise people. 

sitting in the tranquil eye of liza’s hurricane is thomas, her twin & ultimate weakness. liza theorizes he took all the heart & compassion in the womb and left none for her to share. 

𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒

high society / liza likes to be entertained by those less repressed than she is. if you’re rich, decadent, deranged, or simply fun, liza could see you as a companion.  if you're just young and beautiful — well, stop being poor. 

old friends / a small handful of grisha liza grew up with & trusts ( kind of ) & served with in the second army. the age range would probably be 35 to 45. 

combat trainees & alkemi apprentices / if you were one of her students, odds are you hate her. i would also love to see more complicated relationships with former students. maybe somehow your character doesn’t despise her & rather loves/fears/respects her ?

more to be added probably :-)

#ravkahq:intro #i downloaded photoshop 2 hours ago & this edit it way too dark but hey fam we out here

[but-first--tea]

LFRP: Omori Kaya

THE BASICS

Full name: Omori Kaya

Pronunciation: Oh-Moh-Ree   Kay-Uh  (Omori is her surname, Kaya is her given name)

Nicknames: n/a

Height:  5'6" (quite tall for a midlander hyur)

Age:  “A lady never reveals her age.” (adult)

Nameday: 32nd Sun of the 3rd Astral Moon

Languages: Doman, Common

Occupation: Not getting caught.

Current Residence: "Traveling abroad.“ (Basically living a tourist’s life in Eorzea, hoping to never be called out as the fraud she is. She’ll spend time as someone’s guest here, staying in a hotel elsewhere the next month, etc…)

Relationship Status: While she has never actually been married, the identity of the woman she pretends to be is a young widow and heiress. (Single)

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

Hair color: Black

Eye color: Pale, silvery grey

Skin tone: Fair

Body type: Slender, athletic but not in an obvious way.

Scars: none

Accent: Doman

Posture

Poised, athletic– though she’s no master shinobi, she is her mother’s daughter. Her training began at the age of four, and it’s still evident in the way she moves, observes, and behaves. Others who have trained would likely notice it easily. She carries herself with quiet dignity, and moves (or refuses to) deliberately, as if she expects each action to be read for significance, and takes great care not to reveal too much unintentionally. Though, in the very rare instances when she lets down her guard, this facade can fade away, revealing that she’s still a girl who can be amused, and charmed, and is easily mesmerized by beautiful places and things.  

Accessories

She’s almost never seen without jewelry, though all of it is merely decorative– the trappings of the life she’s stepped into. None of it is personal, or carries meaning beyond appearing as she’s expected to.

Apparel

Her taste ranges from the classically dramatic to the outright exotic- not out of a sense of vanity, but in an appreciation of what is more or less wearable art.  She most frequently wears black and white, though she also favors blue and occasionally red. In keeping with her heritage, she tends toward modesty in her dress. Of course, most of these clothes once belonged to a woman whose identity she has stolen, and she’s begun to add Eorzean fashions to her wardrobe to stand out less.  The more she blends in, the fewer questions about her past she needs to dodge...

CHILDHOOD

Place of Birth: Doma

Siblings: none she knows of

Parents: The samurai Masanari and an Imperial Shadow named Harue, though Kaya has never known her biological father, as she was still less than a year old when he disappeared.

Upbringing: Raised initially by her mother, and later trained by grandmother once her affinity for magic became apparent. (More details can be found in her character history.)

PERSONAL

Personality

Outwardly, she is polite and mysterious, with a demeanor ranging from businesslike toward strangers, to an unexpected sort of mischievous and rebellious streak around the rare soul she’s begun to feel comfortable around. She’s evasive and distant. She rarely connects with others easily, which leads to most people assuming she’s either very shy, or rather snobbish, at first impression. She doesn’t trust easily, isn’t prone to showing any emotion in public if she can avoid it, and is often the one who, from an outward appearance, seems to be just another quiet wallflower enjoying the view.

Beneath the surface, however, she feels everything perhaps far too much, watches everyone with the wariness of someone who knows all too well what people are capable of, and deeply craves the connections to others she doesn’t seem to be able to form easily. She’s always searching for the few who can see the world the way she does- as something equally beautiful as it is deadly, meant to be lived in, not just endured. She’s a powder keg of passions always kept under a tight lid, hidden away for safe keeping.

Still, she is difficult to anger, and it’s a cold anger when it happens. She knows that engaging in violence and revealing her training would likely break character entirely, and being discovered as a fraud wouldn’t end well for her. As a result, she’ll try to think her way out of any situation, instead.

Motivations/Goals

If asked what she wants more than anything else in the world, she’d probably say to be able to do what she wanted, not what she was told, or allowed, or expected to. She craves freedom in all its definitions, but nearly always denies it to herself out of fear or pragmatism. While playing the role of a young, noble heiress she feels the restraints of her gilded cage all too keenly. She must behave in the way one raised to the role would be expected to. As a result, she finds small ways to rebel that aren’t likely to be noticed. Her fierce and defiant nature, thus repressed, will see her doing seemingly pointless things like rearranging the furniture in hotel rooms, stealing small items she could easily afford, or finding ways to secretly get even with those who have behaved poorly.

Financial Status

Ostensibly wealthy, though not one gil of it was ever truly hers. Still, she feels no guilt in obtaining the Omori family’s accounts considering they would have otherwise been seized by the Garlean government following Lord Omori’s assassination.

She has been quietly seeking a way to invest ‘her’ money in a way that would  divorce it from her stolen inheritance, make it more truly hers, and greatly reduce the risk of losing everything should her false identity be uncovered.

Weapons

While she was raised to the blade and bow for most of her childhood, she hides her training and doesn’t carry a weapon openly, if at all. If cornered and forced to defend herself, she’d mostly likely attempt to disarm an opponent and steal theirs, or improvise.

Vices

Seemingly none, as she has striven to present herself as a woman of proper graces. However, she is prone to self-indulgence and spending far too much gil merely because she can, which she considers a vice in herself and tries to resist.

Likes

People who are intelligent, interesting, vibrantly passionate and alive. Watching people do things that require specialized skill, especially combat training or constructing something.

Constructive debate and interesting challenge. Trying/learning new things.

Music, dancing. She’s often wished she could play an instrument, but has never learned to.

Nature, gardens, fireflies, birds, waterfalls, the ocean/seaside. Traveling to anywhere with a spectacular view or vibrant culture. Learning about said cultures.

Exotic spiced foods or just about anything she hasn’t tasted before that doesn’t look absolutely disgusting. Tea. Fruits, chocolate, and spiced cider or tea. Have I mentioned tea?

Unusual crystals and/or gemstones. While she’s generally unfazed by wealth or status, she appears to be positively mesmerized by sparklies.

Dislikes

Politics, rumor mongering, cattiness, insults, and general poor behavior.

People who think getting drunk is the best kind of fun to be had.

Addictive drugs, and those who sell them.

Being forced to do anything, feeling not in control over her own life.

Overly objectifying unwanted attention, awkward social situations/obligations/expectations.

Being cold, biting insects.

Hobbies

Reading, especially the arcane.

Learning the history of different places and cultures.

Collecting small, easily transportable items (generally clothing or jewelry) in local styles from each new place she visits.

Pets: None, currently.  She once had a magpie as a pet when she was younger, and maintains a fondness for birds of all kinds.

RP HOOKS

She’s looking (quietly) for a way to launder, er... invest her money to gradually eliminate the need to rely on her stolen identity and foreign contacts for access to funds. Have an opportunity?

A trusted lady’s maid, retainer, or guard type to help her maintain appearances. 

It’s possible that someone from her past in Doma might recognize her, or perhaps have known the real Omori Kaya.

The woman she is impersonating is an ill-fit for her. She is fierce, independent, and rebellious... the exact opposite of the demure and soft character her stolen identity demands. But, her mother risked everything to secure her new identity, and she won’t cast it off unless forced to. Still, she isn’t perfect. Someone could catch her in a mistake, and become curious...

The Lady Omori Kaya appears elegant, mysterious, ...and wealthy. Potential suitors aren’t unlikely. (Romance is an option, though she’ll be hard to pin down at first, for obvious reasons.)

She has a (stolen) soulstone in her possession, and has been working to unlock its secrets. 

Open to brainstorming other connections, past associations, or jumping into -your- existing plot!

OOC

I make my own schedule. I can be available pretty much any time from 8 am to 9pm CST. Sadly, I can rarely do late nights because I need to do that sleeping thing.

OOC communication is a priority for me.

I have been RPing for 20+ years. I am comfortable with both in game or Discord RP, and anything from short, quick posts to multi para. I do this because I enjoy writing!

I am not interested in random ERP outside of a long-term character interaction. I do love writing ships as long as there's strong chemistry between the characters, and both the character and the writer of said character are mature adults. However,I will not consider ships with alt or AU characters, as this is my one and only RP character. (No multi-shipping.)

I prefer a RP style that works with what is plausible within the scope of the lore. I'm open to creativity, as long as it makes sense. I prefer to stay away from void-heavy, AU, inserts from other universes, and anything involving cross-breeding with non-playable races/beings. (These are only my personal preferences, and everyone else is free to do whatever they like!)

Absolutely no: rape, harm to children, or graphic torture.

I do enjoy game content as well, and prefer company over doing so alone! I am currently sitting in my own personal FC house, but would consider joining a real FC if it makes sense for my character. 

Confession: I probably spend way too much time decorating virtual houses. 

#ffxiv rp #updated character sheet #Omori Kaya #hyur midlander #Doman

[bumblebee-moreno]

Work Friends, Part Two

Find Part One Here!

Request: “Work Friends is a masterpiece!!!!!! Thank you!!!! That made my night!!!!!!!😘😘😘😘 Idk how but if there was a way you could make a part 2 or talk about the night before and how that evolved and happened I would die for you😄❤️” From anon

Summary: You and Din take a lazy day as “more than just work friends”.

Pairing: Din Djarin x gender neutral reader

Word Count: 614

A/N: I talked about the morning after, hope that’s okay! 

You wake up, limbs tangled with Din’s. He’s normally up and dressed long before you wake up. But today, he’s tracing feather-light shapes into your bare shoulder with his fingertips.

You press you face further into his neck, grateful that the room is still dark enough for his helmet to be off. You run your hands up and down his chest, tracing your fingers over his scars, trying to memorise each one with your touch. Din lets out a content sigh.

