#apparently from a play called defiled
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Saw this image, strongly felt that it should be a meme but didn't know what it should say, literally had a dream that same night and this strangely normal and straightforward thing is what it told me to write.
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Ok but what if I had to continue this story about Knight!Ghost and Presumptuous maiden!reader
She can still feel his breath on her, but the huge body pinning her to the wall ceases to move.
"...What?"
It’s pure shock.
She’s dropped so quickly she has to take support from the stones behind her.
She wouldn’t have to: Simon grabs her by the arm and prevents her from falling forward and back towards that plated chest. His eyes search for hers, and she looks up at the knight who almost raped her – in the corridor of all places like she’s nothing but a common whore. But for the first time ever there’s genuine shock, even fear in his stare. The remnants of lust flicker back alive every now and then, but mostly he looks like she just hurled a powerful curse at him when she told him she’s a virgin.
"I'm sorry,” she tries. “I’ll–I’ll never do it again. I promise."
"Bloody fucking…"
He looks her up and down, the leather straps of his armour wailing from his still heaving chest. She should bolt, now, when Simon has taken a step away from her and is clearly puzzled and confused. But she can’t: those eyes rise to hold her captive again. And now, there’s anger in them.
"You should be whipped."
"For what...?"
Her chest is heaving, too. She never knew how low her voice could get when there's want in the air and in her veins.
"You attacked me, sir. I should have you whipped," she continues like an absolute fool.
"Don't test me, girl," he slurs behind bared teeth. She finally remembers how to shut up.
"Tsk."
Simon nudges his head towards the stairway leading to her quarters. Get out while you can, the gesture says, and she gathers the hem of her heavy woollen dress and flees.
She never believed her miserable begging would stop or sway him. Simon is bound by oath and honour, or then he doesn’t want his master’s wrath upon him. Her worth is between her legs; they both know it. Defiling the king’s daughter could lose him his head.
She climbs the stairs, slips into her room and bolts the door. It should probably be strange that she’s left aching by what just happened. It should make her wake up from her silly dreams, that the only thing stopping this man from raping her is other men, not her feelings and sensibilities.
It should be considered a doom, not fate, that she only wants him more.
…
Simon never participates in the tournaments, but this time, rumour has it that he’s planning to join.
In a distressed hurry, she makes preparations for the great day. There can be no other reason for him to joust other than the wish to win her favour back. His actions speak louder than any words, and just for the sake of that, she has kept her promise. She walks the halls as if the knight called Simon never even existed. She won’t look his way even when he has his back turned on her. She only dreams about him when the moon is full and there are no more candles burning in her lonely room.
But it’s hard.
It’s difficult, and it’s a horrible fate she has to suffer, because now it’s he who can’t keep his eyes off her. Now it’s Simon who has suddenly caught her scent, who is suddenly interested in dangerous, stupid sports such as jousting that could injure or kill a man. But he’s willing to do the thing he apparently hates most – along with the fevered attention of insufferable, flirtatious maidens – because he needs a token of her favour. She’s sure of it: that’s why she embroiders a tiny ‘S’ on her finest, most precious handkerchief.
The tournament day is as beautiful as can be. Her heart is about to rend itself out of her chest when Simon approaches her, riding across the field in his heaviest grey armour. He’s surrendering himself at her mercy, and at the mercy of other people’s ridicule, rumour and gossip by making it known that he thinks himself worthy of her blessing. She wonders if she’s the one being played now: she can’t decipher why he would refuse her one day, then fight to gain her favour the next.
He accepts her silken handkerchief with a blank expression, but his eyes betray the inner turmoil when he sees the embroidery. A plain, simple token would have sufficed – the adorned ‘S’ is a bit too much, it's a clear sign. It’s ten times more clear than her earlier games, ten times more blaring than her vivacious little flirt. She could've embroidered the sentence “If you come up to my room at nightfall, I will let you in,” on it and the meaning would've been just as obvious.
He tucks it under his breastplate and gives her a sideways look that is filled with both distaste and longing. Only Simon can speak entire sentences through his eyes. They say, “You’ve gone too far,” and “If I come out of this alive, you’ll get whipped, or fucked, or both.”
And one thing she never knew about Simon was that he could joust better than anyone. There’s one dead, three wounded and five humiliated by the time Simon is declared the winner of the tournament. Everyone understands now why he never joins these things: he will only rob the fun of other knights by toying with them.
Her chosen one accepts the king’s words and the crowd’s applause with a stern but slightly painful expression. Simon would rather be anywhere but here, but endures being the centre of attention for the rest of the afternoon like a good, patient dog. Then he disappears somewhere, done with being the sudden pet of the people. The next time she sees him is in the morning as she descends the stairs.
“Fawn.”
She flinches from the now familiar dark voice. He’s been waiting for her, and almost prowls forth from the shadows when she’s floating down the steps. There’s a good few feet between them, but she can feel the heat emanating from him. Simon is always blazing like the sun, and he's always tired, downright exhausted, encumbered by pain or something worse.
“Do you always forget your promises so quickly?”
She corrects her posture under his tall shadow; she should’ve known there would be consequences for that handkerchief.
"What crime have I committed now?"
Simon never expects it when she fights back. Long, pale lashes cover the brief bafflement in his eyes, then he reaches for something under his tunic. Her heart skips a beat – he has kept it against his skin, right over his heart, instead of under the plate where he tucked it at the joust.
"This belongs to you," he holds it between them like it’s nothing but a piece of dirty cotton he wants to get rid of. Or then he doesn’t want to stain it with his hands – who knows? This man is so full of contradictions she’s having a hard time getting to the bottom of his soul. She has all the time in the world to study different characters here in the castle, but Simon remains a tightly locked mystery.
"No,” she lifts her chin proudly. “It belongs to you."
His nostrils flare for a moment – a sign of anger or exhilaration; you’d need a powerful witch to tell.
“A knight should return the lady’s favour if he survives the joust,” he mutters, clearly trying to make an effort to speak finely to a fine lady.
“You don’t have to. I made it for you.”
He grunts with frustration, then shoves her gift back inside his tunic. Then he tilts his head. A strange, dark little smile rises on his lips.
"Fawn. Did your father ever beat you?"
It’s only morning, but Simon makes it feel like they’re having this conversation in the cold, damp dungeons. Her heart shudders at the foul words, and yet, she fights to maintain eye contact. She fights both tooth and nail to look straight into the abyss.
"No."
"I can tell."
Insolent bastard, is her first thought at such audacity, but two can play this game, is the second. She takes a slow step forward and rejoices silently when Simon struggles to remain still.
"If I was your wife…" she starts softly, "Would you beat me?"
His nostrils flare again as he looks for a trap where there is none. She’s standing before him without any shields, with no weapons, and he still can’t tell, the poor man.
"I don't beat women," he finally spits. Then he succumbs to the impulse to get away from her, although it looks like he’s struggling to do so, too. He has to wrench himself free, and it gives her more power to rise rooted: to meet his crude manners, the arrogance of a dog.
"You'd never be my wife," is the last thing he says, so quietly that it’s nothing but a mutter; a sullen whisper. The birds have fallen silent, or then she can’t hear them anymore. The golden light that pours from the narrow windows makes it suddenly seem like this morning could last an eternity.
"Why not?" She whispers back.
The moment shatters – her knight escapes like he’s the fragile little fawn now. The clatter of his armour makes it known how much of a hurry he’s in to get away from the golden light... And from her.
#not so dark as the first one but still kinda dark#medieval au#knight!ghost#simon ghost riley x reader#ghost x reader
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〚 I Can Take It 〛 Part 3 🔞MDNI🔞
A Demon Slayer Gyutaro X Reader
- Reader Attributes: Adult (obviously)/ Fem/ Darker skin tone/ tsundere
- Gyutaro Attributes: Dominant/ mean spirited/ soft spot for reader/ greedy/ bitch
- Warnings/Content: CNC/ Fighting/ implied battle/ explicit sexual content/ adult × adult/ blood play/ shaming/ toxic relationship
⚠️ NOTICE ⚠️ This is based off of the official plot of my MAIN fanfiction that is an OC/insert × Gyutaro SFW fiction so please refrain from stealing? Idk how to steal writing but people keep referring to that so ima say it too!
You’re eyes burned with fierce aggression as you pushed your injured body to push back against this repulsive looking monster above you! Gyutaro was clenching your legs so hard that you could feel his hands leaving marks in your chocolatey skin. The man looked irritated with your previous actions but more or less, he still wasnt leaning on killing you out right. Unfortunately, you couldn’t tell what he wanted to do, and if you did, you were ignoring it as denial clouded your vision. Before long, the struggle became more apparent as the demon pushed down on your legs ever so slightly, making you yelp! That little yelp seemed to make the demon testy as he pushed down alittle more to see your reactions!
With your legs up and near your chest, you could barely see the demons face behind your legs, but his sunset eyes were still in view as he took in your pitiful posture! Legs up, arms scrambling to fight and cover, back against the plush bed, and most embarrassingly… your whole body, that rare almond skin shimmering in the red window moonlight… it was all on display for this repulsive demon. Now the only thing blocking his droopy eyes as a thin black fabric, a cute pair of undies hiding your sacred area.
Thrashing back and forth, you strain yourself as you try to get out of this position until something makes you freeze. A prying rough finger, trailing down your leg to the center of your panties! With wide eyes, you react violently, slinging threats and insults as you try to intimidate the curious demon but it’s worthless.
Y/N, angry: Y-You Bastard! Stop this crap! What the hell are you DOING?!
Gyutaro, coldly: Whazzit look like I’m doing… you’re a bitch, im treating you like the bitch you are… got that?
Y/N: Bitch?! IF YOU DO ANYTHING TO ME I WILL SHOV- MHP!?
Gyutaro, Covering your mouth: Shut it sweet cheeks… or i’ll make it hurt a lot more than it needs to.. got it?
Y/N: … *cold stare*
Gyutaro: good slut… lets see how long a hashira like you will last against me. And if you make me cum a good bit, I’ll let you live. I think thats fucking fair…
You couldn’t believe what you were hearing! This damn demon is really about to defile you… and for what!? You weren’t some hot shot, far from it actually; cuts and scars, tomboyish hair, an angry attitude… You were a far cry from Japans beauty standards and just because of that, not the only thing you could to attract was some pissy ass demon with everything wrong with him!? He wreaks of sweat and rotting meat, his face was abhorred, his hair was greasy and nappy, and he called you a SLUT?! The nerve… regardless, you felt the open air hit your precious area and the greedy demon pulled up your underwear, finally exposing you…
You felt your rage boil as he licked his thumb and slid it across your pretty meek pussy! Despite your dark complexion, Gyutaro could tell you were blushing from just a simple touch, you’ve never experienced this kind of thing and it showed. And if that was the case, it makes two of you since Gyutaro never let his interests get the best of him in the first place. You lay pinned as you feel Gyutaro inspecting his prize; opening and closing your folds, observing the color gradient, poking around to see how your body reacts. It wasnt new per se since he’s always “had” access to countless of beautiful bodies; men and women, alive and dead, young and old… But this was the first time he had one like yours, ever. It was weird and he wanted to see of there was anything different about you but even if there wasnt, at least you made cute muffled sounds when he pressed your clit.
By the time Gyutaro was done messing around and toying with you, you was exhausted; you’d struggled the whole time, wasting your stamina on resisting and trying to escape that you were drained before he even got to begin his experiment! He had never had the chance to have sex with a human that was alive and well enough, such as you! He would have a fling with other demons, and sometimes hed use a dead body once or twice but he was never needy most of the time. Unfortunately you just so happened to awaken something in him that he hadn’t felt in a while.
So finally, with the last bit of your energy, you try to keep your legs closed but Gyutaro finds it cute as he viciously cracks open your legs! Letting out a small grunt, you start to sit up in defiance but gyutaro pushes you down on the bed as he jerks his boney hips in between your legs! You can’t possibly get out of this as you grasp his huge skinny hand… in all honesty, you started to think about everything unrealized crush you had, every shut down you’ve experienced, and every heartbreak you’ve tanked. Saving yourself for that one specific someone that you’d meet and now, this was the end?… This demon was surely going to kill you after he had his fun, but at least you wouldn’t die a virgin, right?
You’re about to cry to yourself as you think but everything hurts as you feel him part into you! Letting out a guttural groan, you nearly choke up as the demon rams himself into your ungodly tight walls! Gyutaro hunches down as his face is folded with a heavy mix of emotion; your tight warm body, his heart beating, your deafening voice! It was all too much for him as he helplessly released a load in you before he even got started! He had a look of disappointment and shame but he shook it off as he aggressively thrusted himself into you! He had no rhythm or rhyme to his actions as he fiercely pounded into your plush thighs! You were obviously gagging and roaring out at this point since he was so massive despite his skinny fragile appearance, it was hard to handle him as you scrambled to get your barrings!
It went on like this for a couple of minutes; you weren’t enjoying any of this and Gyutaro was slamming himself inconsistently, messing up your insides literally! But after a while the demon slowed as he just looked at you… your pussy was clinging tightly to his girth and he was internally happy to see it but that was just human biology at this point. Once a proud and stern woman, now was a crying mess at this demons mercy… and that seemed to irritate this demon. After waiting for awhile, Gyutaro kept his dick snuggly inside of you as he waited for you to get ahold of yourself, snapping his fingers to get your attention!
Gyutaro, irritated: aye… Aye… Hey, prude. I know you hear me… suck it up, it dont hurt that bad. Now help me, how do you want me to do this?…
Y/N: *cough* help you…? what are you talking about… ugh.. how can I help you anyway
Gyutaro: Well you keep fuckin crying, you aint shutting up, and you’re too tight… im just saying, if you tell me how you want this then maybe you’ll loosen up and STOP cryin… is all… it’s annoying the hell out of me…
Y/N: …
You both sit in silence for a few minutes and eventually Gyutaro gets fed up as he barks at you for being an idiot! Getting ready to ram into you again, you panic as you finally agree to his demand… you’ll guide him. Though you’re not sure how to.
First and foremost, you’re spine feels like its on fire so you request a better position overall and hearing this makes the demon a bit irritated already… he did like to make you uncomfortable but he begrudgingly releases your legs, letting them fall down to the soft bed! Hearing such a sigh of relief, the demon turns his head from you as he feels his blush set in again. But hearing your voice turn a bit softer, he glares at you awaiting you’re guidance. A bit softer of the thrusts and where to thrust was a good thing to tell him because as soon as you gave him that information, he was proudly hitting that g-spot of yours consistently! Now he was getting the hang of it as his hands searched for something to grab… locking onto your hands, he pounded you, almost like he was doing this for both you and him? But you was too busy accommodating his size to notice his attention to detail.
You held onto his hand begrudgingly as he licked your neck and chest. But while he did so, you’re legs started to creep around his as you’re back arched just slightly. You didn’t seem to notice as you were still repulsed by everything Gyutaro did bit the demon surely noticed! His heart spiked as he saw the signs so trying something he knew absolutely sure about, he pressed his thumb in between your slippery folds! Rubbing circles, his eyes narrowed on to your expression as you looked started to react differently; almost horrified!
Finally, that toothy grin showed itself as he vigorously rubbed in circles! He knew exactly what he was doing! Finding that little love button; the clit! You looked appalled as you sat up quickly but the demon shove you down roughly as his thrusts sped up! Rubbing you more, he felt your walls clench him as he moved in and out! It was too much and you didnt want to cum by this… this thing!? So with all of your power you tried to resist but he knew too much! He could tell you were close as he pinched your clit making you yelp out, tugging on it, tears pricked the sides of your eyes are you tried but you couldn’t ldnt stop it! You’re legs twitched as you squirted on his hipbones; almost about to cry from embarrassment! Your face was burning hot from fury and shame as you saw the demon lean in closer towards your face… he was going to eat you huh…
Closing your eyes shut, you anticipate a sharp pain to the neck but all you feel is his dick plop out of you and then you hear the sound of a window closing.
Opening your eyes, you look around as you realize that the strong demon left you alone. You’re clothes was still torn, you were left defiled on your bed, and a stream of his essence leaked from you… you were confused, sore, and a bit shaken.
And after all of that, you felt something you never thought was possible; you felt yourself thinking fondly about that repulsive demon
(•c• ) this is technically just a self insert thing i wrote a year ago but i deleted it cuz it cringe! Now all i do is make it a reader fic for all the naughties! Anywho! Im going back to my regularly scheduled rasshu x gyutaro content! I just wanted to make a reader one for the people who make those. •c• it makes me happy when i see a gyutaro x angry ass reader so i HAD to show my appreciation
(Hopefully ill get butter at this stuff)
#demon slayer#kny#kimetsu no yaiba#gyutaro#gyutaro shabana#gyutaro x oc#gyutaro smut#gyutaro x reader#reader x gyutaro#gyutarou#demon slayer smut#kimetsu no yaiba smut#kny smut#mdni#naughty naughty#demon slayer x reader#x reader
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I'm your huckleberry (Tombstone 1993) (Doc Holliday)
Description:
The joys of modern inventions and miracles are often taken for granted. Your hungry or thirsty? Get something from the fridge or make it. You need to go somewhere? Drive or call an uber. Your hurt? Go to the doctor.
Your bored? Watch a movie, play video games, watch videos on the internet, talk to people without ever leaving your house.
Some much time is in our hands... but back in the 19th century... you wouldn't last very long.
Diseases are rampant, gun violence is higher, no modern technology, barely any good medicine, almost all of your favorite food doesn't exist and most of the people are rude as hell. But... That doesn't mean all of them were so bad. Love was not something most people in this time really cared about. At least, in the town of Tombstone, Arizona.
After falling asleep with a nice looking stone you bought at a small stand at the carnival, your whole world becomes the opposite. Six people from the past discover you unconscious and alone in the blistering heat and offer help but it was their help that let you meet the most amazing man you've ever met.
John Henry "Doc" Holliday.
Chapter 10
Previous ~ Next
Now that the new law was passed, things in Tombstone were getting tense. The cowboys were looking more distant and angrier but the innocents were feeling a bit safer walking down the street now. You did too. Right now, you were with Doc at the Oriental Saloon and you were so exhausted. You showed up ten hours ago and he was still gambling, apparently for thirty-six hours hours straight. You tried to get him to stop and go to bed but he wouldn't budge. Both Morgan and Virgil were there and they could see how exhausted you were. You kept yourself awake by having Doc talk to you and listening to the woman singing, who you've come to learn was the actress that Wyatt was infatuated with named Josephine Marcus.
Morgan suggested that you should go back to the cottages but when three cowboys came in to challenge Doc, Doc sweet talked you into staying to watch him lay waste to them and because he hadn't seen you in a bit. He was growing closer and closer to you. At this point, he was showing off to you. But what he was also showing off by mistake was his coughing. He was coughing and continuously putting a white handkerchief up to his mouth. You asked if he was ok but he didn't say much about it other than, "I'm alright, darlin'".
Some time went by and Wyatt had showed up to the Saloon and Morgan went to him to tell him what was going on. Wyatt understood and came over to see Doc. "Wyatt, just in time. Pull up a chair".
"Doc" Wyatt said as he came over at his side. "You been hittin' it awful hard, haven't ya"?
"Nonsense. I've not yet begun to defile myself". You sat in between Doc and Morgan and Wyatt could see how exhausted you were. "Listen" Wyatt said to Doc, "I was wonderin' if you wouldn't wanna go on over to the Crystal Palace-"
"I will not be pawed at, thank you very much".
"I'm sorry".
"I tried to get him to stop but he won't listen to me" you said.
