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linksthoughtbrambles · 1 year

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The Long Climb Toward Summer

A gift for @a03-anxiousandafraid for the Hateno HIdeout Merry Midna's Mixup gift exchange! A huge thank-you to @bellecream for beta-reading this!

BotW AU, Zelink if you squint, about ~7.5 K words. You can read it on ao3, too!

Summary: An unusual winter solstice celebration prompts Zelda to take a close look at her knight—and her people.

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The castle staff had outdone themselves.

Zelda had seen a great many balls, festivals, and celebrations in her eighteen years in Hyrule Castle.

She’d seen the astounding centennial New Year’s celebration: a hundred paper lanterns entrusted to the sky, emblazoned with the royal crest, Hylia’s golden wings fluttering westward with the wind, a stream of emblems thanking the midnight for allowing them to pass it by.

The ceremony on Zelda’s eleventh birthday had bordered on ethereal. Clergy from all over Hyrule had come to give Zelda their blessing—blessings for her journey from childhood to adulthood, for the grace to take Hylia’s power within and wield it for her people, and for her own protection, that she may be steadfast in body and mind in the face of the Calamity to come. Shafts of sun had found her as she accepted each with humility. Past sunset, the acolytes lit the cathedral with thousands of teardrop-shaped candles, faith evaporating the kingdom’s tears before her. The experience had left her falling into an exhausted sleep, serene, certain she would awaken transformed into Hylia’s light (though, of course, that hadn’t happened, and the weeks following drew dark curtains about Zelda’s thoughts).

Last year’s ball commemorating her father’s fiftieth birthday had been opulent indeed, boasting a host of dainty foods to coat in warm, velvety cheese and rich liquid chocolate, decorations appearing as though they’d been gilded, brazen, defiant against the early September Sun. The court poet had composed the day’s unyielding sounds: brass boasting a fearlessness of the future. It had been impossible for anyone in that room to brood within solitary thoughts (except Zelda, of course).

She had seen those remarkable occasions and many others.

Yet this—this—rooted Zelda to the spot with unmitigated awe the instant she passed beneath the archway, even driving thoughts of her intrusively persistent knight-shadow from her. She didn’t notice the swift scuff of booted toes on stone as he avoided colliding with her.

The traditional ball at winter solstice had barely altered from year to year within her lifetime; a lovely exercise in lighting the long-lingering dark, it made a night of pleasance and tinkling glass which she typically could no longer enjoy. Bright as they were, candles could not light the deep recesses of Zelda’s heart, nor could they deflect the darkness of black pupils following her in silent condemnation; Zelda, herself, ought to have been the light, by now. She wasn’t.

These previous experiences had left her unprepared for this year’s departure from the cyclical.

Brilliant rays of diffracted, rainbow light peppered the ballroom’s surfaces of stone, white tablecloth, glass, and a hundred other myriad colors and textures belonging to food, clothing, skin and fixtures Zelda couldn’t process all at once except in overall impression: hope—look at the light.

Those soft rainbows scattered in through the room’s tall windows, through the multi-paned balcony doors to the frigid outer air, emerging from an avian menagerie of ice sculptures arrayed just outside. Four huge birds loomed, pristine as polished glass: a swan, a crane, a dove, and an owl. They each bore the appearance of that stance just before flight, angled inward to face the fifth sculpture, still of wings, though not precisely a bird: the traditional three-dimensional representation of the royal family’s crest, the wings encompassing the lower half of the symbol of three triangles. This particular sculpture’s plumes bore extraordinary detail-work in the true shape of feathers, and the surfaces tweaked the Sun’s golden light into all those shapes and colors.

Just within the border of the windows, a veritable flock of birds hung, wings arced in the grace of mid-flight blessed with gentle updrafts—birds of paper. Birds of all kinds: sparrows, pigeons, herons, swallows, hawks, pheasants, gulls, all painstakingly shaped and dyed, gentle suggestions of the true bright colors, the sweet sight of spring ever growing with the birds’ flight north (for they all faced that way) as the Sun’s spectral presence shifted among them.

The gargantuan evergreen tree beside the left balcony door stood as the only familiar monument. Even decorated with shining ribbon, glittering baubles, and dangling spears and spirals of cut glass, its thick needles devoured light—each shaft of brilliance falling upon them splintered, usurped by each spindly leaf’s deep green, diminishing to extinction in silence. The tree’s height and width entirely hid its innards. A large assortment of offerings already lay in thanks at its foot: gifts for the less fortunate in Castle Town, a tradition in the royal family to soften the dual cruelties of cold and dark.

It was why this event posed the greatest challenge for the castle’s kitchen, too—for on this night, the castle fed more than its own inhabitants and party guests. No one in the town would go hungry. Zelda had seen the trestle tables carried far below her, arrayed in a long line to the gatehouses where dinner would be served for any who wanted it. The food at the ball itself would be elegant, but nothing so opulent or plentiful as that on her father’s birthday.

A good many people had begun to partake, quite a few couples turning about the dance floor, rainbows dappling their flowing forms.

Her father was not among the dancers or the grazers.

He was walking toward her.

The light appeared far less entrancing with him growing in her vision.

She swallowed, her chin raising the merest fraction. Whatever it would be this time, she would bear it. Perhaps he thought she had taken too long in her study of the shrine uncovered at the quarry, time she ought to have devoted to supplication at the feet of the Goddess.

Her father’s heavy boots stopped a few feet from her left. He towered over her, his face turned down, a crease between his brows, a slight frown as he considered her. He glanced rightward toward Link and blinked, his head and eyebrows raised as though carefully evaluating her knight, too.

Her father’s eyes then returned to hers-

-and his face softened.

“Zelda,” he said, stepping forward with a smile—a tired one, but genuine—and taking her hands in his with a sign. “Well. You look splendid tonight, my dear.”

Her mouth nearly fell open. The royal seamstress had, indeed, crafted a lovely gown, its heavy skirt well-suited to the cold should she exit to the balcony, its textured cream fabric catching the light within sweeping curves of royal blue and gold embroidery, irregular yet natural, as currents in a gentle brook. Yet the dress was hardly worthy of surprise. Her gowns were always lovely.

Her father remarking upon it was another matter entirely.

“How very much like your mother,” he continued.

The room seemed suddenly still as he patted her hands and a recollection arrived—an image of him with her mother at the last of these balls while she lived. He’d smiled often, then.

“Th- thank you, father,” Zelda said.

“Ah,” he sighed. “Come. On this long, dark night… let’s be light, ourselves.” He offered his arm to her. She slid hers in as he led her to the dance floor.

The father-daughter dance occurred each year, but this time… this time, he smiled at her as they joined those already making merry. He spoke of Zelda’s mother: of how she’d loved the solstice ball, how she always pushed him to dance in a far more spritely way than he’d been comfortable with, and how he’d obliged her, of course, since he’d had such difficulty refusing her anything.

“Indeed, daughter, we’d disagreed at first on what to name you. I’d thought it confusing for your name to be identical to your grandmother’s. I thought tradition ought to bow to practicality. For were the two of you in a room, and I were to say, ‘Zelda,’ two heads would swivel my way without some other way to clarify.” He humphed a laugh. “I’d begun to refer to your grandmother as Zelda One, and you as Zelda Two—only in your mother’s presence, of course. I daresay I’d have been in deep trouble were I to refer to the queen as ‘Zelda One,’ especially as our history makes it quite clear that she was, at the very least, the two-thousand-and-twelfth.” He grinned at her, his eyes crinkling. “It turns out, as usual, my wife was right. The name Zelda suits you supremely.”

Zelda’s eyes had grown more watery than usual as he spoke. “Thank you, father.”

He harumphed again.

When the song changed, he nodded to her and walked beside her to the floor’s edge, where a crowd had begun to build. “I hope you shall enjoy yourself tonight, daughter.”

She thanked him again, and he headed toward one of his financial advisors. Most likely, they had business to discuss.

Zelda stood quite perplexed, even lost, her usual context quite displaced.

“May I have this dance?” a voice said.

Zelda turned to find the court poet’s polite, yet warm smile directed at her. She’d always liked him. His company on several of her expeditions had been most welcome. She returned his smile. “Certainly, Zuho,” she said, placing her hand in the one he’d offered, his brows raising at her acceptance.

“Wonderful,” he said.

She’d danced with him once before, last year, and he’d been an obvious mess of nerves when she had, likely worried he’d make a mistake and embarrass himself in front of the Crown Princess of Hyrule. When he’d spoken, it had been stilted and consisting of nothing but facts about the music scheduled for the evening (not that Zelda would complain—she liked to learn, whether it be about guardian remains or music). The current experience differed in its entirety. His smile remained warm and he spoke with her easily about a piece he’d been writing about the shrines they had visited. Then the conversation turned to her.

“I am glad to see, Highness, that you appear in good spirits today,” he said.

“Oh.” The sound of surprise escaped her. Fortunately, she’d made it with Zuho, and not with some landowning bigot who would look down his nose at her for being a Hylian and not an automaton devoid of all emotion. “Yes, well… tonight has been pleasant thus far.”

Zuho’s smile broadened. His eyes flicked toward the solstice tree far across the room. “I see. Would that have something to do with losing your shadow?”

Zelda blinked, then followed his line of vision.

Her knight stood straight and stoic, expressionless, his eyes staring at the far wall with marked disinterest, directly in front of the (still growing) pile of gifts surrounding the tree. He held his hands at his sides as though ready, at any moment, to draw that irksome sword of his.

It was the furthest he’d been from her outside her chambers in months.

Zelda turned back to Zuho, feeling more than a little pleased. “I hadn’t thought of it specifically until now, but you may be right.”

Zuho grinned.

She danced with the castle’s steward next. He’d always had a bit of a soft spot for her. He spent a few minutes reminiscing on how she’d occasionally steal herself down to the castle kitchen, to the pantry, in search of fruitcake.

“As though the Princess of the realm couldn’t have it delivered to her chamber,” he chuckled.

Zelda grinned. “I have always preferred to do things for myself.”

“Ha! Including cutting the cake still sitting on its pantry shelf.”

“Indeed! It was freshest that way.”

“It also meant you could cut quite a large slice.”

“It was more efficient than cutting two or three small slices.”

He laughed openly. “Ah- Princess. I must admit I miss those days. I hope I shall live to see the next Princess in this castle. Perhaps she, too, will have an extraordinary love of fruitcake.”

She laughed with him.

He bowed out as the dance ended, and Zelda found herself wandering toward the refreshments table, a pensive smile on her face, confused, at first, why that conversation had touched her so. She ladled herself a generous portion of mulled meade and sipped it, the warmth slipping down her throat, coiling outward from her stomach to cradle her chest in the glow of comfort. A child—a baby—that was it. No one in this castle had spoken to her of such things—not ever.

A future.

Children.

Not the looming threat of the Calamity and her ability—or lack thereof—to defend Hyrule from it.

She breathed a puff of surprised air, rippling the surface of her drink.

Perhaps the friendly, calming nature of her first three dances had set the evening’s tone for everyone in the room.

Or perhaps her own demeanor had changed thanks to them. She couldn’t be sure.

But her next dance partner had greeted her with a genuine smile, if a bit closed, and not a single veiled insult passed his lips.

This became true for the one which followed.

And the next.

Until by her seventh dance, Zelda’s countenance had become truly merry. She spoke freely and easily. She and all her dance partners had steadfastly ignored politics in favor of all manner of other, more pleasant conversation.

The minister of agriculture raved about new recipes from an upstart chef in Lurelin who had made razorclaw crab a sudden sensation despite its rubbery flesh compared to its close crab relations’. His detailed descriptions made her mouth water.

The general visiting from Akkala Citadel spoke of the extraordinary fall they’d had that year, of the leaves turning even more vibrant colors than usual, and of children making all manner of fun with them—leaf piles, leaf crafts, leaf imprints left on paper through rubbed charcoal—the mystery of his fascination with them solved when he revealed his own children’s construction of a leaf-crown for him which (he claimed) had left him with bits of dry leaves in his hair for three days.

Then Robbie had claimed her hand for the next dance. She still enjoyed herself. Mostly. She would, perhaps, have felt more comfortable had he removed his goggles for the party. The conversation, blessedly, turned to guardian parts and his pleasure at discovering those miniaturized cores to power handheld weapons.

“Oh-oh YE-AH! I’m like the breeze of pure intellect through the tall grass… of ignorance!!!” Robbie declared.

Zelda very nearly managed not to laugh, but other dancers’ half-stifled giggles crept their way into her gut and she couldn’t help it.

“Laugh if you must. Just KEEP dancing,” he said with a smirk.

At least she hadn’t insulted him.

A brief break afterward found her huddled at the punch bowl, even hotter and more alcoholic than the mulled meade had been, with Robbie, Purah, and Impa chattering about the Sheikah Slate.

“I can’t believe you took a picture of that, Princess,” Purah said with a snort.

“Why shouldn’t I commemorate important occasions, as you have?” Zelda said in self-defense.

“Commemorate whatever you want, but why take pictures of just empty space? You should’ve had Link kneel and take the shot—OH! Oh, no, Princess! You should’ve gotten all the way back into blessing-pose, your hands, like—all the way up to the sky and your mouth like ahhhhh-“

“That’s not how the blessing-“

“Shush, I’m not done!”

Zelda shushed, somehow unphased despite her rank.

“Anyway, you should’ve been like you were blessing Link even though you were already done, and he should’ve been doing the kneeling thingie-“

“Genuflection,” Zelda offered.

“Yeah, that! And you should’ve let Urbosa take the picture. Snappity snap!”

“Urbosa didn’t know how-“

“So?! It’s easy! You could’ve showed her.”

“Mipha seemed more interested in the slate than she did,” Impa pointed out.

“Oh nooo,” Purah said with a sweeping gesture, somehow not spilling a single drop of her hot punch despite it being in her gesturing-hand. “Nope. Not Mipha. That would’ve been awkward.”

Zelda’s brows furrowed. “Why should it be awkward?”

Purah stared at her with an exaggeratedly-dropped jaw. “Are you kidding?”

“Why should I be?”

“You didn’t notice-?“

The visiting trade minster from Labrynna chose that moment to interrupt, asking for her next dance.

It turned out to be a rather amusing ruse, she discovered, when he used the dance to ask her all manner of questions about the court poet.

“Forgive me, Princess, but as you’re the only person he’s danced with I’d rather wondered if I could prevail upon you to answer a few questions?”

“I don’t see why not,” she said.

“Is he married?” he said in a half-whisper.

“Is he…? Oh. Oh, no, he isn’t.”

At the end of the song, he made a bee-line for Zuho and Zelda absently wondered whether he’d have any luck. She’d no idea who the court poet did or didn’t fancy.

It reminded her of that earlier eyeline to her appointed knight. She turned her gaze, once more, on the tree.

The Sun had set, and with it the room had grown less bright but warmer, hues of orange-gold spread by the glittering of brazier light filtered through those monumental ice sculptures on the balcony, many candles lit in candleholders painstakingly-placed in a wave-like pattern reminiscent of a southern wind, as though spurring all those paper birds northward to return home. In aid of the usual sources of light in the room, they left the darkness with nowhere to shelter-

Nowhere except that tree.

Its green could barely be discerned in light of such warmth—without the sweet blues of sky in the windowpanes. It loomed, near-black, towering by fifteen-fold over her knight, who hadn’t moved a millimeter in any direction. She watched him, curious, waiting for any sign he yet lived, and hadn’t become a statue, a decoration along with all the other inanimate objects in the room. He didn’t even blink.

She doubted he knew of her eyes upon him, so unwaveringly he stared straight out from his vantage before the prickling black.

Her chin raised.

Now she knew how to be rid of him. Or at least, not dogged by his constant footsteps.

Perhaps she ought to request a ball each week.

She shook herself, ashamed, for a moment, at such a wasteful thought.

It was the first unpleasant moment she’d had since her father’s hands took hers.

It would be the chosen hero who would cause it.

Well, she needn’t allow it to continue.