Neither one of you wants to talk, out of fear of ruining the moment. You press gentle kisses to Din’s neck. “How do you feel about ‘boyfriend’?” you finally break the silence.

“What?” Din asks, confused.

“Well you don’t like being introduced as my “work friend”, and I’ve got to introduce you as something.”

Din doesn’t respond. He just holds you stiffly against his body. “Din?” you ask, suddenly fearing you’d gone too far. Did he want to be somewhere between the two? Friends? Friends with benefits? Co-workers with benefits?

“I’d like that,” Din chokes. Tears well up in his eyes. He’d never thought he’d ever be someone’s boyfriend. “We should get up.” Din tries to climb out from under you, but you wrap yourself tighter around him.

“Can’t we just take a lazy day?” you whine.

“The bounties—” Din starts.

“The Gild can wait a day. We can just say we hit a… minor complication. A brief setback.” Din isn’t sure if what’s more persuasive: your words or the fact that you’re wrapped around him, both of you completely naked. He really wants to agree. No. No, he can’t. Turning in bounties makes money. Lying in bed with you all day does not.

Din is about to argue. The words are on the tip of his tongue. But then your lips are on his and your fingers are tangled in his hair and his mind is going blank. “Okay” he breathes, though he can barely remember what he’s saying ‘okay’ to.

Din pulls you close, wrapping one arm around your waist and burying his other hand in your hair. He nuzzles into your neck, inhaling your scent.

You shift until Din is curled around your side, face still buried in your neck.

Din feels himself smile. He never once thought he’d be this intimate with anyone, let alone someone as perfect as you.

You card your fingers through Din’s soft hair, and he starts lightly kissing your neck.

“That tickles, Din,” you giggle. Din immediately attacks your neck and face with more kisses, making you laugh even harder. “Din…” you manage to get out. “Stop it, Din. That tickles.” Din starts tickling your sides, making you shriek in laughter. “Din, I can’t breathe,” You laugh, your sides starting to ache.

Din stops so you can catch your breath. You lean up and kiss Din, distracting him. In one fluid motion, you flip him onto his back, straddle his hips, and pin his arms above his head.

Din’s heart is racing. Din’s skin is on fire, burning where you’re sitting on him, silently pleading for you to touch him, to taste him, to—

You use your one free hand to tickle Din’s sides, making him squeal in a way that could single-handedly ruin his entire reputation, were it to be spoken of outside this darkened room. Din squirms beneath you, struggling to breathe between bouts of laughter.

You’ve never heard Din laugh before. You’ve heard the occasional snort of chuckle, sure. But this? This is different. And it’s the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard.

You never want this lazy day to end. And if he’s honest with himself, neither does Din.

Edit: i forgot to add my taglist lmao 

@trashbin2 @fioccodineveautunnale @pascalisthepunkest​ @spookyold-saintjm​

#din djarin #mandalorian #pedro pascal #din djarin x reader #mandalorian x reader

[ohhophelie]

vertigo

or, what ophélie was dealing with between nov 2 and dec 20 [MAJOR TW BELOW - tw suicide, self harm, violence, gore, eating disorder, drug use, etc.]

It always starts the same. It always starts with a memory. She can’t make out any of the faces around her, but they all seem to be saying her name. In her dreams, Ophélie catches everything she missed the first time. She can track the assassin weaving seamlessly through the crowd, although her face is still a blur. Where she was consumed with her frantic search for her brother, for an exit – she can now trace the ominous warning signs in the heady thrum of the music, the echo of screams and gunshots.

Here’s where it shifts.

The hands that grab her are not two, but many - wandering cold and cruel as if everyone in attendance, everyone she’d ever met suddenly decided to try and tear her apart. The knife, when it comes, is not a knife but a sword, heavy and gilded. It pierces through her body with deliberate, excruciating slowness, twisting all the way. Ophélie watches the point tear through her skin with a clinical coldness completely counter to the remembered blinding pain and fear. 

It is in a dream that one is afforded such luxuries, although that would not be the word she would choose. In dreams everything was spread out, like the temporal constraints of the real world no longer applied and Ophélie could watch each centimeter of the blade driven into her body with relish on the part of her assassin.

Her blood, an almost comical cherry-bright red, drips with alarming speed over her fingers, sticky and alien and so unlike the dark warmth she’d actually felt on that night. Then there is silence – sudden and deafening – the room seems to freeze with every gaze focused on her. The laughter that comes cuts deeper than the blade, ringing out from every voice of everyone she’s ever known or loved. Loudest still is in her ear, echoing with an eerie familiarity.

When she turns, Cassandra’s face twists with malice and cruelty. Cassandra pushes the sword in to the hilt.

Ophélie wakes with a gasp. Which, she supposes in the moments it takes her to catch her breath afterwards, is better than the scream that pierced the antiseptic silence of the hospital the first time she suffered this particular dream. She tells no one of the details, waving away startled nurses and her concerned brother, hopeful it was just this once. 

If only she could be so lucky.

It doesn’t take a psychologist to divine the meaning behind the dream, and had she revealed it to one Ophélie might wish her subconscious was less obvious. Betrayal, the quite literal backstabbing by someone who should by all accounts care for her – she had no interest in this interpretation, it reveals nothing new. She merely wanted the dream to stop.

It did not.

She would sleep. She would dream. She would wake.

The waking was the worst bit. It took longer each time to get her heart rate, her breathing, back under control. The flat, with its familiar warmth and protective solitude, too longer and longer to come into focus, for her to realize she was safe. She would stand up too quickly, starry darkness threatening in the peripherals of her vision before she blinked it away.

She would walk.

First, she paced her room. Then, when that became too small, the hallway. Then the length of her flat. She wouldn’t leave, not in those first weeks, she couldn’t leave. The pacing gave her something to focus on, the balletic count of her footsteps, the uniformly light sound her feet made on the hardwood. Anything to distract from the clawing emptiness inside her chest.

Other days she lavished in this emptiness, curling herself around the absence with a protective, indulgent manor. She would fill the enormous clawfoot tub with too hot water and stare at herself in the overly large mirror, scrutinizing each mark and imperfection on her scarred body with an unforgiving eye. The water almost burned her skin, but she took this pain with resigned, almost sensual way the martyrs always embodied in the paintings by old masters beloved by the Catholic Church she’d been raised in.

Beauty is pain, her mother had once said in a rare moment of tenderness towards her youngest child. Soaking in the steaming water, Ophélie would reflect on this sentiment as the warmth crept through her body with a pleasing heaviness until crashing against the dull numbness that was the void inside her chest. Perhaps it was not just beauty that was pain, but the maddening ordeal that was being a girl in a world that demands beauty, perfection, submission – all those unattainable goals.

Sometimes, she wanted to take the point of a knife and dig into the angry red scar on her chest, to drag the line lower and lower across her body until the whole thing was marred with the same negligent hand. Would they notice her then? Or perhaps her face – there was a simplicity to the ugly, the way eyes tended to avoid that which was not pleasing. A cruelly tempting invisibility that would spring out should she decide to ruin her beauty, anonymity that was nearly as intoxicating as the attention she craved. Ophélie shut away the knives from her kitchen in an old lockbox from childhood and tossed the key into an overlooked closet.

She would sleep. She would dream. She would wake.

Sometimes the waking was far more violent than a gasp or a scream. It would take enormous effort to tear herself from the fearful clutches of the dream and she’d find herself far more exhausted upon waking then she had been when she’d given into sleep. The tears would carve twin paths down her cheeks, splattering onto the floor where she hunched over gasping with effort, a perversely pleasing artifact of her suffering.

The alternating between impassive apathy and devastating grief took a toll, the blonde growing almost skeletally thin. Her mother, on the one occasion she decided to look in on her youngest child, remarked on the sharpness of her cheekbones with something others might mistake for concern. Ophélie only heard disdain and turned away. Her parents soon left, duty fulfilled.

Some nights, after the dream as she lay there tangled up in sheets and regret, Ophélie would wish she died. How peaceful it would be to sleep forever below the ground, how without fear or want. How much easier would it be for everyone in her life if she was no longer a concern. There was a perverse need in her to play out this fantasy, to think about the way each of them would demonstrate grief – real or manufactured. She’d catch herself in imagined anger at the way they’d turn her death into a grand statement, only to realize that were she truly dead she could not possibly care.

And so she would sleep. She would dream. She would wake.

When screaming and gasping and pain and tears were not enough – Ophélie would climb up to the roof of her building. Clad only in a thin robe and bare feet, she would embrace the chill of the London winter on her skin. It reminded her that she was alive, if only just. Icy air cut through her lungs as she stood clutching the railing until her fingers and toes were so numb it hurt. Perhaps she was holding on to steady herself, to anchor her flailing mind to something concrete in this wretched world. Or perhaps she was resisting the urge to lean too far forward.

In this frozen moment on the roof, Ophélie was finally able to give name to the uneasy feeling that had haunted her every moment since Halloween – vertigo. Here, leaning forward as far as she dare, she learned the true meaning of this word.

Vertigo was not the fear the one might fall but rather the call of the void, the beckoning of the emptiness in the fall. It is the fear of how much one longs to jump.

#we told you this was melodrama | development #self harm tw #violence tw #suicide mention tw #overall #tw

[maruzzewrites]

Oof #30 for risotto tho. Like he’s genuinely trying to make you happy but still he keeps you caged and locked away from the world...

30. “Is it so hard to love me?”

Content warnings: yandere content, implied kidnapping, implied past violence, abuse, dark thoughts, (implied?) mindbreak.

Despite the harsh punishments and silent rage heusually displayed when you opposed him, Risotto was oddly calm and caring whenhe treated you in quiet moments. When you were too tired, trembling from thecold in your bones and the fear in your heart, you would allow him to hold youclose and you would pretend it was anyone else. You would imagine the embraceof your parents, the hold of your siblings, the care of your lovers; againstthe hard plane of his chest, you tuned out and wandered with your mind, freeonly because he didn’t want to jerk you away from your fantasy.

It was in those silent moments, in the solitaryprison that he forced the both of you in, that he would indulge himself in softertouches and stress with his stern voice how you could have all of this, thatpeaceful bliss, if only you gave up. You never listened to him and he wasn’tdelusional enough to pretend you did. He was methodical and he could read yourvague gaze, fixed on the wall; he allowed you to escape in those moments only tosatiate his physical loneliness.

