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#gladiator boots
trenchkissing · 1 year
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fashion-boots · 2 years
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jaddelyzzz and jackietanparas wearing Gladiators made by John Ashford shoes
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chuffedracoonjunkboy · 4 months
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omygosh it goes with my boots :o. <3333333333 ❤️😎😎😍💕😍😍👀🥹🥹💕💕👀🥹😍😍😍❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️💕
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lebeautifu01 · 1 year
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If you're looking for glitter sandals, I'd suggest checking out the selection available at [le beautiful.co]. They have a wide range of styles to choose from, and some of them even come with sequins, glitter and other sparkly accents to really make your sandals sparkle! Hope this will help you to buy.
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fetusmelon · 4 months
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French man
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His hat is bigger than my debt 😔
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worstloki · 2 years
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Thor and Loki often have similarly styled pants but no one seems to go 👀👀👀😳 over Thor's and I for one find that very funny
#like idk maybe it's just me and the besties but Loki's outfits always go so hard like d*mn there's some good design there#and then Thor walks in in the next movie with the same design with extra leather straps and it's like well ok I guess it works :/#there's just always something up with the pants fr#Thor1 Thor and Loki's ceremonial pants look to be of the same thin material but Loki's crotch was CGI'd out half the time for vague reasons#Thor literally does a whole getting dressed scene where he's doing up his Earth jeans and I'm like huh ok thot#while Loki flashed the jotunheim scene outfit for maybe 3 minutes of screentime and it lives in everyone's heads rent free#like Thor in Avengers 1 was trying so hard with his upper body with the chain sleeves and going sleeveless etc.#and Loki's there in full armour - you can't even SEE most of the details on his stuff half the time#but everyone's constantly joking about the crotch flap bc they put him in a long tunic for the whole film#and I have SEEN people going >.> to zoom in on the pants especially bc there's metal and seams and stuff to look at#to be fair on that one though Thor's pants look like something cap would wear on tour so that one is understandable#Thor's TDW outfit though!!!!! Like SURELY that one is a banger -- we've even got Thor in casualwear with the wrap around and all#but nooooooo it's all about Loki in prison and then in the slightly changed armour with no helmet#THOR TRIED SO HARD IN THAT MOVIE#he LITERALLY has a metal design on the lateral side of his leather pants and everything ! the armour that movie looks GOOD#but no one cares because Jane's got an Asgardian fit and Loki is right there :(#he's got ALL the good outfits in AoU but everyone is like ohhhh look at his hair look at his coat -- WHAT ABOUT HIS PANTS AND BOOTS#everyone appreciating Loki's entire fits while Thor only gets attention when he's Extra Special like#can u recall Thor's ragnarok gladiator outfit from memory? be honest 👉👈#it has a whole bunch of straps along his arms and yet#everyone focused on Thor's face and upper body armour in Endgame too like#this is incredibly funny#what is going on#is it because he wears lots of nondescript pants? possibly#i'm going to keep pretending it's because no one likes his pant choices
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alaluea · 1 year
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The place he stands in is one of mystery. Black spires run amok in a land of white. A thick veil of mist obscures the depths of the land around him. It's eerie. Nieve can't help the feeling he's being watched.
Day 2: Paradise! This time, featuring my guy Nieve in a place of eldritch location proportions :Dc
This location is canon to my Gladiators story albeit i won't be elaborating much on what it is or why it exists. There are also soe details i skimped out on to get this out on time so consider this a first pass of what it actually looks like <3
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c4tto626 · 11 months
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attention! this cat keeps fighting daedric princes!!
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modern-alebrije · 1 year
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honestly now that i have her in my hands, cleo's boots don't bother me as much.
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shoesparadise · 1 year
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fuckyeahdindjarin · 5 months
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Hallow'seams
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A Seams Halloween special oneshot
{ Part IV: Notch | Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist }
Rating: A spicy T
Summary: Joel proves to you that he can be adventurous if he wants to be.
Warnings: Joel wears a slutty Halloween costume, fluff, mentions of drinking, spicy thoughts but nothing explicit, no use of Y/N
Word count: 1.7k
Notes: I was so looking forward to writing this Seams Halloween special that I floated back in the summer. Unfortunately, life™ happened - I've had a very rough month and honestly I didn't think I had it in me to do any writing for the rest of this year, but then this happened! I woke up thinking about Joel wearing a Gladiator costume and couldn't put it down. It's not as long or intricate as my original idea, but I hope you enjoy this anyway. I've missed these two so much!
Thank you for sticking with me and giving me so much love, I really don't deserve you all 🧡 Happy Halloween!
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Joel pushes open the door to the High Street Outfitters, one booted foot steps over the threshold -
And he stops and stares.
Pumpkins of all sizes, some more crudely carved than others, seem to occupy every conceivable surface. Black cat and broomstick decals adorn the worn wooden walls, while hand-pulled cotton cobweb the ceilings.
When his feet unstick and move into the empty shop, he nearly topples a huge cauldron of what looks like homemade candy. Steadying it with his hands, he mutters under his breath. 'What the f-'
He would never admit it, but he nearly jumps out of his skin when you emerge from the studio with a dramatic flutter of the curtain divider. 'Oh hey, you're here!'
Stepping towards you, he presses a kiss to the corner of your mouth in a hello, and gestures. 'You really went all out, hmm?'
Your grin brims with pride, and he feels his lips stretch into an answering smile as you straighten up some of the costumes on a nearby rack.
'We found a Halloween shop nearby a few years back,' you explain. 'All their stock was still in boxes in the store room, so we took everything and ran with it. It's a lot of work every year, but the kids have so much fun with it, it's definitely worth it.'
Joel hums skeptically. 'Not just the kids have fun, from what I heard.'
You cross your arms and play coy. 'What have you heard?'
'That my brother hosts the rowdiest Halloween party in town for the adults every year, and tonight is their last hurrah before the baby comes.'
You chuckle. 'And I'm guessing you fought the costume and lost?'
'There’s no winnin’ when your sister-in-law plays the pregnancy card,' he grumbles with poorly concealed fondness.
You walk him towards the racks near the cashier. 'Here are the men's costumes. We run a pay what you want system for Halloween rentals, just pop your contribution into that pumpkin on the counter. You better hurry though, things start kicking off around seven tonight.'
Joel combs through the outfits half-heartedly, when a standalone clothes rack on the other side of the room, covered with a black sheet, catches his eye. 'And what's that?'
You hesitate, and stutter, 'Oh, um - you won’t like those.'
Arching an eyebrow, he stares down at you. 'Why is that, sweetheart?'
The endearing way you wring your hands and worry your bottom lip brings him right back to when he first met you. Your shyness has always provoked a reaction from him - an understanding at first, from the introvert in him. Then protectiveness, when he started spending time with you.
And now, knowing you the way he does, with you opening up to him over the past few months, he lets his mouth relax into a half-smirk, one hand curling around your waist to pull you into his side as he teases, 'Use your words, Pin.'
You huff, recognising the playfulness in his body language, but you still struggle to get the words out. 'They’re - um, damnit - they're adventurous.'
He sets his face in a mock stern expression. 'And what, I’m too borin' for them?'
Narrowing your eyes at him, which makes him grin, you deadpan, 'It's just - they're not your thing, ok? They're of the -' you pause, and gesture in air quotes. 'Occupational variety.'
Comprehension dawns on him, and he drawls, 'Ah, you mean slutty costumes.'
He can feel your skin heat at his words as you duck your head, and he teases, voice low and gruff by your ear. 'And will you be wearin' somethin' slutty for me tonight, sweetheart?'
Your breath hitches and your lips part, eyes glassy at the turn of the mood. 'Joel -'
He isn't a particularly spiritual man, but the longer he lives, the more he’s convinced that some people are put on earth for a reason.
And Lucy's raison d'etre is to cockblock him at every turn.
The door bursts open with a brash energy that is uniquely hers (with an uncanny resemblance to Ellie's), and your best friend doesn't skip a beat at the sight of the pair of you canoodling. 'Save the making out for later, Miller. We gotta go get ready Pin, c’mon!'
You hastily press a kiss to his whiskered cheek. 'Pick your costume and lock up behind you, ok? I'll see you in a bit.'
Lucy all buts hauls you out of the shop, throwing over her shoulder. 'See ya later, Miller! You better show up half naked!'
Curiosity getting the better of him, Joel pulls back the sheet from the clothes rack, and his eyebrows reach for his softly graying hairline. Leafing through the options, he pauses somewhere in the middle, and smiles to himself.
He’ll show you adventurous.
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Maria and Tommy's Halloween party is easily the most anticipated event in the Jackson social calendar. Illicit incentives often swap hands for a RSVP, with those unfortunate enough to be assigned patrol duties on the night willing to pay handsomely for a swap in shifts.
While the kids are knocked out at home from eating their body weight in sugar, the Tipsy Bison is teeming with townsfolk. The normally dark interiors are decked out floor to ceiling in garish black and orange, as if people wouldn't get the memo.
