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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 5 months

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When The World Is Crashing Down [Chapter 13: Condemned From The Start] [Series Finale]

Series summary: Your family is House Celtigar, one of Rhaenyra’s wealthiest allies. In the aftermath of Rook’s Rest, Aemond unknowingly conscripts you to save his brother’s life. Now you are in the liar of the enemy, but your loyalties are quickly shifting…

Chapter warnings: Language, warfare, violence, serious injury, alcoholism/addiction, references to sexual content (18+), death, angsttttttt, more children than usual, Wolfman!

Series title is a lyrics from: “7 Minutes In Heaven” by Fall Out Boy.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year” by Fall Out Boy.

Word count: 8.1k.

Link to chapter list: HERE.

Taglist (more in comments): @tinykryptonitewerewolf @lauraneedstochill @not-a-glad-gladiator @daenysx @babyblue711 @arcielee @at-a-rax-ia @bhanclegane @jvpit3rs @padfooteyes @marvelescvpe @travelingmypassion @darkenchantress @yeahright0h @poohxlove @trifoliumviridi @bloodyflowerrr @fan-goddess @devynsficrecs @flowerpotmage @thelittleswanao3 @seabasscevans @hiraethrhapsody @libroparaiso @echos-muses @st-eve-barnes @chattylurker @lm-txles @vagharnaur @moonlightfoxx @storiumemporium @insabecs @heliosscribbles @beautifulsweetschaos @namelesslosers @partnerincrime0 @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @yawneneytiri @marbles-posts @imsolence @maidmerrymint @backyardfolklore @nimaharchive @anxiousdaemon @under-the-aspen-tree @amiraisgoingthruit @dd122004dd @randomdragonfires @jetblack4real @joliettes

Thank you so much for reading. I hope you enjoy the finale.🦀💚

In the Eyrie, one of Rhaena Targaryen’s three dragon eggs has hatched at last; the creature is small and pink, and she has named it Morning. When Rhaena’s tears fall onto the scales of her diminutive wings, they glitter like flecks of rose quartz. Deep within the snow-laden labyrinth of the Mountains of the Moon, Nettles is in hiding with Sheepstealer; already the nearby clans are bringing her offerings of meat and treasure, axes and clubs and daggers, hairpins carved from the ribs of enemies and necklaces made of bear teeth. Silverwing is settling into a lair on an island in the Red Lake at the northwestern corner of the Reach. Word of this has travelled back to King’s Landing, and Borros Baratheon implores Aegon II to seize Silverwing for himself; but the king does not want a new dragon. He wants Sunfyre back. That grim truth aside, Aegon is unable to trek across the continent to tame the beast anyway. Some days he cannot even cross a room. At the bottom of the Gods Eye, bodies are dissolving into bones, threads of long white hair breaking loose to flow in the currents like weightless strands of spider webs torn free by cold drafts. And only a few miles from the border of the Crownlands—preparing to cross the icy waters of the Blackwater Rush—the army of Northmen camps under a full moon in a clear, indigo sky heavy with stars like glinting coins.

“There are passageways under King’s Landing,” Clement Celtigar says. He stands by the bonfire with his sword in his hand, his face flame-bright and eager, forever licking up drops of the Kingmaker’s approval, a stray cat lapping milk splashed in an alley. Increasingly, Cregan Stark finds him tiresome. Clement is brash and dramatic, forever swearing vengeance, reveling in his newfound position as the head of his house. The Warden of the North has never had to beg for attention, admiration, acclaim. These things come to him like snow falls to the earth in winter: effortlessly, inevitably. Yet Cregan tries to be patient. Clement is soon to be his brother-in-law, and it is dishonorable to fail to extend courtesy to one’s kin. Furthermore, it seems, Clement has his uses.

“Are there really?”

Clement nods. He wears the banner of his house on a strip of fabric looped around his upper arm: crabs red like blood, a backdrop of white like snow. “That monster’s disciples used them to kidnap my sister from the Red Keep. But she fought hard. When we searched her rooms, all the furniture was upturned and the sheets ripped from her bed.”

“She is brave,” Cregan murmurs in agreement, though he is distracted now. The air tastes like smoke and ice, the wind rubs raw spots into the soldiers’ faces. They are arriving just in time. The depths of winter is no time to wage war. Cregan Stark imagines how you will greet him when he liberates you: a desperate embrace, hands that refuse to let go, whispered gratitude and breathless kisses on his earth-stained knuckles, bones of steel softened by the innate weakness of womanhood. You will love him, of course you will, fervently and entirely. Then when the realm and succession are secured, the Kingmaker will take you North and wed you in the tradition of his people, under the heart tree where the Old Gods can witness it. And then there will be the wedding night. In Cregan’s understanding, women receive little pleasure from the act itself. It is a burden they bear for the men they love, for the children they are divinely tasked with bringing into existence. Cregan Stark intends to alleviate your suffering in this regard as much as possible…yet he has already begun to choose the names of the sons he will make with you. He especially likes the sound of Brandon, sturdy and grounded and thought to mean leader or prince. “This is the last night your sister will ever spend in the clutches of the Usurper.”

“Praise the Seven.” Then Clement adds diplomatically: “And the Old Gods too, of course.”

“It’s the end of the world,” Cregan Stark says, gazing up into the night sky where constellations tell the stories men deem worthy of remembering. “And the start of a brand new one.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“How did you learn to braid hair?” little Jaehaera asks you in her lilting, reedy voice like a bird’s. You are sitting behind her on the floor in Alicent’s bedchamber. Nearby, Autumn is flipping through a child’s book with Rhaenyra’s ever-solemn son, murmuring as she points to colorful illustrations of ravens, dolphins, bears, dragons, crabs. They are learning to read together.

“My sisters taught me,” you tell the princess. Firelight turns her silver hair to gold, her pale skin to flames. Logs crack and pop as they melt to glowing embers. Alicent glances over at you and sighs despairingly. The dowager queen, so thin she might disappear, is hunched in a chair by the fireplace. She has an unshakeable, rattling sort of cough that reminds you of how Sunfyre sounded on Dragonstone when he was near the end. Her long auburn tresses are falling out in handfuls. She will not survive the winter, this is a certainty.

“You have sisters?” Jaehaera says, surprised. “How many?”

You smile faintly as you weave her hair into one thick braid like the kind Aemond once wore when he went to battle. “Three. Piper, Petra, and Penelope.”

“Where are they now?”

“Back on Claw Isle, where I came from. With our mother.” Mourning Father, mourning Everett, writing letters to Clement to keep his spirits high as he and the Warden of the North march towards King’s Landing to slay the Greens’ king and bind me to a different man’s will.

“What’s Claw Isle like?” Jaehaera asks with a child’s clear, boundless curiosity.

“Rocky, misty, grey. But the ocean is beautiful.” You think of Aegon’s eyes, the same as his daughter’s, a murky storm-blue that is deeper than it looks.

“What brought you here?”

You consider this before you answer. You see it, you feel it: cinders like dark snow in the air, Aemond’s iron grip on your forearm. “When your father was burned at the Battle of Rook’s Rest, he needed someone to help heal him. Your uncle Aemond found me.”

“And he asked you to stay with us?”

He would have slit my throat if I said no. “Yes, he asked very politely, as any gentleman would. And of course I agreed. I wanted to make the king strong again. I wanted to take his pain away.”

Jaehaera stares down at her tiny hands, palms crossed with lines that are long and shadowy in the shifting firelight. She does not speak of Aegon. She does not know him, and he frightens her: the burns on his skin, the suffering in his glazed eyes. She has no memories to impress his true character upon her. If she does not make them herself, she will believe whatever she is told. “I miss Aemond. I miss Daeron.”

“I know, sweetheart.” They were formally laid to rest yesterday on two funeral pyres. Daeron’s bloodied, charred, seafoam green cape was burned to ashes on one. All that was left of Aemond—his favorite books, his quills and ink, small leather eyepatches from when he was a boy—were torched on the other. “I miss them too.”

Jaehaera’s braid is finished. You reach into a pocket of your emerald green velvet gown to retrieve what you have brought for her: a thin golden chain necklace with Aegon’s ring as a pendant. He can’t wear it anymore. His fingers are too swollen. “What is this?” Jaehaera says as you place the chain around her neck. She lifts the ring and peers at it, gold wings and jade eyes.

“It’s supposed to resemble Sunfyre,” you explain. “Your father loves you very much, Jaehaera. He wanted you to have this ring and keep it with you always.” Aegon didn’t say that; he rarely mentions Jaehaera at all. Sometimes you think he forgets she exists. But she is a part of him, she is his legacy, and you cannot look at any piece of her without seeing the man you love.

“He gave it to me? Like a gift?”

“Yes. A gift.” A gift, an inheritance, a relic, a reminder.

Jaehaera turns around and looks up at you hopefully, vast wave-blue eyes like winter oceans. “Do you think I’ll have another dragon someday?”

Her own infant beast, Morghul, was killed in the Dragonpit before Rhaenyra fled the city. “Maybe,” you tell her. “There are eggs that could hatch someday. And there are a few unclaimed adults left, Silverwing and the Cannibal. Perhaps you’ll tame one.”

She wrinkles her nose in confusion. “What’s a cannibal?”

Someone who murders, devours, fuels their body to the detriment of their soul. “Someone who eats their own kind. Like a dragon who feeds on other dragons.”

“So just like in the war. Dragons killing dragons.”

“Exactly,” you say, a shiver crawling down your spine. “Now go show your new necklace to Grandmother.”

Jaehaera wobbles to her feet and dashes across the firelit bedchamber to where Alicent is slumped in her chair. “Look, look! It’s Sunfyre!” you hear Jaehaera chirping. Alicent examines the ring—skeletal hands trembling, large dark eyes slick with tears—and dutifully fawns over it, telling the little girl how beautiful she looks, how brave she has been. Then she bundles Jaehaera into her boney arms and holds her like she’ll never let go. Autumn catches your gaze from the other side of the room, and when you leave to return to Aegon she follows.

“What is your plan if the Greens lose the battle?” she says in the hallway under an arc of grey stones. Her tone is urgent, her hazel eyes sharp. Everyone knows the Northmen are within days of King’s Landing. Borros Baratheon—a large, loud, abrasive man, but with a bottomless appetite for combat—and his soldiers will march out of the city tomorrow to meet Cregan Stark’s army on the fields of the Crownlands, sparse and grey with winter. The Lord of Storm’s End has spent hours locked in the council chamber discussing strategy with Larys Strong, Corlys Velaryon, and the misfortunate yet courageous Tyland Lannister, maimed by his months of torture at the hands of the Blacks.

“We won’t.” We can’t.

Autumn slams her palm against the wall behind you; the sick thud of flesh against stone reminds you of the day Helaena died. “Wake up. We might. You’d better have your options figured out.”

And you recall Larys’ words on Dragonstone: I think it’s time for you to consider what your options are if a Green victory no longer appears to be viable. “We’ll run,” you say weakly. “We’ll take Aegon and we’ll escape through the corridors under the Red Keep, just like he did before. Cregan Stark will kill Aegon if he finds him. I can’t let that happen. We’ll have to run.”

“Run where?” Autumn snaps pointedly, pushing you towards a conclusion you refuse to acknowledge.

“I don’t know.”

“Where? Where could we go that is beyond the grasp of your wolf if he seizes the capital?”

“Dorne, Essos. Somewhere, anywhere.”

“The king won’t survive a journey like that.”

You cover your face with your hands, feel the biting cold of snowflakes melting in your hair, see the stains of earth on your thighs as Cregan Stark forces them apart. How can I lie with a man who hailed the deaths of people I loved? How can I spend the rest of my life listening to him being called a hero for killing Aegon? How can I give him children? How could I love a baby that was half-made of him? “We ran before. We’ll have to do it again.”

Autumn scoffs. “You have no idea what it means to be a woman on your own in the world. What will you become without a great house, without protection? A prostitute? A peasant? Will you eat scraps covered with rot or mold? Will you live in a tree? Will you beg some family to take you in? And then when the father who is oh-so-gallant in daylight starts fumbling under your blankets once the candles are blown out, will you let him inside you? Or will you fight him off and risk a blade in your guts, your throat? You have no fucking idea what it’s like out there.”

“I don’t care what happens to me if Aegon’s gone.”

“You would abandon Jaehaera? You would abandon me?” Autumn demands. “You speak for us now. You are the only one who can. Our fates are twisted up with yours.”

That’s true. And I promised Helaena I would look out for her daughter. You can’t imagine a life without Aegon; there was a time when he was only a name—and an infamous one, a terrible one, soulless and monstrous—but now he has broken down the eaves of what you were once resigned to call your life and painted colors in the sky you’d never glimpsed before, never even dreamed of. You ask Autumn with genuine, painful bewilderment: “What is the point of learning that something exists only to have it taken away? Why would that happen? Where is the justice in it, where is the reason?”

Autumn smiles, sad and patient. “Ah, this is an affliction of the highborn. You still believe that there is a design, and that life has some amount of fairness in it. There is no divine judgment being passed, my lady. There is no god weighing the worth of your dragon or your wolf or yourself. Life is random, and it is ungovernable, and it is very often cruel. And that makes it all the more remarkable that you knew the king for the time you did. That you ever met him.”

It wasn’t enough. And I can never go back to who I was before. “I’m sorry. I should not complain to you. Your losses have been terrible.”

“It is no contest,” Autumn replies, weary now. “But I should go back to check on the children. They need me.”

“No. They love you.”

And now she beams, sparkling eyes and copper ringlets. She doesn’t need to say it, you can both feel it in the winter-cold air. She loves them in return. She loves them fiercely. As long as they live, she will have reasons to.

When you reach Aegon’s bedchamber, Grand Maester Orwyle is just leaving. He bows to you and grins, pleased that you have both survived the fall and retaking of King’s Landing. He is haggard from his months in the dungeons when Rhaenyra ruled the capital, but he endured. Who would have guessed at the start of this war that the old man had more years left than Aemond or Daeron or harmless little Maelor? You wait in the hallway for the maester to amble sluggishly by, but then when he is gone, you peer through the slit of the half-open door to see that Lord Larys Strong is speaking to Aegon, who is propped up in bed on a mountain of pillows and wearing only his cotton sleeping trousers. He is thin, frail, ghostly pale with the exception of the scars that are a mosaic of white and scarlet and bruise-like violet. Aegon and Larys have not noticed you. You linger just outside the doorway, watching, listening.

You can take care of Aegon as much as you wish now: feed him, clothe him, clean sweat from his brow, dose him with milk of the poppy, rub rose oil into his scars, stretch his legs, test the heat of his skin for fever. He’s too weak to stop you. He can’t walk, can’t stand, can’t stay awake for more than an hour or two at a time, can’t even pour his own wine or milk of the poppy; the glass bottles are too heavy when full. Yesterday, Aegon had to be carried outside in a litter to see the remnants of his brothers burned on the pyres. And he had exchanged a brief, somber glance with Autumn that you neither anticipated nor understood. He acknowledges her so rarely. And yet her small hazel eyes had been alarmed, knowing.

Larys is saying with a grave expression and his restless hands propped in the handle of his cane: “Lord Borros Baratheon is asking for your assurance that as soon as the war is won, you will take his eldest daughter Cassandra as your wife.”

Aegon stares at him, incredulously, impatiently. Aegon has not called you his wife in the company of others since his homecoming. You do not ask why. You already know. It is not because his intentions have changed; it is because if he is not the victor, your life is in less danger as his captive than as his queen. “Surely even a man as brainless as Borros can surmise that there would not be much benefit for the lady now. I am a worm. Useless, pathetic, deformed, no longer virile.”

“He is willing to take the chance, I gather. And he is placing his eggs in more than one basket. He would like another daughter, Floris, to be married to me.”

“Seven hells,” Aegon mutters. Then he turns determined. “I cannot marry another. I won’t do it. I am claimed already, body and soul.”

“I fear how enthusiastically Borros’ men will fight for you if you do not agree to the match. He is risking his life for your cause. He will expect generous repayment.”

Aegon is quiet for a long time. He stares fixedly at his bedside table: a full cup, a large glass bottle of milk of the poppy. His dagger is still there from when you cut and braided his hair for him this morning; he cannot do it himself anymore. At last Aegon says, almost too low for you to discern from the doorway: “He’s not cruel, is he?”

“Who? Borros Baratheon?”

Aegon glares at Larys. “No.”

After a moment, Larys realizes what his king means. “Cregan Stark isn’t cruel. I’ve heard many whispers from many mouths, but I’ve never heard that.”

“Look at me. Don’t lie to me.”

