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#high honor arthur is canon
mollierdr2 · 1 year
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i am in the process of writing a reader x arthur fic with loads of angst so give me a little while and i will have that out too 😻
i got the idea from cherry waves by deftones, but i’ve kind of strayed beyond that…my bad. if you’ve never heard the song, it’s basically about being dragged down by someone who wouldn’t help you. sooo yeah.
this is basically just arthur psychoanalysis for me tbh
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chicohungers24-7 · 2 years
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Making myself cry over arthur Morgan and I just don't understand how someone can go back for the money!!
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morning-star-joy · 4 months
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lose your faith in me
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Pairing: Low Honor!Arthur x One-Sided F!Reader to High Honor!Arthur x F!Reader
Summary: Arthur only changes for the better when everything happens for the worst.
Warnings: Angst. Canon ending. One-sided love that subtly becomes requited in the end. Lots of regret and grief. Low Honor to High Honor progression (or Canon-Typical!Arthur as @joelsversion bec calls him). Sad ending. Low Honor!Arthur is mean but he's still got some of those Medium to High Honor qualities when I write him. References to Reader being kidnapped when Arthur meets/saves her (like the stranger encounter in the game). Canon-typical violence.
Wordcount: 3.6k
A/N: I was possessed with ideas for this in the middle of the night, and for once I wrote them down in my notes app! Super sad fic because I was sad over the pixel cowboy.
dividers by @saradika
masterlist || kofi || updates blog
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Arthur could be a kind man if he wanted to be. It just so happened that most of the time, he didn’t want to be.
You’d heard tales of a more compassionate man who lived in the rough-and-tumble outlaw’s skin once upon a time. A time hardened body that held a heart beating with too much love for others. Care that the world threw back in his face. Sensibility that it kicked from him when he was down.
So each time he got back up, more of that sensitive skin fell away. It grew back tougher, littered with scars that told of the cruelty of the passage of time. Life had not been kind to Arthur Morgan, and so he was not kind in return.
He was decent enough to the folks around camp, giving nods and short greetings as he moved from one job to the next. It was that work he did for the gang that spoke to the once generous nature that life hadn’t completely stamped out of him. Work that nearly wore him down to the bone, and he still did it without complaint, even when he was bloody, beaten, broken down.
Or maybe even that was without tenderness of the spirit. Maybe it was a mere habit with which he worked for the gang. A stubborn, undying loyalty that remained even when the love was gone.
Maybe it was just out of trifling obligation when he shot down the monster of a man who had you hogtied on the back of their horse.
Maybe it was out of innate violence that he took one glance at you, battered and bloody with tears streaking down a layer of grime on your cheeks, and then delivered a few more gunshots to your kidnapper’s head until it was an indistinguishable mess of gore, throwing in some well-placed kicks to a long dead body for good measure.
Still, Arthur let you follow him. For miles you trailed after him on the horse that had just before been carrying you to your doom. You kept glancing around you, wondering when you would come out of the wilderness to wherever he was going, until he finally shouted back to you.
“What you followin’ me for, girl?”
You had paused then. Embarrassment gave way to heat in your face, and you held the reins tighter, staring at the back of that worn hat you would grow secretly fond of, eyes tracing the old twine wrapped around the brim. Wondering what story it told, how many more stories were held behind cold blue eyes. How many people he saved, how many more he’d killed.
“Ain’t got nowhere else to go, Mister,” you had replied quietly, and his shoulders, broad and carrying weights both quantifiable and otherwise, stiffened under the battered brown jacket he wore.
“Best find someplace, then.”
He spurred his horse forward again, faster this time. Intending to lose you, maybe.
And when you followed right on his path again, he brought his steed to an abrupt spot, whirling it around to fix you with a glare.
“You deaf, woman?” he snapped, and you winced, though you didn’t cower away from the angry man who had been your savior. “Told you to get lost.”
“I have nowhere to go.” You urged your horse to trot closer now, trying to gain eye contact to better implore him of your predicament. “No one’s waitin’ for me.”
He just shifted the brim of his hat down, covering the top half of his face, and you were stuck staring defeatedly at the edge of a strong nose and lips pressed into a firm, bitter line at your desperation.
What a burden you had been to him from the start.
“Please,” you had whispered, and he turned his head away completely, giving you only the image of a well-armed, dangerous man that wreaked havoc across the states, leaving blood and death and despair in every place he left.
Arthur didn’t say anything else then, not even when you followed him all the way to the first camp you had witnessed of the Van der Linde gang.
Many camps were to follow, as your group of degenerates and ne'er-do-wells could never seem to catch a goddamn break. At least they let you settle into the ranks relatively without fuss. 
But how could they not? When you kept your head down, kept your voice quiet, did your work without complaint.
Even as weeks turned into months, then into years of being there, you were a ghost among them. Nobody really knew where you came from, what you thought and felt. Your cards were kept close to your chest, for all matters except one.
At least if anybody noticed the way your eyes lingered on Arthur Morgan, they didn’t say anything. 
If anybody saw the way you hovered around the gang’s enforcer, like a pitiful lost puppy since the moment he had saved you from a fate worse than death, they didn’t judge you for it. Not to your face.
Time passed, one camp gave way to the next in your group’s ever-searching path to freedom, and you loved Arthur Morgan all the same.
Blackwater was good until it was bad. Colter was worse, cold winds biting into your limbs and keeping you half-numb even halfway out of the mountains and to Horseshoe Overlook.
You liked that camp the best. It had the most life to it, the most times you had seen Arthur smile in the whole time you’d known him, even small, fleeting smirks as they were.
That night when Sean returned may have been the best of your small, inconsequential life. Drinks were flowing, laughter was booming, and there was music every which way, a different song being sung or played around each corner.
And through it all, Arthur was nowhere to be seen.
He was one of the men who saved the boisterous Irishman, and the only one missing from the party. Throughout the night, you kept glancing around for a glimpse of his face, all to no avail.
Eventually, you took up a post near where the horses grazed, waiting with a drink in hand to catch him rolling back into camp.
When even that led to no sight of him, you ambled through the outskirts of the trees, farther from the glow of warm campfires and jovial festivities, searching and searching until…
There.
The moonlight shone off the speckled horse that Arthur had gotten in Valentine weeks before, hidden amongst the trees unless you were as close as you had gotten in your relentless search for the object of your affections. 
When you saw him a bit further on, leaning against a tree and gazing out over the cliffside with a cigarette perched between his lips, your heart leapt in your chest besides yourself.
He didn’t say anything when you emerged from the darkness and settled against a tree next to him. Likely he had heard you crashing through the forest in your half-drunken state, silently declaring you not a threat and, hopefully, not enough of a nuisance either.
Silence fell between you for a few moments. You never seemed to know what to say around him, and he never seemed to want to say anything around you.
Eventually, you settled on the wrong thing. “You did good today, Arthur.”
You could nearly feel the discontent grow at your praise, and you shifted under the weight of it in the air.
“Good?” he repeated the word like you had insulted him, although you had intended the opposite. Perhaps that was why he hated it so—because he hated himself so, couldn’t acknowledge a good deed he did if it hit him on the nose. “I beat a sick man for some money I didn’t even end up gettin’ before I did any good today, girl.”
“Arthur—”
“Our first trip into Valentine, ‘member that?” he interrupts you as if you hadn’t spoken, and you frown into the darkness, watching as he removes the cigarette from his mouth to tap some ash off the end.
“I remember you fightin’ those men off o’ Tilly and Karen—”
“I chased that man who recognized me out of town, right to a cliffside.” Arthur steps forward, the spurs on his worn boots clinking with the slow, deliberate movement. He flicks the burnt down cigarette from his fingers out over the cliff you were both standing next to now. “Just like this one.”
He gestures to it, glancing back at you with the cold words he spoke. The moonlight casts him into shadow, creating a faceless entity out of him, one that you know should terrify you. 
“He was dangling off of it, beggin’ for his life,” Arthur continued in that low, dangerous tone he reserved for intimidating folks, now using it to try and convince you of how wrong you’d always been about him. Even then, there’s a strange contradiction to the rumble of his voice—lack of empathy for what he’s done, and the knowledge of how awful that was in and of itself. “And I let ‘im fall. Figured it was better him than me.”
“Jesus…” you whispered, eyes fixed to the edge of the cliff next to where he stood. You wondered if he just watched the man’s grip loosen, or if those muddy boots had stomped on the tips of the man’s fingers, and you wince at the terrible imagery your mind concocted. 
Arthur had done worse, you know he had. All those times he’d shown up with blood on his clothes, you knew well they weren’t from his own injuries. And still, you’d gladly washed the stains from his shirts during your chores. Relieved it wasn’t his own. 
“Jesus ain’t helpin’ me, not with what I’ve done,” the man muttered with a frigid chill that sent shivers through you with how ominous his words were, how foreboding and imminent it felt. “Not with what we’ve all done.”
It’s quiet again as Arthur stands at the cliffside. You watch him glance over the edge, and yet you’re the one who finds yourself slipping, “We could still get out of here.”
He freezes. You know he knows what you mean, and yet he still asks, “Who’s ‘we’?”
“You and me,” you whisper breathlessly, the alcohol you’d consumed dulling the fear of the rejection you knew was inevitable as everything you kept bottled up comes spilling out. “Save up some money, get a small patch of land somewhere out where they won’t come lookin’. We can raise sheep or—”
“Sheep,” he scoffs. The man won’t even look back at you, won’t even give you the decency of eye contact as he breaks your heart. “Small land still ain’t cheap. And there aren’t many places they ain’t lookin’ nowadays, neither.”
“We can do it, Arthur.” You step closer, your eagerness on plain display in the moonlight, and he finally looks back at you. His face reveals nothing, expression blank as you finally lay all your cards on the table, his own forever in his lonely hands. “You and me.”
“You’re just as bad a dreamer as Dutch.” The words are harsh, bitter even, and it’s not the first time you start to wonder why you love Arthur Morgan. “Hell, you may even be worse.”
You think that’s the end of it then. You hope it is, but he stops next to you as he’s walking away, looks you right in the eye as he spares you no mercy in harshly chastising you, “Get your head outta the clouds, girl. Ain’t nothin’ good, ain’t no honest ending out there waitin’ for the likes of you and me.”
It breaks your heart. 
More than that, it makes you want to prove him wrong.
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You never do quite prove him wrong.
Arthur Morgan is dying.
It both shocks and horrifies you, how long it takes the others to notice.
He carried on doing what he always did for the gang, hiding his own decay the best he could. His movements were slower than before, and you’d watch from a distance all the times he’d pause to take as deep a breath as his traitorous lungs could manage when no one was looking.
For a while, you dared to hope it was just a lingering sickness from his time stranded on Guarma. You thought he would shake it off eventually, bounce back healthier and stronger than ever before.
But he lost even more weight instead of putting it back on. His face grew gaunt, pale. Sharp blue eyes became streaked with red, clouded with a weariness that contrasted the strength you’d always come to associate with the man.
Still, things carried on with as much normality as the gang could afford, even with the camp clearing out more and more each day. 
Ghosts lived amongst you now, dead as well as living. Skeletons were buried under every crack and crevice you traversed each day, trying to pretend it would all be okay, like it always had been in the past.
At night, you heard Arthur coughing. 
It was always muffled, like he was smothering the sickness into his pillow, so as to not wake the others. But it became as steady a noise as the faint sounds of wildlife underneath the stars, tearing your soul apart further and further each time.
When you heard a weak gasp following a coughing fit one night, you rose from your bedroll, unable to stay in quiet denial of what was happening any longer. You pattered over to a dying campfire as if possessed, stoking it to life enough to concoct a health tincture to hopefully ease some of the pain he was trying to hide with every fiber of stubborn strength he still had left.
You slipped through the tent flap to see him curled up on his side, coughing and wheezing into his fist next to the dying light in the lantern beside his cot. The sight threatened to ruin you completely, leave you nothing but a husk of your former self in the grief of your sustaining love, but you held it together through sheer will alone as you approached him.
When he saw you, you saw fear. It flashed through his eyes, the blue of them just as pretty as the day you met him, even with the sickness that addled them.
Arthur opened his mouth as blood trickled from the corner of it, no doubt to insist you shouldn't trouble yourself with fretting over him, but you gently hushed him. 
You wiped the blood from his lips with your handkerchief, coaxed him to drink the tincture, taking sips through the coughing fit until it subsided. When it did, the words he finally gained that familiar strength to speak with shocked you.
“You always done right by me,” Arthur wheezed quietly, avoiding your eyes when they snapped to his face at the sentiment you never thought he’d acknowledge. “Don’t know what I did to deserve that.”
It struck you silent then, left you with an emptiness you didn’t know the first thing about filling up again. Knowing that he recognized all the love for him you’d kept locked up inside, until it was bursting from the seams. Knowing that he recognized how cruel he’d been to you, time and time again. 
And how you had loved him just the same.
“You saved me,” you whispered as you tenderly wiped the handkerchief along his blood speckled chin. Your fingers followed the path to skim across those scars where hair could never grow, where it barely grew now.
“Any decent man woulda—”
“Not many decent men, though,” you interrupted him, his eyes finally meeting yours as you spoke, “are there?”
You both fell quiet then, the truth of his nature hanging in the air between you. 
The sicker Arthur had gotten, the more he had changed. Faced with a slow union to his eventual mortality, his own body betraying him as his family fell apart, he had tried to right the wrongs he had done.
You had seen the shift; how it had happened slowly, then all at once. Giving away the money he had fought and killed for to help widows, orphans, or those in misfortune—some of whom he had put there with his own two hands. 
You think that Arthur saw those ghosts that still lingered better than the most of you. You think he loved them more than anybody else. That he fought to avenge them, or maybe give them peace, the best he could still manage to do.
Or maybe he was already one of them.
And still, for him, it wasn’t enough.
“I ain’t one of those, either,” Arthur murmured, denying the gravitational shift in his very own nature, his voice strained with effort from not coughing after you had tried so desperately to heal him. 
Tears blur your vision, choking your throat at his resignation to the cruel strings of fate, the belief that he was nothing more now than rot and regret.
“You’re close enough,” you whispered, meaning every damn word of admiration that you’ve held in your heart for him since the very first day. 
