#frosted glass maidens faces

[sofiasshabbyprairie]

SofiasCobwebMuseum

#art nouveau carved maidens faces #art nouveau wall hangers #frosted glass maidens faces #3D Art Nouveau

[mistress-ofmagic]

Around the Realms in 80 days - chapter 22

Pairing: Reader x Loki

Story summary: You have fallen through a portal during the convergence into Asgard and come face to face with Thor, and his brother Loki. With no way to return, you must travel with the two men and their hoard of asgardian soldiers to get back home. Things get from bad to worse when you have to share a tent with the god of mischief himself.

Notes:

Okay I don't know if any of you guys are still out there and still wanting an update for this story but I'm providing one anyway! I really do hope that you're still with me (and if you can't remember what happened that feels like a good time for a re-read right??)

Read this story on a03!

find all parts to this story on Tumblr here:

You’d had better days, you mused. 

Better weeks, months, years…

“If you continue pulling that face it will get stuck and you’ll get wrinkles” Loki chimed behind you. 

You glared up at him, scowling even harder out of spite. 

He grinned down at you.

After Loki’s admission two days ago, his mood had been…interesting. He had stayed beside you in the hospital when he could, but he kept swapping between being distant and being close. 

No real change there then, you thought.

You hadn’t brought the whole being a frost Giant thing up again, despite your thousands of questions in case you pushed him too far and he got annoyed with you and decided to stop visiting. 

Now however, he seemed to be in a good mood although you felt that had more to do with the fact he was currently pushing you around in a wheelchair. 

His eyes had lit up when the nurses had suggested it, despite the fact you felt well enough to walk really and for most of your journey you would just be in the lift anyway. You had protested multiple times but now Loki had got the idea in his head there was really no persuading him otherwise.

“Isn’t this nice?” He asked, too jovial for your liking. 

You put your tongue out and rolled your eyes when you thought he wasn’t looking. 

“I saw that you little chit.” 

He rocked the wheelchair like he was going to tip you out. 

“LOKI!” You yelled, gripping to the sides of your chair. 

The lift attendant had looked pale when you’d first stepped in, and now he looked rather green.

Loki roared with laughter. 

“Oh come on darling, you really think I would throw a vulnerable maiden out of her chair?”

Before having to face that your answer to that question might actually be no and that you knew Loki would never do anything to hurt you, or the fact that this was the third time he had called you darling, the doors of the lift opened onto the floor where you were meeting with Stark and the Avengers. 

Apparently Tony had wanted to wait until you were a bit better before doing a debrief on what had gone down on Muspelheim.

Loki wheeled you down small corridor and into the large meeting room. Like many of the rooms in Stark towers, the windows were completely glass and looking down onto the city below. It was as far as being outside as you had got in the past few days and you stared out, longingly. 

Distracting you slightly from the view, was the Avengers sat around the table. Thor was there of course, as well as Captain America, Natasha and Dr Bruce Banner. A smaller cohort that had welcomed you in when you had first arrived. 

Natasha seemed to assess you with cool eyes, but Bruce shot you a sympathetic look which you felt was a lot to do with the fact you were wearing a very cool and flattering nightie with Shrek’s face all over it as it was the only thing that could fit over your bandages. 

Loki wheeled you into a space that had been left chair-less for you as he took the one next to you. 

Tony gave you a tired smile.

“How you feeling kid?”

“Better thank you. And thank you for the care on your wards too!” 

He brushed you off with a wave of his hand. 

“I suppose I should thank you for saving Rock of Ages life too.” Tony shot Loki a disgruntled look. “He is helping us with this situation after all.” He said, as if he wasn’t particularly happy about it. “Its nice to see you taking your babysitting duties very seriously, although next time I’d appreciate it if you stay away from certain death, he’s not worth it.” 

Loki gave a half shrug, “that’s one thing we agree on.” 

You scowled again. 

“Plus now you are officially hired as a member of my workforce, it reflects badly on me.”

You snorted, “If the babysitter club ever want a new member i’ll be the first in line. And don’t worry, I have no desire to face certain death ever again.” 

Although I would save Loki again, a little voice in your head added that you pushed down into the depths of your subconscious. 

“So, Wonderland’s still with us, but we still no nothing about the current alien threat to Earth.” Stark said gloomily. 

“Well, we found out Surtur’s made some sort of deal with someone to er…cause something.” Thor supplied.

Stark pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Next to nothing then. Natasha?” 

She shrugged. “Nothing at any of the reported sites, no sign of anything coming in or out.” 

“We did learn that they are taking humans for something.” You piped up. 

Everyone stared at you and you immediately regretted speaking at all.

“One of the fire demons told me.” You mumbled.

“Is there no help from your…lot?” Steve asked to Thor. 

“Sadly, Ragnarok is a myth across the other realms too, not just on Midgard. There will be many that don’t take it seriously seriously. And, no one would be bothered enough about a few missing humans to get involved in an intergalactic war.” Loki shrugged. 

Stark scoffed “A few?”

He pulled up a page a hologram of various news stories over the past few weeks, of humans going missing, seemingly vanishing without a trace. 

It was worse than you thought, and it seemed the rates where going up by the day. 

“The fire demon I spoke with, he told me I could go with him, somewhere where they could make me more powerful.” You spoke again. 

Tony and Bruce swapped concerned faces. 

“Did he say anything else?”

“No, not really, just promises of a greater future or something.”

“Well it might not be much but, good work.” Steve said, and flashed you an all American pearly smile and you blushed in spite of yourself.

“Yes, Latte has proved herself to be truly courageous on this trip.” Thor agreed. 

“Oh well, I don’t know about all that.” You murmured feeling your face burn up. It was only an accident anyway that you had found anything out, it’s not like you’d stormed up to a fire demon and demand he speak to you. 

Nevertheless, you were only a few beats away from kicking your feet and giggling but you refrained yourself.

Loki muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like “suck up” and you glared at him, taking a long swig of water to cool yourself down. 

“You reap what you sow kid, I’ll be recruiting you to do further missions with Loki if you’re not careful. Who knew the worlds rudest goth could make friends? And a lowly earthling at that.” Stark challenged.

You tensed. You weren’t really 100% sure if Loki actually did consider you a friend, or if he would take offence at the insinuation. 

But Loki leaned back in his chair, “We are friends, friends with benefits.” 

You choked on your water and it spilled down Shreks face as Thor gave you a pat on the back that nearly sent your lungs through your mouth. 

While you recovered no one knew what to say, Steve and Bruce looked alarmed, you weren’t sure if that was at Lokis statement or the fact you had spat out half a glass of water and Starks mouth was hung wide open, his eyes open comically large, Natasha looked mildly amused.

“Its not…” You said between coughing. “That’s not true…Loki…Loki doesn’t know what that term means…he…he can’t….”

You turned to him.

“Where did you even hear that being said?” You spluttered. 

He narrowed his eyes at you. 

“You deny that we are friends in front of Stark and his goonies?”

“I’m not denying were friends Loki, I’m denying were friends with benefits. That doesn’t mean what you think it does it means something really specific on Earth. What…What benefits does our friendship bring?”

Loki shuffled in his seat “Well…you have taught me how to use a midgardian communication device and I have taught you…”

You cut him off “Great, expect thats not what friends with benefits means here it means…” You blushed heavily again. 

“It means friends who…” you tried again. 

Loki was watching you carefully with an eyebrow raised, the corner of his mouth starting to twitch and your uncomfortableness.

“Friends who fuck.” Natasha finished off helpfully. 

You felt your face grow even redder if that were possible. 

“Ah.” Loki said, in a measured tone although you thought you noticed a very light blush across his pale complexion. “I understand now that that might have been misleading.” 

“Well thank God we cleared that up.” Stark sighed, “I thought we were going to have to admit you to the psych ward instead of the burns ward.”

You stared down to avoid eye contact with Loki, feeling a bit awkward. 

“What’s the plan?” Steve asked. 

“Asgardians?” Stark aimed at Thor.

“We won’t get anything more information from Surtur…”

“The people of this planet are disappearing! Into thin air! And some Alien thingies are the culprit! How can I be the protector of the human race if I don’t even have any leads!” Stark yelled. 

Thor and Steve swapped looks. 

“There might be more information we can gather across the other realms” Thor shrugged, “If the true enemy behind this is thought not to be human then they could potentially come from another Realm.”

“We would have no idea where to start though, it’s not like the nine realms are a small area to cover.” Loki argued. 

“Doctor Foster does a lot of research into the nine realms, will she have any information for us?” Tony asked Thor hopefully.

“I…I can ask her to see what she has found.” Thor placated. 

“In the meantime, we have our best scientists searching the skies for any sign of alien invasions.” Bruce added. “Tony I’m sure we will find something, we’ve got people going to sites where people have disappeared and looking into traces and signals that have been left behind, something is bound to flag up. And the researchers will keep monitoring the fire demons.”

Stark sighed. And you got a feeling that until this thing was settled he was never be satisfied, knowing the people of Earth were in danger. 

“Meeting adjourned or whatever… I need a fucking drink.” 

                                                                         ***

“13 down, 7 letters, a drawing intended to explain how something happens.” 

“Diagram?” 

Oliver nodded, writing it down. 

“Okay… 5 across, 5 letters, spaghetti for example that’s got to be pasta…what about this one, 8 letters, endurance.”

“Stamina? No wait, that’s only 7…patience?” 

“Yeah, has to be.” 

It was the day after Starks meeting. Loki had wheeled you back into your hospital room after the meeting and then he’d had to then leave pretty sharpish, stating he had something he needed to do although you wondered if he still felt awkward about the whole friends with benefits thing. Then again, you wondered if Loki ever really felt awkward about anything, or if he was immune to embarrassment.

After the meeting you had been so damn tired that by the time he’d wheeled you back you’d been nearly asleep. The meeting was the most you had done since the attack and it had exhausted you. 

Plus you were still pretty drowsy from all the pain medication you were on. You’d expected him to call over a nurse but instead he’d actually gotten you the medication you needed and then to your extreme surprise, he’d picked you up from your chair bridal style and put you into bed. 

You were almost too sleepy to have noticed what was going on, but shockingly you were certain he had left a featherlight kiss on your forehead before he left. 

Maybe you had imagined it in your sleepy state, after all he hadn’t been in to see you today.

The nurse had visited today and checked you over, changing your bandages. She had assured you your burns were healing nicely, and Loki’s fast thinking of applying his cold skin to your stomach and chest had saved most of your skin resulting in you only needing a smallish emergency skin graft.  

You’d also been joined by Oliver, who had come prepared for the nurses recommendation of resting as much as possible by providing cross-words. 

“You’re pretty good at these.” He gave his lopsided grin. 

“Symptoms of a misguided youth I’m afraid. I might not have gone to Harvard but I am pretty nifty with a crossword.” 

“Harvard’s overrated.”

“Alright for you to say Mr Ivy League.”

Oliver chuckled. “Wait this is a cryptic one, it says ‘to tantalise the left is a plant.’

“Huh? Wait let me see.”

Oliver stood up from the chair and brought the book over to you. He perched himself on the edge of your hospital bed and you moved over to give him more room.

“Do you need any more medication?” Oliver suddenly asked. 

“I should be good thank you.” You smiled at him. 

Man he was so sweet. Loki had done the same thing yesterday but still. It was nice to have someone else here who cared about you. 

You caught his blue eyes. He had nice looking eyes you noticed, but they missed the tint of green you were used to seeing in Loki’s eyes. 

Actually, why where you thinking about Lokis eyes at all?

Oliver placing his hand over yours on the bed brought you back to the present moment. 

“I was thinking, maybe when you’re feeling better I could take you….”

Before Oliver could finish his sentence, the door to your room opened and Loki strode in. 

Loki took in your close proximity to Oliver, and the fact you were holding hands and his eyes narrowed. 

There was a moment of awkward silence, and for some reason your natural instinct was to jump back sheepishly from Oliver. Despite having no reason at all to feel guilt, you still felt…something.

“I had come to see how you were faring, but I see you have company already.” Those blue/green eyes you had just been thinking about were harsher than you had seen them in a while. 

“We were just doing cross words.” You said, lamely. 

Instead of keeping your mouth shut you continued like an imbecile. “Erm were stuck on a cryptic one if you wanted to help…”

“And intrude on this…personal moment.” He sneered.

“That wasn’t…I mean we were just…” You started and then sat up further in bed, trying to look authoritative, which was harder than you might think for someone attached to an IV drip. “Actually I don’t have to explain myself to you.” 

“Oh, I see.” His voice was cold, and it felt like the room got colder too.

“What do you see?”

Loki ignored you.

“Get out.” He directed at Oliver. 

Your temper started to rise.

“Hey, he doesn’t have to leave we were in the middle of something.”

“Look, um maybe I should just go.” Oliver spoke up squeezing your hand before standing up. 

“I’ll leave the book here for you for when you get bored. I hope you feel better, I’ll come visit again soon and bring some more stuff.” He gave you a quick kiss on the cheek. 

Kudos to Oliver, he walked past Loki out of the room without crying or screaming.

After he had left, Loki breezed into the room and arranged the flowers at the table at the bottom of the table like he hadn’t just yelled at your friend to leave. 

“Dude what is wrong with you?” You directed at Loki. “I am allowed to have friends!”

He rolled his eyes. 

“He clearly wants to be more than friends.”

You made a funny noise in the back of your throat. You wouldn’t be totally against Oliver having more than friendly feelings, a distraction from these insane feelings for Loki that keep creeping up out of no where might be a good thing, right? 

Not that you had any feelings for Loki, obviously.

Loki studied you closely before clearing his throat. 

“Are you and this mortal…friends with benefits?” 

“Loki!” You glared at him.

His facial expression remained calm as he continued staring at you.

“I’m simply asking."

“No! No, God I wish you had never learnt what that term meant. Also I am sleeping next to you every night where would I find the time?”

“Yes, you are aren’t you.” He said, too smugly for your liking. 

“Although I do have every right to explore…you know, that side of things with someone if I want to.” 

His eyes narrowed again, and stood up taller.

“We are in the middle of a crisis here. Is now the right time to be engaging in a dalliance?” 

“You can’t be serious!” You said indignantly. 

“I’m being very serious!”  He matched your tone. 

"Are you giving me a lecture right now on my love life?” When he didn’t say anything you continued. 

“You don’t even care about humans, why are you even bothered about this crisis suddenly?”

“You’re being ridiculous, you can’t seriously mean to engage with this… mere mortal. ” 

“I’m being ridiculous? You’re being ridiculous! In case you forgot, I happen to be a mere mortal too!”

Loki kind of did look taken a back for a second, as if he had actually forgotten that. 

“What I get up to is not even any of your business.” You told him

“Fine.” He sneered, walking towards the door.

“Fine!” You shouted back. 

He slammed the door behind him as you threw your puzzle book at him. 

“Ah!” You screamed to yourself. 

The cheek of that asshole to have a go at you for letting yourself engage in some dating when he was the one that slept with Ylva while you were touring around Asgard. 

You tossed and turned around in your bed, but eventually the drowsiness kicked back in and you managed to fall asleep. 

                                                                     ***

One moment, you were fast asleep, the next moment you heard an explosion. You sat up quickly, disorientated and confused. Another explosion sounded and you got up and ran to the window.

You blinked and blinked again. 

A piece of metal fell seemingly from the sky and you looked up. 

The tower was under attack. 

Notes: I hoped you guys enjoyed this and are still liking the story!!

Taglist:

@creationsbyme  @kikster606  @slytherinintj13  @th0rswh0res  @huntress-artemiss  @jannieka394 @stefffrs  @misswimberly @thedistractedagglomeration  @yoongissidebitchh  @purplekitten30 @mischief2sarawr  @johnmurphys-sass 

@lonadane  @imalovernotahater @lokisgoodgirl  @laliceee @dlwrish  @paetonnn  @lovelysizzlingbluebird   @reas-writing  @buttercupcookies-blog @acidcasualties @alialiclouds 

@buckybarneslovesteve @evelyn-rathmore 

@Im-a-slut-for-fluff  @jainaeatsstars @mypainischronicbutmyassisiconic

#loki #loki x y/n #loki x you #loki x reader #loki smut #loki laufeyson #loki marvel #loki mcu #loki of asgard

[magpie-to-the-morning]

Hi Emma! For the prompt game: Flowers + Jack + fluff? 💖 (psst you're amazing and I'm gonna love whatever you decide to do with this!)

Jen I had so much fun with this one. I hope you like the cowboy AU I went with. Thank you for betaing when I was so psyched to share this, @acrossthesestars 😘

It started as a game.

Every time the Statesman rode into your dusty, lawless town (a frequent enough occurrence, between hunting various bandits, thieves, and other assorted rogues), Jack sought you out. Ever since that first time he’d caught a glimpse of you leaning out a window of the saloon, your hair half done and your tattered silks slipping from your shoulders, paint on your face and a dream in your eyes, he'd had eyes only for you.

He’d met you in the bar, tipped his hat and called you ma’am before asking for the pleasure of your company for an evening. He was different from the others who sought you out. Well-mannered. Even tempered. Clean, other than the dirt of a hard journey on his heels - and he’d always taken his boots off before carrying you to your own bed.

And oh, the things the two of you did in that bed.

It wasn’t long before he was asking you to come away with him.

Come on sweetheart, what do you say?

Trying to take me away from all this, cowboy?

And if I were?

Ask me again next time.

He did. He showed up again months later, his suit finer and his horse sleeker. The rogue business was booming, he said later that night, his breath warm on your neck, his fingers gentle against your curves.

Come with me, darlin’. If only so I can get some damn peace. How’s a man supposed to sleep or work or, hell, think when he’s this lovesick?

You were no stranger to flattery, or the silver-tongued promises of a man wanting something. Oh it sounded good now, with the moonlight spilling over your sheets and those clever lips making you see stars, but where would you be when his passion waned?

Right back where you were when you fetched up in this dust pit to begin with.

Still, there couldn’t be any harm in seeing him again, and his sweet words reminded you of the old tales your mama had lulled you to sleep with - of knights and maidens and happy endings.

Tell you what, cowboy. You guess my favorite flower and I’ll come away with you.

The grin he’d given you then was sweet enough to coax gold from a miser’s fist.