“He isn’t cruel,” Larys says again. “Perhaps the truth is worse. He is measured, competent, merciful, wise. He is honorable. The Manderlys want to torture everyone and the Boltons itch to sharpen their flaying knives but Stark forbids it. He respects the laws of war. He tries to avoid the slaughter of noncombatants. He forbids his men from burning farms or raping women. He is devoted to the woman you call your wife. He takes no mistresses, visits no brothels. Cregan Stark is not a monster. He’s not soulless. He’s just on the wrong side.”

Aegon nods slowly, then his face breaks into a humorless smirk. “Tell Borros Baratheon that I’ll marry whichever daughter he wants me to when the war is over. I’ll marry all four if that is his preference, and bed them all on the wedding night too, one right after the other. Agree to anything he asks for. It doesn’t matter anyway.”

It doesn’t matter because none of it will ever happen, even if the Baratheon army does win the Iron Throne for the Greens. It doesn’t matter because Aegon does not believe he’ll still be here in a month, or two weeks, or perhaps even days.

But he can’t mean that. He’s not thinking clearly. He’s confused, he’s exhausted, he’s in pain, you tell yourself, before remembering that Aemond said it first.

“Yes, Your Grace.” Larys is subdued, sorrowful. He bows deeply to his king. Then he turns to depart.

“One more thing,” Aegon says, gesturing to something on the side of his bed you can’t see from where you’re standing. “I hate to impose upon you further, but I can’t manage it myself. Can you take that and empty it somewhere? I don’t care where. But you must keep it hidden from my wife. The red-haired girl Autumn knows, and so do the maesters now. They are all sworn to secrecy. Can I trust you to exercise the same circumspection?”

Larys is gaping down at an object that is a mystery to you. He begins to stammer out a reply, stops to collect himself, and starts again. “Yes. Yes you can.”

“Good.”

Larys picks up the object; you are puzzled to discover that it is a chamber pot, white and porcelain. And as he navigates around Aegon’s bed and towards the door where you wait, you see that the vessel is full of blood.

You gasp before you can stop yourself, a razor-sharp inhale of breath that both men hear. They spot you, lurking in the doorway like someone lost, someone far from home. Shock bolts across Aegon’s face, and then frustration, and then defeat, and then profound misery.

“I didn’t want you to worry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to lie to you, I just knew…I knew you’d be upset and I…I didn’t want to hurt you. I’ve never wanted to hurt you.”

“How long?”

“It doesn’t matter, Angel.”

“How long?” you ask again. “Just since this morning?”

“Four or five days now.”

“Four or five…?” Your mind whirls like storm winds. He’s dying. He’s really dying. His kidneys are failing and there’s nothing I can do. I can’t cut him open and stitch him back together. There’s no wound to scrub clean with vinegar and then bandage with honey and linen. There’s no brew that can restore the rhythm of his blood and bones and nerves. He’s just dying. That’s all there is. That’s the beginning and the end of it.

“Please don’t cry,” Aegon says, reading your face. “Don’t do that, please don’t, I’ve hurt you enough already.”

His hands stretch out to close the space between you, and as Larys slips from the room you go to Aegon, climb into bed beside him, collapse into him as his arms catch you and rest your head against his bare, scarred chest, his feverish skin mottled with the history of wounds you helped close all those months ago. “I’m sorry,” you sob. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let you go after Baela and Moondancer on Dragonstone. I should have stopped you. I should have dragged you inside the castle to wait until Aemond and Vhagar could help you. I shouldn’t have let Aemond go to Harrenhal. I shouldn’t have let Daeron fly south. I shouldn’t have let Autumn go back to King’s Landing, and I shouldn’t have let Everett stay there. I shouldn’t have let Helaena leap from the window. I should have stopped Maelor from being sent to the Reach. I should have stopped Rhaenys and the Red Queen from taking flight to burn you in your armor at Rook’s Rest. I should have stopped this! I should have done something! The only good thing I’ve ever had to offer the world was healing but I can’t save anyone, I can’t stop their suffering, I can’t do anything!”

“None of it was within your control, and none of it was your responsibility. I am the king. The fate of my kingdom and my followers rests with me. I wear their spilled blood, not you. I am so full of red I’m overflowing with it.” And he chuckles, sardonic, exhausted. He’s already battling unconsciousness again; you can hear his heartbeat slackening, the slow laborious expanding and contracting of his lungs.

“Aegon,” you say softly, as if afraid to speak it into existence. “What happens if the Baratheons don’t win tomorrow?”

“They will. They have to. There’s nothing I can do for you if they lose.” Then he winces and groans. It’s his back again, his failing kidneys, overrun with so much ruin—burns and breaks and pressure and heartache—that their cadence faltered and then ceased. You grab his cup of milk of the poppy and tilt it against his lips; and how many times have you done this since you met him, burned nearly to death and half-mad at Rook’s Rest? A hundred? Aegon drinks it down, his arms still tight around your waist. They do not loosen until he’s out like a snuffed candle.

You refill the cup on his bedside table with milk of the poppy in case he needs more when he wakes, pick up the dagger you use to cut his disheveled hair, take it to the dresser. And in the cascade of silver moonlight flooding in through the windows, you practice laying the gleaming blade against your wrists, pressing it to the throbbing arteries of your throat, angling the sharpened point of it between a gap in your ribs and towards your racing heart.

Autumn. Jaehaera. Aemond’s child that Alys carries. I still have promises to keep. I still have tasks that cannot be left unfinished.

Helaena’s words surface like a drowned man dredged from the waves: You must whisper into the right ears.

You set the dagger down on top of the dresser and roam to the castle library where Aemond once spent so many hours. You collect a stack of anatomy books and carry them back to Aegon’s bedchamber. There, before the roaring fireplace, you devour them for any scrap of hope, any last resort. You turn pages until one illustration stops you. It is an unclothed man, his major veins etched in blue and his arteries in red, his nerves a faded yellow, his bones white and unshattered, his body a roadmap of the bricks and mortar used by the architects of nature. You have seen this image before. It is the same page Aegon teased you for studying when you were travelling by carriage back to the capital from Rook’s Rest.