Joel was apprehensive on his arrival, pausing for a moment outside the double doors of the establishment to steel himself. But as soon as he crosses the threshold into the warm and boisterous bar, so loud that his right ear rings, he realises that his worries are completely unwarranted.
No one even bats an eyelid as he wades through the throngs of partygoers, nodding politely at acquaintances who drunkenly shout his name and raise a pitcher in greeting.
It's pure madness - Halloween stopped existing for him twenty years ago. The last time he went to a Halloween party was their neighbour's barbeque. He still remembers the Gryffindor costume he bought Sarah, and how big she smiled swishing around in her robe, casting gibberish spells on her friends all night.
This, however, is a distinctly grownup affair.
When he put on his costume and stood in front of the mirror an hour ago, he could barely look at his own reflection. But now, compared to others in the room, turns out his choice is almost demure.
He only saw Gladiator once when it came out a couple of years before the outbreak, but he liked it, and when he saw the costume on the rack, he picked it out straight away.
The dark red cape sits on his shoulders and drapes across half of his torso - shirtless, of course - baring his right arm. He's a bit self-conscious about the skirt (he's sure there's a name for it but the packaging didn't shed light on this), which sits mid-thigh, fastened by a belt around his waist. He's even wearing the Roman sandals and leather bracelet, and a plastic sword hangs from his belt - the full monty.
The vain side in him thinks he can pull it off, but more importantly -
He wore it for you.
But you're nowhere to be seen, even after he grabs a beer from the counter, having circled the bar twice. Spotting a lone empty chair at a high table, he decides to perch (pulling down his skirt so his boxers don't show) while he has a drink and looks for you.
His keen eyes scan the room methodically. Sexy witches, slutty lumberjacks, misbehaving firemen, naughty nurses - together with the noise, everyone and everything seems to blur into one, and he almost gives up when something familiar crosses his line of sight.
Joel frowns.
Hold up. That toolbelt looks familiar. His eyes narrow as he squints at the worn faded leather.
It is his toolbelt. The toolbelt that disappeared from his garage workshop a couple of days ago that Ellie swears she knows nothing about. That little shit.
Then his gaze pulls back, like a camera zooming out, and he finds that the toolbelt is sitting on the soft swell of a pair of hips, over short denim cut-offs that he's sure he's seen before, and below a red flannel. His red flannel, knotted at the waist, that he knows you sleep in every night.
His chest rumbles with something primal, and he downs the rest of his beer in one big gulp before slamming the empty pint glass on the table and getting onto his feet.
You don’t see him coming, but you know without turning around the moment a pair of strong hands close over your hips in a possessive grip, pulling you towards the bathroom in the back of the bar.
He knocks a breathless laugh out of you when he pushes you up the closed door, the noise of the party muted by the thick timber as you grin up at him, preening at the way his dark gaze rakes over your costume.
A shiver runs down your spine as your own undoubtedly dilated eyes follow the solid outline of his right arm, which flexes as he rests his palm on the door behind you, then down his broad chest and the soft belly he’s so nonchalantly putting on display.
It’s absurd, you know - it’s just a tacky Halloween costume, but the seams of your eyes prickle as you muse how comfortable he is in his own skin.
'And what exactly are you dressed up as?' he asks, sliding his free hand under the toolbelt to squeeze your ass.
'A slutty contractor,' you answer boldly, dragging your index finger down his bare chest. 'Isn't it obvious?'
'And you thought stealin' my toolbelt for your little costume was a good idea?' he growls.
'Well, I didn't know you'd turn up as a gladiator of all things,' you tease, wrapping your fingers around the hilt of his plastic sword.
It should not make his pulse spike like this.
'Not only that, sweetheart. I'm a slutty gladiator, thank you very much,' he retorts, walking into you to slot his hips flush against yours.
You shoot him a loaded smirk that instantly has his boxers shrink by two sizes. Ripping his cape off his shoulders, you ask cheekily, ‘And what does my champion demand as punishment -'
Joel doesn't let you finish your sentence, swallowing the rest of it with a kiss so deep that it steals your voice and takes out your knees in one fell swoop.
Grinning at the way you're already bonelessly slumped against him, he winks, nose brushing yours. 'I can think of a few things, sweetheart.'
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Note: Thank you for reading! I had so much fun dipping my toe back into the Seams universe, I hope you did too. This is me warming up with a view of returning to writing for the series proper, fingers crossed sometime soon! Comments/reblogs/asks are very much appreciated as always 🧡
Thank you @firefly-graphics for the adorably spooky dividers!
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star-girl69 · 1 month
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As much as I love overprotective Clarisse which believe me I DO😍😍 am I the only one who kinda wants to see a protective reader if something happens to Clarisse or even Ivy?!
I feel like Clarisse may just sit back and be Yh that’s my girl 🤭
Literally kicking my feet and giggling while writing this
Also I love your writing so much it’s so goodddd I check my phone for any new posts all the time and scream when you do
TYSMMMMM BAE ILY!!!!!! been in a writing slump recently. someone else please write a mind bogglingly good clarisse fic to inspire me again. lord give me strength…
forget the fact this is 2 days late. thank y’all 🙏🙏
anyways officially adding danny to the perfect family bc I DO WHAT I WANT!!!!!!!!!!!
ok so imagine this
clarisse is participating in some sort of contest
like
idk roman gladiators LMAOOOO
but basically it’s like a big tournament? and yk she’s destroying eating it up cooking, whatever you will
finally she gets to like the semi-finals and atp everyone kinda knows she has it in the bag
her opponents are scared
(trust an underground betting ring was formed. everyone who bet on clarisse is thanking the gods and everyone who didn’t is shaking in their boots)
clarisse is happy bc you and the twins (danny and ivy)
are sitting right in the front row cheering her on
and she got a wonderful good luck kiss from you
so not only is she happy and thinking about that but also she’s convinced that she’ll win just bc she got a kiss from you
so the fight starts, ivy is genuinely SCREECHING at the top of her lungs she’s so me she can’t be normal about anything ever
and you and danny are just regularly cheering for her 😭
eventually someone behind you tells ivy to shut up
YOU WHIP AROUND BC WTF???
harshest death glare in the universe. like even zeus would be a little scared.
ivy doesn’t even notice she’s chill
the other person quickly shuts the fuck up.
then you turn back to watch clarisse and the fights just starting, the other dude is scared and knows his ass barely stands a chance
she’s having fun pummeling him
ugh fight scenes are hard to write
so eventually she tosses his ass to the floor
“GO MOM GO GO GO BEAT HIS ASS MOM BEAT. HIS. ASS.”
“IVY STOP FUCKING SWEARING”
and this dude, who’s laid on the ground, who knows he’s cooked, decides the best option is to grab some dirt and throw it in clarisse’s face
and no one was prepared for this
like clarisse was standing over him with her spear at his throat, smile on her face, everyone knew he was done for- THEN HE DECIDES TO PLAY DIRTY AND DO THIS???
like everyone thought clarisse had it in the bag
the rules for this competition were that you’re not allowed to use anything but your person and/or pre-approved weapon(s)
NOT EVEN CLARISSE WAS EXPECTING IT
SO SHES DISTRACTED BY THE FREAKING DIRT IN HER FACE
SO WHEN THIS BITCH KICKS HER SHE GOES DOWN
DEAD SILENT!!!!!!!
EVERYONE GASPS!!!!!!!
whispers in the crowd… “oh bro is cooked…”
(sorry i’m obsessed w saying cooked rn)
and he is cooked
but by someone unexpected.
clarisse is wiping the dirt off of her face swallowing her shame she can’t believe she got distracted and let herself fall she should have saw it coming but suddenly she hears someone screaming
she opens her eyes and sees you menacingly walking towards this dude, who’s still on the ground and scrambling away
and what’s funny it you’re yelling at him like a mother would
the crowd is giggling…
“THAT IS AGAINST THE RULES. WERE YOU NEVER TAUGHT MANNERS??? WERE YOU NEVER TAUGHT DECENCY??? SHAME ON YOU SHAME ON YOUR PARENTS SHAME SHAME SHAME”
clarisse is literally sitting there mouth dropped open when you grab his ear and he HOWLS
dragging him back towards clarisse, he’s kicking and screaming and literally CRYING
“HELP HELP HELP ME HELP SHE CANT SO THIS SHE CANT I DIDNT DO ANYTHING WRONG”
“YES THE FUCK I CAN YOU BROKE THE FUCKING RULES NOW APOLOGIZE YOU LAWLESS SWINE”
“I DIDNT DO ANYTHING PLEASE I DIDNT”
one of the apollo kids who organized the event is looking around (kinda enjoying it) but mostly very scared
“technically you did break the rules… sorry pal…”
“PLEASE PLEASE HELP ME”
obviously, this is the hottest thing clarisse has ever seen in her life.
she’s sitting back on her palms, watching in utter amazement, trying not to bite her lip
someone loving clarisse… that gets her going
someone loving clarisse enough to PROTECT HER??? she’s about to explode. EXPLODE. she’s never needed you so bad in her life LMAOOOO 😭
and this bitch is STILL refusing to apologize
like damn it’s not that hard… it’s not like you have any pride left to speak of you just got dragged around by the ear 😭😭 bro you’re cooked just apologize and get out while you can
AND YOU’RE GETTING FED UP WITH IT TOO
“hey, dumbass, why don’t you look at the stands?”
you point, and everyone follows your finger.
ivy is a literal cartoonish whirl of her pink t-shirt and the white shorts with the little trees on them
danny is holding her back (with ease, might i add he’s strong as fuck 💪)
“i’ll let her out.”