Every time he came to you from then on, he had flowers in his hands, mostly of the wildflower variety: purple coneflowers and Black-Eyed Susans, asters and hyssop. Once he brought you an orchid, a tender, fey thing he must have nursed for weary miles to place into your waiting hands.

He never guessed your favorite. Every time you smiled, shook your head gently, and placed them in a green glass jar beside your bed while Jack did his best to draw hints from your sweetly parted lips.

Your flowers - are they the color of your eyes? Do they grow alone? Is their nectar as honeyed as your taste on my fingers? Next time, sweetheart, next time I’ll bring the right ones.

You started to worry he’d tire of the game. Oh, he always paid well, a tidy stack of silver coins on windowsill in the morning, their clinking mocking you as you scooped them up.

Promises and flowers are all well enough, they seemed to whisper, but you can only rely on us.

Months slipped past. Seasons. Scorched grass summer turned to rusty red autumn. There was ice on the windowpanes and frost on your breath by the time Jack returned. Your heart leapt, though you knew it was too cold for flowers.

He’ll have to come again at least once more, you thought, your heart as quick as your steps as you raced toward him through the crowded bar.

He caught you with a grin, his coat smelling of snow and far off woods. Or maybe that was just the greenery in his hand.

Jack had brought you fir branches instead, their wild sap rising in the amber shadows of your room as the two of you made up for lost time.

Later, when the fire burned to glowing embers, Jack cleared his throat - nervous for the first time since you’d met.

“I know it ain’t quite what I promised and in the ordinary course of things I’m not one to go back on my word but, well, maybe this will be the right one after all.”

You sat up, puzzled, the quilt falling from your bare shoulder. Jack tugged it back into place before leaning to reach for his saddlebags. He placed a box in your hands, one about the size of a loaf and just as light, all wrapped in brown paper and tied with red and white string. His dark gaze never strayed as you bent to open it, his expression somewhere between apprehension and hope as you lifted out the finest cup and saucer you’d ever laid eyes on. Near paper thin and bone white, other than a delicate ring of flowers around the rim.

Your favorite flowers.

It wasn’t smoke that blurred your vision then. Afraid you’d drop the dainty thing, you set it down on the scrubbed pine table beside your bed, the cup rattling in the saucer with a chime.

Jack’s face fell.

“Oh, darlin’, don’t you like it? I was sure I guessed right this time but - “

You stopped his mouth with a teary kiss. “It’s beautiful. And those are my favorite. But now you’ve guessed and you won’t need to come back - and besides, it’s too nice for a place like this, what if something happens to it?” You’re rambling, your mind shying like a spooked horse at the thought of losing this. Of losing him.

The last thing you expected was for Jack to laugh, but laugh he does until tears are streaming from his eyes. “What a pair of fools,” he chuckles. Before you can even open your mouth to protest he quiets and takes your hands.

“Sweetheart, I have a whole set of those dishes waiting back home. They’re yours - if you’ll do me the honor of marrying me. That’s what this has all been about. Or did you think I wasn’t a man of my word?”

He pouts prettier than any girl in the cathouse, and you tell him as much through your own relieved tears and a laughing kiss.

“Jack Daniels, if you thought I would have trusted my future to any old sweet-talking lawman blazing in and out of town like a comet, then you really would be a fool. But oh, if you are then I am one too, and it wouldn’t do to break up a set.”

By the time the embers draw up their blanket of ash, the two of you are wrapped up in each other once more, your bodies nestled together like spoons in drawer while you drift off planning a future together.

#Jack ‘Whiskey’ Daniels x reader #Jack Daniels x Reader #Jack Daniels x F!Reader #Jack ‘Whiskey’ Daniels x F!Reader #Jack ‘Whiskey’ Daniels #Fic #My Fic

[ahsteria]

can we read the murder lesbians short story

!!!!! YES omg its under the cut <33 a little over 1k words and is one of my first attempts at creative writing would love if anyone read or gave feedback soooo much okk here it is

"define, desire":

To the outsider, Anna’s attention is failing. She sits alone at one of the library’s hexagonal tables, has turned the page maybe once in the past hour. What the outsider doesn’t understand, is that Anna's attention is an arrow with a string, sharp and resolute point embedded in its mark. It’s not her fault, really, how can she be expected to focus on East of Eden when God’s favorite angel is typing in her peripheral. Mari is wearing thin, silver framed glasses today, enlarging her already lamb-like eyes.  

Five months ago Anna’s mother passed, leaving her the pale yellow-painted estate and an ever-unsatisfied well wedged deep in her stomach, unrelenting thing. September was rain waving hello, through windows on slow train rides from Anna’s Brooklyn apartment to the quiet and innocuous woods of Seneca Falls. Her intention was never to stay, this was promptly ruined on a notably gray September Sunday: Anna subjected to tediously returning her late mother’s stack of overdue romance novels. Upon first glance, she mistook Mari for actual, inhuman art. It’s nice that the library is investing in the fine arts, she thought. Oh, oh but then the beauty blinked itself alive, flesh and blood, Pygmalion and Galatea. Silver-blonde hair ending at the dip of visible hip bones, her front strands framing those fucking doe eyes. When reading The Argonautica, she thought Jason's men stupid for being unable to resist the sirens’ call. She sympathizes with them now. Mari is desire personified, something sicker than yearning. Flesh and blood cannot look like that. Anna moved to Seneca Falls the following week.

Anna is not insane. She and Mari are friends. It began with books (Anna often watches Mari’s desk then purchases her current read from the local bookstore). Sometimes they’ll discuss art (Anna’s favorite pieces may, on common occasions, feature fair maidens with notably defined anatomy). Recently, they’ve been frequenting local events (she’s canceled three appointments now to attend said events with Mari). The two of them, in fact, went to the loveliest gallery opening last month and shared a slice of blackberry lemon-crème cake. Mari fed Anna a bite with her fork: a doubly bittersweet, indirect kiss. Mari mentioned a craving for it two days ago, red lips in a distracting, horrifying pout. So Anna, in a normal, nonchalant way, called the gallery with the intent of purchasing an entire cake. Tragically, she failed to locate the baker. The gallery was lucky enough however, to have a copy for allergy concerns, which was faxed over. Mari gifted her a kiss on the cheek for it yesterday: a bullet to rational thinking. And so, here is Anna, thinking about warm lips and delicate wrists and flushed skin as Steinbeck’s open pages collect dust. 

˚₊‧꒰ა❤︎໒꒱ ‧₊

Mari has never been more beautiful than in Anna’s late-mother’s kitchen. It’s not the kitchen really, with its outdated black and white tiled backsplash, nor even the setting sun’s orange light placing a halo atop her head. It’s Mari suggesting they bake the cake together, Anna’s kitchen is bigger anyway, it’ll be nice, she had said. Suggested so casually, as if not filling Anna’s mind with sickly craving, sugarcoated daydreams.

The cake is cooling now, on the silver rack beside the knife block. They’re making frosting. It’s difficult for Anna to pay much care to anything besides the smear of buttercream on Mari’s forearm. She thinks of placing her mouth on it, saccharine skin. Mari smiles, full face, and it's then Anna realizes she’s been talking. 

“Sorry—missed that,” Anna says.

“Oh I just said the photo on your fridge, it’s nice,” Mari replies.

Mari is referring to a photo of her mother—loose brown curls and stress lines around the eyes, her smile is strained only slightly, it’s almost indiscernible. Anna is seated next to her, same strained smile but significantly less disguised. 

“Oh, thanks. That’s my mom, we took it over there.” Anna nods towards the blue velvet couch in the living room where they had then posed for the hired photographer. 

“Cute. You look like her.” Mari says. 

Soon the conversation moves to the new Margaret Atwood they’re both ‘coincidentally’ reading. The butter churns, loud and repetitive, like a third voice interrupting the discussion. Mari snacks on spare blackberries as they wait, her hands match Persephone’s, all stained red. 

˚₊‧꒰ა❤︎໒꒱ ‧₊

It’s horrific, two toppling layers, collapsing under the weight of undoubtedly too much lemon buttercream; blackberries lazily clinging to swirled dollops. There’s a sheen to it, moonlight on the melting fat of the frosting. 

“It’s beautiful,” Anna quips. Mari laughs, taking a knife out of the block, eager to taste.

“It’s a scale model of the fucking leaning tower of pizza—” Mari says.

“You’re beautiful.” Anna interrupts, unable to help herself. Oh, she’s ruined it now. This was supposed to be a quiet, careful seduction—waves ebbing at rocks so slowly that the rock never realizes when exactly, it goes under. A sea stack.  

Mari’s eyes go big and pleased. She smiles, impossibly, wider.

Oh fuck, oh, oh fuck, Anna thinks. Does she know? Shit. Anna is sick, sick with want, poisoned by something carnal and consuming.

“You’re lovely,” Mari says, as if it’s simple.

She’s close, now, the warmth of her skin corporeal. The red nail polish of Mari’s fingers meets the cotton of Anna’s shirt. Anna gently claps her wrist, takes the knife out of her hand, a tentative touch. The whole thing is lovely really: the delicate press of bone against skin, Mari’s breath, soft against hers, and Anna’s knife, deep in Mari’s guts.

Desire: “to strongly wish for or want (something),” this “something” is undefined. Romance perhaps, sex, money, love, or, in Anna’s case, violence, flavored with sacrilege. When Anna first realized that Mari was not in fact, sterile art,  she was overcome with desire to kill something that is holy and also alive.  Mari is screaming, an angel’s chorus. Prey eyes thick with tears, the confusion of a calf raised by a butcher. Her blood is blackberry juice against buttercream, pouring out from the mouth, catching on the veins of her throat, pooling in her clavicle, then trickling back into the original wound in the stomach. Collapsing, strings cut, she fades into a beautiful lifelessness, ars longa vita brevis. Unrelenting hunger satisfied, Mari lies on the floor— Millais’ Ophelia. Anna is ecstatic, a bit in awe. She thinks herself a sort of artist, the corpse on the floor her undying masterpiece. High on ultimate hedonism, Anna notices blood splattered on the cake. She takes the frosting on her finger, metallic, sour, and too-sweet, it’s quite good. A shame, Anna thinks, that she never got to try a slice. 

#uhmmm yes lmk what u guys think if u have any questions etc etc <3333 #mine #first thing longer than like two paragraphs ive posted wooow #btw mari fucks the shit out of anna in hell dw #haunts her as a flirty but angry ghost too maybe #asks #clownfall #writing #short story #fiction

[annebrontesrequiem]

Rereading an old story I want to keep working and like... some of this is good:

"The maiden of death laughed at him, glaring down. At Spring they burned her, and now it was he who would be tossed away. He did not want to die. He truly did not want to die."

"Everything bowed to Fate and thus everything bowed to her. But it would not take kindly to it. Nothing did, not even she. Set in their ways, as humans liked to say. They were all set in their ways, everything that lay under the sun. Even when they thought they were not something betrayed the lie. A blessing and a curse, as sure and as unpredictable as an ocean or as a ruler."

"Still she stared, and eventually a bird came down. Its feathers were ice and its down was snow; its eyes were glass and it stared as if it saw everything and nothing. She approached it silently, a smile on her face. She knew this creature very well, had raised it to maturity. Now it would help her weave the tapestry of time, move forward the lives of men. Ah, men. Even as they prayed to the gods, even as they sacrificed to their spirits and to those spirits who would never be theirs, even then they believed that they were the masters of Fate."

"Outside the snow blew down, great white sheets and sails that giggled and shrieked and wailed its way around the palace walls, through the dirty streets, under stable walls, and next to frost-cracked windowpanes. There was no care in the dancing of snowflakes, no worries as to the fate of the land upon which they fell. They would always be there, after all. Even when the city groaned and fell and split into flames the snow would be there to bury the body and paint over the landscape. Let men worry. The snow would dance."

#my writing #bern writes #bern speaks

[wolfbrawn]

*slides a single septim across the table* i need reaction to eira accidentally winning at arm wrestling (she feels really bad about it tho)

Frost climbed the windows, coating panes of rippled glass in a second, shining skin. Miniscule scales glittered when firelight caught them just right, setting them to twinkle like a thousand jealous eyes peering inward. To ordinary folk, the smoky heat of the tavern and its wide-mouthed fire pit proved a haven in the tundra, a bastion on the sea-like spread of ice and snow. For Farkas, it was almost too hot, the press of bodies raising the fever of his blood – but he was nothing if not a pack animal. He grinned along with friends and comrades and strangers alike, kept his face buried in his tankard, drinking deep, while the hair at the back of his neck glistened and curled with sweat.

Eira made for pleasant company, and Farkas had no desire to disappoint her. When she challenged him, he rose to it good-naturedly, though to him it seemed a poor match -- scarcely a fair contest. Few paid mind as they shuffled and settled on opposite sides of a small table, kissing its cracked and ale-stained top with the points of their elbows, hands grasping with singular purpose.

It was not the outcome he had imagined, not one he could have predicted. Farkas had tempered his strength, in the beginning, not wanting to shame the pale slip of a moon-maiden. That grace could not account for the loss, for the moment they each trembled with effort, before the tide turned steadily against him. All eyes seemed to be on them then all cheers and jeers melding into a mouthy cacophony – so loud that he did not hear the sound his forge-scarred knuckles made when they cracked against the table in defeat.

Strength was the foundation of his worth. Without it, he was absolved of value. This was the poison he had been weaned on, the belief that the only counterpoint to his stupidity was his strength. Farkas could not remember the last time he tasted loss; defeat lay bitter and unsettling on his tongue.

For a beat, he stared dumbfounded, before shedding his bemusement and rearranging his features into a celebratory grin. He was not one for bristling defensively – it was not in his nature to diminish the accomplishments of another, and he would not dream of tarnishing Eira's victory with wheedling excuses.

Instead, he rose, the feet of the chair scraping heavily against flagstones as he loomed over his competitor and friend. Seizing her by the wrist, he heaved Eira to her feet – onto her toes, in fact, in his enthusiasm – and thrust the birch branch of her arm into the air.

“We have our winner!” Farkas roared, his voice landslide-loud, rising above the din. It was only when the attention of their audience drifted, when the spike in chatter tailed off into the low, mumbling drone of drunken conversation, that he spoke to Eira directly, his expression softening:

“Next round is on me.”

#oh eira :') #he'll be fiiiine #he'll be her biggest cheerleader #literally and figuratively #farkas and eira tbt #selunyte

[palomino8th]

Child of the pure unclouded brow     And dreaming eyes of wonder! Though time be fleet, and I and thou     Are half a life asunder, Thy loving smile will surely hail The love-gift of a fairy-tale.

I have not seen thy sunny face,     Nor heard thy silver laughter; No thought of me shall find a place     In thy young life’s hereafter— Enough that now thou wilt not fail To listen to my fairy-tale.

A tale begun in other days,     When summer suns were glowing— A simple chime, that served to time     The rhythm of oar rowing— Whose echoes live in memory yet, Though envious years would say ‘forget.’

Come, hearken then, ere voice of dread.     With bitter tidings laden, Shall summon to unwelcome bed     A melancholy maiden! We are but older children, dear, Who fret to find our bedtime near.

Without, the frost, the blinding snow.     The storm-wind’s moody madness— Within, the firelight’s ruddy glow,     And childhood’s nest of gladness. The magic words shall hold thee fast: Thou shalt not heed the raving blast.

And though the shadow of a sigh     May tremble through the story, For ‘happy summer days’ gone by,     And vanish’d summer glory— It shall not touch with breath of bale The pleasance of our fairy-tale.

The Project Gutenberg : Lewis Carroll " Through the Looking-Glass "

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12/12-h/12-h.htm

[the-insomniac-emporium]

Wounded Love (Lady Dimitrescu/F!Reader)

Fandom: Resident Evil: Village Rating: M for mature. Blood, more blood, heavy language, seriously lots of blood. Literally the bloodiest/most detailed thing I've written. Genre: Super angst with some fluff to ease the pain. We're talking putting honey in your cup of poison to make it taste better. The ending is split, with both a happy and a sad ending. Warnings: Minor surgery (technically?) while the patient is fully awake (that's the reader, btws), blood loss, graphic depiction of a wound and how said wound is taken care of. Possible trigger for self-harm, as the reader is performing part of the surgery themselves. Also brief mention of cannibalism in the bad ending. This may very well be a Dead Dove: Do Not Eat sort of thing. Notes: While I have more medical knowledge than the average person, due to my Girl Scouts training + having a mother as a nurse, I am in no way shape or form a medical professional, and do not suggest that the methods of treatment used in this fic be taken seriously. If you find yourself seriously injured, do not attempt to replicate anything you read here. Only a portion of this is based on a real-ass incident I went through, the rest is based on a dream, and what I experienced was not what you want to do in an emergency.

{Wounded Love}

This was a mistake. Blood stains your leg, your fingers, and bruises start to form all over your exhausted body. And for what? Why had you, a tiny, fragile human, dared to pass through this damned, lycan-infested forest? Because a woman who didn’t even love you asked you to. Now you were going to die, body certain to get left out in the cold or reduced to a pile of gnawed bones. If you had more strength remaining, you might have slammed your hand into the ground in frustration, or screamed until your lungs burned from something other than frost.

But that wouldn’t get you anywhere. Wouldn’t help you get back to the castle, wouldn’t ease the racing of your heart. So you settle for the only thing that might do any good: One quick motion pulls the scarf from your neck, sending a chill down your spine that you promptly ignore. Even with shaky hands and numb fingers, your experience is enough to let you wrap the cloth around your leg, tying the ends in a knot to secure it. The pressure hurts, just not enough for you to prefer bleeding out. A test step reveals that walking is mildly more difficult now.

“I’m going to haunt her,” you muse, under your breath, tears starting to freeze at the corner of your eyes. Still, you are as quietly determined as ever, and so once more you limp down the path. Every time you put weight on your injured leg it protests harder. If not for the snow and ice covering the ground, you might have quickly searched for a walking stick. “What could be so important about this damn package? Couldn’t Doug or whatever-his-fucking-name-is deliver it? Man can practically teleport, and here I am, watching as blood loss and hypothermia race to see who can kill me first.”

Gods were you angry. Why had this happened so soon after you had settled in? Finally you had been comfortable in Castle Dimitrescu, no longer as frightened of the residents, even finding them… charming, in a way. Then the Lady of house called to you for what she claimed to be a simple errand. You had believed her, even when she explained that you would have to leave the relative safety of her home. What a fool you had been.