She scanned the crowd, finding one of the many influential landowners from central Hyrule. This one held nearly fifteen percent of all the land at gatepost town and had been of great help in housing the Sheikah excavating various sites on the Great Plateau. She made her way toward him and began quite a pleasant conversation with fervent thanks for his assistance.

The celebration moved well into the night with a calm grace. Zelda partook of another glass of punch, listening to Impa’s stories of children in Kakariko and how they spend solstice watching the town’s most skilled climber scale the tallest of those peaks surrounding the village and light a single torch atop it, a torch they would keep lit all until dawn in defiance of the year’s longest night. Groups of them would run to the great fairy’s fountain and shower her with hand-made trinkets of polished stone; they’d wonder if she would wear them, and if they would ever see her to find out. They’d give thanks for her water which never froze, and their parents would have to herd them back toward their beds—but they’d keep peeking, whenever they could, at that single lit torch, until the Sun finally rose and began its long climb toward summer.

The Rito had similar traditions—firing blazing arrows in the direction of the sunrise. The Gorons preferred to spend the night basking in their hottest of hot springs. The Zora lit their waterways from below with luminous stone, representing the light of the Sun reaching them even in the darkest night through the earth itself. The Gerudo typically enjoyed the (relatively) cool day and kept the bazaar open all night. Urbosa had told her of the tiny, flaring lights, like shards of fire-arrows for the children, magical embers, that the desert may never lose its heat.

Zelda wondered, not for the first time, what the Zonai would have done. They knew so little of them, with their written history problematic at best. She well knew history books were written by the victors. Perhaps, someday, she would have the luxury to delve deeper into those questions, too.

“So, are you going to ask him to dance?” Impa said.

Zelda stared at her. “Whom?”

Impa raised an eyebrow. “Link.”

Zelda scoffed, smiling. “I am not.”

“Really?”

“Truly.”

“Huh.”

“Why should this surprise you?”

“Well. I mean. I figured—since he hadn’t danced with anyone else-“

“Of course, he hasn’t. He’s on duty.”

“He always seems like he’s on duty.”

“W- well…” She thought a moment, trying to envision a time she’d seen Link do something other than be on duty.

He ate food. Quite a lot of it.

Or so she’d heard.

No- no, he’d eaten when they’d traveled together, of course. He’d done so quickly and efficiently. While still guarding her. But that wasn’t quite on duty, was it?

Zelda shifted her feet.

When, precisely, was Link off-duty?

He’d dogged her every step since her father appointed him to her service. A few paces behind her, always. He left her at her door each night and she opened it to the familiar sight of his back each morning, his back adorned with the sword, its blue and gold hilt wrapped in green, and its opulent scabbard on immediate display in her vision.

What a thing to start her day to.

A few nights, she’d been sure he’d been practicing his forms on the bridge between her chamber and study, too. Unless, of course, she’d been dreaming…

“Princess Zelda?” Impa asked, her voice less certain. “Did I offend you?”

“Oh- oh no, Impa, of course not. Why should you think so?”

“You just… I wasn’t suggesting anything.”

Zelda shook her head. “Like what?”

Impa took another sip of her meade. “Um. Nothing in particular.”

Zelda had no idea what to make of that.

She spent a good deal more time in relaxed conversation throughout the room. She danced with Zuho again and the captain of the garrison at Lake Hylia. A string of dances found her eyes drawn, with each turn, toward the tree, the gifts about it now piled so high they stood taller than her appointed knight in most places. He seemed to shrink with each glance, though he never moved.

It appeared as though the world had grown around him, leaving him in the great shadow of the tree.

Zelda nearly rolled her eyes at herself.

When, exactly, was Link off-duty?

The time must be nearing ten o’clock. The dainty deserts had been served hours ago. Link had joined her this morning at eight o’clock outside her door. For her, this was merely her life—she was neither on nor off duty, precisely—but for him, he had been at work a minimum of 14 hours. He’d eaten something quickly when she’d taken lunch. That was all.

She tamped the groan which threatened to leave her at her inconvenient empathy. Thus far, this had been a perfectly pleasant evening, despite all odds. She’d ruin it for herself should she walk over there. She knew what he’d do if she tried to dismiss him, to enjoy the remainder of the party as a guest and not… whatever this was. It’s not as though other guards weren’t present.

She’d barely said a word to her dance partner. She realized with a start the song had ended, and he seemed more than a little leery of her – then she realized she’d been squeezing his hand hard enough to leave a red mark.

“Oh—please, pardon me. My- my shoes hurt.”

“Oh,” he said. “How unpleasant for you, Princess. Would you like to lean on me? I can take you to a chair.”

She smiled at him a little bit—a son of the richest woman in Tabantha village, and quite young. “Thank you, but I shan’t sit yet.”

He nodded, smiling awkwardly, and bowed out.

Zelda sighed, keeping her hands carefully un-fisted, as she moved in as stately a manner as possible toward her stock-still appointed knight.

He made no sign he knew of her approach until she’d left the dance floor, his eyes only then flicking in her direction for an instant. They seemed a brighter blue than usual. It threw her for a moment—in this deeply red, orange, and gold light, his eyes ought to have dulled according to predictable reflective and absorptive properties of materials in certain light. She cleared her throat, finding it odd, even to her, that she’d suddenly considered her knight’s irises a ‘material’ rather like she’d evaluate properties of guardian parts and various types of ancient Sheikah stone.

She reached him, standing before him and slightly to his left. He continued staring at whatever point in the distance he’d decided to fixate on for the past seven hours.

Zelda took a deep breath. “Sir Link. You have remained in this precise position since we arrived. There’s no need. You are dismissed.”

He blinked.

She shifted her feet. “Please, join the party. There are quite a few guards about. You needn’t remain on duty.”

His eyes moved at that, though not toward her. They flickered minutely, barely a fraction from that point he’d been so focused upon, as if searching for something near it.

Irritation sparked within her ribcage. He never spoke, but why would he not even look at her?

“Knight,” she said, her tone stern, but stopped herself short at the tiniest change of expression on his face.

He’d flinched.

Hadn’t he?

Zelda’s lips parted as she squinted at him, wondering if she’d imagined it.

She took in his form once more, begrudgingly impressed he could remain so still for so long without shifting his weight.

He ought to at least move about a bit.

With that thought came Impa’s phantom words in her ear: So, are you going to ask him to dance?

She nearly rolled her eyes at herself again.

She’d lost her shadow for the evening… mostly. Why would she request its return? It would be foolish.

She studied him, realizing while he was certainly broader than she, more muscular, his height would hardly be different—rather like the young man she’d just danced with. So young.

He might not even know how to dance.

His size would be an advantage there, she supposed. It would be easier for her to lead in a clandestine manner without leaning back to drag him along.

He really oughtn’t continue to stand there. Zelda could imagine what stories would be spun when the warmth and the drink had faded, and the morrow came in cold, stark reality—when people’s voices became spiteful again. They’d say she treated her knight poorly, wouldn’t they?

Yes. That was an excellent reason to stop his pointless vigil. She felt vindicated.

“Knight,” she said, “if you shall not move on your own, I shall instead request you dance the next with me.” She held her hands clasped before her, waiting.

His eyes finally, finally, dragged their way toward hers. The journey seemed torturous. Perhaps he’d been still too long. Perhaps moving something as delicate as eyes required a good deal more concentration after such a long, unbroken stare.

As he found her line of vision, that impression struck, once again, of his blues seeming oddly bright. They matched his tunic, didn’t they? The tunic had darkened more. Something about them left her breathless, her brows drawing together, drawing deep.

Her knight nodded slowly—not the curt nod he usually used. Perhaps he felt stiff.

Zelda’s stomach fluttered. He hadn’t offered his hand. She pointedly looked at it, then joined her eyes to his once more.

He got the message.

His hand rose in a fluid motion, in exactly the position it should have been were he to ask her to dance.

A little relieved, she took it and placed her hand on his shoulder as proper-

And gasped.

What was that?

A shuddering, pulsating- what? Beneath her hand on his shoulder.

She stared at him, breathing fast, uncertain. “Sir Link,” she whispered. “Are you well?”

There it was again—that lengthy nod.

She didn’t believe him.

Was that-

His heart?

Could she feel it even at the opposite shoulder? How violently must it be beating for it to be so?

A voice in her head told her quite plainly she oughtn’t switch hands to find out. People would notice if she suddenly decided to dance backwards.

She did it anyway, removing her left hand…

…and placing the right one above his heart.

Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump.

She winced, her mouth drawing into an open frown.

His expression remained unchanged.

Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump.

“Sir- sir Link. Are you well?!”

That nod again.

That slow nod, and those… bright eyes.

She hardly knew what she was doing. Her body moved on its own, following some instinctual directive, her thoughts far, far behind it as she took his hand and led him around the tree, closer to the windows, away from the light and the eyes around them. She’d thought to speak with him outside, but she realized with another shot of irritation several groups of people had gathered out there, admiring the sculptures and the now-brightening moonlight.

So, she did the only thing she could to hide them completely. She turned, pulling him between the tree and the outer wall—and pushed him inside, both hands on his chest.

The tree’s limbs had grown thick, but on this side the gifts were absent, making it easier to force their way in, branches and needles tugging at their hair, their clothing, and Zelda’s skirt, especially. She paid it no mind, traipsing through it just as she would an irritating growth of bushes surrounding a shrine. Once buried deep in the relative darkness, she released him, finding his eyes once more.

“You are unwell,” she said, focusing on that brightness, on whether it was what she’d thought, but it couldn’t be, because this was her utterly statuesque appointed knight.

He made no answer. A swallow worked its way down his throat.

“Sir Link. Your- your heart. It is hammering unaccountably.” She raised her eyebrows, pointedly ensnaring his eyes with her own. “Have you taken ill with a fever?”

That seemed to startle him. He shook his head.

She took a deep breath, then gingerly returned her hand to his chest—this time directly above his heart.

THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP

Either his heart’s palpitations had become even more violent, or her proximity to his heart beneath his ribs made the raw severity of his condition apparent. She knew little of medicine, but she knew enough to understand a Hylian heart shouldn’t beat so fast. This—this was the heart of a terrified fox near the end of the hunt, ragged and desperate-

Certain of death.

She stared at her own hand, feeling the hidden heart of her shadow.

She breathed.

Had it always been like this?

Had he followed her all this time… treading in her wake… with this terror ever-beating in his chest?

She finally found his eyes again.

They were shimmering.

She nearly asked him.

So nearly.

But she knew—she knew he would remain silent. Why wouldn’t he? She’d… never been particularly kind to him, had she? She never turned around to check on her shadow—to see if he was well.

Gingerly—with immense care—she raised her hands to either side of his face, approaching at a pace so languid he could stop her should he truly wish to.

Her right hand touched his cheek first, and his lips parted, sound finally issuing from his disused throat.

“N- don’t-“ he said.

Her left hand touched his cheek, and at that instant, liquid pooled, overflowing, streaking down that cheek; he turned that side of his face from her in swift shame, eyes shut.

“No- no, S-… Link…” Zelda said, brushing that tear from his cheek with all four of those fingers which had been at his cheekbone, her thumb hovering, uncertain, near his mouth. “Link…”

The eyelid still visible to her quivered, holding back whatever pain had collected there, but she wouldn’t allow it. Now she knew he’d been hiding such poisonous emotion, she couldn’t let him turn back in.

She brushed that cheek with her thumb, so gently, traced his cheekbone with it.

“It’s alright,” she whispered.

His face changed.

She’d seen anguish before. She’d seen it in her father after her mother’s passing.

She’d never seen it in someone as young as her.

His mouth opened and twisted down, water springing from the eye he’d attempted to seal shut, deep creases appearing between his eyebrows.

Her thumb swept the first tears away as her lips quivered. Some part of Zelda’s core knew, as she drew him against her, as she pressed his weeping eyes to her shoulder, nestling him in the crook of her neck, where her body had learned how to comfort another. It had been so long ago, her mind had forgotten—but her muscles remembered. They knew how her mother had held her, so long ago, when she’d been filled with sorrow. When her grandmother had died.

He heaved and shuddered against her, his tears soaking into her dress’ neckline. He wept silently but for his breath. Zelda sensed his hands’ uncertain hovering, and she took hold of first one, then the other, placing them at her back before returning her hands to him, stroking his hair and encircling his shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry, Link.” She nearly asked him not to hide it from her, but her sinking thoughts churned a realization from deep within. He hadn’t hidden from her. Not really. He’d followed her every step. She simply hadn’t turned around.

She’d even yelled at him. Told him to stop.

The truth had been there for her to see, had she tried.

“How alone have you felt, Link?” Zelda asked.

A whimper escaped him, quickly tamped. He shuddered.

Her own tears began to fall.

“I-“ he said.

Zelda gasped.

She waited.

He shivered, holding her harder, but with nowhere near his knight’s-strength.

“Don’t hold back,” she whispered.

With a quiet, high-pitched sound, he pressed her to him, tightening slowly, as though waiting for her to cry out in pain or to push him away.

She didn’t. They soon held each other in vice-grips, the beatings of their hearts speaking directly to each other.

Zelda’s heart lead Link’s on a gentle downslope toward calm. It took time—eyes leaking, hands twitching, spreading reassurance with splayed fingers.

She thought he’d forgotten her question.

His pressure on her back released, though he still held her. His face remained stained, streaked and mottled, but he’d spent the tears themselves. His mouth worked. He wet his lips.

“I know you feel alone, too,” he said.

She pulled her head back to take in his face. She brushed tear-matted hair from it. She bit her lip. “Perhaps neither of us is alone anymore,” she said, her smile as warm as the light of the Goddess herself.

His gaze lingered soft on her smile. He pushed her hair back over her shoulder. “I messed up your hair.”

She laughed. “It hardly matters.”

And for the very first time, she saw Link smile. The corners of his mouth turned up. His teeth suited him, framed in his face like that. “I guess.”

The music beyond the tree had been soft quite some time—the tail end of the evening heralded by gentle dances and seated conversation. Link twitched an ear toward the band. “I’m sorry. I ruined the end of it for you.”

“Nonsense,” Zelda said. “I had a pleasanter evening than I’d expected.”

“I noticed,” he said.

“Truly? You appeared as though watching the wall.”

“I just try not to stare at you.”

Zelda swallowed, a sudden fluttering of her heart. Thoughts for another time, perhaps. “You, Sir Link, have had a terrible evening indeed—and a terrible few months—haven’t you?”

His lips curled in, one shoulder raised in nonchalant agreement.

She huffed an empathetic laugh.

She thought of the room full of light, of his standing apart. Of his loneliness.

What would he do were she to return to her chamber to turn in for the night? Would he practice forms on her bridge? Would he try and fail to sleep in his bed? Would he stand with his back to her door until she greeted him next morning?

How could she make this the beginning of a new, less lonely reality for him?

She heard the clack of heavy ceramic as servants cleared some used dishes at a nearby table.

She took Link’s hand.

---

They soon found themselves out in the snow, Zelda’s thick gown bolstered by petticoats and her snowquill boots and coat, Link wearing a thickly padded doublet over his Champion’s tunic as they carried baskets of fresh-baked bread down the hill toward the second gatehouse.

“This is a good idea, Princess,” Link said.

“I’m glad. I… used to do this every year,” she said with a soft smile. She felt his eyes on her, though she had to watch the snowy path at her feet.

“Why did you stop?” he asked.

She sighed, carefully avoiding a patch which appeared tamped toward flat and slippery. “With so much at stake…”

She faltered.

“… And so many eyes on you?” Link asked.

“Oh,” she breathed, wobbling slightly as a foot slipped, but Link caught her elbow, his basket perfectly balanced on one arm.

She studied his face.

“Yes,” she said. Her feet moved again after a few breaths—after she saw another group of bread-carriers behind them. “I feel as though I’m seeing ghosts. As though they’re already… mid-recrimination for the end to come. I think many of them are.”

Link breathed a long stream of air out his nose. “…I’ve seen it, too.”

They kept glancing at each other, breathing clouds silvered by moonlight.

He kept hold of her elbow all the way to the trestle tables, where they relieved two surprised, weary-looking maids with noses red from cold.