“I DIDNT DO ANYTHING-”
“LET HER OUT”
he barely escapes that attack.
when you finally call ivy off of her attack, she stands next to clarisse, literally growls at the dude, before hugging clarisse
clarisse is still on the ground in utter shock.
she can’t keep her eyes away from you and ivy. she can’t get rid of the GLOWING feeling in her chest
is this… what it’s like… to be loved?
WAHHHHHH WAHHHHHHHH BITCH NOW IM THE ONE CRYING NOOOOOOOO 😭😭😭
danny eventually walks over and helps her up
then they all watch as you smile sweetly at this very traumatized dude and ask if he’s ready to apologize
“IMMSORRUOHGOEE IMSORHR ESEBIMS YORUUE”
(i’m sorry oh gods im sorry i’m sorry”
then you walk over to clarisse, rolling your eyes and mumbling about bad parenting, girl she pounces on you.
kisses you so hard in front of everyone
ivy and danny are hugging each other and shielding each other’s eyes, screaming, begging for you two to stop
“y/n” she breathes as she pulls away “you are… the most amazing mother, the most amazing girlfriend, and literally the love of my fucking life.”
literally twirling your hair “omg baeeeee you’re too sweet 🤭”
(y’all don’t end up leaving her cabin for a LONG time.)
after this clarisse definitely sort of realizes a whole new side of your relationship. seeing you publicly defend her like that, publicly care about her, love her, omg she is going crazy for you!!!
after this incident she definitely stops calling you her gf.
gives you a really pretty ring she got one of the hephaestus kids to make, starts calling you her wife
and nobody better have a problem w that lol or else they got two ares killing machines, one feral attack dog, and a literal mother who is not afraid to drag you by your ear.
—-
taglist:
@lvrue @t-wylia @laughingcheese037 @kroumi @urdeadpoet @colezb @rey26 @harmzilla @elliewilliamsbae @amberfreemansburntface @kyuupidwrites @neverwaakeme-up @shark1008 @liballer @heyimadison @nvirskies @pnsteblnme @mar2ss @restellsss @ravisinghs-wife @marsconer @evangelinexo @randomhoex @luvrrish @rebecca37 @saltair-and-palemoonlight @ace-spades-1
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When The World Is Crashing Down [Chapter 1: Am I More Than You Bargained For Yet]
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Series summary: Your family is House Celtigar, one of Rhaenyra's wealthiest allies. In the aftermath of Rook's Rest, Aemond unknowingly conscripts you to save his brother's life. Now you are in the liar of the enemy, but your loyalties are quickly shifting...
Chapter warnings: Language, warfare, violence, serious injury, a brief history of burn treatments, alcoholism/addiction, references to sexual content (18+), a wild Sunfyre appears, catching feelings for literally the single most inappropriate man on the planet.
Series title is a lyric from: "7 Minutes in Heaven" by Fall Out Boy.
Chapter title is a lyric from: "Sugar, We're Goin' Down" by Fall Out Boy.
Word count: 5.3k.
Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.
💜 I’m going to tag like a bazillion people since this is the first chapter of a new fic, but I WILL NOT TAG YOU AGAIN unless you ask me to. I hope you are all doing well, wherever you are in the world! 💜
@doingfondue @catalina-howard @randomdragonfires @myspotofcraziness @arcielee @fan-goddess @talesofoldandnew @marvelescvpe @tinykryptonitewerewolf @mariahossain @chainsawsangel @darkenchantress @not-a-glad-gladiator @gemini-mama @trifoliumviridi @herfantasyworldd @babyblue711 @namelesslosers @thelittleswanao3 @daenysx @moonlightfoxx @libroparaiso @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @mizfortuna @florent1s @heimtathurs @bhanclegane @poohxlove @narwhal-swimmingintheocean @heavenly1927 @echos-muses @padfooteyes @minttea07 @queenofshinigamis @juliavilu1 @amiraisgoingthruit @lauraneedstochill @wintrr13 @r0segard3n @seabasscevans @tsujifreya @helaenaluvr @hiraethrhapsody @backyardfolklore
Let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future chapters! 
You scream when he grabs you, this lightning strike of a man with a grip like an animal trap that splits bones. He pulls you away from the soldier you’re soothing—a young dark-haired Norcross, disoriented, doomed, his intestines spilling out onto the grass and blood on his lips—and through the forest of smoke and corpses and pine trees. Your eyes sting and water, your boots snag on gnarled roots. When you yelp and stumble to the earth, the man drags you upright again. You struggle like a beast with a blade at its throat, cold, serrated, pressure on the jugular. You shove and scratch at him, trying to plant your boots in soil strewn with gore and glowing embers.
“Stop, stop it, you’re hurting me!”
“Hurry up.”
“You’re going to break my wrist—!”
He wrenches you around to look you full in the face, and only now do you know who he is. A gasp hisses through your teeth; the acrid air in your lungs vanishes. Every muscle and tendon and ligament of you is taut with horror, tight enough to snap. It’s like meeting one of the Seven, the Warrior or Stranger or Smith, a shade you know only from myths and nightmares. It’s like being led to the executioner’s scaffold. His long silver braid hangs over one shoulder. His eyepatch conceals the childhood maiming that left him half-blind. There’s blood and ash on his scarred face, a ruthless breed of fear in his remaining eye, icy blue, creek-shallow, soulless. The man clasping your wrist is Prince Aemond Targaryen. “I’ll break your neck if you don’t come with me now.”
He does not wait for your protest or acquiescence. You couldn’t give it anyway. Your muddied boots move numbly as he tugs you forward, this man they call Aemond One-Eye, a monster, a murderer, a kinslayer. The earth is littered with carnage from the battle, charred ribcages and disemboweled horses, scattered armor and severed limbs. Ashes fall from the smoldering treetops like dark snow.
What does he want from me?
Rape seems unlikely; everyone knows Prince Aemond’s deviancies do not run in that direction. He is cold, hateful, dispassionate, made of stone. He does not lust for anything but power and retribution, fire and blood.
To kill me?
But why not do it here, now? There is a sword hanging from his belt, a dagger in one fist. There is no reason to wait.
To take me prisoner? To feed me to his dragon? To torture me for information?
Surely there are more knowledgeable people around to torture. What use could you be, a healer, a woman? Unless…
Unless he knows who my father is.
You glance down at the fabric band looped around the upper half of your right arm, the only mark you wear of your house, stark white banner, skittering red crabs. It is soaked through with blood. It is unreadable.
Someone is shrieking, but not like a dying man. He has too much fight in him for that, too much glass-clear agony, unwanted blistering consciousness. He screams like someone being flayed, gutted, burned alive. You’ve only ever heard this sound once before. You choke on the greasy, putrid, metallic sweetness of scorched human flesh as it sears down your throat, not knowing if it is real or remembered.
There is a tent in the midst of the pine trees, fluttering canvas that’s green like emeralds or jade. The wind is picking up; you will need to evacuate soon. The cinders will spread and the forest will blaze. Somewhere a dragon is roaring, wounded and mournful like the cry of a lost child. The screams of the man grow louder; they fill your skull like a fever, scalding and senseless and red. Aemond yanks the tent flap aside and pulls you in. And when you breathe it is nothing but the sickening miasma of burnt flesh, coppery blood, suffering, sweat, ruin.
He’s writhing on a wooden table, the man the Greens call king. It has to be him: white-blond hair down to his shoulders, blue eyes and fine aristocratic bones. Two ancient, shaky-handed maesters—hastily commandeered from the defeated House Staunton, you assume—confer nearby, clutching glass bottles of milk of the poppy. A man in armor is cutting tatters of clothing from the so-called king. When he lifts the fabric away, skin sloughs off with it. Aegon wails, struggles, begs him to stop. Aemond goes to his brother and carves away scraps of melted leather and charred cotton with the swift blade of his dagger.
“Shh, shh, don’t fight us, we’re trying to help—”
“Aemond, let me die,” the burned man rasps. He is trembling violently, he is half-mad with pain. Meleys’ flames claimed a swath of his right cheek, his neck and chest and back, his arms down to his wrists, his belly to the crests of his hip bones. “Please. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want it to hurt anymore. Don’t try to help me. Just let me die.”
Aemond looks back at you. “Can you treat this?”