“What a fool she must be,” you murmur, “to think me safe here. To think I could outlast wolfmen prowling the village outskirts.” Would she even care if she saw you now? Would she be surprised, disappointed? Would she do something to change your fate? There was no reason for her to do so. It didn’t matter how much you had helped her, how much she claimed to appreciate what you did (heavy lifting, repair of clothing, massages). You were as replaceable as any other Maiden there was. And that, that was what made you have a double-take. It came to you in that moment, a thought so painful that you could not deny it was the truth. “She never thought I would survive.”

Bitterness coats your tongue, like blood in your throat, and your brain demands that you destroy your cargo, the very thing that got you sent here in the first place. You almost do it. Feet stopping, arms shrugging the carrying straps off, bloody hands taking hold of it. Tears fall, just two, and hit the package. At that moment your plan changed. This new idea would be far, far more satisfying… as long as you succeeded.

------------------------

Spite was one hell of a drug. Enough of it and you could march your warm corpse right back to the castle, fist banging on the front door with everything you had. The path had been shorter than you thought, thankfully, but it had still taken so much out of you. Now you were leaning against the door, sliding down it, unable to support your own weight. Nothing inside the castle stirred. Were they ignoring you? Was Alcina really going to let you die inches from your “home”? Fuck that, you thought.

“Alcina!” You scream, loud as you can, startling the birds in the distant trees. The word echoes around you and rattles inside your ribs. It’s not enough. “Damn it, I am seconds away from dying, get out here now so I can look you in your fucking eyes!” Something tears a little in your throat, turning the last of your words into a hellish screech, leaving you to gasp and croak in the snow. You go to wipe your tear-filled eyes with your hands, only to remember just how much blood they’re covered in.

Sobs overtake you in just a few moments. You’re blinded by tears, deafened by sorrows, and numb from all the cold. In the aching seconds before you black out, you can only barely make out the silhouette of someone rushing to your side…

------------------------

The first thing you feel when you wake up is mind searing pain. You try to jolt upwards, only to find a pair of strong, gloved hands holding you down. Someone shouts something, but you can’t make it out, and you feel another hand gently squeeze one of your own. Pained gasps escape your throat one after the other, but whatever is hurting you doesn’t stop. It takes a full minute for you to adjust enough to make sense of where you are. At last, you understand what’s being said.

“-it’s okay, shhh, please, we’re trying to help,” says none other than Lady Dimitrescu herself. She’s the one holding your hand, doing her best not to hurt you with her grip, trying desperately to calm you down. One the other side of you, Cassandra is positioned to hold you down. There’s a tight-lipped scowl on her face, and her brow is furrowed, but she’s not looking at your face, but rather eying somewhere in the opposite direction. Following her gaze, you find her older sister is sitting near your injured leg, and is undeniably the source of some of your pain. In one hand she holds a bottle of alcohol (notably not the wine her family produces), the other holding a wet cloth to your wound. No wonder it stings so much.

“Shit, shit, stop,” you growl, barely getting the words out. But all anyone does is look at you. Alcina’s mouth opens to speak, only for you to cut her off. “I’ve got medical training, for the love of Mother Miranda let me help! How long have I been unconscious?” This time Bela stops, glancing at her mother for direction. The grip on your torso grows looser, with Cassandra evidently heeding your words, and you take the chance to sit up, careful not to move your leg. At this point you realize that there’s a needle of sorts in your arm, attached to a tube, which trails up into a blood bag. It’s clearly been improvised with equipment from the “wine-making” part of the castle.

“Fifteen minutes at most,” a new voice chimes, from somewhere behind you. “I got that cloth you wanted, mother, but something tells me I’m not done fetching things.” Ah, Daniela Dimitrescu. Was the whole family helping you?... Why? As much as you wanted answers, there wasn’t (currently) time for questions. Not when one glance at your leg tells you that some of your flesh is rapidly decomposing. The wound was made only an hour ago, and already it was getting deadlier than you could even process.

“I need a sharp, clean knife, a needle with thread, a glass of water, and someone needs to put a metal tool, sterilized, on the stove, right now,” you said, finding it easier to talk now that no one was cleansing your wound. Without hesitation Daniela dispersed into a cloud of insects, heading towards the kitchen, while Cassandra stood up and moved towards the stairs.

“Guess I’ll get the needle,” she said, sounding rather unenthusiastic.

“What are you planning?” Alcina asks, more concerned than you had ever heard her before. Attempting to reassure her, you manage a small smile before explaining.

“Got scratched and slobbered on by a lycan. Whatever they have, it’s infectious. If I want to save my leg, or at least have a chance at surviving, I have to take measures to reduce the likelihood of an infection,” you say. Now Alcina is slowly stroking her thumb across your hand, eyes narrowed with concern. There’s a look on her face that you can’t quite parse, something she’s not saying. For now you ignore it and continue going over your plan. “The best thing would be to amputate. The tourniquet might have helped prevent the saliva from getting further into my body- and I do mean might- but I can’t keep it on forever. Problem is… I don’t want to lose it. God, I’m terrified of that, and with what we have in the castle I… I’d be more likely to die of shock than not. So, well, forget that idea.

“I’m just going to remove the wound. By making a bigger wound. It’s crazy, I know, but this will kill me if we do nothing. It will probably kill me if we do. The technical term is some shit like ‘de-bride-ing’?... No, debridement, I think. Except normally the poor fucker getting cut open is asleep for the procedure.” By the time you’re done, Lady Dimitrescu is looking at you with horror. Yeah, you had a feeling she wouldn’t appreciate the idea. “Look, if this is too much… if it’s not worth saving me, if you’d rather give me a quick death, I understand. If I were-”

“Don’t be foolish, dear. You will not die, not as long as something can be done about it,” Alcina replies, quickly, eager to stop hearing you talk about dying. It’s… strange to hear her sound so confident about saving you, even stranger to realize what she called you. As if reading your thoughts, she shifts in her seat, avoiding your gaze for a moment. Shyness didn’t suit her, and you imagined it was more about her finding the right words. When she speaks, she’s looking right at you again. “I have hesitated to tell you the truth, and now I find the world playing a cruel trick on me, trying to take that which I adore. But I don’t want to aggravate your stress right now. Please, think nothing of what I have said.”

Before you could reply, footsteps reached your ears, and soon enough Daniela returns. In one hand she holds a large pitcher of water. In the other? Several knives, of various sizes, one of which you’re pretty sure you’ve seen Cassandra playing with before. As soon as you see her your face lights up, glad to be able to start the procedure.

“Oh thank fuck- or, I mean, thank you, Lady Daniela,” you stutter, reaching out as she offers you the items. Thankfully Bela had already made room on the table at your side, where she had set the bottle of alcohol down. For a moment you had forgotten that she was there. Had she already known about her mother’s feelings? Based on her lack of reaction, you could only assume that she was well aware. “I’m gonna scream, B-T-dubs. Just, uh, cover your ears?” You offer, already holding your chosen knife (big enough to be effective, small enough to offer precision).

“So… you’re going to do this yourself? Didn’t think you had it in you, red. Try not to cut anything important. Wouldn’t want to have to clean that mess up,” Daniela teases. As soon as she’s finished she has to shift into a swarm, as Bela flat out throws a knife at her. For a moment you freeze, watching as Alcina rises to her full height, staring her eldest daughter down. Behind her, Daniela reforms, clearly using her mother as a shield. “I was just trying to relieve the tension, jeez. It’s like you think she’s already dead.”

“Don’t speak another word!” Alcina snaps, sending a frightening stare towards Daniela. You cough, awkwardly, not knowing what to do. Meanwhile Bela is pinching the bridge of her nose between two fingers, clearly tired of dealing with her sister’s sense of humor. “No one will speak a word until this is finished, unless my dear needs something, understood?” Both the girls nod at that, neither feeling a need to risk any further ire.

“I’m just going to start working now,” you awkwardly chime, taking a deep breath before leaning in towards your injured leg. On closer inspection you can see a strange, dark residue in the wound. They’re specks, scattered along the length of it, and they seem more common the closer you look to the gash’s center. Gross, you think. Half curious, half checking for legitimate reasons, you bring your other hand to the cut and gently spread both sides apart. It hurts like hell, and you have to bite down on your lip to stop yourself from screaming. But sure enough, the residue is practically solid at the deepest point of the wound. “Those lycans really should be on leashes.”

Out of the corner of your eye you can see Daniela exchange looks with Bela, but neither of them disobey their mother (yet). Shaking the thought away, you finally get to the brunt of the task at hand. Your hand moves slowly, reluctant to inflict such damage against its own body. As soon as the tip of the knife touches your skin, you start to doubt your ability to do this. It takes looking at Alcina, seeing the way she watches you with equal parts concern and tenderness, to remind you why you’re doing this. Death just wasn’t something you could accept right now; not after what she had said, what she had implied.

The knife is fantastically sharp. Hardly any pressure is needed before your flesh gives away, cells letting go of their neighbors like it was a casual affair. You start at the left side of your injury, digging down a little, trying to only go as deep as you needed to. Tears formed in your eyes but you quickly blinked them away. As the first of many screams leaves your mouth, you turn and twist the knife, cutting to the right, then up. Like scooping the seeds out of a pumpkin. Fresh blood springs from the wound, starting to fill up the crevice. Quickly you discard the skin you removed by tossing it into the same bowl that Bela had put a bloody towel in earlier.

“Yes,” you shudder through gritted teeth, “this hurts so fucking bad. No, I don’t need someone to take over yet.” At this point neither of the present sisters are looking at you, seeming oddly uncomfortable at the sight of you cut up like this. Hadn’t they done worse to your fellow Maidens?... Whatever, the thought couldn’t last long when you still had work to do.

Next you take a fresh, damp cloth and dab at your injury, ignoring how it throbbed beneath your touch. Then you resumed cutting, forced to press the knife deeper in order to remove the spreading residue. If you had been a scientist, this would have been utterly fascinating to observe. Whatever had been in the lycan’s saliva was slowly eating at your flesh, but not outright dissolving it. No, it simply left the skin where it was, but killed and rapidly broke it down. Yes, it would have been fascinating, if not for the fact that there was a chance you wouldn’t be able to outpace the bacteria.

With this in mind you force yourself to hold in your next scream, hoping to make it easier for you to focus. The knife continued to cut, going lower, setting nerves alight as it did. Your vision starts to blur, and for a few seconds you think you’re going to black out. Someone says something you don’t hear, and then suddenly there’s a hand on top of your own. When your vision clears you see Bela is responsible, her grip keeping you from dropping the knife. She doesn’t let go until you give her a clear nod. Even then, she seems reluctant to let you continue.

Around this time is when Cassandra returns. Her footsteps catch your attention (it’s your understanding that carrying objects is much harder in swarm mode), and you spare her a quick glance before getting back to work. A few moments later she’s placing a set of needles and a long spool of thread next to you. Ironically, they’re the same tools that you’ve used to repair and adjust Alcina’s dresses over the past year. Hopefully they work just as well on flesh, you think. Your next thoughts are canceled out by unbelievable pain. More cries leave your lips, and your hand starts shaking. Panic is settling in fast, your movements getting sharper, leading you to make a brash decision: Time to care less about precision and more about speed.

“Distract me, please,” you gasp between grunts. No one responds at first, and you know they need clarification. Speaking is getting harder by the second, but you do your best. “Brain can’t process many stimulants, same time. Just- fuck- trace skin around wound, touch hair, anything.” Somewhere between your semi-broken sentences and screams, Alcina gets the message. She’s moving closer, now, behind you, one arm wrapping around your waist, the other rubbing gentle circles on your undamaged leg. Across from you Daniela is too busy pacing to help, though you can hardly blame her.

“Should I get the metal thing from the stove?” Cassandra asks, silently hoping that Dani hadn’t assumed someone else was going to handle that part. You’re still in too much pain to talk, so you half nod half grunt in response. Not bothering to say anything, the middle child takes off, swarm moving at what might be a new speed record.

As much as your hands are shaking, you still manage to cut away another strip of flesh, tossing it aside with even less care than before. This time Bela wipes the wound for you, practically reading your mind. The moment her hands are completely out of the way you start cutting again, crying out, throat shredded to pieces from all your screaming. Alcina sounds like she might be close to sobbing, but she doesn’t stop her movements, doing her best to distract you just like you had asked. Even Bela helps, now, tracing spots around your injury whenever she knows she won’t be in your way. The effect is minor, in the end, hardly making a dent in how much pain you’re processing.

If you survive this, though, you’re hugging every daughter as tight as you can and showering them with affection… but only after you finish doing the same for their mother.

“You are so brave,” Alcina murmurs next to your ear. It’s even clearer now how close she is to crying, her voice seconds away from cracking. Hearing her like this almost hurts as bad as the initial lycan attack did. “You are so strong. No other mortal could ever be your match. Do you understand, my dear? You are blessed, divine, and I love you so much.”

In any other setting, her words would leave you melting in her arms, radiating affection so strongly that you might as well have been radioactive. Instead, you are unable to respond, or even look her way. All you can do is press the knife to your skin again, showing your own feelings by destroying yourself for her.

The blade is starting to find more resistance, and you’re having to pause more often, spots appearing in your vision. Going faster only makes things worse, your hand threatening to slip. You’re determined to finish this, no matter what, but your need to control the situation is gradually making things worse. Alcina notices this before you do, and acts before you have a chance to protest.

“Bela, the knife,” she says, then tightens her grip on your waist. Your confusion shifts to panic as your arm is carefully, but forcefully, pulled away from your wound. “Can you finish the job?” It takes you a few moments to realize that Alcina isn’t talking to you. No, she’s speaking to her eldest daughter, who doesn’t hesitate to take the knife away from you. It’s so easy for her, between her strength and your weakness. “Don’t struggle. Let us finish this.”

Protests rise from your throat and die in your mouth. Pain flares harder now that Bela isn’t distracting you. Once more your vision goes dark, but this time there’s no pause, no hesitation. You are suffering, horribly, and the Dimitrescu family refuses to make you hurt longer than necessary. It’ll be over soon, you think, not knowing whether you refer to your pain or your life itself.

Something wet drops onto the back of your neck, then darkness overtakes you…

------------------------

“Damn those lycans, I should string Heisenberg up myself! They’re his responsibility, after all,” Lady Dimitrescu snarls, trying to ignore the tears in her eyes. Now that you’re unconscious, unable to hear what ails her, she feels free to voice her thoughts. “The damn things should never have come close to the path to the village.”

“What if she strayed from the path? Wouldn’t that explain it?” Bela suggests, even as her hands work to remove what seems to be the last piece of dead/infected flesh from your leg. She hates how the words feel in her mouth, hates suggesting that you of all people might have betrayed her mother’s trust. But it makes sense. After all, this whole mess, with you leaving the castle to retrieve a mysterious package, was all a test to see if you would try to run. It hadn’t been her idea, and Bela admitted to herself that she thought it was unnecessary.

“On the way back? Why would she bother getting the package if she intended to run?” Lady Dimitrescu asks, right as Cassandra returns. The middle child is practically juggling the metal spatula she’s carrying, irritated (not harmed) by the heat it produced. One of her brows perks up when she hears the conversation, but she keeps any thoughts she has to herself.

“Just a thought, mother, I didn’t quite believe it myself,” Bela chimes, after a pause. With that said she holds up her hand with pride, clutching between her fingers the last of the decaying flesh. The way the others react, one might have thought that a miracle had been performed. Daniela clapped her hands together, giggling a little, and finally stopped her pacing. “Don’t celebrate too much, now,” Bela reminded her, taking the spatula from Cassandra as she did. “There’s still plenty to do. It’s a good thing she’s not awake for this part.”

A good thing, indeed. She uses her fingers to spread the remaining skin a little, giving a quick examination, then deciding that she had successfully removed all remaining residue. Keeping her fingers where they were, she pressed the side of the spatula to your skin, putting the most pressure at the center of the wound. Three seconds passed, then she lifted her hand. A pause. She pressed it back into place, keeping a close eye on the affected area. This repeated several times, the gaps being necessary to prevent unintentional damage. Once the wound seemed properly closed she set the spatula aside.

“Is that it?... Did we save her?” Daniela asks, opting to finally sit down in a nearby chair. Something about her word choice makes both of her sisters scoff.

“I could sew it closed, as a precaution, but there’s no way I’d do it the way she had intended. It might be best to just give her time to rest, and see what she thinks when she gets back up,” Bela answers. For a moment her words hang in the air, but eventually Alcina gives a little nod and a hum.

“Very well. I shall carry her to my quarters, where she won’t be disturbed. Please, let one of the Maidens know to bring some food up this evening,” Alcina says, gently taking you into her arms as she does…

------------------------

BAD ENDING: It’s been six hours, with no sign of you waking up. Your other wounds had been examined, cleaned, and bandaged. Food had been carefully prepared and brought up to you, though it now remained on the bedside table, untouched. Alcina has gone to call Mother Miranda, intending to speak to her about the growing unrest of the lycans, as Heisenberg hadn’t answered his phone. For the first time since you returned you are alone. It is now, of all times, that you awaken. A gasp sends you into a coughing spree, forcing you into a sitting position. The space around you feels like it's moving, and your vision blurs. Blood spills from your mouth as you finally regain the ability to breathe.

Seconds later your vision clears, but what you see is enough to make you wish you couldn’t. The blood that spilled onto the sheets is a dark red… with even darker spots scattered throughout it. All at once you know what happened: Residue had hidden from you, or gone deeper than your wound, infecting you before you ever stood a chance. Tears threaten to spill from your eyes, but something deeper starts calling to you. Something older. Darker. It drags you to your feet, ignores the pain of your wounds, and sends you out the bedroom door.

Your mind is racing, thoughts never quite clear enough for you to understand. It doesn’t feel like you’re in control of your own movements. Was something else in charge, or were you operating on an infection powered autopilot? Answers weren’t coming, just bloodshed.

“You’re not supposed to be out of bed yet!” A voice calls out to you, making you turn to investigate. On the other end of the hallway is a maiden, one you instantly recognize. You’ve worked with her before, plenty of times, tag-teaming more tasks than you could count. She was like a sister to you. When she sees the blood staining your clothes, she gasps, then moves to support you. “Please, Lady Dimitrescu will be so upset if you-” her words melt into a blood curdling scream. For a moment you don’t understand.