When he wanted your attention, he knew how towake up from your reverie. He forced himself to repress the violence flowing inhis bloodstream, the loathe and ire because you refused to acknowledge him foryour own peace of mind. He remembered bitterly when you would rely on him,praising his strength and intelligence, seeing something in you that othercouldn’t see. He wanted to drag that part of you out again, that part of you hesuffocated with demands and ferocity. He was never taught kindness, onlypatience. He was aware of the fragility of the mind, of the body, but he neverbothered with cleaning up his mess before.

When he grasped your hips or your arms, yougasped like you were drawing a breath after drowning. You flinched and leaned forward,ready to curl up on yourself as if your soft flesh would be able to shield you fromhim. Those were the moments he hated the most, when you remembered where youwere and couldn’t accept his affection. He could adore you, you were as closeto an angel as he would get, but your light would dim when you caught glimpseof his presence. He would retract his hands, fighting with himself before hecould snarl orders and threats to you with his fingers around your throat.

And he would leave you be, all alone. Chain youwith iron born from your own blood, so that he could see you once again when hishead cleared and his rage evaporated. His men knew when to avoid him, when hestood straight instead of curving his back to look down. Or when his stepsbecame heavy instead of silent and lethal. In his rage – all your fault – and inhis efforts to sedate it, he would forsake stealth or caution. His enemies wouldn’tsurvive anyway, you would be greeted by the sight of a collected if cold man.It was perfect to calm down.

But you would always scoot away, slowly, keepingan eye on his face to freeze at the littlest movement of his muscles. It wasnever enough, yet he was trying with all his being to heal the scars helittered all over you. You shivered when he caressed you gently, some times he’deven close his eyes and imagine you were trembling for the passion and the love;too rational to believe his own lies, Risotto always opted to leave you aloneand savor the light he loved so much when you were alone. The more he observedyou gingerly brushing your hair, quietly resting on the bed, without your pastenergy yet with the same softness you never lost, he would get increasingly outraged.His fury would mix with his adoration, the urge to bit and spit his venom onyour skin surging and scrapping to get out.

He felt so alone in his love. When he took you, restedhis beautiful little songbird in their gilded cage, he hoped he’d be able toshine a light on his own darkness and bath in your warmth. His shadow, however,weakened your glow, and he took it out on you. Like you were broken; until youwere shattered for real. You recomposed yourself in your intimacy, when youcould run away from him, and he let you because those were the only moments he’dbe able to see your light for long enough, from the solitude of his corner.

At times, though, it became too much. When youstayed silent and he was left alone, he’d rest his head on your lap. You wouldplay with his hair without affection, leaving him to his own company onceagain, while he looked up to your averted eyes and far-away gaze. Like a huskwithout a soul.

“Is it so hard to love me?” he asked you, orhimself, one night. His voice was low, somehow soft, maybe he wanted it to be asimple thought. He saw it, though, right in front of him. A flicker of life andradiance, deep in your eyes, looking back at him with innocent curiosity at hisquestion. You looked at him with that lost radiance, and he wanted to reach outto force it to stay. Cling to it with claws and fangs until it settled foreverin his life.

He raised his body, chasing it down, and yougasped with life at his movement. With a hand on the back of your head, hebrought you down to him.

#jjba #jojo's bizzare adventure #risotto nero #risotto nero x reader #yandere #hhhhh i know you probably wanted something softer but like #risotto first instinct was to murder when his cousin was killed so i can't seem him as a soft kind of man #he's sadistic and not at all delusional #cavehermit-in-your-closet

[puttingfingerstokeys]

stork and starshine

in which New Kang (her first appearance is in Storm Over Function) asks where babies come from and I once again refuse to fuck with spaces or italics because--say it with me--I’m fucking lazy! I had intended this to be sillier than it is, but as always the muse takes me where it wants me and it wants me to be a fucking hallmark channel tearjerker bullshit screenwriter so here, have some ancient queens being dads (okay Shang Tsung isn’t ancient--this will be like, idk twentyish? years before the... third MK tournament?? I dunno man I’m making this up as I go along. I have no kontrol. Any writer who says they do also likely has a bridge to sell you). 

Warring Exes 

restored timeline

A light tug on the arm of his luxuriant vermilion robe drew Shang Tsung’s attention up from the swooping strokes of his quill upon parchment. He regarded the room in an almost comically oblivious way, even going so far as to shade his eyes from some bright light, as if it was difficult to see. The tug came again and once more, he scanned the room.

 “Baba, here, I’m here,” said a voice which was more like birdsong than speech. Shang Tsung laid his quill aside then and turned to face his daughter, a girl of six with hair as dark as the depths of night before dawn and vivid, hazel eyes. She reached out toward him with small hands and he sat back, a stern look upon his face.

 “Liu Kang,” he purred, “we have spoken of this many times; when you desire something, what do you do?”

 “I take it!” She was very proud of her answer and he smiled, gesturing that she should go on. Her face screwed up, lips puckering in thought before she continued, finishing strong. “Or find someone who can give it to me!”

 “Indeed, and how do you communicate this desire?” The greed sparkling in his obsidian eyes was lost upon her, a child who had just learned self from other, but the pride was not. It sparked a fire in her the likes of which he had never seen and which he appreciated greatly. She would grow to be a wolf, not a snake.

 “I say it!” Everything from a child, it seemed, had to be delivered upon the wings of boundless enthusiasm. The girl had adjusted her posture, straightening and standing erect, a pose which showed nicely the fine clothes she wore, perfectly tailored to her tiny body and mimicking that of her opulent “Baba”. Her dark hair was glossy under the lamplight of Shang Tsung’s study and the gold and baubles in it caught and reflected that warmth. She was a stunning child and he could see even now that she would grow into a beautiful woman. He had no intention of allowing her to traverse the realms without knowing who she was. That would be her most powerful weapon of all, to say nothing of the sorcery he fully planned on teaching her.

 “So, tell me, what would you like?” He leaned upon one arm of his chair and watched her, luxuriating in parental bliss. He watched her eyes dart about, watched her cheeks go red, watched her little eyebrows pulling together at the center of her sweet, smooth forehead, one he had kissed more times than he could count.

 “I um… I want to know how people come into this world.” Liu Kang spoke each syllable with meticulous care, knowing how much was expected of her and wanting only to please. Shang Tsung’s face softened and her posture slackened with it. She was not a child in want, but she was not spoiled—per se. Her lessons were difficult and Shang Tsung would bear nothing less than perfection from his darling girl. But he was a good teacher and surprisingly patient. It pleased her to please him and he was pleased when she strove for this. They were well-matched.

 “You desire knowledge, my daughter,” he offered, opening a hand and conjuring a few shapes for her amusement—and his own, if he was being honest—before straightening and standing, pushing his chair away from the grand mahogany desk with the backs of his knees. He offered her one of his gilded hands, rings adorning his fingers, instead of golden claw gauntlets, his bracelets jingling as he moved. She took that hand and held it tightly, and together, they moved toward his library. “I will never deny you knowledge.”

 Shang Tsung’s study was a warmly furnished, dark room, lined with books and lit by braziers and enchanted objects wherever he desired them to be. Those books were his favorites—special editions, old manuscripts, things which were unattainable to others… But nothing could escape his grasp once he had set his mind upon it. The tomes he sought, however, would not be in that collection. 

 They stepped out into the library proper, a stone room cut into the very mountain of his keep and equipped with protective ventilation, enchanted barriers to ward against moisture and rot, and sconces every few feet, illuminating the vastness of it. She had come careening through here—there was no doubt in his mind that careening had been her method of travel—a few minutes before, just to come find him. He wondered if she had known he would be here, or if she had been sent.

 “I know you have said I was a gift, but I know the gifts people bring you,” she said, her voice grave with the knowledge of six accumulated years. “Did someone bring me like that?”

 Shang Tsung considered a moment, his hand upon the spine of an Earthrealm biology book, bemoaning the absence of an Edenian scroll or volume of the same subject. One finger ran down the title and publisher absently as he considered how he would answer this. He had never hidden anything purposefully from her, and the story of her arrival was a good one, a fascinating one, in fact. Still, he was unsure if the timing was appropriate. After a moment’s thought, he withdrew from the shelf and, still holding her hand in his, dropped to one knee before her, the light catching the gold in his hair as it caught in hers.

 “I will tell you the story of your arrival, Starshine, but not yet.” He touched her nose, a sweet little button of a thing. “We must find your father first.”

 She brightened at this and reached out to touch Shang Tsung’s nose in the same way. “Follow me,” she bade, tugging on his hand. He stood and she pulled, his heart swelling with pride. She was intelligent, perceptive, beautiful, thoughtful—everything a parent could want in a child. For a brief moment, he considered how little he deserved her. As she pulled him relentlessly through the winding halls of his castle—their home—he considered what, precisely, he had done in his entire life to deserve such an immense gift, something which could sate his greed once and for all. He had not known in his younger days that such a thing could be possible. He had thought the well of his desires endless. The thoughts banished themselves as she, with her tiny hand, and a bit of his sorcery, pushed her way—their way—through the last door to his throne room.

 “Father!” Her shrill, bird-like voice called out toward the balcony behind Shang Tsung’s opulent throne. On the balcony, a figure stood, facing the misty sea beyond the island. The fog had cleared this night and one might see for miles, study the stars, see many moons and skies of different realms. “Father!” She called louder this time and the figure turned. 

 The shoulders were broad, the stature gargantuan, at least seven feet tall, perhaps more, and, though light-colored robes and white hair were tossed about ceaselessly by the wind, a hat, in the simple style of a rice farmer—though far more lavishly adorned than a rice farmer’s had any right to be—stayed perched on top of the tall man’s head. Gentle, dark blue eyes caught the light of some moon or other as he moved forward to receive his daughter’s affection, dropping to one knee and opening his arms to catch her as she leapt into them.

 “Liu Kang,” rumbled Raiden, his voice the distant murmur of thunder, “you have found him for me. I am so proud.”

 “She is an adept sorceress,” Shang Tsung said, stepping out onto the balcony. “I have taught her well and will teach her more.”