"No one can make him" Wyatt said. Wyatt then pulled up a chair beside Doc to sit for awhile. While Doc poured himself another drink, "Hey, you've been called" the cowboy known as Ike Clanton said to Doc. Doc drank his drink and flipped his cards over and acted like it was a mistake but he was only kidding since he won, yet again. "Oops". He laughed and was about to pull the pile of money towards him but Ike quickly grabbed his hand. "What is that now? That 12 hands in a row, Holliday? Son of a bitch, nobody's that lucky".
"Why, Ike, whatever do you mean" Doc asked confused but he was very drunk.
"Take it easy, boys" Virgil said as he was leaning up against the bar drinking. Doc pulled the money towards him and motioned for you to get his bag. "Maybe poker's just not your game, Ike".
"Oh, I know" you said getting all their attention. "Let's have a spelling contest"! Doc and Morgan started laughing and Ike was about to grab you but Wyatt and Virgil quickly stopped him. "How 'bout if I just wring your scrawny neck" Ike threatened you.
"Enough, Ike" Virgil said getting in front of him so he wouldn't hurt you or anyone. "Are you takin' his and her part? Huh? I'm the one who got cheated! You goddamn pimps! Y'all in it together. You and your whore".
"Say what now" you said.
"Nobody's in anything, Ike. You're drunk, go on home and sleep it off". Virgil tried to then gently push him out the door but Ike then yelled, "Get your goddamn hands off me"! His outburst startled you and you tried to back up to hide but Doc quickly put a hand on yours to reassure you. "Don't you ever put your hands on me, see? Don't you ever try to manhandle a cowboy, 'cause we'll cut her damn heart out. You understand me, you pimp-"
"Don't you threaten her you little son of a bitch" Virgil threatened and looked like he was about to strike him but Wyatt quickly got up to keep Virgil back and the two other cowboys quickly stood up too. "Come on, easy, Virg, easy! You just go on home and forget about it, huh, Ike"?
"I ain't gonna forget nothin'" Ike said as he went to the end of the bar. "Well, that certainly was a bust. Come darlin', let's seek our entertainment elsewhere" Doc said as he was standing up.
"No! Your going to bed".
"I'm just gettin' started-"
"I don't give a fuck"! Everyone in the room looked at you and Doc. "Your health is more important! Now, if I have to drag your drunken ass back to your hotel room, then I will! I promise you now, your going to bed"! Even though Doc was drunk out of his mind, he was once again impressed with the way a woman was speaking to him with no fear. He was used to women not having the social capabilities to stand up to any man but considering that your from the future, he now had more questions about your time. Doc stood up and was coughing again but he was now stumbling and bringing his handkerchief up to his mouth which now showed bits of blood.
You quickly caught him and asked him worriedly, "What's wrong, Doc"?
"Nothin'. Not a thing. I'm right as a male". He then fainted and collapsed onto the hard wooden floor which recaptured everyone's attention. Both Morgan and Wyatt got down to see if he was still conscious and then grabbed him by the arms and legs to take him back to the hotel with you following close behind. He was situated back on his bed in his room and you could see, even with dimmed lighting, that he was sweating profusely. You asked Morgan to get some water and Wyatt to get some cloths and they didn't hesitate to listen to you.
They returned with said items and you started to wet one of the cloths and press it gently on Doc's head. "It's late, (y/n)" Wyatt said, "I'll have the doctor come by in the morning to look at him but you need to rest."
"I'm staying here, Wyatt" you said firmly. "I'm not leaving him alone". Wyatt could understand your worries but he and Morgan were hesitant to leave you alone. They didn't know if the cowboys followed you all and knew where Doc's room was but Wyatt knew that even though Doc was sick, he still prevailed and was still feared. He knew that Doc would protect you. "All right, (Y/n). But if you have a problem, come right back to the cottages" Wyatt instructed like he was talking to a child.
"I will. If you don't mind, Sylvie is still outside the Saloon. Would you mind putting her at the cottages"?
"Of course" Morgan said and then walked out to do said task. Wyatt saw him leave and then looked back at you. He came over and placed a hand on your shoulder. "Please be careful, alright".
"I will, don't worry. I may not be allowed to shoot a gun in town but I still know how to kick some ass if I have a problem". Wyatt smiled and left your shoulder cold and headed towards the door. He was really hesitant to leave you alone but he still walked out and left the hotel to see Morgan off a little ways away taking Sylvie to the cottages. Wyatt looked back and was hoping you'd be ok and made his way to the cottages.
After Wyatt left, you continued to make sure Doc was ok and opened up some windows to let some cool air come in and you noticed that he was sleeping. You were very exhausted and decided to sleep in the chair. It wasn't comfortable but you didn't want Doc to wake up and find you in his bed. That'd be a bit weird. You got as comfortable as possible and fell asleep. Not caring about the cowboys or being stuck here seemed to concern you. All you cared about now was making sure Doc was ok.
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Reflections on Western Zen
It was Heather who commented that she observes young men and women coming to the Zen Center who are desperately searching for meaning in this consuming system of capitalism and consumerism.
These words have stayed with me and I can see how she has come to her position. You see, Heather is a monastic priest who has found an exit for herself from a system that is designed to use people for profit.
Years ago, I was listening to a commentary about why there is so much illegal immigration and this urge to give them citizenship. Now, I totally get the immigrant flight out of horrible situations, and sometimes there's no choice but to leave a region if you want to live. Yet, the commentator said that the reasons why every administration is very weak on the issue of the southern USA boarder is that the country needs the people to come in and consume. They need them to work, pay rent, engage in consumerism, and enter into usery debts; get mortgages, get credit cards.
This system pushes a person against the wall to forever pay debts. Work becomes the center of a person's life for without it there is no ability to pay debts acquired or to consume what is popular and live a lifestyle of decadence and consumerism. We are taught to be capitalist, to praise wealth and those to make it to the top of the mountain become heroes. Yet the reality is that the majority of people are near broke, with less than 500 USD of savings while living paycheck to paycheck with no real hope of making anything close to the type of money that will put them near the top of the capitalistic mountain.
This is what I believe Heather has observed, is that people are suckered to play in a system that is rigged in where those selected succeed, while everyone else is used for profits.
So, why then Zen? What is it about Zen that attracts men and women who have been trusted in the mad machine of captialisim/consumerism?
Well, for starters, Zen simply states that the whole machine is an illusion. That is true, it is not of nature and only exists in the minds of people. A piece of paper that we call 'money' only has value because the mind creates that value, thus illusion. When a person sees this, then everything that is not natural and is created of the mind is seen as illusion.
So, the person who sees this then ask, "What happens if I just drop the illusion?"
Many come to a Zen Center for a weekend or week-long retreat to see what happens if they just 'Stop believeing' in the illusions of the world. Many read Zen books -- most commonly the Recorded Sayings of Zen Masters to convince themselves that this world is illusionary as if that will somehow dissolve this world and show them a different world, the True World. This is the plot of the film series 'The Matrix' in that we live in a dualistic world, the false one and the true one.
Yet, the Buddha says something quite radical about this dualistic notion that most Zen seekers hold
From the The Vimalakīrti Sutra (Core Zen scripture):
Śāriputra said, “As I observe this land, it is hills and hollows, brambles and gravel, and rocks and mountains—all filled with defilements.”
At this the Buddha pointed to the earth with his toe, and instantly the trimegachiliocosm was as if ornamented with a hundred thousand jewels. It was like the Jewel Ornamentation land, with all its immeasurable merits, of Jewel Ornament Buddha.
The entire great assembly exclaimed at this unprecedented event, and they all saw themselves sitting on many-jeweled lotus flowers.
The Buddha told Śāriputra, “You should now observe the purity of this buddha land.”
Śāriputra said, “So it is, World-honored One. Originally I did not see it; originally I did not hear it. Now the purity of the Buddha’s country is entirely apparent.”
The Buddha said to Śāriputra, “My buddha country is always pure, like this. It is only so as to save inferior persons here that I manifest it as a defiled and impure land. It is like the many-jeweled eating utensils used in common by the gods, the food in which is of different colors depending on their merits. Just so, Śāriputra, if a person’s mind is pure he sees the merits and ornaments of this land.
So, WTF? Buddha says that this world 'is the pureland' and says I am an inferior person that cannot see it, and engage in defilements that further defile and create impurities.
In this, the illusion of the Matrix dualistic world is shattered, there is no 'True world' that will appear when you stop believing in the illusions.
“Before enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment chop wood, carry water.” ~ Zen Proverb
Though it is a simple enough statement, it is also the most perplexing statement for the Zen seeker. It speaks to the Buddhas statement in the Vimalakīrti Sutra, that this is the Pureland, the enlightenment, and Nirvana is just your dropping dualistic views!
My Mentor in our monthly phone call suggested that the Christian rebirth, or resurrection, is also that dropping the dualistic view and entering into the Kingdom of God aka Nirvana.
I sometimes discuss the freedom that Zen brings, in that 'everything becomes a choice'. It is when you believe that you do not have a choice is when you suffer, in where delusions are created out of the illusions you are caught up in, because you believe you have no-choice.
Many have cited that Modern Zen is a student riding an Ass looking for a Donkey. There is a lot of truth to that statement, in that Zen students come to the temples, to the mountain Monastic centers, read books on Zen, contemplate Zen meanings -- to try and breakthrough illusion in this dualistic view that there is a True world that they don't yet know, but this True world is better than this world now.
When I was in the Navy, there was a common saying: "This duty assignment sucks, the last one was far better, and the next one will be great." When I was working in corporations, the same thing was also said as well. It is this mind of discomfort, of discontent, of unease that is seeking because THE MIND IS SUFFERING. It is this suffering that brings young men and women to the Zen centers in a belief that there is some 'other existence' that will be better than this existence (dualism again).
Many pray to hear what are called 'Turning words', a fabled story of Students who hear a word from the master and awaken to the TRUE REALITY. Many sit Zazen (Seated meditation) in praying that the performance art will transform them out of this sucky suffering, and many engaged in Asian cultural-religious rituals in hopes that there is something there that will magically work to show them Ultimate Reallity.
Does the Zen teacher really have the heart to tell them: None of that works at all. No amount of Zazen, chanting, praying, initiations, or commitment levels will help you.
Only to renounce, relinquish and abandon all illusions that abide in dualism is way to the pureland. And, when the student hears this, that this rotten stinking festering world of suffering is actually the pureland of where they want to go -- they reject it. Thus the dualism of mind continues.
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Only one week left in the dramione LDWS - Quotes Edition!
Last week's prompt came from Pride & Prejudice: "I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun."
The drabble I submitted turned into a bit of an homage to dramione fanfiction, so I thought I'd post it here as well😊
Transformative Work (777 words)
"Unbelievable. Unbelievable," Hermione fumed. "We've here two minutes and you've already managed to ruin destiny."
"Me?!” Draco blustered. “You snagged the thread."
"Because you bumped me!"
"I sneezed because your bloody kneazle's nest of so-called hair was in my face."
"Oh, real mature, Malfoy. You know, if you weren’t always in my personal space-"
“Alright! Can you just... cool out?” He sneered to compensate for the honest-to-Merlin blush heating his face.
Hermione’s brow scrunched, “You mean chill out?”
“Same thing.”
“No, it’s actually - sodding hell - we’ll worry about your terrible grasp of muggle colloquialisms later. Right now we need to focus on how you’ve buggered up destiny.”
“The Tapestry is the fates weaving our lives as we live them. It’s our past and present, it isn’t our destiny.”
“Seriously? You want to have a ‘does the past dictate our future’ debate now?”
Draco heaved an exasperated sigh, "Let’s just take a look, yeah? It's probably nothing."
"Nothing? We could be dead - or worse, fired. Unspeakable L'Engle will drum us out of the Department!"
"Well it's just our fates we’re seeing, right? It’s probably unnoticable." Draco strode toward the misty edge of the cavern, where loose threads were knitting themselves together to depict the present.
Hermione crouched down to examine the tiny pull on the Tapestry of Fate, a loop of thread protruding only a couple millimetres from the shimmering fabric. "Okay, we should be alright,” she announced. “It only tweaked some meaningless chat I had with Harry in sixth year. Surely that won't-"
"Merlin," Draco exhaled, staring wide-eyed at the Tapestry.
"What?" Hermione hurried over, crowding him. "Where did we end up?" She squinted at the minute detail. "Is that-?"
"Pansy chewing us out for sneaking off to -ahem- ‘defile’ her solarium during a charity fete."
A strangled noise escaped Hermione as her eyes lit on the scenes preceding the reprimand. "We need to fix this!" She skittered away, suddenly very aware she’d been leaning against him.
“You try to fix the shag - er, snag, I’ll watch here to see what it does.”
Hermione cringed, “This is a terrible idea. We’re playing God.”.
“Alternatively, we could walk out of here and into the new present reality for a very awkward conversation with Pansy- freshly shagged, mind you.”
“I’m going! I’m going!”
After a few moments of analyzing the weave, she found a promising spot.
“Okay, there’s a History of Magic class I can give a little tug to.”
“Go on then.”
Carefully she pulled on the thread, flattening the minuscule loop.
“Well that’s... interesting,” Draco arched an eyebrow.
“What?!”
“Lift your top for me?”
“Bugger off!”
“Seriously.”
Hermione skeptically pulled back the neckline of her shirt to peep at her torso. “Jesus, fuck,” she hauled up the hem of her blouse to reveal a large tattoo of a book inscribed with a date stretching over her hipbone.
“Our wedding day apparently. Quite sweet, really,” Draco smirked.
“Obviously I suffered a traumatic brain injury in this timeline.”
She crouched back down, rolling up her sleeves as she warily eyed the threads, biting her lip.
A tug at a fourth year Hogsmeade trip yielded a soulbond and the disappearance of Draco’s dark mark. A poke at the Yule Ball had them shacked up on an East Asian island with Draco missing half an arm. A nudge at a first year Charms test and they’re clinging together in a dilapidated Order safehouse. When she prodded at a family trip she’d taken to France, Draco insisted she try something else immediately with such vehemence Hermione didn’t dare ask for details.
Several hours and countless readjustments later, with remarkably persistent Malfoy heirloom rings adorning their fingers, Hermione dropped her head into her hands.
“How is this possible?” she was verging on hysteria. “It’s like we’re together in every other bloody version of the universe!”
“I know. Your luck’s never been that good.”
“Should’ve kept that bloody time turner,” she muttered darkly.
Draco scowled. “Right. Because being with me is such an atrocity - despite it seeming inevitable in every version except the original.”
“I have plans, Malfoy.”
“Like what? Marrying a semi-literate ginger buffoon and pumping out a couple Weasel-brats?”
“What’s wrong with that?” she glared.
“Granger-” his penetrating gray eyes caused her breath to hitch “-literally every other option here is superior to that travesty.”
“So you’re saying you want to just walk out of here into the middle of some reality where we’re married or shagging or parents or-”
“I’m saying-” he stepped toward her, reaching out to blindly pluck a thread “-let’s leave it to fate.”
Glancing meaningfully toward the exit he offered his hand.
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Wolfie’s Fic Recs | Anguish and Angst
ANGUISH AND ANGST FICS - Ready for some tear jerkers? Not-so-sweet dreams are made of these fics, so get your tissues and comfort blanket ready.
🖐 WARNING: NSFW + anxiety inducing content beneath the cut 🖐
Break-ups & Heartbreak
@emyearns probably knows exactly what my first breakup looked like, because.. *ugly cries*. Get your tissues ready for Ghost Of You. [Mike x reader]
August sees the one who got away in No More Tears by @littlefreya [August Walker x OFC] - And I love-love-love that this is written from August’s POV! ❤️
Wearing a man’s sweater gets a whole different meaning after reading this heartbreaking fic by @emyearns. Coffee and Ink [Walter x OFC]
Ready for some songfic breakup sadness? #11 Captain Sy by @onlyhenrys [Syverson x reader]
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Unrequited Love
Sy’s being a fool and he realises it too late. Soldier On by me. [Syverson x reader]
Henry’s a dick in this one. And you simply had Enough of always being there at the ready as his best friend. By @the-soot-sprite [Henry Cavill x reader]
Would you walk out that door? This angsty prompt’s got you all kinds of frustrated. By @onlyhenrys
I wasn’t sure whether to place this here. But a child’s love is love too. Geralt secretly watches a family have a picnic and the kid is apparently not afraid of monsters. Highway to Hell by @wendimydarling [Geralt of Rivia]
Let’s take a little bit of a breather with a mildly angsty, but mostly very fluffy fic of friends-taking-way-too-fucking-long-to-become-lovers. Stolen Kisses by @the-soot-sprite [Henry Cavill x OFC]
This fic is probably the pinnacle of unrequited love; it’s got slow-burn, angst-turns-fluff-in-the-end and Henry being an utter fool in the love department. (Ps. I haven’t completely caught up with this fic, so NO SPOILERS IN THE COMMENTS DAMNIT!) Chances by @foodieforthoughts [Henry Cavill x OFC]
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Nightmares & PTSD
If you want angsty dreams followed by hot, craving smut; Stay and read this fic. By me [Henry Cavill x reader]
Waking up in a hospital bed with a strange man beside you. It’s a setup I wish was a full length fic, but alas..Short but mighty. Emotion challenge - Anxious by @onlyhenrys [Walter Marshall + reader]
Nightmares wake August, but you're there to guard him when the storms outside and in get too dark. Prompt with August by @onlyhenrys [August Walker x reader]
More nightmares are kept at bay in this gorgeous little fic by @littlefreya. Angel Can You Hold Me [August Walker x OFC]
More nightmare-having bulky dudes? Marshall’s life isn’t all roses and sunshine, even when he’s caught a pretty thing in his bed. Can’t You Stay A Little Longer by @onlyhenrys [Walter Marshall x reader]
The more cutting the hurt of your past, the harder it is to open up to new people. Henry has walked on eggshells, but now finally wants to know what’s up. And if words can’t form on lips, perhaps they can..on fingertips. Please Don’t Leave Me by @wendimydarling [Henry Cavill x reader]
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It’s a Hard Knock Life
I can’t be the only LotR-nerd who got elf!Geralt vibes when watching the Witcher. So let me give you some impossible love, anguish and Middle Earth hardships in When In Dreams [elf!Geralt x human!OFC]
You’re not sure whether Charles will return, so the last few hours with him are Sad indeed. By @onlyhenrys [Charles Brandon x reader]
We’re all having a hard knock life with the pandemic going on. So let Marshall give you some sweet care in Pandemic Anxieties by @promptandpros [Walter Marshall x reader]
Between the lines of smoking hot Superman sex, you’ll feel bad for him. Because as morning comes, life goes on. Alone. On the road. Where he hopes he’ll find yet another hot shower and a bed for the night. Convenience by @wendimydarling [Clark Kent x OFC]
Had a bad day? Henry will give you clear instructions on how to relax in: Your Voice by @peachyvulpixie [Henry Cavill x reader]
You play with the locket to your heart when Walter returns, gunpowder in the air. Despite your anniversary and all things good, you just know something’s up with him. Unnamed Marshall piece by @writernerd23 [Walter Marshall x reader]
Falling Again follows struggling AU!Henry dad as the bills keep piling and life just won’t feel the way it did when his wife was still around. By @deathonyourtongue [AU!Henry Cavill]
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Depression & Body Consciousness
Depression is a bitch, but Henry isn’t. When Words Fail, he’s there. By @princess-of-riviaa [Henry Cavill x reader]
Failing to conceive is painful, terrible, heartbreaking. And unfortunately not even the big bear can’t make it better. Feeling Challenge: Sad by @meowpurrbooks [Henry Cavill x reader]
More conceiving sadness is there in Negative, by @oddduckthatgirl -- some Christmasses just truly suck. [Henry Cavill x reader]
The loss of your husband still crushes you and his best friend, Syverson, even a year after his passing. Get your tissues ready, because this is one big ol’ tearjerker; A Soldier’s Heart by @onlyhenrys [late husband x reader + Captain Syverson]
You feel like the new life within you is the last thing Napoleon wants in his life. A Mistake by @coloraturadiva [Napoleon Solo x reader]
Good love is accepting that change is part of life. And loving one-self is often the hardest, especially when those changes seem to pry you apart from Henry. Comfort by @promptandpros [Henry Cavill x reader]
An insecure woman meets a man in the club. But this man’s not like the others, not one bit. Unexpected by @nuggsmum [August Walker x OFC]
Sometimes even burrito blankets can’t give you comfort. Nor your favourite show, nor anything really. Depression truly is a bitch, especially when Henry’s away. Stuck In Your Head by @inlovewithhisblueeyes [Henry Cavill x reader]
Faye’s text messages in this fic still crack me up every time, though they sure make for a stark contrast to the burned latkes and big tear fest -- it’s a good thing Marshall is a big fluffy care bear. The Great Jewish Cook-off by @inlovewithhisblueeyes [Walter Marshall x reader]
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Corruption & Death
Walking on woodland trails you find something naive to Corrupt. By @emyearns. [angel!Mike x reader]
August has died many deaths, but still he craves One More Time - just so he can be with her. By @thetaoofzoe [August Walker x OFC]
Our great master of angst and death suffers, and makes the world suffer, once more. There Cannot Be Peace by @killjoy-assbutt-1112 [August Walker x reader]
Okay, so this one’s on AO3, but I’ve loved it ever since first reading it. Geralt hears of Jaskier’s death and realizes a thing or two as he tries to come to terms with it all. It’s Like I’ve Gone Off To The Coast by adhdbuck [Geralt + Jaskier]
Napoleon finds himself in a hospital, not sure what to feel as he waits for doctors to give him news. The News. Any news. Grief by @promptandpros [Napoleon Solo x OFC]
The king of corruption is defiling an angel without wings in Black Tears, by @littlefreya [August Walker x OFC]
When death comes knocking, Geralt realises his annoying bard isn’t one he wants to lose. Did You Mean It by @thecomfortofoldstorries [Geralt x Jaskier]
Sometimes good things come to an end, but Henry just doesn’t want it. Not even when the doctors are losing hope. The Call: Irresistible You by @angrythingstarlight [Henry Cavill x OFC]
August Walker is the perfect kind of nightmare material. Especially in this terribly hot angsty smut piece by @hope-to-hell: Dream State [August Walker x reader]
This gorgeous impressionistic piece includes raspberry mousse, blood, scarred hands and August Walker. Into The Storm by @hope-to-hell [August Walker x OFC]
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Need a little lift-me-up after all these tear jerkers? Short Sweets is a fic rec list with a bunch of completely innocent and utterly lovely fics which will keep the bad dreams at bay ❤️
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If you have any good recommendations that fit in this list, please add in the comments or reblog!