And then you swallow, a chunk of hot meat slipping down your throat, and the scream dies down.

“What?...” You whisper, finally tasting the blood in your mouth, watching as your friend’s body falls to the floor. There’s a chunk of flesh missing from her neck, and the dots connect themselves in your head. You did that. Every part of you wants to scream, wants to cry out and beg someone to come kill you. Instead you fall to your knees, hard, uncaring. Your hands move themselves, grasping at the still warm corpse. Something has made you stronger, or at the very least removed the mental limits that kept you from destroying yourself. Flesh gives under your touch, tearing like paper, and you start crying as it reaches your mouth.

Footsteps approach, thundering fast, and you want to warn whoever it is. When you turn to look, you feel your hands let go of your meal. Your gaze meets that of a stunned Cassandra Dimitrescu, then drifts to the sickle in her hand.

“Kill me,” you growl, voice distorted, practically echoing. “Kill me now!” Not needing to be told a third time, Cassandra moves lightning quick, swarm-jumping forward before manifesting behind you, sickle dragging across your throat in one smooth motion. But it’s not enough. She realizes this, though, and slams her foot into your back, sending you tumbling forward. It’s enough to prevent you from countering, which gives her time to advance again, this time pulling a knife from her boot and driving it into the center of your back. When you scream, it’s not with your own voice, but that of a monster.

“Fucking fuck, what the fuck, red?” Daniella asks as she rounds the corner, eyes immediately landing on your bloodsoaked mouth. She’s quick to take in the scene, drawing a conclusion easily, even if it breaks her heart a little. Your vision fades as she approaches, and you know that it’s finally over. If only you had expired a few seconds earlier… because the last thing you hear is the startled cry of your would-be lover.

“No! No, darling, what happened-” Alcina finishes her sentence, but you do not hear it. You do not hear anything, anymore. You do not know it… but there will be hell to pay for your death.

------------------------

GOOD ENDING: When you awake, you find yourself in the softest sheets you’ve ever touched, a warm and familiar presence next to you. The first thing you see is Alcina’s sleeping face next to your own. She’s on her side, one arm around your waist, the covers pulled up to her hip. Warmth fills your chest as you take in the sight. For a few moments you just… appreciate this. Never before had you imagined that you would get to wake up next to the woman you loved so much. A sigh, one of bliss, leaves your lips. Slowly you move forward, gently placing a kiss to Alcina’s cheek. Seconds later her eyelids flutter open, and she tiredly takes you in.

“You’re… awake,” she murmurs, hardly awake herself. But her fatigue doesn’t last long. As soon as she’s fully processed the situation her eyes go wide. Then she’s pulling you closer, careful not to hurt you, and peppering little kisses over your face. “I’ve been so worried, dear. You scared us so much.” The hurt in her voice leaves you restless, making you curl up against her, desperate to soothe her worries. Moving hurts a little, but not enough to dissuade you from your goal.

“I’m sorry, love,” you say, tears pricking your eyes. “I’m okay, I’m alive, the plan worked out. You don’t have to fret for me anymore. I won’t leave you, I promise.” Slowly but surely, Alcina calms, exchanging kisses for softly running her fingers through your hair. There’s such love in her eyes that you can hardly believe you aren’t dreaming. “You’re amazing, Alcina. I could stay like this all day.”

“Maybe we should,” she offers, chuckling a little. Once again you give her a quick kiss, unable to resist the urge. “I should have never asked you to leave. I should have just trusted you.” The words give you pause, and you tilt your head in confusion. Realizing that you still didn’t know the full story, Alcina frowns. “The package is worthless, just a bundle of straw and a few rocks for weight. It was never what I cared about.”

Tension builds in your chest, and for a few seconds you have no idea how to react. It takes a minute for you to think, to connect the dots, but once you do it’s a tad bit easier to breathe. A scowl twists your lips as you think of what to say.

“If I had known that Heisenberg was forgoing his duties, I never would have sent you outside,” Alcina adds, the silence taking its toll on her.

“You shouldn’t have sent me either way,” you respond, bitterly, thinking of all that you had seen and heard on your journey. “I would have done anything to prove to you how I feel. There are other ways to show devotion- far less dangerous ways, at that.”

“I know, dear. You have every right to be angry… and watching you suffer has taught me all that I need to know,” Alcina says, still playing with your hair, trying to ease the tension. As upset as you about this recent revelation… it’s not enough to change how you feel about her, and you want her to understand that, fully and completely.

So you lean into her touch, let your eyes drift close for a moment, then softly place one of your arms around her as best as you can.

“We’ll need to talk about this more… just not right now. Right now, I need you, Alcina. I need to hold you, and be held by you, and just know that you���re here. That I’m here. That neither of us are going anywhere,” you say, resting your forehead against hers. “I need to feel safe, and your arms are the safest place I can imagine. Stay here with me?”

“It will be the easiest thing I have ever done.”

#alcina dimitrescu #lady dimitrescu #alcina x reader #lady dimitrescu x reader #tw blood #tw self harm #tw cannibalism #blood blood blood oops #I wrote this instead of sleeping because my hands cannot be stopped #typeity type type type #sorry if the formatting is off #i'm trying the new editor or whatever #if it's fucked I'll fix it whenever I wake up

[faeryqueenwitch]

🧚🎉Fairy Festivals🎉🧚

🎉 Fairy festivals take place at crossover points in the seasons. Equinoxes and solstices are determined by the position of the Sun, but the other four festivals are celebrated when the time feels right, so the dates given below are approximate.

🎉 There are other festivals too,such as Christmas Eve,Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day. Any human festival that touches on old traditions,from Ramadan to a Japanese Flower Festival, is a fairy feast. If you celebrate these festivals and make the effort to tune into what concerns the fairies, you will draw closer to their world. If you celebrate a special meal, remember to leave a little outside afterward for the fairies

1.  🌷 Imbolic - 🌷

February 2 in the Northern Hemisphere/July 31 in the Southern Hemisphere

Imbolc means “in the belly,” and this is the time when life stirs in the belly of the earth. Frost sparkles and the pale light lingers each evening,bringing the message that spring is on the horizon. Imbolc is the delicate crossover point from winter’s depths into the New Year. It is a feast of lightness and brightness,but also a time of cleansing,to make way for the new. The Hag, who is Dark Goddess or Dark Fairy, gives way now to the Maiden, who is young and radiant.

Fairies love neatness and good housekeeping,so it is a good idea to have a late-winter sort-out,in preparation for fresh activity. While the fairies are busy coaxing snowdrops and crocuses out of the winter-hard earth,do something creative of your own,such as knitting,painting,or writing poetry. Ask the fairies to lend you a little of their magic by leaving them an offering,such as a piece of wool or a verse written just for them.

This feast is also called candlemas,sacred to St.Bridget,who was the successor to the pagan goddess Bride (pronounced “Breed”). Bride was the keeper of the sacred flame,which represents eternal life. She is the patroness of poetry,smithcraft,child birth, and healing, and is a very powerful fairy indeed. Invite her into your home by lighting as many candles as you like, in your windows and around your house. Ask her to bless your projects for the coming year,and pledge a special act of caring for the natural world in return,to seal your pact as the year waxes.

2. 🌼 Spring Equinox- 🌼

March 21 in the Northern Hemisphere/September 21 in the Southern Hemisphere

The fairies are very busy at the Spring Equinox,looking after all the flowers that are newly blooming.Scandinavian fairies become active now: the Russian cellar fairy,The Domoviyr,casts off its skin and grows a lighter one for summer; and the Russian Rusalki,or river fairies are glimpsed by lakes swollen with melted snow.

A tree planting project is a very fairy-friendly activity at this time. A seasonal blitz on the garden is also called for. While you are hard at work, digging and pulling away at dead winter twigs, it is easy to go into a kind of trance. This, coupled with the spell of the natural world around you,can create the perfect state of mind to catch a glimpse of fairies.You can be sure they are near you,helping you with their energies.Plant some seeds of your choice and, as you put them in the earth, close your eyes and make a special request for fairy help. Visualize the fairies tending your seeds,giving them their love and care. Ask out loud for the fairies to help you,and sing or hum and you plant. Touch the soft soil with your bare hands and make real contact with the earth.

Place water in a pottery or glass jug (plastic or metal is best avoided) and leave it out in the noon sunshine. Ask the fairies to bless it. Imagine them dancing around it and coming up to touch it with their glimmering fingers. Use the water to give your houseplants a special spring blessing.

The Green Man is a powerful nature spirit that has been sensed by many people. He is represented in numerous churches as the Foliate Mask (a face made up of leaves),and one theory about his presence is that the masons who fabricated him had hidden sympathies with the old nature- worship. He is making his appearance now on some new park benches and monuments. However, you can make contact with the real Green Man out alone walking through the woodland. Ancient and wise,he is watching you. Catch a glimpse of him behind tree trunks or in the lacework of budding branches. Hear his footfalls behind you as you walk. He is the very breath of Nature, and his strength is bursting forth in springtime.

3. 💐 Beltane - 💐

April 30 in the Northern Hemisphere/October 31 in the Southern Hemisphere

Of all the festivals, Beltane is the most flagrantly joyful and sensuous as Nature is bursting forth with beauty and excitement. This was the Celtic beginning of summer, and also marked an important transition for the people of Fairy, for it was the time when the Milesian Celts landed on the shores of south-west Ireland. With this, the last of the magical peoples,the Tuatha de Danann, receded from the the world of humans into the Hollow Hills and became the people of the Sidhe.

However, they and the other fairy folk have not gone very far. You will find them dancing in a bluebell wood or skipping in the sunshine,sheltered by a greening hedge. Beltane is the time when good fairies reign supreme and bad fairies retreat. Fairies are very active now and may try to steal butter,or some of the ritual fire that used to be ignited on hilltops and is still lit by modern pagans.

This is the maypole season, but instead you can always dance around a friendly tree. Link hands with friends, and you may find yourselves spontaneously re-creating the kind of things people used to to do when seeing fairies was commonplace:lingering,walking,and talking, in the open air, away from television,computers,and other modern distractions.

There are many tales of beautiful fairies marrying mortals. Such tales usually end in tragedy, for fairy and human can never truly be joined. Better to borrow some of the fairy enchantment by performing a little magic of your own! Rise early on May Day and wash your face in the dew or simply walk in it. As the rhyme says: “The fairy maid who, the first of May Goes to the fields at break of day, And walk in dew from the hawthorn tree, Will ever handsome be.”

Welsh legend tells how the hero Pwll saw the Lady Rhiannon riding past him at Beltane and, after pursuing her, he eventually won her. Rhiannon is one aspect of the Fairy Queen,riding on her white horse between the worlds. As you sit quietly outside,on a bank in the late spring dusk,listen for the sounds of her horse’s hooves,and open your eyes to the shimmer of her sea-blue cloak. When Rhiannon touches your heart, she will fill it with love and inspiration.

4. 🌹 Midsummer -  🌹

June 22 in the Northern Hemisphere/December 22 in the Southern Hemisphere

This is one of the most magical times of the year, when fairies are very active and visible, playing pranks and even, it is said, stealing away the young and beautiful to join them in the Hollow Hills. The sun is now at the height of its strength and this is an important crossover point,such as the fairies love. For at the Midsummer Solstice the sun stands still, before beginning to recede as we move into the waning half of the year.

Flowers are colorful and luxuriant, and one radiant day seems to merge into another, as late dusk meets early dawn. At no time is the natural world more inviting. Take part in it by going on quests -long walks to sacred spots,evening camping out with the minimum of equipment,to draw close to the mystery that is all around, and to the Fair Folk in particular.

The rose is possibly the most sensuous bloom of all, and at midsummer it is often at its most gorgeous. Roses in the garden are especially likely to attract fairies. Distil water from rose petals and add it to your bath, asking the fairies to lend you some of their enchantment and to help you attract love. Brew tea from rosebuds and drink it,to increase your psychic powers.Plant a rose bush with a friend, to affirm the loving bound between you and invite the fairies into your life.

St.John’s wort is a herb known to break any negative fairy enchantment and drive away depression. Pluck some on Midsummer’s Day and carry it, to keep cheerful.

Look out for water nymphs by streams, or for undines for water elementals on the seashore- or for even the Lady of the Lake herself,rising from the luminous depths.In olden times, these beings were said to have no souls. It is closer to the truth to say that they do not have human morals. Conventions often conceal or feelings, but the beauty of the water fairies opens us to our unconscious tides; see them and let yourself be transformed.

5. 🌾Lammas- 🌾

July 31 in the Northern Hemisphere/February 2 in the Southern Hemisphere

Lammas is “Loaf Mass,” a christian version of a much older festival known as Lughnasadh, or the “Feast of Lugh.” Lugh was a Celtic god,lord of the Tuatha de Danann, and his name means “bright one.” Lughnasadh is a major fairy festival, and many fairies become active during this period,such as the Russian Polevik, who kicks sleepy harvesters awake. It is also a time when fairies move about in preparation for winter,and processions of them may be seen as a line of twinkling lights moving between the hills in the countryside.

At Lammas, the fields are golden with corn and splashed with red poppies. It is hazy,lazy time of holidays and abundance,but there is an underlying theme of death,for the Corn Spirit must be sacrificed in order to reap the harvest. If you walk out into a field of ripe wheat, you may sense the anger of the nature spirits as what is to be taken from the earth,even thought that is a part of the natural cycle of life.Gather up some ears of wheat and tie them into a bunch with red thread,to make a charm for the coming winter to hang over your hearth. At the same time,pledge an act of caring for the earth,such as clearing a derelict site in your neighborhood or garden, or planting and tending a herb, as payment for what you-and all of us- take from it.

At home, bake your own bread, using the rising of the dough as a spell to ensure that everything prospers in your life. While you are kneading the bread dough, say to yourself “As this dough swells, so may my fortunes increase.” Ask for your own personal Brownie, or house fairy, to come and help your bread rise- and remember to leave some breadcrumbs outside afterward,for the fairies.

Some say that Lugh is lord of the waning year, and his dance- through the waving,whispering corn- is a dance of death. If so, it is a reminder that all things come in cycles,and that everything is united in love and beauty. Stand at the edge of a sun-kissed wheat field and see the shimmer and sway that betrays the presence of Lugh. Take a few moments to feel respect for the earth in your heart, and understand the meaning of the Wheel of Life.

6. 🍁 Autumn Equinox (Mabon) - 🍁

September 21 in the Northern Hemisphere/March 21 in the Southern Hemisphere

At the Autumn Equinox, Nature stands poised between light and dark,but darkness is gaining. The veil between this world and the Otherworld is at its thinnest, and all manner of spirit visitations are more frequent now.

The hedgerows are beaded with berries,and mist lingers in the hollows. Sometimes the wind whistles in from nowhere and tosses baring branches. On other says, the mellow sun caresses the fields with slanting fingers. It is a time for reflection, but also for industry. In days gone by, preserves would be made for winter store and the help of the Good Folk would be sought by country people.

Absorb the atmosphere of the season by going blackberrying. In Celtic countries, there may be a taboo on eating blackberries, because these belong especially to fairies. However, as long as you gather them with respect and do not denude the bramble bushes, they will hardly object. Better still,leave out some of your homemade blackberry pie or wine for them,so that they will bless you. When this month ends, leave the blackberries alone and move on. Also look out for a bramble bush that forms an arch-so much the better if it faces east/west, for that mirrors the passage of the sun. Crawl through this three times on a sunny day to be healed of physical ills, especially rheumatism and skin troubles.

At this mysterious time, pay honor to Queen Mab. Her special gift is to bring dreams and visions to birth within us. She is really one of many manifestations of the Goddess, in her autumnal guise of wise-woman and Lady of Magic, and she is linked with ancient ideas of sovereignty- for the king drew his power from the land, and Mab presided.

Preferably at the Full Moon closest to the equinox,place good-quality wine in a stemmed glass or chalice,and take it into the garden or a secluded place.Raise the glass to the Moon,say, “Mab, I honor you”and pour some of the wine onto the earth. Drink a little and say, “Mab, I drink with you,” Then return home,light a bright-green candle beside your bed,gaze at the flame and say, “Mab,give me wisdom,” Place some jasmine or rose oil on your pillow,extinguish the candle-and drift into Fairyland. This is a little ritual that you can repeat during any Full Moon if you wish.

7. 🎃 Samhain - 🎃

October 31 in the Northern Hemisphere/April 30 in the Southern Hemisphere

Samhain means “summer’s end” and is pronounced “sa-wen.” This ancient Celtic festival at the official start of the winter was later Christianized as Halloween- a time when the dead were remembered. There was always a sinister aspect to Samhain,because certain sacrifices had to be made in order to survive the coming cold weather. Animals had to be slaughtered,and some say that human sacrifice took place to propitiate the spirits. Sacrifice,however, is a corruption of nature worship,for life is hard enough as it is and all we have to do is show respect.

Barrow mounds,shrouded in mist,are particularly eerie places at Samhain. Draw close,if you dare,and sit quietly.Do you hear the strange,far-off noise of fairy music,or the sound of knocking? Maybe the mound will open for you and unearthly light will stream over the barren fields.After Samhain,the earth is given over to the powers of darkness and decay.No crops or berries may be harvested after this time,because the Phooka, a malevolent Irish Fairy,blights them. The true meaning here,of course,is that death and decay have a place in the natural order,requiring due honor and respect lest they get out of hand.

Traditionally, this is the start of the story telling season. While the wind whistles around the eaves or the mist comes down outside,gather family or friends around your hearth- preferably with a real fire burning in it. If you do not have an open hearth,substitute a collection of large,burning candles. Sit round and speak of times gone by and people who have passed over to the other side.Ask the Beloved Dead to be present, if you wish(but note that this is not a seance,and the Beloved Dead are invited,not summoned). Laugh,share funny stories,feast,and drink.

Cerridwen is the Underworld Goddess and the Fairy Hag most associated with this time. In her magic cauldron,she stirs a brew that confers inspiration and transformation. Simmer up a hearty soup of root vegetables or pumpkin, to share with friends,then light a black candle and ask Cerridwen to guide you through the darkness into the light. You will  be both safe and wise.