 A shadow passed briefly over Raiden’s face as he remained on one knee, the girl in his arms, but it disappeared as suddenly as it had emerged. He was no fool. Liu Kang could not enter the world—any world—without defense. He could teach her no sorcery, could not even gift her with divinity which he no longer possessed. It was a wise path, if a dangerous, serpentine one. His consolation was that Shang Tsung would allow no harm to come to his precious girl—their girl—while under his tutelage. This was his greatest gift, this all-consuming, nearly-obsessive adoration. The way Shang Tsung’s face lit up when he observed their daughter was a balm for Raiden’s scarred, mortal soul.

 The sorcerer approached and, joining his family near the fine stone of the balcony railing, bent forth and grasped Raiden’s chin, delighting in the fine bones of his face, the set of his lips, the nobility of his nose. With his free hand, Shang Tsung removed the hat so that the moonlight could lay its silvery elegance over the former god’s features, illuminating them, highlighting each perfect imperfection, each part of him that had likened him to humanity, even when he had been divine. With Liu Kang caught between them, he brought their lips together, long and slow, the child wrapped in Raiden’s arms—he was helpless to resist, but it had been much time and more since he had wanted to do so.

 Only her muffled shouts stopped them and they pulled apart to her flailing protests. “Baba promised a story!” Her declaration was loud, almost thunderous. Shang Tsung’s serpentine smile at her demand mirrored Raiden’s soft grunt of incredulity, though this too was followed by a smile.

 “A story,” he echoed, “of what, I wonder?”

 Their eyes met over Liu Kang’s head and wordless knowledge passed between them. It was time she knew whence she came. Raiden’s nod was minute as he stood, Liu Kang in his arms, Shang Tsung before him, the strangest family in any realm, every realm… but happy, for all that.

#cc #cw #mortal kombat #raiden #shang tsung #warring exes #new kang #didn't tag her in storm over function because I didn't wanna spoil

[talesofpanem]

Waves

Author: @xerxia31

Rating: M

Summary: A visit to District 4 provides the perfect setting for Katniss and Peeta.

___________

It takes years to convince them. Katniss always has an excuse; her confinement to District 12 hasn’t been lifted, she’s worried how Peeta might react to the long train ride, they can’t leave Haymitch alone for so long. But Annie wears them down with her letters and phone calls and not-so-subtle guilt trips about how fast little Finny is growing. 

So in the fall, when District Four’s oppressive heat tempers into something a little more tolerable, Katniss and Peeta find themselves boarding a train far less comfortable than the old tribute trains had been, for a three-day ride.

And Katniss’s concerns were for nothing because Peeta finds he loves the train, the scenery that rushes by, familiar and untainted by the Capitol. He loves the narrow bunk they squeeze into, the way they’re forced to sleep spooned together, his cock nestled against the firm swell of her ass. And he especially loves how the constant clack-clack-clack of the rails muffles the sounds of Katniss’s pleasure as they make use of that tiny bed, the sway of the train only enhancing their lovemaking every night and each morning too. He’s almost sad when the train finally arrives at their destination.

But only until he actually sees the district. Only until they’re standing outside Annie’s weather-beaten little shack just steps from the beach. 

They’d stopped in District Four during the victory tour, had danced at the justice building there, seen a glimpse of blue water stretching to the horizon from a car window. But being here by choice is completely different.

He loves it.

They’ve barely dropped their bags in Annie’s spare bedroom when little Finny is dragging Peeta to the beach. Katniss and Annie laughingly tell him they’ll follow, once they’ve changed themselves.

Peeta is awestruck by the beach in District Four. He loves the crash of the waves and the screams of the seabirds. He loves the wide blue sky that reaches down to kiss the equally blue water, a thousand different shades melding together. He loves chasing Finnick and Annie’s young son up and down the white sand, stopping to collect seashells and coloured bits of glass along the shore, tucking each treasure safely into a bucket.

When Finny coaxes him into the water, he finds he loves floating in the undulating sea while the youngster swims laps around him, loves the warm, clear water so different from the lake back home. He even loves the salty sting of it against his sunburnt lips.

And he really loves the swimsuit that Katniss is wearing when finally she emerges from Annie’s place. He’s seen her in less, it’s true. Five years married, he’s seen every inch of her olive skin, kissed the firm swells and mottled scars, catalogued every freckle and dimple. But strutting down the boardwalk in two tiny pieces of sunshine yellow fabric moulded to her curves like a second skin, she’s a goddess.

They spend the day in the sun, swimming and sunbathing, flirting and stealing kisses. As evening falls, they sit on a blanket, eating their fill of briny shellfish and spicy dipping sauce. Katniss traces the new freckles that dot his shoulders and nose, smiling contentedly.

Finny’s chatter wanes, his eyes glassy and hooded. Annie takes her tired boy back to the cottage, leaving Katniss and Peeta alone on the blanket, to watch the last of the sunset paint the waves in muted orange and gold. Their part of the beach is deserted, sheltered from the more public areas by a wharf that paints shadow patterns against the darkening sand. “It’s so beautiful here,” Peeta almost sighs.

“It is,” she agrees, but there is something guarded in her voice, and he turns to face her, his brows lifted curiously.

“You sound less sure,” he says, a smile in his voice but worry in his heart. He knows that the largest part of the reason they’re here is because he wanted it, that Katniss would have been happy staying in District 12.

She shakes her head, not quite meeting his eyes. “I guess I’m just tired,” she deflects.

Peeta gazes at his wife, bathed in the sunset. Her hair is loose, the breeze blowing saltwater-waved tendrils around her face. The dying sun gilds her, sets her hair and eyes alight. She’s more radiant than the sun. “Not too tired, I hope,” he teases. She’s still in that nearly indecent scrap of swimsuit, and he’s been hard all day.

At her coquettish smile, he advances. He loves kissing Katniss, the way her lips soften and part beneath his own, the low sounds she makes in her throat. It’s gentle and loving, at first. But then her hands twist in his hair, tugging the way she knows is his undoing and he groans.

Without breaking the kiss he pulls her into his lap, straddling him, freeing his hands to rove over her bare skin, to trace the goosebumps that erupt under his fingers, to palm the twin swells of her ass, perfect fistfuls. He thrusts his hips upward, grinding his hard cock against her, only two thin bits of fabric separating him from her heat. She gasps, her head tipping back, the elegant column of her throat an irresistible temptation. His mouth waters, and he wastes no time, her skin salty under his tongue. 

She shivers. “Let’s go back,” she murmurs, but he shakes his head, speaking into her throat.

“Too far.” Plus Annie will want to chat, and the walls in her cottage are paper thin. “I need you.” 

She tenses in his lap. “Here?” There’s something in her voice that catches Peeta’s attention, cuts through his lust-haze. He expected her to demur, to object half-heartedly. It’s what she always does when they make love by the lake or in the woods around 12, protests that someone might see them. But that’s not what’s happening now. This is something beyond her typical inhibitions.

“Katniss?” he whispers, heart stuttering, doubt creeping in, the dark part of his brain arising.

The memory hits him so hard and fast he can’t brace for it. Another time, another moonlit beach, wet sand beneath him, Katniss in his lap. Lulling him into a false sense of security with kisses, before she can rip his throat out. The mutt. The murdering, stinking mutt.

“Not real,” the mutt is saying, holding his face. “Not real, not real.”

It’s over nearly as fast as it started, the distorted vision fading away like mist until he’s back on the beach in Four, shaking and panting. Katniss is still on his lap, cradling his head against her chest, singing softly under her breath. He wraps his arms around her waist, squeezing her tight, inhaling her natural soothing scent under the chemical sweetness of sun lotion.

“Were you on the beach in the arena?” she asks gently, and he realizes that’s why she was so reluctant to make out here. She knew it was too much like the games, was afraid it would trigger a flashback. And she was right.

“Yeah,” he rasps. “I’m sorry.” Katniss shakes her head, and he knows she doesn’t need his apology. They’re past blaming each other for the things that happened to them during the games and the war.

In the safety of her arms, Peeta tentatively unpacks the old memory, tries to work past the shiny edges to the truth beneath. Over the past five years, he’s gotten pretty good at it. He’s seen videos from the games, over and over in therapy sessions, trying to rewrite the distorted versions that the Capitol had fed to him in his hijacked state. But his own memories, those are more tenuous, more difficult to see clearly. He can see her in his mind’s eye, younger but just as beautiful. Silver eyes shining in the moonlight, burning with passion. “You wanted me then,” he murmurs. “Real or not real?” He doesn’t ask very often anymore, doesn’t need to, but it’s a safety net, a warning that they’re looking back on things he’s unsure about or things she might still carry guilt for. But she smiles at him, one slender finger tracing his bottom lip.

“So real,” she says, her eyes shining just like in his memory, the one he knows is true. “Kissing you on that beach stirred up feelings I’d never experienced.” She sighs, her body relaxing, fingers twining in his curls. “If the lightning hadn’t hit the tree…” she trails off on a groan, lost in the memory. He can’t resist kissing her, and the passion with which she responds surprises him, so soon after he’d lost it and she’d had to talk him down. She starts to rock above him again, grinding against his erection which had deflated a little in his fear and confusion, but which rages back to aching hardness at the feeling of her body moving against his own.

“Let me take you back to the cottage,” he says, barely getting the words out around her insistent mouth. He shifts, intending to stand with her in his arms, but she shakes her head, catching his face in her hands, holding his gaze with heavy lidded eyes that burn with passion.

“No,” she says. “Here. Now. I want to replace that old memory with a new one. A better one.” He searches her face, looking for any sign that she’s kidding, or worse, that she’s only saying it out of pity. But her expression is open and eager, her cheeks and chest flushed with arousal, her nipples hard and straining against the tiny triangles that hold her breasts aloft.

He’s helpless to deny her.

Katniss kisses him again, and he slides a hand between them, teasing the edge of her bottoms for just a moment before plunging in to cup her. “You’re already so wet,” he moans. 

She laughs breathlessly. “You’ve been half naked all day, running down the beach like one of those guys from Plutarch’s show.” She gasps when his thick fingers delve deeper. “It was torture.”

Katniss is seldom the aggressor in their lovemaking, he’d called her pure once, long ago, but shy is perhaps a better description. Not today.

Today she pushes aside one of the cups of her swim top, and guides Peeta to feast on her small breast, moaning just a little too loudly as he suckles hard on the turgid peak, steadily fingering her all the while. She rides his hand and whimpers his name, he smiles against her breast. There are few things Peeta loves as much as his wife calling out his name in pleasure. Nothing so solidly convinces him that she wants him, and no one else.