You rip out the page, crumple it violently, pitch it into the fire and watch it burn.

~~~~~~~~~~

At dawn, Lord Borros Baratheon leads his men out of the city. You hear them through the glass panes of the windows, closed against the winter chill and flecked with frost: boots marching, hooves of warhorses clomping against cobblestones. They carry with them swords and spears and bows and morning stars like the one Criston Cole was famed for using. Meanwhile, throughout the city, civilians are arming themselves with anything they can find to ward off an invasion of Northmen, creatures they believe to be bestial and mindless. Men carry kitchen knives and clubs fashioned out of bits of furniture or driftwood. Women hide their young children in cupboards and under creaking wooden floors.

“I should be going with them,” Aegon says. He’s just taken another dose of milk of the poppy and is struggling to keep his eyes open. His long, slow blinks close his vacant eyes for ever-increasing intervals. You’ve changed his clothes and cleaned the sweat from his skin as best you can, but he’s burning from the inside out.

“You’re not able to fight, Aegon. Nobody faults you for that. Everyone knows you were wounded in battle.”

“They must think I’m a coward.”

“No, you inspire them. They love you. I love you.”

Aegon doesn’t say it back. He never says it back. He only offers you the same drowsy, mournful phrase of High Valyrian he always does, not knowing that Aemond told you what it means: To your misfortune.

Autumn is with the children in Alicent’s rooms. The castle is tense and as quiet as a crypt—Alicent weeps soundlessly, Larys paces the halls with Corlys and Tyland Lannister, everyone peeks out of windows constantly to see if bannermen of the victor have appeared on the horizon—but she keeps them distracted with stories and games. You cycle between Alicent’s bedchamber and Aegon’s. He is in and out of consciousness; sometimes you perch beside him on the bed, sometimes you lie curled up against him counting the beats of his heart, sometimes you help Autumn read to Jaehaera and Aegon the Younger. It is just after noon when the city bells begin to toll and screams rise from the streets outside the Red Keep. You and Autumn hurry to a window. In the distance, beyond the city gates, there is a swarming mass of infantry, cavalry, archers. Their banners, when you strain your eyes to decipher them, are not the brazen, vivid yellow of House Baratheon. They are night black and an icy, steely grey. They are the colors of House Stark.

“No,” Autumn says, denial in a protracted, helpless exhale. Alicent shrieks, frightening the children. You grab Autumn’s hand and lead her out into the hallway to warn the others if they don’t know already.

Lord Corlys Velaryon comes bounding up a staircase. “There are soldiers down in the secret passageways!” he booms. “Northmen! Armed! I’ve helped our guards bar the doors, but that won’t hold them back forever.”

Autumn looks to you. “Get the children ready to travel,” you tell her. “Find Larys and inform him.”

“Yes, my lady,” she says, and is gone. You sprint in the opposite direction towards Aegon’s bedchamber. You blow the door open like a strong wind, and Aegon startles awake. You rip through his dresser for things he will need: warm clothes, boots, his dagger, bottles of milk of the poppy.

“Get up, Aegon. We have to go. We’ll run, we’ll flee, there are Northmen in the tunnels but we’ll find another way out, we have to try, we have to, if they catch you they’ll—”

“Come sit with me,” he says from the bed, calmly, like you have all the time in the world. He is reaching out for you with one hand.

“What? No, we have to hurry—”

“Angel,” Aegon says. “I need you to come sit with me now.”

Why isn’t he afraid? Why isn’t he frantic? You cross the room with slow, numb footsteps. When you reach the bed, Aegon takes both of your hands in his own. And suddenly you know exactly what he is going to say. You remember what he told his brother in High Valyrian the last time Aemond left Dragonstone. Your voice is trembling and hoarse. Your throat burns like embers. “Aemond was supposed to be here to help us win. But he’s gone. Daeron, Criston, Helaena, Otto, Everett, Jaehaerys, Maelor, Autumn’s baby, so many people are gone.”

Aegon whispers, smiling softly as tears spill down his cheeks, one scarred and the other pure: “I’m not going to get better this time.”

“No,” you moan. “No, Aegon, no. You can’t say that, you can’t tell me that—”

“I’m not going to get better.” Now his palms cradle your face, forcing you to listen. “I’m not. And it’s okay. I’m not angry, I’m not scared. You’ve done everything you could and you’ve bought me more time and I’m so grateful. But I don’t want it to hurt anymore. I’ve been in pain for so long. I’ve been in pain my whole goddamn life.” He kisses you, like tasting something rare and fleeting. His thumbprint skates along the curve of your jaw, memorizing the angles of your bones, the rhythm of your pulse. “Please, Angel. I don’t want to try to run and die on the side of the road somewhere. I don’t want to die with Cregan Stark’s blade at my throat.”

You shake your head, unable to believe, unable to understand.

Aegon glances to the empty cup on his bedside table, to the large glass bottle of milk of the poppy. Then his eyes return to you. “You know how to do it.”

No. Never. But beneath those cold, dark, stormy waters: It would be painless. “I can’t,” you say, overwhelmed with horror.

“Listen, listen to me—”

“No—”

“Angel.”

“I can’t do that to you. Not to you. I can’t, I can’t.”

“When I’m gone, go to Cregan Stark,” Aegon says. “He is an honorable man, he will ensure your survival. He is the only person who can now. He wants to put his mark on the world. He wants to play Kingmaker. Let him. He can decree that my daughter will marry Rhaenyra’s son and ascend to the Iron Throne. He can end the war. Cregan will keep you safe. Tell him that I kidnapped you, that I forced myself on you. Tell him that I wanted an heir with Valyrian blood. Tell him that I was a drunk, a degenerate. Tell him whatever he wants to hear.”

“You would become a monster?”

“To protect you? I would become anything.”

He’s holding you, he’s pulling you into him until you can feel the fever bleeding from his flesh into yours, until you can number the knots of his spine and the ladder-rungs of his ribcage, counting them with your fingers through the sweat-drenched fabric of his cotton shirt. You draw back to look at him, to really look at him, sunken bloodshot eyes and rasping breaths, scar tissue of the body and the soul. You remember the day you met him, how he’d begged to die and been refused, how you brought him back. You postponed a debt, but you never paid it. It’s not possible to ever pay enough. You stack up gold coins in a vault until they touch the ceiling and still the Stranger comes knocking, jangling his purse sewn with scorched skin and chanting: more, more, more.

Aegon glances to the cup again. “How much?” he asks you, hushed like a prayer.

You don’t answer. Instead, you stand and go to the dresser. You open a small wooden door beneath the mirror. Your reflection is a woman you don’t know, someone who walks through fog and memory, someone made of ghosts. You take four clean cups from the cabinet and set them on Aegon’s bedside table. As he watches—eyes glassy with agony, lungs rattling—you fill them all with smooth, pearlescent, lethal liquid, as well as the empty cup that was already there. “Five,” you say, and it sounds nothing like you. “I think three at once would be enough. Five to make sure.”

He sobs with relief, and only now do you realize how badly he needed this. “Thank you. Oh gods, thank you.”

Your own words come back like an echo: I preserve life, I don’t take it. But that was a different lifetime, a different you. Aegon’s fingers are lacing through yours. He is drawing you back onto the bed, he is brushing your hair back from your face, he is kissing the path of tears down your cheeks so he doesn’t waste a drop of you. He’ll never get another taste, another chance; not in this life, not on this earth.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to the end with you,” he says. “I really tried.”

“I know, Aegon.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough.”

“You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known.”

He looks down at his left hand, then remembers where his ring has gone. He chuckles, darkly, bitterly, dismayed by all the failings he is built of. “I don’t even have anything to give you.” Then he remembers. “My dagger. Can you get my dagger?”

You are petrified. “Why?”

He grins, dull teeth beneath dazed eyes. “I’m not going to hack off a finger or my exemplary cock or something. I promise. Just get it.”

You fetch the dagger and bring it to the bed, and only then do you realize what he means for you to have. He points to it, then threads it through his pale, swollen fingers: his thin lock of hair that you’ve been weaving for him since the day you met. He wants you to take his braid.

“You’ll have to cut it yourself,” he says. “I don’t think I can.”

You hook the blade beneath the top of his braid, and with a few cautious slices of the dagger it is free. You tuck the braid into a pocket of your gown, thick black velvet to guard against the winter cold. Then you lay the dagger on the bedside table and pick up one of the cups filled to the brim with milk of the poppy. Your tears are scalding and torrential; it is almost impossible to see through them. You smooth back Aegon’s white-blond hair as you pour the blissful, deadly brew through his lips and down his throat, hating yourself, knowing it is the kindest thing you can do for him.

Suddenly, when the cup is half-drained, Aegon pushes it away. “You don’t have to be here. You don’t have to watch,” he says. “I can do the rest. Go, now. Right now. If the Boltons or some other house finds you before Cregan does, they might not recognize you. They might not care. You’re only safe with Cregan Stark. He has to find you first.” Aegon takes the cup with one shaking hand and presses a palm to your shoulder with the other. You haven’t moved. You can’t move. “Go. Leave me. Now. Please go. I love you, but you have to go now.”

“I can’t,” you choke out.

“You have to.”

“I’ve never wanted anyone but you.”

“Angel,” he says tenderly, smiling. “I’ll see you again. Just not too soon.”

“Okay,” you whisper, and you kiss him, traces of milk of the poppy on his lips that deaden the thunderstruck horror faintly, powerlessly, like small clouds drifting over the sun.

“If there’s anything interesting on the other side, I’ll find a way to let you know.”

The dreams, you think. “Okay,” you say again, barely audible.

“Now go. Right now. Go.”

You wipe tears from your face with your sleeve as you turn away from him. You can’t look back; if you do, you’ll never be able to walk out of this room. You take the dagger from the bedside table. Your bare feet pad across the cold floor. As you step through the doorway, on the periphery of your vision you can see Aegon swallowing down each cupful of poison as quickly as he can. It won’t take long to stop his heart. Minutes, perhaps. Seconds. You walk into the hallway. Autumn has just arrived with Jaehaera’s tiny hand clasped in her own. A few paces behind her, Alicent and Larys stand with Rhaenyra’s son. Two orphans without choices, two pawns in a much grander game.

Autumn is panicked. “Where should we go? What should we do?” Then she takes another look at your face. Her eyes go wide with terror. “What? What happened?”

“Follow me.” Your voice is low, flat, dark like deep water. Your eyes flick briefly to Lord Larys Strong. “Keep the boy here. He’s not safe with the smallfolk yet. But the Northmen won’t harm him.”

Larys knows. It’s over. He is devastated; and yet you think a part of him might be relieved as well. “Yes, Your Grace.”

“I’m not the queen anymore. I never really was.” You give him Aegon’s dagger. “I don’t think you’ll need this, Lord Larys, but now you have it in the event of any danger. Or in case I can’t convince Cregan Stark to spare you and you decide you’ve had enough of this world. You should get a say in how your life ends. You’ve earned it.”

Then you break away from them and glide through the Red Keep, Autumn and Jaehaera trotting swiftly behind you to keep up. You pass the rookery where Aemond wrote his letters. You sweep through the gardens where Helaena loved to collect her insects. You gaze down to the beach where Daeron landed on Tessarion under a dazzling sun before winter came like a plague to King’s Landing. From inside the castle, you can hear Alicent wailing as she discovers her last child’s lifeless body. What was all of this for? Why did this have to happen? Why didn’t anybody stop it?

Out on the streets of the city, the smallfolk have flocked with their makeshift weapons to defend their homes from the Northmen. But their eyes are darting everywhere and their faces are uncertain as they clutch their clubs made out of the legs of chairs and their rusty kitchen knives. They haven’t decided if it’s futile. They don’t want to be butchered for nothing.

“That’s Autumn!” they shout and sigh, especially the women. “The mother of the king’s bastard son, the one murdered by the half-year queen!” They reach out to skim their hands over Autumn’s gown, her long coppery hair, as if she is a saint or a spirit who can impart good luck upon them, who can change their fates. They fall to their knees to bow to Jaehaera, their king’s only living child, and she blinks at them with benign confusion.

But the smallfolk have a different reception for you. You hear their venomous chattering: “Is that the Celtigar woman?” “Her family put this city through hell.” “They served Rhaenyra.” “She’s a traitor, she’s a thief.” A few of them venture close enough to tug at your gown, to strike at you. A woman’s knuckles rap against your cheekbone, raising a bruise there like lavender in a dusk sky. You think dully: I wonder if they’ll gouge out my eyes with those knives like they did to Everett.

“Get back!” Autumn hisses, shoving the smallfolk away. And when she speaks, they listen. “She is going to the Wolf of Winterfell. She is my protector. She is your protector now too. She is the best chance you have left.” And the crowds open up and the three of you pass through King’s Landing unimpeded, though cloaked in thousands of fascinated gazes.

The King’s Gate has been abandoned; the guards must have feared the Boltons’ flaying knives or Lord Stark’s dark justice. Autumn instructs several hulking men of the smallfolk to open the gate if they wish to be spared from the wolf’s wrath. They are reluctant at first, but do as she asks. When the massive doors creak open, the people of the capital huddle behind the wall and peer out skittishly as you, Autumn, and Jaehaera advance to meet the Northmen, who are bloodied from battle and now within a hundred yards of the city. Above, the sky is thick and iron-grey and frigid. Snowflakes—the first of this winter to touch King’s Landing—begin to fall and land in your hair, and you are reminded of how embers rained from the smoldering pine trees at Rook’s Rest.

“Can you catch one on your tongue?” Autumn asks Jaehaera, and the little girl giggles as they both try.

The Warden of the North rides an immense, shaggy warhorse at the head of what remains of his army. He recognizes you immediately, dismounts, approaches with determined, unbreakable strides. Clement is close behind him.

“You’re alive!” your brother shouts joyously. “And apparently not pregnant with a Targaryen bastard! Praise the gods!”

Cregan Stark does not act as if he’s heard this. The Warden of the North is not as you remember him; he is larger, heavier and broader from the muscles won in battle, coarsened by weather and war. His hair is long and dark and pulled back from his face. He wears a sword at his belt that is taller than you are when it’s unsheathed. He is entombed in leather and furs. He does not hesitate before he lays his hands you. You are betrothed to him, you are his property, would a man ask before he grabs his horses or his dogs?

The Warden of the North does not seize your forearm roughly like Aemond once did. Instead, his massive palms and fingers clasp your face as he marvels at you. You can feel the stains of dirt and ashes he leaves there. You want to scream when he touches you, but you can’t. You want to burn with rage and heartache until you crumble like ruins. Your life is already over. Your life has just begun.

“You have suffered greatly,” Cregan Stark says, a marriage of shock and reverence.

“You have no idea.” Perpetual Resurrection, you think. It doesn’t mean you come back better. It just means you’re still here.

“You are safe now,” Cregan swears. “The Usurper will never harm you again.” And it ends the same way it began: with a man mistaking your allegiance and beckoning you into a destiny that he wholeheartedly believes is greater than any you could have envisioned for yourself.

“He’s dead.”

This stuns Cregan. “When? How?”

“Today. Of old wounds sustained in battle.”

He looks at Jaehaera, noticing her for the first time. “Is that his daughter?”

“Yes,” you say. “She must always be treated with kindness. She must be protected.”

“You have an affinity for her,” Cregan notes, intrigued.

You hear Aegon’s voice, so clearly it cuts like a blade: Tell him whatever he wants to hear. “We have been through great trials together. We survived the same monster.”

The Warden of the North nods. This is a story he craves to be told. “Very well. If it is your wish that she not be discreetly disposed of as a Silent Sister, I will betroth her to Rhaenyra’s surviving son. They will unite the noble houses of Westeros and end this war.”

“The worst of the Greens are dead already. Those who remain should be shown mercy. Alicent is old and ill and broken from loss. She poses no threat. She should be permitted to remain in the company of her granddaughter. Corlys was loyal to Rhaenyra until she falsely imprisoned him for treason, and he belongs on Driftmark with Rhaena. Larys Strong, Tyland Lannister, and Grand Maester Orwyle, if no pardon can be arranged for them, should go to the Wall instead of the scaffold. And Autumn, my companion there with Jaehaera…she was a true friend to me. I owe her my life several times over. She must be permitted to stay with Jaehaera and Aegon the Younger as a caretaker, and reside in comfort in the Red Keep for the remainder of her days.”

“Who do you think you are, sister?!” Clement exclaims. “You’re speaking to the Kingmaker, not some handmaiden! You do not command him!”

“I am not commanding,” you counter levelly. “I am pleading for mercy on behalf of imperfect souls who showed me kindness during my captivity. If granted, I will consider these my wedding gifts.”

“She is remarkable, is she not?” Cregan Stark says, grinning to Clement and several other men who have ventured closer. They wear the sigils of Northern houses: Bolton, Cerwyn, Manderly, Hornwood, Dustin. They chuckle in agreement, stroking their wild beards with huge filthy hands. “Dauntless but merciful. Clever but obedient.” And then the Warden of the North claims your lips with his, chaste but overpowering, the first of a thousand kisses you never desired, a thousand acts of affection for a woman who isn’t really you, feigned resignation and bitten-back rage, eternal war with the interminable knowledge that there is something more, more, more…you just aren’t permitted to have it. It was taken from you, it was ripped from your hands like stolen treasure.

All your life you will have to murmur in wounded agreement when people recount the terrible sins of the Usurper. All your life you will have to praise Cregan Stark for killing millions to rescue you. And the days will pass, weeks, months, years, summers and winters, the births of your children and their own marriages; and when Cregan’s boy Rickon, born of his first wife, produces only daughters, your son Brandon and his descendants will become the heirs to Winterfell. In the desolate North—so far from the ocean, so far from everything Aegon ever knew—your greatest solace will be letters from Autumn as she learns to read and write, books that your husband orders for you from the Citadel, setting bones and treating burns, a tiny lock of braided silver hair that you keep in a hidden drawer of your jewelry box, dreams that you never want to wake up from.

But one day, decades after you leave King’s Landing, you will receive a raven from Queen Jaehaera Targaryen, and she will ask you: You knew the Greens in your youth, Wardeness Stark. You knew Aemond, Daeron, Helaena, Alicent, Otto, Maelor, Aegon the Usurper. What can you tell me of them? What was my father like? Who was he really?

And you’ll pick up your quill and begin writing.

#aegon ii targaryen #aegon targaryen #aegon targaryen ii #aegon ii #aegon targaryen x reader #aegon x reader

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didisficrecs · 1 month

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ZUTARA FICS

Read

The Sun, the Moon, and the Truth – by thee senlinyu, post war, angsty angst, smut, pining

Purr – modern uni au, TA zuko, zuko pursues katara, sliiiight angst, smut & fluff

Sunshine Riptide – post war, smut, tension

The Sparrowkeet series – angsty angst, one shots, gaang

My faves from the series — Sparrowkeet – e2l kinda, angsty angst I don't have a clue – jealousy Heartbeats (or, Wherein Toph is Smarter and Generally More Awesome Than Everyone Else) – angst A Rush of Blood to the Head – e2l kinda The Fourth Wall (or, The Ember Island Players) – angst

when you say "it's gonna happen now" – modern au, f2l, fluff

it's late and i think it's about time for you and me to get closer – character study, smut, yearning, longing