Because he wasn’t good, but he was good enough for you.
When he’s quiet again, his eyes still avoiding yours, you figure it’s time to go. 
You move to get up, and without a sound, his hand catches yours.
Arthur doesn’t let go.
You stay.
As long as you can, you stay.
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“Where you goin’?”
Weeks later, more people are dead, or gone, or close to one or the other. You’re packing all of your measly earthly belongings onto one of the extra horses in the dead of night when Arthur approaches you.
“I dunno,” you reply honestly, heart in your throat as you avoid his gaze. You can’t look at him anymore, can’t see him working himself to death for a man who would gladly watch him fall into his own grave, who wouldn’t have the decency to stay long enough to watch him buried. “Somewhere else.”
“What're you plannin' on doin’ when you get there?”
“I don’t know, Arthur.” You finally look at him, afraid to see betrayal in his eyes at your leaving them, leaving him, when all you had ever wanted to do was stay.
But you only see understanding, relief, and genuine concern for if you actually have a plan in getting out. 
“Suppose I’ll become some kind of maid, or a working girl, or—”
“Don’t,” he whispers hoarsely, gaze hardening, and you throw your hands up in the air before grabbing onto your saddlehorn, foot in the stirrup as you hoist yourself up into the seat.
“What choice do I have, Arthur?” You’re defeated when you say it, as is he. As are all of you, doomed to who knew what awful fate was waiting at the end of this road the crazier that Dutch got, and the more that that snake Micah kept whispering into his ear.
What you had never expected was for Arthur to reach down into his satchel and pull out a stack of money. He hardly spends any real time thumbing through it all before handing the whole thing over to you. 
When you don’t take it, he grabs your wrist, and you lose your breath when his thumb tenderly strokes the inside. It’s as if he’s caressing your pulse, gently tracing the steady thrum of life still in your veins, as he turns your hand over and places the cash into your palm.
“You wanted sheep, right?” He’s so gentle with the question he murmurs to you in the still night. So kind to the memory you were sure he’d gladly forgotten.
It’s the final straw that breaks you.
You’re crying now, tears you had held in for so long streaming down your face, because this is the last time you’ll see him. You know it, he knows it, and there’s no goddamn thing left that you can do.
Still, you whisper that old, forgotten dream he had once chastised you for, “I wanted it with you.”
“I know, sweetheart,” Arthur rasps, a cough caught in his lungs that he fights back. His eyes are so tired, and yet they still hold your gaze so readily. There’s regret there, so much of it, and you wonder if he’s ever thought of that old pipe dream of yours, if it ever once was one of his. “I know. Get outta here, now.”
When you don’t move an inch, his voice takes on an urgency, harsh and desperate in its rasp, “Go, girl, ‘fore it’s too late.” And then he adds more words, quieter, but just as pleading, if not more gentle in their earnestness, “Couldn’t stand it if they got to you too.”
“Come find me?” The question slips from the tightness in your throat, from the depths of your heart, fruitless as your wanting is, as it has ever been. “There’ll be a place for you with me.”
The way Arthur looks at you then—the grief, the yearning—you dare to dream sometimes, years later, that maybe some small part of him loved you after all. 
Or at least the idea of you, of what could’ve been, towards the end.
“If there’s air left in my lungs by the time this is all done,” he wheezes with the words, a dreadfully poetic thing, “I'll go to you.”
He’s the one who spurs your horse off then with a gentle smack to its hide then, and you’re the one who looks back.
You weren’t a fool, much as he once believed you were.
You knew that Arthur Morgan would never have enough breaths left to crawl to you, in the end.
You could only hope he got that sunset.
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Random Thoughts About my Gunslingers #1
I think it says alot about Rockstar's characterization of Arthur and John simply through the object of choice between the main story and epilogue.
Throughout nearly every moment that Arthur has an advantage over someone, he gets to decide whether or not to kill or let them go (the o'driscoll in Sadie's barn, the raider at Shady Bell, even the former slave catcher). You, as a player, and Arthur have a choice between life and death. Given you follow the canon pathway of High Honor, you most likely choose life.
Once you enter the epilogue, it is a immediately made clear that John does not share this same moral compass as Arthur, at least not in his younger days. Made clear, of course, by this moment
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When I first played this after my high honor Arthur run, I was actually left stunned by this scene. For one, my previous option of a choice to kill or to let go had been taken away. As a result, it was this moment that made me realize how unwavering and ruthless John could be (albeit twas a satisfying kill). To me, it set the stage for John's characterization. Arthur isnt here anymore folks, theres a new cowboy in town, and he won't hesitate to kill anyone who crosses him or his family, damn the consequences.
This moment was also a great way to show that despite Arthur's and Abigail's best efforts, his outlaw lifestyle still hasn't left him all these years. Which will lead him to his eventual development in the "fight against nature"...to quote the late Dutch.
This development will come too late, as we know, when he seeks revenge against Micah... something that most of us agree Arthur would never do and would never approve of. Thus, Rockstar leads us to the consequences of the first game and shows that John and Arthur still couldn't be anymore different when it comes down to justice, revenge, influences, and (of course) honor.
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felixwhy · 6 months
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hey fellers this is my first time posting here so pls interact if u like rdr2 🙏 w that being said, here r some misc. hcs!!
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john was thrown into a lake by dutch to try n make him swim when he was younger but john hates the water now
modern sean would LOVE mac n cheese i dont even care bro he would gobble that shit UP
abigail prolly bought a ton of books for jack so he can learn to read but he ends up trying to teach her instead (bc its canon she cant read)
mary beth teaches kieran and jack how to read n write
arthur sometimes brings candy for jack when hes on a mission and when he does go on a mission, jack asks him to bring candy
karen is totally a wine aunt and loves margaritas
mary beth was always fansinated w wanting to be an author but was too busy doing chores for ms grimshaw, she never had anytime to write anything
mary beth sometimes writes a prompt for arthur to sketch out. shes kept them over time and used them in her books
jack marston gets absolutely 0 bitches, his bloodline ended w him
high honor arthur goes back and gets seans double barrel shotgun and keeps it in memory of him
modern javier likes watching mexican novelas and puts on the english subtitles so everyone who wants to watch can understand it
micah is the worst person ever when hes sober but once hes drunk he'll get along w just about anyone
if arthur knew what cosplay was, he would cosplay dutch just to piss him off
john was pretty much bisexual his whole life but never even realised it. when he did, it was before he married abigail
drunk kieran is rare but if he ever gets drunk, he is very giggly. if youre his s/o then hes basically a cuddle bug.
modern sean LOVES fortnite. he wanted dutch buy him v bucks and started throwing a tantrum
modern john LOVES hot cheetos and thrash metal. it js feels like its so him yk
(modern or not) bill def gambles a lot.
"god damnit! what happened to all the camp funds??" - dutch
"well its gone, its gone, its gone, its gone" - bill /ref
dutch would def let you stack donuts on it and put a fruit roll up around it (im sorry)
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pippin-katz · 1 year
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Immortal Merlin’s Deaths
So we know Merlin is immortal, but we’ve also seen him die, at least momentarily. In the Poisoned Chalice, his heart does stop. There’s no canon explanation for how his immortality works so we can interpret it in a lot of ways. I personally like the idea that he can die and come back, rather than not die at all.
So, here’s a list of the times I think he most likely could have died:
Death 1
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Season 1, Episode 4 “The Poisoned Chalice”
Like I said in the little intro, his heart momentarily stops as a result of the poison. Gwen and Gaius are certain he’s dead for a moment before he “recovers”.
Death 2
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Season 1, Episode 7 “The Gates of Avalon”
The Sidhe staff literally obliterates everyone else in the show besides Merlin. He’s out for a while before Gaius finds him considering the Sidhe and Arthur were already at the lake when he wakes up. Gaius says it’s only thanks to his “powers” that he survived. Even when he comes too, he’s completely disoriented and stumbling. 
Death 3
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Season 1, Episode 13 “Le Morte d’Arthur”
This is one I talked about in my post about the fight between Nimueh and Merlin. He’s hit center chest by a fireball from a high priestess. Anyone else would’ve been killed, and we see him go pretty still before he opens his eyes again. When he does, there’s a shift in his physicality, which I mentioned could be part of his magic “restarting”.
Death 4
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Season 3, Episode 1 “The Tears of Uther Pendragon: Part 1”
This one is pretty obvious, considering how much the serket venom fucks him up. I wouldn’t be surprised if he died on the way to that cave and Kilgharrah gave him the enchantment to help revive him.
Death 5
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Season 4, Episode 1 “The Darkest Hour: Part 1”
This was originally an honorable mention, but a lovely person ( @eruthiawenluin ) in the comments made me change my mind. I had initially included this, then removed it because we see him responsive and awake after the Dorocha hits him, but they pointed out that he could’ve died when the Dorocha touches him. The moments instantly after he’s hit, he could’ve died, and then slowly started to revive because of how powerful and deadly the attack is; it would be quick enough for the knights not to notice while they’re moving him.
Death 6
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Season 5, Episode 8 “The Hollow Queen”
This boy has an affinity for getting poisoned/stung. The poison that Morgan gives him in this episode does a lot of damage, plus she basically pushed him off a small cliff. Even with Daegal’s help, he convulses really violently before going very still.
Death 7
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Season 5, Episode 11 “The Kindness of Strangers”
This is another one where I think he could’ve died during Kilgharrah’s rescue. A crossbow bolt to the abdomen is definitely a fatal wound to a normal person. He struggles during this episode, even with Finna’s help. When he calls for Kilgharrah, his voice is basically a whisper because of how much it strains him.
Death 8
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Season 5, Episode 12 “Diamond of the Day: Part 1″
This could be the first instance of Merlin being aware of his death. He’s dying during his conversation with Balinor. He genuinely thinks there’s no point in trying anymore. Balinor talks him out of it and tells him to walk “toward the light”. Then he wakes up in the Crystal Cave completely fine.
Honorable Mentions
Here’s some moments that he got very injured or really close to dying in that I wasn’t sure if I should include. The ones on the list are pretty easy to argue, and I could make a case for these too, but they’re not as strong.
Nonetheless, here you go:
Mace Hit
His wound from the mace has Arthur complimenting and being sincere with him, which is a damn good indicator of how bad the hit was. I could argue that he could’ve died between the rock fall and Morgana’s hut, but it felt like a stretch to say Morgana wouldn’t notice if he actually died. His wound is also still there when Morgana wakes him up, which usually he comes back mostly if not entirely healed.
Morgana’s Sneak Attack
Yeah, he’s still alive when they bring him back to camp, but the fact that Gaius had to use healing magic to wake him up says how bad Morgana hurt him. I don’t think he ever actually stops breathing, so I didn’t include it.
Falling Off a Cliff
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You’re telling me, that he fell off that, and lived?! That’s a pretty high fall and some pretty rough rocks. We don’t see him directly after, though I’ll point out that he’s miraculously uninjured during their campfire talk. A fall like that should break a LOT of bones at least. Still, can’t confirm that he couldn’t survive.
Second Hit from Sidhe Staff
He gets hit with the Sidhe staff again when that guy uses the mage stone to reflect it. He’s knocked out for what seems like a lot less time though, and maybe having experienced it before his magic adapted against it.
General Being Thrown Into Things
They really should’ve come up with a clear indicator between when a character gets thrown against something and dies, versus when they get thrown against something and knocked out. The number of people that Merlin, Morgana, and Morgause kill by throwing them into a wall or a rock is a LOT, but Merlin has the same thing happen to him all the time, but he’s fine. This is more of a “he should’ve died” thing than “he could’ve died”.
Alright that’s all I could come up with, but let me know if you think I missed something and I’ll update it.
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thisfanisgonesorry · 8 months
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hi if you're still taking requests, I can't get the idea of arthur somehow being in the epilogue, alive and thriving, working on the ranch with john and his family and just being happy
IM IN LOVE WITH YOU!! omg thanks for the req <3 i hope u enjoy it cutiepie, sorry it took me a lil bit
ending cowrote by @megbimbo loml
tags: yall are in the epilogue, making this an xreader since im basically useless if i dont but its light so dw, canon deviation obviously, high honor arthur. very angsty because my little gremlin brain could not just make him healthy but HE IS HAPPY!! MY BOY IS A HAPPY CAMPER!!; i usually write 1st person but i got possessed so heres a 2nd person fic (never doing this again, sorry if its shit), genderneutral but implied fem reader. milking the cows was the most pleasurable part of the epilogue after the absolute shitshow i had to endure that was chapter 6. arthur milks the cows for that exact reason. some medical terms i know that probably werent viable to use back in the day but idc. some cowboy stuff i learnt as a wee lass when i had a horsey. so many tags ill shut up now. (i got sad at the end of the fic because i realised you cant kiss him. that made me sad.) also water pump distance ref because its.. not as close as i thought it was.
You and Abigail tended the house while Arthur and John were outside, doing god knows what, their manly chores. Jack and Uncle had a day trip to Blackwater, running errands and such, getting groceries, the works. Jack needed to get out of the house and Uncle needed to get out of doing work.
“I’ve got this.” Abigail spoke, taking the plate from your hands. A brisk nod and you wandered off outside to check on the boys, mostly worried for Arthurs wellbeing, as you tended to be. As the years dragged on, the remaining gang had been accustomed to not treat Arthur like he was fragile, which often than not, resulted in him being injured or overworked in some capacity or another.
You knew well enough that John would take care of Arthur and not work him to exhaustion, especially in this blazing heat, but nursing him back to health after things went south all that time ago wasn’t an easy job, and when they were building the house, he had a pretty bad flare up. 
There was a slight sound of wheezing coming from the distance, your ears perked slightly, rushing down the main steps and looking around. You could vaguely see them over by the water pump in the distance.
Arthur was sitting on the ground, John hovering over him, rubbing his back slowly as Arthur coughed and spluttered. You rushed over to them, evidently worried.
“What happened?”
John looked over to you, softly speaking. “He pushed himself too hard.”
“Yeah.” He spluttered. “I’ll be fine.”
You kneeled beside Arthur, rubbing his back as John pulled away to fill the bucket with water to continue their water run, also so Arthur could take a handful and drink some, hopefully hydrating his throat enough to stop him from tearing his oesophagus. 