She slides a hand between them, gripping him over his trunks and he nearly chokes. But the angle is awkward with their arms pinned between them. He moves to lay her back on the blanket, but she shakes her head. “Stay where you are,” she whispers, pushing his arms to his sides..

He’s amused, but does as she asks, leaning back a bit on his palms. She shimmies his trunks down just enough to pull his cock free, throbbing and aching, a pearly drop of precum already beading at the tip. Her thumb spreading the wetness down his shaft makes him shudder, arching in helpless ecstasy. 

She strokes him steadily, knows exactly what he likes. Her hand, her soft noises of pleasure and the visual of Katniss rumpled and flushed, squirming on his lap with her tits swaying slightly is nearly enough to push him over the edge. He groans her name in warning, then groans again when she stops. 

The look of pure mischief she flashes makes his dick jump. Then she’s taking him in hand again and shifting aside her tiny bottoms. Her wetness envelopes him, scalds him with pleasure as she sinks onto his shaft, and he howls. 

She’s so tight in this position that she has to wiggle and shift to work the whole length of his cock inside, he gasps and grunts with each slick slide. 

Once her body is finally flush with his she pauses just long enough to kiss him hard. Then she’s riding him, strong thighs flexing, her pussy gripping every inch, her head flung back. 

It’s so hot and so unexpected that he barely hangs on. They are technically in a public place, though he hasn’t seen any sign of another person in hours. He’s even not shielding her body with his own. The knowledge that they could get caught, that someone might see his gorgeous Katniss riding his cock with wild abandon, it’s a fantasy come to life. 

“Peeta, Peeta,” she begs, and he can feel the first flutters of her impending orgasm. He brings his thumb to his mouth, moistening it and making sure it’s sand free. Then he slips it between their bodies, strumming her clit. 

She comes like a lightning bolt, wailing her release. Her pussy grips him like a velvet fist and that’s all it takes to make him lose control. He levers his hips up, fucking her with several hard thrusts, then stills and erupts. 

Peeta collapses back on the blanket, Katniss sprawled across his chest, panting and trembling with aftershocks. He wraps her snugly in his arms, pressing kisses to her hair, loving her. She’s practically purring, and he’s filled with contentment. 

Waves lap at the shore, the sound soothing and hypnotic. Peeta would be happy to lie here all night, but Katniss is shivering in the night breeze. He rolls them over, slipping from her body with a groan. 

His wife lounges bonelessly, watching him with soft eyes and a languid smile as he rights her bikini, kisses that ticklish spot by her belly button. “That night,” she says, her voice dreamy. “I dreamed of this. Of a world in the future with no Capitol and no games. Where we could be together. Where we could be free.”

He’d hadn’t dreamed it, not then, not like that. On a beach far away, in a different time, he had only wanted to give her a chance at that life. He was certain he’d have no part of it. As if reading his mind, she reaches for him, tugging him back down, his warmth covering her cool skin. She wraps her arms around his back, kisses his jaw. “I only wanted this life with you,” she whispers in his ear.

She’d said something similar on that other beach, and he hadn’t believed it, not really. 

He did now. 

His memory of that time is steeped in uncertainty and melancholy. But that time is gone. Now he has a life beyond his wildest dreams. A bright and happy home in a peaceful district. Friends old and new. And Katniss, who really does need him, just like he needs her. 

Peeta kisses her again, slow and deep. “Let’s make more beach memories,” she says, wrapping her calves around his waist. And he laughs.

 A lifetime of new memories to replace the bad.

A lifetime with Katniss. 

He can hardly wait.

#tales of panem #talesofpanem #week 7 #waves #xerxia31 #submission

[windup-dragoon]

Tonight I tried something different! I created a more modern AU. Everything is about the same, the Scions and Warriors of Light are working to uncover Ascians, to stop the threat of Primals, and put an end to the Garleans reign. Kugane and Doma have been completely under the Garlean rule when Hien’s father is killed and the prince is assumed dead. The magitek soldiers are more machine than man and act as security throughout Kugane. 

Thank you @ishgard​ for the prompt! Probably not what you were expecting but I wanted to change it up a bit after writing last nights piece. 

【Ｈｉｔ　ｏｒ　Ｍｉｓｓ】

Hien x Kirishimi 

Word Count: 2,189

It had definitely been a day. Her body felt sluggish as she weaved her way through the bobbing crowd of hopelessly lost youths. To music with bass that could mimic a heart attack and ear splitting electronic tones they swayed and danced, as if kelp in the tide. Beneath a cloud of glittering smoke and lights that made her eyes hurt. Just how she wanted to spend the remainder of this dismal day. 

Heels clicked as she marched through the throngs, all but stomping along illuminated tiles on the floor to reach her destination. A large bar with an endless expanse of colored drinks lining the wall. Beneath the dance floor lights each bottle seemed a vibrant neon, poisons with fruity names. One day she would know the taste bottled inside each one that lined these shelves, surely she was already half way there with how often she frequented the club. 

Kirishimi leaned against the glass top bar, drumming agitated fingers against the rhythm of music. “Mix me somethin’ strong tonight, Isho. I’ve had a rough one.” Miscolored eyes shut as the music shifted and sent the crowd into a delighted frenzy. 

“My apologies,” A soft voice spoke out to Kiri amid the chaotic drumming. Kiri immediately shot the bartender a look of bewilderment. Instead of her typical contact, a hyur male with raven hair stood in the Au Ra’s spot, cleaning a glass as if it were business as usual. “Isho isn’t here tonight. What can I get you instead, my friend?” 

She squinted against the dizzying lights. Many of her months now had belonged to this club and its patrons. Although ultimately under Garlean control and influence, Kirishimi found it a prime location to gather information. Occasionally, when wayward guests would find themselves enticed by silken words and gilded visions of a grand future she would intervene. The Garleans and their ilk had found new ways to replenish their ranks in a diminishing army. All it took was empty promises and a single dose of Black Rose, the latest ‘medical’ advancement magitek corporations could offer. Those charmed by such beautiful words would be rallied into their army of mechanical soldiers, no longer themselves and replaced with metal. 

But of all her time frequenting this location, never had she encountered this particular bartender. Her contact had always been Isho. No matter the time, no matter the date. He had always been her safety net when things went south. So then, who was this fresh face? 

Despite the lack of fair lighting she could visibly see various patterns of ink scribbled across both his arms, tucking neatly beneath the rolled cuffs that came to his elbows. Thick ebony hair, longer than her own, and a clean cut beard trimmed close to his jawline. Certainly not a difficult sight on the eyes, if she were being honest. Even the scar over his left eye, splitting his eyebrow at a slant, seemed rather charming. Or perhaps this was just her type? 

Kirishimi blew out a sigh after taking in the mans features, two fingers rubbing her temples to shoo away a rapidly approaching migraine. “I’m not your friend. Where’s Isho?” 

The man chuckled. “Actually, I believe he put in his resignation and quit this place.” The cup in his hands squeaked as he continued to clean it. Kirishimi quietly wondered if he knew that only scratched the glass. “As should you. It isn’t safe for a pretty face.” 

The woman blinked but kept her attention to the various bottles of liquor displayed just out of reach. “...Is that a threat?” 

“Ah,” Another laugh slipped. “No, you’re misunderstanding my attentions. And normally when someone calls another ‘pretty’, it’s a compliment.” 

“Get to the point, kid.” 

The tone shifted, as did the music as if on cue. All bass with the tiles of the dance floor beating in rhythm. Almost matching a heartbeat. The bartender at last set aside his glass and splayed his hands across the bars pristine surface, leaning close to her. An air of rosewood and sake tickled her senses. 

“You’re one of the Warriors, aren’t you? Well, word on the street has it that some big wigs are here tonight. They’ve got hounds that want your head.” 

Kirishimi tilted her head to better gauge the mans expression, noticing much too late just how close he had gotten in order to whisper over the music. “And why are you tellin’ me this and not Isho?” The whole situation seemed off. A set up perhaps? Not even Alphinaud had mentioned hunters on the prowl. His information was often straight from the source. There was no way he wouldn’t have heard about it. Unless...? 

Her eyes widened as a sudden urgency stirred in her breast. They had found him out. Not just Isho, but traced the roots all the way back to Alphinaud and his ragtag crew of information suppliers. The gods were determined to make the day even worse for Kirishimi it seemed. Fools. 

The man offered a small smile before drawing himself away. “Don’t worry, your secret identity is safe with me. If you don’t mind working for me.” 

Kiri huffed and spun on her heel, her back leaning against the bar now. Over the vast and endless sea of the dancing crowd she could see them. Crimson eyes that pierced through the strobe lights and mechanical bits that sparked with reflected light. Magitek soldiers. Often they were disguised as everyday bouncers but not these particular models. If she had to bet, they were fresh off the assembly line. No doubt armed to the teeth with fun toys that would shred flesh like tissue paper. 

“Work for you, huh? I dunno ‘bout that.” Brushing aside stray locks of white hair, Kiri contemplated her options. For all she could tell this man was playing her like a fiddle. A Garlean spy who knew the right words. If that were the case, the situation seemed grim. No escape. The magitek soldiers would have her surrounded and he would have the emergency exit covered. 

“What do you have to lose? You said it yourself, you were having a rough day already, right?” Without granting the man even a curious glance she could hear the smile in his voice. A fool trying to play at chess. When she failed to answer, she heard the gate of the counter click and lift from its lock. “Time’s ticking, Warrior. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Deal?” He moved beside her, an idiots grin tugging at his lips. 

But it was his movement away from the counter that now drew the attention of the very guards they so despised. A whirling of clicks leaked into the speakers, static that disrupted the music. None of the party goers seemed to take notice however, and simply adjusted to the new diluted sound. 

“Get us out and I’ll consider it.” Kirishimi shot the man a dangerous look. If it were all but a trap, she wouldn’t go down without a fight. A cornered animal is often worse than one found in the wild. 

“Perfect! You really have that ‘I’ll kill you’ look down to a science, huh? Or am I special?” The man teased. But before she could grant him a response, his hand latched around her wrist. Warm and worked, his palm calloused. Just who was this man? 

His right hand raised in the air just as the automatons flooded the floor, guns and various blades drawn. A spark of light ruptured from his outward facing palm and extended in an almost straight line, just a touch longer than his arm. His fingers clutched the burst of light and it shattered, materializing a katana in its wake. 