as if you were on fire from within/the moon lives in the lining of your skin – modern au, rivals to lovers, smut, fwb

To be Read

Journeys – modern uni au

Dancing in the Dark – Ba Sing Se

Twist Me to the Left – modern band au

and expectations she won't meet – modern au, TA zuko

indigo summer – modern au, surfer katara

Lotus Lake – modern boarding school au

The Penance Series – smut

His Majesty Prefers Blue

When The Mask Comes Off

Rumour Has It

This ffnet list This ao3 list

*stories w smut have aged-up characters as far as i know😭

#zutara #zutara fanfiction #zuko x katara #zuko #katara #atla #my lists

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jariten · 2 months

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Recurring themes in 2023: my year of lesbian and yuriful manga

Doing this a little different when summarizing 2023. Since I stuck to my decision to not start buying any new licensed series and mainly did cultural catchup for both english and japanese manga I didn't really read enough hot new releases in 2023 for them to warrant a list of their own as they usually do. So to catch up on the months without a roundup as well as a year end summary I will do some themed lists!

The first came to easy since a noticeable trend was how much lesbian and yuri manga i made time for. For clarity I make a subjective distinction of lesbian and yuri works, just as some works I'm more inclined to describe as a Gay or LGBT story rather than a BL if it wasn't published in a BL imprint or invests time to do cultural or social commentary. Now to the list:

Among my favorite lesbian manga read in 2023 are: The Girl That Can't Get A Girlfriend by Mieri Hiranishi Moonlight Flowers by Mutsumi Tsukumo Indigo Blue by Ebine Yamaji Umibe no Kain by Minori Kimura

I won't reiterate too much as I already talked about it in a roundup but Hiranishi gave an extremely refreshing perspective on being a woman who loves masculine women, the dark story of her first heartbreak and the path forward. Love that Viz took the initiative to give her a graphic novel edition and promote her platform by licensing The Girl That Can't Get a Girlfriend. I've always found women's manga to be a not that secret treasure trove of lesbian stories yet I hadn't read the classic that is Moonlight Flowers... Just a truly suspenseful and romantic story of lesbian love as liberation and freedom that I can't recommend enough. Just with a clear warning of depictions of intimate partner violence that could be upsetting.

Yamaji has a well known track record of exploring lesbianism as well as bisexuality and I think Indigo Blue was extremely interesting in its explooration of the protagonist and her journey to figuring out what she wants as she's caught between two relationships. Another story of a woman's journey to confront who she is and what she wants: Umibe no Cain was a rather heartbreaking story of a young woman seeking refuge with a woman older than herself and as they start forming a frienfdship she begins to face the hurt and trauma she faced from her mother. But as the two women grow closer their relationship might take a turn that they can't come back from.

In the yuri-ish category: Kimi no Kureru Mazui Ame by Kaiko Fuyumushi OL to Ningyo by Mai Shiba

Won't reiterate too much of Kimi no Kureru Mazui Ame as I already talked about it in a roundup but love bite sized depictions of a miserable adolescence and toxic yuri but not quite. And if you found yourself taken by the more supernatural stories in this collection then may I recommend OL to Ningyo? Described by the author themselves as yuri-ish this collection depicts the bonds of human girls and their non-human counterparts. Humans, vampires, tengu, mermaid, and oni all face their own challenges and conflicts both romantic and otherwise.

In the Now That's What I Call Yuri category: Natsu to Lemon to Overlay by Ru & Miyako Miyahara Ki ni Natteru Hito ga Otoko Janakatta (The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy At All) by Sumiko Arai Sukeban to Tenkousei by Fujichika

Natsu to Lemon to Overlay is the manga adaption of a yuri award winning novel novel that I picked kind of at random. An aspiring voice actress struggling to make any career moves are requested by a mysterious woman to read the obituary at her own funeral. What happens next will warm your heart. The Guy She Liked is one where I'm just going to assume most if not all of you are aware of so I'm just going to say that I like it and am looking forward to the next volume 👍 And last but not least: an adorable 80's throwback with some truly heartwarming moments and developments not to mention very funny: Sukeban to Tenkousei by Fujichika

#recommendation corner #roundup #my scans #long post

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specialagentartemis · 11 months

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Black Women writing SFF

The post about Octavia Butler also made me think about the injustice we do both Butler, SFF readers, and Black women SFF writers by holding her up as the one Black Woman Writing Sci-Fi. She occupies an important place in the genre, for her creativity, the beauty and impact of her writing, and her prolific work... but she's still just one writer, and no one writer works for everybody.

So whether you liked Octavia Butler's books or didn't, here are some of the (many!!! this list is just the authors I've read and liked, or been recommended and been wanting to read) other Black women writing speculative fiction aimed at adults, who might be writing something within your interest:

N. K. Jemisin - a prolific powerhouse of modern sff. Will probably have something you'll like. Won three Hugo awards in a row for her Broken Earth trilogy. I’ve only read her book of short stories, How Long ‘Til Black Future Month? and it is absolutely story after story of bangers. Creative, chilling, beautifully written, make you think. They’re so good and I highly recommend the collection. Several of her novels have spun out of premises she first explored through these short stories, most recently “The City Born Great” giving rise to her novel The City We Became. Leans more fantasy than sci-fi, but has a lot of both, in various permutations.

Nisi Shawl - EDIT: I have been informed that Nisi Shawl identifies as genderfluid, not as a woman. They primarily write short stories that lean literary. Their one novel that I’ve read, Everfair, is an alternate-history 19th century that asks, what if the Congo had fought off European colonization and became a free and independent African state? Told in vignettes spanning decades of political organization, political movements, war tactics, and social development, among an ensemble of local African people, Black Americans coming to the new country, white and mixed-race Brits, and Chinese immigrants who came as British laborers.

Nnedi Okorafor - American-Nigerian writer of Africanfuturism, sci-fi stories emphasizing life in present, future, and alternate-magical Africa. She has range! From Binti, a trilogy of novellas about a teenage girl in Namibia encountering aliens and balancing her newfound connection to space with expectations of her family; to Akata Witch, a middle-grade series about a Nigerian-American girl moving to Nigeria and learning to use magic powers she didn’t know she had; to Who Fears Death, a brutal depiction of magical-realism in a futuristic, post-war Sudan; to short stories like "Africanfuturism 419", about that poor Nigerian prince who’s desperately sending out those emails looking for help (but with a sci-fi twist), and "Mother of Invention" about a smart house taking care of its human and her baby… she’s done a little bit of everything, but always emphasizes the future, the science, and the magic of (usually western) Africa.

Karen Lord - an Afro-Caribbean author. I actually didn’t particularly like the one novel by her I’ve read, The Best of All Possible Worlds, but Martha Wells did, so. Lord has more novels set in this world—a Star Trek-esque multicultural, multispecies spacefuture set on a planet that has welcomed immigrants and refugees for a long time, and become a vibrant multicultural planet. I find her stories rooted in near-future Caribbean socio-climatic concerns like "Haven" and "Cities of the Sun" and her folktale-fantasy style Redemption in Indigo more compelling. And more short stories here.

Bethany C. Morrow - only has one novella (short novel?) for adults, Mem, but it was creative and fascinating and good and I’d be remiss not to shout it out. In an alternate-history 1920s Toronto, scientists have discovered how to extract specific memories from a person—but then those memories are embodied as physical, cloned manifestations of the person at the moment the memory was made. The main character is one such “Mem,” struggling to determine who she is if she was created from and defined by one single traumatic memory that her original-self wanted to remove. It’s mostly quiet, contemplative, and very interesting. (Morrow has some YA novels too. I read one of them and thought it was okay.)

Rebecca Roanhorse - Afro-Indigenous, Black and "Spanish Indian" and married into Diné (Navajo). I’ve read her ongoing post-apocalyptic fantasy series starting with Trail of Lightning, and am liking it a lot; after a climate catastrophe, the spirits and magic of the Diné awakened to protect Dinetah (the Navajo Nation) from the onslaught; and now magic and monsters are part of life in this fundamentally changed world. Coyote is there and he is only sometimes helpful. She also has a more traditional second-world epic high fantasy, Black Sun, an elaborate fantasy world with quests and prophecies and seafaring adventure that draws inspiration from Indigenous cultures of the US and Mexico rather than Europe. She also has bitingly satirical and very incisive short stories like “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience” about virtual reality and cultural tourism, and the fantasy-horror "Harvest."

Micaiah Johnson - her multiverse-hopping novel The Space Between Worlds plays with alternate universes and alternate selves in a continuously creative and interesting way! The setup doesn’t take the easy premise that one universe is our own recognizable one that opens up onto strange alternate universes—even the main character’s home universe is wildly different in speculative ways, with the MC coming from a Mad Max-esque desert community abandoned to the elements, while working for the universe-travel company within the climate-controlled walled city where the rich and well-connected live and work. Also, it’s unabashedly gay.

And if you like audiobooks and audio fiction (I listened to The Space Between Worlds as an audiobook, it’s good), then Jordan Cobb is someone you should check out. She does sci-fi/horror/thriller audio drama. Her works include Janus Descending, a lyrical and eerie sci-fi horror about a small research expedition to a distant planet and how it went so, so wrong; and Descendants, the sequel about its aftermath. She also has Primordial Deep, about a research expedition to the deep undersea, to investigate the apparent re-emergence of a lot of extinct prehistoric sea creatures. She’s a writer/producer I like, and always follow her new releases. Her detailed prose, minimal casts (especially in Janus Descending), good audio quality, and full-series supercuts make these welcoming to audiobook fans.

Nalo Hopkinson - a writer who should be considered nearly as foundational as Octavia Butler, honestly. A novelist and short story writer with a wide variety of sci-fi, dystopian futures, fairy-tale horror, gods and epics, and space Carnival, drawing heavily from her Caribbean experiences and aesthetics.

Tananarive Due - fantastical/horror. Immortals, vampires, curses, altered reality, unnerving mystery. Also has written a lot of books.

Andrea Hairston - creative and otherworldly, weird and bisexual, with mindscapes and magic and aliens.

Helen Oyeyemi - I haven’t read her work but she comes highly recommended by a friend. A novelist and short story writer, most of her work leans fairytale fantastical-horror. What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours is a collection of short fiction and recc’ed to me as her best work. White is for Witching is a well-regarded haunted house novel.

Ashia Monet - indie author, writer of The Black Veins, pitched as “the no-love-interest, found family adventure you’ve been searching for.” Magic road trip! Possibly YA? I’m not positive.

This also doesn’t include Black non-binary sff authors I’ve read and liked like An Owomoyela, C. L. Polk, and Rivers Solomon. And this is specifically about adult sff books, so I didn’t include Black women YA sff authors like Kalynn Bayron, Tomi Adeyemi, Tracy Deonn, Justina Ireland, or Alechia Dow, though they’re writing fantasy and sci-fi in the YA world too.

And a lot of short stories are out there in the online magazine world, where so many up and coming authors get their start, and established ones explore offbeat and new ideas. Pick up an issue (or a subscription!) of FIYAH magazine for the most current Black speculative writing.

#books #book recs #science fiction

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aeor-is-for-reccing · 1 month

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MODERN AU: A Shadowgast Rec List

This week, we have modern AU! Check under the cut for a whopping 24 fics that all take place in modern times, and don't forget to comment and kudos if you like them!

LOVE & OTHER ENCHANTMENTS by LivThael (2092, General) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

An imagined review and synopsis of a movie about a Shadowgast modern-setting bookstore AU.

Reccer says: Hilariously awful, I say with great love, and by that I mean it purposefully and artfully swan dives out of the AU tree and hits every trope on the way down. This was written to be as cursed as possible, and Liv really delivers both that and non-stop laughs. This is clearly a love letter to terrible romcoms, cliché fanfic tropes, and the Shadowgast fandom as a whole. A+ satire, PLEASE read this!

like 80/20 on the kinsey scale by jakia (2772, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Caleb bangs his hot TA and panics about it the next day. Beau did not sign up for listening to this.

Reccer says: Caleb -- who's only dated women before -- discovers he LOVES the D.

ask to be unbroken by chaotic_geeky (40038, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes, Unfinished Cliffhanger

Caleb gets a last minute chance to be a photographer at a big runway event. He meets the star model at the afterparty, and things go from there.

Reccer says: The premise is great, the story is excellent, and the characters are enthralling. It does end on an unfinished cliffhanger, but the beginning is so good it's worth it.

Fundamental Forces Other Than Gravity by mllekurtz (TheKnittingJedi) (40676, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

How cold, ruthless and lonely Essek Thelyss (a brilliant student with a secret) accidentally makes some friends and falls in love: a Shadowgast college AU.

Reccer says: This is a fantastic college AU! And the characterization is done so well it's phenomenal.

a smile is more than showing teeth by thought (13642, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

"you are welcome in Zadash should that be an option for you," Caleb had written, "and I would be pleased to set aside a few days to work with you in person." Or How to seduce your academic pen pal through basic kindness, stolen sweaters, and books. Mostly books.

Reccer says: This is the start of an incredible AU with two more after it in the series. I love this version of Essek and Caleb falling in love. SO MUCH.

Paradigm Shift by full_time_dreamer_behold (114291, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Caleb joins a law firm. He meets Essek, the IT manager. Things happen. They fall in love

Reccer says: It's a super sweet slow burn!! Essek and Beau have a really fun dynamic and the budding romance is very satisfying.

(your face in my hands is) everything good i need by mllekurtz (25884, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Academics Caleb and Essek are nerds and fall in love over the course of a conference

Reccer says: I liked it!

like colored indigo inscribed with my name by KmacKatie (kmackatie) (30648, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

An exploration of tradition, culture, what is worth sacrificing in finding yourself and family. Essek learns how to make a new family.

Reccer says: This is an incredible pic with a lot of beautiful world and culture building set into it. Though I love the idea that Essek knits, I am especially fond of the other handcrafts that the Dynasty may do culturally, and this one does such a great job with it. And the interpersonal relationships are absolutely incredible!

we learn to live with the pain, mosaic broken hearts by vegabondfirelily (5777, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Sometimes things don't go as planned. Caleb will always be there for Essek, though, even after a life-changing accident. Non-linear narrative, angst with a better ending

Reccer says: I love this pic, even if it makes me cry every time. It is emotional and brilliant.

the fire kept closest (burns most of all) by Mousecookie (21822, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: Major Character Death

Takes place on a modern Rumblecusp, Essek and Caleb are volcanologists. Absolutely bonkers genre mashup of scifi disaster thriller ghost story romance that somehow works. There is a MCD warning but it is also tagged as Happy Ending and that does come through!

Reccer says: The writing style is like watching a movie and it made me cry both sad and happy tears.

Starting with your heart (bright heart) by 2manyboys (9914, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Essek and Caleb have been taking showers together, but it's totally platonic, they swear

Reccer says: I liked it!

scene: a shift in tempo by hanap (6790, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Essek, first soloist of Rosohna Ballet, comes across the mountains in an exchange to be Caleb's new partner.

Reccer says: A beautiful fic! I love the way the AU fits our characters so beautifully, and how it honors ballet while also subverting it just a little. Gorgeous!

A King in Cat's Clothes by royalgreen (1544, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Frumpkin is extremely suspicious of this interloper Essek who keeps visiting Frumpkin's domain (the cat cafe) and sniffing around Frumpkin's human

Reccer says: Frumpkin's POV is utterly hilarious. He is so angry that Essek is sweetly romancing Caleb.

read between the lines (everything is gradual) by SpottedEnchanse (SpottedEnchants) (3047, General) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

A series in which Caleb owns a cat cafe. It's amazing.

Reccer says: SpottedEnchanse's writing can do literally no wrong ever. It's like flossing for the brain

the golden thread around your neck whispered visions of my undoing by MarsBar2019 (191412, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Essek is the CEO of an arcane tech company in Roshona where Caleb gets a job as his personal assistant.

Reccer says: A tense slow burn that's sexy as hell, one of my favourite fics.

Sleep, With Benefits by KmacKatie (62272, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Caleb tries out his coworkers' mattress. That's definitely all and not that he has a major crush on Essek.

Reccer says: I liked it!

take chances by 06151126 (3021, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Essek left Formula One and came back, but his return isn't going well. He hires Caleb to help.

Reccer says: This is the second work in a series, and the whole thing is wonderful! Well written and honest, it's very cool to see how Essek and Caleb come together over the course.

Empire of Lights by mllekurtz (TheKnittingJedi) (17215, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Rosohnans call it the rainy season: a time of humid days, heavy showers, and suffocating heat. Caleb, who feels less and less like a stranger in the city he recently decided to call home, finds it's also a time for revelations.

Reccer says: This is a fantastic, sweet AU of our wizards getting together and I love it.

A mile high by Mousecookie (545, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Caleb and Essek (try to) get frisky in an airplane lavatory.

Reccer says: It's cute and funny.

The Kitchen Sink by mousecookie (17126, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Essek is a supermodel and Caleb is a jack-of-all-trades, and they keep meeting in increasingly unlikely circumstances. WIP with 6/12 chapters.

Reccer says: It's funny and the writing style is almost Pratchett-esque at times

The following fics each received 2 recs each!

Something to Believe in by AwesomeFroggy (108948, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Essek's mother sends him to Nicodranas as punishment, where unbeknownst to her he already has a friend. Jester thinks he'd really get along with her friend Caleb.

Reccer 1 says: I liked it! Reccer 2 says: This is an amazing incredible story! I love it so very much! The story is complete, though it is marked as one chapter left as no epilogue is out. Don't let that stop you from reading! I love every single second of this story so very much.

I’ve been lost before (and I’m lost again, I guess) by toneofjoy (165k, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Rock climbing AU! Caleb is the new athlete to the gym and Essek takes over his training. Despite the specter of their pasts, feelings blossom.