“Please call it a night. We shall take it from here,” Zelda said.

“B- but-”

“Princess?”

“Please. I insist.” She held out her hand to take the ladle from the woman nearest her.

The women retreated with tentative smiles and multiple thank-yous, trudging toward the castle with cheerful chatter.

The game-fowl and vegetable stew in the cauldron before Zelda smelled spectacular. They ladled that and distributed hot cider, moisture from the steaming sustenance siphoned by winter’s chill mingling with all that radiance.

Zelda put up a brave smile, her defense against the front of the line as it wafted past her, a slow shuffle of hands holding wooden bowls and cups, mild disturbances of air, speech as they asked after each other’s well-being—as they answered things like, ‘Yes, he’s over the cold - see? He’s just there’ - ‘The shop is shut for the week, but we’ll make do’ - ‘She has another little one on the way, poor thing.’

Zelda filled their dishes to the brim, focused on her work, saying, “You’re welcome” and “Happy Solstice” at the proper times.

Link, beside her, loosed a chuckle. It drew her eyes.

A bedraggled man had wrangled four children in a pristine demonstration of controlled chaos. Not a single small foot nor tiny finger protruded four feet from him, yet within that space entropy, it seemed, would have its pound of flesh. The youngest rode on her father’s shoulders, giggling and kicking her thinly-shoed feet, while a boy nearly as small clung to one weary leg, receiving what appeared to be a rather enjoyable ride on the man’s boot.

“Your butt’s all wet from the snO-oh,” an older brother said with a snort and a poke to the boy’s shoulder.

“Mine’s not!” declared the shouldered sister, her hands pulling rather hard at the man’s hair.

The boot-rider studiously ignored the teasing in favor of wiggling a finger disturbingly far up his own nostril and depositing its findings on the man’s pants.

(The man rolled his eyes).

“Gross,” said the oldest boy, pushing boot-rider’s shoulder with enough force to wobble him.

“No pushing,” the man said.

“He just snotted you!”

“Yeahhh, I know.”

“Did not!” said boot-rider.

No one bothered to correct him.

They reached Link with five cups and five bowls to fill, and while Zelda attempted to formulate some manner of plan, the children’s excitement over cider made itself known.

“CIDER!” “Can we have some, please?” “HELLO!” “Are you a grown-up?”

That last had been directed at Link.

“Heh. Yeah, I’m a grown-up,” Link said. “Should I…?”

The man nodded a weary head that sent his daughter’s arms bobbing with it. She giggled madly.

Link gave his signature curt nod—which, Zelda reflected, appeared far less irritating with him smiling like that—and began ladeling the hot cider into the cups.

“The stuff’s hot, kids,” he warned, apparently unwilling to fill the cups fully.

This did not please the little ones, who complained of his unfairness.

Link’s eyes spoke so clearly. Help.

Zelda drew herself tall (as tall as a relatively diminutive woman could). “Children,” she said.

Her voice cut clear, though kind, through their independent, melodramatic little monologues.

They all looked at her, silent.

She smiled. It was hard not to. “Sir Link doesn’t wish you to spill and burn yourselves.”

“But we won’t get as much,” said shoulder-poker.

“I shall be sure to personally refill your cups once you’ve finished what you have.”

They liked that idea.

Link, however, seemed stuck, staring at the little girl at the top, with her cup of hot cider.

“You’re gonna be careful with that, right?” Link asked.

She giggled.

His eyes widened.

The man smiled for the first time. “She’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, it’s more your face I’m worried about,” Link said.

The man chuckled openly. “So, you’re Sir Link, huh?”

Link paled a little, his smile starting to fade back into that blank look he’d worn in front of that dark evergreen.

The man saw it.

Even Zelda could tell he recognized it.

A father would see it.

Zelda’s own father, considering her knight’s countenance behind her, outside her field of vision, before treating Zelda so kindly at the ball.

Zelda blinked slowly. Her father had seen it.

“Nice to meet you,” the man said, his smile kind.

Link tried to return it.

Zelda ladled soup into the children’s bowls, directing them to sit nearby so she could keep an eye on their cider levels. She very nearly handed the little girl her soup-bowl above her father’s head, deciding at the last moment to abandon that idea as unwise indeed.

“I shall walk you to your seat-”

The girl kicked a leg out quite suddenly, tipping the bowl toward Zelda’s face-

-and Link caught it and most of its spilled contents in a clean bowl.

His wide eyes found hers.

“...Thank you, Sir Knight,” she said.

The family passed with relatively few clothing stains, all considered. Zelda had gotten the worst of it with stew on her white sleeves.

“Sorry I didn’t catch it all, Princess,” Link said.

“Oh- goodness,” she laughed. “It’s of no importance whatsoever.”

His return to silence made her eyes seek him. She found him smiling at her—a very different sort of smile from before.

The line moved past them with growing smiles and fervent thank-yous, the voices echoing in the tall chamber sounding every bit as warm as the food. It became quite pleasant, all the faces, and at some point Zelda realized quite a few of them had begun wishing her well. She considered the source of change, wondering and wondering, until she sought out Link, thinking to ask him, and he met her eyes again.

And she’d found it.

Eyes.

She herself had ceased to watch cups, bowls and hands.

She wasn’t sure how it had happened.

---

They returned, tired, well past the light of dawn, among the others, Link carrying one of the massive stew cauldrons while the others required at least two men to bear their weight. Zelda had volunteered to carry one, but Link had smiled at her and piled her arms high with empty baskets instead. She had to peek around them to walk, but she couldn’t stop grinning at the sparkling snow and at her Knight, also renewed in the light—walking astride her rather than behind. She found she much preferred it that way.

“Are you really alright with that, Sir?” one of the maids asked, her crate full of empty dishes rattling as she walked.

“Heh. Yeah,” Link said.

“You must be so strong,” another remarked.

Link’s smile wavered just enough to be seen.

“He is,” Zelda said. “Extremely.”

He turned that smile her way. It said the same thing hers did.

He wasn’t sure.

They might lose.

He might not be strong enough.

She might be powerless.

But they knew something this morning they hadn’t known last night.

They were not alone.

~~❄~~❄~~❄~~❄~~❄~~❄~~

Happy Holidays, Everyone!

#botw #botw au #Midna's Merry Mixup #zelda #loz #loz fanfic #gift #gift fic #winter solstice #solstice celebration #emotional hurt/comfort #fluff #ballroom #some humor

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the-comfort-den · 4 months

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New characters

i added a shit ton new undertale/au characters have fun

Mythic aus(not mythical au varients lol):

BirdTale: (BirdTale Sans)Dove, (BirdTale Papyrus) Crow, (BirdTale Gaster)Raven, (BirdTale Grillby)Phoenix,

BirdFell: (BirdFell Sans)Sparrow, (BirdFell Papyrus)Hawk, (BirdFell Gaster)Egale,

BirdSwap:(BirdSwap Sans)Bluebird, (BirdSwap Papyrus)Yellowbird, (BirdSwap Gaster)Swan,

Lamias(you can change the type of snake if you want): (UnderTale Sans)Laze, (UnderTale Papyrus)Slinky, (UnderFell Sans)Viper, (UnderFell Papyrus)Cobra, (UnderSwap Sans)Racer, (UnderSwap Papyrus)Napper, (SwapFell Sans)Adder, (SwapFell Papyrus)Python, (FellSwap Sans)Copper, (FellSwap Papyrus)Boa, (HorrorTale Sans)Venom, (HorrorTale Papyrus)Poison, (DreamTale Dream)Sunrise, (DreamTale Nightmare)Sunset, (DreamTale Shattered!Dream)Eclipse, (DreamTale Shattered!Nightmare)Midnight, (Killer!Sans)Drips, (DustTale Sans)Dusk, (DustTale Papyrus)Dawn, (Cross/Xtale Sans)Blank, (ErrorTale Sans)Regal, (InkTale Sans)Rainbow, (FreshTale Sans)Neon,

Mers(you can change the type of fish/mer if you want): (UnderTale Sans)Sea, (UnderTale Papyrus)Ocean, (UnderFell Sans)Wave, (UnderFell Papyrus)Typhoon, (UnderSwap Sans)Pond, (UnderSwap Papyrus)Lake, (SwapFell Sans)Shark, (SwapFell Papyrus)Eel, (FellSwap Sans)Lemon, (FellSwap Papyrus)Black tip, (HorrorTale Sans)Great White, (HorrorTale Papyrus)Megalodon, (DreamTale Dream)Goldy, (DreamTale Nightmare)Moony, (DreamTale Shattered!Dream)Leach, (DreamTale Shattered!Nightmare)Parasite, (Killer!Sans)Thrasher, (DustTale Sans)Sand, (DustTale Papyrus)Gravel, (Cross/Xtale Sans)Glass, (ErrorTale Sans)Jaws, (InkTale Sans)Bubbles, (FreshTale Sans)Lights,

Moths: (UnderTale Sans)Blueshade, (UnderTale Papyrus)Orangeshade, (UnderFell Sans)Redshade, (UnderFell Papyrus)Crimsonshade, (UnderSwap Sans)Fluff, (UnderSwap Papyrus)Floof, (SwapFell Sans)Violatshade, (SwapFell Papyrus)Plumshade, (FellSwap Sans)Tigershade, (FellSwap Papyrus)Foxshade, (HorrorTale Sans)Fluff, (HorrorTale Papyrus)Floof, (DreamTale Dream)Lamp, (DreamTale Nightmare)Shade, (DreamTale Shattered!Dream)Zap, (DreamTale Shattered!Nightmare)Zat, (Killer!Sans)Nightshade, (DustTale Sans)Dusty, (DustTale Papyrus)Eepy, (Cross/Xtale Sans)Prism, (ErrorTale Sans)Zig, (InkTale Sans)Zag, (FreshTale Sans)Beam,

#ooc #update #undertale #undertale au

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hermitblurbs · 2 years

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Pygmalion AU: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 (here) / 5 / 6 / 7

Here’s how the festivals usually go. They start with games, with festival food and shows. You can wander the market, knit together flowers, and so much more along the many stalls of Aphrodisia. The only requirement is that at some point, you stop by one of the patron’s temples to thank the deity. Typically you’d break off from your group to do so, mainly to avoid distractions for the quiet few minutes you use to pray. There’s a steady flow of acquaintances and priests floating about, so you’ll never truly be alone in a temple.

Unless your name is Scar, apparently. He opens the temple door with his left hand to avoid irritating the opposite shoulder, and his footsteps echo along the empty, pristine floors. The temple is still gorgeous, with the walls covered in colorful depictions of Aphrodite’s creation, and the white dome looming above him covered with tiny doves. It’s just empty. Silence feels like a trap. But that’s ridiculous. No traps are possible in the holy temple of a god. At least he won’t think otherwise while he’s inside.

He approaches the symbol of Aphrodite, wanting to get this over with and laugh about how strange it was once he’s out of here. The centerpiece is a marble swan adorned with red roses. He didn’t carve it himself, but he can still appreciate the natural shape of it, and how the wings flare like it was frozen mid-takeoff. It makes him miss…

He keels in front of the altar and prays.

“Aren’t you happy?” Comes a called taunt like a song, and Scar just about jumps out of his boots with a yelp. He rolls onto his feet, stumbles over them, and ends back on his behind. The voice struck a chord of familiarity, but its distant because--

The pain in his shoulder ramps up from its dull ache all the way to a screaming, blinding agony faster than he can blink. He should check if it’s bleeding. He needs to check if it’s bleeding, because an injury to his arm could put him out of his work for forever.

But he doesn't, because someone has twisted time to match then and now. He's staring at the slope of cheekbones, careful crease of lips, and quiet, drooping eyes, all familiar enough to be burned into his mind.

He thinks he's going to be sick.

His--Grian's--the statue's color is still that same, pristine white of the one in his studio, but he--it blinks at him, a self-satisfied sneer on its face.

"What's with the face?" It leers, leaning forward to grab his chin in stone hands. He can't look away. It's eyes are a sickly pink, not the black he'd expect, or the distant comfort of colorless. "You should be ecstatic. Did my boy's arrow not work?"

He can't say anything. Fear holds his words. He's gone mad. He has to have. Too much moonlight, maybe. Obsession. Anything works.

Its eyes narrow.

"No, its poison courses through your veins. Go on, run home and let it run its course, artist." The nickname curls in the air, and far too many things click into place for Scar.

His statue is still safely tucked away in his studio. Aphrodite shifts the wings he designed, tilts the head he carved, though there's no wrinkles that form from twisting lips and narrowed eyes.

"Isn't this you? The sculptor in 'love' with his work. What you’re feeling, what I gave you, is proper love."

About two weeks ago. He was selling smaller carvings in the square. She must have passed by then.

"Isn’t love such a cruel mistress? You’re welcome," she says grandly, expectantly. Scar says nothing until he can carve his tongue to use from where it had gotten stuck. It takes a while with his thoughts all stalled in fear, but he can’t keep her waiting too long.

"Great Aphrodite," he gasps, scrabbling for any dregs of calm he has in him, "I have an offer."

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spacesuitsforemergency · 2 years

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Juliette x Ozzie AU just cause I love him a lot okay:

BLACK AND WHITE AESTHETIC COUPLE

To the public and other villains she’s just his arm candy, but in reality she helps him organize his crime ring and is just as respected by his underlings as he is, maybe even more

He gets her all the diamonds she could ever want and she is literally always sparkling

HIM CALLING HER HIS SWAN OR DOVE THOUGH

Whenever they fight it’s literally just Juliette yelling rapidly in French and Ozzie just sitting and nodding along saying “yes dear” cause he knows she’s right cause she’s always right

Guys try to flirt with her cause they don’t think Ozzie could ever satisfy her but then he comes up behind her and shoots the guy before dipping her and kissing her

Her being a singer at his lounge but like the club within the club part, so she sings soft sultry jazz music for the ✨mood✨

Met when Juliette got a job as a waitress downstairs, but she caught his eye and he promoted her up to his area to be his personal waitress and eventually to girlfriend to wife

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chnqin · 3 years

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My Epic MDZS/The Untamed Daemon AU

I’m sure other people have already done Daemon AUs, but this idea wouldn’t leave me alone. I have been working on this for like three weeks now.

I just wrote down my first instinctive thought for most characters, and then researched* further into subspecies etc. What I found for a lot of the animals made me agree with my first opinion even more, although all of these are obviously just my own opinions. I also decided to stick to non-mythological animals. (some characters have been given a lot more consideration than others, I’m sorry)

Wei Wuxian: beech marten Beech martens are quick and clever. The are nocturnal, omnivores, and skilled swimmers. They move through paths made by larger animals such as hares in the snow. {further notes under read more}

Lan Wangji: white hare More solitary animals. They have an association with the moon, which I tend to associate LWJ with. {f/n}

Jiang Cheng: osprey Aquatic birds; good hunters. {f/n}

Lan Xichen: white stag {f/n}

Jiang Yanli: asian black bear {explained in detail under the read more}

Jin Zixuan: lion Ngl it’s probably because the Persian pokemon reminds me of him

Jin Guangyao: domestic cat {f/n}

Nie Huiasang: pangolin {f/n}

Nie Mingju: wolf {f/n}

Wen Qing: Chinese sparrowhawk {f/n}

Wen Ning: black Formosan mountain dog (tuguo) {f/n}

Lan Sizhui: Xiasi Quan dog or red panda or badger {f/n}

Jin Ling: lion {f/n}

Lan Jingi: monkey They’re respected animals but also have a mischievous side

Ouyen Zihzen: capybara No, they’re not native to China, but this is what I imagined him as and I couldn’t get it out of my head or find a perfect substitute

Xiao Xinchen: swan He just gives me major swan vibes, possibly something to do with Swan Lake (as do some Lans but they’re not graceful in the same way or tragic in the same way)

Song Lan: oriental hobby falcon or black horse He struck me as some sort of raptor, but I also liked a horse for him

Luo Qingyang/Mianmian: lynx

Lan Qiren: sheep Symbolise filial piety. Also follow other people without question (*cough* the Lan Sect elders)

Jiang Fengiman: otter Spends a lot of time around the water, just what popped into my head

Yu Ziyuan: snake Because Zidian

The Jiang Sect favour animals who live near or on the water, some even possessing daemons which are fully aquatic, and thus are unable to leave Lotus Pier

The Lan Sect usually have herbivore animals for daemons and favour swift, elegant animals.