Water Runs; They were dreaded, the water buckets would get heavy, and in heat like this, you’d need to do the runs multiple times a day to keep the animals hydrated. It got worse if the water troughs were under direct sunlight, the amount depended on the day, the weather and the animals, but the horses needed the extra water this summer, as did the sheep and the cows. All around, it was an awful chore.
Arthur, being the horse lover he is, would be quite adamant in keeping the horses up during the heat, making sure they’re okay. Though, because of the humid air, it was causing his illness to worsen. He slurped up a handful of water, and his coughing let up slightly.
“You need to rest.” You spoke firmly, as John picked up the bucket and walked it over to the remaining troughs, walking over into the sheep pen so he could keep a keen eye on Arthur momentarily. 
“I know, I know.” He groaned. “John and I have a lot of things to do.”
“This is John’s ranch, not yours. Sit down for a bit.”
“But the horses—”
“But nothing. You can care for them later this evening.”
Your voice hung in the air sternly and he pouted like a child, he needed to sit down and rest, to be removed from the hot and muggy air. Once the blazing sun begins to set and the air begins to cool, he would be allowed to go back to his duties. 
John waddled back over with the bucket, filling it up but lingering before he delivered it to the other animals. “Don’t worry, Arthur. I can do this on my own.”
“I want to help.” He spoke sternly, trying to stand up but weakly clutching his chest as he required the aid of you and John to get to his feet.
“How many other chores have you got today?”
John took the conversation away from Arthur, now more than just on board with the concept of letting him sit down and rest for a while. “Just the water, feeding, and milking the cows.”
“I can milk the cows.” Arthur objected.
You sighed, looking over at him, knowing he would rather keel over than be useless. He was a helper; for as long as he’s been known by any of the people on this ranch, he’s always been willing to help people. His need to work died down drastically since he’d been adopted to live on the ranch, but that didn’t mean the lack of drive didn’t eat away at him.
John raised his hands in a defeated shrug. “Let him milk the cows.”
“Fine, but I’m keeping a close eye on him.”
“That’s probably for the best.” John shrugged, with his shoulders this time, grunting as he picked up the bucket, continuing the water run. 
Arthur had a horrendous side eye on him, though he restrained the urge to say something snarky, “I can do this on my own.” He spoke instead, as he began to stride his way to the barn. 
“I know.” You responded, following behind him. 
He seemed upset at the sudden switch of attitude, even after all this time, he wasn’t used to people treating him like he was sick. For the most part, people didn’t, but, for equal parts, he didn’t often tell people that he was sick, instead playing to be super cautious whenever around anyone new.
He took a seat on the stool beside the cow and you stood behind him, leaning against the pillar.
“I’m fine.” He reassured as he slowly milked the cow, the metal panging sound of the bucket being hit with liquid filled the barns silence.
“I know.” You repeated quietly, not really paying attention to the words leaving your mouth. “Jus’ making sure you’re okay, we’re bein’ careful, ‘s all.”
“I don’t need it.”
“I know you want to act like you’re okay, but you’re not. You’ve had a few close calls. We’re just trying to keep you...” You trailed off, not wanting to say the blunt words that weighed heavy. We’re trying to keep you alive.
He stayed silent as John slowly opened the barn doors, entering almost silently and taking the milk pail as it filled to the top.
“I’ll deal with this.”  He said briefly, leaving us quietly to continue our discussion.
Arthur stayed painfully silent as your words lingered heavily in the air, John was quick to disappear into his jobs, and Arthur stayed on the stool, petting the cow softly.
“I get it.” He spoke after a long pause of silence. “I’m sorry, I just...” He rotated his hands in a motion to gesture the continuation of his sentence, not really wanting to finish it himself.
“Just come inside for a bit.” 
He sighed in defeat, standing up from the cow and patting her softly as he removed himself from her side. He really suited this life, and it’s a darn shame that he can’t do too much with it. 
He walked inside slowly, dragging his feet. 
“Don’t get sulky.”
Uncle and Jack returned from Blackwater, pulling up in the wagon. Abigail had left the house to greet them and assist them while John did god-knows-what, something or other to do with the milk. 
Jack and Uncle were having a conversation, or maybe an argument, about something in Blackwater, and they were asking Abigail her opinion as they unpacked the back of the wagon. 
Arthur didn’t necessarily expect anyone to understand the struggles he had to deal with, he was dealt a poor hand, and partially, it was his fault. His days were numbered, and despite the unconditional love and support that everyone offered him, it only did so much into elongating that timer. It was a silent rule that we all knew it’d happen, and once it did, we’d most likely all point fingers on who’s to blame.
“Arthur.” Jack called out, grabbing his attention from his dreary thoughts and tossing him a fresh notebook. It lifted his spirits almost immediately. “I noticed your old one was getting full.” He responded plainly.
“Thanks, kid.” He smiled, still very clearly unwell and needing to rest but his mood had been lifted slightly. He walked through the front door quickly, wanting to get through before they’d be rushing things to and from inside the house. 
He walked over to the fridge and pulled out a cold glass bottle of water, looking over at you begrudgingly as he sat down on the dining room table and flipped through the soft new pages of the notebook.
“Any idea what you’ll do with it yet?”
He shook his head plainly. “No, I might draw some of the horses. Been a while since I drew Boadicea, or Rachel.” He shrugged. “Could draw Neil if he’d stand still.”
“That’s good.”
“Might go up to Owanjila at some point.”
“You could make a day of it.”
“Yeah, I could.”
You let out an exasperated sigh. “Can you stop doing that?” You cursed at him, agitated by how he was acting. “Don’t get upset at me over this.”
“I was fine.” He gritted his teeth.
“You were on the ground struggling to breathe.” You bit back, emphasising every word. He didn’t respond, just glancing away from you. He knew you were right, but didn’t want to admit it since it was inherently showing more weakness. “You...” You trailed off briefly.
“Sorry.” He mumbled, interjecting the conversation. “Jus’.. Don’t wanna be useless.”
“You’re not useless, you’re sick.”
“I know but—”
“Don’t you even try to compare yourself to Uncle.” Arthur stayed silent as you hit the nail on the head. “You did enough work today. Relax. Draw, journal, something. You have a few hours until the sun sets.”
“Fine.”
“I’ll make a deal with you.”
“What?” He was beginning to come across as overly defensive, though softened into a defeated sigh as you tried to compromise.
“Abigail gets angry at me, she don’t like how I do the dishes or clean clothes.” I rolled my eyes. “I’ll pro’lly try to help with the yard work. You can do more with less hassle.”
“I guess.” He shrugged.
“Weather forecasts think that it might rain sometime this week, means less work here, we can go to Owanjila.” He wasn’t too keen on it being babysat but he accepted it nonetheless.
“That’d be kinda nice...” He trailed off.
“We can do some fishin’ so they don’t think we’re bein lazy.” It was clear who the ‘they’ was in that sentence, which made him laugh in a silent exhale. “You can draw some of the scenery, set up a mini camp and just.. Have a day off. Hows that?”
“But—”
“Stop. You need to stop.”
“I’m bored!” He said, clearly agitated and exhausted. “I need something to do, ‘nd everyone jus’ wants me to rest but I gotta do somethin’ or I feel like shit.”
“I just suggested something.” I said sternly.
He looks around the dining area, chewing the inside of his cheek as he considers the idea. He sucked on his teeth slightly.
“Tch... Fine.” He admitted, like a defeated child.
There’s a long moment of silence, and you reach across the table to hold his hand. He continues to avoid eye contact, and his hand doesn’t hold yours back. 
Arthur’s voice is barely above a mumble; so sulky for a man so strong, or so he claims to be. Your eyes flickered between his gaze and him, waiting for him to speak. Arthur, desperate to look literally anywhere else, found himself staring at John’s taxidermied squirrel. If you didn’t know any better, one would probably assume he’s admiring the finest piece of art the 1900s has to offer. He seems to linger on the concept for a while, which worries you. You can’t help but wonder what’s going on in that mind of his.
The silence blares in your ears for a bit too long. Clearing his throat, Arthur looked you in the eyes.
“We’ll see how things go.”
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sasukesgucciflops · 7 months
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Here I am back on my John Marston BS.
I pointed this out before ab how ppl loved calling John “watered down” but I’m also seeing people forget that he was also put on a very high fucking pedestal and had no idea how to handle it. In other words; he was the gifted kid who got burnt out after everyone expected everything from him. John never expected to be seen as such. He actually preferred to not be held to such a degree. I’m sick and tired of people feeding into the “John’s a golden boy” “John’s a piece of shit” narrative. Clearly these people have only seen RDR2 and have no clue about everything in RDR1 and yes I’m giving an attitude so y’all better catch it.
Here’s my John Marston character analysis and this is only about one aspect of him. (Wait until you see every other aspect bc I’ve literally dissected this man like a frog oops)
He never fucking asked for it. In fact, he didn’t expect jack shit from anybody. If anything, people used him. People used him up. You see it plainly in rdr1, he’s being used to hunt down his old partners. To find his old partners he’s gotta ask the sheriff, what does the sheriff do? He uses him to handle some lowlife gangs around the county. The sheriff ACCIDENTALLY—not even voluntarily—reveals someone that ends up somewhat helping him out. West Dickens—and what does he do? Uses him. Seth? Uses him. Travels over to another country, what do they do? USE HIM!
Okay, so rdr2—if you couldn’t get the picture already—John was one of Dutch’s MAIN PAWNS. That man raised John to USE HIM. John was young and had lots of energy and he was gullible enough to let Dutch do whatever with his naivety. The most fucked up thing about all of it, not only about how (almost) everyone saw him as a pawn, not as a genuine friend, saw him only for his uses;
John didn’t care. He knew he was being used but he didn’t care. Yes it bothers him and again he’s fully aware he’s being ran around in circles by all these people; it doesn’t matter. He sees himself as someone who is replaceable. He’s expendable. It’s whatever. He was always made to think this and perhaps he knew that it was his fate to be all used up and thrown out like it was nothing. And that’s what ended up happening.
No, he wasn’t a perfect father. He SHOULDVE done much much better about that. Just for that I let anti’s breathe a little because in Jack’s younger years, hell no John wasn’t a good father! John was in denial, busy trying to live up to his dreams of being someone he isn’t. On that note, John slowly realized that Abigail and Jack were probably the only ones that didn’t see him as a pawn; they just wanted him to be present and that causes him to do a 180. To him, it was worth dying for them. Maybe he felt as if he owed them a debt that could never be repayed—it’s almost like he expresses this to Jack a dozen different times. “I’m sorry, Son. I’m not going anywhere.” And “I know I wasn’t around a lot for you but I’m trying to make up for that”. He becomes viscerally aware of the damage of his absence (as he should) and it becomes something he fears he’ll never get to make up for.
Abigail never wanted to use him. She just wanted HIM. Jack—OF COURSE never wanted to use him, he wanted a FATHER. Honorable mention, but Arthur never saw him as a pawn either. In fact, he was well aware of how John was being treated, even mentioning it to him canonically, along the lines of, and I’m loosely quoting this, “At first you’ll be a prize pony until you become a work horse”. These people become so important to John—among others such as Bonnie, Charles, Sadie, even Uncle—because they never tried to use. him. John was more than expendable to them, he was worth something to them and for that he loved them and felt as if he would owe them for eternity.
I truly can’t believe some of y’all completely miss that whole point because it’s written EVERYWHERE it’s literally how John’s story goes and we experience it with him. His story is so fucking tragic and yes, while Arthur was the prime example of “having a doomed narrative from the start”, people don’t talk about how John is literally in the same boat. That man was always doomed, by his friends, the people he would try to call family—he was raised all the way up just to be put down…. THAT’S the story of John fucking Marston.
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dalekofchaos · 5 months
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If Arthur Morgan never got Tuberculosis
Hypothetically speaking. Arthur doesn't get TB. This is how I see the story going.
Short version.
After the countless unhinged murders throughout chapters 4-6, Arthur sees that Dutch has lost his mind and that everything that he believed in was a lie and that Dutch is not the man who he thought he was and Micah is just poisoning his mind. High Honor. Arthur leaves a brutally beaten Micah to the point of death and as he leaves Micah makes one last attempt to kill him, Arthur gets out of the way and Micah falls to his death. Arthur leaves to find Mary. Arthur and Mary build a farm for themselves and a family and get the life Arthur always wanted with Mary.
Low Honor. Arthur brutally murders Micah and just leaves Dutch looking at him with nothing but shame "We gave you all we had and you let him damn us all. Arthur takes the money, splits it with John and goes their separate ways. John lives in Beecher's hope and Arthur becomes a bounty hunter. Eventually Arthur is found by Ross and is given the offer he gave John in canon. Kill Bill, Javier and Dutch. And after he kills Dutch, Ross forces him to tell him where Marston is. Arthur would rather die than give John and his family up, so Ross kills him.
Long version.
Thomas Downs refuses to take Strauss's loan so Arthur doesn't risk getting TB in the first place and absolves the loan because he remembers Dutch's old philosophy. "Kill folks who need killing and save folk who need saving." Arthur absolves the debt and the Downes family lives in peace.
Skip to Chapter 6 and Dutch still makes Micah second in command due to Micah never doubting Dutch and seemingly always allying himself with Dutch. This said, Dutch listens to Arthur more often than in canon RDR2. Dutch leaves Arthur to die at the oil fields and Arthur more furious than in canon RDR2. Otherwise, Arthur and Eagle Flies manage to escape alive after Eagle Flies kills Colonel Favours. Arthur shares his experiences with the other gang members which sparks doubts in the ears of Javier and Bill.
The robbery on the patrol train still occurs and Abigail gets kidnapped. Arthur and Sadie go into Van Horn to save Abigail with both of them storming in the town. When Sadie heads in the fence, Milton holds Sadie with a gun to the head and demands Arthur turns himself or Sadie will die. Arthur kills Milton and cuts Abigail free and finds a letter indicating Micah had been sharing information on the gang. Arthur is still furious with Dutch and Micah so he tells Sadie to get Abigail to Jack and Tilly. Arthur heads back and shares the letter to Dutch. This makes Dutch confused but still deciding to side with Micah after John reveals to be alive. The gang is torn apart between Arthur, John and Javier since Javier has witnessed John being left for dead and hearing about Arthur's experience at the oil fields. They are disrupted by the Pinkertons and Arthur, John and Javier run off. Javier suggests they go back to get the money, John has a family so Arthur has to choose to go after the money with Javier or help John escape.