Reccer 1 says: It's well written, most of the esoteric climbing stuff is explained well, and I really enjoy their characterizations. There's a good balance between the relationship-building and the climbing part. Reccer 2 says: This is top three Shadowgast stories ever. It's a wild, beautiful, heartfelt ride. It's worth every second of time it takes to read. Also, this will make you want to take up climbing or at least start watching climbing. It's so well written and enjoyable. Everyone should at least give it a try!

The Secret Romance of Caleb Widogast by Cardinal_Daughter (15680, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

All Caleb wants is a peaceful, romantic weekend alone with his boyfriend. The boyfriend none of his friends know about. Naturally, nothing goes quite as planned.

Reccer 1 says: a sweet and silly story where we get a glimpse of the absolute chaos of a M9 group chat Reccer 2 says: A fantastic AU with a brilliant sequel. I love it!

coping skills by eldritchmochi (251061, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

BDSM fic for a disabled Essek and the trials he experiences

Reccer 1 says: There is so much good about this WIP! The depiction of both Essek’s disabilities and the kink community are so well done, and the characterization is super fun. Well written and super hot. Reccer 2 says: This is one of the best long fits out there for a modern prompt. It is an absolutely wonderful story, heartfelt and meaningful, and the characters have so much depth. And I'm a sucker for a well written chronic illness/chronic pain Essek, and this one is so realistic it walks the line to uncanny. I love this!

Aeor is for Lovers is an 18+ Shadowgast Discord server. The above fanfic recommendations were pulled from our community for this weekly event. All fics, unless otherwise specified, will primarily feature Shadowgast. Have any questions about what this is? Check out the FAQ! Next week, we’ll be back with WIPS

#shadowgast #caleb widogast #essek thelyss #critical role #cr fic recs #fan fiction rec list #aeor is for lovers #critical role fan fiction #cr fic #cr fics

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n3xii · 5 months

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How to read energy with tarot and oracle cards

Energy can be read in a variety of ways, you can feel it, see it or even ''know'' it cognitively. But a universal way to read ALL energy is by using tarot and oracle cards. This method is perfect for analyzing the details of your own aura because you can identify what blockages there are, where they came from, how to heal them etc.

But first, let's talk about DECKS. You can use any deck to read energy, litterally any deck you feel a connection to will do perfect. but preferably the deck is artistic and has alot of details, symbols, colors, or even references to chakras and different spiritual concepts. I will have a post soon with a list of deck recommendations based on different topics in spirituality soon, so refer to that if you'd like!

Prepare your space: when tapping into your own energy, or someone else's, you will want to do some prep beforehand by clearing your mind and focusing on your intention. I don't think it's appropriate to "cleanse' yourself before doing this type of reading IN MY OPINON, the whole point of energy reading is to read what's currently in your energy. How can you do that if you CLEANSE IT. Use your cards to help identify whats currently in your aura, whats effecting you, and if there's external energy that's disturbing you, then cleanse if needed! if you want to cleanse the deck itself, thats up to you but I think that's the best idea.

2. Choose a spread (if you prefer spreads.): to be honest, I think if you're gonna use spreads, regardless of experience level, the reading will actually be more successful. this is because you can configure and customize the spread to be WHATEVER you need in that moment. You want to read your aura? pull a card for each layer of the aura, OR, pull a card for energy thats leaving your aura, energy thats currently in your aura, and energy that's coming in. you want to read someone elses energy? pull a card that represents their aura, a card for how their energy is effecting themselves or others, a card for whats contributing to their energy ETC.

3. shuffle and focus: shuffle your cards in your preferred method and focus on whom you're reading for. if you're reading for someone else, let them touch the cards. if thats not applicable, focus on an aspect or characteristic of that person.

4. lay out your cards/spread

5. pay attention to reversed cards. if you read reversals, these can be indicators of blockages OR of energies that are dissipating, it depends on the meaning of the card. For example, ten of swords reversed may indicate that the energies of betrayal, endings and despair is leaving your life. Meanwhile, the upright meaning by indicate a blockage. use context and your intuition to interpret cards.

6. Pay attention to colors: colors in a card and tone can indicate the color of your aura. here's a list of aura colors, this list doesnt contain all of them but it's a good starting point.

Red: Energetic, passionate, and strong-willed.

Orange: Creative, adventurous, and enthusiastic.

Yellow: Intellectually curious, cheerful, and optimistic.

Green: Compassionate, harmonious, and nurturing.

Blue: Communicative, calm, and spiritually connected.

Purple: Intuitive, visionary, and spiritually aware.

Pink: Loving, empathetic, and affectionate.

White: Pure, spiritually awakened, and balanced.

Silver: Intuitive, psychic, and open to new ideas.

Gold: Enlightened, wise, and spiritually evolved.

Black: Protective, strong-willed, and potentially blocking energy.

Brown: Grounded, practical, and connected to the Earth.

Gray: Indecisive, emotionally neutral, and detached.

Indigo: Highly intuitive, sensitive, and perceptive.

Turquoise: Creative, communicative, and balanced in emotions.

7. Pay attention to symbols: symbols can be signs from the universe or carry extra messages about your/someone's elses energy. here's a list of common symbols in tarot AND oracle decks

tarot:

Celtic Knots: Represent interconnectedness, cycles, and eternity.

Roses: Symbolize love, beauty, and balance.

Laurel Wreaths: Signify victory, honor, and achievement.

Sphinx: Represents wisdom, mystery, and enigma.

Cherub/Angel: Symbolizes divine guidance, purity, and protection.

Ankh: Represents life, vitality, and eternal existence.

Infinity Symbol (∞): Signifies limitless potential, eternity, and balance.

Butterflies: Symbolize transformation, growth, and renewal.

Ouroboros (Snake Eating Its Tail): Represents cyclical nature, infinity, and rebirth.

Keys: Signify unlocking hidden knowledge, opportunities, and solutions.

Hourglass: Symbolizes time, cycles, and the fleeting nature of life.

Mystical Gates: Represent opportunities, choices, and thresholds.

Lion: Signifies strength, courage, and boldness.

Scorpion: Symbolizes transformation, regeneration, and intensity.

Scales: Represent balance, justice, and equilibrium.

Winged Creatures: Signify the spirit, transcendence, and higher knowledge.

Wreaths: Symbolize victory, achievement, and honor.

Ships/Boats: Signify journeys, exploration, and movement.

Bulls: Represent determination, stubbornness, and material wealth.

Stars: Symbolize hope, inspiration, and guidance from the cosmos.

Crescent Moon: Signifies intuition, change, and the feminine energy.

Skulls: Symbolize mortality, transformation, and facing one's fears.

Clouds: Represent uncertainty, confusion, and change in perspective.

Castle: Signifies protection, security, and the inner self.

Serpents: Symbolize knowledge, transformation, and hidden wisdom.

Lightning: Signifies sudden change, revelation, and powerful energy.

Pyramids: Represent spirituality, ascension, and hidden truths.

Cross: Symbolizes sacrifice, faith, and spiritual growth.

Oracle cards:

Animals: Animal symbols can represent qualities, characteristics, and messages associated with specific animals. For example, a lion might symbolize courage and strength, while a butterfly could signify transformation and growth.

Hearts: Hearts are associated with love, emotions, and matters of the heart. Their presence in a card can indicate love, compassion, or emotional healing.

Stars: Stars symbolize inspiration, guidance, and divine energy. They may suggest hope and opportunities.

Moons: Moons are linked to cycles, intuition, and the subconscious. They can imply the need for introspection or changes in emotions.

Sun: The sun represents success, vitality, and enlightenment. It may indicate a positive outcome or a period of happiness.

Keys: Keys symbolize unlocking potential, solutions, and opportunities. They suggest that answers are within reach.

Crossroads: Crossroads represent choices and decisions. They can indicate a need to make a significant life decision or consider options.

Water: Water symbolizes emotions, intuition, and fluidity. It may suggest a need to navigate your feelings or adapt to changes.

Fire: Fire represents passion, transformation, and energy. It may suggest the need for action or a burst of inspiration.

Feathers: Feathers are often associated with messages from the spirit realm and can imply the need to pay attention to signs and synchronicities.

Coins/Pentacles: These symbols often relate to material matters, finances, and practical concerns. They may suggest issues related to money or resources.

Clouds: Clouds can symbolize uncertainty, confusion, or a clouded judgment. They may suggest the need for clarity.

Doors: Doors represent new opportunities, opportunities, and transitions. They may suggest entering a new phase in life.

Trees: Trees symbolize growth, strength, and connection to nature. They can suggest personal development and grounding.

Angels: Angels represent divine guidance, protection, and higher wisdom. Their presence can indicate a need for spiritual guidance or support.

Spirals: Spirals symbolize evolution, cycles, and personal growth. They suggest that you are on a journey of self-discovery.

Mandalas: Mandalas often represent unity, wholeness, and balance. They suggest the need to find harmony in your life.

Roses: Roses symbolize love, beauty, and passion. They may suggest matters of the heart or self-love.

Wings: Wings can symbolize freedom, elevation, and spirituality. They suggest a desire for greater understanding and spiritual growth.

Rainbows: Rainbows are a symbol of hope, promises, and blessings. They can suggest that positive developments are on the horizon.

Thats all for this post so far, I hope you found it informative and you're welcome to add any more tips to this post if you'd like!

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mundivagantsoul · 7 months

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✩ Bookshopist Moonboys✩

Part 1: Nerds, Dead Trees and Dust

Moon Knight System x Reader

A/N: Hi all! This is my first time posting my writing. I apologies for poor grammar and spelling, my only excuse is daydreaming throughout school when I was was supposed to be learning this stuff. If you have any feedback or comments please let me know, I'd love to hear from you! Hope you enjoy ♡

Warnings: mentions of violence (nature documentaries), coarse language, British lingo?

Word Count: 1K

Masterlist | Next ->

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Seated in the dim living room light with tea-steamed glasses, a certain chocolate-curled Brit scrolls aimlessly through job adverts until a particular post catches his attention

Full-time bookseller- The Old Town Bookshop

Taking a sip of his Earl Grey, Steven opens the listing, greeted with the classic rhetorical questions and enthusiasm only found in job adverts.

Love books? Are you a passionate reader who wishes to share your enthusiasm for literature with others? Come work at “The Old Town Bookshop”, where you can expand your literary knowledge and create a meaningful career with fellow book lovers!

“Living amongst books isn’t enough for you?” Marc quips from a small mirror placed deliberately on the desk's corner.

“I thought you cared about animals and the environment, and yet here you are, further supporting an industry that indoctrinates the destruction of their homes?” Jake nonchalantly adds from an adjacent mirror, oblivious to the surprised faces of his headmates.

Marc raises a brow, “Since when did you become an animal rights advocate?”

Jake shrugs, gaze subconsciously finding Viejita lazing on the lounge before returning back to Marc. “Dunno. Guess I actually pay attention when Steven puts on his nature documentaries”.

Marc mocks being insulted. “Oh I’m sorry, I just don’t find watching baby antelopes getting mauled to death entertaining”.

“Of course, you much rather maul people to death yourself”, Jake's voice mimics Marc’s, enticing a scoff from the latter.

“You’re one to talk Mr. I abuse wheelchairs and kidnap patients from psych wards and then murder them in the back of my fancy car”.

Steven interrupts the dispute before it can get out of hand.

“Bloody hell, Lads’ shut it! Look, if I’m being honest, I’m not gonna take animal ethics from either of you carnivores”, then adding, “And need I remind you two, you’re the reason we’re in this dire situation”.

It’s true, between Marc, Jake and Khonshu’s shenanigans, they’d managed to lose their only legal job, and unfortunately, being an ancient Egyptian deity’s ‘fist of vengeance’ doesn’t pay well.

Marc begins to grasp at any logic that means they don’t have to work amongst nerds, dead trees and dust. “Well… Jake and I aren’t avid readers, and the job description says we must be ‘passionate readers’”.

“Well… I’d say with the number of ‘adult’ novels you read, you’d be classified as a passionate reader”. Steven states matter-of-factly, earning a snort from Jake and a finger from Marc.

“Look, capitalism exists, fish need feeding, and it’s either this, working at the laundromat on 6th, or grovelling for my old job back. You pick”.

Sharing a glance, they sigh, “Fine, we’ll work at your nerd hub”.

Triumphantly, Steven opens the application form.

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A weathered sign inscribed with “The Old Town Bookshop” hangs atop the quaint corner store. Parallel white arches and a broad window decorate its petite structure with morning sunlight reflecting off the seemingly fresh coat of indigo, enriching the buildings' otherwise aged aesthetic.

Breathing out a puff of warm air, Steven adjusts the strap of his shoulder bag, a nervous habit he’d picked up over the years. Peering at the lit window, he opens the door. Greeted by the homely smell of paper and ink, Steven gazes around at the array of books and colours, marvelling at the unexpectedly large floor plan.

"Like the Tardis". Marc hums from the window reflection whilst Jake observes their surroundings, habitually checking for threats.

Strolling further into the store, a warm pressure rubs itself along his calf. Peering down, Steven’s met with honey eyes and golden fur.

“¿Gatito?” Jake chirps, seemingly forgetting about surveying the area.

The cat meows in return as if replying to Jake’s comment.

“Great, now we’ll be covered in dust and cat hair”. Marc comments, trying to remain apathetic about their adorable feline coworker.

Kneeing down, Steven scratches the tabby’s head, earning a delightful purr from their new acquaintance. Checking the collar, ‘Dorian’ is engraved on a fish-shaped name tag.

Dorian huh? Makes sense, you’re a pretty lookin’ fella. Steven observes before returning to the task at hand.

Following the familiar monotonous sound of a sticker gun, the Brit finds himself walking towards the counter where, surrounded by a pile of new releases, you are busy at work. The boys take in your features, entranced as the morning light caresses your face, highlighting the soft beauty that adorns your profile. Eyes roaming over your features, they notice your slight frown of concentration and inaudible movements of your mouth.

As Steven approaches the counter, your words become interpretable.

“How are we already getting Christmas and holiday content when it hasn’t even been Halloween yet?” you grumble, condemning whoever decided it was a suitable practice. “I swear if I start hearing Mariah Carey, I’m gonna…”.

Someone clearing their throat interrupts your malicious thoughts. As your head shoots up, you notice the fidgeting man in front of the counter. Shit. How long has he been standing there? You think, face heating up at the possibility of him witnessing your moral decadence.

“So sorry to bother you love. I’m here for my shift? I was supposed to start today… I’m Steven, by the way”.

The realisation smacks you in the face like a flying stop sign. Crap, it is already 8 o'clock? Internally criticising yourself for losing track of time, you scramble for an apology. “Right- yes, Steven, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise the time”. Sticking out your hand, you introduce yourself.

God, your name sounds as beautiful as you look, They simultaneously think.

A warm, calloused hand engulfs your own as Steven rolls your name over his tongue. “All good love happens to the best of us”.

You smile warmly, and suddenly, the prospect of spending 9 hours a day surrounded by nerds, dead trees and dust doesn't seem too bad.

Thank you for reading ♡

Also please go check out the fabulous @viejita-n-co who created Viejita! You’ll find a bunch of fanart and pictures of the boys too ♡

#steven grant #jake lockley #marc spector #steven grant x reader #marc spector x reader #jake lockley x reader #moon knight x reader #moon knight #moonknight #bookshopist moon boys

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psychelis-new · 7 months

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pick a pile: "Your true colors - (6/7) Indigo"

take a breath and choose the photo or number that calls you the most to read a message for you from the color indigo, the sixth of the 7 rainbow's colors. in this serie of readings about the rainbow's colors, I will try to channel about your true colors, so to help you look inside and see your most beautiful self, appreciate yourself more and hopefully provide some type of guidance if necessary. as cindy lauper would say: "your true colors are beautiful like a rainbow", so let's look at them and hear what they have to say to you and how they (you) can help you look at things in a more positive way.

indigo is the color of wisdom, intuition, spirituality, inner awareness, planning, fairness, power, vision, insight, dreams, perception (third eye chakra)... in this reading, I'll try to analyze this side of your character.

you can find the other colors' readings in the pacs list in my pinned post

don’t take the reading too seriously. only take what resonates with you and leave the rest. if you're not called by any pile, let this reading slid as it may not hold messages for you. if you're called by more than one pile, there may be messages in each of those piles. remember that is a general reading and some things may not resonate with you. energies can change and readings are based on present ones (as you read); you're always in charge of your life.

(photos found on unsplash)

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pile 1

You have a target, or you are moving towards a specific point in your life. You're not someone who gives up easily and honestly I think you're totally climbing up towards a higher knowledge, or your dreams, or an higher/more stable connection with your spirituality/above. I think it has mostly to do with your intuition not always being on point (or you feel/fear so). You may feel this path you're going through is filled with ups and downs but it's all part of the process, so try to stay balanced and accept all this. Accept that it won't always be smooth and there can be times in which you'll feel like you made no progress ever, even if you did. And there may be times in which your intuition may not be 100% and that's okay too. Understand that our energy may fluctuate for the most various reasons, and that's fine. Take a break and get back at it once you feel in touch with yourself again. Honestly, you have all the power you need to make your reality, you can get where you want, you can have a better connection with above too (for some of you, you may struggle getting in touch directly with your Guides or you want to get in touch with someone now in the 5d: you can. You can also ask for suggestions to readers if you need). Take time to look inside of you first. I do feel you can do it, even if you may have some doubts here and there or insecurities about what you're doing and even more if you can make it or it's possible for real. Honestly yes, it is possible for real. Practice more and also try more ways to connect with your inner self, so to be able to have better and clearer downloads in your life. Find ways to connect with the 5d/your Guides by experimenting: tarot/oracle cards (you can make your own decks at home with paper+pen), pendants (you can use one you own as a pendulum), one word notes you can pick through intuition, ask for angel numbers or specific signs/comfirmations (just don't overdo: learn to trust yourself too even if you fear your intuition being wrong... if it comes from within and you have no control over it, it's for a reason; it may carry another type of message, maybe even a message about healing a certain side of you so to be able to be more in tune with yourself and your inner guidance, but also with the guidance from above). Let go of the control (it just biases/blocks your intuition) and don't be afraid. Maybe you're trying to move fast somewhere, to reach an "ending point" or a result, as said in the beginning, but right now it's time to stand still and get better at listening (your Guides may be talking with you a lot, try to listen to them; you may get messages through words or music too, not just hear words in your mind). When we learn something (whatever it is), when we realize we can do something "easily", we try to rush it all to the end to owning that something asap, but that's not always the way to do things properly, the way to learn well. We need to stop here and there on our path and get better at something specific, we need to go slower and to really take time to understand even a little insignificant topic (you never know what is its importance in the future). Not stopping when it's time, not taking time to learn something (even if it takes us longer cause it's a tougher topic or subject, or it takes patience cause we feel like we're losing time on something "useless" like testing your intuition daily or something) may mean our result won't be as perfect as we'd like to. While at times, if you stop and enjoy the present, if you stop and focus on that little thing, you can even get a greater result. Do not rush things, go at your pace, respect yourself. You'll get where you want. Your intuition is part of you and you can get in touch with it anytime, just give yourself time to make it. You're pretty gifted, but gifts/talents at times also need to get polished through a bit of effort and patience.