( Fan art by me 😊)
#Wolfie's Fic Recs#angst#henry cavill fanfiction#clark kent#Henry Cavill fandom#august walker#Walter Marshall#geralt of rivia#grief#anxiety#depression
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Ooh, may I please have so e headcanons for Idia, Vil, and Lillia for when reader has already made the tough decision to go home a while back, then suddenly their Magicam account pops a notification for a stream called "House Tour and Chill Stream because apparently I can still access this site from here somehow". In it, there's a house tour, as well as plans to often do chill and/or gaming streams, as well as the occasional travel video to show off some notable places in their world.
Hmm, this shall be a tough one indeed! Mostly cause dumb ol me is trying to fully understand this. But I am here to serve you hotshot, so I'll try me best!! If it isn't what you wanted send it in again or heck, or even a different one!
I took some inspiration from me own relationship for some!
First things first, this guy is gonna immediately try to hack into the device that's using the account. Because there's no possible way his s/o can still access their magicam account.
But once he figures it out it is actually you, he's close to crying. He has a way to keep in contact with you! He's gonna immediately dm you to talk with you, and after a lovely talk (read as him sobbing over his phone while he texts) he'll immediately join any and all streams!
He's your number one fan! Even if you never get popular (which you undoubtedly will because you'll be showing an unknown world to the public), he'll always try to be at every stream. Even if he can't make some, know he's there to give you his utmost support!
If any streams are of gaming he's so gonna want to join in, even talk on stream too! It'll be very amusing to watch as two lovers scream at each other as they play a fighting game, especially if they start trying to fluster each other to win.
All in all, even though you two can't physically be there for each other, you two can still make your relationship work. It'll even give Idia more motivation to work on a portal that will let you two travel to and from your home worlds.
Vil would certainly be curious, but he would assume his s/o's account got hacked. Which would immediately upset him, as it defiles one of the last things he has of his s/o. He wouldn't want anyone to know but he does regularly go through the account to relive memories you two had.
But to his shock, when he sees your face on the screen, he almost cries (almost, wouldn't want his makeup to run in the middle of the day. Even if it's waterproof-).
He won't be able to make every stream, what with his busy schedule already. But he does show his support in dms and calls. Speaking of calls, he's gonna be calling you when he has the time to. He misses your voice, especially if it's saying words for only him to hear.
You're likely already popular because Vil had promoted you before, but now you've become even more popular because of the wonderful sights you show to the other world. Even Vil is amazed at some parts of the world, wishing in his head that he could see these sights physically with you.
In the end you two try to make things work as you both pursue your own careers. In the end it may not work out, but you two will still love each other greatly. Even if your worlds apart.
My my, this old fae certainly didn't expect this! He didn't think your account would be active once more, since you had to leave. He knew it had to be someone else who somehow got access to your account.
But oh no! It was you! Oh how happy this makes the fae! He's going to immediately call you after the stream, asking tons of questions of how and why. When you can't answer he hums in thought, but chooses not to question this turn of fate.
Lilia will be an in between of Idia and Vil, he'll join most streams but his schedule will cause him to not make some. But he's so supportive and interactive that most who now know you by your streams know of him as well!
If you ever do any gaming streams this old man will beg to join, only to end up be better at it than you. If you're playing against eachother he'll constantly tease you to win, not that he needed the extra trick.
When you show the parts of your world he'll be asking lots of questions about the history and culture. It's all so interesting to learn the history of an unknown world after all!
All in all, Lilia will be very supportive and you both try your hardest to keep the relationship. Honestly this also gives him motivation to find a way to traverse both worlds so he can physically touch you again.
#twisted wonderland#twisted wonderland x reader#twst#twst x reader#idia shroud#idia shroud x reader#vil shoenheit#vil shoenheit x reader#lilia vanrouge#lilia vanrouge x reader#eat me cookies
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if you would’ve been the one
(1300 words, rated T, read on ao3)
When it happens, Dean’s so hyped up by the adrenaline still coursing through his system that he almost doesn’t notice. It’s not until Sam dispatches the last vamp and Dean sags a little in relief, only to realize he can’t move. He’s pinned, like a butterfly in a display case, like he’s back on the rack.
It’s almost funny. That he could battle every sort of evil creature out there—demons, monsters, even God for fuck’s sake, only to be taken down by a bit of unfinished carpentry. He ponders the cosmic significance. Maybe there’s the start of a Jesus metaphor here, with that single nail between his flesh and the wooden post, like he’s only up to C-R-U in a fucked up game of H-O-R-S-E.
Then he remembers there is no God, no universe sending him signs or trying to teach him a lesson. Just his own free will and, apparently, shitty fucking luck that’s brought him to this inglorious moment.
Sam doesn’t get it, not at first, promising he’ll run and call for help, do what he can to patch him up but Dean stops him, asks him to stay. Yeah, they could probably do all that but Dean realizes something: he’s tired. And not only that, he’s ready.
Each night since Cas has been gone, Dean lies in bed and turns his name around and around in his mind, like a rock in a tumbler, smoothing all sides of it with his thoughts. It’s not praying, not quite, the intention isn’t there, but if Cas can still sense his longing, well, he's got that in spades. Cas gave his life for Dean, professing his love in a way that couldn’t have been more clear and Dean…he just stood there processing it all.
Dean tried to do what he always does and tucked the stunned grief he felt at losing him deep inside where the jagged edges couldn’t harm him. He rededicated himself to powering Jack up, to killing God, like finishing that would somehow make Cas’s sacrifice worth it. And when Jack became whatever it was that he became, Dean didn’t ask about Cas, even though the question was right there, trying to force its way out of his throat. Instead, he swallowed it back down. Cas had said that moment was the purest happiness he’d ever known and Dean didn’t know what to say next without defiling it.
It’s the shittiest version of waiting too long to text back until so much time has passed that it’s become awkward.
But now, with this piece of metal jabbed into what sure as fuck feels like some important organs, he finds he has some time to think. He’s got nothing left to lose, so he lets Cas’s name become an honest prayer.
The whoosh is nearly instantaneous, somehow closer than even the rushing of his pulse in his ears. It seems fitting that they’re back in a barn, although this time Dean’s the one being impaled. He hears a crackling, but it isn’t the lights showering him in sparks, just the anger flickering off of him, electricity as blue as his eyes.
He doesn’t even say it, no Hello, Dean, and yeah, Cas is pissed and Dean deserves that.
As Cas approaches, Dean realizes Sam doesn’t seem to notice him, in fact he’s faded out into the background so it’s just the two of them.
“You called?” His tone is cold, much closer to the first time they met in a barn than the last time they were together. Cas had been so human, then, emotion choking his words and filling his eyes with tears.
“I, uh, find myself in a bit of a pickle,” Dean says, and already that’s wrong.
Cas raises an eyebrow. “More like a piece of art hung on the wall.”
Dean’s mouth opens, then closes, then opens again. “Was that a joke?”
“What is it you need from me, Dean?”
It should be obvious, but Dean can’t seem to say it.
“The stories they will tell,” Cas begins, “of Dean Winchester, the greatest hunter of his time, brought down by a lowly nail.” He sighs, and holds out two fingers. “I can do this but it would’ve been nice if you’d at least kept up to date on your tetanus shots.”
Dean feels a grinding in his teeth that he probably can’t yet blame on lockjaw. He tries to duck out of Cas’s reach. “Okay, stop.”
With a look of surprise, Cas does.
“Listen, I know I should’ve contacted you earlier. I get you’re mad, I do, but all those things you said…I didn’t want you to come back and realize how wrong you were.”
“So you’ve been looking for a way to ‘let me down easy’,” he says, air quotes and all, and goddammit Dean loves him. He loves his cranky angel ass and his wild hair and stupidly blue eyes the way he’s insisted on leaving Dean affixed to this pole while they talk.
“I love you, too. I have for so long. I never dreamed you could feel the same way, not like that.” Dean can barely breathe now that he's said the words out loud.
“You’re a hard man to pin down, Dean Winchester.” There’s a small smile playing around Cas's mouth now, and the relief has Dean laughing much harder than he would at the terrible pun. It hurts and his laughter turns to a grimace. Cas touches his arm. “Let me heal you.”
But Dean shakes his head, reaching to take his hand instead. “I’m ready, Cas. Ready for what’s next. If you heal me, Sam’s going to stay and keep hunting and maybe that’s what he wants but maybe it isn’t. Either way, he’s never going to decide for himself while I’m still here.”
Cas’s face is as serious as Dean’s ever seen it, but he sees a flicker of hope in his eyes. “And you?”
“Thought maybe you could escort me upstairs and we could spend eternity making up for all we missed down here.” Cas’s face goes soft and Dean bring their joined hands to his mouth, kissing his knuckles gently. “I wish it would’ve been you,” Dean says softly. “Nailing me from behind like this.”
At that, Sam suddenly zooms back into focus, his face anguished. “Cas! Oh, thank God you’re here. Dean’s—“
“Sammy, stop. I’m okay. We got a change in plans, though.”
Confused, Sam looks between them, finally noticing their joined hands.
“We’re free now. Free to make our own choices and for once in my life I’m going to be selfish. I choose Cas. I dragged you back into this life and now I’m shoving you out of it again. You want to keep hunting? That’s up to you. But if you want to go find Eileen and settle down, that’s up to you, too.”
Sam blinks, clearly caught off guard. “Dean, are you sure?”
Dean catches Cas’s eye and they share a smile. “As sure as I’ve ever been.” Dean tries to reach for his brother to hug him, but he’s brought up short. “Cas, could you…”
“Of course, Dean.” With a wave of his hand, Dean’s free and he steps forward to embrace Sam. “Go have the life you always wanted. Have a bunch of fat babies and name one of them after me.”
Cas furrows his brow like maybe he’s seeing the future. “But don’t plaster his name on his clothing. That’s just basic child safety.”
It hurts him to see his little brother cry, but Dean knows this isn’t the end for them. “Tell them how I was the coolest and better looking brother.”
Sam nods. “I will definitely not do that.”
They hug one last time and Dean murmurs in his ear. “I love you and I’m proud of you. I’ll see you on the other side.”
Sam gives him one last bone-crushing squeeze before releasing him. “Take good care of him, Cas.”
“I will,” Cas promises.
Dean gives Cas his best blue steel. “Oh, he will.”
With that, Sam leaves and Dean knows he could never bear to watch him walk away without Cas strong and steady at his side.
Cas must sense the hesitation. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
Dean answers him with a kiss.
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Sunflowers (Yandere dad Izuku x daughter reader)
Izuku never believed that he’d be this happy. He had married a good woman, gentle, sweet and kind... yet she never filled the void in his heart. But she gave birth to the person that did.
Izuku had twins, one boy and one girl. Both were adorable yet Izuku had already decided that you, his little girl, was the most important person in the universe. He cared about his son, yet it was clear that he was a mama’s boy... so Izuku decided that you were daddy’s little girl.
He watched over you every single day, when he had a day off he’d always play with you, giving you more toys than you could ever imagine, he always had your favorite candy and if you ever said you wanted take out, he was already getting enough to last for two days.
As the years went by, your brother became envious of the love you received from your father and so he began tormenting you. Your mother tried to stop it but she couldn’t really blame her son... but you weren’t at fault either. She decided to speak to Izuku about this, it was the first time he ever scolded his son with a serious expression, warning him to be more carefull and to leave you alone.
Which only made things worse.
Your brother would humiliate you at school, call you a weakling and a loser, throwing your things away and bully you with his friends. That made Izuku furious, he immediately had you change schools... and then he decided to do something that would change everything.
You were around the age where you should be developing your quirk... your mother had a healing quirk and One For All couldn’t be passed down like other quirks. So he did the same thing All Might had done to him, however he made sure that you never knew about it, in time he’d tell you. Wether you would develop a quirk of your own later on didn’t matter... now Izuku would train you to become a hero, the next in the succession line.
All Might was a bit worried at first but as he watched you smile, pretending to be a hero just like your father, he decided that it was fine.
“I am Lady Deku!”
“Wow, my daughter is amazing! She’s going to be the best hero ever!”
“I’ll become the best and help daddy fight bad guys!”
Izuku was overjoyed that he was the number one in your life. But his decision to make you the succesor of One For All had a negative effect on his son who turned out to have a very good quirk, his son could turn ordinary items into precious items, for example he once turned a simply stone to a giant diamond. Apparently that had been the quirk of his father in law, which wasn’t a problem at all. Izuku realizing that he should try to mend his relationship before things became ever worse, had been more open to discussions with him, going as far as to help him study, show him some moves for self defense.... but his son always insisted that he didn’t care about him at all. Izuku had told him of his past with Bakugou and warned him that he was following the path his classmate followed before entering U.A. He told him that Katsuki came to U.A and then changed but he worked hard to do so... and he told his son that being this way only makes people despise you.
“What the hell would you know?! All day you go around playing silly dress up games with that loser (Name)”
“Leave your sister out of this. You don’t have a problem with her, you have complaints from me.”
“Both of you are the same! Just because you have some extra power you think you can do anything.”
“One for All demands a lot of training, it can damage one’s body a lot. She also got your mother’s quirk which also helps reduce the damage... she’ll have to suffer a lot in order to control her power and not cause harm to your or your mother.”
“Oh yeah, my perfect sister. The one that got everything and is going to become a hero.”
“I never said you can’t become one. If you want to, then you can also enter U.A and become a hero as well. But that’s only if you really want that.”
His son looked at him annoyed... Izuku didn’t know what to do anymore. He was trying to mend his relationship. Ever since his son entered middle school, Izuku had tried to get close to him, encouraging him and explaining to him that his quirk could be used for anything his son wanted.
“Daddy, what’s wrong?”
Both males turned and looked at you, once you saw your brother you frowned, however you didn’t speak.
“It’s nothing, I was just chatting with your brother.”
“Really? I mean... if there’s something I can do to help...”
“You seriously think I’d ever ask for your help?” Your brother said dryly.
“I wasn’t talking to you. Besides, given your quirk you wouldn’t need much help either way.”
“You want to fight?!”
“Enough! Dinner will be ready soon, let’s not keep your mother waiting.”
Izuku stood up, after giving his son one last glance, he touched your shoulder and the two of you were out of the room.
Eventually though, his son decided to enter U.A along with you and prove that he was better than you. By now, you two hated each other... and Izuku was still mostly on your side.
Though you didn’t spend much time with him, Izuku didn’t mind. After all he had been busy protecting you from all kinds of evil people. Bullies, thieves, kidnappers... Izuku made sure that none of them escaped his wrath. And any boy that had a crush on you was sent to the country side, far away from you.
Izuku’s daughter was a radiant sunflower, charming people around her and being extremely radiant under the sun... no matter what, he would never allow someone to defile his daughter.
Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to treat his son as an enemy in the future.
Because even then, he wouldn’t hold back.
#yandere#yandere dad#izuku midoriya#bnha#Female reader#daughter reader#fanfic#double quirk combo#twins#rivalry between siblings#messed up family environemnt#clingy yandere#possessive yandere#possessive izuku
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Incense
“Are you really that excited about this?” Katara asked, laughing at her husband, ‘the mighty Avatar’, and the giddy way he trotted next to her.
The two walked together hand in hand through the red-tapestried halls of the Firelord’s palace, Katara leading the way to this oft-visited location, navigating which corridors to take, effortlessly winding her way through the mammoth palace like it was a well worn path.
As Aang turned his grey eyes upon her, Katara noted the way his eyes still shone with excitement as they did back when they were kids, even though the smile-lines beside his eyes stayed in more permanent creases now. “Well, I should say so!” he teased, “After you’ve withheld this little pleasure from me all of these years. Yes! Yes, I’m excited to finally be invited to join you!”
Katara stifled a laugh, the sound coming out more as a snort. “Really, Aang? Really?! I just never knew you wanted to come.”
“What?! Why would you think that I wouldn’t want to come?!”
“Well…” Katara began as they rounded the final corner and a woman in a red and gold robe opened the door to the room for them. “I guess I just never thought you would have any… interest in this particular thing.”
Aang looked affronted. “But you’ve come here with everyone else over the years, Katara! Mai, Sokka, even Zuko when he can relax long enough to take a break. You brought Kya even when she was just a little kid, and Bumi can’t seem to get enough!”
Katara turned toward her husband teasingly. “Well, they all, you know…” she rose up on her tiptoes and ran a hand over the smooth arch of her husband’s bald head as she finished, “have hair.” Her eyes laughed even when her mouth held it back.
Aang looked insulted. “Who says you need to have hair!?”