Alerted buzzings and panicked alarms rang out now from the soldiers at the sight of a drawn weapon. Chaos unleashed itself upon the couple in a hail of bullets. Bottles with intoxicating contents broke apart in tiny explosions of liquor and shards of glass. The man brandished his blade with ease, despite the lack of a second free hand, repelling the advancing forces while breaking out into a run for the exit. Kirishimi, close at his heels, kept close and ducked accordingly when swords swung out to stop them. 

The impostor bartender keenly delivered them to the front doors. Bullets ricocheted on either side of them, shattering the glass of a floor to ceiling window that held the clubs logo and Garlean symbol. Like rain in a storm shards of glass poured at her feet, clattering and crunching beneath her heels. The raven haired man knocked aside a bit of remaining glass with the hilt of his katana before dragging her through to the cool night air. 

Silence greeted them. The city of Kugane had grown empty under Garlean control, or perhaps compliant was the better word. Except for a number of night clubs like this, civilians rarely ventured out at night. Magitek soldiers littered the streets, roaches ever scouring. 

“Here!” The man shouted, already aware of more soldiers shambling out of alleyways and opening fire upon them. With a tug of her wrist he encouraged her to follow, leading her to the street where a black motorcycle was left unattended. He released his grasp only to throw one leg over the machinery. A twist of the key left in its ignition and it roared to life. A tiger growl in the empty night. “Get on and hold on tight.” 

Sure, she could have run opposite of him now and down an alley to escape her pursuers. It would have been easy enough. But the man cocked his head over his shoulder, green eyes alight with an unfamiliar glow. His jaw tensed. No. She wouldn’t break their deal off just yet. Not until she found out what happened to Isho and if the Warriors and Scions were in jeopardy. He was her only clue to the answers. 

A bullet skimmed by. She felt the wind tear several strands of her hair before she made her decision. Kirishimi lurched forward to the bike, throwing her leg over as he had done and coiled her arms around his waist. Beneath the vest he wore and white button down, she noticed this man was no ordinary bartender. His stomach felt as hard as rock itself. Or perhaps he truly enjoyed lifting weights? 

Her thoughts abandoned her as the bike jostled forward. A feral rumble of the engine and they were off, a blur in the night that faded down the street. Magitek soldiers tried to hold pursuit and give chase. But before long Kirishimi could no longer make out their blinding red eyes in the distance. Or the flashing neon light of the club dubbed ‘Seventh Heaven’. 

-- 

“Here. Lemme get you something for that pain. It’s got to be killing your shoulder.” 

“I’m fine.” 

Over an hour they spent driving around that evening. The wind had blasted her face, leaving her cheeks red and icy to the touch. But it was in efforts to throw off their enemy, a price she would willing pay considering it seemed to work. The magitek outside the small complex staggered down the road, oblivious to their hiding spot. 

He threw open a cupboard over the sink and rattled a bottle of pills. “At least let me get the bullet out. It could be a tracker. Or worse, you’ll bleed all over my sofa.” 

Kirishimi sighed and leaned herself forward so she sat on the edge of the couch. He was partially right. Since the soldiers outside seemed unaware of their presence, she had her doubts that the bullet lodged in her shoulder was a tracking device. But the old couch would definitely be stained if she remained untreated. 

“... Hurry up then, chief.” 

“The least you could do is ask for my name. You know, like a civilized person. It’s Hien.” Footfalls approached behind her and stopped at the back of the couch. The wood of the furniture squeaked while cushions beneath her caved beneath his weight. Like a bird he had perched himself on the back, legs on either of her sides. 

“Hien...? Why does that sound familiar?” She leaned further away from Hien, lost in thought. 

“You probably know me as Hien Rijin. My father was the lord of Doma before it was taken over.” 

This news had her mismatched eyes grow wide in surprise. The prince of Doma was alive?! Kirishimi twisted at the hip to look up at her rescuer but screeched at the sight of a knife in his hand. 

“What are you doing?! Don’t point that at me!!” She wailed, snatching up a throw pillow to defend herself. 

Hien puffed his cheeks and strained against his desire to laugh at her. “I’m going to preform an operation. If the scary lady will tell me her name, there may be some pain killers to be had first.” 

Pouting, Kirishimi reluctantly gave in, even sitting up straighter to give him better access to her bloodied shoulder. “Kirishimi Yasuragi.” 

“Ah. Cute name for a pretty and terrifying lady. Now, take your shirt off.” 

Smack. 

#|| Untold Stories #|| Mognet #ask||answered #thank you so much Ishgard!!! #tw: blood #Hien with lots of tattoos #omf #heart eyes mf #he's such a dork in this au #and kiri is just herself #lmao #I kind of threw in a bit of FFXV for shits #like his sword and the magitek themselves #it helped give me an idea of how modern/futuristic the setting is #sorry for this dookie that will surely stain your dash #but heck i had fun writing it #uwu #another prompt done for Kiri's nameday #I'm so happy I'm actually writing these instead of backing out like I usually do lmao

[broadcastingbartender]

[Transcript File Name: "ᵇᵉᵃᵘᵗ△▼"]

[Date Recorded: "=/×/=*"]

[Prerequisitional Notes: Patrons that were at the 'talking-head''s bar after the previous broadcasting day are exiting the establishment far more disallusioned and positive towards life than most other days. This swell in lack of positivity is abnormal.]

[Begin Transcript]

Broadcaster: Welcome back, lovely listeners! My formal apologies to whatever had occured. I simply felt a surge of joy, and it must have manifested itself into a physical form of expelled fluid most found vile. It is an incredibly strange occurance, but nevertheless, I have put such a fluid to a positive use. But pay no mind to its use, we are here to discuss the knowledge that I have been permitted to tell you by are adoring, dominating legal system that keeps us all in check from the shadows.

DiscJockey: Yea! We got a whole lot of news for you guys today! We have an update on Carrot, (y'know, the farmer?), the establishment of a new facility in the outskirts of town, a new piece of the weather by your's truly, and even-

[There was a gentle hush, and the DiscJockey's speech stopped abruptly. A hush sounded off like millions of tiny pillows being placed around one's body, and acting like the most drowsy-inducing marshmallow fabric one could conceive.]

[The DiscJockey's speech is notably soft from this point forward, as if speaking to a resting child who just spent the equivalent of 8 hours attempting to disect the meaning of life, and mentally scarring themself for such a wild prospect that holds no meaning and no conclusion.]

Broadcaster: Now now, aquaintence of mine... No need to spoil the surprises, hmm?

DiscJockey: I... Guess so... Ahaha, I'm sorry dear $£@=()*.:... I don't know what I'm talking about, anyways...

Broadcaster: Oh, none of us do. Even if one expects that they have knowledge of the topic, one will always be corrected and wronged and all of the above and below... Even deities aren't free from spreading accidental fallacies. Nonetheless, we speak with confidence- as if there's no untruth in the first place.

Nevertheless, the news is always considered to be the truth. And today's truthful knowledge of typically unknowable proportions is the heightened sales of Carrot's (you know, the farmer?) mysteriously grown veggies. Seems there's a new red food that certainly is all the rage. She has claimed that her ended rivalry with Beet has- quote- 'Certainly taught her some new intracacies in the possibilities of intercropping with dough'.

Carrot (you know, the farmer?) has found herself with so much profit that her criminal record has been scrapped clean. Bystandards suspect that there will be new crimes to add to that scrubbed up list. I, for one, expect manslaughter to be the first upon that soon to be long list. Others suspect that thievery or breaking and entering...

DiscJockey: I say thievery. Haha, 'cause she's always stealing people's tastebuds with her food... Though, I think Miss Mala does that with mustard bastards. Ha...!

[Drowsy laughter, one that grew distant for the moment, as if the DiscJockey were leaning back in whatever chair they happened to have. However, leaning against an object is impossible for a ghost on their current ring of aftermath reality. Explanation: They're Tired and Unstable.]

Broadcaster: No matter the crime, it bares no semblance or meaning upon our next announcement. Upon the edge of our fine little town, last evenight, a facility made entirely of mushrooms had sprouted from the ground. Apparently, the owner and self-proclaimed mycologist that had sprouted up with the building itself claimed he held an ancient, arcane knowledge to spread. Utterly preposterous, I say. The way he shambled along to the streets to the townhall for his business to be recognized, how the mushrooms that spouted from every orafice wobbled and bobbed like eyeballs hanging from the sockets by the pink chords behind them alone...

That is the figure of a man who spent too much time under a different type of drug. The one that gives you falsified truths by ascending to the plain of liars where fairies and fae strip your organic material away in favor for some magical powder that will eat you away from the inside out. The only type of drug you all should be partaking in is liquid forgetmenot. After all, if there is something scarring that occurs within this town... It is best to forget, so you no longer have to forgive, and smile in ignorance.

[There is a quiet 'mhm', obviously from the other broadcast participant who seemed far too out of it to actual participate at all. Too exhausted.]

DiscJockey: Can we move on to my tuuunes? It's a reaaaal good one, I promise.

Broadcaster: Well... I suppose it is about that time, hmm? Then let us play it. No harm in playing a little late...

[Today's weather consists of... Absolute silence. Ah, but not entirely- A single ringing bell, chiming in E Minor. It chimes, again and again. No other sound or tone is heard. Nothing but a singlular, repetative chime is heard over and over between bits of void and null. When the audio of the broadcast returns, silence remains momentarily, though white noise comes through as the mics attempt to make up for lost sound.]

DiscJockey: That... Wasn't my tunes, but aight. I can vibe with that, I guess.

Broadcaster: How odd... Hopefully the Mistress of the 73rd dimension isn't upset by this abrupt change in music. Nevertheless, we must swiftly move on to our next story. A tale that I personally find myself overjoyed to read.

[There is the clearing of the throat, much akin to those of graduates speaking to the subjects before them. No one actually cares, but everyone listens and has the possibility of spacing out of due to the fact that it was very much mandatory and simply rude to ignore.]

Our favorite little mechanic, Hero, has finally gotten over his attraction to mustard! He paid another visit to the local restaurant, and passed on such a despicable condiment! Not only that, but he has finally found a stable place of residency. Granted, the housing itself typically becomes unstable and phases into serveral different plains of existances with the chime of some underground society's gilded bell.