The Jins tend towards lions and panthers, but also flashy, rich birds like pheasants and peacocks (which makes WWX’s nickname for JZX even more funny).

The Nies often have pack or herd animals. Wolves and mountain lions are very common, but also a lot of horned animals like oxen, mountain goats and sheep (bighorn sheep and ibex are common), and also wild boar.

The Wens were typically birds of prey (the Dire Owl becomes Wen Chao’s daemon) or mountain cats.

The Yus often have daemons which take reptile form. Wildcats also common. I quite like the idea that the Yus are a sect which has cultivated the ability to separate themselves from their daemons.

~Further notes on why I picked these animals, Daemon settling, angsty AUs of my AU, and research disclaimer under the cut~

Story & Research Notes:

(I’m going with the idea that trauma can make a daemon settle into a particular form)

WWX A marten was the first thing to come to mind for WWX, I have no idea why, but the more I thought about it the more I liked it. They’re really inquisitive, playful, and cute, but are also predators and will fuck you up if necessary. A crow was another obvious choice because they’re curious and inventive, but with a bit of a dark connotation. However, in my version at least (I’m not great on His Dark Materials canon), Daemons usually settle in the early teens, and at that point WWX really didn’t have as much darkness in him as he develops later.

I think WWX was one of those people whose daemon changed with every thought and feeling of his, whose daemon changed so rapidly and so repeatedly that people would complain of motion sickness watching it. His daemon’s most common forms were a martin, a magpie, an otter (which drove Madam Yu nuts), and (after JYL’s settled) very occasionally a bear.

When WWX comes back most people don’t realise anything is wrong because Mo Xuanyu always hid his daemon (I think it was probably something like a field mouse although how funny would it be if Little Apple was actually his daemon and WWX unknowingly inherited her along with the body), so they just think his has settled into something too big to hide now. However, his beech martin is the other reason Lan Wangji knows who Wei Wuxian is (WWX’s daemon hides from Jiang Cheng at Dafan Mountain, so JC only suspects it’s WWX). (Angsty AU further down)

LWJ I know that arctic hares aren’t native to China, but I want you to pretend that something like that does exist because I need lwj to have a white hare daemon. They are also bigger than other hares and cuter (they look slightly less cursed than some hares do). I’m imagining a lot of the daemons being slightly bigger than their real-life animal counterparts would be, so imagine the ears coming up to a normal person’s hip-height when the daemon is sitting. Rabbits can also apparently symbolise hope, and that suits someone who is known to go where the chaos is, bringing hope and light in the darkness.

As a child, LWJ’s daemon was expressive in a way he never could be. It liked to take snow leopard form a lot, which was seen as excessively violent to the Lan sect, who preferred non-carnivorous animals, and often snarled at people. His daemon always took snow leopard form when visiting his mother so it could curl up with her tiger daemon.

LWJ’s daemon settled exceptionally early, shortly after his mother’s death, into an acceptable hare form. Lan Xichen always wondered if LWJ himself made his daemon settle, if she was not supposed to have been a snow leopard all along, and so always looks upon LWJ’s daemon with a bit of sadness because he feels like it was LWJ stifling - almost killing off - a part of his personality (spoiler: it was) in order to fit into the Lan sect.

(More on that in an angsty AU below)

JC Ngl, I wanted to make Jiang Cheng a goose because they’re always angry but I didn’t. Jiang Cheng shifted mostly between a hunting dog and a mouse as a child, both of which infuriated Yu Ziyuan (honestly what she wanted her children’s daemons to be even I don’t know). Jiang Cheng’s daemon settled very late (another thing his mother wasn’t happy with). In fact, it didn’t settle till the attack on Lotus Pier and the death of his parents, when it took the shape of an osprey (because he wanted to be able to fly away and pretend none of it ever happened).

Even more angsty: One Chinese poem has the Osprey as a symbol of marital harmony and fidelity. Upon seeing his parents death, finally united in a way they hadn’t been in life, JC’s constant wish for his parents to love each other (and, by extension, him) physically manifests itself in his daemon.

JYL I know what you’re thinking. Why the hell did you give Jiang Yanli a bear of all people. Well I’ll tell you. For two reasons: one, because I can do what I want, and two, because I would say one of JYL’s most central characteristics is her wish to look after people. She’s not physically strong in the way most other cultivators are, however, and she’s always having to keep the peace at home - and so I can see her daemon becoming a physical manifestation of that need to protect (bears are known to be protective, particularly mothers), and a physical example of her inner strength which is so often overlooked.

Yanli shifted between a dove, a crane, and a maritime striped squirrel for most of her childhood. She favoured the squirrel and dove (incredibly mild animals) over the crane, which disappointed Madam Yu. It’s one of the reasons Jin Zixuan never saw her as a potential match, her daemon too small and docile to match his almost constant lion daemon.

When Jiang Yanli was around fourteen Madam Yu took things with Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng too far one day, and Yanli saw it. Her daemon suddenly shifted into a bear, a form it had never taken up to that point, and jumped on Yu Ziyuan’s snake daemon. WWX and JC always remembered Yanli standing in the doorway, her expression placid while her huge bear daemon growled with absolute fury and menace. Everyone expected Yanli’s daemon to go back to its usual squirrel or dove form, but it never did. It remained a bear, and remained the biggest daemon of pretty much anyone in any of the sects.

I had already picked a crane as one of JYL’s potential daemons because of its connection to water and positive symbolism in China. Upon further (hopefully accurate) research, I saw that cranes depicted with lotuses in Chinese art symbolise purity and longevity, and I liked making her daemon a bear even more, because her daemon took that form to protect WWX and JC - years after her death, they both wondered if, had her daemon had taken crane form, maybe she wouldn’t have died. From what I found, “crane” is also a homophone for 合 hé “peace, harmony”, which is a quality Jiang Yanli had much of, and tried to inspire in others.

LXC I think its LXC’s hairpiece which always makes me think of deer antlers (even though it’s a dragon?), so that’s probably why I immediately thought of a stag for him. But stags are also very noble and refined looking animals which don’t tend towards violence, but also have horns for a reason. Obviously, like with LWJ, it’s a white stag because aesthetique. Upon further research, I discovered a (hopefully correct) source which says 鹿 lù (deer) is a homonym with 璐 lù (precious jade), and the character for deer is used within the character 丽 lì ‘beautiful; elegant’ - both fit LXC very well.

JGY Cats are sneaky little fuckers (I say this with love). The ultimate predator in small unassuming form. Many of the main Jin family have big cat daemons so this is kind of another smack in the face for JGY - so close to being a real part of the Jin family, but still kept apart from them - and something people like to bring up along with his mother. However, many Jins are also birds (including JGS), and cats prey on birds.

NHS I thought a fox was a bit on the nose. Also I like the way pangolin’s just drop and curl up in defence - it’s a viable form of protection, but to the outside appears cowardly. However, their scales are sharp and can cut predators who come after them. Also I didn’t want him to fit into any of his sect’s typical animals. Also also imagine how cute it would look being carried around everywhere by NHS because it’s too lazy to walk, absolutely adorable.

NMJ A wolf was what immediately came to mind for Nie Mingjue. Wolves are apparently sometimes associated with greed, self-interest, and lechery, but I think the pack elements and the carnivore/hunting nature of the wolf really suits NMJ and the Nie clan in general, so I decided to overlook that aspect (although I did briefly consider making JGS a wolf, but I like them as animals too much in real life to do that to them and also he doesn’t have a soul, so he doesn’t get a daemon).

WQ I always saw Wen Qing as some sort of hawk, I just think it suits her very well. The Chinese sparrowhawk is quite small and very beautiful. It has white, red and grey colours. They are good hunters and swift flyers.

WN I knew I wanted Wen Ning to be some sort of dog because he’s very loyal, and also (angsty) when the Jins call the Wens dogs I wanted that to hurt even more. He’s very unusual for a Wen, none of the main sect have dog daemons - it is very much a thing that is specific to their branch of the Wen family. The mountain dog I picked for him is an endangered breed, which I also felt fitted WN well. From what I found, dogs symbolise watchful wisdom, honesty, and loyalty, which all fit Wen Ning.

This was all perfect till I remembered WWX’s all-consuming fear of dogs. I decided to get round this by cheating and saying that for some reason daemons are different and he’s not scared of them (because they represent a part of someone’s soul, rather than being a real animal? I guess?? Please do not look too hard at this delicately constructed card tower)

Angsty version: when Wen Ning becomes a fierce corpse he loses his daemon, another reason people are unsettled by him and another thing WWX feels guilty about.

LSZ I think Lan Sizhui was the hardest to pick. I couldn’t decide which way to go: should he follow a “Lan approved” daemon pattern; should he have a bird like Wen Qing and a lot of other Wens? Then I saw the Xiasi Quan and it’s white and fluffy and cute but it was also a hunting and a guard dog, which seemed right for him. And I liked that it gave LSZ and WN this one very tangible connection. It is also endangered. However, I also liked a red panda and a badger for Lan Sizhui too. I really couldn’t decide between the three. I like them all, why is he the hardest to choose for? (I’m still not 100% happy with this, let me know if you have any alternative suggestions)

Again, please suspend your disbelief at the fact that WWX’s child has a dog daemon and he’s fine with this (it would have looked so cute as a little puppy running around the Burial Mounds though).

When he was younger his daemon liked to take on the forms of those closest to him. So you’d often see a bby marten running after WWX’s daemon, a tiny bird perched with Wen Qing’s sparrow-hawk, a puppy following Wen Ning’s dog around, and a tiny bby rabbit in Cloud Recesses. As he got older it shifted between the dog, a red panda, and a badger. (maybe I’ll just say his hasn’t settled yet and that’s why I can’t decide)

JL Jin Ling definitely also had a daemon which shifted because of a) his loved ones and b) his mood, and he hated it. As if his own explosive temper didn’t give him away enough, his daemon always showed his exact feelings. When he wanted nothing more than his mother to be there it would be a bear. When he was feeling defensive about his parents it would turn into a lion (this happens when he and WWX first meet and any time people talk about his parents’ deaths). When he was younger his daemon spent a lot of time as a cat and a bird, although different types to what his uncles had.

Jin Ling’s daemon still hasn’t settled when WWX is resurrected, and he is absolutely mortified the one time it decides to turn into a beech marten like WWX’s. Eventually it will settle into a lion, and WWX will pretend to be grumpy that it didn’t choose a bear instead.

Angsty AUs:

Daemons are linked to golden cores Jiang Cheng loses his daemon along with his core. When Wei Wuxian’s core is removed it’s more like when daemons and humans are separated in the books. His daemon stays with him, but can move about freely - this is part of what causes WWX to rapidly destabilise, not just resentful energy. Jiang Cheng always feels weirdly aware of WWX’s daemon after that but doesn’t know why. WWX’s daemon is technically connected to JC too, and also finds this weird. JC also can’t work out why his daemon never came back with his golden core, and that loss is part of why he’s so angry and isolated.

The effect of trauma on Daemons Another angsty au is based on the idea that, if trauma can make your daemon settle early, then trauma can also make it change.

When Wei Wuxian is thrown into the Burial Mounds, he wishes so hard to be able to fly that his beech marten turns into a crow (because I do love a crow for him too). I kind of like the idea that after the Burial Mounds WWX’s daemon almost un-settles itself, and can change between a marten and a crow. This really freaks people out and is another reason people say he’s dangerous.

Similarly, after Wei Ying’s death and the Lan sect’s punishment, Lan Wangji wakes up to find his daemon has shifted from its hare to snow leopard form. In his soul, LWJ feels like if he had been less passive and actually stood with WWX then his soulmate would still be alive. His daemon changes from a more passive hare to the more aggressive snow leopard.

He’s criticised by the elders for it, but they shut up when his daemon flattens theirs, while LWJ’s face remains an impassive mask but his eyes promise murder. WWX is really sad when he comes back to see LWJ’s hare gone and blames himself for causing LWJ so much trauma his daemon changed. (personally if I were writing a Daemon AU this is what I would have happen, because I love LWJ with a snow leopard daemon - they symbolise bravery and martial ferocity, while rabbits are virtue and gentleness, and I feel like these two both accurately represent the two sides of LWJ. I really feel like LWJ has a huge shift in himself after WWX’s death which would be represented in his daemon. It also is, in a way, a return of a core part of himself which was lost after his mother’s death)

Sword/Instrument substitute Mixing Daemons with sword sprits - the animal becomes a physical representation of the spiritual tool. Some people could therefore have more than one daemon (for example, LWJ could have Bichen - his rabbit sword daemon - and Wangji - his snow leopard guqin daemon)

Angsty version: WWX actually does die in the burial mounds and Suibian, his beech martin, dies/changes into Chenqing, a raven/crow.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .·。.·゜✭·.·✫·゜·。..・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

If you are reading this you have made it to the end of this post, well done.

I wanted to make it shorter but I had too many ideas and wanted to explain my reasoning for my choices and decided just to put it all in one post rather than lots of little ones.

*Disclaimer: I know only the smallest amount of Chinese, and have taken all my information about imagery, word meanings, and homophones etc from web-sources, and so it is very possible I have made mistakes. Though I have, to the best of my abilities, attempted to check on the cultural/artistic meaning, if any, that certain animals have in Chinese culture, the internet lies and I can’t get any decent books on it atm as the libraries are closed, so I’m really sorry if there are errors and I hope people will forgive any mistakes or blunders I might have made.

#mdzs #the untamed #cql #daemon au #mdzs daemon au #mine #guys i have spent a stupid amount of time on this #myau

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wolfsnape · 4 years

Note

1, 2, 24 for the writing ask? Love you ❤

Love you moooore

1. Favorite poem of yours? Why?

I just love the flow and the melancholy and the fire inside the heart

In french :

1) GAÏAL'écume de la mer sur les hanchesDes rivières de sang bleu suivant une taille fineDes éclairs sur la poitrineLe feu au creux du cœurUne tornade dans les yeuxDes forêts soyeuses et touffuesDes météores parsemant un dos voluptueuxDes galaxies mourant sur des épaules dignesL'univers est un corps de femme.

2) B612 (i link bc it’s very long)

"Tu es belle à en mourir."

L'écho de ton rire

Résonne encore dans mes oreilles.

"Tu mourrais pour moi ?"

Oui.

Tous les jours,

Toutes les nuits,

Toute la vie,

Et celle d'après,

Et celle d'après.

"J'aimerais qu'on reste ensemble

Pour toujours,

Qu'on s'aime

Aujourd'hui

Et tous les jours qui suivront."

Jusqu'à la fin de l'éternité.

Tu as souri

Et puis, un matin, tu es partie

Et avec toi tout l'air du monde.

Les oiseaux ont arrêté de chanter

Nos rêves d'amour.

"Tu mourrais pour moi ?"

Ce jour-là, je suis morte

Sans toi.

Puis je suis née de nouveau

Dans un monde silencieux,

Vide de tes yeux,

Vide de ton corps,

Vide de ton souffle,

Vide de ton rire,

Vide de toi.

Et j'ai appris

A vivre ma vie

Sans toi.

Tous les jours,

Toutes les nuits,

Toute la vie,

Et celle d'après,

Et celle d'après.

Jusqu'à la fin de l'éternité.

Pour moi.