Katara couldn’t hold back her laugh anymore. “Well, it is a hair wash, Aang!”
Aang smirked at her, stroking his beard. “I have hair.”
Katara slapped him playfully across the chest. “You need it on your head, you doofus!”
Aang’s forehead creased as his puppy-dog eyes looked at her dolefully. “Well you took everyone else… I just felt left out.”
Katara laughed again shaking her head in baffled amusement. “All you had to do was tell me you wanted to come."
Aang smiled a flirtatious, one-sided grin. “I figured this was an exclusive ‘by invitation only’ activity.”
Katara laughed and linked her arm through the crook of Aang’s elbow, leading him further into the palace spa. With her other hand she gestured magnanimously “Well then, here you are! The very ‘exclusive’ Palace Hair Wash!”
Before them was a reception room with dimmed lights and a strong aroma of orchids. The calming sound of trickling water could be traced to a fountain that fell from high on the back wall, running over a slanted stone slab carved in the shape of two flying dragons. At the bottom the water ran into a trench that split and continued down two small creeks lined with smoothed stones on either side of the room, creating a cheery trickling sound as it passed. Around the perimeter of the spa heavy red curtains hung covering the entrances to several smaller rooms. A few of the curtains were tied back with thick gold ropes revealing massage tables or big tubs of water within the lowly-lit rooms. In the center of the room stood an elaborately carved golden colored desk, with an elegant, overly made-up elderly woman sitting behind it.
As Katara and Aang approached the center desk, the woman stood with prim stiffness. The elderly woman bowed slightly in Fire Nation custom, the large, ornate black hairpiece on her head tipping forward, causing the beaded strings that hung from either side of her hairpiece to clink softly. “Master Katara, you come again,” she greets with formal curtness. Then turning towards Aang, “And you, Avatar,” her sharp golden eyes darting to his tattoos, her voice laced with cool decorum, “We are honored to have your presence among us.”
Aang bowed to her, replying with jovial warmth, “I’m happy to be here!”
Katara tipped her head to the woman, her voice a bit cooler than usual, “Thank you Madam Uriko. My husband and I have come for a hair wash.”
“Of course,” the woman responded with a smile restricted to just her red painted lips, her eyes still sharp. She waved her large sleeve once and a young woman in red robes rushed forward from where she had stood quietly at the back of the room. “As always,” Madam Uriko’s barbed voice spoke, her piercing eyes not leaving them, “we are at your service.”
As the young woman led Aang and Katara away, Aang glanced back over his shoulder toward Madam Uriko, and shivered. “Is it just me, or does she feel predatory somehow?” Aang asked Katara in a hushed whisper.
Katara leaned in towards Aang whispering, “Madam Uriko has been in charge of this place for decades. One of the old relics of an older time. She’s harmless, just still seeped in beliefs of Fire Nation supremacy. I think it hackles her that Zuko allows non-Fire Nation royalty to use the spa…”
Aang’s brow furrowed for a moment, and Katara guessed at what he was thinking. The two had lamented frequently together of how difficult it was to change the perceptions of those who had been raised on war propaganda. Their little band of child warriors had been able to stop the fighting almost overnight, but the perpetuation of racism, animosity and false-ideologies were much harder to eliminate.
Katara knew that Aang sorrowed, not only for his lost people and culture, but also for the way that even the memory of them had been defiled. Despite Zuko’s efforts to reform education in the Fire Nation to teach the Air Nomad genocide accurately, it was still common to encounter people who still believed the lies taught during the war. It churned Katara’s stomach to know that in 100 years of Fire Nation propaganda, the people had been taught that the Air Nomads were the aggressors, that they had been war-mongers and child-stealers, who swooped in on their flying creatures to slaughter parents and carry away the children of helpless villagers.
Katara still remembers the first time Aang had been called a baby-eater from a terrified old granny. They were in one of the more remote Fire Nation islands, when the old woman had run and swooped up her toddling grandson who had been watching Aang juggle leaves in an airball for a bunch of the local kids. They had still been kids back then, and Katara had confronted the woman, yelling passionately in defense of her boyfriend and the Air Nomads. But Aang had just turned and walked away. When Katara caught up to him, she had listened as Aang quietly recounted a seemingly unrelated story of trying to comfort his crying friend, Samten, when he’d accidentally stepped on a scorpi-beetle while playing airball. Aang told how the two of them had carefully scooped what was left of the tiny squished bug onto a pipa leaf, and performed their best approximation of the “Soaring of the Dead” ritual to send the soul of the scorpi-beetle on gentle breezes into his next life, praying for it to be a good life, full of freedom and enlightenment. Katara and Aang hadn’t talked about what the woman had called him, and he didn’t bring it up again. But Katara knew that the Air Nomads, the memory of whom Sozin and his children slandered, were real people to Aang. They were his culture and heritage, yes; but they were also individuals he had known.
The contrast of what the peaceful Air Nomads had been, and how they were remembered was devastatingly unfair.
In an effort to distract Aang from whatever thoughts he might be slipping into, and pull him back into the present, Katara decided to share a piece of juicy gossip. Pulling on their linked arms to bring Aang’s ear down closer to her, she spoke in a conspiratorial whisper, “Rumor has it Madam Uriko was, um, very close, with Fire Lord Azulon.” The implication of her words caused Aang to wrinkle his nose in disgust. Katara continued, “She’s been working in this spa since she was a young woman, and has bragged to me more than once about how Lord Azulon used to come to her for ‘solace’ from his heavy duties as Fire Lord.”
Aang grimaced comically. And Katara laughed at his expression as she continued, “Madam Uriko is just one of those unchangeable parts of Fire Nation imperialism. I asked Zuko why he keeps her around, and he told me that she technically hasn’t done anything wrong (apart from being super creepy), so he can’t really get rid of her. Aaaand,” Katara dragged the word out with a smirk, “frankly I suspect Zuko is intimidated by her.”
Aang chuckled and chanced a glance back towards the woman again as their host untied the golden rope holding the curtain to their room open. The Madam’s narrowed golden gaze was still on them as the heavy red curtain fell across the doorway, obscuring her from view. “I can see why…” Aang said with a commiserating shudder.
Aang stood still a moment longer, before brightening excitedly, rubbing his hands together eagerly as he said enthusiastically, “Well! Lets bring on this famous hair wash!”
……………….
“So that’s when Zuko gave me that fancy hairbrush set. It was in retribution for the pocket lighters Sokka and I both got him for his birthday.”
Aang spoke from his place lying on the hair wash bed next to hers. Katara smiled as she opened one eye to glance his way, appreciating the large bubbly lather his spa worker had managed to lather on his baldhead. Katara had stifled a laugh at the woman’s expression when Aang had initially lain down, her hands hovering unsurely over his baldhead. But he had smiled affably up at her saying, “I’m sure you’ll figure it out” with a wink. Apparently she had figured it out, because Aang had spent the last twenty minutes sighing in pleasure at the experience.
“Well I really appreciated that gift from Zuko,” Katara said smugly as she closed her eyes again, enjoying the feeling of the spa worker’s hands in her hair as she massaged her scalp and combed out her long tresses in the warm flowing water. “I still use that brush to this day. You’ve got to admit, even with a gag gift, Zuko gives quality.”
Aang chuckled from his place on the hair wash bed next to hers. “Oh absolutely. I kept one of the combs from that set for years, remember?”
Katara laughed again, “Oh yes, I remember. You kept it in your pocket for the sole purpose of pulling it out and combing your beard whenever Zuko was giving a serious speech.”
“I remember fondly the special way he’d glare whenever that comb came out!” Aang laughed jovially.
Katara turned her head to look at her husband again, who now had a warm folded washcloth over his eyes. Even so his hands still gestured animatedly while he talked, his spa worker needing to dodge an especially enthusiastic hand here or there.
Katara smiled as she settled back into her hair wash, sighing in relaxation. She really did love a good palace hair wash – the calm of the dimmed lights, the smell of the flower water and the oils they used in her hair, the sound of the warm water running over her scalp as the woman massaged the base of her neck – it was a little piece of heaven! It was fun to share it with Aang this time.
“Was that before or after Sokka gave Toph those dark glasses?” Katara asked lazily.
“Before, I think,” Aang replied as he sighed again, clearly relishing his ‘sans-hair-head-wash’.
Katara smiled. “Sokka had thought that would be so funny, giving our favorite Blind Bandit sunglasses. Little did he know that she would wear them proudly. Before long, nearly every police officer in Republic City owned a pair.”
Aang chucked. “But that wasn’t nearly as big a backfire as the time I gave a single chopstick to Zuko.”
“Remind me again how a single chopstick is a useless gift for a firebender?”
“Oh it wasn’t because he’s a firebender, Katara! It’s because a single chopstick is useless to anyone! … Or so I thought…” Aang said with chagrin, “But that was before Zuko handed the chopstick to Mai, who with a flick of her arm managed to skewer it securely in the cushion I was sitting on, squarely between my thighs!” Katara could hear the shudder in his voice. “That was before we’d had Tenzin, Katara! Do you know what that could have meant?! For an instant I’d thought that was the end of the Air Nomads for good!”
Katara snorted, knowing full well that Mai would have had that little threat in mind when she threw the chopstick. Although it had taken some time for Katara to warm up to Mai, she now fully appreciated the understated, off-kilter wit of the dark-humored Fire Lady.
“But I thought I had her the next time when I gave her a bag of bison-fur yarn-balls.” Katara could hear the irritation in Aang’s voice when he continued, “Who knew she could make even those hurt…?”
A small snicker had Katara glancing up at the woman washing her hair. Apparently their talking was amusing to those washing their hair; these women undoubtedly would have encountered Mai here as well, and perhaps could appreciate the image of their Fire Lady harassing the Avatar.
But the woman’s mirthful expression hurriedly returned to a professional neutral when the curtain opened and Madam Uriko entered.
The old woman moved gracefully as she stopped in front of the shrine at the front of the small room. Removing a small pressed incense cone from a pouch at her waist, Madam Uriko lit the cone with a small snap of her fingers. Katara was mildly surprised; she hadn’t known that Madam Uriko was a firebender.
“Well Sokka’s birthday is coming up soon, and I’ve got to get him something really useless.” Aang continued talking, probably unaware that Madam Uriko had entered the room.
Madam Uriko lifted the elaborately carved lid of a brass incense burner standing on three spindly legs on the shrine and placed the lit incense pellet inside. After replacing the lid and folding her hands delicately in front of her, Madam Uriko breathed deeply, firebending to coax the fragranced smoke out through the intricate pattern of holes in the lid.
Katara looked toward her husband, washcloth still over his eyes, still moving his hands dramatically as he continued to talk, maybe a bit too loudly. Madam Uriko sent a disdainful look his direction.
“And not useless like that art kit we gave him a few years back,” Aang continued. “I mean, he loved that gift! Sokka completely failed to see any of the irony we all saw when we got it for him…”
Katara decided to ignore the Madam and closed her eyes again, breathing deeply to take in the relaxing aroma of the incense. Katara loved this smell. “You could try finding one of those cloud reading books Aunt Wu used to tell the future…” Katara suggested.
“Hey, that’s not a bad idea, Katara! I’m sure he would— Wait!” Katara heard Aang’s hair washer gasp in surprise. Katara’s eyes sprung open to see Aang sitting up abruptly on the side of the bed, water running down his back from his wet head, the washcloth falling to the floor.
“What is that smell…?” Aang asked, an unexplained apprehension in his voice. Then pointing at the incense burner, he addressed the Madam. “What’s in that burner?”
“It’s incense, Master Avatar,” Madam Uriko said condescendingly. “Surely you’ve smelled incense before.”
Aang ignored her rudeness, and closed his eyes breathing in the scent deeply. His forehead furrowed slightly above his closed eyelids. Katara watched his expression carefully, troubled by her husband’s sudden intensity. Katara noticed Aang swallow thickly, this brows arching in… longing? Sadness? Why was Aang reacting this way?
“Sweetie?” Katara asked softly. But he ignored her, turning instead towards Madam Uriko with a sudden fire in his eyes.
“Where did you get that incense?!” Aang demanded of the woman.
“Get it?” the woman replied coolly, uncowed by Aang’s aggressive tone. “Why it comes from the spa’s private stores. We’ve been burning this incense here in the palace spa for generations. It was a favorite of Firelord Sozin. And of his son, Firelord Azulon.” Madam Uriko said the name like a caress.
Aang took another halted inhale before quickly standing and pushing past the woman, unceremoniously ripping the lid off the burner and tipping the burning cone into his hand. Katara watched his back stiffen visually.
Katara sat up, concerned, her hair washer reaching forward to wring her hair as best she could as water streamed down Katara’s back from her heavy wet hair. But Katara ignored it. “Aang?” she asked anxiously. “What’s wrong?”
Aang turned towards Madam Uriko, holding the cone up in his fingers. “How did this get here?!” He shook it once angrily at her. “This doesn’t belong here!”
Katara was unaccustomed to seeing Aang this heated. He was notoriously even-tempered, and almost never lost his cool. To see Aang this upset alarmed Katara. “Aang?!”
Aang finally turned his eyes toward his wife, anger burning behind them. “This belongs to the Air Nomads!” Aang declared furiously. “See!” Aang turned the cone over, revealing one air spiral symbol pressed into the bottom of the cone. Turning back towards Madam Uriko Aang’s voice nearly yelled, “You have no business having this!”
Madam Uriko stepped back, her expression now clearly daunted by Aang’s intensity. “I assure you, this comes from the palace stores…” she stammered, trying to keep her composure. “It’s been here from before I began working here… as a young woman… I assure you, we--”
Aang’s nose wrinkled in a snarl as he cut her off, “This belongs to the Air Nomads! This is… was… sacred to us!”
And with that Aang fisted the incense in his hand and stormed from the room, knocking the brass burner over with his arm and leaving everyone’s clothes rippling in a stiff wind left in his wake.
…………..
It was late when Katara finally heard the snap of Aang’s glider on the balcony of their guest room in the Fire Palace. The sun had set hours ago, and it was now late enough that the moon had nearly completed her arch across the sky and now hung low over the crest of the volcanic rim of the Caldera, sending her ghostly silver light sideways into their room.
Katara was lying in bed. But she hadn’t slept.
After Aang had stormed out of the Palace spa earlier this evening, Katara had run after him. But even as she had searched for Aang, Katara knew that trying to catch up with a fleeing airbender was futile. The best she could hope for would be to find him wherever he stopped.
Katara had checked with Appa first, but the bison was snoring lazily in his favorite place in the courtyard of the stables, undisturbed. Katara checked their room, the garden, and even the rooftop. No Aang. But Aang’s glider was gone, so Katara knew that the best she could do was wait for him to return.
Knowing this didn’t keep her from being irritated with her husband. And concerned, of course. Mostly concerned. Katara hadn’t seen Aang this upset in years, not since they were very young. She wondered what it was about the incense that had upset him enough to run like he was a child again?
She now lay quietly in their bed and waited as her husband crept noiselessly into their room, his footsteps silent. She watched his profile as he propped his staff carefully against the wall, and removed a satchel from his chest, setting it noiselessly on the ground. The moon’s iridescent glow was on his back, his face in shadow.
“Aang…?”
His shadow stilled.
“I’m sorry, Katara. I’d hoped you were asleep.”
Katara let out a breath from the darkness inside their room. Did he really think she could sleep without knowing where he was and that he was okay? Had twenty years of marriage taught him nothing?
Aang spoke softly from just inside the doorway, his face still in shadowy profile. “I’m sorry I left so rudely this evening. And I’m sorry it is so late…”
Katara wasn’t angry anymore, well not very angry anyway, mostly just concerned. His apologies were secondary to his wellbeing to her at the moment. But she didn’t say anything, sensing that he wasn’t finished.
“I shouldn’t have lost my temper like that. It wasn’t fair to you, and it wasn’t fair to those women doing their jobs at the spa either. I’ll return tomorrow and apologize.”
Something in his voice told Katara that as sincere as his words were, there was a much heavier burden behind them. But he didn’t say anything more. Just stood there facing the darkness, the light of the moon highlighting the blue line on the back of his head, making it look almost silver.
“I just needed some time to… uh, to work through some things.” Aang finally turned towards her, the light now illuminating half of his face. Katara caught her breath at the sadness in expression. Despite the shimmering moonlight, no light danced in Aang’s eye as it usually did. Instead his eyes looked at her with a dark forlorn blackness.
“Oh Aang,” Katara murmured as she pushed the blankets off of her and swept over to him in the darkness, her bare feet cold on the polished floor. “I’ve just been worried. Where were you?”
“I, uh, flew north for a while. Found a small island. Really small. Almost all rocks. I just needed some space to, um… to…”
“Meditate?”
“… well… I did some of that too...” Aang looked down and to the side, a little sheepishly. “But I might have spent most of the time breaking things. Throwing around fire and rocks to cool off a bit.”
Aang looked at her penitently. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have run off. I shouldn’t have worried you.”
“Oh Aang, I don’t need anymore apologies.” Katara reached up with her warm hand to touch his face in concern. “But please, let me know how I can help you. Why were you so upset? Why do you look so… so sad?”
Aang brought his hand up between them, opening to reveal the small incense cone from earlier lying benignly on his palm.
“This,” Aang spoke softly, his shoulders slumping, as though the burden of a nation weighed on him.
Katara swallowed a lump in her own throat, remembering that it did.
Katara reached forward, picking up the small pressed cone with her fingers. She ran the pad of her forefinger over the small air swirl stamped into the bottom of it before looking back up at him. “What is it Aang? You said it belonged to the Air Nomads?”
“Yes.” Aang’s brow creased and he took a steadying breath before he continued, trying to explain. “This incense is something I haven’t smelled in… well since before. But it’s a scent I will never forget. One I thought I would never smell again.”
Aang took the incense from Katara, and with a snap of his fingers a flare of yellow heat illuminated their faces for a moment as he lit the end of it. They both watched as a tiny stream of smoke began to trail upward in lazy loops, filling the space with the rich aroma of cedar resin and cardamom, and with a fragrance unnamed but potent, both light and substantial, like the air and the mountains themselves.
“This smell is unmistakable for me.” Aang said as he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, his brow softening in memory. “The monks lit this incense during the Ceremony of Mastership. I was wrapped in this scent for ten days while Master Dun and his assistants bestowed my tattoos. Breathing this incense helped fortify me through the, uh, difficult parts of the ceremony; it deepened my meditation.”
Aang swirled a hand lightly above the incense, airbending the smoke into an upward spiral, his eyes unfocused, drifting into the past. “Of course I knew the smell before I ever got my own tattoos. It was part of the ceremony we all participated in to unveil a newly tattooed Master Airbender. Wisps of it were often in the air of my childhood.” A small smile appeared on Aang’s cheek. “But that day… when I got my own tattoos… this smell meant belonging. It was completion. It was a connection to the spirit of Air itself, a bond I shared with all the other Masters.”
Katara watched her husband carefully, her heart throbbing with the pain of knowing that even Aang’s happiest memories were so often undercut with grief.
Aang let out a long breath, relaxing just a bit. “The tattooing ceremony was one of the most spiritual events in my life – back in a time when I knew nothing about being the Avatar; when my greatest aspiration in life was to be a monk, simple and at peace. I tasted that future that day, that peace.”
Katara ached as his shoulders sagged once more and he said quietly, “Of course it didn’t last…”
Aang sighed, looking down at the incense. “I thought this was lost, just like so many parts of my culture. I’m trying to be grateful to have this at all…”
He hesitated. So Katara prompted him, “But?”