He thinks I’m a Green, you realize with panic, with relief, with terror. And of course he would: you had wandered into the Greens’ side of the battlefield and therefore did not surrender or flee or die with the other Blacks, you were tending to a Green soldier when he found you. Aemond the Kinslayer would not comprehend the notion of service to humankind without a line drawn down the middle of it, of uncategorical compassion.
“Can you help him or not?!” Aemond shouts; and you know that he is not just afraid but shattering, spider-leg cracks inching across a window or a mirror. Perhaps the Greens have souls after all.
You shed your paralysis like daylight erases the stars and approach to examine the so-called king. You do not touch him; still, he whimpers, sobs, quakes like waves in a storm. “He needs more milk of the poppy. A lot more of it.”
“Yes,” Aegon agrees immediately. His streaming eyes—a bleak, murky blue like the sea off Claw Isle—list to you, agonized and grateful.
The maesters gape. “More could kill him,” one says. And they are petrified of being blamed for it. They are plagued by visions of Aemond hacking off their heads and displaying them on spikes above the stone walls of captured Rook’s Rest.
“No drawbacks at all then?” Aegon manages between moans.
“If his pain does not abate, he will die of shock,” you say. “He must be unconscious.”
“Knock me out,” Aegon pleads, pawing at Aemond. “Tell them, tell them.”
Aemond looks to the man in armor: dark-haired, olive-skinned, Dornish. Sir Criston Cole, you realize. The Hand of the King. The Kingmaker. After a moment, Criston nods. “Do it now,” Aemond orders the maesters.
Grimacing, grim, they pour the opalescent liquid into Aegon’s mouth. He gulps it down as quickly as he can. “Enough,” you tell the maesters. Instinctively, you reach out to comfort Aegon: a palm rested lightly on his forehead, fingers threaded through silvery hair that’s filthy with soot and blood. You should hate him, but you don’t. When you look at the Greens’ broken king, you cannot see a murderer, a usurper, a depraved hedonist, a consumer of innocence. You can only see a man worn threadbare by ill-advised bravery.
“Hello, angel,” Aegon murmurs as he gazes up at you, a ghost of a smile on his lips. His eyes really do remind you of home: ocean currents like iron, fog like flint. “Welcome to the end of the world.” And then he’s out, extinguished, eclipsed.
Servants bustle into the tent carrying heavy buckets. “What is that?” you ask.
“Pork lard,” one of the maesters says. “For his wounds.”
“No, no, no, some of these burns are nearly down to the muscle. They’re too deep, too fresh. Lard is for later, to help with scarring, although olive oil or rose oil would be better. He needs to be cleaned with vinegar diluted with water. Or red wine, if that’s all that can be found.”
“Vinegar?!” one of the maesters exclaims.
“It helps prevent infection. Nobody knows why.”
The same maester turns to Aemond, imploring him. “My prince, I can assure you, the Citadel recommends pork lard or cow dung as topical cures, or both used alternatingly. There are also reports of cases where frogs have been helpful, warmed in oil and then rubbed on the affected area.”
Criston blinks. “I’m sorry, you do what with the frogs…?!”
They’re going to kill him, you think. Not with malice, but with stupidity. A wasted life, a wasted death. You demand of the maester: “When was the last time you treated burns this severe?”
He glowers at you, sharp dark eyes like flecks of onyx in a nest of wrinkles. And you know you’ve won when he replies: “When have you?”
“My brother was burned in a housefire started by an upturned lantern. It was five years ago, but I remember the direness his injuries. And what was done to save him.”
Silence in this tent the color of summer: green grass, unsinged trees. Aemond waits for the maesters to produce some astute rebuttal. When they cannot, he orders the servants: “Vinegar, water, rags. Now.” They dash off to oblige him, wide-eyed and quivering like small dogs. Then Aemond looks to you. “What next?”
“His wounds should be treated with honey and then bandaged. The dressings must be changed frequently, at least once per day. He must be repositioned so the scar tissue does not immobilize his joints. He will suffer, it cannot be avoided, but he should suffer as little as possible. Listen to him when he says the pain is too much. Let him sleep. When he is awake, he must drink plenty of fluids. He is losing water through his burns, and it must be replaced. Milk is preferable. Tea and fruit juices are good as well. Some wine is acceptable if that’s what he likes best.”
“And it certainly is,” Criston mutters. You’ve heard the same: that the Greens’ king is a drunk, an adulterer, a coward, a ghoul. You cannot speak to any of this. You know him only as someone who is horrifically pained and sick to death of fighting. Again, without thinking, you comb your fingertips distractedly through his hair as he lies unconscious on the table, bleeding from everywhere. He’s so young, so breakable, so unlike the monster you’ve been led to believe he is.
“Get honey and bandages,” Aemond tells the maesters. They depart, casting each other incredulous glances: Are these our new overlords? Men who heed the wisdom of impetuous young women filthy with blood and earth?
“I’ve heard salt can be helpful for wounds,” Aemond says. “They used it on me when…” He gestures to his eyepatch, to his scar. Lucerys Velaryon took that part of him in self-defense; at least, that is what you have always been told. But you’ve read enough to know that for every event, there are at least two stories. Whatever the truth is, Luke paid for that eye. He paid, Rhaenyra paid, the world continues to pay the price over and over again.
“Because it dries. It absorbs moisture.” You skim your palm over Aegon’s forehead, without lines of fear or anguish as he sleeps. There is a ring on his left hand, a gold dragon with glinting dots of jade for eyes. You twist off the ring so it will not hinder circulation as his fingers swell and give it to Aemond. “But burns weep as they heal. They need to be wet. If they get too dry, they will crack open and fester.”
“Is that what happened to your brother?” Aemond asks.
“Where we did not pay enough attention. The backs of his knees, the soles of his feet.”
“But he survived.”
“Yes,” you tell Aemond; and you can see how desperately he is searching for hope in your face, your words. “He did.”
The servants return with buckets of water, handfuls of rags, glass bottles of vinegar that is cloudy and rust-colored.
“What’s it made from?” you say.
“Fermented a-a-apples, my lady,” one of the boys sputters. He watches Aemond out of the corner of his eye like sheep look for the shadows of wolves. He shivers, he sweats. This boy, who last night was fetching meat and mead for Lord Staunton, has heard the same stories you have: the degenerate king, his murderous brother.
“That’s fine then.” You haul over one of the water buckets and Criston helps you lift it up onto the table. You empty half a bottle of vinegar into the water, mix it by wobbling the bucket back and forth, and then soak a rag in the pungent liquid. “You can help,” you tell Aemond and Criston. “Dip a rag in the bucket, wring it out, then press it to his wounds. Remove any dirt or scraps of fabric. But don’t rub. Try not to damage the skin he has left.” You demonstrate: dabbing at flesh that is torn and bloody and blistered, a black-and-ruby wasteland that at best will leave him irreparably scarred and at worst will swallow his life like ships sink in storms.
Tentatively—with hands at ease with killing but not tenderness—Aemond and Criston join you, studying your movements and imitating them with great care. There is a sniffle, a teardrop that falls onto Aegon’s filthy but unburned left hand and glistens there like a splinter of glass; you are alarmed to see that the Kingmaker is weeping.
“Criston,” Aemond says gently. “We are doing everything we can for him.”
“Since the day he was born, I promised…”
“I know.”
“Your mother…”
“I know,” Aemond says again, and you think: The Greens aren’t demons, they aren’t savages. They’re just patchworks of memory and flesh and suffering, the same as any of us. “He will live. And his sacrifice won us a victory today.”
As you tended to wounded men caked with blood and pine needles, you saw them tangled above in the overcast sky, scales of scarlet and gold and an ancient muddy viridescence. There were flames and shouts, and then all three dragons hurdled towards the earth and out of view. “The Red Queen?” you ask Aemond, mindful to keep your voice perfectly level.
“Dead,” he says: dark satisfaction, fearsome pride. “And so is her rider.”
“The gods are good.” You are amazed at how easily it slips out, a reflex of self-preservation while your mind is elsewhere. Does my father know yet? Does Rhaenyra, does Daemon, does Corlys? People will be searching for you soon. If you do not appear from the smoke and chaos of the battlefield, your eldest brother Clement will come looking with his sword in hand. Everett, scarred and unagile but clever, will be pouring over maps to see where you might have ended up.
There is no suspicion in Aemond’s face when he glances over at you. He is gingerly cleaning soot and charred strips of ruined skin from Aegon’s chest, which rises and falls in deep, slow breaths. “Which family is yours?”
House Celtigar, but you can’t tell him that. You scramble for a noble family of the Crownlands whose accent you share, whose history you have been taught, whose men fight for the Greens but are not so distinguished that Aemond will know them well. “House Thorne.”
He nods. “Are you one of Sir Rickard’s sisters?”
You startle. Perhaps you have chosen the wrong disguise. “Far less illustrious than that. Just a cousin.”