In english:

1) THE WOMAN WHO WALKED THE EARTH

And she walked

She walked

Until the night fell

Until her feet bled

Until her breath shattered

Until her sight blurred

Yet she kept walking

She clutched her fists

She punched the air

She yelled

She sang

Full of sadness

Full of terror

Full of rage

And she kept walking

For all the witches

Who burnt at the stake

For all the girls

Who couldn't speak

Who got silenced

She kept walking

She took the fire

That murdered her ancestors

And kept it

Close to her heart

She cherished it

Nourished it

And she let it go

Let it burn

The world

Under her feet

And she kept walking

2) (whatever that gay shit is)

And I will kiss you

In the golden light

Of this new morning

When birds

Haven't reach

The blue sky yet

And I will love you

In the whitest night

Of the longest day

When everything

Has gone quiet around

And there is

Just us anymore

In this shattered world

Where everything breaks

And nothing can be fixed

But we will

We will

We will lay here

In the dark

Speechless

Alone at last

Listening to the Earth taking her last breath

Listening to her swan song

Far away in the echo

And we will be happy

I hopeThe sky is as blue as hereOn your side of the river

4) THE OCEANThere is somethingSpecial aboutSeeing the ocean for the first timeLike greeting an old friendYou haven't metIn so many yearsYou haven't metIn forever*****There is somethingSpecial aboutThe waves caressing the shoreAbout the foamMelting with the warm sandLike crossing paths with a loverWho never really leftAnd always stayedIn the back of your mindIn the beating of your heartIn the memory of every moveEver madeEvery breathEver breathedEvery wordEver spoken*****There is somethingSpecial aboutStanding at the end of the worldListening to the sound of swirl and chaosAnd singing alongWith the taste of salt under your tongueLike watchingAll the sailors drafted awayDrowned screamingBy the raging waterAnd dancing.

2. Favorite poem? (on or off tumblr)

Love After Love, by Derek Walcott

The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other's welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self.Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life.

Funeral Blues, by W. H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'. Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; For nothing now can ever come to any good.

24. Favorite tumblr writer?

@soubidou (parce que j’aime trop son univers et ses personnages et tout et je l’adore bref, elle sait)

et @graindedune (son writeblr c’est @sangderiviere allez lire c’est incroyaaaaaable ooof imaginez le talent)

#ask #poetry #my writing #writing project #my poems #my poetry #tumblr friends #writing

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atlaswinter · 4 years

Text

AU/Fic Fuel list

Winter Maiden AU:

Winter obtains the Winter Maiden’s powers and fights off Cinder. She then has the orders to go to the vault with Ironwood and raise Atlas into the sky. Instead, she chooses Mantle’s safety, and leaves with Weiss, Ruby, and Penny, destroying her scroll before she goes.

In order to disguise herself from the military and her boss, Winter cuts her hair short, and lets it grow back in its natural black colour, and is careful to avoid using glyphs in battle unless Weiss is around her.

Fall Maiden AU:

Both Penny and Cinder die during the battle to protect Fria, and Winter obtains Cinder’s powers as the new Fall Maiden. Penny is rebuilt, and instead of Pietro sacrificing himself to bring her to life one more time, Fria’s aura is transferred, making Penny the Winter Maiden. As the Fall Maiden, Winter’s role in Atlas is uncertain, as she can’t access the vault in Atlas, and she finds herself with the choice to go to the ruins of Beacon and see what she can uncover in terms of the Relic of Choice.

Wind/Storm God AU:

Winter is the goddess of all winds, from soft warm breezes to hurricane-speed gales, as well as storms, blizzards, and similar natural disasters. She spends most of her time up in the sky, choosing to keep her distance from mortals in order to keep the greater good in mind. Her hair is black with white streaks, and her favourite offering is lit candles with soft, heartfelt prayers not born from fear.

Sun God AU:

Winter is the goddess of the sun, just as able to warm as she is to burn. A more open and social type of god AU, in which Winter is more in touch with her emotions and wants and is more happy overall.

Twin AU:

AU for any other Winters that want in, my Winter would be named Wind Schnee and with the additional support from a younger age, her emotional control is less strict and she finds bits and pieces of rebellion, even in small actions (wearing clothes her father would disapprove of, ‘accidentally’ entering her father’s study while he’s out and rearranging some things, etc.).

Faunus AU:

Considering:

Snow leopard - powerful creature, highly prized for their fur being the softest on any known animal

Dove - a beautiful pigeon, but a pigeon all the same

Serpent - cold blooded, loves sunshine, makes others nervous

Swan - beautiful and elegant but utterly terrifying

#OOC.#Märchen (writings)#Long post.#If any of you want in on any of these please let me know I'm MMMMMMMMMMMMMM love AUs.

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celestiall0tus · 9 months

Text

Holders Powers Master List

Decided to make this as I feel it'll be important. Here I will provide all the links to prior posts that are from asks regarding the powers of the holders and I thoroughly explained the use of the powers across the AUs that I work on.

So, here is the list (please note that the list will be updated with the links as they come out):

Ladybug of Creation

Black Cat of Destruction

Bee of Devotion

Spider of Betrayal

Mouse of Perception

Pig of Ignorance

Fox of Deception

Lynx of Honesty

Dog of Love

Rooster of Animosity

Bat of Fear

Tiger of Valor

Ant of Drudgery

Goat of Revelry

Monkey of Joy

Raven of Sorrow

Wolf/Deer of Intuition

Owl of Knowledge

Ox of Determination

Koala of Lethargy

Horse/Wolf/White Cat of Freedom

Rabbit of Connection

Peacock of Beauty

Butterfly of Transformation

Snake of Life

Dragon of Nature

Turtle of Protection

Cicada of Reality

Chameleon of Imagination

Swan of Soul

Cow of Body

Robin of Genesis

Dove of Destiny

Dolphin of Memory

Seal of Oblivion

Shark of Time

#miraculous #miraculous ladybug #miraculoustalesofladybugandcatnoir #au #miraculous au #alternate universe #powers explained #powers #holders #mlb au #ml au idea #au info #ml au info #mlb rewrite #rewrite

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ganymedesclock · 6 years

Note

Hey, didn't you make a post about what animals you'd subscribe to the Voltron paladins? Could you post a link to it?

Updated 8/18/18

I did have older posts [which can all be found here] but I’ve also changed my mind about a few of them and expanded so I thought I’d condense them all here into a new, improved animal thoughts post, so, have at anon!

Some of these are a bit speculative because we haven’t seen all that much of the characters, but I intend to keep this post updated and edited accordingly. (Tagging things relevant to this with familiar AU from here on out!)

Also some thoughts about how I imagine this tentative “AU” working- some of the rules are taken from His Dark Materials (the Golden Compass books) but some operate differently. Roughly, everyone has a familiar that they to a certain degree share physical sensations with. The familiar is part of who they are, and its form is contingent on personality and nature.

Unlike in HDM, familiars appear from the start as the form that they’ll spend their entire lives in, no shapeshifting involved. Also unlike in HDM, there’s no particular unique discomfort or taboos about a person touching another person’s familiar directly. Familiars will generally have a sympathetic personality to their host but depending on a person’s relationship with themselves, they can end up at odds with their familiar.

Familiars are a universal thing- all sentient races have them.

There are rough limits on how far a familiar can comfortably move from its host, but those limits vary person to person and are keyed to certain personality factors.

Team Voltron

Shiro: Arctic Tern

Keith: Peregrine Falcon

Lance: Sea Otter

Hunk: English Badger

Pidge: Spotted Tree Frog

Allura: Bleeding Heart Dove

Coran: Boa Constrictor

Team Sincline

Lotor: Eurasian Magpie

Narti: Orb Weaver Spider

Acxa: Spotted Hyena

Ezor: Blue-ringed octopus

Zethrid: Ossabaw Island Hog

Dayak: Sussex Hen

Blade of Marmora

Kolivan: Bengal Tiger

Krolia: Cheetah

Ulaz: Serval

Thace: Black-Mantled Tamarin

Antok: Elk

Galra Empire

Zarkon: Saltwater Crocodile

Haggar: Hare

Sendak: Timber Wolf

Haxus: Aye-Aye

Prorok: Sun Bear

Morvok: Opossum

Throk: Wolverine

Galaxy Garrison & Voltron Coalition

Matt: Stoat

Sam: African Grey Parrot

Colleen: Komodo Dragon

Keith’s Father: Coyote

Commander Iverson: American White Pelican

Adam: Secretary Bird

Admiral Sanda: Greyhound

Ryner: Sandhill Crane

Olia: Dhole

Rolo: Greyhound

Nyma: Barn Owl

Slav: Red Squirrel

Romelle: Large-Eared Pika

Bandor: Sugar Glider

The MFEs

James Griffin: American Kestrel

Nadia Rizavi: Leopard Gecko

Ryan Kinkade: Chinese Water Deer

Ina Leifsdottir: Montezuma Quail

Veronica: Striped Skunk

Space Mall + Other

Varkon: Australian Shepherd Dog

Earth Shop Proprietor: Three-Toed Sloth

Vrepit Sal: Marine Iguana

Bii-Boh-Bii: Walking Stick Insect

Swap Shop Unilu: Star-Nosed Mole

Bob: Cockatiel

Paladins of Old

Alfor: Barbay Lion

Blaytz: Pacific Sleeper Shark

Gyrgan: African Elephant

Trigel: Green-Winged Macaw

Melenor: Mute Swan

Alternate Reality

Hira: Peacock

Aso: Parasite Wasp

(For Sven + Slav see main reality counterparts)

#Voltron legendary defender #vld #familiar AU #readmore #Anonymous #not tagging everyone because it's got everyone I can think of and I will add to them

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agracefulmasquerade-blog · 6 years

Note

babrace au: black swan ((((:

AU Meme || @sparklingdiamant

i. She hadn’t expected to be cast as the lead, it was her name up there on the list. The biggest role she’d ever danced, the role that had made her fall in love with ballet as a little girl, and now it was hers. The pressure was intense—especially given how young she was. Some of the other dancers were whispering that she must be doing something for the director behind closed doors. Others were saying that her rich father had paid for her to have the part. But she tried not to listen, blocking them out. She was going to do this. She was going to be perfect.

ii. Dancing the part of the white swan is what she was born to do. She can be pure and innocent and enticing in a way that hinged on softness. “The prince wants to protect you. You inspire him to want to possess you. He becomes enchanted with the delicate push and pull, and falls wildly in love with you.” The direction makes sense, in some part of her mind. Then she looks up and sees the other star watching her, sees the amused look in her eyes, and it all feels so much more complicated.

iii. It’s a bold choice, to cast two different dancers for Odette and Odile, but it’s not unheard of. The bolder choice is to cast two very different dancers, one blonde and glamorous, the other dark-haired and delicate. The boldest choice is to rework the scenes and put them both on stage at the same time, interacting with each other in a more direct struggle for the prince’s affections, and for dominance over each other. “You’re a power play, the two sides of what society sees women as. Odette, as the movement goes on, you start to lose some of that purity, to become more like Odile in an attempt to defeat her, but that’s the moment it’s clear that she will be triumphant.” He looks between the two of them, nodding. “Work on this. Spend time together. This has never been done before, my little doves, and we’re creating something together. Work with it and see where it takes you.”

iv. “I don’t think this is what he meant.” Her voice is breathless, gasping for air. Babette has one hand underneath her tights, the other in her hair, pulling her head back so she can bite at her neck. “I think this is exactly what he meant,” she murmurs, her teeth sharp against Grace’s skin. (It’s going to leave marks, she’s going to have a bruise, why does she want that so much). Before long she’s gasping and begging for more, her hips moving against Babette’s hand. “See?” she says, her voice a combination of laughter and lust. “There’s passion under that pristine exterior. I just need to tease it out.”

v. It becomes a habit. The director praises the dynamic that they achieve on stage, and they “practice” it backstage. Even when she’s not at the theater, it’s all she can think about, images flashing in her mind as she lies in her bed. (Babett’s slender fingers around her neck, pressing her against the mirrors; Babette with her head thrown back, tugging on her hair as Grace buries her tongue between her thighs; Babette teasing her as she begs, telling her to hold off, to be a good girl for her, driving her pleasure higher and higher before finally telling her to cum for her; Babette lying next to her, whispering praises as they both sank into each other, wrung out from passion). She wasn’t sure what this was, or what it meant, but she knew she felt alive two places now: under the stage lights and under her costar.

(vi. Opening night comes faster than expected. She’s standing backstage, in her pure white costume, when she sees Babette coming towards her, a vision as the Black Swan. “You’re going to be perfect,” she says, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “And you’re going to come to my bed after the curtain falls.”)

#{{ the diamond }}#{{ askbox games: answered }}#sparklingdiamant #// this got long and rather kinky #// whoops

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alexandralyman · 6 years

Text

Fic Update - Between Heaven & Hell

Summary - A Hook/Emma angel/demon AU. They hide in plain sight, the servants of heaven and hell. The angels and the demons, who can save your soul or damn it. They stand on opposite sides, they are the bringers of light and the agents of darkness, they are enemies in an eternal war, but what happens when an angel and a demon are inexplicably drawn to each other?

This chapter on AO3 here and on ff.net here

Part Twenty-One

Caribbean Sea - 1802

The white sails rose high against a cloudless sky, rippling loud as thunder and snapping taut in the wind. The sea breeze raked through his hair like a lover's eager caress while he stood at the helm, watching the unending line of the horizon in the distance and holding their course towards the isle that bore the French colony of Saint-Domingue. The island itself was not yet visible to the naked eye, not even to Killian's gaze, far keener than that of any of the mortal sailors who worked the lines, pumped the bilges and swabbed the deck under his command. They were a rough crew, made up of deserters and thieves and degenerates, a hard-drinking, gambling, whoring group of men who were all guilty right down to the marrow of their bones of a multitude of sins. But they all feared Captain Hook, known in every port from the northern reaches of the Carolina coast down to Rio de Janeiro for his ruthless methods and black heart, a heart - that it was whispered quietly below decks over one too many cups of grog - was not human.

That same dark heart beat a bit faster in his chest with the rise and fall of the ship on the waves, the narrow prow cutting easily through the white swells like a hot knife through butter. With nothing but the sea and the sky surrounding him on all sides it was the closest a demon like him could get to flying, with the whistle of the wind in his ears and the warmth of the sun on his face. If he closed his eyes he could barely feel the planks under his feet or the smooth wood under his hands for a brief moment that seemed to last for an eternity. His initial foray into the Caribbean sea trade had started as nothing more than a whim, an opportunity to invest some capital, add to his considerable fortune and he found the tropical weather to be much more to his taste than the chill of the drab and damp European winters. But Killian had found to his surprise that he genuinely enjoyed sailing for its own sake as well. There was a subtle art to it, in the rise and fall of the sails to make the most of the breeze, in the turn of the hull into ancient currents that led right to the four corners of the globe. North, south, east, or west, under the crimson flag of piracy it was all just pure freedom. The chains that bound him were not the shackles worn by the mortal souls helplessly trapped in the most inhuman of bondage practiced in the whole of history, his irons went unseen by all by him. He felt the weight of them nonetheless, and the burn of the invisible brand that marked him for what he was. Forever damned, with no hope of salvation in this world or the next, his master's leash was long but the collar could not be pried from his neck.

Yet out on the open sea, with the salt in his throat and the spray on his skin, he forgot all of that for a little while.

A flash of gold caught his eye and he looked down to the foredeck, where the angel stood with her back to him. A crewman carefully inched past her, a bear of a man with hands roughly the size of ham hocks and heavily tattooed forearms that were ropy and corded with muscle. He spent as much time in gaol as he did at sea thanks to a temper that could be provoked with nothing more than a curious look, but when Emma flicked her divine gaze to him he merely reached up and lifted his hat to her as if she were a noblewoman come to survey her domain before scurrying away with the back of his neck flushed as red as a whore's rouge. Speculation about the mysterious Lady Swan and her purpose on the ship was rife among the crew, as the single passenger on a voyage where they were carrying no cargo, no smuggled casks of spirits or undocumented silks to be found in the empty hold. It was clear that the haste in which they had departed Tortola was all because of her, the men recalled from the brothels and the gaming dens on his order to ready the ship for the journey with no expense spared in the process. Their curiosity went unsatisfied, Killian was not in the habit of confiding in his crew and none of them dared to ask too many questions of the scourge of the seas, lest his ira, his dark wrath turn upon them, and the wrath of a demon was far more terrifying than the fiercest storm.