“But sometimes I just miss them so much…”
Aang looked sadly into Katara’s eyes. “I would never want you to think that I’m not happy with our life together – I am! Our family, the kids, you in my life, is better than I could ever have asked for.”
Katara took his hand, “But that doesn’t change what you’ve lost, Sweetie. It doesn’t make it all better.”
Aang swallowed, and nodded. “Sometimes I forget. I don’t think about them for a while. Just live in the moment. It’s easier that way. Then it doesn’t hurt so much. I can just move on with my life. Sometimes I believe that I really have moved past it.” He smiled again, despite the wetness in his eyes. “Sometimes it feels like it was all a dream anyway, like my childhood was someone else’s… like maybe it wasn’t even real.”
Aang stood silently for a moment, before looking back down at the incense in his hand. “But when I smelled this today, it all came back to me in an instant. Like I was there again! And they were there, and we were worshipping and celebrating together.” Aang’s face crumpled in grief, his voice a whisper. “For a split second they were all alive again.”
Katara’s heart lurched for Aang, but before she could touch him Aang’s anguish suddenly turned to anger, his face scowling as his words cut out fiercely. “But who knew that all this time our ceremonial incense has been used as ambiance for our, our murderer’s bathhouse!?”
Katara took a surprised step back as Aang’s hand fisted tightly around the incense, his hand turning hotly to flame and crushing the little cone.
“That they used it as perfume for when they bedded their concubines!?”
The flame danced angrily in his eyes as he seethed.
But Aang extinguished the flame, letting it die as quickly as it had flared, the anger in his face dissipating with it, replaced by that same dark sadness.
“What does this,” Aang looked sadly down at the smoking ash in his hand, “teach us about about Sozin’s destruction of the Air Nomads?” A large tear rolled down Aang’s cheek as he closed his eyes tightly. “That apparently Sozin liked how we smelled when we burned.”
A sob caught in Katara’s throat as she scrubbed at the tears she hadn’t realized were falling down her own face. Katara pushed down her own temper that was threatening to flare. One thing she had learned over the course of their marriage, was that when one of them was struggling, the other needed to be strong. And she needed to be calm and strong if she was to help Aang today. Otherwise, she knew him, and he would feel the need to focus on her. But this was all about him right now.
She reached for Aang, wrapping her arms around him. After a moment, Aang grasped her tightly back, bowing his head to lay his chin over her shoulder.
He shook; and so did she. Crying together for the disgrace and tragedy and uselessness of it all.
“Oh Aang,” Katara whispered into his neck, compassion welling within her. She pulled him closer to her, even as a sob shuddering through his body as he gripped her, holding onto Katara as if to remind himself that not _everyone_was gone, he hadn’t lost it all.
“I don’t want to feel this way. I don’t want to hate them.”
Katara nodded against him. “I know, Aang.”
It’s easy to do nothing. It’s hard to forgive. Words that Aang had spoken to her long ago. And Aang didn’t just spout these words — he lived them. Katara had seen how Aang had chosen forgiveness, over and over again, even-- no especially-- when it was hard.
What many people mistakenly thought -- even herself, before the end of the war -- was that forgiveness came naturally for Aang, or that somehow it was easier for him. But after years of living with this good man, what she had come to learn is that forgiveness was only easier for him because he practiced it all the time. He believed it in, and worked at it everyday.
But sometimes it was still hard.
Katara held him tighter, telling him through her embrace that he is not alone, and that she is here. That she bears this burden with him.
Forgiveness was hard, but he didn’t have to do it alone.
……………
Katara inhaled deeply. She didn’t need to look around at the many smoking burners lining the back of the ceremonial hall to know that the incense was there. The smell was incredible! Enveloping the entire room in its fragrance like the embrace of a supportive friend.
It had been ten years since Aang had disconcertedly discovered that for generations the Fire Nation royalty had been using the Air Nomad’s sacred incense in their palace spa. Although Zuko, Aang and Katara had all tired their best to uncover how the royal family had gotten a hold of the incense in the first place, they were never able to find anything conclusive. Procurement of a conquered people’s incense was apparently not significant enough to merit any documentation.
However, with the help of a surprisingly accommodating Madam Uriko, they were able to study the remaining cones and records in the spa stores. Apparently the royal chandler during the early period of Azulon’s rule, had studied the incense himself, and written out his own recipe. It was likely that the modern cones in the spa had not been made by Air Nomads at all, but had been replicates made by chandler himself. Katara and Aang had wondered in length together about why the royal chandler would continue to include the air nomad symbol on the bottom of each incense cone he made – perhaps he had done it as his own small rebellion against the Fire Nation’s campaigns? Or perhaps he had wanted to keep record of the incense cultural roots? Or perhaps he had just done it to more authentically mimic the original? – there was no way to know. But Aang liked to think that perhaps the chandler had known an Air Nomad personally, perhaps had lost a friend, and maybe he included the symbol in memory of what was lost.
The discovery of the chandler’s recipe had been an incredible find for Aang. He and the acolytes had worked hard to replicate the recipe, and now were fully capable of making their own incense. A scent Aang had thought was lost to time and tragedy, was now a viable part of the new Air Nation’s culture once again!
And now it was time to finally use it for its original purpose. Tenzin was being unveiled a Master Airbender today!
The anointment was a big day for Tenzin; big enough that Kya had delayed leaving on an extended trip she had planned, and Bumi had even taken leave from his service in the United Republic of Nations so he could be present.
However, important event or not, Katara had had to roll her eyes at her grown children’s antics. It seemed that the act of simply stepping foot back on Air Temple Island caused Bumi to reverted from ‘distinguished soldier’ to ‘annoying older brother’ instantly. Even though no one except Aang and his tattooing assistants had been allowed to see Tenzin since his Ceremony of Mastership had begun ten days previous, this hadn’t stopped Bumi from teasing Tenzin from through the closed door. He would gleefully call in suggestions to his dad about how to modify Tenzin’s tats to be a little more interesting. It didn’t help that Aang would flippantly play along, before seeming to remember that this was a sacred ceremony, and finally tell Bumi to get lost.
In addition to bothering his younger brother, Bumi had also taken to flirting with Kya’s girlfriend. While this was mildly amusing to Katara, it was seriously beginning to irritate Kya. Katara tried to remind Kya that Bumi flirted with everyone, while also sternly admonishing Bumi to cool it.
As much as Katara loved having everyone together again, she had to admit that keeping harmony in her small family of strong personalities was harder than it looked. Where was the docile, peacemaking child they so desperately needed? Whenever she would ask, Aang would only stifle a smile and raise his hands in surrender, jokingly claiming that he was not the one to blame for their children’s temperaments! And as exasperated as she might feel, Katara had to laugh at herself, knowing that he wasn’t wrong.
In preparation for the tattooing ceremony, Aang had called in two different tattoo artists – one from the earth kingdom and one from the fire nation, both reportedly the best tattooist in their perspective nations – to help teach Aang how to give Tenzin his tattoos. As Tenzin had neared the end of his training, Aang had admitted to Katara that just being ‘the Last Airbender’ didn’t automatically make him an expert on all Airbender skills. “Giving someone their tattoos is very different than being on the other side of the needle, Katara!” he had worried out loud. The closer Tenzin had gotten to mastership, the more nervous Aang got about how to bestow his tattoos. It was Katara who had suggested he ask for help.
After consulting with the tattoo experts, Aang had told Katara later that although their methods were different than what the Air Nomads had done over a hundred years ago, they seemed to understand enough of the process to take the details and tools he remembered and turn them into a working process. One of them even offered to give Tenzin his tattoos herself. Aang had declined, but expressed how grateful he was for to them for teaching him how.
The night before the commencement of Tenzin’s Ceremony of Mastership, Katara didn’t know who was more anxious: Tenzin or Aang? They were both bundles of nerves, but expressed their apprehension in characteristically different ways: Tenzin tried to hide his concern behind stoic meditation, while Aang couldn’t hold still, needing to “take a little run around the island” about ten times before bedtime.
When Aang had come in to bed the first night after beginning Tenzin’s tattoos, the smell of incense strong on his clothes and body, Katara had asked how it had gone. “I got better at it as the day went on.” Aang had replied. Then with a self-depreciating chuckle he added, “Hopefully nobody will look too closely at the back of Tenzin’s thigh…”
But the process had gone better from there, and ten days later, Katara now sat with Bumi and Kya on cushions near the front of the ceremonial room on Air Temple Island awaiting Tenzin’s anointing.
Katara was immensely proud of Tenzin, and all of his studious hard work. She knew he was aware of the burden he was born with, and in some ways she was sorry to have her son shouldering such a responsibility, but she was proud of the way he took it seriously. She knew Aang worried that Tenzin was ‘too serious’, but Katara, as a serious student of her own bending art, could not be more proud of his diligence and discipline.
Katara had often reflected on the irony that, of her three children, the one that was the least silly and carefree, the one who was a homebody with the seeming least amount of nomadic drive, was the one born with airbending. She’d wondered if perhaps it was meant to be; that airbending could be a way for Tenzin and his father to bond, when their personalities were so singularly opposite.
But as her mind wandered over these thoughts a hush fell over the audience, and she turned to see Aang and Tenzin, wearing a long hooded cloak, walk into the room and down the center aisle to the raised dais. Tears pricked at Katara’s eyes as the tall hooded form of her youngest son knelt reverently at the center of the stage. She looked at her husband, dressed in a formal yellow robe not unlike the one he had worn to Zuko’s coronation, and, catching his eye, noted that Aang’s eyes were also moist with emotion.
Katara cried for most of the ceremony. The image of Tenzin removing his hood to reveal a new blue arrow on his forehead brought a loud sob from her. Kya reached an arm over her shoulders, while Bumi refrained from being irreverent (which was more than Katara would have expected from him). From then on the rest of the ceremony was one big tear-clouded blur.
But the smell of the burning incense was potent and clear, and got even stronger as she felt it swirl around her, ruffling her clothes and inciting the song of the many wind chimes hung throughout the room.
Katara drank in the aroma carried on the wind. Despite the way the incense had found its way back to Aang, Katara couldn’t help but be grateful for this piece of Aang’s culture, of her family’s culture, that had been restored. Aang had admitted to Katara that although for a long time it had bothered him that his people’s sacred incense had been dishonored, he was grateful it had been. At least this way it had been preserved.
Katara breathed in deeply, taking in this scent that was both ancient and new. And something powerful stirred with in her.
Perhaps it was the power of the scent in the air, coupled with the way the wind chimes sang, but as Katara closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, she felt a spiritual tingling across her body, as though they were not alone. Like perhaps the energy of the Air Nomads, the ancestors of her children, were there and rejoicing with them as the first airbender in well over a hundred years, was anointed a Master.
…………….
A/N: I don’t know about you, but sometimes the smell of something can bring back very vivid memories/emotion for me. That was the genesis for this story.
(P.S. Also, I really do have a bald friend who loves getting hair washes. ;)
..................
Other works in this series:
Chant
Artifacts
#older Aang#older kataang#kataang family#air nomad genocide#katara POV#Aang#the last airbender#ALTA#avatar the last airbender#best boy aang#forgiving is hard#hair wash fic#incense fic#tenzin's tattoos#angry aang#aang's tattoos#air nomads#false fire nation propaganda
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Number 8 of best friends to lovers 👀👀
For Sale
Number 8 of best friends to lovers
“so, we’re just going to ignore the fact that you drunk-dialed me to tell me you love me?”
Ransom x Reader
warning: Kissing
not dark. i wanted this to be dark, but it didn’t happen. probably because my brain is story.
🏡
The real-estate sign that bared your face now freshly planted in the yard of a gorgeous luxury mansion. Mrs. Thrombey had finally saw fit to give your first high end listing. The commission from this alone would be more than what you could earned if you sold every listing you had thus far.
As you marched off the lawn you headed to your car to grab your camera. Lots of photos needed to be taken before you could post the listing online and bring it officially to market. While bent over in your backseat in the driveway you were surprised to hear a car pull up behind you.
There is no way a potential buyer could be here this soon. The sign just went up.
Looking over the backseat you peer out curiously. A classic Porsche now parked almost bumper to bumper with you.
Ransom? What the hell?
It was far beyond unusual for the son of your boss to bother you at a listing. He normally preferred to annoy you at your desk, in the office of Thrombey Real Estate.
Grabbing your camera and closing the door to your car you stand with hand on hip curious as to why he was here.
"Don't even think about it. This is my first high profile listing and I am not letting you defile it. Like you did the loft." You looked at him accusingly.
🏡
When you first got hired everyone was quick to tell you that Ransom had a reputation around the office. He had fucked a number of Mrs. Thrombey's assistance and three different girls in accounting. So when he finally made an appearance your defenses were up.
🏡
A month in and to your surprise he never made a move. It was a slight hit to your ego as you sat and watched him try and fuck anything that moved in the office.
If his mother wasn't around he would often gravitate to your desk. You were suspicious at first, but when he brought your favorite flavored coffee his presence became a lot more tolerable. Even if he spent most of the time talking ad nauseam about other women while you rolled your eyes and chided him for being a douche.
You had gotten so close with the arrogant playboy that his mother would reach out to you on occasion for her sons whereabouts. So when your new bud asked to borrow the keys to one of your lofts you saw no problem with it.
He returned the key the next day, leaving them on your desk with a frosted sprinkled treat next too it.
Unfortunately that didn't makeup for the destruction he rot. When you opened the door to the loft it looked liked he fucked over every inch of the place. The living room's upholstery had mystery stains everywhere, the kitchen was trashed with empty takeout boxes and the bedroom you had staged looked ran through. Leaving you with no other choice but to cancel the showing and hire a cleaning crew to fix the damage he had done.
🏡
Your face soured at the sight of his cocky smile as he exited the Porsche.
"A little ungrateful don't you think?"
You scrunched a brow very confused as to what he could mean by grateful. "What are you talking about?"
"This listing.. I convinced Ma to give it to you. You deserved it." He said as he placed and arm around your shoulder, walking with you up the drive and into the estate.
Planting your feet once you passed through the entryway you nudge him with your elbow to give you space, but he didn't move.
"Ransom I don't know what game you are playing with me today, but I need to take these photo's so that I can get it officially listed on the market" you say flatly as you try and move away. Ransom's hold on your shoulder is unwavering, pulling you closer with every escape attempt. Pushing your frustration aside you begin fiddling with your camera, resolving to taking photo's with him on your hip.
Snapping shots in the foyer while Ransom leans his weight on you. "And besides even if what your saying is true it still doesn't make up for you destroying my loft a day before a showing" you huffed with the camera pressed to your lash.
“So, we’re just going to ignore the fact that you drunk-dialed me to tell me you love me?”
The sudden change of subject had you lowering the lens. The stunned look sending him into a fit of deep giggles as you stared off into the distance. You could not dare bring yourself to look him in the eye.
🏡
"Don't be all shy now. I was really flattered" he said digging out his cell from his coats breast pocket.
Holding the device out he let it play for you on speaker.
'Hey! Hey Ranny! Ransom... Handsome! Oh my gawd did you know your name rhymes with HANDSOME..' You cringed at the volume of your drunken voice as the song Holy jolly Christmas played loudly in the back ground. 'You are so handsome. UGH! Why do I have to be in love with your stupid handsome face? I know the only reason you even talk to me is to use me for my listings, but FUCK! At least toss a girl a bone!' The voicemail cut out after that. Ransom stared at you the entire time, your discomfort very apparent as it brought him further joy.
🏡
Mrs. Thrombey's Christmas party did you in. You got shit faced at an office party. You raked a hand over your face as you relived the moments of last Saturday. He had been sitting on this tape for days and you weren't sure why he waited so long to drop a bomb on you like this.
Seeing Ransom with some hot random yet again made you feel some kind of way. He had already asked you for a key to a listing earlier in the day. You knew he was set to bring her there before the night was through. The Tequila must have stirred something in you, because as the free drinks flowed you realized how devilishly handsome the son of your boss was, how you wanted nothing more than to be bent over and railed by him on his mother's desk.
The next morning you checked your phone as you normal did. Nothing out of the ordinary no missed calls or text. So you had no idea that drunk you was all in her feelings, leaving voicemails like a needy idiot.
🏡
You were so lost in thought you hadn't realized that Ransom was behind you until you felt the camera slip from your fingers and into his hand.
"Look Ransom that was drunk me. Sober me is.."
"Shut up. " You felt the vibration of each word as he pressed into your back. Swallowing thickly you tightened your lip. "Come on lets play house."
He led you up the stairs and through the estate with an air of familiarity. Your legs moved, but you felt as if you weren't in control of them. When he opened the door to the master bedroom you started to snap out of it.
Ransom turned to look at you when you halted your stride. As you opened your mouth to protest he crashed into your lips. His tongue invading your mouth as you held up your hands in helplessness.
Ransom's hands took either side of your thighs, hooking them and lifting you off your feet. Your weight being moved effortlessly to the bed where he laid you with care.
When the door to the master bedroom swung open only two people were surprised.
"Jesus Christ! Ransom!" Mrs Thrombey's voice startled you, but did not faze her son.
"And you. I am so disappointed in you" she slammed the door to the master bedroom.
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Title: Twin Cinema
WC: 900
Episode: Swan Song (5 x 07)
She does not understand what is happening around her. She does not understand how, one by one, everyone she knows falls victim to the siren song of the ubiquitous cameras. It is obvious to her—and apparently her alone—that ubiquitous cameras are investigation-killing things of pure evil.
She expects it of him. He’s a ham. He’s a dork. He may actually be a dork made of ham, and from minute one he is very in to the cameras. She may need to kill him for it, because he is participating in the murder of her investigation. Even when he is . . . making pretty typical observations about the scene, he is definitely doing violence to her case, and he deserves that burn on his tongue and the whole roof of his mouth for defiling coffee by trying to use it as a prop.
She may not need to exert herself to kill him for his antics, though. Lanie may beat her to the punch if he keeps on nudging his way into her shot. Lanie is the next to fall. Even when there’s thumping at the back of the trailer and Kate has to draw her gun, Lanie seems to have been so thoroughly bitten by the camera bug that she sticks around to provide a concerned look to cut away to. She’s disappointed in Lanie and her sudden need to debut a blouse that’s not only obviously something she’s bought for the occasion, it’s completely inappropriate for the lab.
She’s disappointed in everyone before long. At one point, she’d wondered at the wisdom of sending an irate Esposito to get the director to shut things down, and now he’s indulging in his own questionably-appropriate-for-the-workplace wardrobe choices. He’s icing out his partner, ripping into a father who, it turns out, is absolutely sick with worry over his daughter, and Espo damned well better have been apologizing to Joe Silva when he pops the lead about Swan’s comings and goings on the day he was killed.
Even Ryan, an unexpected ally at first, ends up going completely petty. He is not the least bit sorry that the blood on Joe Silva’s coveralls turns out to belong to the man himself. He’s apparently eager enough for screen time that he feels compelled to jump Castle’s drugs conclusion. And then, betrayal of betrayals, the little shit has the gall to snakily call her stiff.
She is frustrated beyond belief by the fact that everyone she knows has lost their collective minds, right up until the point she realizes that she’s lost hers, too. She’s just . . . lost it in the other direction.
She has her suspicions along the way that she’s not exactly occupying the high ground when it comes to to sanity. For one thing, she is genuinely tempted to order up a seance so she can ask James Swan how he managed to ditch his cameraman, even for an afternoon.
She wants to stomp Castle’s toes when he corners her in a workroom to make the case for making the best of the apparently inalterable camera situation, but she suspects he has a point. She suspects his lessons in exposition for the camera actually move the investigation along, if only because they preempt one hundred thousand questions from the faceless monsters behind the camera.