If Arthur decides to go with Javier, Micah will shoot Javier with his last bullet and Arthur and Micah will fight. Arthur would fatally stab Micah and Dutch would walk away like in the canon. Arthur would live as a bounty hunter. Until one day Ross and Fordham come a knocking. Offers him the offer he made John. Kill Bill and Dutch and he can be a free man. Arthur kills Bill at Fort Mercer because he doesn't have Javier to run to. "You were always a weak minded fool." Arthur kills Dutch. He looks at him with disgust. "Hello Arthur, my son." "Oh, I'm your son, am I? That didn't mean a damned thing to you all those years ago when you chose the rat over me." "I....I did no such thing, you and John BETRAYED ME and now you're working for them." "It's either work with them to kill you or I die" and look at you, using another tribe of Indians like you used Eagle Flies. You're pathetic." "If it's all the same to you,I'd rather kill you Dutch." During the shootout on the mountains, Arthur is mocking him for allowing the once great man to be reduced to his shell of his former self. Dutch telling Arthur he should have left him on the streets to die. Arthur mocking his lack of plan and just telling Dutch to "have some goddamn faith" When he has him on the cliff of Coachinay, Arthur just mocks him. "The great Dutch van der Linde, the man with a plan!" For the first time in his life, Dutch shows an ounce of humility and takes responsibility. "Arthur, I let him damn us all. If I had just listened to you, Hosea and John, we would've made it." "If I had just let him hang, we would be in Tahiti" At the end of the mountain, Arthur and Ross are by Dutch's corpse. Arthur demanding to know if he's finally free. Ross tells him one more mission. Kill John Marston and before Ross can say anything more, Arthur grabs Dutch's gun and kills Ross. Fordham sees what transpires and mocks Ross "Oh trust me, it'll look better in the report" Fordham telling Arthur what makes him think they won't kill him. "You know why? I know too much. See, I know why you used me. Your governor Nate Johns election is coming up and he needed you and you needed me to clean up the state. Lets just say I told some folk and if word gets out I'm dead, then mr Johns won't get reelected. You leave me and John Marston alone and no one talks. And just like that, Arthur and John live.
If Arthur chooses to help John, Javier will go after the money and escape while Arthur and John will try to escape. Arthur notices that they are outnumbered so Arthur sacrifices himself to get John to Abigail. Micah runs after Arthur but Arthur tosses him down the edge. Arthur beats the shit out of Micah and kills him. Dutch would return to see Micah's body laying there. Arthur returns to Mary and they live their life in peace.
Arthur would return to Mary with a bunch of money and eight years later, John, Arthur, Charles and Uncle will help build Beecher's Hope. After John and Abigail's wedding, Arthur, John, Sadie and Charles parts ways, and with no Micah leading Ross to Beecher's Hope, neither John nor Arthur are forced to become Ross' puppets and they live their lives in peace.
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lazulifoster · 10 months
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Random Red Dead Redemption 2 Headcanons
My friend and I have been talking about RDR2 quite a bit, so I had no choice but to get to writing again, and it feels amazing! Starting off easy, but I hope to keep going from here. Thanks Arely for the inspiration!
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Arthur’s favorites in the camp are Tilly and Lenny. He also has a soft spot for Grimshaw.
Arthur had a crush on Grimshaw when he first met her. She was a pretty, older woman, and he definitely got shy around her as a young man. She saw him as a little punk (affectionately) that she kept a special eye on.
Arthur is Grimshaw's favorite.
Arthur is Hosea’s favorite—John used to be Dutch’s favorite before he left for a year.
Arthur is an anxious-avoidant attachment. He doesn’t want to fall for someone, but my goodness, if he does, you'll own real estate in that man’s heart forever (cough cough, Mary)
Arthur: “No one [woman] will have me.” BECAUSE YOU’RE TOO ANXIOUS AND RUN AWAY FROM YOUR FEELINGS, Cowpoke.
High honor Arthur has nightmares of shit he’s done. Especially the loan shark stuff. This is why I think deep down he envies Micah’s ability to not give a fuck at all. Because the guilt of all the bad things he’s done consumes Arthur, I'd imagine that “free” feeling must be nice.
Arthur hates Strauss. Not as outwardly as his disdain for Micah, but he does. At the very least, Arthur doesn’t respect Strauss in the slightest. He also hates himself for aiding Strauss in his loan shark endeavors.
Javier keeps up with his appearance but underestimates his attractiveness.
Mary Beth has had a crush on everyone in camp at least once (except Micah), or she’s romanticized at least one quality about every man in camp (again, except Micah.) But she romanticizes Arthur and Dutch the most.
(1) Because Arthur is, well, Arthur, and who amongst us hasn't romanticized this handsome boi.
(2) and Dutch, because he’s been paying extra attention to her lately; he reads and appreciates that she does too; and she looks up to him.
Karen is the best to gossip with in the camp; you know the tea is piping hot when she’s around.
Tilly is universally loved by the camp (Maybe apart from Bill and Micah), but even Grimshaw (who is really hard on her) puts up a big fight to save her. She’s well-loved by the camp.
Trelawny is married but still flirts with the girls at camp and has other dalliances. His wife suspects this but doesn’t mind as much as you’d expect.
Charles is also very romantic with his partners, and I mean THE MOST romantic out of everyone in the VDL gang.
Sadie is a one-and-done woman. Her husband was the love of her life. I don’t even think she hooked up with anyone after he died. Jake was her one and only.
Kieran smells bad. That is not my opinion; it’s canon. Drunk Arthur even tells him to wash.
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wintersongstress · 8 months
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A Dream’s Winding Way
Part II — The Weaver and the Loom
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Pairing: Arthur Morgan (high honor) x Female Reader
Summary: For as long as you could remember, you dreamt of falling in a love so whole and pure it was worth enduring the many griefs in your life. But the world, cold and cruel as it was, robbed that dream from you, and you believed you would forever be broken until you met a man who was scarred in his own way.  
Word Count: 10.8k
Warnings: sexual assault trauma responses, murder, canon-typical violence. 
A/N: Arthur will make his appearance at the end here ♥ thank you THANK YOU @the-halo-of-my-memory​​ for beta-ing 💞 
Part I | ao3 link
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                              ~ II — The Weaver and the Loom ~
Snick. 
The bolts inside the cabinet lock slid free. Between your finger and your thumb, the tarnished key in your grasp opened a long-latched door, a swoosh releasing dormant air. Inside the stale cell, relics of the past awaited, felty with dust. A chatelaine belt rested on the shelf, ornate with filigree, alongside a satin pouch, a crystal hat pin, silver spurs with brass rowels, and a wedding bouquet, its once-white roses shriveled and decaying. You paused once, running your fingers over the cool rivets of a sapphire brooch, and overlooked it all, instead retrieving a new vase for the kitchen table—one that would not shatter into pieces when it fell—and a tattered recipe book. 
With the book settled in your lap you opened it with a crack. Antique, creamy pages inked with words fluttered past your fingers, food stains mottling the margins alongside cursive pencil scrawls. A flattened sprig of poppy bookmarked the page for an oatmeal pie recipe. You tucked it back in for time to keep safe. A few gentle turns later you found what you were looking for and rose from the floor of your grandmother’s room, relocking the cabinet, and shutting the door behind you. You donned an apron and began your work.
The rugs, the curtains, all were taken down and rolled up, flapped outside, and beaten with the handle of your broom. You swept the floors of broken vase shards and stray leaves, replenished the oil in the lamps, trimmed the candle wicks, tossed out last night’s dinner, laid a new tablecloth, filled the silver ewer from your grandmother’s cabinet with water and fresh flowers, and scraped the ashes out from the fireplace. Wood clopped as you piled it up in a canvas carrier outside and lugged it in. Soap suds splashed your wrists as you scrubbed the dishes spotless. All the while the clock ticked on, from hour to hour, the day waning, until you could no longer prolong the inevitable, and commenced your grisly task. 
You propped your family recipe book open on the counter and fetched a large stew pot from the wall rack. The cutting board hosted the full spectrum of ingredients you needed, so you set the pot over the stove flame and warmed a dollop of butter and olive oil. The yellow onions you chopped sizzled as you added them in, and, using a knife, you deployed your special ingredient from the cutting board. A few dashes of salt and pepper joined the mixture next, and once the onions popped their flavor, caramelizing, teaspoons of dried sage and thyme hand-picked from your garden snowed from your hand with clumps of chopped garlic. 
Stirring, mixing, curdling, after a few minutes a pour of red wine and a splash of vinegar came next, making the soup bubble fragrantly. You scraped the copper bottom with a wooden spoon, stirring the browning bits of onion and garlic around, and drowned it all in three cans of beef broth from the general store. Two bay leaves fluttered in last before you covered the pot with a lid to let it simmer. 
The Sheriff would have a fine last meal. 
When the first three stars appeared in the evening sky, your cottage was aglow with soft light and welcoming with the scent of a rich dinner. Fine dishes and silverware sparkled on your table with a basket of bread in the center beside a lit candelabra. A fire warmed the hearth, and the alluring shimmer of dusk slipped in through the clean curtains. All was set. You sat in your armchair and waited, staring at the flames. 
Hoof beats. Sweat chilled your palms as the sound drew nearer and you stood to peer out the window. The dot of a lantern bloomed in the distance. You tucked your shirt into your belt and clutched your shawl tighter, holding your heart to tame its wild beating, fingertips bumping the band of your mother’s ring, still hanging around your neck from a chain. The most important thing for you to do was breathe, slow and even, so your blood could thrum throughout your body as it was supposed to and give you strength. It flowed into your heart and you closed your eyes. 
“Ease up,” a voice called. His voice. 
A horse nickered, blowing out its nostrils. Leather creaked as he dismounted from his saddle and the bit tinkled as he hitched the reins, whistling. You could imagine it all, him fixing and grooming himself as he walked up, expecting a girl who would be so happy to see him and enamored with him that she made her home all nice to welcome him after a noble day of hunting outlaws. 
The jingle of his spur was as foreboding as a snake’s rattle as it marched up the flagstone path. You positioned yourself in front of the stove, bending over the pot with a spoon and stirring the flavorful broth, a smile schooled on your face. 
“Honey pie, you home? It’s me.” 
The picture of a perfect wife, you thought, standing in your inviting home in a cooking apron. He would only see what he wanted, blind to you being capable of anything else. 
“Door’s open!” You chimed, and the doorknob turned. 
Some change at once went through the room. In a heavy, dominant rush it all came back, like the strong winds the night before that rattled the window panes and made the trees plunge and bow. You spent all day distracting yourself from the flashbacks of his lurid words, the fondlings, and the sound of his labored breaths. Anguish seized your throat at the footfalls entering your home once again and the pillar of strength you constructed within, had leaned upon, began to crumble. 
You had a hangnail on your thumb. You discovered this while squeezing your fist tight, tethering yourself to the present. It was a welcome, soft twinge of pain for you to focus on and you picked at it, fixing your eyes on the window. The candle before it illuminated the glass, and you watched the sapphire heart of the flame waver, heard the little hiss of it, and glanced beyond. A sky wistful with waning blue, a sunset throwing gold on all that was green, a hush of wind passing through the leaves, and your reflection blending in between. To take it all in brought you forward in time, to a crackling fire and a bubbling soup, and a purpose hanging over your heart. 
It is not happening again, you reflected. And it will never happen again. 
You were safe, you reminded yourself, safe in the present, grounded, and irrevocably turned to face the man who hurt you in a way no one ever had. You looked at him without seeing him, a dish towel in hand. 
“Come on in, I have some dinner on the stove. It'll be ready in a jiff if you want to hang up your things.” 
“I would be delighted,” was his reply. 
He took off his Stetson, hung it on the hook. The sound of his coat being tugged down his arms and his gun belt unbuckling made your heart beat fast and your fingers curl into your palms again. Shaking, you gripped the edge of the counter. Steam from the bubbling pot kissed your cheeks.  
A chair scraped across the floor. “It smells delicious, sweetness. I’m downright famished.” 
You breathed in and out slowly. He folded his leather gloves beside his table settings and you prepared a dish for him. With a gulp and a clench of resolution, you dipped the ladle deep and unearthed the chunks of vegetables, pouring them artfully into a bowl, spoonful after spoonful.
“Any luck tracking down that gang?” 
He sighed, deep and tired. His elbows knocked on the table as he reached for the loaded bread basket. 
“They slipped through our fingers last night, but we almost had ‘em.” Pulling the loaf apart, he ripped a piece and tucked it into his mouth. 
You rounded the table and laid the baleful meal on his place setting, in a daze as he happily snatched up his spoon. 
“Oh my,” he marveled. The polished silver of the utensil disappeared in the broth and came back up replete with the softened wild bulbs. 
“These onions are quaint,” he commented. 
The lie came to your tongue easily. “They’re called pearl onions. I have them growing in the back.” 
And with a pleased grin, he feasted. You sat across from him with your own bowl, your spoon a special porous one so you could pretend to eat alongside him. He dipped his bread in the soup and drained his glass greedily, refilling it himself from the pitcher you set on the table earlier. Before long he scraped the bottom of the bowl and you replenished it. 
You tried not to pay attention to his sordid aspect. The way he sniffed loudly and chewed openly, the dirtiness of his face from riding, the grease slicking his unwashed hair and the matted tips of his mustache, his eyebrows also unkempt and overgrown. You fixed your eyes to the grain of the wood instead, ate your bread with a slice of cheese and a handful of walnuts, munched on the salad of spring greens you prepared, all the while waiting for time to take its natural course as the toxins of the ostensible pearl onions invaded his system. 
“You’ve been quiet,” he observed. His hunger appeared to sate as he scraped up the last dregs of his supper, affording his utmost attention back to his hostess. “Why won’t you look at me?” 
You lifted your chin from your palm. Something in his expression shifted with awareness. 
“Is this about last night?” he went on. When you remained simmering in your silence, he deflated. “Listen, I–I didn’t mean to get so rough with ya. I was drunk, and I’m sorry.” 