Emma had boarded the ship very late at night, emerging through the thick fog that had rolled in over the harbour with the hood of her dove-grey cloak covering her hair and her gloved hand reaching easily for his when he held it out to assist her in stepping from the gangplank to the deck. Mr. Smee had already drunkenly spread the tale of the captain's latest presumed conquest to the crew as Killian knew he would and there was some knowing looks and furtive glances exchanged among them, along with the unmistakeable flare of rising lust in the air underneath the brine of the sea. Luxuria, a commodity in the ports as much as salt beef and ale, where men vastly outnumbered the women and the pleasure houses did as brisk a business as any of the more respectable merchants along the wharves. He gave a warning glare with just the barest flash of red in his eyes that made them all back off, his hand curled possessively around Emma's elbow. It was more for show than anything, she was more powerful than the lot of them put together and then some, but the crew only saw her as a woman with the tantalizing curves of breast and hip hinted at under her close-fitting gown. His little display was enough to let them know without words that she was the captain's honoured guest and was not available to slake their lust during the long nights that lay ahead on the dark ocean. The ache in their loins would go uneased by feminine companionship, they would have to make due with the relief found by their own hands or with buggering each other until they made port again and they all slunk dejectedly away from Emma like rats from the light.

She had her own cabin for the journey, second best on the ship after his own. It was small, but he'd had it scrubbed clean for her arrival and adorned with a large bunch of lilies that he'd impulsively bought in the marketplace earlier that day. Killian had first been drawn to the goldsmith's wares, examining necklaces and bracelets set with Brazilian emeralds and shimmering opals and other precious gems. But he remembered how the pearl earrings he'd tried to tempt her with in France had been rejected and didn't think she'd be willing to accept any jewellery from a demon's hands. Greed, avaritia, was clearly not the way to win over an angel. The flowers had been sold by a child in bare feet and a ragged calico dress, her thin arms dirty and scratched. Children typically shied away from him, even the boldest young pickpocket didn't dare to attempt to lift his purse, but the girl with tangled hair veiling her eyes and hollow cheeks had plucked at his sleeve and stared right into his startled face without flinching away. An innocent young soul, bearing the floral symbol of the Holy Virgin herself in her arms. Lilies of the field were far from diamonds or pearls, but those hadn't worked. Perhaps a more modest gift would succeed instead.

The child snatched the coin from his palm almost quicker than even he could blink and thrust the whole bunch at him before darting back into the crowd and disappearing from his view. He'd only intended to buy one, but he shrugged and handed them to his servant to carry back to the ship. No sense in letting them wither away shut up in the darkness of his own cabin and Emma had noticed them at once when he'd escorted her to what were usually the purser's quarters. The bed was made up with fresh linen and the floor was swept clean, while the flowers threatened to spill out of a large silver cup stamped with with his own serpentine monogram and worth more than a month's wages to a common sailor.

"To browse in the garden and to gather the lilies."

Killian immediately recognized the bit of Scripture the angel quoted softly to herself in the small room, completely unconcerned by the presence of a demon nearby and touching a petal with one finger before turning to face him with a smile.

"Gratias tibi ago, Captain."

For some reason he felt a twinge at the words of thanks, strangely bashful at her acknowledgement of his humble offering.

"They're just flowers, milady."

Emma had given him a speculative look and pushed back her hood, revealing the golden halo of her hair and making the breath catch in his throat.

"Not just for the flowers."

They'd been at sea for three days and two nights and still had not spoken of the true purpose of the journey to Saint-Domingue. So many of the islands in the Caribbean Sea were named for saints, for the glory of martyrs long dead while the gravest sin of all flourished like the lilies under the harsh yellow sun. The beauty of the lush vegetation and the tropical blooms didn't fully mask the ugliness that lay underneath, empires rose on the backs of serfs since the first man had risen to stand on the backs of others and crowned himself king. Killian knew what was raging on the isle named for a holy servant of God, a rebellion inspired by the people of France and the toppling of a dynasty that claimed to rule by divine right. The slave uprising was not the first such outbreak in the colonies, but none of the others had lasted nearly as long or come as close to succeeding, nor had they been as violent. Hundreds if not thousands had already died, whites, slaves and those born of mixed blood, the Angel of Death had come for them all and spared not fragile babes in arms nor the most hearty of men. The situation in Saint-Domingue was a topic of discussion in rough taverns and elegant drawing rooms both, but Emma was utterly silent on the subject when they sat down to dinner in his quarters and shared bread and meat and wine like the lovers the rest of the crew assumed them to be. He did nothing to dissuade them of the notion that the beautiful Lady Swan was his newest mistress, letting the rumours go unchecked belowdecks while he wondered alone in the privacy of his empty bed why she had chosen to seek out a demon and ask his assistance in her endeavor. It seemed that He was not the only one who worked in mysterious ways.

The wind kissed the hollow of his throat and his lips tasted of salt, but he thirsted not for water or wine. His own lust burned hot in his veins and his thoughts turned to the carnal, a dark longing that had not fully abated since that first chaste touch of an angel's hand to his cheek in a virgin's bedchamber and he'd known what it was to experience a miracle. Her skin could touch his without injury to either of them, her lips could breathe the air from his lungs and he wanted - needed - to know if he could press his mouth to the flutter of her pulse and make the blood underneath rise to his touch, wanted to feel her delicate white hands exploring where angels should fear to tread and to see if the divine and the damned could become one without destroying them both. He would have once thought such a thing utterly impossible if he had even bothered to entertain the notion at all (which he hadn't) but he found that something had changed over the centuries since that night in Rome. Darkness was bound to consume the light, and yet he had slipped free of those bonds for a moment and felt for the first time that he might be capable of something more.

They were sailing to the west, into the setting sun. The sky darkened to indigo while the sea ahead almost appeared to be on fire, reflecting orange and red tongues of flame that licked at the hull of the ship until the sun finally slipped below the horizon. Night fell swiftly so far out on the ocean with no hint of welcoming shore in the distance. But the stars were brilliant, and looked almost close enough to touch if one was to climb the ship's rigging all the way to the top and reach for them. Killian turned the helm over to Smee with a quiet order to hold their course and made his way down to the foredeck, where Emma was standing with a white lace shawl draped somewhat haphazardly over her shoulders and slipping down her bare arms, fluttering in the breeze. The temperature had dropped considerably, even this far south the nights could be be surprisingly cool at times. Especially on the open water with no shelter from the elements, his heavy coat was meant to provide the warmth he didn't need and he wondered if angels felt the cold. Yellow cones of light illuminated the deck, the crew had lit the lanterns when the sun went down and the kerosene flames held the darkness at bay. He moved on silent feet, the light faltering around him and shadows flaring out from under the leather that swirled around his knees. She had to have sensed his approach, if she could feel him the way he felt her as the distance between them narrowed until he was standing right behind her. The waves crashed loud against the hull and the ship rocked with sudden violence, as if in warning against his blasphemous thoughts. Captain Hook paid it no heed, though the men on deck muttered oaths and fought to hold their footing against the movement. Emma was as still as a statue, marble-white arms pale and as finely sculpted as any of the stone angels who stood silent guard over the churches and cathedrals he did not enter.

"I can hear them."

Her voice was low, intimate, the words were clearly meant only for him and not for the crewmen who were still skulking around on deck, shadows in the mist that surrounded them. Killian blinked, confused by the quiet confession.

"Who?" he asked.

"All of them. Saint-Domingue, Martinique, Kingston...they cry out and no one listens. But I can always hear them."

Angels heard the prayers of mortal souls, he knew that and yet he hadn't really considered how that divine gift was also something of a curse. To always be listening to the pain and misery and suffering that mankind was adept at causing itself, he saw it, he was the cause of it, wherever he went, his corruption rotting them from the inside out, but it was easy enough to tune it all out.

She turned to face him then, silvered by the moonlight and her eyes were the marbled green of sea glass, gemstones born not of fire and earth, but of tides and time. They drew him in despite the danger, or maybe because of it. He could set the whole ship aflame and emerge unscathed from the conflagration while it burned right to ash, but he wasn't meant to look into the light.

"A heavy burden, for such a slender back to carry."

He hooked a thumb in his belt while he spoke and rocked back slightly on his heels, "Emma," he said, soft and imploring, "Tell me why I am taking you to Saint-Domingue."

"Because I asked?"

She wasn't wrong, but his frustration clearly showed on his face and her own flashed with what he thought was guilt.

"Captain-"

"No," he snapped, and that sea-glass gaze darted away for a moment before she pushed her shawl back up her shoulder and met his eyes again, "You ask this of me, you drink my wine and share my company, you say that you can hear me, when we both know that should be utterly impossible, so do me the courtesy of calling me by my name!"

The flame of his anger licked hot along his spine and would have made any of the crewman flinch and cower under the force of it, but the angel was more defiant.

"Yes, I hear you, Killian, I hear you and I answer! I can answer you, but I can't answer them! I can hear them, but I can't save them on my own and that's why I needed your ship to take me there."

The anger leaked away at once at the sight of the tears in her eyes, even as the sound of his name from her lips made him shudder under the dark leather of his coat while his blood ran even hotter. Killian tamped down his lust, the last thing he needed right now was for another succubus to appear like a siren from the waves and wreak as much havoc as Zelena did in Paris before Emma struck her down.

"I can't save them."

It went suddenly quiet around them when she said it again, the whip of the wind turning into a dead calm that settled over the ship. They were practically toe-to-toe on the deck and he wasn't sure if he had moved or if it had been her, but the space between them had shrunk down to almost nothing and the hairs on the back of his neck rose.

Heaven and hell were not meant to stand so close.

He tipped her chin up and ran his thumb under the curve of her jaw, feeling the velvety slip of her skin under his cautious hand. The contrast of the heat from his body and the cooler ocean air had them shrouded in fog that hid them from view, but he was acutely aware of the fact that they weren't alone. Emma stared up at him, unflinching at his touch. Her hair was loose down her back like a maiden's and the muslin gown she wore was unadorned by embroidery or trim, falling in loose folds to the deck but low-necked enough to display a creamy swath of firm bosom pushed up high by the stays underneath. Any man on the ship would have had her on her back in a heartbeat if they thought they could get away with it, but he wanted to fall down on his knees at the vision before him.

"Then why do you go, if you can't save them?"

She didn't answer and the wind picked up again, stirring the hem of her gown about her slim ankles and filling the mainsail into a white wing against the obsidian sky.

"Why do you not trade in slaves, Killian?"

As the respectable Captain K. Jones of Jones Shipping Limited he transported sugarcane and textiles and other trade goods legally aboard his flagship, The Jewel of the Realm. As the brigand known as Captain Hook, he sailed under the crimson flag instead and smuggled uncut gems, seditious books and casks of newly-distilled rum, bribing customs inspectors and port officials to look the other way as he moved contraband from the islands to the mainland and back again, but in neither guise did he traffic in the highly lucrative movement of slaves.

"Does that surprise you?" he asked, leather creaking over his shoulders as they dropped and his hand fell back down to his side.

The corner of her mouth quirked and she looked him up and down, "You are a pirate," she teased gently, her real meaning clear.

His own voice was more serious, "Aye, that I am. And those who sail with me are sinners bound to spend eternity in chains forged by their own hands, but they are all here of their own free will. Slavery is a dark stain on the soul of mankind worse than any corruption wrought by me, there is no greater sin than this belief that one man can own another body and soul. Judge them for the evil they do to each other, but do not lay their crimes so neatly at my feet and blame me for their moral failings. I can only tempt them to fall, I don't push them over the edge. They choose to jump."

His shadow fell over her face and dipped down into the neckline of her gown in a soft caress that he could almost feel with his fingertips while he spoke. Killian took a step back, letting it fall away and leaving her in a pool of moonlight. It laid a path in front of the ship as neat as a line on a map, rippling with the waves and shining bright on the dark sea. Man had always looked to the stars and followed where they led. His own master had been a shining light in the heavens, once, eons ago.

The angel led and he followed, down into the bowels of the ship and to the narrow door that led to her borrowed quarters. He leaned one shoulder on the wall and watched as she pushed it open, swinging silently on oiled hinges and revealing the small, unlit space within. The lilies still sat in the silver cup, open in full bloom despite the lack of sun.

But then, they had another celestial being to nurture them instead.

"What happens if you cease?"

Emma turned, her brow creased in confusion and one hand resting lightly on the doorjamb, "Cease what?"

"Listening."

He had an inkling of just what would occur that was practically confirmed by the flicker of gold behind her eyes and the sudden curl of her fingers into the wood. The thought was filed away for later, when he could peruse it fully at his leisure and figure out how to use it to his advantage. But for now he only shrugged and pushed off the wall, flicking a dismissive hand in the air.

"No matter. After all, I would greatly despair if you ever ceased listening to me."

It kept him awake for the rest of the night, alone in his own quarters with an open bottle of rum on the table and the gentle rock of the ship underneath him. Stripped to the waist and barefoot, he tilted back in his chair and balanced it perfectly without any support while he contemplated silently in the unnaturally deep gloom that surrounded him.

Nothing he had said to Emma on the deck had been a lie, he had not borne false witness. Like the simple flowers that had been accepted while rich jewels were spurned, his honesty had been rewarded with some very interesting bits of information that was as much currency as coin. But these were to be hoarded instead of spent, and he turned her words over and over again in his mind and examined them carefully from all angles. She could hear him. Spain hadn't been a fluke and his suspicion in that chapel at Versailles had been correct, when he'd called out without words and she'd paused in her flight from the palace. He couldn't be saved, but she heard him anyway.

And more than that, she could answer.

Demons could be summoned unwillingly, with the proper incantation. It wasn't easy and it usually required a sacrifice of some kind, a precious object or a blood offering, along with reciting the demon's true name, but it could be done if the summoner was determined enough. Most of his kind guarded their names closely as a result, using titles and aliases to keep their real identities carefully hidden. The dealmaker Rumpelstiltskin was the Dark One, even the cackling succubus Zelena had been known as the Wicked Witch before her not so untimely demise in Paris. Captain Hook was his latest moniker, and not a man on his ship knew that his name was actually Killian. If he were to be summoned with it, he would have no choice but to go to whoever called him to their side and even be forced to do their bidding, if the summoner was powerful enough. But that was rare, most had to offer even more for the favours he could grant, desiring wealth, power, pleasures of the flesh, and were willing to trade their own immortal souls for earthly delights, the bloody fools.

Angels were not bound by the same laws as demons, they couldn't be compelled to appear against their will nor could they be controlled. If any demon discovered a way to summon an angel and force their compliance, they would have unimaginable power that all of them would covet for their own.

Emma came to him in Spain.

She came now for those she couldn't save. He didn't trade in slaves, but he knew many of those that did, brokers of human souls. The rebellion on Saint-Domingue had no hope of succeeding, it was too dangerous to allow freedom to some and give hope for the same to the others still trapped in bondage. Or at least he'd assumed as much, whenever the topic came up in the dockside taverns over foaming mugs of rough ale amid rougher company. Now he wasn't so certain, not with her aboard his ship.

It was dark as a tomb in his quarters, tucked away under the stern of the ship and only shadows swirling in the window panes instead of the light from the moon and the stars above. He lifted his hand and snapped his fingers, making a spark that leapt into the air and hung suspended above the table for a long moment. It illuminated the bottle of rum, the glass the murky hue of bottomless seas full of hidden dangers. He could see his own reflection in the curve, not the handsome visage that had seduced blushing virgins and virtuous wives both to his bed, but the true face that lay hidden underneath. Eyes the red of infernal fire, bones that pressed against the skin like knives and a dark mouth full of sharpened teeth.

Summon the demon, and he would appear.

Killian snapped his fingers again and the spark went out, leaving him sitting alone in the dark.

________

Emma opened the door at the knock and was met not by Killian, but by the round, bearded face of William Smee, the man she had met at the somewhat ramshackle offices of "Jones Shipping Ltd" back on Tortola. At the sight of her he quickly snatched the red cap from his head and gave a jerky bob of his chin.

"Cap'n demands...er, requests your presence on deck, if you please, your ladyship."