And as much as she’d like to get Lanie, Ryan, Esposito—and Gates for good measure—into the same room so she can knock their heads together, she has to admit that they’re getting the job done despite their lens-seeking shenanigans. She has to admit that the competition that makes her roll her eyes is pushing them all to shake the trees hard, and she’s the one who feels like she’s playing catch-up because she has to devote so much time to camera evasion.
Except she doesn’t have to devote that time. And in doing so, she’s let Joel Mitas and his nauseating True Crime Rock Doc interfere with her work. She’s invited that disruption by letting the presence of the cameras get to her.
That epiphany fully hits home with Caroline—their cult survivor who has managed to out-survive James Swan. She turns a nasty stare on the camera man. She makes a production out of assuring the young woman that she can run the crew out on a rail. But Caroline looks her directly in the eye, she shifts her gaze just slightly and looks directly into the lens. She declares, with barely suppressed rage, that she wants the world to know all about John Campbell.
And in that moment, her own smug superiority collapses. In the next moment, when Buck Cooper sees James Swan made the decision to save his friend’s life, she is . . . well, she’s not a convert to life in the panopticon—not by a long shot.
But she sees herself—she sees her work and the work of everyone around her in a new light. She’s still going to stomp his toes when she gets home, because he abandoned her in that interrogation. He lectured her and tried to give her notes on her performance. She is going to taunt him about the burned tongue he deserves for violating the sanctity of morning coffee. And maybe in the quietest part of night, she’ll whisper that she sees now—at least a little—what he sees.
A/N: The lameness of this one almost approaches morphousness . . . almost.
images via homeofthenutty
#Castle#Caskett#Castle: Season 5#Castle: Swan Song#Kate Beckett#Richard Castle#Lanie Parish#Javier Esposito#Kevin Ryan#Victoria Gates#Fic#Fanfic#Fanfiction#Fan Fic#Fan Fiction#Writing
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—
Chomp. Slurp. Smack.
He glanced up at the group of foreigners. Nothing.
Slorp. Crunch.
Still nothing.
Hiravias was beginning to wonder if he was wasting his time.
He knelt over the still-warm deer carcass, watching the strange little party as they stood just beyond the treeline, talking and stretching and tending to one another's wounds while he licked the blood from his fingers, pulling each digit from his mouth with a loud sucking, popping noise. Ordinarily he'd never eat so ostentatiously– it was never a good idea to draw attention to oneself while eating in the wild, unless one liked having one's hard-earned kill stolen away by something bigger, stronger, and hungrier than oneself. But they still wouldn't look his way, and by now he was starting to feel full. Wael's bowels, how much more loudly am I gonna have to chew before they hear me and decide it's worth investigating? Maybe I should just throw a handful of offal at them instead.
It was unlike him to be so indirect with his intentions, but one never could tell how some estramorwn would to react to a tiny, hairy man openly approaching them with a toothy smile and copious amounts of blood smeared all over his hands and face and clothes. So he had decided to play it safe and try to lure them to him, although he had apparently underestimated either the foreigners' capacity for curiosity or the limits of their sensory perception. These foreigners were the strangest he'd seen out here in a long time, and he was dying to talk to them– for instance, there was only one Dyrwoodan among them, if their accents were anything to go by, and he actually seemed to be taking orders from the orlan in the group. That alone was reason enough to try to insinuate himself into their company, just to find out what was going on there.
He had a few other reasons for seeking their attention, of course. And they were curiosity-based, too. Mostly. Hiravias let his gaze drift slowly over the orlan woman as she allowed the feathered Ocean folk to lay her hand on the curve of her furry hip, a soft, golden glow emanating from the Godlike's fingertips. The orlan woman sighed in relief as the bruise marring her tawny skin faded in the golden light, and she smiled up at the other woman with gratitude, her thick, full lips parting just so, her long eyelashes fluttering.
He pulled his thumb from his mouth with a loud, wet pop.
The Ocean folk woman whipped her head around suddenly to face in his direction. "We are being watched," she hissed, her hawk's eyes narrowing as she searched the underbrush.
Finally! He feigned surprise at being "discovered" as best as he cared to, freezing and holding up his gore-streaked hands when the adventurers charged over, cautious but not aggressive. Yet.
"Woah, there, sorry if I startled you," he grinned, relishing the looks of confusion and disgust he was inspiring on the shiny new faces before him. "I was just enjoying the bounty of nature a little too enthusiastically, I guess. By the way, this isn't your forest, is it? Because if it is, you need a better game warden." He turned his head and spit out a wayward wad of gristle before wiping his mouth on his sleeve, and the wood elf in their party actually gagged and turned away. Hiravias couldn't help but feel an odd sense of satisfaction at that.
The orlan woman, on the other hand, seemed to relax a bit at his words. "I don't think Stormwall Gorge is in my jurisdiction, no. You took this deer down by yourself?"
"A stelgaer killed it, actually," Hiravias replied, smiling pleasantly. Not quite a lie. "A rather large and ornery one. Although the deer had a badly malformed heart and would have been dead within the year even if the stelgaer had never crossed its path. I'd show you, but, well, it was also a very delicious heart." He gestured to the carcass, spreading his arms wide before him. "Here, be my guest. There's no way I can eat all of this myself!"
The dwarf actually stepped forward, her eyes lighting up like stars in the night sky. "I call the shank," she said, drawing a knife while the fox at her knee slavered, panting eagerly. Everyone else remained where they were, their grimaces slowly intensifying.
"And here I thought Sagani was the only raw-meat-eater I was liable to encounter in the Dyrwood," the orlan woman chuckled, indicating the dwarf woman with a tilt of her chin. "You don't cook either, huh?"
"What, and burn out all the flavor? Wreck that incredible texture?" Hiravias scoffed, shaking his head. "Galawain would strike me down where I stood for disrespecting one of His beasts in such a manner, and for damned good reason, too! I mean, look at this–" He dug into the creature's guts and pulled out a fat, juicy loop of intestines. "How is this not appetizing?"
He held the viscera out to her, trying valiantly to fight the mischievous grin twitching into place on his face, but he couldn't quite help himself. "Here, go on. It's the best part! You won't regret it!"
She fixed her eyes on his, a smirk of her own slowly crawling across her lips as she crossed her arms beneath her ample bosom. "You first," she murmured, her voice low and smooth and sultry.
Well, shit, woman, say it like that and how can I refuse?
Feeling a bit sophomoric, but determined not to give up, Hiravias defiantly returned her stare as he stuffed the pink, glistening tube into his mouth and began chewing– and of course, instantly regretting it. "Mmmmm," he managed, performatively rubbing his belly even as he winced and drooled. "S-so... good..." The taste of shit and lingering digestive acids mingled in his mouth. So much for my full stomach.
The aumaua towering above them all choked out a half-laugh, half-groan. "My friend," he declared, "I somehow seriously doubt that."
"Desgant," the bird woman spat, baring her teeth in a disgusted scowl. She didn't look away, though, so Hiravias counted that as at least a partial victory. The dwarf and her fox watched, too, silently filling up on strips of raw venison with only mild bemusement on their faces. He was definitely in there.
Finally he swallowed, although it took him a couple of tries. "Well! Now I know it had elderberries for its last meal. Praise be to Wael for the revelation!" He wiped his mouth again, shuddering, and held out his filthy hand for a shake. "Name's Hiravias, by the way. It's been a good long while since I've shared a meal with such pleasant company, so... thank you for tolerating me." The little woman nodded, smiling, but she kept her hand out of his.
The Dyrwoodan snapped his fingers suddenly, pointing at Hiravias and grinning as though he'd finally solved some great and vexing mystery. "Oh! I got it. You're Glanfathan, ain't ya?"
He barked a short, sharp laugh in response. "This is the brains of the operation, then?"
"What Edér lacks in intellectual prowess, he more than makes up for in other fields, trust me." The orlan woman's smile turned kind as she gently patted the folk man's wrist. "I'm Axa Mala, the... the Watcher of Caed Nua." She almost seemed to have to force the words, as though she wasn't quite used to associating herself with that title just yet. It made him think of the Autumn Stelgaer, a pang of sympathy striking his heart. "What's a nice Waelite like you doing in a place like this, then?"
"Me? Oh, seeing what there is to see, eating what there is to eat, experiencing the wonders of this strange and beautiful and world the gods have blessed us with." He dipped his head low in reverence for a moment before peeking back up at her. "I'm a Druid of the Circle of Hawk and Ivy of the Fisher Crane tribe, you see, and I've been all over Eir Glanfath a few times over now, even pushed into the Dyrwood where I thought I could get away with it without having to face down a bunch of drunken meatheads calling me a hairy little face-painting catfucker. But I have to say, throughout all my travels over the years, I've never had the good fortune to meet a Watcher before."
Her smile broadened even as her eyes narrowed. "And you'd like to see more of this Watcher, is that it?" She may have taken a while to get rolling, but she sure caught up fast. "Well, a Druid's talents could certainly be a boon to us, as well as a native Glanfathan's knowledge of the land and the locations of Engwithan ru– uh." She stopped abruptly, her face blanching as she reflexively readjusted her satchel, pushing it a bit further behind her back. "Not that– we don't– I mean, uh..."
Right. There was that. He'd been so caught up in actually talking to other kith again– another orlan, at that, and not a Dyrwoodan orlan with that depressing, beaten-down, high-strung, constant-victim-of-horrendous-bigotry baggage they tended to suffer from– that he'd almost forgotten that they were a bunch of grave-robbing ruin defilers. He'd watched them descend into Lle a Rhemen hours before, and then he'd watched them emerge with their rucksacks bulging, and although his old protective instincts had flared up inside of him, the familiar rage and indignation wrapping around him like a fiery blanket, instead of shifting and pouncing on them or bidding the earth to open up beneath them, he'd just... watched. Waited. Thought. And now, in place of any lingering urge to gut them, he found himself wanting nothing more than to walk with them, talk with them. It had been so long since he'd run with a pack, and even though they were estramorwn with no respect for the land or for the Builders, they were at least kind to him and easy to talk to. And he knew he'd be lying to himself if he said he wasn't itching to find out what secrets lay buried inside the ruins of the Builders, just a little bit...
"You don't what?" Hiravias huffed, hands flexing at his sides, clenching them into fists over and over. "I didn't see you do anything. ...Maybe the gods did, and if so they'll rend your soul asunder when it passes the Veil, as would be your richly deserved fate, but..." He shrugged, forcing a smile. "This eyepatch isn't just for show, y'know; I really am half-blind. So maybe chance had it that my blind side was facing you when you did... whatever it is you did or didn't do."
Axa scratched at the back of her neck, blushing, not quite able to look at the Glanfathan. "Yeah, I, uh... noticed your Eye of Wael, there." The conversation lulled awkwardly for a moment, until suddenly she smiled at him again, her whole face lighting up. "Hey! Wanna help us track down some assholes who stole scripture from a temple of Wael? Maybe it'll redeem me a little in Their eyes, if indeed I've offended Them."
The aumaua brightened up as well. "Ondra's teeth, I'd very nearly forgotten about that! Will we go to Searing Falls as well?" He leaned toward Hiravias, his smile as bright as the sun and twice as big. "We were asked to go there by a priestess of Magran, you see, on a quest to realize a mysterious vision from her fiery Mistress..."
Edér frowned. "Hey, you said you'd take us to that battlefield where my brother died, look for clues there. ...I guess he ain't gettin' any deader, though, so it's no real rush. Just... you know. Be nice to get some answers, if we can."
Axa gave Hiravias a pointed look. "Well, you heard. Scrolls of Waelite wisdom, mysterious visions, and answers from beyond the grave. We'll have you if you'll have us. You in?"
He ran his tongue over his pointed teeth, smile broadening as he shouldered his pack. "With a pitch like that, how could I resist?"
—
#pillars of eternity#poe anthem infinitum#fic wip#first foray into writing hiravias!#party management soon to follow#thanks for reading ♡
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Dear anon,
Here’s the Second Part to the request you made about Billy watching Steve masturbate! I would link the first part but then this post wont show up in the tag because that’s how it works, apparently
I think this might be one of my favourite things I’ve written, and yes I know I say that quite often, but there’s nothing wrong in enjoying your own stuff!!!
And I hope that you all enjoy it just the same~
-
The second time, he sits in a very expensive chair, specifically the one Mr Harrington occupies whenever he’s actually home and dealing with work from his office, the room covered in mahogany furniture and shiny leather seats.
He spins around a few times, taking in the grand paintings on the walls, none of them of the family whose house this is, the glamorous curtains, the small and tasteful plants, and the head of a stag hanging in all its grandiose above the fireplace. Expensive, fancy, ostentatious. A showroom of importance and wealth.
Any one piece of furniture in this room costs more than Billy’s own house, and there is nothing Billy loathes more than rich assholes that think they can buy the world. Which just makes him defiling the heir to this fortune all the more fun for him.
The leather creaks underneath him as he stops spinning. From atop the desk he brings a glass of scotch to his lips, and gives it none of the respect Mr Harrington would believe it to be deserving of; simply bottoms out like it’s a shot of vodka. He licks his lips clean and swallows a few extra times to really enjoy his stealing of the oldest bottle in the liquor cabinet.
Then finally he stands up, slams the glass down with almost too much force on the dark wood, and walks around the desk to sit down in another leather chair, this one facing a couch on where Steve lies naked.
“Enjoying yourself, daddy?” he asks with a smile that runs from one ear to the other, on the verge of cracking his sexy facade.
And Billy laughs heartily at it, throws his head back a bit. “Oh don’t start on that, pretty boy! I am not ready to explore either of our daddy issues just yet.”
Steve can’t help the chuckle that escapes him, then settles it into something more smooth and delicate, teasingly so, as he runs a hand down his side, from chest to hip where it rests. He’s lying on his side, propped up on one elbow, his front turned fully toward where Billy admires the view - still dressed from head to toe - Steve’s cock hard from attention alone, the flushed head resting against the leather. And he waits patiently for whatever Billy has in mind.
When Steve had come home today, Billy had done the whole Marco-Polo charade till Steve found him pouring a drink from the glass bar behind the large desk. He hadn’t bothered complaining or asking any questions about why Billy is in his father’s office, simply sat down when commanded, and stripped without any hesitation when told.
Now they’re looking at one another in silence. Billy spreads his legs as wide as the armrests will allow, and runs his hand rough up and down his girthy cock trapped inside denim still, and Steve’s dark and lustful gaze follows the movement attentively.
“You look amazing like this, Stevie,” Billy mutters, voice thick and salacious as he touches himself through too many layers. “I wanna watch you.”
Steve hums pleasantly and slowly starts slipping the hand on his hip down toward his full erection.
“You said last time you love watching me…” Fingertips graze against his cock, teasing and gentle and slight. “You ever watch me jerk off in private?”
Billy swallows hard, contemplating whether he should tell the truth or if that would be too intrusive to admit. But Steve has yet to get upset at Billy for any of his deviant behaviour. “Yeah, a few times.”
And for the truth he’s rewarded with Steve wrapping his fingers around himself, slowly moving up and down, squeezing around the head that leaks into his hand.
“Ah-h, good,” Steve’s voice starting to waver as he strokes his dick; wetting it with his own pre. “I think about you a lot when I masturbate, fuck, thinking about you at all gets me hard.”
Billy blinks slowly, wanting to meet Steve’s gaze but finds it impossible to look away from how Steve’s hand moves a bit faster. He removes his own hand from the bulge in his jeans and grips the armrests of the chair.
“Do you ever finger yourself when you think of me?”
Steve licks his lips at that, and smiles with certain intent, although Billy doesn’t notice as he’s mesmerised as always by the way Steve touches his own throbbing prick.
“Not always, but whenever I do finger myself, I only think of you.”
“Show me,” Billy demands without hesitation - softly, but with no hint of ‘if you want to.’
But Steve wants to. His breath hitches at the stern tone to Billy’s words, the restraint in his movement clear as he slows down and eases his grip.
“You want me to finger myself in front of you, here, in my father’s office, on his expensive couch?” Steve asks, incredulously, feigning reluctance, yet doesn’t stop the now lazy caress of his lengthy cock, keeps smiling, stays posing on his side.
Billy sits silent, doesn’t respond right away, instead he pulls up a small, inconspicuous, clear plastic bottle from the pocket of his shirt, and tosses it onto the couch.
“Yes.”
Steve looks at it; there’s no labels or text or anything, really the most boring and ordinary little container, but there is no doubt in his mind what it is.
“How do you want me?” he asks and finally meets with Billy’s eyes, a fire there burning hotter than the sun could ever dream of.
“However you do it when you’re alone - when I’m not here to fuck you into your mattress. Show me just how badly you want my thick cock.”
And as is often done in situations where words aren’t needed anymore, Steve simply bites his lip, keeps the bottle firm in his grasp, and gets up on his knees. He turns around on the couch, angling his perfect ass towards where Billy sits patiently like a statue, then bends forward; arching his back and spreading himself before his audience to grant a good look of everything. His leaking prick hanging between his legs, hole exposed fully.
“Fuck, Steve…” Billy nearly gasps at the view - didn’t expect to be this affected by it as he shuffles around in his seat, almost overwhelmed by the urge to just shove his tongue through Steve’s rim and eat him out till he’s cumming and crying. Billy adjusts the taut fabric of his jeans before settling in his place.
The cap of the bottle pops off loudly, lube drips onto Steve’s fingers, and with a careful motion, as to not waste a single drop, he brings his hand behind himself. He runs three digits flat and slick over his entrance, getting himself proper wet, staring straight at how attentively Billy watches, the self control damn impressive as those bluest of eyes twitch at the sight of Steve slipping in his middle finger.
Steve coos and keens, perhaps a bit excessive, perhaps egged on by the way Billy’s knuckles turn white as he strangles the leather armrests. He holds one hand on the back of the couch to keep himself steady as he quickly finds an all too pleasant rhythm that leaves him craving more.
Billy hasn’t been this turned on, this painfully erect, since the first time he saw someone play with themselves, back when he was 13 and stole a porn tape from a thrift store in Cali. He still has it hidden away, mostly for sentimental reasons now, because nothing can compare to watching Steve finger himself open, moaning and dripping worse when he adds a second finger.
“Ah-h, mmh- Billy,” Steve teases with his name on that lascivious tongue.
And every sound that escapes makes Billy’s lust boil hotter, bubbling under his skin, the urge to touch like a strong current pulling him under. Touch himself, touch Steve.
It takes all of his strength not to stand up, close the short distance between them and drive in two fingers past that gorgeous clenching ring of muscle, opening up Steve faster so that Billy can fuck him hard into the leather of daddy’s dear couch, press his face against the cushions and have him cumming in less than a minute.
Steve pushes in a third finger, thighs trembling as he moans out, “Shit, oh-” with an overt shudder running through him as he hits just the right spot.
“Feel good, baby?” Billy asks softly, voice husky and smooth, as he unbuttons his shirt slowly.
“S-so good, ah-” Steve’s prick leaks onto the seat, between his knees, fingers pumping fervently in and out leaves him writhing as he abandons any sense of rhythm, and Billy recognizes the way he’s calling out, cursing, close to mumbling his words.
Knows that it won’t be too long now.
“Fuck, Billy! Billy- Billy-”
“Yeah?” Billy groans out, pleased with how erotic his name can sound when it comes from such a pretty mouth.
“I’m- I’m close.” Fingers go as deep as they can, as quick as they can, it’s almost kinda impressive how rapidly he moves those digits, and it all goes to show that this might be something he does more frequently than originally suggested.