song: freeze tag | terrace martin, robert glasper, 9th wonder, kamasi washintong, dinner party, phoelix; moonchild | rm

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pile 2

Some of may be very aware of the spiritual world and all that's hidden, even of your spirituality in general. But I think there may be something you're not analysing (or learning) on purpose or you're getting away from it: not sure if it "scares" you (maybe also cause of some type of trauma) or you feel like you don't need that or just need a break. You're just putting a wall here anyway. Honestly for some, you may be even entirely blocking your spirituality: maybe you got told that you need to follow a certain dogma and you fear abandoning it or that you cannot leave it or mix it with other practices; or you fear certain subjects (e.g. "witchy" stuff -it's okay to fear what we don't know, but you can know more of it if you want... unless it triggers certain sides of you. If so, take care of you and heal those triggers if you can, even ask for help); or maybe you find it hard to believe, which is okay (it could be that you tried once but you felt like you got let down or something, and now trusting again has gotten tougher; it could be a religious trauma tbh). Still, you know you have a very good intuition, and it's like... it's telling you to move in a certain direction, to still live and move around spirituality (in fact you're also here reading, hi). Maybe you want to learn more, to trust, to dig more, but something is blocking you, like your mind, your past, your fears... Try healing this emotional wound you have. Try to talk about why you felt let down or why you feel like you cannot surpass this point you reached in your spirituality (I think whatever is your situation atm you can get further and you may feel it too). You can talk with others into spirituality or you can find online all the knowledge you need. Try to be more open about the chances, about different reasons of why something happened or not (it wasn't because of you), about what can go well despite all that has been. Spirituality is a very personal endeavour and ofc I cannot tell you exactly what to do. It needs to be natural, it needs to come from within you. But if you feel even a little push from inside that is willing to move you further into it, to discover something new, even just for pure knowledge/fun, listen to it. You never know what you can find. And it won't be something scary nor something you will regret. Time used for personal development (and learning about anything you want) is always time well used, even if you won't find an answer or what you're searching for. It may come to you another time anyway, when you're ready for it. For those who are already into spirituality but are needing to get away, get a pause: if you feel used and abused because of your abilities, learn to build boundaries. Sure, you are here to share your abilities but you need to take care of yourself too also in order to be able to give properly. You need to receive too, and give from the abundance you got. You're not needy for wanting to receive.

Close away from all the noise inside and outside. Find yourself again, focus on you. If someone is annoying you or draining you, tell them off: and if they get angry, it's their trauma speaking. It's not you. If it's a belief blocking you, try to understand why and maybe move away from it if you need or try to look at it in a different way. Find your peace, find your balance, find yourself again and listen to yourself and your intuition. You need to be more fair with yourself, regain and reassert your power. Find some peace of mind, stay in a silent/dark environment if you need and for as long as you need (I do feel you need as you may be stressed by too many words and emotions around, by what others expect you to do or you fear they want you to do -but your life is yours, and especially your inner world is only yours, you get to decide its rules), and focus on your breathing. It's okay. Sometimes we may get carried away, but it's important to be aware of that, take a break and regain control. You don't have to go (back) to spirituality/religion asap, it will always be there, no matter how many pauses you'll need to take. You get to decide everything here, you can, you have that power.

(if you are called also by pile 3, feel free to take a look)

song: go! | santigold ft. karen o; nights like this | kehlani ft. ty dolla $ign

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pile 3

Pile 3, I think you may be able to get (and be more or less aware of this) important downloads from the 5d through your dreams. I think you may see stuff, get guidance, occasionally even get prophetic dreams (that you may consciously forget but live anyway irl -similar sensation of deja vus). I think you may be pretty connected with the spiritual world anyway. You probably can use clairs and are very intuitive especially at your best. I keep hearing "grounded" and I am not sure if you are already or you need to ground more, especially when it comes to your intuitive side. Maybe you lack some trust? (Reminds me me the Blue color reading tbh). Or maybe you fear something. Do these downloads kinda make you uncomfortable cause you feel like you cannot control them or are losing control onto something? It's okay, when you go through some spiritual awakening and it's sudden, it does get uncomfortable and scary. Take your time to grow acquainted with all this, and ask for suggestions to those who you think have been there already and can guide you through. I do think you can envision a lot, especially during meditation. And ofc maybe not all of you can really meditate for long or at all, but it may be worth to try and slowly get to it. You don't have to meditate for 10-20 mins from the start, you can start for 3 minutes and try daily, and once it gets easier you can move onto 5 mins and so on. It can be a slow process, we don't have to always rush things as we're taught since when we're born (honestly it's so toxic). But I do believe it could help you a lot in envisioning and planning better also your life and manifestations. And it could help you ground too, if you need. If you feel overwhelmed by infos/downloads and need some time off. Or if some of them aren't so clear at first. At times you may forget about the light you carry within or you would want to dim it out of fear, but you have it and it's a gift. Ofc I'm not here to tell you what to do: it's your life and if you feel like it's not something you can afford now (or at all), take your time/get away from it (if you'll ever want to get back, it will be there still). But one thing I can surely tell you is: do not be scared of it. It won't hurt you ever. Meditating could also help you find your inner light anytime you lose contact with it, and learn to use it to deal better and more boldly with all the darkness inside and what you cannot see (which at times may kinda block you and your intuition/connection to the spiritual world too -for those who actually would want to get more in touch but may feel kinda lost. But if not, use it for yourself at least, to help yourself dealing with your problems and fears). Meditating, could also mean doing some yoga exercises for example. If it's hard for you to stand still and envision stuff for a while without having your mind wandering around, you can start by focusing on slow movements of your body: it may help you focus on you again and be more aware or your inner side (inner awareness), and it may help you calm down and reconnect with your intuition too. Bring more love to you, also for all you've endured so far. There are many meditations and yoga series online, you can search for some (just go slow and let yourself guide you through which movements can be good for you and which not).

If you feel stuck in a rut, despite your soul is calling for you to move somewhere else, again meditating or finding any other way to ground yourself could totally help you re-balance any excess of emotions that may cloud your visions and also your downloads (or your understanding of those downloads: at times we may not fully grab them cause of our fears not letting us get the real meaning of what we're hearing or seeing, or not listening to any message to start with). You're powerful and strong btw, never forget it. Not even when things seem to be too crazy.

(if you're called also by pile 2, feel free to take a look)

song: my body is a cage | peter gabriel; amygdala | agust d

#pac #pick a photo #pick a pile #pick a card reading #pick a card #pick a card tarot #pick a picture #divination #clairs readings #psychic readings #colors readings #free tarot reading #tarot readings #tarot reading #intuitive readings #tarotcommunity #tarotblr

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hamsterclaw · 7 months

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Fic Library: Namjoon

A list of incredible fics I've read and re-blogged on my (almost) 2 years on here. These stories all celebrate our fave big, brainy, clumsy, sometimes annoying, always sexy Joon, check them out and give these authors some love!

The Body Through Time by @yeoldontknow. KNJ x f! reader, sexy academia AU. Angsty fic with Namjoon as a smouldering brainiac.

Goodnight Nabi by @sahmfanficbts. Get used to seeing Sam's handle in my lists because she's one of my fave writers and a lovely person to boot. KNJ x f! reader, sexy DILF mechanic Namjoon. A sexy, beautiful fic with Sam's signature hope and heart.

Pronoia by @junghelioseok. KNJ x reader, college + zombie apocalypse AU. A cracky, funny, zingy story with guest appearances from other members - including JK and Yoongi.

Booty Jorts by @miscelunaaa, who also has a good showing in my fic recs for her top notch writing and just being a great human. KNJ x f! reader - this is a smuttily delicious gem.

Shell-ter by @miscelunaaa. Hermit crab! Namjoon x marine biologist reader. I genuinely think about this grumpy (crabby?!) Namjoon all the time.

Scent of a woman by @sahmfanficbts. Leopard hybrid parfumerie boss! Namjoon x employee f! reader. There's always so much humanity in Sam's stories, and this does not disappoint.

How I love you by @ahundredtimesover. KNJ x f! reader. A 28k beautiful musing on love and marriage that's thought-provoking and sensitively written.

Seoul Redemption by @sahmfanficbts. Forger! KNJ x single mom! reader. A gorgeously realised imagining with a noir vibe and very human characters.

Park and Ride (Explicit) by @here2bbtstrash. KNJ x reader, idolverse. The first story I read by M, and it made me want to read so much more of her work. Sexy, fast-paced, and this Namjoon is swoonworthy.

Holding on letting go by @augustbutwinter. KNJ x gn! reader. August is queen of the short impactful drabble but her longer pieces are just as incredible. A sad, angsty, truthful, beautifully realised gem.

Cuffing Szn by @miscelunaaa. FBI agent KNJ x soft-bodied/plus-sized reader. Joon's an FBI agent, he's big and sexy, do you really need to know any more?

Reckless by @vyduan. Part of the Her multiverse. KNJ x reader, also featuring JJK x reader, idolverse. I started reading vyduan's writing when I first got into BTS fanfic, and apart from being a fucking fantastic writer, she's also an all-round good egg with a razor sharp wit. Reckless is hot and sexy and reader is gritty, strong and kickass. Namjoon is the arrogant pompous asshole of my dreams in this.

Fall apart & redefine by @ugh-yoongi. Idol KNJ x f! reader. Namjoon's music and musings give off sadboi vibes to me, and this gorgeous, angsty story captures all of that. Stunning.

On the line 1 by @augustbutwinter. KNJ x reader. I was only speaking the truth when I said August writes drabbles like no other. Short, cute and impactful.

Hey, it's me by @yoongiphoria. Exes Namjoon x reader. I remember reading this for the first time around the time Indigo came out and thinking how perfectly it captured the vibe of the album. I still love it now.

Untitled by @ahundredtimesover. An idolverse AU ft KNJ and f! reader. Musings on loss and impermanence and legacies also inspired by Indigo.

If this is all we can do by @yoongiphoria. A follow up to Hey, it's me, linked above, that made me stop skim reading and pay attention. Angsty, full of longing and just a great read.

The package thief by @blog-name-idk. KNJ x f! reader, enemies to lovers. I'm a fan of Mango's cracky humour, and it comes through in this judgy, petty and somehow also endearing Namjoon.

Shut up! by @daechwitatamic. KNJ x gn reader. I love it when a story alludes to Namjoon being annoying and I especially like how reader shuts him up. Smutty, sexy and so so good.

Envy by @whatifyoulivelikethat. KNJ x f! reader. Love this author's general DGAF vibes, and they've also written some of my favourite stories. Namjoon's gorgeously written and darkly sexy in this. So so hot.

The one with Namjoon and the u-haul by @eoieopda. KNJ x Jeon! reader. Jade's writing is sharply hilarious and this is a perfect example. A dreamy, sexy Namjoon and a lil shit JK.

Pheromones by @rmnamjoons. Spaceship captain Joon x spaceship botanist reader, sci-fi AU. The fic that introduced me to the concept of sex pollen and a sexy, sex-crazed yet somehow still chivalrous Namjoon.

Promise Me KNJ x f! reader, JJK x f! reader, military AU, by @sahmfanficbts. A beautifully written, tender love story that made me cry and reflect on my life. Sam writes emotions like no one else.

Additional notes: A few of my favourite Namjoon stories, are only on AO3, for which I've created a separate post.

#fic rec: namjoon #these authors are amazing

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v3nusxsky · 1 month

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Hello! I love your writing, and I have a request;

Larissa x teacher,fem!reader and they’ve been together for a few years and then Wednesday arrives to Nevermore and things start going downhill, the murders start and all that, so just about Larissa being overly overprotective over reader when those things happen, not letting reader out of her sight and constantly having to know where reader is because she doesn’t want reader in danger/to lose her. Reader is a bit stubborn and too independent and sometimes (for example) goes for a walk in the woods where the hyde is even though larissa told her not to bc its dangerous.

Basically fluff, larissa being overprotective, and possibly angst too!

You don’t have to write this if you don’t like the idea, also take your time!

Thank you <3

Temptations and Confessions

*Authors note~ the first instalment of my you are my world (YAMW) series and I must say I adore my Larissa Weems. Some themes may be a bit tricky so always read the warnings and check the rating love yall. Sorry to the anon for changing a few details to fit in with the series I hope that’s okay*

Trigger warnings~ Nevermore supernatural usual drama overprotective Larissa due to past trauma

Prompt~ see ask^^^

Tag list

Empathy. Often as children, we get told to have more empathy for others. But for you that’s not the case. No. You were labelled the overly sensitive child. The one who seemed to be nicknamed the cry baby. It wasn’t your fault really. Being born into two Normie parents who didn’t understand you wasn’t going to help your situation. I’m fact your ability became a curse rather quickly. It became a weakness. Others could now use this against you and it resulted in you curling in on yourself, speaking less and less, isolating yourself completely and building walls so high that they would rival the Eiffel Tower. All until you stumbled into Nevermore. Literally.

Feeling your own emotions deeply was manageable but feeling others on top of your own made everything ten times harder than it should’ve been. Your own nerves bubbled in your lower stomach uncontrollably as you made your way to the gates of Nevermore. That’s why you didn’t see it. Overwhelmed with not only your emotions but those of the whole school as well made your head spin, eyes blurring round the corners causing you to trip over a obnoxiously large stone and fall face first down to the ground. What a great impression that is.

That day led you to the current moment in time, you’ve been teaching at Nevermore for a year now, dating Larissa for a few months. Larissa’s aura immediately drew you in, a stunning mixture of gold, pink, green and light blue and slight speckles of red all swirling together in a pattern that is so uniquely hers. You adore how each colour simply is woven into each other yet still remaining visible to your eye. It is nothing short of gorgeous and even now you know you’ll never stop being stunned by the woman.

Over the past two weeks your girlfriend has had exhaustion and irritation rolling off her aura in brutal waves due to the newest student of Nevermore. In fact, you felt like you’d hardly seen her since Wednesday had arrived at Nevermore. And whenever you did, she was drained. Wherever an Addams goes, trouble and darkness will always follow, a rumour you’d heard but not had evidence of till now. The young Addams radiates black and indigo in her aura, it’s practically dripping like blood as her emotions of disinterest and annoyance seeped through. Despite not seeing the principal, you’d received many texts apologising for her lack of presence these days, reminding you she cares for you and to stay safe. Things would settle down soon. You both hoped for that. But a niggly feeling deep in your soul told you that that was simply wishful thinking.

Emotions constantly consumed you, the fear of the students impact your ability to remain neutral, to the point you were having near consistent headaches. New rules being implemented for staff and students due to what some believe is bears. Bears in the woods were believable but perhaps it was paranoia of the students effecting you or Wednesdays constant insistence over there being a monster In the woods killing people. Whatever the reason was you couldn’t do the constant headaches, anxiety hitting you like tidal waves every time you left your room, even altering your dreams now. This couldn’t go on much longer, it’s draining everyone, especially the poor Principal. Truthfully you weren’t sure what emotions were your own these day.

Shooting a quick text off to Larissa you found your shoes and jacket and got ready to leave the grounds in search of a break. Only to be stopped by a frantic round of knocks on the door of your private chambers spooked you. Instantly tapping into your ability, you knew your girlfriend was stood on the other side of the door riddled with panic causing you to make quick work of letting the woman in.

“Isa?” You puzzled, stepping back away from her slightly as the full force of her emotions hit you. “Darling! You shouldn’t leave the grounds. I can’t protect you there my love! Please don’t risk your health. I can’t imagine what would happen if-“ her own sobs choked the final words of her pleas. Tears forming in her cyan blue eyes, “I don’t like this darling girl” you couldn’t help but mumbled sadly “I need a break Isa. It’s too painful. Maybe if I can prove there’s nothing abnormal the students won’t be so paranoid. I have to try Larissa! Please for my sake let me go” you stated with the stubbornness she knew you held. Especially when it involved someone you care for. “I- I don’t like it” she whispered as her emotions clouded every word. As much as she didn’t like this, she doesn’t want you in pain either.

Warm slender fingers came to cradle your cheek as she attempted to persuade you otherwise. The blondes heart clenching with fear as you squared your jaw and pushed calming emotions into her. “I’ll be fine Isa. I promise. Just need fifteen minutes to myself away from all the madness. Larissa you must know I respect you but I need this. I’ll be back soon love” you stated before slipping under the shifters form that was blocking the doorway. You didn’t dare look back, knowing your heart would shatter into millions of tiny pieces at the hurt and anguish she was being drowned in.

One thing about Larissa Weems is she protects those within Nevermore and those who she holds dear with every fibre of her being. To see you go into the unknown alone most definitely shouldn’t be happening on her watch. But, she’d the let fear of losing you paralyse her, moments trapped in her own mind as it drew up the worst case scenarios.