She nodded, pulling the door closed behind her while Smee tried and failed to keep his eyes on the floor instead of on her. The ship's crew were all curious about her, she could hear the whispering that went on behind her back and the somewhat crude remarks about her and their captain. They all thought she and Killian were lovers, who only kept separate quarters to maintain an illusion of propriety. It didn't bother her as much as it should have, they had spent long hours shut up alone together in his cabin after all, and she was hardly worried about the nonexistent "Lady Swan's" reputation being sullied by their association.

There were more important matters that currently occupied her thoughts than the idle musings of lustful sailors.

Smee followed along behind at a respectful distance while she climbed the steep stairs that led to the deck, clearly full of questions that he didn't dare ask. All of the men on the ship were wary of Killian, or as he was referred to by them, Captain Hook. That wariness extended to her, as his presumed companion, and while she could feel their interest none of them had attempted to proposition her in the dark corners and narrow corridors that wound through the ship like a rabbit's warren. Killian hadn't either, the seducer who had charmed his way into the bed of any woman he desired had been a perfect gentleman during their late night suppers at the table so small that their feet had tangled together companionably underneath it and their knees touched. Still, his gaze had lingered, blue eyes darkened to indigo and each swipe of his tongue across his lips to catch errant drops of claret had reminded her all too well of a kiss that could never be repeated.

She was walking a fine enough line as it was.

The light and air was a welcome relief when she stepped onto the deck into the sunlight, sensing his presence close by and turning to seek out his black-clad figure among the more drably attired crew. Killian was standing next to the rail with a brass spyglass held to one eye, fixed on some point in the distance and when she went to stand next to him he passed it to her without a word.

Three ships were visible through the glass, looking as tiny and insignificant as children's toys. Emma closed her eyes for a moment and when she opened them again the magnification had been increased tenfold, she wasn't all-seeing like the Heavenly Father but she did have the power to see much farther and much more than mortal eyes did. Killian took the spyglass back and looked through it again, his free hand resting lightly on the hilt of his sword.

"They're French," she said, too low for anyone except him to hear.

"Aye," he agreed, equally as quiet, "Warships. Sent to help quell the rebellion at last, most likely. Saint-Domingue is too valuable to lose, not when France is barely clinging to their remaining colonies in the New World by the skin of their teeth as it is. I'm afraid it was inevitable that it would come to this, avaritia is rooted deep in the hearts of men."

Avaritia. Greed, the deadly sin that had led to the enslavement of untold men, women and children. As sweet as the sugar cultivated on the islands was, it was the bitter other half of the coin. She'd heard the crewmen talk when they didn't know she was listening, they were all greedy for gold, greedy for more grog than their rations allowed, greedy for the slippery warmth that lay between a woman's legs. Their fear of Killian wasn't enough to deter them from serving aboard his ship, the greed in their hearts was far too strong.

Do not lay their failings at my feet.

Emma curled her hands around the railing and stared at the French ships. Each was easily twice the size of Killian's vessel, riding low in the water and clearly heavily laden with both troops and munitions. The sea was calm and the wind had been in their favour the whole journey, but that meant it was also in favour of the warships. They were headed straight for Saint-Domingue.

"At this speed they'll make landfall in Port-au-Prince before dusk," Killian continued, squinting at them again through the slim brass instrument, "Unless by some miracle the tides turned?"

It was not a rhetorical question. The lilies in her cabin bloomed continuously day and night, a tiny miracle wrought by her own hands. Hands that could halt entire armies in their tracks, turn day to night and night to day and bestow a holy blessing upon a saint with a single touch. The same hands that were now helpless, bare and ungloved and clinging uselessly to the wood to stop them from trembling. She hadn't wanted him to see, she hadn't wanted him to know the full truth, but...

"I can't."

It was a confession wrenched from the depths of her own, well, she didn't have a soul, not the way mortals did, anyway, blank slates born pure and innocent but with the potential for both the greatest good and even greater evil depending on the path they chose. But she had something that was uniquely hers, her divine light that that marked her as one of the Blessed Angels, granted passage through the very Gates of Paradise themselves for the whole of eternity by His grace.

The one once known as the Morning Star could no longer cross that barrier into Heaven, his own light had been ripped from him when he fell into eternal darkness, or so they all believed. Some said he fell with a smile, some said it was with a scream.

Maybe it was both.

Blue eyes rimmed in kohl narrowed right to dark slits and then the demon was upon her, hands grasping her upper arms with firmness and trapping her neatly between his body and the rail. She should be afraid, she was vulnerable right now as if she really was a lone woman surrounded by dangerous, lustful men with greedy souls and none more dangerous than him, but Emma felt no fear and when her palms landed flat on his hard chest it wasn't to push him away, if anything she wanted to pull him closer.

"You can't interfere...not that you won't, you can't."

Emma could see that his clever mind was making quick work of everything she'd left unsaid from the moment she'd crossed his threshold and greeted him as Captain Hook. Her fingers curled in his waistcoat and she looked up at him, ignoring the crewmen surrounding them with their ears pricking up and straining to overhear what was being said. This was only between the two of them, no one else on the ship could even begin to understand.

"It is forbidden to you. Moreso, you are bound from intervening, as if your wings were clipped. That's why you needed a ship, and safe passage. That's why you needed me. This...this is outright defiance, your own personal rebellion. Oh, Emma."

"Yes," she agreed, closing her eyes. It was far more dangerous than even he was, she'd been granted her divine light by His grace and His alone, and what the Lord giveth, the Lord could taketh away. She couldn't save Man from this most reprehensible of sins of their own creation and the failure was like ash in her mouth.

"Well then. It is said that fools rush in where angels fear to tread, and three warships against a lone brig certainly qualifies as foolish. Mr. Smee! Hoist the standard!"

"Cap'n?"

She looked up in shock, taking in the firm set to his jaw and the heat she could feel growing under her palms, not the enveloping warmth of divine radiance, but the burn of infernal flame.

"You heard your captain!" he bellowed, "Hoist the Jolly Roger and man your stations, we're all drinking French brandy instead of grog tonight!"

"Killian."

His true name got his attention at once as she knew it would, and his answering smile was as sweet as a choirboy's when he looked back down at her.

"Beata angela," he murmured, "I may be incapable of miracles, but I am not without a few tricks up my own sleeve. I promise you these ships will not reach Saint-Domingue, whether the reprieve will be enough for the rebellion to succeed remains to be seen, but I suppose far stranger things have happened."

The demon winked and she felt a flush on her cheeks that was not from the wind. The late nights they had spent together in his quarters had not involved any of lewd acts of fornication that the crew so eagerly imagined, but it had been intimate nonetheless. Perhaps even more intimate than engaging in the pleasures of the flesh, the hours of conversation had revealed even more clearly that he possessed far more than just that seductive wit that was all surface and no depth, reflecting a flattering image back to the subject of his interest while revealing nothing of himself. Though he had not yet revealed why he had appropriated the surname "Jones" for his own use, he had spoken of his travels since she'd last seen him in France and how he'd crossed the ocean on "not quite a whim" with a wry twist of his wine-stained lips that did not fully hide the bitterness in the statement. What went unspoken was that his will was not truly his own and instead of pitying the poor soul who had obviously summoned him, Emma found herself pitying him.

Stranger things indeed.

There was a flurry of movement from the crew as the orders were carried along the length of the ship with a hue and cry that had them all jumping to their feet and rushing to coil up ropes over their shoulders and tie down loose items on the deck. It was a sudden tempest that swirled around them where they stood in a blur of loud noise and riotous colour, but in the eye of the storm there was nothing except the demon in front of her.

"Emma," Killian said, as serious as she had ever seen him, "I promised you once that I would do anything you asked if it was within my power and not require any form of payment. My word is my bond and this is not a devil's bargain that I am offering, but all actions have consequences."

His expression flickered for a moment, jaw pulled tight and that deep blue gaze darting away from her eyes. It was a clear warning, and Emma wondered if it cost him something to give it.

"I know."

He looked back at her and queried softly, "Do you?"

She reached up and dragged her thumb slowly over the thin scar on his cheek, hearing his sharp inhale of breath at the movement. The mark had been left by the torture he had suffered at the hands of the Inquisition, she'd seen it laid fresh and bloody right down to the bone and been unable to leave him there to suffer any more no matter what sins he was guilty of.

Killian turned his head abruptly and kissed her palm before whirling away with his coat flapping behind him like the wings he did not possess. If she was a swan then he was a raven, dark and sleek and a harbinger of ill omens. Captain Hook yelled orders to his men in a thunderclap , the demon of the sea unleashed and whipping them all into a frenzy as they worked the sails and readied the cannons with the dark flag of a grinning skull atop a pair of crossed bones snapping high on the mast.

The cannon fire was black, smoke as thick as tar enveloping the warships when the captain called, "Fire!" Too much to be natural, it poured across the dark sea in long tentacles like some fantastical monster of the deep while the acrid scent of gunpowder filled the air and faintly beneath it, Emma could smell the sulphur and brimstone of infernal flame. She heard the shouts from the French ships even through the cacophony, blasphemous oaths and the utter shock at the frenzied attack from a single vessel not even half the size of theirs.

David had holy aim and divine intervention on his side when he took on Goliath with nothing but a rock and a sling. This...this was hellfire brought to life by the demon in black with the devil's own smile on his face. The intensity of it was shocking, she felt it more than the violent lurching of the ship underneath her that threw seasoned sailors clear off their feet. Every angelic instinct flared to life from the force of it and she had to fight not to respond in kind, keeping her light at bay and her wings hidden. The crewmen were unaware of her, blind to her continued presence on the deck while the battle raged on all sides. One of the French ships broke off and began to retreat away from Saint-Domingue, obviously too heavily damaged from the cannon fire to continue. Two were left, and amid a rising tide of bloodlust that turned the crew into frothing, howling demons of their own making she heard Killian give another order.

"Ramming speed!"

The heavens went dark with stormclouds and the seas churned white, as if the water itself was boiling over. More cannon fire was traded back and forth, one heavy ball shooting clean across the ship's bow and almost hitting a man square in the back. It landed harmlessly on the planks instead with a flick of Emma's wrist, but she was still bound from performing grander miracles and she let out a huff of frustration.

"What is the point of listening if you won't let me answer?" she muttered to herself.

"Brace for impact!"

She looked up and quickly found Killian high in the rigging, a rope wrapped around one forearm while he pulled a knife from his belt. Their eyes met across the distance, he could clearly still see her even though his men no longer could. A moment of calm seemed to fall over the both of them, where the wind no longer whipped her skirts about her ankles and the sun briefly pierced the clouds above to shine down on his inky hair and the long coat of dark leather.

Then he was gone, and in the next instant came the shudder and crash as the bow of the ship plowed straight into the broad side of the larger French vessel and it was only by her divine grace that she remained standing while others fell down to their knees around her.

There was no prayer she could recite, not for a demon's salvation. All she could do was watch, and bear witness to whatever it was that he planned to do now.

For her.

______

Killian let go of the line he was holding and easily grabbed onto the thick ropes that formed the warship's complex web of rigging. He'd flown without wings, using his knife to slash the line free and swinging across the tiny gap in the heartbeat before the two ships collided. It was an insane maneuver that was likely to rip them both open and send them straight down to the bottom of the ocean, but the risky gamble paid off. He could see that the bowsprit had been completely ripped off from his ship and the mainsail had collapsed, but there was no buckling of the hull or the deck from the collision. The warship listed on such a steep angle that it seemed to be on the verge of tipping over completely, crew and soldiers both on the deck forced to clutch at whatever they could reach to avoid falling overboard. It hung on the precipice itself for several moments before it began to roll upright, the greater bulk forcing his own ship back on the wave that formed from the motion of the keel. Dimly, Killian was aware of cannon fire, plumes of smoke rising in the air all around him. But fire and smoke could not affect a demon born of Hell itself, and when a hand tried to grab his ankle he looked down into the whey-faced soldier who'd climbed up after him with a grin.

"Mon Dieu!" the soldier cried, an oath that turned Killian's grin into a snarl.

"Your God," he spat back, "Not mine!"

He gave a vicious kick that caught the soldier in the jaw and sent him flying backwards, caught at the last second by his heel in the ropes and hanging upside down. Killian left him there, his own boots easily finding purchase as he picked his way along the line. One man against an entire ship was madness, but he wasn't a man.

Besides, he had been sent on this mission by an angel herself.

His eyes burned red and the wind shifted, sending smoke from the cannons straight into the faces of the French captain at the helm and the navigator beside him. Both disappeared under the choking black cloud, unable to see, unable to steer, unable to give any order. Killian let out a triumphant noise and turned to face the ship's mainsail, rippling like quicksilver against the suddenly heated air rising around it. His own shadow appeared on the heavy cloth, a twisting figure that began to writhe and grow into something else. Something inhuman, with too-long limbs that could bend both back and forth and the twin points that formed not a halo over his head, curved inward, like the hook that formed at the end of what had been the shadow's hand.

Hooks and horns were not all that dissimilar, after all.

A long rent appeared in the sail, another shadow at first that quickly became real with a twist of his wrist. It ran down the length of it, tearing it apart with a great ripping noise while startled yells came from the soldiers and sailors below.

"The Hook! The Hook!"

His legend would only grow from this and it fueled him even as he blinked back a strange, misty haze that had crept into the edges of his vision. Something was sapping his strength, something foreign and unfamiliar that made his fingers slacken on the ropes and his boots nearly slip as he almost lost his footing. But he held on by sheer will, until the sail was rendered into nothing but useless ribbons that tangled around what was left of the rigging and wrapped around the mast in knots that would be impossible to untie. It would take days to get the whole mess completely down and raise a new sail, days where the warship would be as hobbled as a lame horse, unable to continue on in such condition even without the rest of the damage.

He'd broken her wings.

Before he could revel fully in the satisfaction there was a loud popping sound from down below and something small and round and hot came straight at him. Killian felt it graze along his neck with a sizzle, a hairsbreadth away from his jugular. He looked down and saw the barrel of a pistol pointed up at him in the hand of a soldier who was barely more than a child, not even old enough to grow whiskers on his ruddy cheeks. He knew at once that the boy was still an innocent soul, innocence that would be quickly lost in the service of the French army once he'd fought and whored his way to manhood, blood drawn on his blade and between a woman's thighs all in the name of honour and glory.

The wound on his neck smarted but he could easily take the pain, he'd suffered far worse. It would take much more than a mere pistol or a blade to cut down a demon. Still, he felt another wave of dizziness that he fought with a shake of his head, climbing higher up the rigging and slashing more ropes as he went. Cannon fire roared loud in his ears and muted everything else, all he could hear was muffled shouts while the warship began to list again, tilting at a rapidly growing angle. He was surrounded by fire and blood and this was his glory, hacking and slashing his way from one end of the yardarm to the other. His own ship was a league away, ready to overtake the last warship with his crew salivating for their promised rewards. Greedy bastards, the lot of them, not an honourable man left among those who called him master. The old captain had been a man of honour, a rare breed, but…

Killian pushed the thought away, holding his knife between his teeth and reaching for a dangling rope to help pull himself up even higher. He saw that the clouds were drifting, grey storm giving way to pale sunlight and a beam pierced through to shine off his rings, the dark, square-cut ruby flashing with brilliance and as bright as a beating heart. The reflection shone right into his eyes and blinded him for a moment, making his fingers slip while his vision swam. His hand groped wildly for the rope but found only empty air. The knife fell first, blade down not into the deck, but towards the rolling ocean. He could see the glittering waves swallow it up and then he was falling as well, thrown clear of the ship and hurtling straight for the water. He'd climbed too high, and he'd been struck down by an unseen hand.

The impact wouldn't kill him, but it would be hard and painful and not the kind of pain he enjoyed. At least the water wasn't sanctified, and Killian braced himself for the final drop with one word slipping past the salt on his lips, a whisper, a prayer, that was swept away by the wind.

The sea below him was marbled green and the clouds above were white and feathery, filling his sight while he plummeted down and then he saw that it wasn't clouds at all as he collided with something in mid-air. The swirling green sea was Emma's eyes, staring right into his as her wings enfolded them both and everything else vanished into pure nothingness.