8.  ❄️ Yule - ❄️

December 22 in the Northern Hemisphere/June 22 in the Southern Hemisphere

Yule is the Midwinter Solstice, when the sun again appears to stand still,as it did at midsummer,but the season is poised for the return of light. Celebrations of Christ’s birth were moved to coincide with the much more ancient solstice.

As you deck your Christmas tree,remember that the evergreen is a powerful symbol of the enduring life in Nature. Of course,is has a fairy on top of it,confirming that it is a festival of the Fair Folk,who also rejoice in the sun’s rebirth. Decorating your tree is an important magical act,for the decorations are fairy charms. Each member of the family should hang at least one special charm of their own,to enable a wish to come true.

Jack Frost is an active fairy in the cold weather,painting windows with intricate lacework. In Russia he is called Father Frost,the soul of winter,covering the trees in ice. Do not shrink from the frost fairy-go out and wonder at his works and he will reward you with hope and joy,just as in Russia Father Frost brings presents for the children on New Year’s Day.

By far the best-known and most powerful fairy at Yule is Father Christmas himself. Today we know him by his robes of red and white, but in the past he also wore green and other colors. As we have seen,red is the color both of life and death, and many fairies wear red caps. The hearty red of Father Christmas is a sign that he is an Otherworld being-very much alive,but not of this earth. He is recognized all over the world, as Kris Kringle in Germany and Pere Noel in France. In Brazil he is Papa Noel,and in China Dun Che Loa. He is the essence of Yuletide mystery,joy and renewal,and like many traditional fairies, he comes in and out via the hearth.

When all is quiet on Christmas Eve, get ready to welcome Father Christmas- light a candle and look at the stars. Pledge a gift for a friend and one for the world, and ask for a special gift to answer your heart’s desire. Write your wish on a piece of paper and “post” it up the chimney if you have an open fire. If not, burn it in the candle flame. Can you hear those sleigh bells?

(Art By: IrenHorrors On Deviantart -Link)

#imbolc #Yule #samhain #mabon #Wheel of the Year #lammas #beltane #Litha #ostara #witchcraft #fairy community #witches #witchblr #witch #witchy #witchy thoughts #witchy tumblr #witchy things #witchy tips #beginner witch #broom closet #wiccan #wicca #faery wicca #fairy wicca #pagan #fairies #faery #Magic #divination

[softlyspector]

Winter

Summary: When Bucky is nearly assassinated, he finds more than he expects in the forest surrounding the palace.

Pairing: Prince Bucky x Witch Reader

Word Count: ~3k

Warnings: Blood

A/N: This had been sitting in my drafts forever. Now feels like a good time to start posting again.

You know, whispers the song of the wind, a witch lives in those woods.

He rolls his eyes.

He knows better than most what lurks in these woods.

Demons of all kinds dance about, waiting for the faintest sign of weakness before they struck like vipers. Since his mother died and, with her the magic, all sorts had awoken in the woods she guarded with her prowling wolves.

Now, his mother was ash and the wolves only howled.

Often, he wanted to howl with them, but thought he did not deserve the pleasure of snarling displeasure.

The great beasts stayed corralled near the palace in any case, teeth locked in the spaces between the iron gates and swirling snow.

Cold has settled between his bones, his blood warm and slippery between his fingers, rivulets that flow like his mother’s tears.

He wonders, as he unhitches his sword and lets it slide to the ground, the whipping wind cackling in his ears, if his father is happy.

Having his only son assassinated was something he had always expected from his father, the bitingly cruel man that sat on a throne bathed in ash and blood, but hurt nonetheless.

“The weight is slowing me down,” he snarls at that wind, that laughing demon.

In truth, the weight is killing him.

He’s lost his way in the snowstorm that descended from the mountains with a fury that he didn’t recognize.

Something to do with his mother, he’d guess.

You are already dead, it whispers. The mother’s white wolf lost in a storm.

He stumbles, cold pinching him, making his knees lock, legs fold.

The earth seems to shake when he finally collapses, fingers crimson, a trail of hot, bright red behind him.

He wishes his mother’s wolves could find him now, they’d protected him always as a child.

Though, maybe, like everything else, they too had been corrupted when she died.

He thinks of them, trapped, pink tongues across razor sharp teeth, howling out a grief so deep it broke the heart of anyone that heard it.

He rolls onto his back, attempting the staunch the blood spilling over his fingers, crusting beneath his fingernails.

Bucky huffs out a breath that sets his lungs burning. He will not die like this.

But the tips of his fingers are already blue in the fierce cold, icing his heart. He doesn’t need a looking glass to know that his lips too are cracked and blue.

“I will not die here,” he says.

The words are empty, and the wraith that has taken the form of a swirling figure at the edge of his vision laughs, skeletal and wispy. Bucky sighs, squeezes his eyes shut.

Words, they’re always empty. Actions speak, and told his father attempted to have him murdered. His mother’s snowstorm is killing him. A wraith is looming and he can feel his heart slowing, his beating blood falling uselessly on the icy earth.

Death feels inevitable in that moment, destined and true.

There’s a crack, a howl.

Winter white swirls in his eyes, everything tilting sideways. He’s going to pass out, before he sees what thing has now emerged from the forest to kill him with fire.

The worst days in his life were the ones where everything tried to kill him.

He’d always overcome them. Training, and camp, more training, soldiering.

Soldiering, and killing.

Those were the worst.

His eyes roll back, just catching the expression and frosted eyebrows of a woman so beautiful he thinks maybe, by the skin of his teeth, he’s made it to heaven.

~

It’s warm when he wakes, though still white.

White painted brick, the red of it speckling out in places, white pine bookshelves stacked with neat rows of white books, gold embossed titles on their spines. White blanks out the wide window, white light filtering into the room.

A white fur blanket is draped across his lap.

He feathers his fingers through it before he realizes he’s nude.

His sword was somewhere lost in the snow, though he doubts it would help him now.

What vexes him is the loss of his knives, stashed anywhere they would fit in the gaps of his amour.

He sits up, side covered in cloth, though no blood shows through the fabric.

“I would have poisoned the blade meant to kill Prince James of the White Palace,” a voice says, a woman gliding into the room, draped in a long robe. She smiles, “But I also would have plunged it straight through your heart.”

He swallows, watches her ladle something into a teacup from the iron pot hanging above the smoldering fire.

Normally he would have shot to his feet, fingers curling around anything that could be used as a weapon. Training and soldiering and camp and training. But she doesn’t worry him, feels trust sink inexplicably in between the spaces of his bones.

She crosses the room, sits quietly down, peers at him with her head tilted to the side until he finally takes the cup from her.

“The white wolf,” she says, reaching out to flick a strand of too long hair away from his forehead. “When you rule this land will you also bathe it in darkness and shadow?”

“There isn’t much of a chance of that,” he says, sniffing at the cup. “The king will be disappointed I’m not dead.”

She smiles, “Yes, but I’m glad that you’re alive.”

He takes a sip of the tea and it reminds him of warmer days, of a palace full of laughter and the setting sun, of the wolves curled at the base of his mother’s chair.

She tilts her head again, watching him slowly sip the tea, “You don’t seem surprised to find yourself here. End up in the homes of strange women often?”

Bucky shakes his head, hands her the empty teacup. “No. I’m grateful and feel that I shouldn’t question my continuing life too much.”

“And you think I seem harmless.”

“Aren’t you?” He asks, glancing around, searching for his clothes. “A maiden in the woods?”

She laughs, stands, swishes away gracefully, long embroidered bell sleeves trailing after her. “One would think you would know better Prince James. Considering the things that you know lurk in these woods.”

“Stories,” he says. “Only stories.”

“Your mother knew better. I know you aren’t as blind as your father is,” she says, disappearing through a doorway, returning seconds later with his clothes, clean and crisp. “Your armor is near the entryway.” She folds her fingers inside her sleeves after depositing his clothes in his lap. “When you’re ready to leave.”

He nods, shaking out his tunic to pull over his head. “The official line of the crown is that nothing strange makes a home in our forests.”

She smiles, settles by his legs again, “And you believe this line.”

“No,” he says, watching her eyes, watching her lean close. “No, I believe there’s much we don’t know about the forest.”

She blinks and the spell is broken, “I’m glad to hear that. The men you were with at the pass have all been slaughtered. If it weren’t for your mother’s sudden storm, you would have been killed by the assassins. I expect they’re facing trial at the White Palace this very moment and you’re right not to question why your heart continues to beat.”

He nods, feels the familiar roll of guilt in his belly.

She seems otherworldly, this woman. With deep eyes that speak in riddles and sparkle with warmth.

“Did you know my mother?” He asks, shifting his legs over the edge of the bed, shucking his trousers on over his nakedness without a shred of shame.

She doesn’t seem bothered, stays seated and examines her fingernails. “She knew everyone in the forest.”

“Witch of the Forest is that your title?” He asks, only a little sarcastic. “Where are my shoes?” He’s avoiding looking at her.

“With your armor.” Her fingers wrap delicately around his wrist. “You should rest, the magic is still working.”

He shudders, pries his hand out of her grip. “You are a witch then.”

“Worry not,” she says, rising to her feet, swaying across the floor, “I’m a good witch. You can take your shoes and go whenever it pleases you. Though I expect the tea will be making you tired soon.”

Drowsiness hits him hard in the center of his chest and he settles back into the bed. “Was that you with the fire?”

“Yes.”

“Wraith?”

She hums and he squints, “Silver?”

“Dagger through the heart.” She’s laughing at him. “And still no thank you to the witch who saved you from the wound in your side and the creature that would consume you before you were blessed with death.”

He doesn’t answer, eyes falling shut, wondering why he’s not more concerned with the situation he’s found him in. “How long?”

“Until you’re healed? A day. You need rest before you face the king and all his demons.”

Bucky heaves himself to his feet, wobbly at first and then better, getting his legs beneath him. “Thanks for your help.”

She nods, watches him with those strange eyes, a gaze that simultaneously makes him want to run away and devour her.

He clears his throat and stands, pacing by her to the front door of her cabin. He stoops to shove his feet into boots, gather up his armor.

Her head is tilted to the side again, eyes soft. “If you find you ever need a place to stay during your father’s campaigns, you have a refuge here.”

Bucky thinks he’ll never see her again, but something in her gaze says they’ll be seeing each other again quite soon.

He nods to her, she inclines her head back, and when he opens the door he’s surprised to find the world a piercing white, though the storm has since stopped.

In the distance, he hears a wolf howl.

~

The palace grounds are mud and dead trees, cobbled together stables and beaten people.

His mother’s wolves, once beloved, pristine creatures, are howling, snarling, teething on the iron gates that corral them, white coats muddied to a dull brown, coal rimmed around their eyes.

They cease growling when he passes by, on his way to the throne room, through the mud and remaining snowy slush.

His father is on the throne when he reaches the throne room. He stoops, keeps his eyes averted, trying not to wince at the pain lancing through his side, up his spine. Something slippery wet coats the floor.

“Your assassins have been executed. You kneel in their blood.”

“Father,” he greets, standing, ignoring the peeling of his boots against the sticky dying blood.

He father raises a brow, eyes cold. “You’re healed?”

There is no pretense of his father not knowing, what had happened, where he had been stabbed. He had ordered it after all, and they both know it.

“Yes.”

“We are fortunate. That my heir lives on.”

Silence stretches thin between them. Until Bucky dips his head, turns away. “James,” his father says to his retreating back, “see to those wolves. They’ve been a nuisance since my wife passed on.”

He sighs but doesn’t turn.

It’s been three weeks since he lost his mother.

He can’t get the witch out of his head.

~

The second times he sees her, its with fingers wrapped around the iron front gates, eyes sharp from between the crowd of peasants she stands with.

“Are the wolves being cared for?” She asks when he comes near, her voice sharp with reproach.

The others shrink away from the gate, but she doesn’t move. “Healing well?” She says when he doesn’t answer.

“Healed.”

She hums.

He doesn’t drop her gaze.

“Shall I come in then?” She asks. “I have something for the wolves.”

“What do you know of wolves?”

She tilts her head to the side. “Have you been their keeper then?”

He wonders what she knows of the beasts, inconsolable even weeks later, headless of the commands that had tamed them easily before.

“No, then,” she says when he doesn’t answer. “Could it really hurt to let me see them? I come bearing gifts.”

“For the wolves?”

She nods.

“Fine.”

Once through the gate, she leads the way as though she’s made the trek many times.

The wolves at snapping at each other, howling, snow swirling down around them. There’s a basket on the witch’s arm, and they still when she nears.

She falls to her knees, smudging the hem of her peasant dress, presses something through the iron bars.

The beasts prowl, circle closer, sniffing.

The bloody slab of red meat is gone in seconds, devoured by the alpha, save a bit for his mate.

She stands to her feet, the alpha eye level with her on all fours, towering, monstrous creatures that they were. She turns her head, meeting Bucky’s eyes. “They miss her, Prince James.”

Bucky suddenly remembers where he is, like shaking off a stupor, a long sleep. “You shouldn’t be here,” he says, glance at the spires of the castle behind him, piercing the gray sky like long tipped talons.

“Yes,” she agrees, though she seems burdened by that thought. “It’s dangerous here.” She turns to him, eyes flicking over him. “It’s always safe in my cottage, though.”

What double meaning her words hold, he doesn’t have time to ask.

She turns, takes a step forward.

There’s a flash, and suddenly she’s feathers and wings, a dark spot against a slate gray, snow filled sky.

~

He presses one last kiss to her bare shoulder, hips flush with hers.

Bucky collapses against her, his chest to her back. It’s a long while, dozing together in the sun, sated by skin, before he peels open his eyes, shifts his gaze over the serene planes of her face.

She turns onto her side when he finally pulls away, watching him as he tugs her close, to kiss her sweaty brow, tuck her beneath his chin.

Spring has settled over the world, the perfume of flowers thick in his nose, the weight of sunshine warm on scarred skin.

Broken flesh healed once more by the witch that had come to live in his heart. For many moons now she had, years passing by unexpectedly, love folding into his soul not necessarily returned. He’s older, roughened by the elements, scarred by time and blades alike. There are squint lines beside his eyes, new stripes on his skin to match those left by his father, and training, and the punishing soldiers’ camps.

He’s spent many afternoons like this though, wrapped in this tiny world before he was cruelly thrust back into his reality of blood and tears.

A reality sometimes interrupted, fractured by the sudden appearance of the woman in his arms.

Feeding the wolves who had taken her as a new master, fingers buried deep in their fur.

Finding her name traced into the fogged glass of the mirror in his bathing chamber.

A single dark feather on his pillow.

A birds wing brushing against his amour before a battle.

She is wraith and witch and goddess bundled into one.

He loves her all the more dearly for it.

“Suppose my father finally finds his end,” he says into the cloud of her hair. “Would you follow me to the throne?”

“It’s forbidden for a commoner,” she says, mirth in her eyes when she pulls back to meet his gaze. “I would make a fantastic mistress though.”

He grunts, rolls his eyes. “That won’t do.”

“Compromise, darling.”

“Compromise won’t do.”

She smiles, nuzzles her nose against his chest. “Yes, it has always been abundantly clear that whatever you do, you do it with your whole heart. I do think you’ll have much larger problems to deal with.”

He imagines the lords, gathering forces against the Butcher’s son, who would never have the stomach to be as cruel and brutal as his father. “You’re right.” He would have an uprising on his hands, gods forbid peace and justice descend upon their land.

“Of course I am. I know all.” She shifts away from him, to the edge of the bed to drape a slip around her body.

She settles like a thick fog in his mind most days, splitting his vision between the crown that needed him to free the land of his father’s brutal reign, and the home he wants so badly he feels it in the tendons stretched between his bones.

Why shouldn’t he have both?

She gave him what he wanted long before he realized it was what he was searching for. A home away from war, a place to rest and heal after battle. Rest he did, here in her home, wounds stitching together swiftly with the aid of her magic.

Safe, he had realized, the second time he inadvertently came to her home. He was safe with her.

He’s not sure when the thing between them began to take flight.

Maybe after his third visit when she asked about the stripes on his back, and he had admitted the scars were courtesy of the king, bedeviled as he was by his son’s chronic lack of malice, his unwillingness to follow in his father’s footsteps.

Maybe when he kissed her by the river that first spring.

Maybe when she had taught him how to care for his mother’s grieving beasts. They still prefer the witch over him, and he can’t much blame them.

Maybe when she touched his chest with gentle fingertips, and told him that not only was he a good man, but that he was meant to do great things.

“I would, you know,” she says, moving to boil water in the kettle over the fire. “If you could find a way. Though I fear making a common witch your wife, would not win you any popularity contests, among the lords or the common people.”

“Would you?” He sits up, reaching for her hand, remembering the first time he had kissed it, soft skin against his winter roughened lips. “I could use your counsel. You’re wiser than I could ever hope to be.”

She sits in his lap, pats his cheek, and he remembers the first time they made love, frantic and wanting, like the missing piece of the puzzle in his heart sliding home. “Promise me one thing.”

“Anything.”

“Promise you’ll remember this moment, that you won’t change who you are.”

“I promise.” Lips against the heartbeat in her wrist.

#bucky x reader #bucky x you #royalty au #bucky barns x reader

[twsted-princess]

"I suggest you leave now, least you wish to face the Fatui's wrath."

Behold my newest Genshin Impact oc drawn by @itsdiamoon on Twitter!!

Name: Anastasia

Titles: Devitsa (Maiden) of Frost, Grand Princess of Snezhnaya

Nicknames: Ana, Anya, Annie, (Bonbori @raihan-of-sunshine's oc), Nastya (when on a mission), Snowdrop, Snezhinka/Snowflake, (Tsaritsa when she was younger) Little Princess (Childe)

Age: 23 (Physically) 400+

Race: Homunculus

Birthday: 12/6

Gender: Female

Height: 167cm/5'6

Rarity: 5 stars/⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Weapon: Throwing Knives

Element: None

Position: Sub DSP

Constellation: Nives Virginum (Snow Virgin)

Nation: Snezhnaya

Occupation: Princess of Snezhnaya, Leading Commander of the Fatui

Affiliation: Fatui

Speciality Dish: Powdered Ice-cubes with a Cup of Cocoa (Turkish Delights)

Likes: Singing, Pressing Flowers, Traveling to the other nations, Her mother

Dislikes: Her mother, Sickness, Feeling worthless, Being stuck in the castle

The daughter of the Tsaritsa and crowned princess of Snezhnaya. Born from a snow-baby the cryo archon breathed life onto, she lived a happy life growing up. As the queen's Little Snowflake she brought warmth into the castle, loving her mother wholeheartedly and was Pierro's dear friend as they were her caretaker. But soon the Tsaritsa grew obsessed with her desire to destroy the old world, beginning to form the Harbringers and increasing the Fatui ranks but she still holds a soft side for a maturing Ana. The printsessa is soon trained in the arts of war, weaponry, military strategies, infiltration, and diplomacy both fair and manipulative along with her daily studies of etiquette and courtly lady skills.