The ticking sound escaping the grandfather clock seemed to be only adding to the blondes fears. You’d said fifteen minutes, by minute three she had moved back to her office and began rapidly passing the floor. A desperate attempt to calm herself was failing as she glanced again at the clock for at least the hundredth time. By minute eight, every emotion was clawing its way through the shifter inhibiting her from forming a plan. To save you from the unknown.

By minute fifteen, tears caressed pale cheeks as her chest heaved in attempt of getting enough air to fill them. You’d left. And she’d let you. Failing you in the first few months of your blossoming relationship wouldn’t booded well with her desire to love and protect you till her last breath. A lapse in her judgment that wouldn’t happen again.

As you made your way back to the grounds, shaken and sore you were immediately hit with your lovers emotions. Self hatred, solitude, love, panic, confusion and an overwhelming sadness were swirling inside of her like a mini tornado. So much so it practically made you feel more nauseous than you previously did. As you crawled into Nevermore the only thought you had was that she was right. If only you’d listened to her.

Not even bothering to knock you let yourself into the office panting slightly through the pain which caught her attention. “Are you hurt? Darling? Let me see. Are you okay? Gods don’t ever do that again! I could’ve lost you. Do you know how incredibly dangerous that is. Is that blood?” She rambled as her eyes frantically ran over your from. She immediately noted that you seemed to hold your right heel off the floor and a deep crimson stained your cheeks and left arm. Almost as if you’d been scratched by something.

“Isa” you groaned, “yes. I’m sorry. You were right” you mumbled as you tried to focus on anything but the swirling emotions that were brewing inside of you. “Stay” was all she offered as she let her long beautiful legs carry her to fetch what could only be a medical kit. Sure enough that’s exactly what she was clinging to as she moved to kneel by your saw body. “I’m sorry darling. I need to clean this up love” she murmured softly to you as she set to work on her task. A peace offering of painkillers and some bottled water to help with the physical pain. Praise flowing as she carfully cleaned and patch up the deep cuts before wrapping your ankle to help with the pain.

“Feel sick” you whimpered as she cleaned off the blood staining your cheeks. “I’ll just” she trailed off as you cut her off with a desperate plea to stay. “Please! Isa I need you here! Don’t leave me! I’m sorry, don’t go” only to be hushed and gently scooped into her arms and carried to her private quarters. From there she joined you on the bed, extra cautious of your sore body. “Okay.”

Okay. You were okay. But hurt. Alive. She reminded her self as you clung to her. She had no clue what had happened and it wasn’t her right to pry, you’d speak when you felt ready. In an effort to help with your nausea she tried to pour all her love and calming energy into you as silent tears rolled down her cheeks. You could’ve died. Left. Gone. She wouldn’t have been able to tell you she loved you. Although you knew that, she wanted the first time admitting it out loud to be perfect.

“I’ll never let anyone hurt you again” she mumbled dropping a sweet kiss to your head. You’d been silent for a while, chest rising and falling slowly with your eyes screwed shut as you hid yourself into her. Only natural she thought you’d been asleep. “I’m sorry I’ve let you down my darling. I can’t lose you. From here and now I’m going to make sure that you are safe. Better protection for you from emotions. Anything to keep you safe and happy. I- i- oh heavens how will I tell you when you are awake if i can’t say it now?’ I love you sweet girl. Always will.” She managed to stumble out before dropping another round of sweet kisses to the crown of your head. No verbal answer was given, but the onslaught of love forcing its way into her body was all that she needed to know.

You’d get through this together. She hadn’t lost you. And wouldn’t ever again. Stubbornly, you mumbled telling her she was protective of you. Only to be reminded that to Larissa Weems you are her whole world. Nothing is more important than your safety and happiness. Nothing. She’d deal with your stubbornness if you accepted her need to protect someone as precious as yourself from such a cruel world. Her love. Her life. Hopefully her wife. One day.

Word count ~ 2005

#anon answered #v3nusxsky answers #fanfic #anon requested #larissa weems x reader #larissa x you #larissa #larissa weems #larissa x reader #principal weems #principal weems x reader #principleweemsxreader #principal weems x you #principal larissa weems x reader #principal larissa weems #weems #v3nusxsky you are my world series #v3nusxsky

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humanpurposes · 3 months

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do u have any recommendations for modern dark or toxic aemond? i feel like u r the only one i dare ask 🫣 xx

I’m kinda honoured?? 😍 I need dark/toxic modern Aemond like I need oxygen so I've GOT U

If anyone has any more recs or self promo feel free to add to the list! I’m always looking for more sick and twisted Aemond fics 😈

Goes without saying these all have dark elements, targcest, manipulation, noncon/dubcon, violence in some cases so proceed with caution

x reader

The Commune by @adragonprinceswhore

Misery by @elaratyrell

Til Death Do Us Part by @asumofwords

Rip my heart, heal my soul by @flowerandblood

burn and bleed by @sapphicrhaegon

(I'm sneaking in a Michael Gavey fic if you're into that because) Stuck on You by @ewanmitchellcrumbs is actually a masterpiece and I reread it all the time

ALSO Ange has an upcoming dark!modern!Aemond fic called Cozened Indigo which I'm really really really normal about :)

x other character(s)

Like, everything by @sapphicrhaegon if you’re into Helaemond. I love curves and curses, and two children in a motel is on my reading list 😈

the game by catalystcomet (Aemond x Helaena with a bit of Daemon)

suck it and see by parlamante (Aemond x Rhaena)

stargirl interlude by faded_moon (Aemond x Jaeheara)

#inbox #fic recs

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 8 months

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Comet Donati [Chapter 10: Through The Dark] [Series Finale]

Series Summary: Sex, drugs, boy bands. You are a kinda-therapist recruited (via nepotism) to help Comet Donati through a recent crisis. Things are casual with Aegon, very not-casual with Aemond. Loosely inspired by One Direction.

Chapter Warnings: Language, references to sexual content (+18), drugs, alcohol, smoking, mental health struggles, pregnancy, bodily injury, death, miscarriage, AND NO OTHER CLUES, HAPPY READING!!! 🥰

Selected Chapter Quote: “What made you want to be a therapist?”

Word count: 6.4k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

Taglist: @doingfondue @catalina-howard @randomdragonfires @myspotofcraziness @arcielee @fan-goddess @talesofoldandnew @marvelescvpe @tinykryptonitewerewolf @mariahossain @chainsawsangel @darkenchantress @not-a-glad-gladiator @gemini-mama @trifoliumviridi @herfantasyworldd @babyblue711 @namelesslosers @thelittleswanao3 @daenysx @moonlightfoxx @libroparaiso @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @mizfortuna @florent1s @heimtathurs @bhanclegane @poohxlove @narwhal-swimmingintheocean @heavenly1927 @echos-muses @padfooteyes @minttea07 @queenofshinigamis @juliavilu1 @amiraisgoingthruit @lauraneedstochill @wintrr13 @r0segard3n @seabasscevans @tsujifreya @helaenaluvr @hiraethrhapsody

Thank you for loving the insane and incomparable Comet fam. I hope you enjoy the series finale. 💜

Night sky, string lights, reverberating bass, warm wet verdant air like the earth the dinosaurs knew, swampy and thick with beasts. With his lazy, dreamlike smile—a kind contagious glow, pink sunburned cheeks that match the clinking Salty Dog in his hand—Aegon says: “What made you want to be a therapist?”

You won’t tell him the whole truth. But you’ll tell him part of it. “Sigmund Freud.”

Aegon is intrigued, raised eyebrows and a crooked grin. “The guy who thinks everyone wants to fuck their mom?”

“You would have liked him. He did a lot of coke.” You take a swig of your Salty Dog: rosemary, grapefruit, the singeing bite of gin. “He was the founder of talk therapy. And, yeah, some of the things he wanted to talk about were…unorthodox. Misguided. But still…”

“He just wanted to talk,” Aegon says softly, understanding now.

“This was the turn of the century, okay? This was back in the days when they were pulling people’s teeth out, locking them up in asylums, injecting them with diseases, cutting off parts of women that made them unruly, ungovernable, immoral.” You shudder. “And Freud said no, just talk to them. Just figure out what demons they have chained up in their skulls, dark dusty corners buried way down deep, and help them figure out how to move forward. It’s not about having a cure, a pill or a scalpel. I mean, how ludicrous would that be, thinking I was walking around with some failproof silver bullet to make all the pain of existence vanish? That’s insane. It’s about listening to people, and caring about people, and shining a light on what part of them already knew was there. I don’t have a cure for anybody. Not a single goddamn person on this planet. But I can help them find their own.”

Aegon watches you, contemplates you, studies you like something rare and fleeting. “You are going to be one hell of a therapist.”

“I don’t know about that. But I hope so.”

“I’ll find you. Maybe when you’re done with school you can work on me. I’d keep you busy, I guarantee it. I’m like Disney’s Haunted Mansion. Ghosts everywhere you look.”

You laugh, shaking your head. “You are never going to remember me.” He is never going to remember this place, this time, the way he shared his light with me like a long-lost comet clipping by Earth.

“I might,” Aegon says. He sips his Salty Dog with his elbows propped on the table, his blond hair whipping in the indigo wind, grains of salt on his lips, reflections of string lights like stars in his eyes. “I really think I might.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Your arms thrown around his neck, your face buried in his black t-shirt, inhaling smoke and dust and the coppery sharpness of his spilled blood. You are sobbing uncontrollably, gasping, shivering, wild prideless tears and clawing fingers. Jace’s words circle in your skull like a moon around its planet: Nobody escapes the indignity of becoming a regret. Aemond is trying to calm you, to quiet you. His hands—large and dangerous and bloodstained and careful—are on your back, in your hair. You have to explain, to repent. You have to make him understand.

“I didn’t get pregnant on purpose,” you moan into him, a jagged rush like a hemorrhage. “I swear to God I didn’t. I wouldn’t do that to you. I wasn’t trying to trap you or fix you or use you. I’m in love with you, Aemond, I wanted you, and I still want you, and I thought you would hate me and I was terrified and I didn’t know how to tell you—”

“I don’t hate you, I could never hate you,” he’s saying, and more that you can’t catch; his words are a tide, flowing in and fading out. Now there is pain, deep and sharp and collapsing. Aegon is standing a few yards away, tears flooding down his sunburned face; they clear tracks in the dust that coats him, that coats everyone, that sticks to the blood on your legs. Cregan has pushed the others back, but still, you can hear their incorporeal voices: Jace asking what’s going on, Rhaena explaining, Baela shrieking, Criston shouting orders. Now Aegon has a rough hand on Aemond’s shoulder and is telling him something—insisting upon something—but you don’t know what. Language escapes you; language abandons you.

There are sirens and flashing lights the color of rubies, roses, tangled arteries. Aemond scoops you up and carries you towards them. There is only enough room for one person to ride in the ambulance with you; there is no discussion of who it will be. The rest of Comet has to wait for the Escalades to arrive at your parents’ farm. You do not try to steal a glimpse of the damage, felled trees and scattered fence posts, dead cattle and pillaged earth. You are filled with enough wreckage already; you are built of it, bones made out of bent nails, nerves of barbed wire.

Needles into your arms, chemicals into your bloodstream: something that deadens the pain and muddies your thoughts, makes them slow and heavy and unpanicked, like you are watching this happen to somebody else. In an exam room, nurses strip your clothes away and wipe the red from your skin, routinely, absentmindedly, as if it is of no consequence, as if the future you had taken for granted has not just been drowned, immolated, eradicated from existence like a dying star. They give you underwear fitted with a bulky postpartum pad—the same used by mothers of living children—and a hospital gown that Aemond marks with bloody fingerprints when he touches you. Then the nurses leave you to wait for the doctor with your IVs and your fogbank mind and your glazed eyes that stare blankly at the sterile white walls.

Aemond is smoothing back your hair from your face, and you are reminded of how he held Aegon when he was dying on your bedroom floor in the MGM Grand. You remember once thinking that Aemond is like storms and rogue waves, and that’s true; he turns lethal and then goes kind again, strikes and then soothes. He says once you are alone, each word painstakingly chosen: “I’m sorry that because of how I’ve acted, you felt you couldn’t tell me.”

“I’m sorry I lost the baby.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. I must have. I’m bleeding too much.” You can feel it, blood and clots that ooze, gush, drain away leaving you cold and hollow.

The exam room door opens, not a nurse or a doctor but a man in khaki cargo shorts and a filthy neon green tank top and matching Crocs, clop clop clop. “Hey, Stargirl,” Aegon says, sad and gentle. He holds up a venti-sized plastic cup. “I brought you a Double Chocolatey Chip Frappuccino.”

You blink groggily, not knowing what to do with it. Aegon puts the clear cup in your hands, the green straw between your lips. It’s sugary, cold, rich, topped with a swirl of whipped cream and chocolate syrup. It brings you back a little bit, a few unsteady steps towards the real world.

“Where the fuck is the doctor?” Aemond asks him.

“The nurse said she’s on her way. They’re understaffed.” Aegon shrugs apologetically: Missouri bullshit.

“You get somebody in here, right now.”

“What do you want me to do, threaten to stab medical professionals?! How about you punch some of their teeth out, I bet that would help.” Then Aegon sighs shakily and covers his own face with his hands. “It wasn’t…it wasn’t mine, you know?” Wasn’t, isn’t, will never be. “We haven’t…not since…it’s not…” He looks at Aemond with large, shining, ocean-blue eyes. “It’s not possible. You have to know that. You can’t be the way that you are sometimes. You don’t get a few weeks to come around to doing the decent thing. You have to believe her.”

And Aemond says softly: “I do.”

The door opens again and a doctor steps through it, mid-forties, thick black-rimmed glasses, dark hair secured in a businesslike low bun. Aegon ducks out of the room; the doctor gives him a brief quizzical glance before introducing herself to you. You can’t seem to latch onto her name. You answer the questions she asks you as she readies the ultrasound machine: ten weeks along, blunt force trauma to your back, where and how it hurt before the pain was drugged out of you. She unfastens a tie on the side of your hospital gown and opens it just enough to spread the cool gel across your belly and then glide the transducer through it. She peers at the grainy screen. She’s checking for a heartbeat; she’s checking to see if you’ll need a D&C to help expel a partial miscarriage so you don’t go septic.

“I lost it,” you sob, breaking down again. “Aemond, I’m so sorry—”

“Don’t. Please don’t.” He kisses your temple and then rests his forehead against yours, tears glittering in his river-clear right eye.

“Well,” the doctor says with practiced, vaguely sympathetic composure. “You lost one of them.”

You look to her, not understanding. “One of…?”

She angles the monitor so you and Aemond can see. “Fraternal twins often have separate amniotic sacs and placentas. So depending on the positioning of the fetuses, it is possible to miscarry one but not the other. This one on the left here…” She indicates it with her index finger. “It’s…it’s no longer viable, unfortunately. You’ve already passed most of it. But this one on the right…” She squints at the screen, repositioning the transducer. “From what I can tell, it seems to be holding on. Let me see if I can…” She moves the transducer around, pressing it into the yielding flesh of your belly. And then you hear it: a fierce defiant drumming, a whistling like wind through leaves. “I thought so,” the doctor pronounces, smiling. “There’s the heartbeat. The pulse is approximately 155 beats per minute, which is typical.”

One of them? I didn’t lose one of them? “Aemond…?”

When you turn back to him, he’s staring at the flickering black-and-white whirls of bones and blood flow on the ultrasound screen. And the expression on his face is one that you’ve never seen from him before, serene like when he’s with animals, awed like when he studies the galaxy, and something else too, a great shifting, a clicking into place, tectonic plates and ocean currents and storm clouds unraveling into clear skies. “It’s alright?” he says, not taking his eye from the screen.

“It is,” the doctor confirms. “Measuring a little bit small for ten weeks, but that’s to be expected for a twin. I don’t think you’ll be able to tell the sex for another month, but it’s alive and well.” She freezes the image on the screen, sets the transducer aside, and cleans the gel from your belly. “Based on my experience, in cases like this, I’d say there’s a better than 50/50 chance the surviving fetus can be carried to term.”

You say: “What can I do…? I mean…there must be something I can do to help it…to help it live…”

“We’ll give you medication to stop any residual uterine contractions and antibiotics to prevent infection. I’d like to admit you for observation, just for a day or two. And I would recommend bed rest for several weeks. Until you’ve reached your second trimester, at least.”

“Yes. Anything. I’ll do anything.”

“And sir, you’re…” The doctor peers at Aemond through her glasses, really scrutinizing him for the first time, his brutal scar and his blind left eye and his stillness and his wonder. “You’re the father?”

Aemond nods, still gazing at the screen like a constellation in the night sky, like a comet only glimpsed once in a lifetime. “I am.”

The doctor beams. “Congratulations,” she tells both of you. And then she leaves to arrange for you to be admitted to the hospital.

“I’ll stay,” Aemond says. “When the band flies to New Orleans tomorrow, I’ll stay here with you.”

“No, Aemond.”

“I’m staying. I’m not going to leave you. You need me, the baby needs me.”

“No,” you say again. “What we have now is wrong. It’s painful and volatile and doomed.” You lay your palm against his scarred face, and he doesn’t finch away. “You have to figure out who you are after Comet. And so do I.” Tears in your eyes, tears on your cheeks; but on your lips is a soft, patient smile. “Aemond, I don’t want me and the baby to be a distraction from the work that you still desperately need to do. I don’t want to be a temporary fix. I don’t want to be your life raft. I want to be…if I’m going to be anything to you…” Your thumbprint ghosts across his cheekbone, tender, reverent. “I want to be your home.”

He shakes his head, but he doesn’t speak; drops like rain spill down his right cheek, dyed pink by blood from the fresh lacerations that riddle him, new scars and ancient pain.

“What are you thinking?” you say.

“I’m thinking that you’re right. I fucking hate it, but you are.” He swipes away tears with one bloodstained hand, then he settles it on your not-yet-showing belly, a place of ruin, a place of hope. “When can I come back?”

“When you’re ready. And only you’ll know when that is.”

The exam room door opens again, and your parents rush in like water through a cracked dam. They are frantic and fretting, peering around bewilderedly.

“Lord almighty, what the hell happened?!” your dad booms; and your mom doesn’t even think to chastise him.

“I’m okay, Daddy.”

“You got hit by somethin’? Are they gonna do an x-ray? Your mother and I finally made it back home from church, trees and power lines down all over the place, and that boy was waitin’ on the front porch to tell us where you were. You know, the big one. The one with the godawful ponytail.”

“Cregan,” your mom offers.

“Cregan,” your dad says.

“It’s a man bun, Daddy. How’s the farm?”

“We ain’t too bad off. A couple cows dead, half the herd out wanderin’ since the pasture fence blew away. Me and the dogs gotta bring ‘em on back, but your mother and I had to see you first. Did they check you over good? Can you come home today?”

“Sweetheart, there’s…” Your mom’s voice is alarmed. “There’s blood on your gown, on your face, what happened?”

“Well, I, um, the thing is…” You try to tell them. You begin crying again instead. As you sniffle and avert your eyes—afraid, ashamed—Aemond stands and extends one large, scarlet-streaked hand. Your dad shakes it tentatively. And then Aemond explains for you: the child you’ve lost, the child you’ve kept, what has to happen next.

“I am responsible,” Aemond says as they gape at him, half-ecstatic and half-horrified. “And I know that this didn’t exactly happen in the traditional way, and I know that there is a lot of work left for me to do to prove myself worthy of your daughter. But I hope in time you’ll be able to forgive me. Because it seems that we’re going to be family.”