This beautiful man, glowing with all the grace of a star student before they are inevitably picked up and tossed into the desert much like any other too highly educated citizen... Although he will be lacking the desert treatment... Oh, how the joy of him adapting for his own survival fills my lungs with honey-laced tar. It is utterly euphoric to think of such a man, though imperfect, being so utterly perfect all the same. Watching him, too, is another layer to this state of utter bliss. All because this mechanic, this twig of a marshmallow-y man...

[Due to the rambling nature at what is supposed to be the end of the broadcast, the audio mixing turns DiscJockey up, and the lovestuck broadcaster down. The broadcaster seems cognizant of this, yet continues anyways.]

DiscJockey: Yeaaa... This is gonna take a while. We're pretty much out of time, so like. See you later, listeners. Remember to come down to the bar later and drink up... And maybe chill with me, huh? Heheh...

[End Transcript]

[Postrequisitional Notes: The chimes of the weather were not randomized. Investigation shows that the single tone was used in some form of morse code, but an unfamiliar type of it. 'E', 'T', and 'P' were able to deciphered, but this is not finalised in any manner. Continued research is required.]

#🔊 they speak for us (dj) #🎙 the gilded voice (sparkling) #broadcastingbartender #💛 hosting and attending (ic) #🥕 you know the farmer? (carrot) #📄 perfectly imperfect (hero) #🍄 a delusional mycologist (herb) #dj cookie #herb cookie #hero cookie #sparkling cookie #carrot cookie

[pantomatique]

His Return

The small cottage came into view. Azriel slowed down, his feet touching the cobblestone path without a sound. The balmy summer air was a welcome compared to the near-constant freeze of the Winter Court, even if it made him soak his leathers through with sweat. He had built the cottage for Elain as a gift when they got married; built it in a field of wildflowers outside of Velaris. He remembered her smile as he flew her there and surprised her with it.

It has been three weeks since he stepped into his own house, the smell of peonies and sunshine wafted around him- his wife’s scent. Three weeks without his wife. He was sorely tempted to wake her up and makeup for all of that lost time. He let her sleep, she needed it and he needed to hone the whirl-wind of thoughts flying through him.

The last three weeks were spent interrogating spies caught trying to cross the border between the Night and Winter Courts. Spies from the Continent. They were apprehended in Winter, but Kallias allowed Rhys the courtesy of his own interrogation… as long as it was in Winter. Rhys stayed a week, using his daemati gifts to quicken the process. After the week, Rhys left him with Lucien to try to open up the last two spies who had been shields. Fae gifted with protection against daemati.

Walking to the dining room, he noticed a light yellow rug with a floral print. Bright and cheery against the dark wood floors. How very Elain, he thought. In fact, he started noticing all of the details added since he left. The wedding portrait that Feyre had painted of them, rested on the mantle. Vases of flowers and other feminime touches graced the house. It was perfect. It reminded him of Elain, who made anywhere she was- home to him. 

They've only been in the cottage for six weeks- married that long too. He hated himself for being gone for half of their marriage, but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make to keep her safe.

Azriel poured himself a drink at the small copper bar cart near the kitchen, using a glass - not bothering with a shot glass. Ugly. That’s what those last weeks were. As a favor to his Highlord, Azriel begrudgingly worked with Lucien. When Elain had chosen the shadowsinger over her mate, the townhouse nearly collapsed due to the fight that took place. Lucien was still silently seething over the matter while they worked. Azriel’s shadows picking up the wrath thumping underneath the fox’s golden skin. 

As much as Azriel hated to admit it, he was angry too. Angry at Vanserra. Angry at whatever force decided to tie Elain and Lucien’s souls together for eternity.

 Pulling out a chair to face the three paned window, he took a seat at the end of the mahogany dining table. A gift from Cas, his reasoning being that the happy couple needed a big enough for both their families. Family. That’s what he and Elain wove themselves together to become.

Staring at the starry night sky, whiskey burned down his throat as he his mind circled back to that comment Lucien made to him when he found out Elain wouldn’t be accompanying them to Winter. Accused him of cloistering Elain, saying that the cottage Azriel had built her was nothing more than a gilded cage meant to keep her bound to him. 

He wanted to bring Elain with him. Wanted to take her gliding over the iced over ponds hidden in the Winter Court’s forests, to show her the snow-blooming flowers that flourished in the cold… He would take her one day. Where he could give her all of his attention, she deserved it.

In truth, Azriel didn’t want Elain to see this part of him. He couldn't fathom sharing a bed with her mere hours after he tortured fae barely out of boyhood. Resting his elbows on his knees, he cradled his face in his hands, the scars and calluses scraping against the light stubble that began to form on his jaw. He thought about gentle Elain watching her husband break trained warriors apart, watching someone usually so caring and loving to her- turn to violence and bloodshed. She knew what he did, what was required of him to keep the Night Court safe. He would not allow her to see that part of him. Not anytime soon.

“Az, is that you?” a gentle voice behind him flowed like water. He turned around to see Elain standing at the stop of the staircase. A cream shaw was wrapped around her shoulders, over the pale pink nightgown edged with cream lace - another wedding present from Feyre. He had blushed when Elain opened up the trunk full of scraps of lace and satin and then rolled his eyes at the note that Feyre had left him:

 “A gift for the groom. - your sister in-law”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.” Didn’t mean to, but he was elated to see her. Graceful as a doe, she glided down the stairs- towards him.

“It’s okay. I have trouble sleeping without you anyways.” A smile touched her lips as she talked. His heart ached at the thought that she had problems sleeping. The first night they shared a bed, she had told him that it was the first time she slept without nightmares. Did she not feel safe without him here? He had placed wards around the house before he left and even told her to sleepover at Rhy and Feyre’s if she was scared. Azriel would ask her about it tomorrow. 

 Placing his hands on her hips. He pulled her towards him, so that she was standing in between his legs. Resting his head between her breasts and wrapping his arms around her slim waist, he breathed her in.

“I missed you.” He whispered to her.  So very, very much, he thought. Elain threaded her fingers in his midnight hair and began playing with it. Twirling his locks around her thin, small fingers.

“I’m so glad you're safe.” she said. “That is quite a nightcap you’ve made yourself.” She let out a chuckle at the large glass of whiskey sitting on the table. “I’ll make you some tea to wash it down.”

“It’s fine, you don’t have to.” he responded, but she already untangled herself from him and was walking towards the kitchen. Azriel was content to just watch her. Placing the copper kettle on the stove, she turned and gave him the sweetest smile as she pulled out two mint mugs from the cabinet. She stirred extra honey into his tea, making a remark about how she heard it helps prevent hangovers.

She placed both mugs on the table and was about to sit down, until he pulled her onto his lap- so that she was straddling him. Elain let out a giggle as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

“I like what you’ve done with the place.” he whispered into ear, pressing a kiss right below it, as he eyed the velvet blue curtains enclosing the window.

“Cassian helped me hang them up. He said the blue would go with your siphons.”  She ran her fingers over the one in the center of his chest, before picking up his mug of tea and bringing it to his lips. “Drink.” He did what she said.

“Delicious, from your garden?” he inquired as he took the mug from her small hands and held it to her lips. He tilted it up as she took a sip.

“Yes, I starting growing herbs that help with sore muscles and fatigue… for you.” she said shyly, looking down. Azriel put the mug back on the table and then tilted Elain’s chin up with his hand. 

“Thank you.” he said as he stared into her chocolate eyes. Thank you for everything, for taking care of me, for loving me, he thought, hoping that his eyes conveyed what he felt.

‘She is thinking you’re welcome.’ a wisp of a shadow whispered in his ear. One of the reasons he loved Elain was that she didn’t push him to talk. The two of them seemed to exude their thoughts and feelings to each other without words.

Azriel released her chin, running his hands over the silky material of the nightgown, he pulled her flush to his chest- into a passionate kiss. The shaw around her shoulders, fell to the floor forgotten. Her soft, doll lips parted allowing their tongues to intertwine along with their souls. Her hands stroking his chest, his shoulders, his wings. Desire flooded his loins.

He moved his hands over the curve of her hips, down to her knees. Then he moved them back up over her creamy thighs, up to the hem of her nightgown which was pushed up from straddling his lap. Lips parting, she began to pepper kisses along his jaw and neck.

“Arms up.” 

Elain obeyed. Lifting her arms up, as he pulled the nightgown over her head and let it drop to the floor. Unconcerned of where it landed. She wouldn't be needing it for the rest of the night. 

The primal, fae part of him hummed with pleasure at the bare skin before him. The moon beams streaking through the glass windows behind her, making her pale skin glow like back-lit alabaster. Clad only in a pair of pink lace panties, she whispered his name. Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful, the word echoed in his head as his eyes roamed over his wife’s body- exposed only for him.

Lips meeting once again, Azriel cupped her breasts, his thumbs moving in circles over her nipples- peaking them. She moaned into his mouth as her hips began to move in a soft rhythm against his own. Reminding his body that they spent three weeks without touching each other. Those days apart had left him ravenous.

He trailed one finger down the valley of her breasts, the center of her naval- until he got to the waistband of that scrap of lace she wore. Perhaps she expected his return tonight with those seer powers of hers, he thought, that would explain the… ensemble. 

A purely male smirk appeared on his face, as he realized that she was soaked through.  Before he could insert a finger into that wet heat of hers, she crawled off his lap to pull off her underwear. The shadowsinger sat back and enjoyed the sight. Stepping out of them, she kneeled before him. Kneeled before death incarnate.

Her nimble fingers began pulling at the laces of his leather pants. A groan escaped his lips, as his aching length sprang into her awaiting hand. He nearly lost his mind when she kissed the tip. Unable to wait any longer, Azriel hauled her up onto his lap and buried himself deep inside her in one smooth stroke.

All five hundred of those years he had spent in heartbreak and trapped in lust, had been worth it. He would have waited an eternity to wait for her. His one true love.

Azriel thrust up into her, still clad in his fighting leathers, while she writhed atop him naked. Her head dropped to the nook of his shoulder, her sweet little moans and gasps echoing in his ear.

Inside her, he forgot his sins. Forget the dark shadows of his past that leeched on his very existence- she burned them away. Outshining every star in the sky.

Azriel would give her everything.

Bringing his hand to that bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs, she fell off that shimmering edge into a pool of starlight. And as she gasped his name as she found her release, he stood up- wrapping her thin legs around his waist.

When the tremor in her stilled, he pulled himself out of her and sat her at the edge of that giant table. Pushing her shoulders so that she laid flat on her back, knees bent, legs spread and feet perched at the end of the table. Exactly where he wanted her.