____

"Killian? Killian, wake up! Killian, come back back to me!"

He forced his eyes open at the summons with a gasping breath and saw the angel above him, her lovely face creased with worry and hand pressed to his cheek. It took a moment for the fog to clear from his head and then the memories came crashing back, the French warships, the sea battle, the drain on his power from some unknown source that had made him lose his grip and sent him plunging down towards the ocean. And then…

"What did you do? Emma, what did you do?"

He sat up, stunned by what he was remembering. Emma's arms around his chest…the look on her face...the brilliant flash of gold behind her eyes…

Her wings.

They'd wrapped around him before he'd hit the water, so incredibly soft to the touch and yet as strong as steel. Stronger. The contrast was maddening, and he couldn't quite believe that he, infernal demon of Hell and eternally damned, had been held in their divine embrace.

"How?" he breathed, searching her immediately more guarded expression for an answer while his hand circled her wrist and he implored, "Emma…"

Whether it was his beseeching tone or her own desire to try to articulate the inexplicable, she was a messenger, an interpreter of mysterious signs, either way their eyes locked and she finally said, "I saw you start to fall and I...jumped."

Killian gaped at her, feeling his mouth open and close as his usual eloquence failed him completely. Emma's gaze darted away from his and she rose to her feet, pulling free of his grip and shaking sand from the hem of her gown. Or what remained of it, at least, it was torn and rent in several spots and he caught pale flashes of the petticoat underneath. Behind her he could see the ocean, but it was nothing but an empty, flat expanse for miles. No flags in the distance, not the French tricolour or his own Jolly Roger, and no sound but the crash of the waves against the shore. They were alone, completely and utterly, he could sense no mortal souls at all and for a wild moment Killian wondered if by some miracle he had managed to pass from the Earthly plane into a divine realm of existence in the angel's embrace. He turned his head and saw lush green vegetation that was growing wild right down to the sliver of beach he was currently sitting on, with nary a path or a footprint in sight save for the ones he knew were hers. Flowers grew by the dozens, more lilies like the ones he had given Emma, along with bright orange hibiscus and delicate pink orchids the same colour as the large seashell in his quarters, the one that had belonged to the Jewel's previous captain.

It had no value and only took up space, a precious commodity aboard a ship, but he'd kept it anyway, as a reminder.

Greenery and flowers, and only the two of them.

It was like...like the Garden.

But that was impossible.

"Where are we?"

He stood, hiding his stagger out of habit. Any hint of weakness was ruthlessly exploited in the company he normally kept - although he was usually the one doing the exploiting. But he could feel his strength returning, his dark power sparking under his skin like the coals of a smothered fire flaring to life again. The sword still strapped to his hip left a mark in the sand as he found his footing, marring the pristine surface while the angel walked to the water's edge and let the waves lap over her bare feet.

"I don't think it has a name," Emma said, "It's like a blank canvas. I'm not sure if anyone has even set foot here before, it's completely unspoiled."

"Well," he drawled, looking down again at the quarter-circle slash left on the beach and feeling his heels sink down to firmer ground, "Not anymore."

Emma turned and he gave her a wry smile, "Demon, darling, remember? Damnate. It was unsullied."

He thought the wrinkling on her nose was because of the endearment but she only repeated his other moniker, "Damnate," infernal one, forever damned, softly, as if she was reminding herself, "You think your very presence here is corrupting?"

"No, I know my very presence is corrupting, beata. You, more than anyone, know that too."

The serpent had slithered into the Garden and tempted Eve with forbidden fruit that held within it the knowledge of good and evil. Original sin was born in a place much like the isle on which they now stood, when Man first fell from grace and the angel drove them all away from the patch of Heaven on earth with the flaming sword held aloft.

He carried a sword, not her, but she could still banish him from this place, back to the darkness of taverns and whorehouses and away from her light, but when she crossed the stretch of sand again and he dipped his forehead to rest against hers she didn't push him away and none of the flowers around them withered or turned black from his taint.

If anything, they bloomed open even more in defiance of the setting sun.

"Emma," he breathed, hands circling around her waist.

"You're injured."

He'd almost forgotten about the graze on his neck but with her reminder he felt it again, a dull throb that ached even more when he tried to wrench away, afraid to let his blood touch her own skin and corrode it like acid. It should have healed on its own by now, but perhaps he was still hindered by whatever had affected him back on the warship and he attempted to deflect her attention with a smile.

"I've had far worse, believe me."

Emma didn't let him pull back, shushing him and lifting her hand towards the wound. She didn't fear him, not his wrath or his lust or any of his sins, and he felt a sudden certainty that his blood posed no danger, a conviction that he couldn't explain except with a word that he dared not speak.

Light pulsed in her palm and he closed his eyes, it slid down his throat as easily as the finest spirit and he could feel the wound immediately close up, healing at once with nary a sting.

"Thank you, Killian. For everything."

Their embrace lingered, turning like the tides and slipping inexorably into something more. All the long nights aboard his ship had been passed chastely, despite the bed in his quarters invitingly made up with a feather tick and rich bedclothes that had seen respectable planters' wives and slattern tavern maids both seduced by Captain Jones and the notorious Captain Hook. But under a velvet sky rapidly filling with jewel-bright stars he was neither man, he was Killian to her and he always would be, his long coat thrown down to form a makeshift bed atop the flowers while he kissed an angel who kissed him back with a fervour that almost made his knees buckle again under the force of it.

Golden hair spilled down over his hands like a waterfall and he tore right through her gown and underpinnings in his sudden haste that was met with her own eagerness in divesting him of his waistcoat and sliding the linen shirt off his shoulders. Skin met skin and he groaned low in his throat, the heated slide of her bare breasts to his equally bare chest was merely a preamble of what was to come and yet it was more delicious than any full coupling, the way her head tipped back with a sigh and his chin fitted perfectly to her shoulder, lips pressed to the long line of her neck and the fan of her fingers against his back.

He felt no shame in his nakedness and he relished hers when the remains of the dress finally pooled at her feet, he'd seen her as a Roman noblewoman in silks and an English Samaritan in homespun, as an artist's muse and lover and as a lady at the court of kings, but he'd always seen her for what she truly was and now he saw everything. The firm, full breasts that had to have been made for his hands to cup, tipped in a shade of pink he swore he had never seen before that put every last rose in existence to shame, the flare of her hips, curved just so, the feel of the bones that lay under that velvet skin, from the notch at the hollow of her throat to the ladder of her ribs, the flex of her spine when he dragged his fingers down the long line of it and she arched up against him. Her own hands were hardly idle, exploring all the planes and angles of him as thoroughly as his own perusal of her. Killian felt almost...virginal, at the contact, as if he'd never experienced the touch of another before this. Emma molded him like clay, rising hot and heavy under her hand to full readiness in a blink that had him light-headed again while his palms burned with the desire to mark her as his, leave his brand on her flesh as indelible as any that marked the slaves as property of their masters.

He fought it desperately, determined not to give in to his baser urges. Corrupter he was, but not tonight and he lifted her legs around his waist and fell down to his knees with her arms around his neck and their lips never parting. No spirit he'd ever drunk was as intoxicating, no fruit as sweet as the taste of angel in his mouth, and his eyes were opened to the knowledge that it could be like this.

Emma lay against the dark satin lining of his coat, wrapped in him as he'd been wrapped in her and Killian felt her thighs spread even more underneath him. The silent invitation was unmistakable and the roar of the ocean was nothing compared to the roaring in his ears, blood pounding with the urge to accept her wordless surrender to the sin. But he held back, pulling up on his elbows and wrenching their mouths apart.

Wordless surrender was not enough.

"Look at me, angel. You know what I am…I can never be more than that. Say you want me, want this. Say it, Emma!"

It came out as a desperate plea that had her eyes going wide beneath him. Lips swollen from his kisses parted but no sound came out, and he was sure that she was going to vanish, taking the reprieve as her chance to retreat back to where he couldn't follow and leave him utterly alone in the dark. His hips jerked, balanced on the knife's edge between possession and desolation and for all his charm and the dashing countenance that had won him countless conquests in the bedchamber, he was suddenly as uncertain as a green young lad.

A hand rose, pushing back the lock of hair that had fallen over his forehead and tracing feather-light along the sweep of his brow and fanning across the apple of his cheek as though she was mapping his face. It was a gesture unlike any that had ever been granted him before, a benediction from an angel who shone with golden light. Gentle fingers pressed to the nape of his neck and drew his head down until her lips pressed to his ear.

"Killian….I do."

He was swallowed by the light, it pulled him in even as he pushed forward and the heat of infernal fire was not doused, it was fanned incandescent by divine radiance. Sparks exploded in the air around them and fell down in a shower of both his crimson and her gold that reflected off the blade of his sword and made it appear to burst into flame next to them. Man and woman had been banished from Paradise by a flaming sword, but Killian was not a man and nothing could stop him now, not when he was joined with the one he had coveted for so long. Zelena had tried to tempt him with Emma's face and form and he'd resisted, declaring that he'd have exactly what he wanted and nothing less. His patience had been rewarded and as his hips pressed flush to the backs of her thighs while his forehead rested on hers again, he understood at long last why it was considered such a virtue. Heaven was forbidden to him, but he'd found it in her embrace and their fingers laced together tight against the bed of flowers.

It was a miracle.

_____

It was a sin.

Darkness surrounded her on all sides, black leather under her and black hair that passed through her fingers, dark as ink, dark as the sea at midnight. His head was bent in supplication and he knelt between her legs, a demon paying homage to an angel. Emma could feel the flames licking at her thighs with each roll of his hips, shadows caressing under her breasts and along the line of her neck like unseen fingers that made her writhe from the sheer, voluptuous pleasure of it. She'd lain with men before, mortal men, a gift bestowed along with visions and prophecies and divine inspiration, but this...this had her arching up into each stroke of his body in hers with no thought for anything else but feeling it again and again and again. It was blissful, and dangerous, but she couldn't bring herself to stop, not when his mouth pressed to a spot behind her ear that made her gasp, not when his pace faltered as she met his thrusts with her own upward tilt and squeeze around him. Killian threw his head back at that, the cords on his neck straining and she pressed her hands to his shoulderblades, the closest he had to his own wings in the shape and solid line of them under her fingers. His skin was dusky, like burnished metal in the moonlight, the colour of sunsets and whiskey as if the fire within was flickering through.

"Is this what it is?"

"What?" she asked, and his head tilted back down.

"To experience a miracle?"

Emma had not expected that. She'd expected him to gloat, to revel in his victory, not to sound so much like the saints and shepherds, completely awestruck by her mere presence. That he thought it miraculous was even more surprising, he was no Puritan but certainly a demon only fornicated, ravished and defiled like the pirate he was supposed to be. Could he also feel the immense joy, the Song of Songs in his heart as she did? He'd brought her lilies like an ardent young suitor, roses blooming in his cheeks when he'd turned suddenly bashful under her praise. Roses and lilies both surrounded them now, along with flowering shrubs covered in pure white blooms that perfumed the night air with a scent that was both sweet and sultry at the same time.

In a flash their positions were reversed, Killian supine underneath her with her thighs caging his hips and surprise on the handsome face, mouth slightly open and sea-blue eyes blinking up at her, crinkling slightly at the corners. Emma drew the tips of her nails down his chest and along his flat stomach, making him hiss and shift at the sensation while the hard length of him throbbed hot inside of her.

"Do you really want to know?"

It was a challenge that had one brow quirking in clear interest while his hands settled on her waist, thumbs rubbing the jut of her hipbones and his shadow fanning along her flank. His tongue darted out to lick his lips and she heard his answer without words.

The wings that had carried him across the ocean unfurled again, as unbound as they'd been when she'd launched herself off the ship and became one with the sky. The feathers brushed the tops of his thighs when she rolled her hips and arched her back, her breasts thrusting up, high and proud. A sound that was something between a gasp and a groan escaped the demon and when Emma looked down at him she smiled and whispered, "Behold."

Her light flooded through him like lightning, brighter than any star in the heavens above as it lit him up from the inside. Her weight was the only thing that kept him anchored to the ground, his body surging upwards and seized with divine ecstasy. It should have been impossible, his damnation barring him from receiving anything that was holy, but as the forbidden fruit held all that was good and evil in the world locked within she held him inside and his fire didn't burn and her light didn't blind.

"Again!" he begged, eyes flying open and every hair on his body standing on end, "Emma, again!"

She rose and fell in a steady rhythm that he matched, knees bending and feel planting, pushing her forward so that her breasts grazed his chest and the light pulsed between them like the pulse of his rigid male flesh, a hot spill that warmed her while his thumb pressed right to where she ached the most and with a flick and swirl she was flying again in a different way. Emma clutched his shoulders, her cry swallowed by his kiss. The flowers should have closed up when the sun set but they continued to bloom, the miracle rippling outward from where they lay as lilies grew from sand and salt water, as blue as the sea, as blue as a demon's eyes.

"Sleep now, angel."

His voice was soft, the only one she heard when she pressed her face to his neck and drifted off with the heat of him gently warming her under the blanket of her wing covering them both.

"Well, we didn't bring about the Apocalypse last night, so I suppose that's good news."

Emma didn't open her eyes, tracing the shape of his heart on his chest and feeling the kiss of the sun on her cheek and the sound of birdsong from the trees. Dawn had broken in their secret garden bower, where they lay entwined under a canopy of greens with her head pillowed on his shoulder. "Is that what you expected to happen?" she asked.

"I've no idea...but I do know that everything comes at a price."

She lifted her head at that and met his gaze, realizing that they were still sheltered under her wing and both as naked as Adam and Eve. There was no fig leaves to guard their modesty here, his bare hip pressed to the inside of her thigh and the hair on his chest ticked her fingers. Killian's hand skimmed up her side and found her breast, he bent to press a kiss to the soft slope of it while his words made her shiver despite the heat of his mouth. They'd each defied what they were, and rebellions always came at great cost.

What price would be paid for this?

And by whom?

Her wings folded closed, obeying her command in a heartbeat and leaving her fully bare and exposed. Lips closed around her nipple and a soft gasp escaped her, while a glance down showed her that Killian's ardour had not been fully sated by their first coupling, his cock was hard again against the wiry thatch of hair that surrounded it. Neither had hers, she could feel the growing dampness under her own downy mound and the burning ache when he started to make his way lower, whiskered cheek nuzzling against her belly and that silver tongue flicking out against her skin like a serpent's. The light revealed what had been concealed by the dark, glints of amber at the tips of his eyelashes and threaded through his beard. He'd been born in flame and he bore the birthmarks of his own infernal creation, but then the dark head dipped between her open thighs and her eyes fluttered shut against the rush of sensation.

"You would risk the End of Days for this?"

It came out as a sigh, barely audible over the crash of the waves against the shore. Flowers floated away like driftwood, petals as soft as the pads of his exploring fingers swept away on the tides.

"For my very own guardian angel?" he said, voice somewhat muffled in his current position and yet she heard him as clear as a bell, "Everything."

Afterwards he plucked one of the flowers from the earth, white and fragrant as he twirled it between his fingers and his thumb.

"I like these more than the lilies, I think. They remind me of you."

Killian drew it under his nose and gave a deep inhale before reaching to tuck it behind her ear. In the distance Emma could see his ship, summoned back to retrieve its master and just breaking over the horizon. None of the men aboard had witnessed her flight, they were blind to what they could not see and they would have only noticed a bird, a swan perhaps, straying too far from land.

His hand clasped hers, enveloping it completely while the leather coat swirled about his knees as they stood together on the beach and watched the ship's slow approach in silence. The sun rose high overhead and the sky was perfectly clear, as it had been the day before, and would again tomorrow. Nothing appeared to have changed in the world around them, and yet everything had. An angel had sinned, and a demon had looked into the light.

But when the Final Battle came they would be enemies, Heaven and Hell colliding like armies on the field and they were bound to stand on opposite sides. Darkness would always seek to snuff out the light.

She couldn't save him, and he would try to destroy her.

It was inevitable.

#cs ff #cs fic #my fic #Between Heaven and Hell

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