Your mom squeals and hugs Aemond. Your dad hugs you. They stay until you are settled in your own private room—small bed and clean sheets, drugs trickling into your veins—and only then do they listen to your insistence that you’ll be okay until morning, that they need to go home to take care of the farm. They leave with their arms around each other, exchanging murmurs like vows. Then Aemond asks if you feel well enough to see the band. They want to say goodbye.

“You’ll miss me,” Jace says confidently, then swoops in to smack a kiss on your forehead before anyone can stop him, bouncing dark curls and smirking mouth. Aegon jabs him in the ribs, Criston rolls his eyes, Aemond glowers like he’d enjoy putting Jace in need of another 28 dental implants. “If you ever get sick of mentally ill blonds, just let me know. The kid doesn’t change anything. I dig MILFs.”

“Thanks, Jace. I guess.”

“We’ll still see you around, right? You’ll visit us, we’ll visit you?”

“Yeah. I won’t disappear.”

“Good.” And then again, more somberly: “Good.”

Rhaena is dabbing at her gentle, doe-like eyes with a Kleenex, leaning into Luke for support. Criston is gallant. Daeron is optimistic. Baela is exasperated that you told Rhaena you were pregnant but not her.

“I didn’t tell Rhaena,” you counter. “She just happened to be the person who accompanied me on my ill-fated adventure to procure Plan B in Tokyo at like 2 a.m.”

“Which did not work,” Rhaena adds, sniffling into her Kleenex.

“A cautionary tale,” Jace says to everyone. “You hear that, fellas? When in doubt, wrap it before you tap it.”

Baela nods at you. “Luckily, she doesn’t seem too disappointed.” Her eyes flick reticently to Aemond where he sits in the chair closest to your bed, a presence in the room like skies that could turn in an instant, quiet, preoccupied, protective, dazed. “And neither does he.”

“I’m not,” Aemond confesses. He laces one hand through yours and brings his lips to your knuckles, willing the baby to live, willing himself to be better for you both.

“We’re going to talk later,” Cregan tells him sternly. Talk about what it means to be a father.

“Yes,” Aemond agrees.

And then Cregan says goodbye to you too, his cool greyish eyes growing peculiarly warm, his steely exterior chipping away like flecks of old paint.

Aegon is last, the only person left in the room with you and Aemond. Grinning beneath sad eyes, he presses a hand to his heart, and then to yours, and then to your belly. Starboy, Stargirl, Starbaby. Then he says: “Do you want me to hide under your bed so they can’t kick me out when visiting hours end?”

You smile tiredly, exhausted and in pain, pain of the body and pain of the soul. “You have to go, Aegon. Thousands of screaming fangirls will be waiting for you at Arrowhead Stadium.”

He is stunned. “I can’t perform tonight, obviously.”

“Yes you can.”

“No, I definitely can’t.”

“You can,” you say. “You have to. And more than that, you want to. You’ll regret it if you don’t. You live for being Comet’s disaster playboy. I’m not going to take that away from you.”

And then Aegon whimpers: “You can’t leave me.”

“You’re leaving me first.” You beam up at him, caressing his sunburned face, threading your fingers through his disheveled hair. Aemond observes this with curiosity but no suspicion. “This isn’t goodbye, Aegon. I’ll see you again. You can add me to the long list of girls you FaceTime.”

He laughs. “Okay, Stargirl. Okay. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“For more than a day, right?”

“For all of them. Forever.”

And then he’s gone, riding that elliptical orbit out into all the corners of the world that he will glow for: New Orleans, Miami, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Bogota, Buenos Ares, Lima, Santiago.

Aemond swears to you: “I’m coming back.”

“I hope so.”

And he tilts up your chin and kisses you, tasting like smoke and dust and blood and desire, and it takes every atom of you, every string of muscle and rusty speck of bone marrow, not to crumble and beg him to stay. You are still at war with the part of you that wants to surrender as he stands and walks out of the room. He does not look back; he can’t without losing his nerve.

In the night, he returns to you, long after visiting hours have ended. Perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars have a way of making formalities disappear. He is only a silhouette in shadows like dawn, dusk, midnight. Aemond climbs into the hospital bed and catches you as you fold into him, whispering to you that everything will be alright, telling you how sorry he is, lulling you into a fitful sleep against his chest, his warmth, his heartbeat. And in the morning when you wake up alone, you wonder if any of it was real.

Did I dream that he was here? Did I dream that I ever met him at all?

But no, he has left you proof, something tangible, permanent. On the nightstand is Aemond’s small square vintage lighter; Targaryen is etched into one side. And there is something else too, a single piece of black paper with two sentences of starlight-colored ink:

I’m coming back.

I love you.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s October, and the leaves are turning from emerald to topaz, garnet, tiger’s eye. You carve pumpkins with your parents on their front porch. You bake apple crisps and sweet potato pies. You feed the pigs, brush the Australian cattle dogs, buy baby supplies with Aegon’s Amex Black Card. You decide to let the grad student and her Giant Flemish rabbit keep your apartment downtown until your lease is up in the spring. You’d rather be here on the farm, even when you’re not on bed rest anymore. You’d rather be home.

You listen to Comet Donati, The Script, Coldplay, One Direction. Rhaena and Baela mail you boxes of crochet comets and stars and planets for the baby’s room. Aegon mails you boxes of Comet’s new donut-themed merch. Now your dad sometimes tends to the beef cattle in boy band t-shirts. Aegon FaceTimes you two or three times a week, sends WhatsApp messages nearly every day. But you rarely talk about Aemond. It’s too painful, it’s too much of a temptation. You cannot imagine others seeing him, hearing him, speaking to him without needing to do it yourself in the same way that you need oxygen and gravity.

The week before Halloween, you begin spotting. You sob hysterically as your mom drives you to the hospital, convinced that you’re losing this baby too, that everything you touch is damaged and defenseless and doomed. You’re fine, as it turns out, and the baby’s fine too, but even after you’re back at the farm you can’t stop shaking, can’t stop imaging the wet heat of blood on your thighs.

You break down and call Aemond. And you talk for five hours until the sun rises, you in a rocking chair on your parents’ front porch, Aemond on a hotel balcony in Santiago, Chile in the shadow of the Andes Mountains. He says he’s working on something, but he’ll come back now if you ask him to, he’ll board the jet and land in Kansas City in time for supper at the farm, and you can hear the backsliding desperation in his voice: Please ask me to come back. Please just fucking ask me.

But it’s not time yet. He’s not ready, and you both know it. You agree not to call each other again until Aemond returns to you. If he returns to me. Neither of you can sleep for days afterwards. Neither of you can open the door a crack without the other rushing through.

One morning you shuffle downstairs in your Cookie Monster pajama pants and oversized NSYNC t-shirt to find your dad eating a heap of homemade pumpkin waffles in front of the television in the den. All five Australian cattle dogs are perched expectantly at his feet. “Them boys of yours are on Good Morning America.”

“What? Really?”

Yes, they are; they’re celebrating the conclusion of their record-breaking world tour and teasing a new album with an interview and two songs. You catch the end of the first one, their new single called Magic, during which the boys run haphazardly around the neon-lit studio, Jace tears off his donut-themed tank top in protest, and Aegon flubs no less than three lyrics.

Robin Roberts is saying: “Now stay tuned for a very special performance coming up next after a commercial break. We’ll be moving to our outdoor stage in Times Square where a sizeable crowd has formed, and we’ve been told that Comet has a surprise in store for us! What do you think it could be, George?”

“I don’t know, Robin,” George Stephanopoulos replies gamely. “But no matter what it is, I’m sure it will have all those young ladies out there screaming!”

Lara Spencer chuckles. “And not just the young ladies either. I’ve been known to attend Comet concerts on occasion.”

Robin says: “Oh no, Lara, are you a Cregan girlie?”

“Okay, yes, I confess, I am kind of a Cregan girlie…”

You get yourself a plate of pumpkin waffles and return just in time to see the camera panning over the crowd outside: shouting, cheering, waving posters and showcasing their homemade t-shirts.

Robin Roberts announces: “And now, with a cover of One Direction’s Through The Dark, here is the illustrious, incomparable, incredible Comet Donati!”

“No way,” you murmur, staring rapturously at the screen.

“You like that one?” your dad asks, tossing pieces of waffles to the dogs.

“It’s my favorite.” And Aemond knows that. I told him in Singapore.

The stage is empty as the first acoustic notes ring out. Then Daeron trots into view—radiant and cheerful in his donut merch—to sing the first lines:

“You tell me that you’re sad and lost your way

You tell me that your tears are here to stay,

But I know you’re only hiding

And I just wanna see you…”

Aegon appears next, clopping in his sparkly pink Crocs. He flips his hair around and winks mischieviously into the camera as he sings:

“You tell me that you’re hurt and you’re in pain

And I can see your head is held in shame,

But I just wanna see you smile again

See you smile again…”

And now the crowd is not just loud but deafening, and you’re so shocked the plate of pumpkin waffles tumbles out of your hands and onto the floor for the Australian cattle dogs to devour, because who bolts out onto the stage next is not Cregan or Luke or Jace but Aemond Targaryen, wearing Aegon’s beloved donut merch and his Adidas sneakers and his scar and blind eye bare for the world to witness. They don’t seem to take any notice of his maiming at all. They screech and hyperventilate and reach for him, awed, ecstatic, touching his outstretched fingertips and his sneakers like the relics of a saint. He is focused, perhaps nervous, but he is smiling. His voice is velvet-smooth and pitch-perfect.

“But don’t burn out

Even if you scream and shout,

It’ll come back to you

And I’ll be here for you…”

The others arrive, and now all six of them are singing the chorus in harmony as they traverse the stage, dodging each other’s chaotic spins and leaps, waving to the crowd, checking on Aemond with encouraging furtive grins and squeezes of his shoulders. Luke is beaming. Jace shoves Aemond playfully and almost gets flung off the stage in return.

“Oh I will carry you over

Fire and water for your love,

And I will hold you closer

Hope your heart is strong enough,

When the night is coming down on you

We will find a way through the dark.”

“Huh,” your dad says. “They ain’t no Johnny Cash, but they’re pretty good, I reckon. I thought Aemond wasn’t on stage much anymore.”

“He’s not.” And you smile wistfully as you watch him, right here with you and yet a world away, real and yet intangible, facts and myths and faith. “But now he knows he has a choice.”

On warm nights, you sit on the wraparound front porch and flick Aemond’s square metal lighter to life, shut it, ignite it again, a lonely golden spark in an ocean of darkness, a star in the night sky. And voices circle in your mind like satellites:

I think history is important.

Whoever you are when you’re in high school…that’s sort of who you are forever, you know?

I’ve never met anyone like you.

Aemond would want to be involved.

What the hell do I know about being a decent father?

Our father never cared about us.

It’s not just for me. It’s never been just for me.

“Please come back,” you whisper to the infinite emptiness of the universe, so softly you can barely hear yourself.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s November, and you are finally showing more than you can hide beneath hoodies and sweaters. The attendees of your parents’ Southern Baptist church—who glimpse you at Walmart or McDonald’s or Freddy’s Frozen Custard or 7-Eleven—gossip about you ceaselessly, venomously, with pity but no compassion. And your parents, who have been politely ignoring jibes about you for a decade, do more than just ignore it this time. They clear out their church mailbox and walk out the front door together and never go back. They’ve been shopping around for a new place of worship. Your mom says they might get really experimental and try out the Methodists.

Rhaena sends you pictures from her and Luke’s trip to the Mammoth Site in South Dakota. Baela has you on speakerphone when she tells Jace she wants to take a break. She’s completed two ballet school auditions already, and has scheduled two more; at least one acceptance seems imminent. You call Cregan to ask him how to prepare for parenthood. You call Criston to ask if he’d be willing to serve as a reference. He writes you a five-page recommendation letter and tells you prospective employers can contact him any time, day or night. You are hired as a therapist by the University of Missouri. For now, to accommodate your high-risk pregnancy and copious doctor’s appointments, it is a part-time remote position. Your parents are at last forced to get internet for the farmhouse. Your dad starts watching beef cattle raising tutorials on YouTube. And oddly, when you begin taking appointments with college students struggling with breakups or parental pressure or substance abuse, you don’t feel nervous at all. You feel like you’re doing exactly what you were made for.

One morning, you receive a WhatsApp message from Aegon: I wonder if bumblefuck Kansas has the Rolling Stone…

Missouri, you reply, and then you go to Walmart to check. Sure enough, there are numerous copies in the magazine aisle, and that’s a good thing, because a plethora of teenage girls are scrambling for them. Aemond is on the front cover, smiling faintly; his scar and cloudy blind eye are neither centered nor hidden. And he isn’t wearing black. His suit is a deep, lush green like jade, summer grass, ivy. The title reads: Aemond Targaryen is Out of Hiding.

You begin reading. He talks about exactly what happened at the Budokan. He talks about the label’s unilateral decision to excise him from the band. He talks about feeling lost, humiliated, pitied, ignored, unlovable. And then he shares what changed him. He says that he met with other survivors of facial trauma: soldiers, professional athletes, people involved in car and motorcycle accidents. He says that he sat down with half a dozen different therapists until he found one that he really liked. He chronicles the process of finding purpose again in a way that is truthful and inspirational and yet—to you, anyway—conspicuously vague. He is still somewhat involved with Comet’s songwriting and will likely perform with them once or twice per year, he wants to advocate for people living with disabilities like his…but what else? What else?

I think what I want people to know is that progress isn’t instant, and that nobody can do it alone, Aemond writes. I’m only where I am today because of the support of a lot of extraordinary people. I want to thank Comet Donati—Luke, Cregan, Aegon, Daeron, and Jace—as well as our tour manager Criston Cole, who is like a father us. I am immensely grateful to my mother Alicent and my sister Helaena. I am indebted to the fans for the unconditional love they have shown me.

But most of all, I owe my recovery to a therapist from the American Midwest. She can be a little pretentious sometimes, but we don’t fault her for that. She’s earned it. Thank you, Stargirl. I hope this planet is treating you well.

Smiling, glowing, you close the magazine, take it to the checkout counter, purchase it along with five KitKat bars. The baby can’t seem to get enough of them.

Two days later, you have another ultrasound done—your fourth—and at last you are able to give Aegon the answer he’s been zealously hounding you for. You message him on WhatsApp: You’re going to have a niece!

!!!!! he replies almost immediately. And then: Name her Aegonella.

Probably not!

As if you have any better ideas??

You share a few from your list: Celeste, Luna, Aurora, Halley…

Aemond literally just said Halley, Aegon types back. Like right before you did. And then: He’s very excited, omg, omggggggg it’s so cute. Thirty seconds later: Wish you were here :(

“Me too, Starboy,” you murmur as you sit on the couch in the den with Belmont sprawled across your lap. Then you send: I’m scared he’s not coming back.

He is, Aegon replies. He’s working on something. You’ll like it.

And you have to believe this, blindly, faithfully, trusting that something is real even when you can’t see it. You have no other choice.

You beg your dad not to slaughter any of the pigs for ham, and he reluctantly agrees. At Thanksgiving dinner, half the dishes on the table are vegan. You’re trying out new recipes. You jot down the ones you like best in a notebook Luke sent you: black pages, white ink.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s December, and there are stockings hung by the fireplace and a blanket of snow on the ground. You and your parents pick out a Christmas tree at a local farm, and your dad chops it down and throws it in the back of the Ford F-150. Inside your mom’s CD player in the kitchen spins David Archuleta’s Christmas album. As your bump grows, you keep running out of clothes that fit; Aegon is always happy to mail you more donut-themed merch. Thanks to his persistence, they stock nearly every size known to humans. Baela gets her acceptance letters. Aegon gets to make out with Taylor Swift in the Colosseum. They are photographed together in Rome by paparazzi one day and then never again. A week later he’s with Selena Gomez in Ibiza. A week after that he’s spotted with Camila Cabello in New York City. The wheel keeps turning, his route through the solar system long and meandering.

Emergency! Aegon texts you one afternoon as you’re sipping hot apple cider at the dining room table and assembling a 500-piece puzzle depicting the sinking of the Titanic.

You know better than to take him too seriously. You reply, in no hurry: ?

Aemond says I can’t hang out with Starbaby unless I stop taking so many drugs?!!?! Fascist?!??!?!?!

Hang out. Like they’ll be going to clubs and Crocs stores together. You grin and reply: I mean yeah, that sounds accurate.

Well fuck, Aegon says. Guess I better start doing those substance abuse education modules again!

On Christmas Eve morning, your parents are at their slightly-less-judgmental replacement church. You are trying out a new recipe in the kitchen: vegan snickerdoodles. The whole house smells like cinnamon and vanilla. Beyond the window over the sink, snow falls in fluffy white bundles like rumpled bedsheets, like clouds. The Australian cattle dogs follow you around hoping for dropped cookies, their claws clicking on the hardwood floor. David Archuleta is singing O Come, All Ye Faithful. You keep bumping into things; you forget how big you are. Your belly seems to grow by the day.

Your iPhone buzzes. It’s a WhatsApp message from Aegon that puzzles you: Hey, I promised I wouldn’t bother you guys for the first few days but I really need the Netflix password and he’s not answering my texts, rude, so could you ask him for it please??? And then a few seconds later: Please. I just really want to watch Grey’s Anatomy.

You stare at his message, not understanding. You reply: Ask who…?

After a moment, Aegon sends back: …Never mind :)

“Really?” you gasp to yourself in the hushed peace of the kitchen, not wanting to believe, not wanting to be disappointed. You peek out the window. Nothing.

You open Google and search Aemond Targaryen. One of the first results is an article from the Kansas City Star published one hour ago. The headline reads: Comet Donati Heartthrob Opens Farm Animal Rescue Outside of Kansas City.

“Oh my God.” You scroll madly, skimming the text. “Oh my God, oh my God.”

One of Aemond’s quotes reads: I wanted to go where the need is. A sanctuary like this in San Francisco or Boston wouldn’t be anything special, wouldn’t be as necessary. But here in Missouri, at the epicenter of industrial animal agriculture in the United States? There’s a lot of important work to be done here. There are a lot of lives I hope to be able to save. We’ve been purchasing animals from auctions and taking in others that have been seized from situations where they were abused or neglected. In addition to our own efforts, I’d like to help launch similar rescues throughout the Midwest, and increase public access to vegan alternatives…

There are photos of him posing with animals: a towering, scarred, ancient mule named Vhagar, a three-legged goat called Sunfyre. In all the pictures, Aemond is smiling. And here in the kitchen of your parents’ farmhouse, so are you. Without thinking, you reach back to touch your fingertips to the black-ink words beneath your Comet Donati crewneck sweatshirt. You hear the lyrics— I’ll come back for you if it kills me, Comets clip by again after eons and so can I—and you know them to be true like space, time, gravity, love.

You look out the window again and he’s here, speeding down the winding path of the driveway, snow dust streaming out behind his Gold Star like the tail of a comet.

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