The two maesters return, their archaic hands piled high with linen bandages and glass jars of honey, a fiery gold like sunset. “Set them down over there,” Aemond orders, pointing. He has a presence, it cannot be denied. He is tall, fierce, swift yet calculated. He moves like a man who has killed once, twice, again until it is no longer something that keeps him awake at night. It is something that has become a part of him like arteries or bones. “Prepare a room in the castle.”
“For Prince Aegon?” one of the maesters says, then quickly corrects himself. “I mean, for the king?”
“For until we decide what to do with him.” Aemond stares at Criston. Criston stares back, his dark eyes huge and shiny. There is a war to be waged, but Aegon will not be able to help them. Not for months, at least. Not ever, if he dies. The maesters disappear again, grumbling to each other. Unwelcome tasks, unwelcome guests.
Rhaenys is dead, you think as you work. It doesn’t feel real. Meleys is dead. Hundreds of Black soldiers are dead. Rook’s Rest is the Greens’ greatest victory yet, and one they desperately needed. This war is nowhere near over. And the betting odds keep changing.
You say to Aemond and Criston: “Help me turn him. We must clean the burns on his back as well.”
They listen, they obey, they help you because helping you means helping Aegon. When he is washed as well as he can be, you spread a thin sheen of shimmering honey over his wounds—an amber river that will trap moisture and discourage inflammation—and wrap him in bandages. The only burn you leave uncovered is the one on his right cheek. It creeps up over his pale face like red tentacles, curling and grasping, hungry, insatiable. They match now, you think. Two brothers, two scars.
Criston assembles a group of Green soldiers and Aegon is carried in a litter to the castle that serves as the seat of House Staunton, once allies of Rhaenyra, now traitors, now dead men walking. Outside rain has begun to fall, putting out flames born from dragonfire. The pine forest is saved; wounded men lie in the dirt with their mouths open hoping to quench their thirst. By the time Aegon is placed in an opulent bedroom with a view of Blackwater Bay, he has already bled through his bandages. You clean him again, bandage him, dribble milk of the poppy down his throat when he begins to stir and whimper. Aemond gives you command of a makeshift fleet of caretakers: the two requisitioned maesters, three maids, servants to bring food, drink, bandages, wood for the crackling fireplace.
My family is searching for me, you know as you battle to save their enemy’s life, this maybe-king with silver hair and eyes like deep water.And then: I cannot leave him. Not now, not yet.
In the night, as cool rain patters against the ocean and Aemond and Criston are slaughtering House Staunton men down in the castle courtyard, you dose Aegon with milk of the poppy every few hours. The maesters refuse to take responsibility for it; if the king is poisoned, it will be you who swings from a rope for it. You hold cloths dripping with cold water to his forehead. You feed him nibbles of bread and venison when he is conscious enough to eat, cinnamon tea, pomegranate juice, goat milk. You inspect him for any signs of infection. You braid a small lock of his hair before you’ve stopped to consider why you’re doing it.
And when no one else is watching, you untie the bloodstained armband of your own house and burn it to ashes in the fire.
~~~~~~~~~~
Someone is jostling you, grabbing at you. You fell into an exhausted, sporadic sleep in the next room long after midnight. It’s morning now; warm sunlight blooms like flowers on your face, yellow roses and buttercups and daffodils. When your eyes open, they are sore and unfocused. Aemond is a blur of white hair and black leather. He is tugging on you again, his lithe fingers like a vice around your forearm.
“Stop it, get off me!” You shove him away. He waits, bemused. “You can’t keep dragging me around like this!”
“Why not?”
Because my father is one of the wealthiest men in the Seven Kingdoms. Because I may not have silver hair or a dragon, but if you cut me open the blood of Old Valyria would spill out like red waves. Because the man I am pledged to marry is good at killing, very good at killing, maybe even better than you. “Because I’m a noblewoman. I’m a lady.”
“You don’t act like one,” Aemond counters. “Ladies flee from blood and gore. Ladies are nowhere to be found on battlefields.”
“I like being useful.”
“Then I have brought you a gift. You are needed now. Aegon is asking for you.” And then, when you hurry out of bed, finding your footing on chilly wood floors: “Well, that certainly got you moving quickly.”
“He’s in pain?”
“Not especially, from what I can tell. I think he just wants you.” Aemond glides out of the bedroom. You follow him to Aegon’s chamber. The Greens’ king is propped up in bed on a great mass of pillows, bandaged, limp, eyes glazed and barely open. There are men huddled around him. You recognize Criston, though not the other ones, some old and some young and all in armor. You hope that none of them are Sir Rickard Thorne.
You feel Aegon’s forehead for fever. To your relief, he is no more than modestly warm. He catches your hand, holds it tightly, doesn’t let go. After a moment’s hesitation, you sit down beside him on the edge of the bed. There is a curl of his lips, just a whisper of a smile, just a phantom of one. Aemond glances at you and Aegon with mild interest, then turns his attention to Criston.
“Aegon,” Criston informs the king, patiently, like a good father would. “We have to move you back to King’s Landing.”
“No,” Aegon says. His voice is so low and weak that he’s difficult to hear.
“Your recovery will be long and arduous,” Criston explains. “Aemond and I will be needed in combat. We cannot stay to guard you. The Blacks may try to retake Rook’s Rest. You staying here is not an option. King’s Landing is safer. It is well-supplied, it is protected. And we have our own maesters there who will help tend to you.”
“Can’t leave,” Aegon croaks. “Sunfyre.”
“Aegon—”
“I can’t leave without Sunfyre,” he forces out with immense effort. Then he gasps and moans, tears pooling in his eyes. You offer him milk of the poppy; he guzzles as much as you’ll allow him to have.
Criston sighs. “You can’t stay. And Sunfyre can’t leave. One of his wings was nearly ripped off, he’ll never fly again. We have no way to transport him, he’s too heavy.”
One of the armored men mutters: “And that’s assuming he wouldn’t incinerate anyone who ventured close enough to try.”
“Where is he now?” Aemond asks the man.
“Down on the beach, my prince. Eating dead soldiers.”
Criston shudders. Working in close proximity to dragons has not given him a liking for them.
“Can’t leave him here,” Aegon whispers, shaking his head.
“You must,” Aemond says.
“What if it was Vhagar?”
“I’d leave her. I’d have no choice.”
Aegon frowns, squeezing his eyes shut. It’s all too much for him. “Not the same.”
No, perhaps not; Aemond’s dragon may be the largest and most lethal in the world, but Aegon’s bond with Sunfyre is said to be what legends are built of, words written in ink and stone. You watch the agonized confliction on Aegon’s drawn face: can’t leave, can’t stay, can’t fight, can’t run. You say softly: “Could Sunfyre be assigned a detachment of guards?”
Aemond looks at you as if just remembering you’re here. “What?”
“Men could be tasked with ensuring the dragon is secure and fed. From a safe distance, of course. They could report on his health. Then perhaps when he is stronger, he can be reunited with the king.” The king. Again, it stuns you how easily the treason rolls out, like waves bubbling over rocks and sand.
Aemond turns to Criston. “Could it be done?”
“I don’t foresee many men volunteering for the task. But it could be done, yes. Sure.”
Aemond asks his brother: “Would that make a difference?”
Aegon’s eyes drift to you. They are churning with sluggish, clunky thoughts, heavy burdens to bear on raw shoulders. The braid that you wove absentmindedly into his hair is still there. “Alright,” Aegon agrees at last. “I’ll go.”
“Good,” Aemond says. “We leave at dawn tomorrow.” Then he looks to you. “You will come south with us.” His tone invites no argument. He doesn’t even conceive of it as a possibility. Why would you refuse? Why would you, a purportedly devout Green, shy away from the opportunity to nurse your king back to health? You bow your head in compliance. You wonder what is being discussed in the Black Council; you wonder what your father is thinking, what Everett believes happened to you.
“But I have to see him first,” Aegon says.
Aemond does not understand. “See who?”
“Sunfyre.”
“But you can’t walk to the beach,” Criston says. “You can’t walk anywhere.”
Aegon grins, showing his teeth. His dazed, deep blue eyes glitter mischieviously. His hand has not disentangled itself from yours. “Then carry me.”
The deal is struck, like a face minted onto a coin or a bolt of lightning meeting the earth. Soldiers transport Aegon down to the stony, mist-sopped shoreline. Blade-sharp agony is flooding back into his face, but he refuses more milk of the poppy. He wants to be awake when he gets there. He wants to be himself.
The soldiers cannot get too close to Sunfyre; no one besides Aegon can. He is helped off the litter and then tries to amble across the wet, grey sand. After a few steps he collapses. You rush to him, dodging Aemond and Criston’s grasps as they try to stop you.
“No,” Aegon says when you attempt to help him to his feet. He is panting from the pain, his face flushed with torment and exertion. His white-blond hair whips in the wind. “Do not follow me. Not even if I pass out, not even if I’m dead. I don’t know what Sunfyre would do to you.” And then he crawls forward alone on his hands and knees.