As time goes on both Ana and the Tsaritsa notice that the princess has let to receive a Vision, the notion of the archon's own daughter has not earned the gods favor weights heavily on them. Ana begins to train daily, pushing herself to the limit to prove her drive to both the gods and her mother while the empress's heart grew colder as the Fatui's reach spreads to most corners of Teyvet. One day during a meeting of the Five Harbringers with the Tsaritsa a small ball of light falls slowly from the heavens. The ones gathered watch as the orb swirls and flickers towards Anastasia. Could it be? Could this really be her Vision? Ana reaches out, smiling warmly as she accepts this gift but when the light touches her finger..............CRACK. The light shatters into glass and falls to the ground around the young girl. The gods......rejected her. Her vision was no more. The effect was immediate as the princess fell ill and seemingly nothing would cure her. Now the Tsaritsa is livid, now her goal must be achieved at all cost. Dottore then makes a proposal, the queen desires the power of the Gnosis's correct? What if they use a tiny shard from all seven and place it into Ana thus granting her complete power? Once the princess's sickness left she was

For her personality, Nastya is sincere but sharper then a blade. She acts like a pure lady with all the poise and dignity but is cold to most people as a leader of the Fatui. Through her words, grace and a soft but firm touch she commands the agents to further her will. But inside she longs for so many things. The return of her mother's warm smile, to roam the land of Teyvet freely, and to bring back the former glory of the Fatui.

CV:

Amanda Lee - English

Yui Ogura (Normal), Saori Onishi (Singing) - Japanese

#my work #oc's #genshin impact

[bibliocratic]

a tale as old prompt: stories / wish pairing: aceMartin / aceJon (with a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it aroSasha)

A long time ago, stories made tell of a beast, living solitary and woodland-bound at the heart of the great forest. In the days before in the first age of the king, strange Powers beset the land and its people with all manner of terrors unnameable with the human tongue, and those afflicted were both revered and shunned in kind. This beast bore the aspect of a man, agreeable in face if not in manner, and was possessed of dark powers of knowing gifted to him by an unkindly denizen of the planes unseen. Rumour would have you believe that the beast had been a warlock, cursed through the rot of his allegiances, or a monk from some lowly church whose worshipful songs had summoned others listening from the clutch of the deep, or even a scribe in name and nature, a misbegotten soul who had read the wrong scrolls by the wrong candlelight. The truth of who he was before is little of our concern.

It was said, that those who ventured into the most unhallowed, shadow-snarled parts of the forest to retrieve him were never to be seen again, but tongues are free and mouths are wagging, and it is as likely that most feared the power of the beast too much to ever enter his domain.

There was, at that time, another young man, bestowed the name of Martin. The world in its wisdom had gifted Martin a kind heart easily bruised like the skin of apples, and strong shoulders as the oxen have with which to bear the weight of his small and heavy world. He lived for twenty-four summers with his mother, in a thatch-roofed farm on the edge of the great forest, and his days were the to-ing and fro-ing of a labouring life.

His mother had taken to her sickbed years afore, and while doctors and soothsayers and cunning men had hawked glistening potions and sweet-smelling pastes that they swore could cure all manner of ills, she had only worsened as time wore steadily on. Winter was approaching, the winding drop and stripping of leaves promising a long season of hard earth compacted with snow, and Martin worried his mother would not survive until spring.

He had heard, of course, about the beast of the Black Woods. The reputation laid before him, spoken of gravely with clucking tongues and shaking heads, of a silver-tongued sorcerer in league with spirits of the air and deep, who could summon forth the answer to any question in return for payment. The reckoning varied on the teller, and fanciful notions of first-borns and blood-tithes and betrothals abounded.

But the trees outside the forest had shed their clothes to bareness, and the welcoming touch of speckling frost had begun to settle upon the ground, and Martin’s mother grew weaker, developing a cough that rattled in her rickety lungs. And so, Martin of the Black Woods packed a small knapsack and ventured upon the winding pathways of the forest to seek out the beast who lived there.

The forest was not forbidding to his mind, though the knotted roots sewed themselves thick and wily through the undergrowth, disrupting the pathway. The branched canopy of trees which had sprouted from saplings in eras long lost from memory stretched tall and wide, forcing the sunlight to submit to gloom. There was the tremulous warble of birds as he walked, the shush of far-off water, and Martin chose to think upon these, rather than his fear of the task at hand.

He walked for hours, although he had no comforting vision of the sun to mark his time. Resting for a moment, he set himself at the base of a sturdy oak to gather himself, taking a sip from his waterskin. He closed his eyes but for a moment, lulled by the birdsong and the faint tune of the water, and when he opened them, the beast was there.

Eyes thronged unnaturally about his head as one would wear a coronet of fireflies. The beast was simple in garb, kept neatly, and all about his skin sprouted more pupils that mixed and intermingled as oil and water.

“You are far from the path, pilgrim,” the beast said.

Martin said nothing, his throat too bound in terror at the beast’s appearance, and the beast made a noise of annoyance, and his coronet of eyes spluttered out like water thrown on a campfire.

“I have no time for the lost of this world,” he said.

Martin was sore afraid, but he forced himself to stand, to look into the eyes of the beast for fear of offending so mighty a sorcerer, focusing on the pupils on his face that gleamed out like polished glass.

“If you please, Lord. I have come in search of you.”

“What do you seek that would have you search out my haunts and hollows?” the beast replied. “I have long grown bored of those who track me down to demand riches or wealth in abundance, those who desire power and might and lack the will or judgement to bring such things about by their own hand.”

“If you please, Lord,” Martin said. “A sickness has long ailed my mother, and I wish to see her cured.”

The beast considered this, and the awful visage of his form folded back into him begrudgingly, for the young man’s request had a tenor of honesty.

“There is no discount for your honour, however touching I’m sure it is,” the beast responded dismissively. “You know the price I ask.”

Martin considered the many stories told of what payment would be demanded of him, and fearing to cause the beast to anger by confessing his ignorance, replied instead:

“I would have you name it, Lord.”

The beast huffed, and rolled his eyes and said:

“Do not call me Lord. I possess no titles and desire none.”

Martin asked haltingly what name he would prefer.

“Watcher is my name and occupation. I am a devourer, my hungers bountiful and unceasing. My price, Martin of the Black Woods, is to taste a story told true from your lips. Should it satisfy, I will grant you what you ask.”

“What story should I speak of?” Martin asked. And then the beast turned every eye upon his trembling form, and bid him, in a voice sturdy as moonrise, insistent as drowning, crackling like leaf-fall, to tell of his first heartbreak.

And so Martin did as he was bidden, helpless as his tale spilt like water from his mouth, a breathless recount of first love and rejection, sacrificed to the eyes that feasted upon all the shadows his memory cast upon his soul. When he was finished, for the tale was woefully short in its particulars by merit of its simplicity, Martin attempted to bring himself up to full height and wipe away the tears that had begun to drip down the round of his cheeks, awaiting the judgement of the beast who stood expressionless before him.

Finally, the beast spoke, his words suddenly rusted with tiredness: “There is a flower. White as dawn-touched feathers. The roots are fragile and take poorly to most earth, yet it grows in a clearing in these woods not far from here. Pick a handful and return to your homestead. The roots you must boil. When the water cools, she should drink this for three nights, though the flavour is bitter. Her food, you should season with the crushed petals as you would salt. Then her sickness will be cured.”

The beast pointed a long finger to guide his direction and bade him safe passage, and then he was gone, and Martin was left with the stain of tears fresh on his face, his mind warring between fear and wonderment.

He did as the beast had told. And the cough that had taken up lodging in his mother’s lungs diminished apace until she breathed clean and clear for the first time in years.

For those three nights, and for many nights after, Martin dreamt of the beast. His striking eyes waxing and waning in the skin of his face. His restless gait and glowering manner. His demeanour proclaiming a strange kind of lonely, and within Martin blossomed a kinship for this soul, whose life was bordered by the edges of the forest, who had taken Martin’s story from his back as though a yoke for a little while.

It was not long before Martin returned to the great forest. Settling himself down at the foot of that elder oak, bowed regally by the press of the wind, and waiting.

The beast did not look pleased to see him return.

“These are for my thanks,” Martin said quickly, and from his knapsack brought out a clay jar of honey from his own hives.

“I thank you then. For your kindness,” the beast said after a while, and his speech was the awkward and stilting gait of a new-born foal when he continued: “Your mother? Is she better?”

“Her cough has left her,” Martin confessed. “Though she is still afflicted with a malediction of the bones that the winter brings on fiercely.”

“You know my price,” the beast said, and Martin nodded, and when the beast’s many eyes gazed upon him like a flaying and demanded the story of his greatest grief, squatting ruinous at the tender heart of him, Martin poured it forth without resentment.

“You should pick more flowers,” the beast advised. He had bought out a folded cloth from his pocket, promising that it was clean, and offered it to soak up Martin’s tears which trickled plentiful down his face when his payment had been satisfied. Martin took it with a wary hand, but it was an offering sincerely made and as such, gratefully received. “They are known as cat’s tongues in common parlance. They nestle in thickets amidst blackberries, and their petals are long and red and they will score your hands should you attempt to pluck them. They grow half a day’s walk from here. They should be ground into a paste, and administered at dusk, rubbed over the limb like a salve.”

Again, the beast soon disappeared amidst the branches of the great forest. And Martin followed the missive delivered to him, the cloth tucked away in his pocket, and picked the flowers known as cat’s tongues, which scratched and tore up the skin of his hands in his mission.

Martin served his mother dutifully night after night. Her legs grew stronger, and she could walk around the small farmstead with the gait of a maiden threescore years younger. And once a week, once his chores were done and the livestock attended to, Martin packed his bag with offerings for the strange beast of the forest who so occupied his dreams and waking moments, to thank him for his pains. To request another medicine, to see his mother whole and well.

The beast requested tales of hurt and shame and loss and grief, and Martin had many of those to offer upon his altar. After a drawn-out tale of miserable indignities, Martin was left shivering and swaying as a ship with storm-tossed rigging, his legs ill-equipped to carry him hence. After a pause, the beast had snapped at him to sit down, to take nourishment before continuing his quest.

Martin did as he was told, sensing no malice in the beast’s tone. Opening his bag, he offered the beast some of his bread and cheese. The beast blinked with all his eyes before cautiously agreeing, and their silence as they ate was companionable.

As time passed, the beast asked for different tales; those of quiet joy, warmth and comfort. Martin had fewer of those, but he delivered what was asked of him, and the beast rewarded his pains with the knowledge of where more flowers and berries and herbs were to be found. Gradually the beast tarried longer, as if unwilling to immediately depart, and they often broke bread and shared water under the soft shadow of the great forest.

When the touch of winter had passed into a chill spring, Martin visited the beast once more. He had crafted a woollen blanket from the fleece of one of his sheep, spun it on the wheel in the candlelight while his mother slept.

“For my thanks,” he said, like he always did, his face flushed the colour of strawberries, and the beast held the gift carefully in his hands to feel the weight and warmth of it. His voice was unsteady when he declared Martin was too kind to present him such a gift.

“How may I help your mother today?” the beast asked quietly.

Martin was silent for a long while before he spoke.

“My mother has no sickness of the body remaining,” he replied. “Her pains have been taken from her through your patient instruction. It is only a sickness of the heart, rooted as ivy in her. She sees in my face the ghost of my father’s follies, and her manner has long hardened towards me.”

The beast appeared sorrowful.

“This, I have no cure for,” he said.

“I would not ask one of you.”

“What would you have of me then?”

Martin did not look upon the beast as he stammered and stuttered that if the beast wished, Martin would have his company, to sit under the branches of the great oak. That they might share a small meal, speak without transaction, that Martin might ask questions of the beast if that would be deemed permissible.

The beast smiled, the gesture foreign to his face. It would take a long time before he was to realise that love, unbeknownst to him, had begun to seed in the soil of his heart left to fallow.

For months, Martin visited the beast of the forest, to break bread and share small tales not fed to any god, but kept as keepsakes within the memories of the other.

One day, it came about that a band of soldiers travelled through town, passing through to reach the port a few day’s south. They roamed in search of able-bodied souls to swell their number, and Martin was not unknown to the villagers, to whom he sold the produce from their farm and involved himself in the passage of their lives. And so, to his door came a man as tall and broad as a barn door. His handshake was a frost-bitten chill of a winter’s eve without candlelight, and he introduced himself as Peter Lukas.

Peter Lukas gazed upon Martin with eyes the colour of fog, and offered him an apprenticeship, serving upon his ship that laid wait in dock not two days travel. He spoke with feigned sincerity on how valuable Martin would be to his crew, how honoured such a title was, but while Martin did not trust his over-sharp smile nor his fool’s gold promises, it was true that the farm was suffering. His mother, while hale, was too old to work in the fields as she once had, and the money Peter Lukas promised was enough to keep her comfortable.

It was enough for a good dowry, Lukas chuckled, as if the idea was cause for merriment, should Martin wish to marry. Enough for a home, should he wish to settle down. Martin’s lot was a poor one, and would consign any beloved to gruelling hard-work all the days of their life. And surely, Peter Lukas chided, Martin would want to provide for those he loved, not damn them to a thankless life easily washed away by an errant storm or an ill-tempered season.

Peter Lukas cast himself in the manner of a liar, but his mouth spoke the truth well enough.

That evening, Martin visited the beast of the woods and told him he would be leaving. With the soldiers, and Peter Lukas, to make what fortune he could while his body was unbroken by time and labour.

The beast was angered and afraid. He had heard tell of Peter Lukas, who served a god much like his own, and in his heart flourished a fear of Martin’s fate, lost to the fog and sea. He snapped and goaded and snarled, tempestuous and terrified, but Martin had set his mind to it, and finally the beast relented. Beckoning Martin to follow him, he lead the young man deeper into the woods, his corona of eyes a light by which to see by, eventually arriving at a clearing and the cottage where the beast made his home.

The beast’s cottage was comely, ringed with warmth from the hearth, the brickwork soaked with heat. Martin perused the laden piles of manuscripts and scrolls that tiered from floor to the low ceiling, and he wondered what knowledge they spoke of, for no one had ever taught Martin his letters. The beast searched impatiently through disordered piles before he brought forth objects that shimmered in the glow of the firelight.

“I would make three requests of you,” the beast asked. “Though I have little right to.”

Martin bade him name them.

The first, was to accept the unusual treasures he had gathered in his arms. The beast gave Martin a compass, well-used by time, the glass splintered like a lightening bolt through the centre of its face, and told him to keep it upon his person, that he may not lose sight of land, for the hand would ever point homeward. Next, he gifted him a mirror, plain and foxed in the corner with black speckles.

“So you will never be lonely. Its twin is in my possession, and whatever is spoken in yours will be heard in mine. Alas, the charm is old and warped, and I have not the skill to mend it, for the same does not bare out in the reverse.

“What should I say to it?”

“I would have you whisper into the mirror,” the beast said after a moment’s thought, and his gestures were as the flight of anxious birds and his eyes for once did not meet Martin’s gaze as he spoke. “On nights becalmed and troubled, when you are heartsick. The domain Peter Lukas presides over is peaceful, in its own way, a place to soothe and numb and forget. But I beg of you, speak to the mirror and remember every blistering, joyous, terrible moment of being alive, and what you have endured to call yourself such. So that I know you breathe still, that I have not lost you to the fog.”

The second gift the beast bestowed was the knowledge of his name, long unspoken and unheard even to the ears of the beast. And Martin tasted the word Jonathan on his lips, and knew the knowing of it would warm him even on the coldest of nights.

“The final request is my gravest charge,” the beast said, and he stood before Martin, studying him with every one of his eyes, and touched his hand against Martin’s chest to feel the fragile motion of his heartbeat.

“Name it.”

“Come back to me,” he asked, and Martin’s eyes prickled with tears as he gave his solemn word.

Martin gifted him the last of his honey, and another garment spun in candlelight and dyed with woad and weld so its colour was that of the beast’s eyes.

The beast watched him leave, standing at the threshold of his cottage long after his eyes could not see him.

Martin’s lot was arduous, though he quickly rose through the ranks under the tutelage of Peter Lukas. He saved diligently every penny of his earnings, with a mind to build a home in the woodland, to buy a modest ring of silver, to deck himself in clothes worthy of a man like the beast and ask him for his hand.   When it was his turn on lookout, he’d take the mirror up to the crow’s nest and speak gently into the glass as he sat curled under a bedrock of stars. His compass was ever in his pocket.

But the way of the Forsaken is a cunning one, the fog insidious in its beckoning. Martin struggled to recall the gift he had been given, and one day found the sea had taken it as payment for his continued service, and he was struck with a terror that he would forget the beast of the forest, and so he spoke the beast’s true name upon waking, upon sleeping, as a chant when the fog settled in low and their voyage was becalmed and there seemed nothing but emptiness from horizon to horizon. And in this way, he persisted, no matter how much of him the fog laid claim to.

It was many years before Martin returned to shore. Salt ingrained in his skin, a scattering of white to his hair like chicken seed. His apprenticeship served. The ship came to port far from his homestead, and he would have wandered lost if not for the compass which bore Martin true and back to the little village and his farm on the outskirts of the Black Woods.

It had been a long time since he had dreamt of the beast. And his return ate up his time and attention, amidst the newly made demands of his mother, grown more distant with age.

He had been returned some three months before he packed his knapsack and ventured along pathways his feet had never forgotten how to tread.

He waited patiently by the hollow all day. A jar of honey in his knapsack, and only one more story in his mouth. The beast did not appear, even as the day slid into night. He did not appear the next day, not the next, nor the next, but Martin made his faithful pilgrimage regardless.