       “Az?”

“Soon, love.” pressing a chaste kiss to her mouth to quiet her.

Before he could take what he needed, he began unstrapping the armor from his shoulders and forearms and unbuckled the leather tunic. And as he threw the tunic to the ground, he leaned over her, guiding himself into her. His pants slung low over his chiseled hips.

Enjoying the feeling of her small bare breasts crushed against his chest, he set a punishing pace that would take them both over the edge. Elain’s small hands traced over his back, feeling the muscles flex and tighten as he thrust into her. Azriel grabbed her wrists, twinning their fingers together as he pinned her hands by her head.

No language could describe how good it felt to share this intimacy with her. But gods, he tried. Whispering in her ear about how much she pleased him, how amazing she felt wrapped around him. A blush spread from her dimpled cheeks to those perfect tits of hers.

And as her fingers tightened around his own, release found her again that night. At the sight of his wife moaning his name below him, he found his. His siphons flaring as he spilled himself into her.

Elain wrapped her legs around him, holding him close as pleasure shot up his spine. Foreheads pressed together, noses touching, he pressed an open mouth kiss to her swollen lips. 

“I love you.” she said. “So very much.”

Azriel hoped that he was enough to keep her safe, strong enough to make sure they had nights like this again and again.

#elriel #acotar #a court of thorns and roses #azriel #elain #sarahjmaas #fanfiction #smut

[xiinzhan]

" I will endure it. by now I am used to suffering - at sea and in the war. let this come too. "

meme.

SENTENCE STARTERS: MYTH.TXT

@prdigy​  • not accepting !

He’s kept time of his loss—of every month, week, day, hour, second since he’d seen him last— with the stubbornly metronomic thrum of a splintered heart, and a vigilant recall that’s more vivid than it has any business being. 

If he closes his eyes, he can remember the last time he’d seen Sephiroth: half obscured in the darkness of his apartment, backlit by the the garish neon cityscape of Midgar at midnight, which shrouds him in a corona of sideral light. A single wing stretches behind him, flourishing once before it cloaks his shoulders at the sight of tseng installed in the threshold of his door, as pale as a pilgrim, and stilled with wonder that inhibits any sense but a complete and abject numinity. 

He can’t see his expression for the darkness, but Tseng recalls the sharp shadows that cut the quadrants of his face, all part and parcel to a terrifying beauty that he would worship before for the rest of his life, given half the chance. But he sees the arm that rests at Sephiroth’s side, unconcealed by the wing, wrapped in hastily-wound bandages from wrist to elbow upon which a darkness blooms, spreading like sin. 

And when Tseng steps back from the threshold, retreating into the darkness of the living room and out into the quiet of the sleeping city, it feels like defeat.

It is defeat.

There had been no words between them after. Tseng remembers how many myriad times he’d compulsively turned his phone over to find no alert from him—no text, no call, no voicemail asking after him. That night, the twilight air had resolved him to have one of those difficult sorts conversations with Sephiroth, the kind of talk of uncertain terms and uncertain ends. But every second, every hour, every day without him proved a deprivation that ached, his heart inhabiting the old adage about absence and fondness and whatever other foolishness came with the imprudence of falling in love.

And then he was off. On another mission, of such great importance that his victorious return had merited a celebration of unprecedented magnificence, to fete his triumph and consecrate his efforts. It isn’t where he’d prefer to see him again, amidst a gala of the glitterati who would designate him a god where Tseng would rather find flesh and blood in the form of a man he’d known in the veracity of darkness. 

The ballroom is lavishly decorated, pristine white marble walls illuminated by hundreds of slender candles. White. Tseng always thought Shinra’s preoccupation with white was more than a little mordent. Black swallowed sins. White exhibited it. But it is a thought beyond his ken to reason.

Garlands of exotic white flowers ornament towering pilasters edged in gold, velvet curtains the color of deepest crimson frame stately windows that opened to an inky night sky. It is a magnificently ostentatious display, and one expected of the aristocrats that luxuriated in the comfort afforded to those who lent their support to the conglomeration. 

Tseng’s eyes sweep the hall by rote, knowing full well they would not alight upon the sight he wants so desperately to find. Sephiroth is not here. 

It’s nearly another hour until he does show, his entrance invoking the usual rush of an unabashedly curious throng of bodies that never fails to overwhelm. The general enters to chorus’ swell of gasps, to a crescendo of footsteps, admiration hummed in concert at his arrival.  Tseng watches as he forces himself to smile as warmly as he can at a gaggle of silk-clad young women who peek at him from behind the coquettish obscuration of their gilded fans. Beset upon from all sides, crystal flutes of expensive champagne are pushed into Sephiroth’s hands, trays of delectable finger foods called to his vicinity. Tseng is acutely aware of the irritation that flickers invariably in Sephiroth’s gaze, even from this distance: he dislikes being the center of attention at these things. And yet it is his job to be just that.

The Turk weaves his way through the crowd to his lover’s side, fingers pressed lightly to the small of his back. It’s an offhanded gesture intended to be a custodial one, reassuring and encouraging. But a small flood of panic washes over him as he feels Sephiroth shift away from his touch and let himself be led away, leaving Tseng’s fingertips reaching uselessly after him.

Bile rises bitter at the back of his tongue. Maybe Sephiroth hadn’t seen him. He’d come in from behind, out of his line of sight. A part of him forms an astringent argument that Sephiroth had always known his touch. Another part of him fears that he had.

From his position against the wall, Tseng notes the meandering of Sephiroth’s path, watches with eyes slit with what feels like jealousy. What had any of these people done to assume the right to Sephiroth’s time? His attention? What possible contribution could any of them have made to merit the general’s recognition?

Nothing. But they’ve likely never failed him.  

It’s a consideration that sends his stomach roiling, to join the freneticism of his heart, the scatter of his thoughts.

And when the general finds an opportunity to slip away, so does Tseng. 

He expects to find him rushing to the sanctuary of the bathroom, but when Tseng finds the hallways curiously empty, it takes a moment to regroup. He only hears the piano as he nears the antechamber door, plaintive chords struck with a resolved hand, reverberating through the marble hall, high to the cathedralic ceilings. Like an invocation, a call to worship that draws Tseng in like a siren’s song. 

Sephiroth sits at a white grand piano, his argent hair spilling over his shoulders, swathed in moonlight that paints him pallid and pale. His head is bent to regard the ivory graced by his elegant fingers, which play with an unceremonious perfection. And when he raises his gaze to mind the moon, Tseng braces the frame of the door as his lips part to sing:

And I’m a shadow of a ghostIt’s feeling as if somebody has taken hostBabe, I don’t wanna make a sceneBut I get self-destructiveAnd it’s driving you awayIt’s driving you awayPiece by pieceDay by day

Baby, tell me if I’m being strangeAnd if I need to rearrangeMy particlesI will for you …..

He sings with a timbre so velutinous that Tseng shivers, as though the back of his neck is graced with the taunt of eiderdown. And how his voice soars stratospheric, high and holy, with an abstracted effortlessness that seems transcendent. Like he’s witnessing some aniconic simulacrum, a wonderment beyond words. 

And when Tseng is close enough for his hand to alight upon the shelf of the grand instrument, tears shine crystalline in the corners of his eyes. It’s hubris to assume that the song is about him. But he feels it, in the marrow of his bones, the castigation and concession both heavy in the consonance of his voice

Tseng sinks to his knees like a prodigal found, hands in his lap as he sits back dejectedly upon his heels. “Do you think that?” he asks, in barely a whisper, looking up at cerulean eyes slit narrowly with black, that had once softened at the sight of him. How vacant and vacuous they seemed now. “Do you think there is anything you could do short of telling me to leave, that could impel me to abandon you?”

“If you must go, go,” came Sephiroth’s adjucation. He says it simply. A simple truth. And for all the delicacy he says it with, it destroys Tseng all the more. “I will endure it. By now I am used to suffering - at sea and in the war. Let this come too.”

Desolation marks the curl of his shoulders, sorrow describes itself in the curve of his spine. It is the pronunciation of defeat, like a sentence, like a verdict. Like a maledict. Tseng’s eyes slide shut, in depuration of this unique misery. “My hesitation had nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me,” Tseng announces, with a quiet finality. “I’ve been to war, same as you. I’ve seen terrors and tragedies and weathered them all. I’ve dealt with the aftermath. I’m not scared of what it takes to find slivers of peace. But god, the burdens you carry are atlantean in magnitude, and I’m at least smart enough to know that I could never fathom the scope of the shit you go through. I’m not …. I’m not equipped …. To understand the depth of everything you’re going through. I want to. But that’s where I fail you. Because no matter how encompassing, how completely and unwaveringly I love you, it won’t be enough. It’ll never be enough.”

His hands alight upon Sephiroth’s thighs, following the line of sinews and muscles up to the terminus of his hips. Tseng moves between the spread of the general’s knees, settles between them to incline his lips to where the scar vivisects his ribs, and kisses it over the perfectly pressed linen of his shirt. “But I am sadly as loyal as the dog they take me for. And even if you sent me away, ordered me away, I’d still love you. I’d still watch over you as best I could. From the wings, where i’ve always belonged.”

He rests his forehead against the ballast of his sternum and sighs with a profundity that aches. “I remember the shape of your mouth when you told me the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard. How you told me I ground you. How I keep you human.”  How you loved me. “You cycle through medications that wane in their efficacy, with an exponentiality that frankly frightens me. You hurt yourself to whatever end—to purge yourself, to punish yourself, to prove something to yourself …. What the fuck could I possibly offer you, that wouldn’t end up useless eventually, too?”

He’s quiet after that confession, and allows an ineloquent silence to sit thickly between them. He swallows and tries to find his words, his thumbs finding the jut of Sephiroth’s hips and circling idly as he gathers up the courage to speak. “It’s alright if I’m useless. I thought maybe …. I wouldn’t waste your time. I shouldn’t, at least. You’d be better off without having to worry about everything that haunts you, and me on the side. But it turns out I’d rather exist as an afterthought to you, than nothing at all. I’ll live out my usefulness to you. But until then, I’m here. I’m yours. To do with what you will.” 

#prdigy #this is literally the longest response for no reason #but u dared tell me this scene #and i had to write it #fuck u #hi im gay and i missed u and missed writing u shit so here's some sad shit