Waves crash, spraying saltwater into the air. Crabs scuttle over rocks. Gulls swoop low to claim mouthfuls of flesh from bloated corpses in worthless uniforms. The dragon known as Sunfyre the Golden is curled up on the beach. Many of his metallic scales are singed; the pink membranes of his wings are tattered like lace. His right wing hangs at a ruinously odd angle. You would know how to set that if he was a human. And you could do it without the threat of being reduced to ash and history.
Sunfyre unravels as Aegon nears him, long angular face rising, frayed wings settling by his sides. You have seen dragons before, of course—Syrax, Caraxes, Arrax, Vermax, Meleys—though never from this close. They horrify you. You cannot look at them without thinking of the devastation they sow like a plague, of how they so unmistakably no longer belong in this world.
Sunfyre’s head stretches out towards his rider, a half-dead man kneeling in wet sand and wearing only bandages and loose cotton trousers. Beside you, Sir Criston Cole sucks in a noisy, nervous breath. Aemond watches Aegon, his face like stone. His hair hangs in long, damp waves.
Aegon embraces Sunfyre, clinging to him, resting his face against the dragon’s. They stay like that for what feels like a very long time. Then Aegon crawls back to you, sobbing with pain by the time he is lifted into the litter. You give him milk of the poppy and he accepts it eagerly. He is unconscious again within seconds. Down the beach, Sunfyre looses a soft desolate cry like a plea: Don’t go. Don’t leave me. You might never come back.
~~~~~~~~~~
The drivers have been instructed to proceed slowly and with caution; still, the carriage pitches and jolts as you traverse the Rosby Road towards King’s Landing. In addition to the caravan’s most precious cargo—the Greens’ fragile and intermittently sentient king—it transports also two severed heads: Lord Simon Staunton’s in a basket, and Meleys’ in the bed of a mule-drawn wagon. High above in slate-grey clouds, Aemond and Vhagar are safeguarding your progress. Criston rides on a monstrous warhorse just outside the carriage. You are leafing through a book that you found in the castle library at Rook’s Rest: anatomy, surgery, sicknesses and cures. Aegon is bandaged and heavily medicated in the cushioned seat across from you. While servants flit in and out frequently, you are the only passengers in the carriage at the moment. You do not know that Aegon is awake until he speaks.
“Sinful,” he says. His voice is groggy, only half-here. He is gazing blearily at the illustration on the open pages of your book: a quite detailed naked man, his arteries and veins mapped like the roads of Westeros, his cock bare and sizeable.
“It’s informative,” you reply in your own defense, smiling.
“My father would have hit me for looking at something like that. If he’d noticed.” Aegon smirks, resting his head against the back of his velvet seat. His hair has been scrubbed and rinsed by servants, the braid you made for him undone. “He probably wouldn’t have noticed.”
“Mine has a great love for all books.” Bartimos Celtigar is eternally turning pages: computations, records, revenue. He does not just sit on Rhaenyra’s council. He is her Master of Coin. He funds her war effort, he fuels her like wood to a fire. “Besides, I have seen naked men in person. No book can scandalize me now.”
A little twitch of his silvery eyebrows: fascination, amusement. “He does not lose sleep over your spent innocence?”
“He has other things on his mind presently.”
“Like what?”
Like helping Rhaenyra win the war. You find a different truth to tell him. “Some men consider one daughter to be too many. My father has four. His attention is thoroughly divided.”
“He doesn’t like you?”
“He likes me plenty. He just doesn’t need me.”
Aegon nods. His eyes travel over you slowly and meditatively, not leering but learning, memorizing slopes and angles, taking you in like he’s never been able to before. He is in the brief lull between doses of milk of the poppy: lucid enough to speak but not so much that he can feel the full extent of his injuries. “Are you married?”
This is a bit of a fraught subject. “I am betrothed.”
“Oh,” he says, with what might be disappointment. “And he wouldn’t rather have you home right now? Putting all that knowledge of male anatomy to good use? That’s difficult to believe.”
You peer evasively down at your book. “He has a role to play in the war. I’ve been given permission to serve in my own way until it is over.”
“Permission,” Aegon echoes. He finds this interesting. He studies you for a while before he asks, his voice gentle: “What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing. He’s honorable, he’s brave. He’s marvelously formidable. He could carry you around like a sack of potatoes.”
Aegon chuckles, a slow reflective laugh, curiosity, intrigue, something to think about besides the fact that he’s missing half his skin. “Do you fear marriage?”
What is the answer to that question? Do you even know yourself? “I fear being possessed. And having no remedy if the circumstances are not to my liking.”
“You can’t get one of your three superfluous sisters to marry him instead?”
You smile faintly. “No, we’ve met. He chose me, he favored me. I’m not sure why.”
“Probably because you’ve read all there is to know about cocks.” Aegon grins, drowsy and crooked and playful. “Who is he?”
“Just a man,” you say. You can’t tell Aegon more than that. It would give your Black affiliations away.
You are betrothed to the Warden of the North, Lord Cregan Stark.
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autticus · 19 days
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Gladiator Boots SS/24
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pidges-lost-robot · 1 month
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Follow up to this
Keith’s outfit is relatively the same apart from like some lace up boots cause i think he’d be about that shit. As for shiro, idk about you, but if i’d been stuck being an alien gladiator for a year, i’d wanna just wear joggers and pjs for the next three months and i like him starting off with something comfy and trying to cover his arm initially
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autisticlancemcclain · 6 months
Text
A shrill beep breaks his focus, and for it he nearly gets sliced in the eye.
He just barely manages to dodge the Gladiator’s blade, ducking under its sword and rolling towards his jacket and boots, crumpled on the floor. He digs out his comm, as quickly as he can with the Gladiator hot on his tail, and glances at the new message. It’s from Lance.
sharpshooter:
keith where tf are u
sharpshooter:
please know if u miss yet another meeting i am going to kick ur ass
sharpshooter:
better yet i’m gonna have allura kick ur ass bc she actually can
sharpshooter:
know that it will be painful
Keith rolls his eyes, dropping his comm and feigning left just as the Gladiator stabs right through where his head was milliseconds prior. No longer worried that he’s missing something important, he throws himself back into the fight, matching his breathing to the clash of his sword against the Gladiator’s, the steady taps of their feet on the floor as they move, the rapid beat of his own heart. It’s easy to sink into the movement, the adrenaline; to stop thinking.
Thinking is dangerous. Thinking is painful. Thinking reminds him only of how much he’s lost, how much he’s falling short. None of that is helpful. The weight of his sword in his hand, the smell of sweat and metal, the harsh white lights of the training room — all that is helpful. All that is real.
“Kogane, you are the most irritating person in space. And that’s saying a lot, because I’m here, and I specialize in being irritating.”
The Gladiator freezes mid strike, then fades into pixels. The harsh lights dim.
Keith turns around with a scowl. Lance matches it, standing right beside the training room kill switch, arm crossed and jaw set defiantly.
“I’m trying to train, Lance.”
“No need. You’ve reached peak levels of infuriating. No more training necessary.”
Keith rolls his eyes so hard it hurts, jogging over to his water bottle and chugging half of it before dropping to the floor and doing push-ups. Whatever. Lance may have shut down the Gladiator, but Keith can train in other ways. He’ll just turn it back on when Lance leaves.
“Oh, you fucking —”
Before he can fully register what’s happening, a sharp wooshing noise gets louder, and he rolls out of the way seconds before a sword flies by his head and imbeds itself in the wall.
A very, very familiar sword, white with red accents.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Keith shouts, but Lance is already sprinting to grab his bayard, face impassive.
Keith scrambles to his feet, lunging for his own blade, barely managing to activate it and hold it in front of him to block Lance’s oncoming strike. The force of the blow is so powerful it sends a painful ripple down his arms.
Lance is just barely smirking.
“If it’s a fucking fight you want than you’ll get it,” Keith growls, spinning out of the way and putting some distance between them, adjusting his stance and tensing his shoulders.
“I don’t want a fight, douchebag. But obviously talking like grownups is too hard for your tiny little brain, so I’m going to explain this in a way you can understand.”
“You’re really shitty at one-liners,” Keith points out, aiming a thrust at Lance’s left hip, which he always leaves open.
To Keith’s delight, Lance’s smirk drops. “That’s because one-liners are stupid!” he says defensively, barely managing to swerve to the side in time to avoid serious damage. He retaliates by swinging his longsword like it’s a fucking bat, and Keith’s head is a baseball, because Lance is allergic to the real swordfighting techniques Keith has attempted to teach him. And also peanuts, but that’s not helpful right this second. “I only have one line to destroy you emotionally! Truly devastating burns are multi-layered, which is why you can never come up with them, you one-dimensional oreo thinnie!”
Keith grunts, sidestepping Lance’s attempt to stab his foot and clashing his sword at the base of Lance’s, right near the hilt, trying to disarm him. It works, but only because Lance anticipated the move, and as his sword is bent from his hand he does some sort of twisting manoeuvre with his wrist and manages to catch it, somehow. It’s infuriating.