Your insides twisted and flamed, refusing to be quelled. You shot up, turning your back to him and crossing your arms as you faced the window. 
“You’re sorry?” you seethed. A drum pounded in your ears; it was the mad pulse of your heart. Tall in your judicial resolve, you whirled and directed your fury towards him in its full magnitude. “Not a bone in your body is capable of being sorry,” your voice shook, low in its tenor. “You saw an opportunity to take advantage of me and seized it. The way you spoke to me—degraded me—it’s impossible for me to believe you didn’t enjoy every moment of your vulgarity.” Split flew as you scoffed at him. “Regret is not within you. Not when I see now that you planned it. All along.” 
He broke into a laugh of disbelief and leaned back to survey you. The worst kind of smile distorted his face, as if your fit of temper delighted him. 
“Yer actin’ like you didn’t want it. Like your cunny wasn’t drippin’ wet for me–” you lunged forward, vision red and nostrils flaring, ready to seize his neck in your hands and crush his windpipe like the frail stalk of a vegetable, but stopped, grasping the back of your chair instead. You despised the idea of having to touch him and were reminded that you would not have to get your hands dirty to kill him. But you were prepared to. How much longer could you stand his gloating and his shameless iniquity? The wood of the chair’s cross rail creaked beneath your unforgiving knuckles. The Sheriff smirked at your little display. 
“I think you’re just ashamed and don’t know how to admit that you liked it,” he argued, pointing his finger at you; then he shook his head. “What nerve you have, bein’ a little cocktease with me. But I didn’t treat you like those whores in town, no, I went out of my way to…to enamor you, bringin’ you flowers while you greeted me in your garden in your lace and your pretty smiles, a pie coolin’ on your windowsill. You know my dear Carolynn never blessed me with a child, and here you were,” he gestured to your frame and the home around you. “Takin’ on the responsibilities of housekeepin’ all by yer lonesome. All you needed was a man to take care of you, and I could be that man. Honey, I want to marry you. I could make you happy! Can’t you picture it?”
Flushed from his diatribe, he pleaded with you, half-rising from his seat until you thrust out a hand in warning. Surprisingly, he heeded your tacit command. Disgust curled your lips into a sneer. 
“Marry you?” you echoed, hollow with disbelief. Your vision blurred and you blinked against the mounting tide of revelation washing over you. His mindset, his reasoning, it was unfathomable, and you struggled to piece together a sentence. “This whole time…that was your object? And you thought that by—by trapping me, and giving me no other choice, that I would accept you?” 
His eyes rolled heavenward and frustration flashed across his oily face. “Lord knows I’ve been patient,” he gnashed his teeth, voice raising a note higher. “I didn’t want any other man to have you. What, you think you’re meant for one of those half-witted grangers in town? They don’t know the first thing about women, let alone how to keep one as pretty, smart, and pure as you. You know it’s downright sinful to keep such gifts to yourself.” 
His words were worse than his touch. You had not one to describe your own sensations; the shock of his inflicted on you completely suspended your power to think and feel. 
“Sinful…” you wandered over his meaning. “You’re a hypocrite.” Releasing the chair, you stepped away a few paces and shook your head, huffing to contain your brimming despisal for this man. You refused to listen to him any more. All throughout the day strands of thought had weaved through your head, firmly knotting into what the shame made you believe about yourself. That you were ruined. That you were worth less. He must have thought he was paying you some kind of compliment, saying what he said. The refutation rose in you to a forbidding height, like the dust before a whirlwind, and your lips parted to release your final judgment of him. 
“You don’t know the first thing about me: about what I want, or what I need. What you did was assume. You assumed I wanted someone to come around and sweep me off my feet, save me from my solitude, and you assumed that I wanted you. A gluttonous, arrogant, entitled pig who can’t take responsibility for his own actions, who would rather blame them on the beast at the bottom of the glass,” you spat with venom. Emotion began to wrack your voice, lifting and dropping it like the swell of a wave, but you plowed forward, pinning him to his seat with the fearsome gleam in your tear-stricken eyes. 
“The worst part about it is you could’ve made your intentions clear! I could’ve been spared from all this pain if you had only the stones to be straightforward. But I guess the prospect of your hurt pride was too much to endure. Deep down, you knew the only way you could have me was unwillingly.” 
Your hand clutched at your breast, wrinkling your shirt and tangling in your necklace chain. You let go and charged forward again, and this time, the chair rail snapped in your hands at your final word. 
“You had no right. You’re the most pathetic excuse of a man I’ve ever seen, and I’ll be glad to see you drop dead.” 
At the crack of wood he sneered. No longer tolerating this speech, he stood, and for a fleeting moment you shrunk back. Until his hand—his fat, pallid hand, still bearing a wedding band—braced itself on the tabletop and he wobbled on his feet. Blood rushed to his face and a delta formed in his forehead as he blinked at the ground, as if his vision was filled with spots while his legs drooped unsteadily beneath him. He clenched his gut and groaned. 
A griefless laugh croaked from you. “You know, they say that wishes and dreams have a winding way of coming true. It looks like you are gonna spend the rest of your life with me, Sheriff.” 
His sight fixed itself on the bowl in your place setting, at the spoon resting in it, and how none of your portion was consumed. He had the look of a man who realized something too late. The vein in his neck fluttered and his breaths sawed in and out of his lungs. Sweat dotted his temples and a thread of saliva spilled from his wobbling lip. 
“Wh–what did you d-do?” He choked out. 
The compass of your soul spun and whirred, before the ruby-tipped point settled decidedly south. 
“What I had to.” 
As his knees gave out beneath him, the Sheriff clutched the table’s edge, and the peaceful, law-abiding chapter of your life ended. The scent of bile fouled the air as he retched and retched, his body rejecting every morsel of the Death Camas he had stomached, and the pallor of his skin colored to that of fish’s belly before the monger’s crude knife carves it open. Not a twinge of sympathy or regret rippled inside as he fell helpless to the floor. Not at his struggle for breath, at his uncontrollable muscle spasms, or the chunks of undigested food dangling from his chin. He would lie there, wheezing and convulsing in a mound of his own vomit, until his heart stopped. You had no desire to watch, and you had no desire to wait any longer for your meteoric flight from this tainted place of grief and despair. 
You unlatched the trunk in your bedroom and sifted through your belongings. Two saddlebags quickly filled. You packed the essentials: bedding and a camp outfit, medicine and provisions, clothing for severe weather, and valuables to fence. Rummaging through the kitchen, yanking open drawers and cabinets, you moved mechanically, occupying your mind with a plan moving forward, all the while a man lay dying on your floor, twitching and choking, sightless and inert. His breath was a mere rattle as you dressed yourself for travel and long riding, laying your necklace with your mother’s ring inside a sack for safe keeping. This was not the time for thoughts and moral ruminations, it was the time for action. 
It would buy you time–and perhaps forego a bounty altogether–if you buried the body. His absence from town would not go unnoticed, but—Oh, yours would not either. Regardless, your next course of action began to formulate itself. You would need a shovel, a rug or a blanket, and a lantern, for the sun had dipped below the horizon and would not light your path. 
As the night closed darkly in, the sunset folded its wings over the rib cages of clouds; the last pulse of color on the shore of the world a glowing, molten shade of marmalade. Insects clacked and clicked in the dusk as you stepped out in your hunting jacket, hoisting your supplies over your shoulder on the dirt path to the stable with a lantern swinging in your free hand. White moths flittered around the light and followed in your grim, resolved wake.
You hung the lamp on a hook behind the creaking door, illuminating the hay-strewn space. Bridles, bits, and martingales populated the wall inside the stable, with rakes and shovels propped up from the ground. An empty wheelbarrow served as a temporary home for your provisions, setting them inside so you could perch yourself on a stool in the corner to strap on your spurs. 
Willa shifted on her hooves to adjust to the weight of the various sacks and pouches you affixed to her saddle, but she complied with a trusting snort. You spoke to her kindly, stroking her forehead, knowing that she was listening in her own way and understood her importance to you. Without her, you would be alone. Without her your future, your freedom, it would all be infeasible. You led Willa out into the night, a shovel tucked under your arm and your lantern restored in hand. 
An owl hooted and a pack of coyotes yipped and yowled, the sound carrying throughout the valley. Willa’s keen ears flicked, along with her long tail, and you gestured for her to wait behind the cottage, hitching her to an oak sapling. You intended to trudge through the muck of the funereal situation as quickly as possible while the night breeze slipped cool fingers through the forest and snuffed out the last tendrils of daylight. You marched back into the firelit house for the last time.  
The stench hit you first. Foul and nose-wrinkling, you tugged your collar up against the smell and regarded the log of the Sheriff’s body, lying rigid. In death, he soiled his pants, as all men do. The body releases everything and the muscles stiffen and lock, blood stagnates in the veins, the skin purples, the tongue lolls out, and the eyes fix wide open to meet the unknown. Nature takes its course. Flies are drawn by some promising whiff of a feast in the air and consume the dead flesh in a quivering swarm of greed. Time passes. Maggots crawl. And bones will be all that remain, until, some day, they are dust for the wind to claim. 
He was the one you rushed to when you found your grandmother cold in her bed. He was the one who arranged for the church to collect and prepare her body for burial beside your parents in the local graveyard. He was one of the persons who offered you words of comfort during the funeral. 
He was the man who hurt you most in the world. 
And he was no more. 
It was a yawning, black moment, the one in which you stood, hesitating on some windy pinnacle, reflecting on not what will be, but what, long since, has been. Your throat choked around nothing. What has become of you? The future stretched out before you gray, interminable, and desolate. Thoughts crowded thick and fast in your mind, and you imagined carrying out the rest of this act—covering his body, dragging it across the floorboards, the weight of it, the slack look on his face, the creases of his fat fingers outstretched from his limp hand, and you knelt to the floor with a gathering horror of your deed, a tremor pulsing in your throat, your heart crumbling to the same ash dropping in the dim fireplace. 
A numbness possessed you to pull up the corners of the rug, to nudge his body to the center of it with your foot, to wrap the carpet around his form and tuck him inside. To do what needed to be done. Your mind turned off. It had to, for it was the only way to endure. There was no choice left for you. But you wished you had listened. To the night, to the change in the wind, for the footsteps of fate and the creeping shadow of the terrible god of chance stepping into your doorway, eclipsing your hope of escape from this dire strait. A darkness was gathering in the hush; the kind something crouches within.  
Fate is a weaver, poised at a loom; the spider over your garden gate. It works silently and unseen, amidst an intricate and silvery web, attaching invisible strands of possibility along a path leading to an inescapable epicenter. Fate, with its nimble clutches, spins and entwines, pulls one thread, wends the other, until the time comes when the unwary traveler reaches a pivot point, the moment when their life goes down one path or another, and the spider strikes the grappling victim caught in its web.  
Back first, you dragged the carpet bearing the Sheriff��s body outside your door. His boots stuck out from the roll, thumping along the ground as you grunted with the effort of transporting him, using the strength behind your legs to shuffle farther along. The light from inside spilled out along the flagstone path, and as you stopped to establish a stronger, more efficient grip, your ears pricked at a pair of unfamiliar spurs clicking and scuffing to a halt behind you. 
A pin-drop silence encased the air. 
Your heart froze. Ice enveloped your ribcage and crystallized the blood inside their elaborate vessels, each breath serrating through your chest like a razor. For a time, only the stars moved with their twinkling. Slowly from the ground, inch by inch, you turned your head and your sight rose to the face of the intruder, the sole witness to your grisly act, and you almost laughed at how twisted fate could be. 
A faltering deputy was fixed in place on the path, taking in the undeniable scene before him. He was no stranger. You recognized him in that slant of dandelion light by the curled tip of his nose, his ruddy cheeks, and the cleft in the middle of his chin. His beard was strong, a shade darker than his hair and not so red as his skin, and he had grown into his jaw, the line of which had become more pronounced and square. He wore wrinkled pants tucked into worn, dusty boots, with his lanky frame swallowed by a long duster, a vest beneath it buttoned all the way, and a gun belt sagging around his hips. Ungloved hands hung at his sides, fingers that long ago squeezed the curves of your budding body dangling emptily. 
Though he scarcely looked it, he was the boy from the orchard with russet hair and dimples all those years ago, whose mother treated you like her own; but he had grown since that uncomplicated beginning. How a broken collarbone led to a friendship, which ripened into an affection and concluded in bitter resentment, was unforeseeable at the time. You never guessed that the two of you would end up like this.    
“Gideon,” you breathed. “What are you doing here?”
The hungry, sweeping motion of his mouth against yours invaded your mind. In the blink of a moment like this, despite the current of the years that swept past and weathered away the discomforting, stony edges of the memory, you could relive the minutest details of your past with him: the sloppy tangle of tongue and teeth and the scratch of an adolescent mustache; the mopey, beseeching expression on his face, begging for more of you. A chill crept across your skin at the remembrance of his neediness and desperation, making it hard to look at him, shame rooted so deeply in you. 
He uttered your name in the same stunned tone, his mouth agape until he swallowed his alarm. “It’s been a long time,” he said, and his eyes, murky, silver, and cold—like a pond in winter—cut to the sagging roll of carpet in your arms. An unmistakable pair of boots stuck out. “And I see much has changed.” 
None of your muscles moved—but the weight of the deceased tired your arms and you ached to rest them. You slowly lowered the rug to the ground, your eyes never leaving one another’s.  
“This isn’t what you think it is.” 
A disbelieving scoff left him. “What I think it is,” he echoed. “I’m thinking that better not be who I think it is. I’m thinking ‘she went from breaking men’s hearts to stopping them altogether’,” his long legs carried him forward and your spine stiffened. His face came into the light. You shrank back. “Something tells me you don’t have one of Dutch Van der Linde’s boys wrapped up in there. See, I knew the Sheriff would be here tonight, and that’s his horse hitched there,” he jerked his thumb in the direction of the animal. “You have five seconds to produce the man I’m looking for alive and well or I’m taking you in.” 
You wished to heaven you could think of a way out of this. What vestige of freedom you could still secure was within your grasp and it made your teeth grit that the bitter waters of life would surge high once again at this crucial hour. It figured; the final wave for you to overcome came in the form of Gideon Taylor, the pouty boy who you had no remorse for jilting. Your fists clenched beside you and you lifted your head, standing tall, measuring and meeting the danger of his presence. 