Billy unbuckles his belt, flicks free the button of his jeans, and lets the zipper run loose, immediately bringing some sense of relief to his own pent-up, aching cock. He then removes his hands again, one elbow on the armrest, chin in hand as he continues to simply leer at how Steve fingers himself, how his brows are pulled high and tight, how his eyes can barely stay open as they fight the urge to roll back.
“Think you can cum untouched like this?” he asks, impatience apparent in his rumbling tone.
“N-no, fuck, ah-h-” Steve cries and bucks his hips onto his fingers.
“Hmm…” Billy hums like he’s dissatisfied with that response. “I’ve seen you do it before.”
“Mmhn, ahh, yes, yes- in your ha-ands, not- not on my own,” Steve whines and meets Billy’s gaze with all too sincere eyes.
And fuck if that doesn’t make Billy’s full erection kick and leak in its entrapment - to know that he can make King Steve cum on his fingers or dick alone is empowering, strokes his ego just right.
“Fuck, Stevie, baby,” Billy growls with exposed teeth all predatory and lecherous. "Touch yourself. Cum for me, all over daddy's expensive leather couch."
Steve doesn't waste time before he brings his other hand to his weeping prick, and as he wraps his fingers around it to eagerly jerk himself, Billy grunts lightly as his own cock twitches with overwhelming jealousy.
It really doesn't take more than a few strokes till Steve buries his face against the backrest, crying out loud as he moves his fingers hard and precise, back arching in the most beautiful curve, spilling all over the dark seat as he pumps himself dry of every drop, thighs visibly tensing and quivering.
“Gorgeous,” Billy breathes out, convinced that his grip on the armrests will soon tear the leather apart, his underwear completely soaked with pre.
Steve’s arms fall till his palms rest against the leather seat, his entire being pulsating and shivering with every heavy breath, sounding like he just ran a marathon. But as he moves to change his position, perhaps get more comfortable, Billy intervenes-
“Didn’t say you could move,” there’s barely a hint of play to his tone, “Stay just like that for me.”
So Steve does just that - shuffles around a bit on his knees to kneel better, swallows thickly, and hangs his head low to look at Billy from between his legs.
Billy in turn finally pulls his pained cock free with a loud and telling grunt of relief, the air almost sharp in its coldness, but it’s soothed by his firm hand running up and down his slick erection. Already he knows that this won’t last nearly as long as he wants it to; feels it in the way the coil twists pliantly, thighs and abs flexing at his every move.
“Mmh- shit, arrh, baby I- I want you to show me- fuck- spread your ass out for me.”
And Steve obeys all too readily, moving his hands back to grab a full cheek in both to spread them as far apart as he can, exposing his fluttering hole, puffy and well loved.
The sight of it makes Billy’s hips buck off of his seat, an interrupting moan punches the air out of his lungs, his cock spurting pre something horribly, the sounds of his jerking motion obscene and loud and overwhelming as he grips himself harder- tight like how Steve’s ass would feel right now, wrapped around him, sucking him in, milking him dry, right here in his father’s office, soiling the leather, defiling the high and mighty importance with moans of the heir’s hole getting ravished-
Just the mere thought of what Billy might get to do with Steve in every single room of this house, all goddamn 12 of them, has him cumming in near record time - a loud and unexpected orgasm that crashes through him as he lifts up and into his hand, cursing loudly towards the ceiling, cum shooting all the way up his chest to clash with the sweaty tan skin, painting him in white, pumping till he’s sore and lets his cock go with a hiss.
Suddenly so exhausted he could probably fall asleep right here, eyes closed and struggling to catch his breath as he slumps in the chair. That is until hands land on both his knees, squeezing gently and caressing him, and when he opens his eyes to look down there’s Steve, kneeling between Billy’s legs, a slight smile and the most adoring gaze, a glorious vision that shoots straight through Billy’s heart and overstimulated cock simultaneously.
Before Billy gets to make the next move, Steve crawls closer, brings out his tongue to run it hot and flat over Billy’s flaccid dick, pulling forth a pained, “shit, ah-h!” then continues with soft kisses up his stomach, across his abs, till he reaches where cum has been splashed across Billy’s pecks. And under the watchful stare of blue skies, Steve lets out his tongue once more, licks a stripe through the white pool and swallows with an almost delighted little hum.
A whole show that Billy will play over and over in his head those few nights Steve isn’t around.
And Steve finishes his climb straddling Billy’s thighs, kissing him deeply and passionately, as if he’s not satiated quiet yet, mixing the taste of them with dancing tongues, sweet and salty and strong still with an aftertaste of scotch.
#Harringrove#My Writing#lemon#part 2 of that one request I responded to a few days ago#2.4k words#I should start tagging how many words#so that people know how long it is before clicking#Read more
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Fool, King of Sea (Ocean's Heart Side Story)
Summary: Amphitrite has never seen a divine fool enough face constant rejection for a domain they do not seem to like. Poseidon is, though, the greatest fool she's ever met. And Calypso is a great friend, when she's not being irritating.
*****
One thing that is of short supply in the ocean is good fun.
It can be made, of course, games built around redirecting ships to wrong ports, seeing who can sneak unaided by divinity into captain's quarters, who can race from Crete to Corinth the quickest. Games that are not made for one.
Calypso is good fun when she wants to play, is a challenge Amphitrite loves to play with. They toss their wins back and forth, banter in barbs they only laugh at. Calypso is a great companion, when she is around.
But there are times when she is not.
Alone, Amphitrite gets bored all too quickly, aimlessly searching through the water. She'll rest with her creatures some days, care for them like the pets they all are, but some days she wants excitement and no one is around to deliver.
Then comes something rarer than excitement -- a divine looking to be king.
It is obvious at a glance that this man does not belong. He is tall with thin hips and too much rage boiling in his bones. He must be some sort of new, thinking he can demand ocean to let him rule. It chooses who it will.
Watching this godling try to force himself upon her home is amusing. It remains cold, rejecting and rejecting him. What a fool, to keep trying.
He slinks away eventually, face pinched and muscles coiled tight. There's a rage boiling in his blood, rage the water rejected without hesitation. Amphitrite laughs at his retreat. It is little wonder her domain does not want him. He is entirely too hot for the cold waters. He will boil her home to steam or it will shatter him.
Ah. Well, it was nice while it lasted. Divines did not handle rejection. He would not face the humiliation again, however amusing it would have been to watch. She feels Calypso's call below, from the deep that is more home to her than Amphitrite, the deep that even she finds too chilling. She watches the point of shore the young god had been standing on and turns to go find Calypso. The call is purposefully untraced and it is a call to find her before she rises to air.
The young god's defilement of her home slips from her mind.
-----
Calypso can look awfully disappointed when she wishes to, can arrange her features in a way that niggles even at her. There is something about the arch of her brow and the curve of her frown and the angle of her eyes that stabs at Amphitrite in a way it shouldn't. It is a look of too much divinity towards something that cannot bear it, but Amphitrite can bear Calypso's divinity just fine. It is a trick.
"What?" she asks eventually, a bite to her words that would make a mortal faint.
Calypso turns her gaze elsewhere, to the seaweed curled up beside them, curled above in a little bubble as the water outside churns them away somewhere else. She stares at the weaving. "Nothing," she says in a too-friendly, too-simple tone.
Amphitrite narrows her eyes. Calypso has her ways of haggling for everything she wishes, from whoever she wishes it from. She recalls the moment she'd learned how Calypso had earned her tentacle-swarmed form. Calypso has never hungered for something she did not get and that nettles at her.
It was not fair.
"Don't play your games with me," Amphitrite warns. "I do not hold patience for them today."
Calypso lifts a cool shoulder. The move is infuriating. "Alright."
The silence burns.
Nothing should be burning under the water, in the deep cold of the sea. There is not allowed any warmth. Certainly not heat.
Amphitrite's glare burns hotter. "You are playing," she says.
Calypso's gaze slides over. Her body language is all relaxation and distance. She is at ease but there is something in her expression, something churning in her mind. "How so?"
That was the question. Then, the answer comes.
"You are trying to nettle me," she says, feeling the answer is right but not knowing why. What reason could there be for Calypso to want her angry?
"Maybe you shouldn't be so easily nettled, then."
Amphitrite's lip curls at the accusation. "What ill is in you today?" she asks. "You're being sour."
Calypso seems to consider the words, rubbing her lips together, She shrugs. "I am not sure." Her eyes flick over nothing. "A passing mood, I think. I want to stir trouble but it's too dreary a day for mortals to be out."
She snorts delicately. "Right. Warning, next time. I warn you."
Calypso's smile looks empty. There is nothing wrong with its shape but it looks false. "Sure. Apologies for wounding your ego."
"As if."
The smile shifts, looks more real, more like a smile that belongs on Calypso's face. "You may barb me back," she says, "if that would ease the sting of your pride."
Remaining bits of Amphitrite's anger fall away. She laughs and Calypso joins in.
"Shall we travel for a mortal?" Amphitrite offers. She is all too aware of these moods of Calypso's, times where she is reaching for something that does not quite exist. She had murmured the word chaos once, describing it.
With all the things she represents, all she is and the price of it -- Amphitrite does not think it worth it. There is an emptiness to Calypso sometimes, like the bottomless abyss that leads to the Underworld, that only knows to soundlessly call. That wrongness. It must be her price, for being the face of too many things.
In her rare moments of softness, Amphitrite worries over how it will cause her trouble one day.
"No, this is fine."
Fine. Because nothing can please her now.
It's her curse. The burden of being all the ocean is.
Amphitrite is grateful that the burden is not hers. The deep is enough for her, the cold and the creatures. She could not imagine more.
The seaweed begins to part. They both gain a sense of being in a different section of ocean, placed anew by a combination of both their powers ordered to drift them away.
Amphitrite looks over at Calypso. Her eyes are terrifying, sometimes. They look as if they can see through all. Laying secrets to the sun.
"You should take a mortal," she suggests. "I know how highly you think of them, but having one is quite fun."
Calypso's eyes churn. She gazes out at the water. "Mortals bear much misfortune by our hands," she says. "I see no reason one needs to bear the misfortune of me."
Amphitrite sighs. "Ready, then?" One day, she would convince Calypso to get a mortal. She didn't understand Calypso's protection over them. She spoke for them when opportunity drifted by, but when she wears her other shape, she swallows them like a fish. No remorse. No guilt. No regret. How can she advocate for them so and have their blood dripping in her soul?
It was not right. Many things weren't with her. It was why she was so fun.
"Am I ever not?"
Amphitrite grins. "Go, then."
They race, power folded under their skin, to find the place they had started at.
-----
The god fool returns.
Amphitrite does not seek his appearance, but the backsplash of his untethered divinity beating against the water reaches her. She comes not from the boredom, this time, but the fun she knows will be there.
The god -- Poseidon, the ocean hisses at her as she travels, one of Cronus' rebelling children -- is just as entertaining as she remembers.
He thrusts his sad excuse of divinity over top the water, steps his foot into the splash of shore, growls his place like it is something he can demand. "I am Poseidon," he says, putting too much force in each syllable, "god of the sea."
Amphitrite's laugh is a soft thing her domain swallows. How foolish.
"I will," he speaks with bared teeth like a roaring beast, "be king of you."
Her laugh bursts. The waves splash with it.
Poseidon -- the fool king -- pulls his head back like he's insulted and a tantruming child. "I am son of Cronus and Rhea," he tells her, unknowing she is there. "You will obey my will."
Amphitrite rises. "I think it will not," she informs him, lips pulled in an effortless grin. To him, it probably appears smug and demeaning. It's not her fault he's made it so easy to humiliate him. "The ocean listens not to those it does not care to. You're best finding a domain somewhere else, little god."
He glares at her. It should be some degree of terrifying, since he aided in the capture and downfall of the Titans, of Cronus, but he is unclaimed and she is in her home.
His glare is about as scary as a baby jellyfish.
"I will be king of the sea," he says.
She sighs. "We have many monarchs already. What need is there for you to be another?" Her eyes rake over him, judging. "This is not where you belong. Go tie yourself somewhere you fit."
His lips lift into a sneer. "I will take this for my domain whatever I must do."
Amphitrite lifts her brows and starts to sink under. "Your lost time, little god." She goes back to her depths. What impudence in that one. The world would not bend to his wiles just because he ended an era of tyranny. He would have to come across a place to store his divinity somewhere else. The ocean would not bend to him. Others have tried.
None succeeded. Becoming patron of the sea is as easy as being accepted by it. If you are not, you will never be.
Simple as that.
-----
"Fool," she scoffs at a whale, running her hand over its flesh. "Why must all new gods think themselves kings of things already claimed? There are plenty of other things they could tie their divinity to."
The whale echoes a call. Amphitrite rubs it soothingly.
"I know." She flicks her gaze to where the fool had been. "Impudence. May the Primordials never let his name be known."
Her hand flexes.
"It is undeserved."
-----
Poseidon is apparently stubborn, alongside his foolishness. Perhaps when this doesn't pan out, he will be god of screeching fools. It suits him much better than the sea and was unclaimed, waiting for him.
He's also screaming for her.
She crests with impatience, shooting him a look packed with all the cold of her domain. He has the sense (not a complete fool then) to fumble some of his confidence. "I told you the ocean would not be yours," she says, "and yet you returned."
"It must be mine," he replies. His eyes dart to the sky, something uneasy flashing across his face. "There is no choice."
She scoffs. "Hardly. There are a thousand unclaimed things you can leer your power over with hardly any struggle at all."
"I will take the sea or have nothing."
Amphitrite tips her chin up. "Enjoy the emptiness then, little god. Try not to let chaos swallow you. She loves the unclaimed."
"I am not unclaimed," he frowns at her. "I choose the ocean."
"Yet it has not chosen you. Take the rejection and find something else."
His lips part. His teeth are flat and unsuited for the blood of ocean living. "I will be patron of the sea no matter what it takes."
"Find a way for it to take you, then. Be a fool. It's amusing."
He strikes at her with divinity her ocean diverts for her. It has little patience for this imposter and his greed, is fed up with his demands. "I am no fool."
"You're demanding gifts like a petulant child." She looks down her nose at him, haughtily lifts her chin to look elsewhere. "I thought you fought in the war."
His chin flies up, features hardening. "I did."
Her lips curve up. "So where is your power? Tell me, great one, what domain is yours?"
His face flushes. She thinks that if she was on land, he'd tackle her. He's apparently not fool enough to dive in the water for her. Unfortunate. It would have been a fun sight. "What is your domain?" he redirects.
"I am Amphitrite," she tells him. Defeat causes his eyes to darken. He recognizes the name. "I am goddess of the deep and the creatures that dwell there."
"A sea patron," he clarifies, lip thrusted out.
One corner of her lip rises without consent. "Yes."
He wrinkles his nose at her reply, staring petulantly at the sand under his bare feet. He drags the ball of his foot against the sand. "So you mock me," he grumbles. "I am just searching for what you have."
Amphitrite laughs. "I belong to the sea," she says, waves lapping against the deep gills slashed on her throat, curling over her collarbones. She looks like her creatures, like a thing of the ocean. It is of no question that she belongs. It is of every question that he does. "You do not. It is as simple as that."
"That will change."
"And I will enjoy your attempt," she promises.
-----
Calypso frowns at her. "You are encouraging him," she accuses.
"What?" Amphitrite lifts her brows and doesn't let her movement to sit beside Calypso lag with the shock. She settles on the sea floor easily, a jellyfish coming to drift by her shoulder. She wraps one of its stinging tendrils around her finger. "I am doing no such thing."
"You are toying with him like a mortal." Calypso continues on unfettered. Little is capable of doing that, if anything is. Amphitrite has not seen anything that is. "Like you're planning on taking him."
Amphitrite shoots a cold look at the other goddess. What accusations. "It is harmless fun."
"He is a god with power yet unknown. It is not wise to taunt what may yet be stronger than you."
"He is a fool," Amphitrite waves her hand. It will not matter. He is determined to take the sea and he will not. He does not fit and does not have the making to force himself to. He seems bound to be a sea god and she thinks he is foolish enough to try until time's end. He may be a strong god, but unclaimed, she will always be more powerful. Such is how divinity works.
Calypso expels a short breath out her nose. "As are you."
"When are you ever wise?" she bites out, cutting the words into blades with her teeth. "You lurk in parts of the sea not yours. You claim to love the sailors you eat. What wisdom is that?"
"Lack of wisdom does not make me a fool," she replies, unbothered by Amphitrite's harshness. "And I am sea patron just as you are. There is no place not fitting me."
"I am queen of the deep." It is hers by her divinity.
Calypso flicks her gaze over. Her face is composed, unflushed, and she looks bored by the conversation. “You never go that deep. No one does. It borders the land of the dead. Do not try to lay your claim over things you do not want.” Her eyes slide away and her mouth purses with a slight twist. Anger? Disgust? Annoyance? ��And where I dwell goes deeper than the deep. It is the abyss and you are not goddess of that.”
“It’s the principle of it.”
Calypso laughs. “As if you care for principle. We are both gods of something already claimed. Let details flutter where they must. They are not worth bickering for.”
Amphitrite clicks her tongue. Her sharp fingers dig into her flesh. “Yet bicker you do.”
“You are the one trying to claim what is not yours.”
Amphitrite’s face pinches. “You are irritating, today.” She pushes up, gliding away. “I do not wish to be in your presence.”
She feels Calypso lay back. “As you wish,” she says. “Do think before you flirt with the god. He is trouble.”
Amphitrite snorts as she calls a stream to carry her away. She was not flirting with the fool. She was toying with him. Laughing at his idiocy. In what domain was that flirting?
She was not looking for a husband. She was content with how things were. And even if she wasn’t — she doesn’t wish to wed a fool.
That would be foolish of her.
-----
“Amphitrite,” he calls her by name. She has felt his presence at shore for hours, but did not rise to tease him. Calypso’s words turn in her mind.
She was not looking to court this god. But did it appear that way? Despite the accusation, Calypso was clever. She had sharp eyes.
She would not speak untruths like that, but her honesty can grate. Who was she, to tell Amphitrite what her claim was? Did their domain blessing her with a second form fill her head over capacity? Amphitrite could make her own choices. She did not need a goddess, friend or not, telling her what her intentions were.
She did not need others telling her what she was.
She crests over the waves with her blood pounding hot in her veins. It makes her heart glow, a ruddy red that pierces through her translucent skin, pulsing with the beat of her heart. “Fool,” she spits out.
Poseidon lifts his brows. Something like concern passes over his face. It vanishes just as fast. “I require assistance,” he says. It looks like the words are difficult to say. They should be.
She barks a laugh. He flinches at the sound, like she’d flung a spear of divinity at his head. She throws her head back. She pulls in a breath with a grin that stretches her cheeks. “How does your pride taste?” she asks.
She’s being cruel, she knows, but Calypso thinks she was flirting. She thinks that there was enjoyment here. She wants to control Amphitrite? To tell her the reason she is doing things?
Let her see that she’s wrong. Let her see how her pride tastes when she takes it in her teeth and swallows it whole. Let her realize that sharp eyes and a clever head did not make her all-knowing.
The fool widens his stance, squares his shoulders in a vain attempt to look powerful. His divinity is but a babe in his chest, young and fluttering. “What?”
“You’re eating your pride.” She tilts her head. “Not all of it, apparently, but some. I asked how it tasted.”
“You—” he stabs a finger at her face. “You are rude.”
She chuckles, subdued. “And? What reason is there to be kind?” She rises to her feet and steps closer to the god, the ocean still thinly under her feet, tugging at her ankles. She tilts her head and looks up at him. “You are not anything to fear, little god. Not as you are now.” She steps closer.