He was rewarded for his pains on the sixth day. The beast appeared wreathed in eyes like a holly garland, his expression hard and hurt. His body had been struck and ill-used by time and events Martin had not been privy to, and he ached, to see him the bearer of so many scars.

“What would you will of me, Martin?” he asked, and his tongue was sharp to hide an anxious heart.

“I kept my promise,” Martin said, but the beast’s face did not soften at this, for he had endured years of silence, mourned and tried to forget the young man who had gifted him honey and blankets and promised to speak to him, even across the vast of the sea.

“I am glad to see it. I ask again. What would you will of me?”

“My mother would have me wed.”

The beast paused, before continuing with a sadness loosening the bricks of his heart.

“I see. Your apprenticeship has not left you a poor man, it was to be expected. And would you ask me for the finest silks, the cleverest bride or the prettiest groom or the gentlest spouse, the happiest matrimony in the kingdom?”

Martin did not flinch at the beast’s tone.

“My mother engaged me in a match while I was away,” he replied. “And although my betrothed is clever and dashing and would make me a happy man, I hold no love in my heart for her, nor she I. Her heart does not take to ardour as others do, though she cherishes my happiness and would be a steadfast companion. And I have never been mindful of passions of the sort expected from a husband.”

“It is not in my power to make people love,” the beast spoke harshly. “Nor is it to offer solutions to things that do not need fixing. The mechanisms of your heart are your own, as valued as any other, and I would not alter them.”

“That is not what I would ask,” Martin said. He approached the beast with open hands and an open face. “I ask only to tell you a story. The only one I have left to give you.”

Martin walked forward, and his eyes were not the grey the beast had feared but the blue of skies sighted through the canopy of the great forest. His hand, worn and calloused by his labours, reached out, and touched the chest of the beast to feel the rise and fall of his breathing.

“It is the story of my love,” he said, “for the soul who lives at the centre of the woods, blessed with the sight of a thousand eyes. Who gifted me his company, for a short time, and his name, which I have carried as a talisman to ward off all manner of evil. Of how I came to love him, and crafted gifts declaring my devotions when my tongue could not, and how my affections were not diminished by neither time nor tide. The man who whom I spoke my dreams and fears and hopes, even when I did not have the mirror though which he could hear me. Of the future I would hope for us, should my affections be returned. Of the life I do not dare to dream we could have, if only I knew he felt in kind.”

The beast took Martin’s hand and cradled it in a gentle grip.

“Such a request has a high price,” he said.

“Name it, Jonathan,” Martin said, and the beast’s face bloomed with a smile that lit up every one of his staring eyes.

“I would have the years of your life, Martin of the Black Woods,” the beast said. “I would have them to cherish and guard and hoard and share. And in return I would love you with all I have within me capable of such a task, and hope you found mind me worthy of the same.”

And so Martin embraced the beast, and swore to adore him all the years of his life. What further words and declarations they recounted to each other were not recorded. Years later, tales told of two beasts in the guises of men, who held court in their home at the centre of the forest. One, granted gifts of knowing, who would ask a story as the price for his learning. The second, a white-haired man untouched by time, who would find those lost upon the winding pathways of the forest and kindly escort them out, only to slip away amidst the trees like mist when his task was done.

But stories make tell of many things, and the truth of this tale is known only to the leaves and the trees of the Black Woods.  

#aspecarchives #tma #the magnus archives #jonmartin #fic #sorry Sasha #you got barely a cameo #folks need to know that first drafts of this had more Sasha and aceTim #because I adore them both and might write more for them tomorrow

[shera-dnd]

I told you I was gonna write a fic based on it and here it is! Inspired by this fantastic piece from @kurokaneart

A pretty short story in which Weiss did not fall at the end of Volume 8, and after years of wandering Vacuo alone, she finally gets a shot at avenging her team

That design deserved a fight scene to match it and I hope I delivered on it

It had been two years.

Two years since Atlas fell from the sky.

Two years since the relics had been lost.

Two years since so many people were lost to the void.

Weiss had been alone for two gods damned years.

It was still fresh on her mind, the day her friends fell to their doom. How one by one they were swallowed by the abyss, and she had been powerless to save them. How she herself almost met the same fate, had she not been saved by her sister at the last possible moment. A sister who now carried the mantle of the Winter Maiden, passed down from yet another dead friend.

So it was no surprise to anyone that Weiss had been in a state of shock for the following few days. In fact she wasn’t even sure how long that lasted as she hadn’t been fully aware of the passage of time as her heart struggled with all it had lost.

What surprised them was when she left.

The reasonable thing to do after all that happened would have been to stick with her surviving friends, work together and do everything they could to make sure they wouldn’t lose anyone else. But Weiss wasn’t in a reasonable mood. She was grieving the loss of her family - her real family - and she couldn’t bear the notion of just replacing them, of being a part of anything besides Team RWBY.

So she wandered the deserts that surrounded Vacuo, fighting bandits, slaying grimm, all while doing all she could to keep the memory of her team alive. All while carving herself into a walking memorial to those she lost.

In time she was forced to adapt to the desert. Crying was a waste of precious water, as was cleaning her unreasonably long hair, so in time her tears dried up and her hair was cut short. Soon heels gave way to sensible combat boots, and her dress was replaced by proper armor. Months of constant physical exercise and her new fighting style had also led to changes even to her body shape, leaving her more muscular than she ever thought she could be.

Part of her couldn’t help but worry that this meant that Weiss had died with her teammates, that whoever walked Vacuo now was some other woman wearing her face. So still she latched onto scraps of her older self. The lovely blue of her favorite dress now lived on in her cape, bound to her by a metal clasp bearing her family’s symbol. Her earrings too remained, even if they brought her the wrong kind of attention from time to time.

And so the months passed and Weiss continued her travels, hunting down Salem’s followers wherever she found them. Even getting to take her anger out on a certain scorpion bastard, though she knew he was just one more piece in some impossibly large scheme to end the world.

Now two years had passed since the Fall of Atlas and once more Weiss found herself at the entrance to a relic vault as yet another huntsmen academy came under attack. This time though, she stood alone, waiting for the one person she had spent two years looking forward to seeing again.

“Well well well, here I thought I’d never have to see your face again,” Cinder’s disgustingly smug tone echoed through the underground chamber as her silhouette appeared by its entrance, “what was it that those friends of yours called you again, Ice Queen?”

Cinder had changed a lot in these past couple of years. Once again she donned a new outfit for her new environment, this one echoing some of her choices from her old student disguise back at Beacon. Though the change that actually caught Weiss’s eye was her grimm arm. She no longer bothered hiding it as the cancerous growth had now spread to cover not only her entire arm but parts of her chest and neck. Weiss wouldn’t be surprised if she found that her heart too had become grimm.

Her attitude, unfortunately, stayed the same.

“Love the new look, by the way,” she mocked, “I could almost believe you’re not just a Schnee brat.”

Weiss’s fists clenched, but she did not bother with a response. She knew how Cinder worked, she played dirty and messed with people’s heads, so the less fuel Weiss gave her the better. Instead she just cracked her neck, stretched her sword arm and called on her semblance.

A summoning glyph appeared behind her, but this time none of her defeated foes stepped out to defend her, instead frost covered her arms, slowly shaping itself into spectral white armor. She extended a hand forward and in it began to form a massive sword, pointing towards her enemy in challenge.

She was about to take down a maiden.

“Cute trick,” Cinder commented, her steps echoing as she casually walked down the chamber, “I wonder where you got it from.”

To make her point she extended her hands and a pair of swords formed in them with a flash of heat. The implication that Weiss had anything to thank Cinder for, was unfortunately enough to prompt her to speak.

“Are you always so full of--”

With a burst of flames Cinder had launched for Weiss’s throat, the glass blade nearly connecting with the huntress’s neck in that moment of distraction, before Weiss could stumble backwards and out of the way. Cinder continued to push though, strike after strike backing Weiss against the vault’s doors, never allowing her to recover her balance.

Weiss grunted as a kick to the stomach sent her reeling back against those doors. Cinder dashed for her again, but this time she was prepared. Pushing off the door with one arm she slammed an armored hand on Cinder’s chest - a small propulsion glyph appearing in her palm - and launched the maiden backwards with incredible force.

Another glyph then took shape under Weiss, sending her flying up in an arc, plunging at Cinder, ready to cut her down. The maiden simply rolled aside and jumped up before the attack could connect. Once more their blades clashed, but this time it was Weiss’s turn to take the offensive.

Back in her Beacon days, Weiss would dance across the battlefield with the precision and grace of a ballerina. Though much of said grace had been lost over the years, she still saw her fighting style as a dance of sorts, no longer a balle, but a waltz between her and her greatsword, and now Cinder found herself caught in the path of these deadly dance partners.

Weiss pushed her back with each step, advancing with every slice and spin of her sword until they found themselves once more at the center of the room. She dipped her dance partner, striking its pommel to Cinder’s human wrist and making her sword drop. She spun on her heels aiming to slice off that grimm arm, but once again their blades clashed. Cinder’s human hand flew for the grip of her remaining sword, pushing Weiss’s summoned blade with all her might.

Usually that wouldn’t work. Between her stronger physique and the Arma Gigas’s armor she could easily power through most attempts at simply blocking her attacks like this, but of course it wouldn’t be that easy. The grimm maiden was inhumanly strong after all and kept Weiss’s sword at bay with ease.

“I must say, I’m impressed,” Cinder commented, a chuckle escaping her throat as she watched Weiss struggle to match her strength, “but don’t fool yourself. We both know you’re nothing on your own.”

With that, Weiss snapped.

A propulsion glyph formed behind her, shoving her forward and adding its force to the clash. It wasn’t enough to push Cinder back, but it was enough to do something even better.

A loud crack echoed throughout the chamber as Cinder’s glass swords shattered under the intense pressure. She forged new ones from thin air, but Weiss was quick to crush those too. There were no more attempts at grace, no more dancing, no more technique or skill, just deadly force as the room was filled with the sounds of crushing glass and Weiss’s shouts, her sword slamming down again and again like a blunt instrument.

This, of course, was exactly what Cinder wanted. Her grimm arm caught Weiss’s sword with ease and a jet of flame from her mouth made the huntress stumble and fall. Casually she crushed the sword in her hand and sauntered her way to her disarmed opponent.

Weiss rose to her knees and another summoning glyph appeared before her, producing a much needed replacement sword. But before she could reach for it a fireball incinerated the glyph and the sword with it.

“This was cute,” Cinder mocked, not even bothering with any swords anymore, simply raising her hand and preparing to fireball Weiss out of existence, “but I think it’s time we put an end to it.”

It was that look. That tone in her voice like she had already won, like her defeat was never even a possibility. It was that smug attitude that gave Weiss every motivation she needed to keep fighting to the bitter end, just to show her that the last remnant of team RWBY wasn’t about to lie down and accept death.

Thankfully, team RWBY still had her back.

She launched forward and slammed an armored fist against that stupid smirk of hers. The look of absolute shock on that bitch’s face was more than enough of a reward on its own, but Weiss still had more for her.

Taking a boxing stance Weiss planted punch after punch on Cinder’s body, every jab and every dodge aided by her propulsion glyphs. Her fast movement kept Cinder on her toes as she was slammed over and over again.

With a cry of rage Cinder unleashed her maiden powers, sending Weiss flying backwards with a powerful gust of wind, but the huntress was not so easily intimidated. Another glyph caught her and launched back at her foe. Cinder smirked and raised her grimm arm. She was more than happy to capitalize on Weiss’s foolhardiness by shooting her out of the air with another ball of flames.

Unfortunately for the mad maiden, Weiss was no fool.

Another glyph appeared under her and sent her flying upwards, completely avoiding Cinder’s attack and sending spinning over her foe with the grace of a gymnast. Weiss had barely landed behind her before bashing Cinder once more, putting all her force into a single punch that sent her flying.

She knew she couldn’t waste time, she couldn’t let the maiden recover. So she called upon a massive summoning glyph and while that one prepared to unleash its fury, a smaller one appeared on Weiss’s palm. From the small glyph shot the hooked stinger of a Queen Lancer, it pierced Cinder’s grimm arm causing her to scream in pain. Then with all her strength Weiss pulled her down to the ground.

No, not the ground. She pulled her down into the waiting maw of a Giant Nevermore. The summon swallowed her whole and flew up, readying itself to dive down, slamming them both to the ground with deadly force.

Still it was not enough.

The Nevermore burst into flames as fire spewed from Cinder’s hands, feet, and mouth. The look of smug superiority on the maiden’s face now replaced with one of pure primal fury, blade after blade after blade were forged around her with a flash of her terrifying power. That...wasn’t good.

Weiss felt her hands shake and her eyes closed.

All of that, and all she managed to do was make her angry.

Two years training and preparing for this confrontation, and she still couldn’t do anything.

She couldn’t stop Cinder. She couldn’t avenge her friends, and now the last member of her team would die to her hand like all the rest.

No.

No! No!

Her team was gone, but they were still protecting her, still doing everything they could to let her keep fighting. She wasn’t gonna let her efforts and their sacrifice be in vain. She would keep fighting, and she would take Cinder down once and for all.

When she opened her eyes a glyph had taken form under her, but this one was different from the rest, for instead of her family’s snowflake, this one had the shape of a ticking clock. A haste glyph. And as it began to take effect on her body, two more summoning glyphs appeared before her. And from them Weiss drew a pair of shorter swords.

Cinder’s barrage of explosive weaponry came raining down on the huntress, but now she was prepared. With her speed vastly increased she struck forward with her twin blades, slicing down weapon after weapon with her aura, trying to find an opening through the chaos. Taking the first chance she got she crossed her blades and brought them down with all her might, shaping her aura into an X and sending it flying through Cinder’s attack.

First came a disgusting wet sound as the grimm arm was sliced cleanly off, then came the screams. Cinder cried and contorted in agony in mid air, more and more smoke rose from her wound with each passing moment, while her arm began to regrow.

That was it. That was the moment. Weiss just had to close the gap and--!

Pain wracked every muscle of her body, bringing her down to her knees. Her haste glyph had worn off, now her body burned from the overexertion, and a wave of lethargy drained all the strength from her body.

That moment of weakness was all Cinder needed to recover. She growled and with another grand display of might, she reached with her power for every last broken fragment of glass that littered the floor and set them ablaze.

Weiss had no means to escape that one.

It was as if the entire chamber had been carpet bombed, the myriad explosions tossing Weiss around like a ragdoll until she was unceremoniously dropped to the ground, dizzy, sore, exhausted. Still she pushed herself off up with all she had left.

Her summoned armor had been completely destroyed, her cape was in ruins, she was covered in soot, and her aura was barely holding it together. Proper tactics would require her to retreat, stay on the defensive, and wait to recover before taking the offense again. Weiss knew she had no such luxury.

Her only chance of survival was to finish Cinder before she had the chance to finish her. So she drew on every last scrap of energy she had left in her body and threw it all into one single desperate plan to end that monster for good.

She forced herself to stand and threw her hand forward, a black gravity glyph forming under the maiden. It pulled her down to the ground with force, but that was far from enough to keep her down. Storm winds filled the chamber, almost knocking Weiss off her feet again, weakening her glyph just enough to let Cinder stand up again.

Weiss threw her other hand and a pair of summoned Centinels emerged from the ground, wrapping themselves around their target, and dragging her back down. Cinder snarled and growled like an animal, slicing at them with her grimm claw and breathing out jets of flame.

Weiss knew they wouldn’t be able to lock her in place for long, so she quickly put the next part of her plan into motion. Another propulsion glyph formed under her and a summon glyph above. The first sent her flying through the second and she emerged on the other side, not with armor, but with a pair of spectral white wings.

Flying up as high as she could, her wings spread at the apex of her flight, holding her in place for one last moment so she could line up one final dive against her prey. One last time the Arma Gigas’s sword took shape in her hand and her wings closed around her.

She spun around her axis as her body plummeted with terrifying speed, the ground approaching her almost too fast for her to react, but right as she was about to collide, her wings spread out and for one glorious moment she was a whirlwind of death, slicing through Cinder with a spinning slash.

And for the first time in years, Cinder’s aura cracked. Blood poured out from a single long gash across her back and she collapsed to the ground. Weiss followed soon after.

She did it.

No, they did it.

Her friends had been avenged. Cinder had fallen. Weiss could finally rest.

That was all she needed right now, to just lie down, close her eyes, and get her well earned rest. The floor beneath her was hard and cold, but she didn’t mind it at all. She was so tired and this was just what she needed.

…

“Weiss!”

“Please wake up!”

“Weiss, please stay with us!”

Huh, she must have fallen asleep there on the floor. She was having that dream again. That dream where all her friends were still alive.

“Jaune, you have to help her!”

What other explanation would she have for this? For these familiar voices, for those warm touches, for the sight of silver eyes hovering just above her.

“Come on! Come on! Come on! Heal damn it!”

It was a nice dream. The kind of dream she didn’t want to wake up from.

So she closed her eyes again and drifted back to sleep...

#RWBY #weiss schnee #cinder fall #weiss schnee vs cinder fall #fight scene #weiss did not fall #ruby rose #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #jaune arc #feels #major character death

[peachnewt]

Midnight Snack - Gingerbread 1

Merry Christmas, ya’ll!  

I wanted to do something for the holidays involving my slow burn boys.  Somehow, this rose to the top.  Here is the first taste of Louis and Will switching places in the pred/prey relationship, while in a fantasy setting.  ^_^

Midnight Snack - Gingerbread

by peachnewt

Part 1

Once upon a time, a mountain in the West grew so tall that it's peaks, covered in icy snow, would reflect the sun's light like a candle, lighting the valley with a golden glow an hour after sunset.  Thus, the mountain was called the Lantern Pillars and the inhabitants of the valley benefitted from the extra hours of light to store away supplies for the harsh winter and pursue artistic endeavors. Buildings and towers stretched like candles ever upwards, bearing banners and stained glass that could be seen in any blizzard.  The valley, called Wax Wake, became the jewel of the Pillars, a destination for many nobles and merchant passing through the mountains with their exotic goods.  

But one area of the Pillars lay in the lee of the various crags and slopes in the mountain range; a rocky, forested area called the Greyfells.  In that dim and cold stretch of land lived a giant name Louis, the Grey.