Holding his stare unblinkingly, you pitched your voice low, words growing frost. “You should leave.” 
Though he had a gun and lasso on his hip and an inflated sense of superiority to empower him, Gideon hesitated. 
“I will, once you tell me where the Sheriff is.” 
His spurs jangled. He spoke to you cautiously, as if you were a skittish animal about to bolt for an impenetrable thicket, the flit of his eyes gauging your every move, and his hand rose out to you while he subtly reached beside him. 
Before you a narrow avenue of escape flickered, shrinking smaller and smaller like the last sliver of the moon in the dark of an eclipse. 
When lightning flashes, the precise amount of moments that pass between the initial burst of light and the thunder that follows measures the distance between the strike and the listener. A blink, a heartbeat, a slow breath. That was how much time you had to act, before the thunder came and the earth trembled. In that slow, blinking, beating instant, you knew how this would play out. 
When his gun began to clear leather your instincts kicked in, quick as a snap. You leapt backwards into the house, throwing the door shut. Fumbling with the bolt, the rusty metal bar slogged its way through the lock, making you cry out in frustration as you strained to jiggle it forward. The bolt slid home the instant Gideon’s shoulder rammed against the boards. 
Your teeth rattled at the battering of the frame. He charged against it repeatedly and your eyes, in darting about the room, snagged on a buffet table. Praying the old lock would hold, you rushed to push it in front of the door and the furniture groaned as you shoved it in place, only for Gideon’s attempts to break in to cease. 
“So, we’re doing this the hard way?” Gideon yelled through the door. Your heartbeat thumped in your ears and your face grew hot at the rushing of blood. You moved to extinguish all the lamps and candles, flooding the room in darkness and the lacy scent of candle smoke. His voice came again a moment later.
“Shit, what the hell did you do to him?”
The body. Beyond the threshold. He must have peeled back the rug, looked upon the Sheriff’s vacant eyes and felt his clay-cold cheeks. A leaden weight sunk into the pit of your stomach. There was no escaping what you did. But a small chance remained to evade capture. You could sneak through the back window and mount Willa quietly, get a head start before Gideon gave chase. You could lose him in the woods near Lady Face Falls and follow the water north—
A bullet crashed through the window. You dropped to the floor. Moving forward, you crawled towards the bedroom, covering your head with your hands whenever glass shattered and chunks of wood flew. Along the way your foot slipped through a sludge of the Sheriff’s vomit and your knee banged against the wood. You bit your cheek so as not to cry out in disgust and pain and shuffled slimily onward by the heels of your hands.
Gideon fired off six shots in total before you made it safely to the other room. Quietly, tortuously, you unlatched the window and pulled it up by the handles in increments to prevent any sound while outside Gideon cursed to reload his weapon faster. You winced as it gave a squeak, but the noise was muffled by the breaking of a window in the front room. A heavy stone’s thump followed after. 
Gideon called out in the dark. “Are you gonna come willingly or do I have to shoot you? There’s nowhere to go!” 
The night air beckoned. Without another thought you swung a leg over the sill and ducked out, making a break for Willa. Behind the cottage, you slid down a slippery bank of pine needles until you reached your moonlit mare, grasping the smooth horn of the saddle and clambering astride to get a move on.
“Ya!” With a kick to her flank, Willa gave a jolt and a toss of her head before starting forward. Moments. You had bought yourself moments to escape, merely. Snatching up the reins, you seated yourself properly and urged Willa through the grove of trees, hunching low to dodge the lash of branches. 
She moved with a swift determination beneath you. With hooves heavy upon the earth, she sensed your urgency. Twigs snapped and spears of moonlight shot through the pine canopy as you wove through a wide belt of trees, your breath coming hard and fogging in the air. 
The lane of a meadow came into view and you burst through the tree line, into the moon-bright open. Willa vaulted over a fallen log and landed in the muddy grasses, your rear hitting the saddle hard while pellets of ice flecked your cheeks as she scudded over a sheaf of unmelted snow.  
“Go, go, go!” Crying out, you nudged her flank again, and Willa obeyed, breathing hard. The prospect of speed and gaining distance from your pursuer outweighed the risk of exposure, riding in the open like this. Her pace transcended into a gallop. You clung tight, blinking against the cold air as it pricked your eyes. The thunder of her feet matched the beat of your heart and the landscape became a blur of stubby trees and boulders smudging past you. In the wind she made Willa’s mane flowed, and you trusted her completely to deliver you from danger. 
A gun fired off in the distance. You were forced to let up, arming yourself with your father’s hunting rifle, the stock firm against your shoulder as you peered down the sight and readied your aim. A quarter of a mile off a glint of moving light came from a lantern, and it struck your heart with a pang to do it—to fix your sights on the pulse of it and fire with violent intent. The sound split through the valley. The empty cartridge ejected. 
Astride his horse, Gideon shouted as it reared up. Your round pierced the dome of his upheld lantern and sent glass and kerosene raining. In the briefly purchased interval you prompted Willa onwards, back into the ponderosas that environed the open meadow and the darkness their bristling boughs afforded before he and his horse finished screaming. 
The farther into the woods you ventured the thicker the trees crept in, until you were forced to a walk. Into the silence of the night you listened, straining for any sound of pursuit. Nothing, only the cold shadows, dim moonlight, and scaly bark of pines passing by your knees. You propped the rifle against your thigh and loaded another brass round into the breech before hopping down from your mount. If the necessity rose again, it would be easier to aim on solid ground rather than swiveling on horseback. 
Pine cones and fallen twigs scattered at your step, and you took care to prowl lightly through the snowmelt. You held Willa’s bridle in one hand, her bit jingling, and led her until the murmur of flowing water pricked your ears. Miserable cold began to set in. At every rustle and riffle of leaf and breeze your eyes snapped to each corner of the woodland on high alert. More than anything, you wished for the warmth of your hearth—to be nestled in your favorite chair like any other evening spent in the solitude of your home. Not gripping a loaded gun in a dark forest, heart racing for your life. 
But at home, you remembered, lay the body of a dead man. To return to such a place was to hold to your ear a shell from the sea of the past, filling you with the hollow echo of what once was and no longer is. Those chapters from before fluttered away—as the seasons did. 
The soil turned mossy and spongy from the lush influence of the river, with trilliums springing up between tree roots and felled, sun-bleached logs. You let Willa walk on ahead, and the music of the water dampened the far-off sounds. Your breath came out slowly as you surveyed the wooded area behind you. 
How smart had Gideon grown in the past few years? Could he track you, undetected? Was he stalking you through the woods, with the patience and guile of a hunter?  In truth, you had no idea what he was capable of, and it made your fingers twitch towards the trigger. Then again, what were you? 
The treetops stirred. A gale whistled down from the mountains, hauntingly cold, and spliced through your jacket, meanwhile the starlight twinkled on. The moonlight turned the river iridescent. Willa drank her fill of water and you settled back into the saddle to trudge downriver. Gideon would lose the tracks you had no time to cover once he reached the stream, but could easily piece together your route. You stowed your rifle and formed a grip over the reins, knuckles over, and moved to fit your boots into the stirrups to give Willa a kick. 
You wondered how you could not have heard it: the low, whisking sound of a twirling lasso. By the time it dropped around your shoulders, it was too late. With a violent lurch you were dragged backwards from your horse into the numbing, snow-fed water. Hard and unforgiving rocks bashed into the side of your face as you slammed into the streambed, the taste of coins flooding your mouth as your teeth cut through your lip and tongue. You wrestled with the unyielding hold of the rope amidst the water flowing around you, the shock of which soaked ice in your blood instantly. Black flowers blossomed behind your eyes. A hard yank snagged the air from your lungs and pulled you free from the chaos of the current. 
Coughing, spluttering, blinking and gasping, twigs and gravel scraped your palms and before you could brace your hands against the silt someone else’s pinned them together and pushed you on your stomach. 
“You’re not gettin’ away now,'' a voice hissed. You remembered those hands on you years before, stronger since, and contempt flamed up in you, compelling the fight in your limbs to kick and scramble beneath Gideon’s hold. 
“Quit makin’ this harder for me than it already is!” he snapped. With force, he wrapped the rope around your wrists in a tight bind. All that was left to fight him with was your ankles and you thrashed your knees to shake him off, but the solid weight of him prevailed. 
“No,” you groaned, and it took all of your strength to. The rope bound your feet together, and a stupor sludged your limbs from the shock of the cold water. You were flipped onto your back, flinching at a face you were loath to look into. Gideon shook you by the shoulders and your eyes rolled.
“Tell me why! Why did you kill the Sheriff?!” 
The river still roared in your ears. Water dripped down your neck, bunched in your lashes. You thought they might turn into icicles, like the great big ones that hung from the cottage roof in the wintertime. Senses dulled and dazed, you could hardly see from the blur of tears and cold, but you caught the echo of his question, and the vial of indignation within you overflowed past the chatter of your teeth and the shivering of your limbs, unable to contain the seething words any longer. 
“You have no idea–” a cough interrupted your speech. “What kind of man you are defending.” 
Blood from the cut inside your lip spattered onto his face and he only blinked as if it were water. His astonishment was beyond expression. By the moonlight, the dark of his eyes narrowed, and you wormed beneath his glaring sneer. 
“He was a great man. Everyone saw the good he did. But you–” he yanked you up from the rocky bed by the elbow, your head lolling. “You were all he talked about. And I tried to warn him about you! You know what he did? He just laughed at me and said I wasn’t man enough to handle you.”
His statement stunned you into silence. Upright, your senses were slow to sharpen with the fog accumulating in your head. The idea of the Sheriff boasting about you to his fellow men sickened you more than the memory of his touch almost. But you had no time to harbor the thought before Gideon dragged you to his mount like a lamb to slaughter. 
Within the narrow, binding circle in which your ankles could shuffle you were pushed along, stumbling over pinecones and driftwood. You were too cold and cut up by the rocks to fight him, but you dug in your heels as you approached the tan horse’s flank, the gelding’s tail twitching. 
You rolled your shoulder as he shoved you harshly forward by the center of your back and searched for your horse desperately. Willa had taken off during scuffle, trotting down the opposite side of the riverbank. You whistled for her, and her head swung in your direction.
Gideon lost what little patience he had and pulled you up by your underarm. “Do I need to gag you as well?” You braced your arm against his horse’s side to keep your footing. “I think I should, since you’ll be savin’ your confession for the judge.”  
“Gideon, stop. Please,” you wheezed. “There was a wrong done to me.” You hoped the pain in your voice would make him pause and see the misery in your eyes, think about the weight behind your words. Maybe he would remember the girl you used to be, and recognize that she was gone, wondering what took the light from her heart. A minnow of doubt darted across his face and his grip nearly faltered, until the breeze blew cold and snuffed any flame of apprehension sparking inside him.
“And you call what you did makin’ it right? Killing a man is against the law,” he elucidated. His spit sprayed across your cheek and you flinched. “But I’ve heard all that I have an ear for. You’re spendin’ the night in a cell.” 
Gideon crouched and lifted you from around the legs, hefting you onto your stomach over the horse’s rump. Blood rushed to your head as your weight gravitated to your abdomen and your muscles strained to support it. The steed’s legs shifted underneath you and you lifted your head with a painful effort to speak your mind as he rounded the horse. 
“The law doesn’t tell you what’s right and what’s wrong; it only says there’s a price to be paid for certain actions,” you snapped. Disdain pulsed through your veins, your blood humming with contempt. 
“Yeah?” Gideon’s feet slotted into the stirrups and he gave a kick, gripping the reins and flicking them to the right. “And you are gonna pay—with your life. What’s that tell you?” 
You balled your fists and squirmed, the weave of the rope digging into your wrists. Gideon started forward, roughly, back into the darkened forest. Your chin knocked against the horse’s hide and you held your head up again. “Men like the Sheriff bend the law in their favor whenever it suits them to get what they want and never pay that price. The law doesn’t protect those beneath it.” 
“Spoken like a true degenerate.” He tossed you a look over his shoulder and scoffed. “God, if my mother could see you now.” At the memory of Mrs. Taylor and her old warmth towards you, you flamed up again, voice coming out in a growl. 
“Oh, you don’t have room in your head for more than one idea!”
“I know better than to listen to this. I know you. A man’s heart is your joy to play with–” 
“And it’s your joy to play the victim! Even now you can’t fathom why I despised you. You filled me with shame. Men like you and the Sheriff, all you care about is what I can give you. My heart, my feelings, they don’t matter. In the face of your desires they mean nothing. They don’t so much as cross your mind. The Sheriff took advantage of me and he would do it without a second thought over and over again unless I stopped it!”
“Shame?” Gideon turned back to you. The cold pinked the tips of his ear and nose, his knuckles also red from their place on the bridle. He went quiet for a moment before going on, the scenery passing by vaguely in shadows and shafts of moonlight. Your sternum ached at the pressure accrued from resting on it, and every time your head bounced along with the rhythm of the horse you glimpsed your bound feet on the other side. 
He spoke softer this time. “You must not remember how sweet I was on you when we were together. But the way you turned so sour so suddenly, when I could’ve sworn you liked me just as much…it made my head spin more than anythin’. I didn’t know what I did wrong.” 
The confession strummed a somber chord within you, twisting your expression grimly. You stepped out of the present, back into the years, while Gideon emerged from the cover of the woods and picked his way onto a pale ribbon of trail that wriggled ahead like a snake. A sign post at the fork heralded the one mile marker to the main road into town, painted white and chipping.
“We were so young. We were children, Gideon. It wasn’t love.” 
It struck you that, at the age you spoke of, you did not know how to say no—the word not being something girls were taught. What you knew of women’s’ relationships with men was the expected role they fulfilled: giving. Giving affection, pleasure, children, companionship. In theory the rationale was not so terrible. Love was a dream. To be in love was everything. But your tryst with Gideon acquainted you with a breed of men who were used to taking what women were expected to give. Your kiss, your touch, your embrace and your body, these were all special to you; a gift to be bestowed, the chance to do so reveled. Not things you were expected to surrender to the first boy who looked at you lustfully, unconcerned with your true, inner value. You wished you knew that then. 