“I stopped listening twelve percent into your sentence.”
“Well, you do that a lot, so colour me unsurprised.”
The unfiltered bitterness in Lance’s voice throws him for a loop, distracts him. He blinks, thrown-off, head out of the game.
“What?”
His distractedness costs him. Faster than he can fully track, Lance hooks his foot around Keith’s ankle, sweeping his legs out from under him, and then shoves him to the floor, pinning his wrists above his head, knee to Keith’s navel, sword to his throat. Keith tries to struggle, to either buck Lance off or angle his own sword, still clenched in his hand, back up to Lance, but he’s exhausted — he’s been training since he woke up this morning. Lance has him at a disadvantage.
“You are being a massive douchebag dumbass loser,” Lance says, panting. “I am fighting the urge to kill you for real.”
“Maybe don’t,” Keith suggests, suddenly very aware of the position they’re in and how easily Lance could drive his sword through Keith’s skull. He knows Lance won’t, or else he’d be struggling way more, but the way Lance is eyeing his own sword is certainly not helping.
Lance sighs. “We need to take a break, Keith.”
Keith frowns. “What?”
Lance sighs again, shifting off of Keith and standing, offering his hand. Keith takes it, pulling himself up, and then follows Lance over to the wall, sitting down next to him.
“What?” he repeats, when Lance doesn’t say anything for several minutes.
Lance shifts to face him, and for the first time Keith really notices the bags under his eyes, the sag of his shoulders. “We need to take a break,” he repeats. “All of us. The team. We need to do something that isn’t this —” he spreads his arm, gesturing to their swords and then between them — “all the time. We need a vacation.”
“No.” Keith barely lets him finish. He gets back to his feet, picking up his sword and heading back towards the system modulator, flipping through the different training modules. Lance follows him immediately.
“Keith —”
“No, Lance,” Keith repeats, fists clenching the edge of the computer. “This is a fucking war. There are no vacations. End of discussion.”
Lance mutters something in Spanish, too fast for Keith to pick up, but he clearly hears a few repeated instances of “cabrón”, and “comemierda”, and “tonto terco idiota que va a hacer que nos maten a todos”, none of which he can translate but he’s pretty sure he gets the general message.
“Keith.” Lance wraps an arm around Keith’s wrist, tugging him away from the training computer. “I cannot possibly understand the pain you are going through. Nothing I have ever gone through can possibly be the same as how it feels to lose a brother. For the second time, for fuck’s sake. I know that.”
Keith clenches his jaw, swallowing the lump in his throat at the mere mention of Shiro. He itches to yank his hand away, boot up the Gladiator again, and train and train and train until he can’t hear his thoughts anymore.
But he doesn’t.
“But you’re not alone in this, man,” Lance continues. Keith turns to glare at him — what a fucking crock of cliched bullshit — but Lance holds his gaze, steady and firm. “Pidge knows exactly what you’re going through. Allura, too. Hell, even Coran. That’s three separate people who understand every single thing you’re going through right now. Intimately.”
That brings Keith up short. “It’s not the same,” Keith insists anyway. “Plus it — it doesn’t matter. What good is talking out our feelings going to do? That’s not going to fuckin’ find him. I’m only going to find him if I keep working.”
“Really interesting that you say that,” Lance says flatly. “I had this exact conversation with Pidge last night, as I was attempting to force her to get some sleep.”
Keith feels something like guilt build up deep in his stomach.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. And it’s one thing for me to mother hen the fifteen year old, but it’s a whole other, weirdly Freudian thing for me to mother hen you, the grownup leader who is supposed to be guiding the team and not a giant headass who is doing intensely stupid shit like ignoring team meetings and training to the point where he passes out.”
“In my defense, the daily team meetings are dumb,” Keith mutters, because apparently he wants Lance to kick him out the airlock.
Luckily, Lance only smiles wryly. “You’re lucky I’m endlessly benevolent and I’m going to let that slide. Come sit down, asshole. You missed today’s meeting because you were busy being emo, but we’ll have a small meeting now. A co-leaders meeting.”
Keith relents, sitting next to Lance on the floor, back to the wall as Lance sits criss-cross-applesauce in front of him.
“Okay. Vacation. Necessary.”
“Counterpoint. We all manage our schedules better and have some free time, and don’t waste our time spending who knows how long doing nothing.”
“Counter counter point. We do both of those things or I mutiny.”
Lance does not appear to be joking even a little. When it’s clear that Keith isn’t going to speak any further, he sighs.
“Look,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose, “I know that the idea of not doing something for a day is kind of stressful. But…saving the world is a massive bummer, dude. Being on this lonely ass castle in the middle of empty space is a bummer. Chasing a walking purple L’Oreal commercial who is also a homicidal maniac is a bummer. Eating in silence during team dinners is a bummer. Trying to force Pidge and Hunk to step away from their tech for a few hours to sleep and eat and shower is a bummer. Dragging Allura away from the briefing room is a bummer. Making sure you don’t work yourself to death is a bummer. Being the red paladin, if I’m being a thousand percent honest, right now, is a bummer. I’m bummed, dude.”
Despite himself, Keith smiles slightly. Lance grins back, tired and a tad condescending but also fond.
“I got it, Lance.”
“Excellent. I even dumbed it down so it would not escape you.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“You know what would make me less of an asshole?”
“A vacation?” Keith guesses.
“Ding ding ding! Vacation is the answer.” Lance reaches forward, grabbing Keith’s water bottle straight from his hands and taking a swig. “And since you decided to ditch the daily briefing, you get to make it up to me today by convincing the rest of the team to agree and also agreeing to whatever vacation spot I choose.”
“I will agree to one of those things.”
Lance laughs, bright and happy, and it sends such a startling zap of energy and relief through Keith’s entire body that he’s kicking himself for making it so rare, as of late.
“Oh, Mullet, you are so naive.”
Lance gets to his feet, offering his hand to Keith again. This time, when Keith takes it, he holds on for a moment — he smiles at Lance, tired but genuine. Lance smiles back, knocking their shoulders together.
It’s nice to be back on the same page.
———
Keith thinks he reserves the right to complain, honestly.
Well, maybe not. He did work everyone pretty hard. And he is glad that Lance finally convinced him (if threatening to mutiny can be called convincing) to go on vacation, even though you couldn’t waterboard that out of him.
“If you complain even one more time I am going to draw a massive dick with the sunscreen where you can’t reach,” Lance says pleasantly, squirting what Keith would call a massive excess of Altean SPF 900 onto his hands (alien suns are a little more deadly. Who knew). He slaps it on Keith’s back, slathering it with absolutely zero care and an abundance of glee.
It doesn’t make Keith smile. It doesn’t.
“I’ll just wear a shirt until the sunburn fades. Complaining is worth it.”
Lance only hums, working in the cream. It starts to feel good, his cold fingers digging into the knots on Keith’s back. It feels so good, in fact, that Keith lets his guard down.
Rookie mistake if he’s ever made one.
One second he’s sat on the warm sand, tension melting from his shoulders, and the next he’s fucking airborne; Lance picking him up by the waist and throwing him over broad swimmers shoulders.
“Lance!” he screeches, pounding on the red paladin’s back, “fucking let me down! Dickhead!”
Lance is cackling loudly, picking up speed and jogging for the — icy cold! Keith knows! — waves. The rest of the team looks in their direction, but Keith loses any hope of their aid when they all burst out laughing.
“All of you are the worst!” Keith cries, but he can’t deny that it’s nice to hear their laughter again.
It’s been a while.
Still, though, Keith is not going down without a fight. As he and his captor get closer and closer to a watery doom (Keith has never been dramatic even a day in his life), Keith really starts to struggle. He throws his whole body weight to one side, making Lance stumble. He aims an elbow to the Cuban’s ear, but before his hit can land, he hears a voice shout: “Oh, no you don’t!”
Three things happen in quick succession.
One. Lance whoops in triumph.
Two. A curtain of white hair flashes towards him, and yet another arm grabs him around the waist.
Three. He drops, and water colder than the fucking glacial arctic seas envelops him entirely.
He comes back up sputtering, glaring a thousand daggers at Allura.
“You’ll pay for that,” he informs her.
“Ha!” She looks down at him smugly, hands on her hips and one eyebrow raised to her hairline. “Good luck with that.”
Keith doesn’t hesitate before tackling her into the waves.
It doesn’t take long after that for things to devolve into chaos. Hunk happily follows Allura and Lance’s examples, scooping up Pidge — to her rage — and Coran — to his delight — under one arm each, tossing them in the water like neither weighs particular more to him than perhaps a bunch of grapes.
(Dear Lord. If Keith were not so gone on Lance’s ass…)
As much as he tries to deny it, Keith has fun. Very quickly Lance organizes a game of chicken, climbing up Keith’s body like a particularly aggravating monkey (something Keith is happy to tell him) and settling on his shoulders, thighs bracketing his head and ankles crossed at his abdomen.