Louis was an imposing figure, standing almost eighty feet high with wide shoulders, ice gray eyes, and a silvery blond mane of hair.  This wasn't a "fee-fi-fo-fum" giant that barreled around the countryside in rough furs, demanding maidens to keep his cave tidy, or oxen to feed his hunger, or gold to upkeep his lifestyle.  His mother raised him and his two older brothers better.  He kept his cave in semi-chaotic order with baskets and hangers for his possessions, did his own laundry, varied his diet with vegetables and other forage-foods so he didn't need to spend as much money on meat, and he had a yearly stipend for protecting mountain passes from bandits and clearing out rubble for merchant caravans.  

But Louis still wore rough furs.  Why wear fine wool or linens when they would tear on the slopes?  Plus it was cold up there.

And Louis did have a temper. While he didn't boom "fee-fi-fo-fum", he did grumble like a storm when the local coffee house didn't count out enough beans to last until his next monthly grocery run.  It was basic math, take the normal about of coffee a person needed and scale it up by sixteen.  

When one passed through the mountain trails they saw deep pits from fists, slashes of red, and the strike of an axe blade bigger than a wagon. Sometimes, at night when the Lantern Pillars had dimmed the townsfolk could see sparks flying in the Greyfells, an axe hitting stone.  They heard tale of blood-thirst and violence from a surviving bandit that surrendered himself to the authorities in Wax Wake after the band he had been allied with had been destroyed.  

At one point in the early Autumn, Louis left for a week.  "Visiting family", he said to those left in charge of the mountain pass. When he came back, he had dark bags under his eyes, a large sack over his shoulder, and a posture akin to a starved wolf.  

"I'm working on something important," he growled at the human guards.  "I'll do my rounds, but don't expect anything else unless it's an emergency."  

It had been customary for Wax Wake to hire the giant to help clean the stain glass of their towers, since he could reach them so easily, and hang the new banners for the winter celebrations.  They dared not ask this year.  Louis stayed in the Greyfells.  

No One with any brains or sense of self preservation wandered near the Greyfells, or pried into Louis the Grey's business.  

***

"If I had any brains I would have stayed with a caravan and waited until morning," William hissed to himself and the blizzard.  His booted feet sunk into another snowdrift.

William had been traveling with a group of builders and craftsmen on their way to Wax Wake to peddle their wears and skills.  It was a rite of passage to try their hands in the jeweled city.  But their wagon axel broke halfway down the mountain.  They hadn't the supplies to repair it and civilization was half a day away.  William had offered to find help, and went off in the direction of Wax Wake.  Except a blizzard had descended; white, blinding, howling, turning him around until he could not tell north from south.  

Night had fallen.  William, still lost, squinted for any sign of light in the darkness.  He tucked his hands under his armpits, sinking his chin into the scarf around his neck.  

His nose, not his sight, had been his salvation.  William smelled cloves, ginger, and cinnamon on the breeze.  Cookies? William thought.  Spicebread? He hadn't eaten since noon and his stomach growled, bidding him onward.  

He saw a faint light in the same direction as the scent.  Shelter, he hoped.

William wove through the trees and scratching branches until the bramble broke into a clearing pure white. The wind died in the circle, the snow and moonlight pristine as it lit up a lopsided brown shack caked in bits of white.  William didn't care how badly made the domicile was, it was shelter from the cold, hopefully occupied with someone that could help him, and feed him.  

"Hello?"  William trudged on towards the shack.  Warm spice hung in the air along with the overwhelming aroma of sugar.  And the snow under his feet felt different, more like sand.  

He peered into the shack. A stub of a candle, as big around as his thigh, had been lit and took up the majority of the wooden floor.  No furniture, no people aside from him.  

"Anyone home?"

What an odd house, he mused.  Stepping inside, the smell of gingerbread surrounded him, yet the only piece of gingerbread he saw was a stale hunk the size of his fist to the side of the candle.  If no one was home, they wouldn't be grudge him a bit of gingerbread from the floor.

While chewing on the hunk of gingerbread, delicious, he examined the rest of the rough house. The vaulted roof had gaps filled in with a white paste burned from the candle.  His eye followed the wall, attached to the roof with a tilt, leaving another gap filled in with white paste.  The house wasn't hewn from stone, brick, or wood.  Was it wattle and daub?  Clay?    

Will tested a ragged, brown wall, scratching it with a cold fingernail.  "It's gingerbread?"  

The tiny scratch, however, was enough to test the structural integrity of the shack and find it wanting.

Down came the walls, burying William in giant slabs of gingerbread, snuffing the candle.  

---

Will woke stuck between a pool of slowly cooling wax and a slab of gingerbread pinning him across his stomach.  Will gasped, trying to fill his lungs.  Despite its confectionary nature, the slab of what had once been a roof, or perhaps a wall, could not be shifted no matter how much he struggled.  Pinned as he was, he couldn't eat his way out either.  He would either freeze to death, or suffocate.

Will bleated out into the night for help until his throat felt like sand and the wax under him had hardened.  Then he heard a rumble, vibrating the ground and making the edge of the roof dig deeper into his belly.

An avalanche?  

Instead Will heard of roar of frustration and the slab over him was lifted as if it was light as a feather.

A giant face, bearded, blond, and full of icy fury stared at him.  The whispered giant of the Greyfells dressed in furs and breath of frost.

"Are you fuckin' kidding me?!"  

***

Louis had stomped through the forest towards the protective circle he had set up for his project.  He carried a bag of red candies and a pot of icing with a small trowel.  If he could get all of the decorations up tonight then he could sleep in the next day. When he arrived, he saw a set of footprints in the pristine snow, and the gingerbread house collapsed.  Of course when he lifted the roof he'd find a meddling human.  

"Are you fuckin' kidding me!?"  Louis snapped.  

"What?" breathed the human.  

Louis tossed the gingerbread roof to the ground where it broke into four pieces, and then pulled the brown haired human out with one hand.  He stared at little menace, eye to beady eye. "I've been trying to keep this damned house together with sugar paste and a prayer, and then you come along and nibble on it like a fuckin' mouse until it falls?!"

"It was an accident!" yelled the human, pawing at the large hand that held him with his one free arm.  The tips of his feet, sticking out the other end of the giant's fist, twitched.  "I was lost and looking for shelter and food. And the shack wasn't stable, I barely touched it!  And the only piece of gingerbread I ate had already fallen from the walls!"  

"Shack!?" Fury lit up the giant's eyes like lightning.  He squeezed the human just enough to make him wheeze.  "I worked all day on this house and you call it a shack?"  

"S-sorry, but by definition it was a shack.  Though a delicious one.  I'm sure you can build a better one in a few hours."  

Louis didn't want to admit that the fallen shack had taken him two days, and had been his best effort out of seven.  

"I'm out of patience, out of my mind, and out of coffee," growled Louis.  He felt cruel and liked it, tapping into the reputation giants had gained as blood-thirsty ogres.  "You picked the wrong day to piss me off.  Cause I also haven't eaten in the last five days."  

Will gulped, suddenly nervous at seeing the giant's perfect grin.  "There is something admiral to be found in fasting in protest or in pursuit of a passion.  Why break such a streak?  Why not six days?"  

"Oh, I don't know."  Louis let his growling stomach speak for itself, causing the human to blanche.  "Maybe because it'll make me feel better."

"I'm sure we can talk about this in a reasonable manner!" screeched the human as he was pulled closer to the giant's mouth.  

"Reason left long ago."  Around the same time he had left to visit home and got saddled with this ridiculous task.

"There is always time for reason.  Starting with introductions!  I'm William James Rowe from Brex."  William stuck his hand out in the giant's directions, as if expecting a handshake.  "And you are?"  

Louis unclenched his jaw and breathed in the smell of sweat, sugar, and fear.  "Hungry."  

Part 2 

#Giant/tiny #pred/prey #midnight snack #g/t writing #peachnewt

[crystalrose555]

Don’t make me slap you pt 21

Diavolo sighed softly in defeat as he made his way through the crowd of birthday wishes and praises. Despite being the pride of Devildom, his eyes were fixed upon the floor since he hoped he would have a chance to see Mochi bouncing around. He even took time to make a bow for her to wear for the occasion since putting a collar on her would be cruel with her retractable neck. Surely he could spot a purple ribbon on a grey seal on his own. He took a look around his party only to see each of the brothers enjoying themselves but none were looking downward to the floor.

Another sigh escaped him as he made his way to balcony doors. He looked out lazily only for his eyes to concentrate on a faint figure standing by the balcony rail. His curiosity peaked causing him to quietly enter the balcony and close the glass doors behind him. Getting a closer look, his eyes grew wide and shimmered in the moonlight. Standing underneath the night sky was the mystery student that was popping up at RAD for the past month. There she was, in a dress that gently glimmered in the cool night air, staring off into the distance once more. She tilted her head slightly as she gazed at the moon and nothing else, rubbing her arms slowly. Looking her over for a moment, he carefully circled her at a distance only to be interrupted by a heavy sigh.

“For the last time, I am done dancing, my feet are starting to hurt.” She groaned.

Turning around, Marley’s annoyance turned into exhaustion upon seeing Diavolo’s smiling face. Deep down she knew she would see him eventually but she didn’t suspect being cornered by him on a balcony. Before her mind could begin to spiral, the silence was interrupted by a small chuckle.

“My apologies, I was hoping not to startle you again like last time but I failed.” He lightly commented.

Marley stood defensively against the prince’s light tone and observation. Noticing her tension, Diavolo slowly raised his open-palmed hands as if to calm her worries.

“Your spell doesn’t affect me but I  mean you no harm, truly.”

Marley looked over the prince with a raised eyebrow. Normally towering, he sunk his shoulders and bent his knees as if to appear smaller to her. In retaliation, Marley released a small snort out of habit and turned partially away from him. Taking the hint, Diavolo slowly walked over the balcony’s railing and stood a few feet away from the cautious maiden. He then joined her as she stared at the giant moon.

“So what now?”

“Excuse me?” He questioned.

“You caught me, right? So what are you going to do?”

“Well, I was hoping to talk to you. I’ve seen you at RAD but every time I get a glance, you disappear without a trace.”

“Then talk.” She snapped quickly.

Diavolo blinked out of shock since no one had ever commanded anything of him. A smile replaced his astonishment.

“Well, for starters, I can assume you like your time at RAD based on how many times you’ve been spotted there.”

“...It’s nice, the classes are very interesting. At least the ones I was able to sneak into.”

“Then we should make it easier for you to attend as you wish.” Diavolo chuckled.

“No thanks. I rather not owe you any favors.”

“My, that’s a bit harsh. We're still talking, aren’t we?” “For now, yes, we are,” Marley claimed as she returned her gaze to the moon, tilting her head once again.

Silence came once again while Diavolo took a step closer to her. Marley looked at him as soon as his foot flattened against the stone. Unblinking, she locked eyes with the golden-gaze demon while surrounding herself with invisible cold. He stopped his advance for a moment before slowing his approach. The closer he got, the colder the air became. Soon his form nearly engulfed hers while her cold frosted the gold that adorned his body. Marley didn’t falter despite Diavolo looking down at her with his towering form and imposing wings. The soft light glimmering against his gilded horns as he turned his gaze to the moon before speaking. “Why do you stare at the moon? You were staring at it in the garden when we first met.” 

“...I’m used to being underneath the moonlight.” Marley answered as she turned back to the moon.

Diavolo remained silent.

“I would wander for weeks, sometimes a month or two so I would look to the moon to keep track of time so I wouldn’t be away for too long. But here it’s all different.”

Diavolo looked down at Marley as she shivered gently while trying to remain stone-faced.

“...I haven’t made it easy for you, have I?”

“No, you haven’t. Stepping on eggshells is hard enough without your games and tricks.”

“Forgive me, I didn’t mean to put you in such a stressful situation, Mochi.”

Marley’s shoulders stiffened before relaxing, her expression was frozen stiff in the cold, piercing Diavolo’s form while ice formed on his golden accessories.

“You’ve been playing with me this entire time, haven’t you?” She accused while the air grew colder.

“No, I haven’t.”

“Liar.” She scoffed as she looked away.

A warm breeze suddenly picked up blowing away Marley’s cold aura and causing her to look upon a solemn-faced Diavolo.

“I’m many things, but a liar isn’t one of them.”

“...Then tell me, how did you know?”

“The ribbon, it’s peeking out from underneath your dress. I made it for Mochi so....”

Marley looked down and discovered the purple tails peering out.

“So you made this damn thing! Lucifer is a real piece of work, I thought this was him messing with me again.” Marley grumbled as she tried to pull off the bow to no avail.

Diavolo chuckled before excusing himself to Marley once more. Confused, she was completely blindsided when Diavolo suddenly scooped her up in his arms.

“Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing!?” She protested as she tried to push herself free.

Unfortunately for her, Diavolo was a mountain of a man that refused to budge.

“I never expected I would be apologizing so much in one day, let alone on my birthday but it’s important to take responsibility for one’s actions.” He claimed as he placed her on the stone bench. 

He kneeled before her then gently motioned to her thigh where the ribbon’s ends peeked from underneath her dress. Marley’s surprise was quickly replaced with an unamused pout.

“Are you going to tell me that you didn’t plan for this too?” She scoffed as she slowly lifted her dress and revealed her secret.

A fuzzy garter that hugged her upper thigh snugly while the purple ribbon remained stuck to its side. In a smooth motion, Diavolo gently grasped her plump thigh with one hand while carefully removing his ribbon with the other. Once the deed was done, Diavolo took a seat beside Marley as the quiet of the night returned to them.

“Did you enjoy yourself?” Marley asked with her arms crossed. “I would rather not answer that question. I feel the answer would just make you very upset with me.” He nervously chuckled while grinding the ribbon with his grip.

#obey me shall we date #obey me #obey me diavolo #obey me levi #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me satan #obey me asmo #obey me beel #obey me belphie #obey me diavolo x mc #diavolo x mc #mochi story fanfic #mochi #crystalrose555 #selkie #levi #lucifer #mammon #asmo #satan #beel #belphie

[rolanberry-rebel]

Prompt #29: Debonair

A violin quartet bounced out the airy lilt of spring waltzes and the sun died away through tall crystal windows of a ballroom trimmed in brilliant gold, rich oak, accoutrements of pearl and precious silver dishware glistening atop a half-dozen lengthy banquet tables. Nearly two-dozen families of highest esteem had braved the roads and rains of the wilds south of Wineport to call on the family Sebastis, and the family certainly impressed with the vast spread of honeyed roasts, freshly-picked fruit, vegetables spiced with real medleys from Radz-at-Han, and as one would expect from a family like theirs, the headiest aged wine to be found in Vylbrand.

Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves save the raven-haired maiden with a furrowed brow and arms crossed, bound up in a puffy white, pearl ribbons woven through her hair. More than anything, the scion of the Sebastis family despised these contemptible gatherings on account of the men from all corners leering at her. She felt a sea of eyes examining her every movement while she stared obstinately into the shallow pool of wild-mushroom soup broth within the gleaming bowl before her.

"You could try to enjoy yourself, you know," a cotton-soft femme voice implored in a whisper from behind her. Lissa rolled her eyes; she'd heard his before. For as fiercely as Lissa despised these occasions, her sister Allure looked forward to them, though for very different reasons. High-society provided the scheming sibling an opportunity to scope out weak links in the competition; to embarrass family rivals, to weave gossamer webs of deception and rumor to lift Sebastis esteem.

"There are dozens of striking, worldly, handsome gentlemen here, Anny," Allure continued, in a fake approximation of that sister voice. This adversarial standoffishness had not always mired the relationship between the sisters - Little Anny had even looked up to the elder Sebastis daughter in her younger years, the pair having built memories of giggling about boys and lunching at Bismarck. Now a sickening pallor had fallen over those once-warm memories as adulthood brought a new level of manipulative cruelty out of Allure and a chafing contempt from Lissa.

"Aaaand," Allure's childish and giddy tone grew almost too much for Lissa to bear, "I see your favorite... Ser Vonnault..." Allure teased. "Remember hiiiim?" Lissa cringed, glancing across the floor - seated at a far table, leering at her, a man she and Allure had gushed over as children, a famed and debonair Ishgardian knight, now retired and to whom age had not been kind, if the lost hair, rotund midsection and lecherous glare indicated.

"Maybe like, 15 years ago, Allure," Lissa spat. Her stomach churning at the spectacle being made of her, the younger daughter rose from her chair, her sibling's sister face and sister voice having dropped into the far more characteristic razor stare.

"You're not going to do this to me tonight Anylissa," she stated coldly.

"My stomach is bothering me. I'm just going to the washroom," Lissa mewled, pushing past the whatever ghost had come to possess the sister she'd once loved, whose eyes cut deep as daggers for each retreating step.

Jamming the washroom door shut, she set a small lit candlestick upon the windowsill, sighing and glancing at herself in the mirror. She looked like a fool, playing a part she scarcely knew, and she dreaded the thought of even another second of leering from pig-men in waistcoats.

A soft rattling at the frosted washroom window startled Lissa from her disturbed deluge; the dilettante inched closer, unlatching the glass and cracking it open far enough to see into the shadows without. A familiar sight calmed her heart and brought a smile to reddened lips - two stories below, rustling in the rosebushes of the estate gardens, a grinning group of faces had gathered to rescue Lissa from this ball-gown hell - her friends from the berry farm, her father's laborers, and the only people she felt she could relate to in miles.

"Though you could use some help, beautiful," a familiar voice crooned - Trevor, who brought a scarlet color quick to Lissa's creamy cheeks. A round of churlish laughter followed from the other farmhands, and Lissa pressed a finger to her lips through a silly smile.

"The guards'll be looking for me tonight," she whispered down to them. "What're you all doing?"

"We're having a party, Liss, and we need some entertainment," answered Crowlie, a lanky tower of a man in rags.

"My lute's tuned up this time, promise," another voice in the shadows chimed in, this time belonging to Lund, an older farmhand who had quite a talent with a lute.

"Whaddya say? You'd rather stay in there with all those debonair gentlemen?" Trevor mocked. Lissa smirked.

"Help me climb down this trellis," she whispered. "But don't rip the dress! Allure would kill me."

#ffxivwrite2021 #writing #lissa