The train of thought led you, for a glimmer of a second, to believe you could have stopped the worse act inflicted upon you by the hands of the Sheriff. As quick as it came it died. He would have found a way to get what he wanted, regardless of pleas, or strength, or precognition. You were not to blame. Bad people would always exist in the world and take advantage of others, and it was no fault of yours. 
Gideon shook his head, sighed, and muttered to himself. Pivoting, he looked down on you with a pinched mouth, his eyes hidden in the shadow cast by the brim of his hat. “Yeah, well. We still knew what we were doing.” The cutting edge of his words dismissed you and he spurred his horse into a faster trot. 
 I think you’re just ashamed and don’t know how to admit that you liked it. A ghost whispered. The soft choke of his death rattle gripped your memory and you flinched from it.
The hardheaded hold Gideon held on his grievances made your teeth clench. If only the perfect string of words existed to compel him to release them, you would draw the strands from the air, thread them together into a net, and cast their influence over his mind to pluck his heartstrings and make him remember the boy he once was; the one who looked upon you so fondly. But the notion came to a halt at that, for was he ever a boy capable of thinking beyond his own wishes, considering the thoughts of others? 
“You’re so selfish. You’ll never change,” you found yourself saying without thinking. But he did not catch your words, and you spoke up as your despisal surged anew. “Maybe you knew what you were doing when you groped me, and ground yourself against me, and kissed me slovenly, but I didn’t. Because maybe you’ve forgotten, but I just sat there. You only ever cared about making yourself happy.” 
He scoffed. “As much as I know you’d like to think it is, this isn’t about what happened between us. I stopped thinking about you in that way a long time ago, along with asking myself why. What you offered—” Gideon cut a withering look to your frame and grunted. “Wasn’t that special. There’s plenty of other girls out there. I’m just glad I didn’t end up in a goddamn carpet.” 
Further and further away your hope slipped. Your heartbeat pounded in your head, making it throb and ache as you hung over the horse’s side and your feet grew numb. Inevitably, water pricked your eyes. A chill breeze brushed past your nose and snot began to dribble from the end of it while your vision blurred and your voice broke.
“There is no getting through to you, is there?” 
In reply, Gideon only spurred his horse to trudge an incline in the road and leaned back in the saddle, steering away from the deeper patches of snow. A knot formed in your throat as you choked down useless tears. He owed you nothing. His nature was not understanding, or reflective, or critical of himself. It was self-righteous and vindictive. The conviction rested in his eyes as unyielding as the laws of justice. An ounce of sympathy from him was as likely as drawing blood from a stone.
Bitterly, your head fell, and you sucked your quivering, gashed lip. One last time, you tried to implore him. One last time, you sought your freedom, because it was the only thing you had left to lose. 
“You can let me go. I’ll never come back here! Whatever you’re trying to prove, you don’t have to–” 
And he slapped you across the face to shut you up. 
The strike stung like nettles and your ears rang. Shrinking away, your mind blanking with static and noise and blinding white despair, fresh blood spilled from your lips from the slap and your trembling body remembered how cold your dip in the river had been. Worse was the wind, billowing down from across the distant mountain peaks, and the shivers set in deep. The trot of the horse went on, up a hill and off the trail through the terrain once more.
In silence, in anguish, in defeat, you wept. Over the side of a horse, bound, slapped, and subdued, you wept and embraced the taste of salt. For your lost girlhood. For the grandmother who raised you and the mother who did not have the chance. For your life, for the ruination of your dreams, from the unfairness of it all. Was this the harvest of all that had been planted for you? Bone-weary, you slumped against the animal’s hide and let yourself rock with each step. If only sleep could take you. You were ready for all of this to be over, to be a dream you could wake from in a sweat and try your best to forget. Bleeding and shivering, you longingly ached for something to fetch you out of your present existence, and lead you upwards and onwards, but you had no heart left for anything. 
Glancing up at the sky, a bank of clouds enveloped the moon. Over wood, over water, the flood of its silver radiance receded, the ensuing darkness weaving a mystery in every drop of dew and creaking branch. An owl hooted, but its mate did not answer. The stars did not have any either as you searched for them.
The tall trees rustled, violently unsure, and the night breeze carried a sickly sweet scent in its passing, as if stirring something hidden under rotting leaves. As Gideon passed beneath them, the ragged shadows cast from the spruces closed in, and in the gloom an old stone rose from the earth like a grave. It may as well have been your own. Darkened by the color of moss and damp, the granite ledge presided over the forest, sundered by some glacial movement from the mountains eons ago while death and rebirth churned in the woods all around. 
Unable to face what was to come, you turned your head. But in so doing, you caught sight of Willa trailing you from a short distance, the spot of white on her forehead unmistakable, and your tears subsided. Your heart glowed and lifted; a wobbly smile dimpling your cheeks. Graceful and poised, steadfast and resilient, she trotted in the passing shadows like she was of its fabric, her coat the same shifting shades of moonlight while she moved like a river, the sinews of her forearms and chest a changeful, inky black above her socks of white. Her hooves were too soft to hear in the spongy dirt. 
Willa’s softly brown and gleaming eyes held a star in them. Every journey you embarked on, she was beside you. She carried your bushels of burdock root and feverfew and fireweed back to your cottage without complaint, conveying you home through the forests and switchbacks countless times, and in turn you took care of her since the day your grandmother bought her from the livery.
The events which occurred in the past day loosened your foothold on your sense of self. But in that moment, pondering Willa, it came back to you. You remembered who you were, and what you believed you were meant to be. A girl brought up to respect the Earth and revere it, who kept hope in her heart always, and dreamed that she could be loved. With crystalline clarity, your mind broke free from its chains and a wind stirred a flame back to life inside of you.
From a drained well of will, you gathered your strength, braced yourself for another struggle and one last trial of endurance. While you raced to think of a way to cut your binds, Gideon’s head snapped around, and you stopped. His revolver was drawn in a flash and his horse whinnied and raked its hooves. He fixed his eyes on the tree line and you strained for any telltale sound while his gelding started to canter to the side uneasily. Something spooked it.                                
“What is it?” you hissed. He ignored you.
A twig snapped close by. “Who goes there?” he called out. Not far off, a ribbon of campfire smoke wove up into the night air and you squinted at the shadows.
Gideon tugged the reins hard to the left and clicked his spurs, venturing to investigate and evade the open clearing. Your head joggled with the movement and you grunted. A patch of ground ahead, though sideways from your point of view, appeared odd, misshapen, the thick carpet of pine needles too obvious to be natural. But Gideon was not watching his tread and aimed his horse’s walk right over it.
A dire creak made you freeze.
“Look out!”
It was too late.
A shrieking snap, and next, the wind was in your ear as the earth gave out from beneath. With a cry, the horse stumbled and reared and everything went upside down. Your heart seized during a timeless, weightless, airless second as a lattice of concealed logs collapsed beneath the load of Gideon and his horse, and you all fell in an outcry.
The sap and pine scent of fresh wood rushed up your nose as it cracked all around you. Unable to reach out for anything or protect your face, the sharp edges of branches snagged at your clothes and stabbed at your sides, needles scraping and stinging your skin. When the slamming force of the ground ended it all, a spike of wood tore a scream from you as it impaled your thigh.
The tumult fizzled to a static in your ears. You roiled on the dirt floor of the manmade pit, curling into yourself like a pill bug at the hot, pulsing throbs of pain in your leg surrounding the intrusion. You cried out at the unbearable and debilitating burning shooting throughout your body. Throat raw, vision white, breath sawing raggedly, your senses came clear enough for half a moment to observe Gideon, still astride his hysterical animal, gripping the bridle and urging the horse out of the pit. He kicked it harshly to vault over the rim back to solid ground.
He spared you one glance before riding off, and left you.
Tears stung your eyes and you wailed out your pain freely. Scratching at the rope around your wrists was useless, your nails only drew blood. All over, your body ached with bruises and fatigue, and it depleted all of your strength to focus on your breathing alone. Frustration and pain tangled in your chest like a mass of snakes, warring each other, and all you could to do alleviate the pain was roll onto your uninjured side. Your leg gushed like an oil-well.
Once everything started to fade, time ceased mattering, and you slipped in and out of consciousness. You blearily wondered why you were still fighting. A cold sweat chilled your neck and your chest palpitated unbearably.
Sounds from afar, beyond the pit, invaded your ears. There were hoof beats. The shouts of more riders, pursuing Gideon most likely. He would be rounding up what was left of the Sheriff’s posse, going after this gang that has been troubling this valley the past few days. No doubt this pit was dug by them, a trap for someone who got too close to where they were camped out. The whole town would be in a frenzy, meanwhile you...fading, languishing in the dirt…no one would find you in time…
With a quavering sigh, you began to let go. There was only so much your body could take; it would so much easier to sink into this grave than crawl your way out. To breathe became like listening to a lake lap a shore with its waves, growing fainter, quieter, and more still.
The moonlight was serene, and the coolness of this cavity of earth was welcome. Tree roots poked from the stratified layers of dirt, worms and centipedes clinging to the moisture therein. Above, a scuff of needles and a snort announced the presence of your most trusted friend.
Willa whickered, eyes finding your curled form in the pit. She paced around the edges. What remained of your hope ached. Through a glaze of tears you tried to speak, to soothe her, but no sound broke from you other than a whimper. But you were not alone. Never alone…in these woods…these mountains…with these familiar stars above…until unknown, male voices dispelled the cloud hovering over your thoughts.
“I’m telling you, I heard something. Someone in pain.”
Footsteps, a pair of them. You fought to stay awake, aware, but your willpower was slipping like the final sands through the waist of an hourglass.
“It’s probably another one of them law boys,” someone grumbled. “Maybe we caught one.”
“As soon as Dutch gets back we need to skip town without kissin’ the mayor goodbye.”
“You’re telling me. We should’ve left after that business last night.”
A haze began to drift over you again, sweeping you under the blessed numbness unconsciousness promised. Your eyelids were so, so heavy.
Willa nickered, the white of her eyes showing as the pair of men presumably approached her.
“Whoa, easy there.” One of the men regarded her, gently shushing and calming her in a matter of moments. In a way only you could—
“Look.”
“It’s a girl. Tied up like a steer.”
A gun being holstered, a thump of feet, and you were no longer alone. A shadow passed over the moonlight on your face. It was too dark to see, to know if you were about to be saved or damned by whoever was crouching over you. Dimly, you hoped you looked too powerless and broken to be mistreated.
“Pl—please,” your weak words tasted of copper. The apricot glow of a lantern warmed your face, and you looked up into a pair of eyes you trusted instinctively.
“What happened here?” The man who asked you this was older, with graying blond hair swept beside his temples. You had never seen him before. He had deep lines beside his shrewd eyes and his mouth was grim, but a kindness of understanding softened his countenance. It had been such a long time since any sincere compassion had looked at you through eyes other than your grandmother’s.
“Deputy—was bringing me in—left me here—“a spasm of pain interrupted your slurred speech. Wincing, you gestured to your thigh with your chin, seeing the pool of red darkening your pant leg for the first time. “Can’t move.”
The older man’s companion joined him in the light of his lantern. He was younger; tall and well-built, with a gun belt slung across his hips replete with ammunition, the brass of his bullets shining. A satchel hung from his side and he unsheathed a hunting knife attached to his belt. The quick gleam of it filled you with uncertainty.
“Easy, miss,” he raised his hands. “We don’t mean you any harm. I’m just gonna cut you free. Hold still.”
In a few saws of the blade the rope loosened its pitiless hold over your limbs; the relief of clutching your wound with your own hands was enough to make you sob. The men grew quiet, considering your condition. All of the blood was draining from your head, like it was all racing to escape out of your leg. The chunk of wood was buried in it, likely holding back a gushing torrent of crimson like the river miles and hours back. You wanted nothing more than to yank it out. It had not gone all the way through.
“We need to take her to a doctor,” the older man asserted, and his companion made a noise of protest. “I don’t know if Susan and Bessie can patch this up.”
“No—“ you cut him off, as forcefully as you could. “I can’t—I can’t go back there,” your breath began to labor and dizziness crept in as you moved to sit with your back against the packed dirt wall of the pit. “They’re gonna—gonna hang me, for killing that awful man.”
Clutching the wound, the blood oozed out warmly between the webs of your fingers, the dark, iron scent of it pungent in your nostrils. Air hissed out sharply between your teeth.
The two men looked to each other in mute discussion.
It left you in a sad whisper: “You should just leave me here.”
“We’ll help you.”
“We will?”
“Arthur.”
The fading began in earnest. You were incapable of protesting what came next. A pair of hands grasped your elbows, guiding you to your feet, which only stumbled because there was no strength left in your legs. Boneless, a broad chest caught you, your head lolling in the pillow of an arm, your nose grazing the fur of a jacket, and you burrowed into the scent of smoke and forest with a groan.
“We need to get back.” The lantern flame was doused, and the arms surrounding you lifted you in their hold. Your lashes fluttered to catch a glimpse of him, the man who held you, but his hat cast a shadow over his gaze and the night around him was dark with blue.
“You’ll be safe with Arthur, miss,” a voice said, but you were far away, lost to memories and hollow dreams. They dragged you down deep with pictures of bluebells in a water puddle, of lightning flashes through a curtain, of useless wrists beside you.
Your last awareness was of a sky made of woods and branches, with all of its stars perishing.
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sickvictorianangel · 7 months
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This whole “You are a good man, Arthur Morgan” Tiktok videos doesn’t sit well with me.
Now, hear me out. I am not here trying to find a problem with everything, just giving my two cents on the subject. All those videos portray Arthur as a senseless killer, misogynistic and sometimes even racist and borderline abusive. And no! I am not dictating how you should play an open world game. But, the problem with that is when the problematic g@mers decide that this version of a character is canon and go around harassing people who play the game differently or even use that as a way to hide their bigotry.
Playing as High Honor or Low Honor Arthur is a choice the player can make. But remember that Arthur Morgan is not a racist, not a misogynist, not abusive and in general not a bigot at all. And that’s canon. He is an outlaw because society didn’t give him another chance. He is a murderer, not a senseless killer (there’s a huge difference). Low Honor Arthur Morgan means just that he is a cold, guarded man. Not that he is bad and an uncontrollable killer. It means that he didn’t change his ways. Which is, not opening up to others, being confused about who he is in the world and thinking he is just Dutch’s right hand man.