Keith goes so violently red that he’s genuinely kind of shocked that he can turn that colour.
“Squeeze any tighter, Lance, and Keefers over there is going to evaporate the entire ocean,” Pidge says drily.
Keith does not wait for her to get situated on Coran’s shoulders. He charges.
Despite his brain relaying a constant stream of Oh God Lance’s thighs are wrapped around your head holy shit he’s sitting on your shoulders and he’s barely dressed his fucking legs are so long why are they so long does he have to be this attractive is that even possible what the fuck is the deal with that, he manages to put his full attention into going absolutely ham. He charges, dodges, leaps and bounds, intent on being the winning team of this ridiculous but admittedly fun game.
Allura and Hunk dominate. Easily. It’s barely even a competition. They dunk everyone else so many times that they have to plead for mercy.
Still, Keith has a huge smile on his face by the time everyone peels off and cools down.
“There it is,” Lance says, poking him on the cheek.
Keith bats his hands away. “No idea what you’re talking about.”
But Lance is undeterred by his gruffness. He smiles, fondly, rolling his eyes, then bounds away with a random bucket to the shoreline, likely to look for cool seashells.
Keith is so endeared that it’s honestly a little sickening. Never in his life has he been so attached to the whims to another person.
He doesn’t hate it, somehow.
“If you keep building the habit of watching your red paladin so lovingly, you may be accused of favouritism in the near future,” Coran teases, taking a seat next to him on the sand.
Keith flushes. Your red paladin rings in his ears.
“I don’t watch him like that,” he denies loudly.
“You do so,” pipes up the peanut gallery, also known as Pidge Holt, without so much as glancing up from her, Hunk’s, and Allura’s massive sandcastle. Honestly, sandcastle might not be the right word for it. The magnificent undertaking is significantly larger and significantly prettier than his dingy shack from back home.
“You’re fired,” Keith shoots back. Pidge only rolls her eyes, reaching over and smashing one of the sand figures standing on the castle.
“I just killed sand Keith for your insolence. Beg for my forgiveness or I won’t rebuild you.”
The two of them continue to bicker until Allura throws clumps of sand at them to get them to shut up.
“Aw, the sand got stuck in my sunscreen,” Keith pouts. He tries to rub it off, but it only scrapes his skin off with it, so he gives up. “You’re the worst!”
“I’m going to put more sand in your hair,” Allura says mildly. She scoops up a handful. Keith holds a bucket of water up in front of him in defense.
Before an all out war can be restarted, Hunk stills, looking up from his intricate castle-building with a furrowed brow.
“Hey, speaking of sunscreen, where’s Lance? He can usually be relied upon to snootily inform anyone who will listen about UV rays and skin cancer every hour.”
“He went to go find seashells.”
Hunk’s brow furrows. “And he’s not back yet? It’s been a bit. Do you think he got lost?”
“Let’s go look for him,” Keith says, scrambling to his feet immediately. His heartbeat picks up slightly, ‘Lance’ and ‘lost’ ringing through his head like disjointed echoes. He’s already halfway down the sand by the time he registers the voices around him, hears the calling of his name, feels a steady hand on his shoulder.
“He’s not lost,” Coran says kindly. His green eyes are wrought with pain and empathy and understanding alike, reminding Keith of Lance’s earlier words. Reminding him that his family truly does understand his pain, truly does know him, get him. Coran’s hand squeezes once, and Keith takes a deep breath, smiling slightly back at him, covering his hand briefly with his own.
“Okay.”
Still, the six of them walk down the shoreline faster than they would normally, figuring safe is better than sorry.
“Hey, look.” Pidge points at a small purple critter scuttling across the sand. “Does that thing look like it’s in a hurry to you?”
“I think all crabs kind of look like they’re in a hurry,” Hunk reasons.
Allura smiles slightly, snapping his hands. “It’s the snappiness to their movements.”
Just as they speak, however, another crab scurries along, and then another. Soon dozens of them are visible, digging themselves out of the sand or hopping out of the water, then hurrying down the shoreline like whatever their chasing is about to run out. Eventually the crowd of crabs get so thick that it’s almost impossible to walk without gently sweeping several of them aside to make room for their feet.
“Oh, hey, guys!”
A few yards in front of them, sat cross cross applesauce on the sand, surrounded by hundreds of little crabs, is Lance. In front of him is the bucket he had left with and a sponge-like chunk of seaweed. He grins sunnily at them, so widely that the brown of his eyes is hidden, they crinkle so much, and returns his attention to the bucket. He holds his hand out to one of the many crabs chittering around them, waiting for it to crawl on, then gently lowers it into the bucket, using the spongey seaweed to scrub its shell.
“I’m giving the crabs baths!” The little crab in the bucket seems to wiggle, almost, in some kind of glee, waiting for Lance to finish, pat it on the head, and set it down on the sand before scuttling away.
“You’re bathing,” says Pidge incredulously, “aquatic sand bugs.”
“Some of them have a lot of barnacle buildup,” Lance says primly.
“We thought you went missing,” Keith blurts. He can’t quite keep the fear out of his voice, that built up as soon as he’d realized that Lance was gone, fear that comes out as anger. He regrets it as soon as it comes out, bracing himself for the set to Lance’s jaw and and the defensiveness in his jaw. But to his surprise Lance only softens, holding a crab out to Keith. He takes it on reflex, blinking at it in confusion. The crab blinks back.
“I did not,” Lance promises. “But I was looking for shells, and then I saw Jorge flipped upside down, so I helped him, and then we were chilling, and then I noticed he was walking funny because of a barnacle buildup on his leg, so I asked him if he wanted me to get it off, and he didn’t answer but he was cool to hop in the bucket so I cleaned him off. And then Carmen showed up so I polished her up, and then Amelia, then Hunk Two —”
“You named a crab after me?” Hunk interrupts, visibly touched.”
Lance nods matter-of-factly. “Strong and sunset coloured. All of you have crab buddies. Look.” He scoops up six crabs from his lap, showing the Hunk-crab first, then showing three other crabs in order: a teeny-tiny dark green one with black marks around its eyes, a bright pink one that sparkles when it moves, and an orange one with markings around its mouth. “Pidge-crab, Allura-crab, Coran-crab.” Finally he holds out his hand to the crab that has been sitting protectively on his head, burrowed in his curls. It takes a moment, but eventually the little thing begrudgingly steps from the safety of Lance’s hair and into his cupped hand. He brings it carefully down, giving it an exaggerated smooch on the head.
“This one is Keith-crab,” he says. “Because it is all emo coloured and likes me best.” Lance looks up at him and grins. “I am your absolute favourite all the time, right, Mullet?”
Keith knows Lance is teasing. Obviously. Evident in the way the rest of the team is snickering to themselves, no doubt remembering the years of arguing they’ve witnessed.
But still. Keith feels lightheaded.
“Yeah,” he chokes out, bright red. There’s a beat of silence that stretches out for twelve years, then Pidge guffaws, Hunk bites his lip, and Allura straight up loses it. Even Coran hides a smile in his hand.
“What the fuck, Keith,” Lance says, strangled. His face glows worse than Keith’s does. “You’re not supposed to admit it.”
“Would it be so bad?“ Keith erupts, voice cracking. “So what you’re my favourite? There’s no way you didn’t know! I let you get away with everything! You threatened to shove a sword through my skull yesterday and I didn’t even put you in a chokehold about it!”
Lance makes a long, anguished noise, setting the crab down with great care before burying his face in his hands. “You’re so embarrassing,” he moans. “You don’t have an ounce of rizz in your body. None.”
Keith sputters. “What does that even mean!”
“It means he liiiiiiikes yooooouuuu,” Pidge crows. Allura makes kissy faces.
And, well. Pidge cannot be trusted. She has openly and gleefully informed him that lying for fun is one of her favourite hobbies, especially when Keith is at the other end of her clowning.
But Lance is still trying to shrink back into himself, embarrassed. And he always finds an excuse to have his hands on Keith, somehow. And Keith hangs out with him more than anyone else, honestly.
Keith turns to Lance, hopeful. “You do?”
Lance points at him, glaring. “This does not count. You hear me?”
Keith grins, rocking back on his heels. “I’m not sure.” Lance scowls. Keith genuinely feels like he might be floating, so long as he ignores his asshole friends. “You might have to spell it out for me.”
“You talk to me properly,” Lance lists. “When we are alone. Play it up and wax poetic and — I dunno, flowers or something. You figure it out. I refuse to have this be how I find out you have feelings for me.”
“I mean, I was never really hiding it.”
“I’ll divorce you, Keith, I swear to God.”
Humming, Keith leans close, careful of the crabs, and presses a kiss to Lance’s cheek. At the last second Lance turns his head, catching his lips and kissing him properly. His smile is wide and shy.
“Sure, Sharpshooter.”
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