The water bids her return. She ignores it. She is not flirting. She is not making an enemy, she is making a point.
Let Calypso see this.
“Anyways, you called me here. It is a blessing that I answered. Are you willing to let rudeness send me back without getting what you were hoping for, whatever it is?”
“No.” His hand makes to reach for her but freezes. His fingers twitch. He lowers his arm. “I— forgive me,” he grits, jaw tight with tension. Is he angry with her? Good.
She hums, not denying or accepting the apology. “What did you call me for?”
“Assistance.”
Amphitrite scoffs. “Of course. You have already said. What assistance do you seek?”
“I,” he takes a breath, “I wish to know how I could become a god of the sea.”
She stares at him, waiting for the joke, the laugh.
It does not come. Right. He is not like Calypso with her sharp humor that is often not humorous at all. He is being serious.
Truly, how did he expect to be a god worth fearing if he has to ask how to gain power?
She sighs, pressing the tips of cold nails to her cheek. “I’ve already told you.” She bends her fingers and presses the bend of them to her cheek. “The ocean must take you in turn. It is not a decision yours alone.”
“How do I… get it to take me, then?”
She considers his question.
“Please it or find a patron to take you instead. It will work as well as the domain taking you itself.”
His eyes spark and his hand lifts again.
“No.” She steps back in the surf. The water rushes in around her. “It takes much strength to take another god and farm their divinity. I have no reason to take that burden for you. Find another.”
“You are the only one I have met,” he explains, an undercurrent chopping his words too close together.
One corner of her lip pulls to the side. “Meet another, then. I will not do your dirty work for you.”
His eyes flash up at the sky as a boom rattles through the air. “I do not have time for that,” he tells her gently, eyes flicking between gray clouds and rust-green eyes.
She looks at the sky and shrugs. A storm. Why does that make him flinch? “That is not my bother.”
She turns on her heel. The ocean welcomes her back, tugging her close. It splashes Poseidon’s feet when he takes two strides after her. His fingers brush her shoulder. “What price would it take?”
Amphitrite rolls her shoulder out of his reach. “Pardon?”
“For you to take me.” She turns to look at him. “What price would you accept?”
She purses her lips. “We would have to wed,” she warns. “We would bound unlike any other.”
His breath shakes. The set of his brow stiffens. “What would it take?” he repeats.
Amphitrite taps her fingers against her mouth. He is desperate enough for this? To bind himself to her for the rest of eternity? “It will not be able to be undone,” she says. “And I do not see you with anything worth paying that price.”
He looks at her, beseeching. “There is no time.”
“So you have said.” What a broken record he was. No time, he must be a sea patron. On and on. Why did she think him entertaining?
Because he humiliated himself and seemed blind to it? It was amusing to watch, at first, before he dredged her in, trying to make a prisoner of a settled goddess. For her to take him in a way that gives him hold over the sea, her own weakens. She loses while he gains.
What could he have to make that trade — that loss — worth it? She did not like him as a god or a man. She liked her domain and her creatures.
It was not worth it, to humor him and his fear.
He drops to his knees. The damp sand caves under the blow. He lowers his head to her. “Please,” he asks. “I will do whatever you require. Anything you ask. I need to be made king of the sea.”
Amphitrite settles, folding her legs beneath her. The water surges and recedes around her collarbone. She takes in a considering breath. He was a son of Cronus, a brother of Zeus. There were tales that they were building a place for gods and something like that would surely be quite powerful. If she aids in his endeavor to be the sea’s face there, perhaps she will be face, too. It could not hurt to have an ally among a leader god, a— what did Calypso tell her that one time? A throned god? There were to be twelve, she thinks and they were to be honored by mortals as no god has before. “Convince me.” She tilts her head and weighs his every twitch in her mind.
Desperate gods are not all that different from desperate mortals. Not if the god is a fool, which this one has proven to be.
He will sacrifice more than he is comfortable to pay if she makes him squirm enough. He will offer enough that the deal goes in her favor.
Amphitrite has always been good at making others uncomfortable.
-----
Calypso’s divinity is an easy thing to bear, when they are in the deep, where Amphitrite is most powerful. When they are closer to shore, it twinges something in her. It makes itself a burden difficult to shake.
Calypso’s fury is a tame thing. Her acts of wrath are not sunken ships and slain sailors. Those are calculated, are not done on whim, is not something she does out of anger.
The only thing her anger does is temper her words into silver blades. She is most eloquent when she is furious.
“You are a fool to be told,” she says, dismissing greeting. The cold bite in her voice sinks into Amphitrite’s chest. Her eyes — do not look furious. She does not look angry at all. Not like Amphitrite expected when she settled her deal with the Olympian and took back to her water.
She looks sad.
The cold thing Calypso placed in her chest pulses. “What do you mean?” She lifts her chin, trying to look unaffected. She does not want to have this conversation so close to the surface, where Calypso’s divinity slips in through her gills as easily as water.
It is too distracting. Too— too easy to succumb to, especially if it with sadness that Calypso confronts her and not anger.
“You struck a deal with the Olympian.” Her eyes drift lower, focused on the joint of her collarbone, the little divot where Calypso’s divinity always rests. “It was not a wise deal to strike.”
Amphitrite waves off the words with a scoff. “However do you mean? I know how to bargain things in my favor.”
Calypso purses her lips out. Her eyes lift. They are sadder, now, and Amphitrite glares to keep them from pulling her in. Calypso’s reasoning was always wise but not always wisest. There were other perspectives that occasionally offered wiser things. This was one of those times. Calypso did not know the deal she struck. How could she? Amphitrite shielded both of their words from sinking in the water and Calypso was not near enough to wriggle around it. “Do you.”
She does not say it like a question.
“Yes,” she affirms anyways, her eyes reshaping into a frosty glare.
Calypso’s brow lifts. “Right.” Her eyes sink towards the ocean floor.
Amphitrite propels herself back. She speaks with a lifted lip. “Do not patronize me,” she warns. “I know what I’ve done.”
Their eyes reconnect. Calypso’s gaze is like an anchor, dragging her down. “I doubt that,” she whispers. “I really do.”
“You don’t know,” Amphitrite says, a steep edge to her words. She doesn’t know. She can’t. But that gaze, that sadness — she clearly thinks she knows something. But what?
“For your sake, I hope I don’t.” She bows her head and does nothing as Amphitrite pushes herself forwards and sinks back to her domain. The water pulses with Calypso’s sorrow. It coats Amphitrite’s teeth until the cold of the deep freezes it out and even then, it lingers.
-----
“You are a fool to be told.”
“You struck a deal with the Olympian.”
“It was not a wise deal to strike.”
Calypso’s words have bad habit of festering in Amphitrite’s mind. She tries to brush them off, to leave them to float at the surface, but they sink right alongside her, anchored with steel to her throat. It is a chained collar of worry.
“Do you.”
“I doubt that.”
Patronization that is actually worry. Amphitrite has never known Calypso to needlessly worry.
The words she speaks are always anchored with truth. Weight. Her words never float because there is reason behind each syllable.
Her nails dig into her palms, seeping the water in divinity that will only be hers alone for precious little time. Was Calypso right to be concerned?
An eel skims over her shoulder, curling around to brush against her arm. Amphitrite strokes it with the hand not bloodied in divinity. “What do you think?” she asks. She lifts her other palm and stares at the dull gold. “Was it a mistake?”
The eel swims away.
Amphitrite’s ankle twitches. “What help,” she says. She closes her fingers over her palms, shoulder jolting with the pressure.
What help indeed. What mistake did Calypso see in the deal she made? What flaw was she being blind to?
The dark curls around her. The deep embraces her in its chill and its emptiness. No matter how poor a deal she made, it will still be here whenever she needs it. Her domain will not disappear because she’s abandoning it. It will not abandon her in equal turn.
That is not what it wishes to do.
It chose Amphitrite as a queen and it has little choice but to respect her decisions. If she wishes to deal herself to an Olympian, to bend herself in the way that bends her domain — then it has little option but to obey. Their queen has commanded.
It may be her last order.
-----
"Little king," Amphitrite greets, tilting her chin.
Poseidon’s eyes glint. He looks pleased in a way that worries her, now. Before, she had thought it was just satisfaction at getting what he had spent sun-turns cajoling for.
Had he played her? Had she stepped into his trap? Was he wise enough to set one?
Was she foolish enough to fall for it?
The concern must be showing on her face, because Poseidon’s mouth twists into a grin. Easy and proud, like a king’s.
She was making him king.
He was getting everything he’d asked for. What was he sacrificing to her, to even the field? A few promises a wise man could eventually wriggle his way out from? Some words that could be torn apart?
Words unsworn on the Styx?
Her chin dips as she swallows. Her eyes do not leave her future spouse. The companion she’s going to swear her future and her divinity to.
Calypso had her reason to worry, did she not?
No. Yes.
Poseidon may not be the fool she thought. That much is becoming true. But she is no less wise. The deal may be skewed, but it is not one-sided. It is not unfair.
Amphitrite would never swear herself to anything that could be turned upon her. She does not make a habit of underestimating an enemy enough that she bares her belly to them, that she leaves herself entirely at their mercy.
Poseidon thought her a fool, and struck his bargain on that option. Amphitrite thought him a fool, and struck a deal that could work even if he turned out to be wise.
She does not nest all of her creatures in the same section of sea.
-----
It is not painful.
It feels like it should be. Ripping one’s divinity from their blood should be an excruciating thing. But it is painless.
Her divinity slips from her body like her blood had earlier, when she cut her palm in her heightened emotional state.
It is simple, in other words. So very simple.
Her creatures lurk around them both in the ceremony, netted above them like an elaborate trap. As if either of them could decide to switch their mind now.
Deals have been made. Divinity should not turn back on their blatant word.
“Careful with your words, little god,” she warns, tilting her head as she examines him. He is nice looking, she supposes, though she doesn’t think him nice enough to warrant wedding him. But there are worse looking things she could tie herself to.
As if that was consolation, but it was nice. Her heirs, at least, would have chances to become more.
He lifts his chin at her before tucking it back into place. He is taller, technically, though Amphitrite keeps her feet off the floor so their eyes are level. The sea feels far more frigid than usual.
Is it her domain, mourning what she used to be? Is it mourning her choice to make this god it so obviously rejected its king?
Is it her almost-wedded, already controlling what is all around him?
No. Her domain would not grant him his gifts until it was due.
The vows, too, feel as if they should stick in her throat or come out bubbling in electrified acid. But they, too, are easy. They slip out like the fine silk donning them both, silks dyed matching shades of blue.
The color suits her well. It offsets her hair. It does not suit him. It is not ill-suiting, but it does not suit him as well as the color of the domain he’s to control should. The color should, when worn, appear as if it is the only color that would do him justice. It should be the only thing that fits the divinity humming under his skin.
On him, it is just a color.
A nice color and nothing more.
It was not what it should be. He was a false king. His divinity was not made to churn the tides and her domain was not made to crash under his order. She was not made to be bound like this and he was not made to be bound to her.
After, when her divinity is raw in her chest, glowing heart pulsing weakly behind glass ribs, she takes his hand. “I hope you find this worth it,” she says, looking at him through her lashes.
He squeezes her hand and pulls his back. “Of course it was,” he replies.
She wonders if he can feel the strings wrapped around his joints. If he can feel the pull over him she has knotted in his chest. He made her swear to him the rights of her divinity, the capability of making ocean obey his command.
She made him swear his devotion to her will.
Can he feel that? Does he know the depth of that vow? That they were more than words and that as her divinity is bound to him, his is bound to her similarly?
It was, as Calypso said, an unfair deal. But it was unfair for them both. Painful like stabs and broken bone. Like horse and cow. Weak comparability.
They were both losers. That was unquestionable.
It was silly of Calypso, though, to think that Amphitrite did not know what she was doing.
She was no stranger to making deals.
-----
“So it is done.” Calypso is lying on the floor, observing the sharp points of nails she isn’t bothering to blunt. She doesn’t like to bother with shedding all the features of the predator she is, especially right after she’s taken a ship to sate her appetite.
Amphitrite never bothers to look mortal. It is not the form that is natural, like it is (more or less) for most of the divine. She is queen of the sea and she looks the part. She is of the sea and one could tell at a glance. “Yes,” she replies, digging up sand with her fingers.
Hers are sharper, technically, as Calypso’s aren’t really nails. They’re more akin to the suckers that line her arms when she is Kraken, just lengthened and enlarged to fit the rough anatomy of human fingers. If she gets them in something, there is no getting them out.
They are dangerous in a different way.
“Have the effects settled yet?” Calypso lifts her chin and the movement allows Amphitrite to see the thick bob of a swallow. As if she was uncertain. Concerned.
Amphitrite thought they were done with that. The deal is done. Calypso does not know better.
“What effects?” she asks, though her bones throb with the fragility of her lessened divinity. She’s been weak, since she wed the fool king, but it is strengthening slowly. She will be back to normal. It may take some decades to be back completely, but that is nothing to her.
Calypso’s breath bubbles up. “Of gifting away your divinity.” She tilts her head and slides her gaze over. “How fares your hold on your domain?”
“It is fine,” Amphitrite defends instantly. She pauses. Is it? Usually, she is approached and surrounded by the wildlife she rules over but that has been absent. It is an effect of her weak divinity. When that is back, so will they.
The sailor goddess hums, noncommittal. “I would be wary of each irregularity.”
“There has been none.”
Calypso’s eyes roam the empty water around them. It looks casual enough, but this is Calypso. She is making a show of looking, turning her head when there is no need. “Right,” she says. “Still. Do not say I did not try to warn you of the danger you enrolled for.”
“It was not dangerous.”
That, Calypso does not answer.
-----
Poseidon is building them a castle. He is insisting upon it. “What kind of rulers would we be,” he says, his hands clasped around her arms too tightly, “if we did not have a throne?”
Amphitrite pries her way out of his grip. “No rulers at all,” she replies. She looks at the construction, at the rising architecture of gems and coral. It is a beautiful thing, already, not even half built, but she is beginning to be aware of the dangers Calypso spoke of.
Her divinity is tied to her husband and he is, in turn, binding it to this castle. To the throne that will be hers. He has not admitted as such, but her divinity hums in the desire, the attempt. She would point it out, would fight, but there is little point to. She cannot undo what is done. She will have to live with her vow and attempt to find some other way out.
“It is beautiful,” she tells him, because he wants to hear it and it will do no harm to be on his good side.
He beams, watching the construction with pride. “Is it not?”
No, her domain whispers in her ear, monotone and sad at once. It does not have emotion like the living, but she can feel its mourning all the same. When it had accepted her as a patron, it was not for this. It is not.
Her domain sympathizes, in the only way it can. It does not offer help. It could, she believes, shatter their deal if it wished, but. The ocean takes after its namesake. Oceanus does not care for what happens in his home and body and neither does the ocean. They are, in fact, one in the same.
Amphitrite holds her eyes shut a moment. “You can go to Olympus,” she tells him.
His head whips over, a fight brimming on his tongue.
“That construction is more important for you to oversee. I can handle this.”
He squints.
She laughs, tilting her head mischievously. “Do you not trust me, husband dear?”
His mouth parts and he bites the words back with a click. “No,” he says. But, all the same, he turns to join his brothers in the making of a place for gods.
She smiles at his retreat. It looks like silver.
The new husband is so hungry for recognition, he’ll want to spend his days on the throne that matters. There was no glory in being a sea king, if you were searching for masses of mortal worship. The ocean would not provide that.
So she had the mercy of knowing he would not be a constant fixture at her side. She could pretend everything was sparkling, in his absence. That her throne was hers alone.
Despite the horror it took to get it — she’s liking the idea of a palace. Of a throne. Of the comfort of knowing her place in mortal’s mind is secure. She can lounge, now, and still be remembered just the same.
Tension leaks from her shoulders.
She thinks she could learn to like this. She did, after all, gain more than she gave.
What was a little divinity, in the end, for a palace and memory steadfast?
-----
Calypso is… displeased is the kind way to put it but neither of them are kind. She is appalled in a wrathful, furious way. That still feels too kind. Calypso feels more Kraken than goddess.
“Pardon?” she asks, sharp teeth snapping around the word.
“You heard me,” Amphitrite says, leaning back against a wall of her new palace, rubies studded around her in a bloody halo. “Do not feign deafness.”
Calypso laughs. There’s a wildness in the gesture, a feral sort of energy to it that raises Amphitrite’s guard. “I must be going so,” she says. “Because surely I did not hear you right.”
“You did,” Amphitrite confirms.
Calypso looks at her like. Like she’d just admitted to relinquish her divinity for a mortal child. Like the very idea is too wild even for them. “What ill poisoned your mind?” she asks. Her arms gesture around to the glimmering castle. “This was not worth the price. It is a thing. You could have done this yourself if you wished.”
Amphitrite watches the outburst languidly. She has never seen Calypso so active. Even when they are racing and she is enjoying herself, there is a relaxed sort of grace to her movements, a backing of calm that permeates through anything else. Even when she is worked up, there is still sense about her. Amphitrite cannot find any now. “You wouldn’t understand. Not with your mind pried shut.”
“He fooled you.”
“He did no such thing. I am aware of the deal I made.”
Calypso scoffs. “Then you are the foolish one. You may not understand the gravity yet, but this choice will grow to haunt you.”
“Sure it will.” Amphitrite looks down her nose. “I fail, though, for the record, to see how this,” she wiggles her fingers outward, gesturing to the palace, “could ever be something I’d regret.”
Calypso’s mouth parts. She bites her words back with a tense jaw. “I suppose we will just see then,” she says, voice back to its typical distanced tone.
Amphitrite nods. “We will.”
Calypso nods back. She does not look pleased, still and that is not entirely a surprise. She is so rarely pleased, when things do not go the way she thinks is best. But she is not entirely displeased, either, which is an accomplishment alone, even if a miniscule one. She eyes the walls of coral and gems, mouth twisting down as she takes in the opulence of it.
It is about the reaction Amphitrite expected. Calypso’s tastes are simple and this is anything except. But that was fine. The palace was not for Calypso nor would she reside there. So it did not matter if she liked it. It was to Amphitrite’s taste and it was to be home.
A place easy to pin. There were perks to having a place to settle and Amphitrite fully intends to take advantage of them. Having mortals on hand was one. She’d always wanted to keep one long term. Her chance for that had come.
Calypso’s eyes drift back to Amphitrite. There is something in her gaze that tries to tug at Amphitrite’s divinity. It has weight that Amphitrite has never felt, not when she is this deep, in the heart of her domain. She swallows it down.
“So we will,” Calypso repeats.
Amphitrite knows she is right. This castle is to be a kind of prison for them both, her and her new husband. There was no worry in that. Calypso did not know details and she was assuming the worst. It was a sweet thought. Her fault for not believing in Amphitrite’s cruelness, however. She knew how to deal herself sweetness from a bitter fool.
Still, to be a good sport, she nods.
Time will prove one of them wrong.
*****
This is still all drippingmoon's fault. Hope you liked what I created.
Tags: @caffeinewitchcraft @super-writer-gal @drippingmoon @blindthewind @notwritinganyflufftoday @mel-writes-with-her-dragons
#writeblr#writblr#creative writing#writing#greek myth retellings#greek mythology#amphitrite#poseidon#calypso#nikkywritesstories#my writing#wip ocean's heart#wip oceans heart#this is such a bare bones way to tell the story and i am undecided on if thats a good or bad thing#i could totally go into this more though#so if you want more. send asks? ill rant happily#i think its the tone i find off though. its a little different from how i usually write. probably why i have mixed feelings on this#or i hope thats why at least
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