So, remember: You can play the game however you want to play, but your choice on how to play it doesn’t make it canon.
Arthur is a romantic who likes to write, draw pretty flowers and animals, is portrayed to always help others. Also, the name of the game is Red Dead REDEMPTION.
PS: The same applies to John. He is not a senseless bad guy, just immature in the prequel and had to fight his inner demons from a past that didn’t leave him with any other choice but to be an outlaw/ be forced to work for the government. John is a very honorable man who sacrificed everything and himself to those he loved.
(Both are lil babies, so leave my cuties alone)
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brujahinaskirt · 2 years
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Okay but ARTHUR AND THE GIRLS!!!! I fucking love the friend grouping of Arthur & the Girls (Tilly, Mary-Beth, Karen). High or low honor, I always imagine Arthur is socially a part of their mini-group more than any other group of campmates. There's just something so unique and genuine about the way he opens up to them, much more readily than to others at camp, and the ease with which they incorporate him and care for and tease him.
It's set-up so perfectly, but so casually! The girls' contrasting personalities (Mary-Beth and her sweetness; Tilly and her cynicism; Karen and her fun-loving grit) welcome in Arthur's so well!!! His follow-along nature and impish toughness just slots right into their friend group dynamics so perfectly, and you can tell those three are more accustomed to and comfortable around him than others. They are more compassionate and inclusive of him, and not a one of them buys into or is impressed by his tough-guy mode whatsoever.
And how they work together as a team! When they're out on a job together, Arthur's clearly the protector figure but not the leader figure, and all four of them obviously understand this is the best way they function. He has an individual relationship with each of the girls, and rather than disappearing, all of those relationships really shine when they're together as a squad. The lack of canonical romantic tension between any of them really allows the friendships to flourish without a sense of ulterior motive, but without treading into overprotective (and sadly often infantilizing) big brother & little sisters tropes.
And the GROWTH!!! The way Mary-Beth needles him to stop pretending to be so sad and gruff and dance with her, followed by the way Arthur later sees Karen looking bedraggled and lonely and calls her out to dance with him, repaying the way Mary-Beth cheered him up. The way Arthur struggles to express himself to Tilly, whose no-nonsense demeanor drags the expression out of him nonetheless; then the way Arthur rushes in to comfort her when she's in danger, and Tilly suddenly finds herself struggling (like Arthur) to express herself when they say goodbye. The fact he addresses the three of them specifically in his Chapter 6 written wishes, knowing they will be the ones to read his journal, bidding them to take care of each other without him and save Karen from herself.
I LOVE THEM ALL. I love how well they work, I love that he's so strongly and seamlessly written as "one of them," I love that these robber-girls so consciously decided to step in and take a personal sense of friend-ownership over their gang leader's workaholic son, I love that it occurred to the writing team that Arthur would be that dude who is just naturally more at ease hanging out with a group of girl-friends. It's utterly non-forced subversion of gendered expectations. I just love the whole thing.
I can't even call this an essay; it's just a gush. I don't really have a point but ARTHUR & THE GIRLS!!!!
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morning-star-joy · 5 months
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when men like you come around masterlist
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Pairing: Arthur Morgan x OFC!Ethel
Summary: One of the most important lessons Ethel Taylor was taught in life was when you meet a bad man, pull the trigger and run. She's done it before, and she's ready to do it again when she crosses paths with outlaw Arthur Morgan. But something stays her hand, and when she ends up as the newest addition to the Van der Linde gang, they quickly become thorns in each other's sides, up until they're the only two that can pull off a big job posing as a doting, newlywed couple.
Warnings: Canon-typical violence, mentions of a past abusive relationship (emotional & physical abuse), mentions of murder. Rivals to lovers, slow burn, eventual smut, lots of sass from both Arthur & Ethel. High Honor!Arthur with some Medium Honor vibes. Ethel POV written in second person, Arthur POV written in third person.
Chapters:
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
(more chapters TBD)
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“You alright, Miss?” he asked, his voice a rough drawl.
You glanced from him towards the lawman that had been hot on your trail and shooting at you a moment before, now dead weight dragged far away along the dirt by a limp foot still caught in a stirrup, Lord knowing who would find him and what mayhem would follow.
“You just killed a lawman,” you said, looking back towards the man currently not pointing a gun at you, and so for just the moment, you didn’t point yours at him.
His worn hat was perched on his head to protect from the blaring sun, black brim covering his eyes, but you swore that you saw a twitch of his lips before he shifted in his saddle, glancing behind him towards where you had left the other dead body in the dust, before the man turned back and replied matter-of-factly, “So did you.”
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Ethel & Arthur art by my wife @cowboycyns
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musicallisto · 5 months
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and also happy birthday!!!
sending in a 🐚 + i’m bi, I like reading, writing, gaming and yoga, turn ons include pet names and receiving the princess treatment, turns offs include not sticking up for me and being messy
my fandoms from your list are bridgerton and red dead redemption💗💗
thanks so much for running this event it is soooo fun!!!<3
ohhh princess treatment, you say... let me introduce you to the absolute kings of making you feel like you are the very center of the world...
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please... you know it had to be him. not only because I'm a strong supporter of the way you write him and think you are the authority on anything arthur morgan related, but also and most importantly because have you seen the way he tends his horse? how gently he talks to her when he strokes her mane? i'm thinking soooo many thoughts and none of them pure
not only that, but he is generally so caring (especially high honor!arthur, who's my personal canon interpretation of him) with those he loves and even strangers who sense the goodness in him. that energy would definitely translate into any romantic relationship, even though he'll need to get over a lot of self-doubt and self-esteem issues to make it work
in a modern AU you'd get him into yoga for sure. i can only imagine how tired and sore all those muscles are from all the hiking around the woods and fixing up stuff in your farmhouse and cutting up wood and—he needs a break, but not one where he feels too idle and therefore like he's wasting time, and especially not one where he can't be surrounded by nature. which is how you convince him to give yoga a try, on a fine dewy morning in your frontyard
he thinks it's a little stupid at first—"how's all that twistin' and bendin' supposed to make me feel better?"—but you're really persuasive and he doesn't mind the sight of you in your yoga clothes either, to be honest
he'd find it really relaxing and a surprisingly effective way to connect with nature and his surroundings, but he'd still groan a little for good measure because he doesn't want to admit you were right too easily. that, and also the poor man is NOT flexible and he is struggling.
pet names!!!!! so!!!! many!!!! pet names!!!! "darlin'" this and "sweetheart" that. "honey" and "princess" and "GOOD GIRL"?!?!,!?,,?? in that deep, southern voice of his? i need to lie down.
of course he'd stick up for you anytime you need it, and even when you don't. he pledges his loyalty to the people he loves, to the bitter end, so he'll always always defend you, even when you're a little bit wrong, lmao, but that's only because he's a beloved himbo and he thinks you're always right and so smart
also this is a little bonus—I considered mary-beth as well, because i think you too would be so so cute and actual real life ladies together &lt;3
ılı.lıllılı.ıllı.
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now, if princess treatment had a name and a face... it would certainly bear a striking resemblance to that of benedict bridgerton.
the man is literally so smitten with you, there's nothing he wouldn't do to prove the depth of his affections. expect every grand gesture you've read about in the books; bouquets of your favorite flowers and countless portraits and blazing handwritten letters slipped into the secrecy of your gloved hand at balls.
anthony wonders why his younger brother looks so... miles away, like his whole being rather than just his head is in the clouds (more so than usual), and also why the family's expenses have skyrocketed all of a sudden... but violet discourages him from badgering benedict about it, because she's too elated that he's finally found a lady to seriously court, lol
since you're so well-read, and therefore spirited and quick, as well as artistic and creative, your conversations with benedict are as stimulating as they are witty... and that's not mentioning your correspondence. you could send each other letters back and forth every single day, were it not for decorum: it's already quite scandalous that an unwedded lord and lady are writing to each other personally, you're supposed to at least entertain your other suitors into thinking they have the ghost of a chance with you. which they don't, because it's clear as snow no one compares to benedict's bohemian soul.
it's true, however, that benedict can be quite... messy, asjdfjab, and he's thankful that it's him who visits you and not the other way around because he would Not want you to see the mess that is his studio. but you give him an incentive to start tidying up a little more! because you deserve only the best &lt;3
literally prince charming incarnate with the perfect dash of mystery and edginess to keep you on your toes. what else do I need to say
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CANON POLYCULE SHOWDOWN
this is a contest for canonically confirmed polycules or polycules that have a lot of hints to a possibility of them being canon, even if the authors might not have intended that way!
Beware of spoilers!! Some of these only become polycules later in the media they're from, and some of the descriptions describe a tragic fate for the polycule, so keep in mind there will be spoilers
rules can be found here
bracket can be found here
honorable mentions can be found here
links for all the match ups as they go live can be found in the MASTERPOST. it will be updated each round, but i will also tag every round to make them easier to find
help me w descriptions for the honorable mentions!
Round 2 part 2 finished.
Round 3 will go live on May 19th!
(#canonround2 or #pollycule if you want to search for the polls)
tags:
#canonpolyculeshowdown - for relevant updates and the polls
#pollycule - (yes double L) specifically for the showdown polls, to make it easier to find. doesn't include the prelims cause I only thought to add this after, sorry
#canonpropaganda - for, well, propaganda. ill post asks, reblog posts and maybe reblog reblogs
#honorablemention - for the ships that did not make it in (i will still make a post introducing all of them)
#tournamnt poll - the generally agreed on tag for blacklisting purposes. let me know if i forget to use it! i cant edit polls but it will remind me for the following round
#canonroundN - N being the number of the round we're in. so, for example: canonround0, canonround1, canonround2, etc. from the quarterfinals onwards, they'll also include the specific tag (#quarterfinals, etc). Check the post's tags for that ome if you want to look at all polls from that round!
list may be updated as needed.
if you submitted something that did not get in, nor was it posted as an honorable mention, and you wish to know why, feel free to send an ask.
LIST OF CONTESTANTS:
Nathan/Vlad/Ursula (Hunger Pangs)
Rilla/Arum/Damien (Penumbra Podcast)
Nathan/Gabriel/Annalise (The Bastard Son and the Devil Himself)
Ben/Ryn/Maddie (Siren Freeform)
Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot (High Noon Over Camelot)
Quanxi/Pingsti/Cosmo/Long/Tsugihagi (Chainsaw Man)
Wu Zetian/Li Shimin/Gao Yizhi (Iron Widow)
Caleb/Astrid/Eadwulf (Critical Role)
Sadie/Walt/Anubis (The Kane Chronicles)
Rajan/Wolfgang/Kala (Sense8)
Princess Glisselda/Seraphina/Lucien (Seraphina)
Tess/Jacomo/Margarethe (Tess of the Road)
Logan/Jean Grey/Scott/Emma (X-Men)
Uzui/Hinatsuru/Makio/Suma (Demon Slayer)
Megaera/Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades)
Dianda/Simon/Patrick (October Daye)
Haruka/Michiru/Setsuna (Sailor Moon)
Asmodeus Alice/Clara Valac/Iruma Suzuki (Mairimashita, Iruma-kun!)
Aizo/Yujiro/Hiyori (HoneyWorks)
Kyle/Rogelio/Lonnie (She Ra)
Dashawn/Steve/Jose/Cupe R III/Otto/Arturo/Gregory/Quackers McQuack (Bojack Horseman)
Fluorite (Steven Universe)
Miss Piggy/Kermit/Gonzo (Muppets)
Sherlock/Watson/Mary (Sherlock Holmes movies)
Ichika Hoshino/Saki Tenma/Shiho Hinomori/Honami Mochizuki (Project SEKAI)
Tree Trunks/Mr. Pig/Alien Husband (Adventure Time)
Daniel/Sam/Jack/Teal’c (Stargate SG-1)
Mukai Naoya/Saki Saki/Nagisa Minase (Kanojo mo Kanojo/Girlfriend Girlfriend)
Eddie/Venom/Anne/Dan (Venom)
Peter Quill/Aradia/Mors (Guardians of the Galaxy)
George/Gilda/Thomas (Design for Living)
Leif/Thorn/Kale (Leif and Thorn)
Kieran/Ray/Gemma (Trigonometry)
Eugene/Rapunzel/Cassandra (Tangled the Series)
Jack/August/Rina (The Wicker King)
La’gann/Coral/Rodunn (Young Justice)
Syenite/Innon/Alabaster (Broken Earth)
Enrique/Hypnos/Sofia (The Gilded Wolves)
Max/Jack/Anne (Black Sails)
Pyrrha/Commander Wake/Gideon the First (The Locked Tomb)
Neptune/Venus/Jupiter (We Know the Devil)
Quincey/Jack/Arthur/Lucy (Dracula)
Amber/Reese/David (Adaptation)
Will/Tessa/Jem (The Infernal Devices)
Kieran/Cristina/Mark (The Dark Artifices)
Winter/Moon/Qibli (Wings of Fire)
Camille/Nyra/Dendro (Muted)
Sasha/Anne/Marcy (Amphibia)
Neal/Peter/Elizabeth (White Collar)
Turtle Heart/Melena/Frex (Wicked)
Emiya/Saber/Rin (Fate Stay/Night)
Sofiane/Victor/Luisa (Mortel)
Taylor/Theo/Josey (3)
Jack/Emma/Izzy (You Me Her)
Keiko/Miles/Kira (Star Trek)
Jade/Dave/Karkat (Homestuck Epilogues)
Anzu/Kazuki/Junta (Romantic Killers)
Shikimori/Izumi/Ai (Shikimori is Not Just Cute)
Camina/Michio Pa/Josep/Serge/Berthold/Oksana (The Expanse)
Breq/Mercy of Kalr/Seivarden/Ekalu (Imperial Radch)
Roguish Semiotician/Infamous Mathematician/Player Character (Fallen London)
Alphonse/Seth/Listener (Bittersweet)
Storm/Helen/Mira (Love and Luck Podcast)
Nicky/Joe/Andy/Booker/Niles (The Old Guard)
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