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wyn-n-tonic · 1 year

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Transference

Word Count: 2.6k+ Pairing: Rhett Abbott x f!reader Warnings: Unprotected PiV but not graphic. Playing fast and loose (mostly loose) with vampire lore. Author's Note: If Stephanie Meyer can make them sparkle, I can make them ranchers.

“COWS?!”

He nods his head.

“You sound fucking insane, Rhett.”

“Do I? You ever think about how we’ve only been on dates that don’t involve food?”

“You are so full of shit.”

“Or how my family works the ranch at night or how my dad’s a little strange?”

Your arms wrap around your body. “And that’s supposed to mean you’re a vampire? God, baby, I know it’s called Devil’s Night, but you gotta execute this prank shit better. What’s next?” Your eyebrows pinch. “You gonna tell me you’re, like, a hundred years old?”

Rhett laughs. “Close to it.”

“God,” you roll your eyes. “My daddy already hates that you’re older than me, he’s absolutely gonna lose his shit when he finds out that Rhett Abbott is”—you throw your hands out—“immortal.”

“You think this is funny?” He asks. “I could rip your throat out right now if I wanted to.”

“You’re a man, sweetheart,” you say, sitting down on the couch. “Men could always rip out the throats of women and, yet, we still go home with you praying that you won’t. And now look at us.”

“You've never wondered about how I can go so many rounds between your legs?”

“Well,” you watch as he walks towards you, low light glinting off his belt buckle, “honestly I just figured you were the well practiced man that everybody said you were.” You gasp, “Rhett Abbott, did you fuck those girls moms in the eighties and their moms before them in the fifties.”

“Probably some of their dads too.”

Shaking your head, you lean over and begin to slip your shoes off, half a buckle on your heels undone before his hand catches yours. He’s kneeling in front of you, both knees pushed into the hard, wooden floor and lifts your ankle closer to him to begin pulling at the straps.

“A vampire with a foot fetish? How original.”

A smile splits his face. “Is that part of the lore now?”

“It's my understanding,” you tell him, fingers slipping into hair, “that backstory doesn’t have to be factual for something that is fake.”

“Fake, huh?”

Rhett pulls your shoes off and places them gently to the side, always so quiet and gentle despite what others may think of him, before running both hands up the length of your leg. Lips press to your knee as he shuffles closer, bending almost in prayer towards you.

“I'll let you make silly jokes more often,” you begin, “if this is how soft you behave for me.”

Laughter falls out of his open mouth, tongue flattening against the skin of your thigh. His grip tightens in its hold around your knee. “Soft, huh?” Kisses increase in pressure, pushing his face in so close you can feel his eyelashes fluttering against the sensitive skin.

“Mm.” You’re about to fall against the back of the couch, about to let your legs spread wide for him, when a sharp pain jolts through your body beneath his mouth. “What the fuck, Rhett?”

He looks up, a hint of red on his lips and lifts one eyebrow. “Am I still soft and fake to you, sweetheart?”

“You bit me?”

Flattening his palm, he smooths it up the length of your inner thigh and leans back in. “Don't worry, baby, I’ll make the pain stop soon.”

“What does that ev—oh.”

Everything becomes very sharp as he kisses down on the sting of the puncture wounds he left in your leg, very bright until all the edges begin to dull between the sucking motion of his mouth and the soothing movement of his thumb drawing little circles over and over.

The grip you have on his hair is slipping, breath weakening as waves crash between your ears. You’re leaning back on the couch when the heel of his palm presses hard between your legs, grounding you back in place.

Continuing to rub against your core, Rhett licks out against your thigh and everything is so cold.

“What the fuck was that, Rhett?”

Light reflects off his impossibly blue eyes as he looks up, lips pulled upward on one side, and he pushes himself towards you. “I don’t lie to you, baby,” he whispers against your lips. “I might withhold the truth, but I don’t lie to you.”

The tin can taste on his tongue proves as much when it darts out against yours, mouth opening easily beneath his. Your head is still light, easily manipulated in his hold.

He pulls away before you’ve fully registered the weight of him against you, still grasping for a bit of purchase on reality, and he’s back on his knees when you open your eyes again.

“Am I still bleeding?”

“No,” he shakes his head. “Wound's not even there anymore.”

“Then how do I know it was real?”

He shrugs. “Would it be any more real if you saw the marks? You’d probably have another reasonable explanation like I just decided to stab you for a prank.”

"Isn't that what you did do, though?” You ask him. “Did you not make me bleed for the bit?”

Hands wrap around your hips, fingers hooking into the waistband of your panties, and nails bite into your skin. “I just told you I don’t lie to you.” He slips the fabric down your legs. “When would I have found time to stab you? And if I stabbed you, why wouldn’t I finish the job, huh? Why would I be trying to”—one hand wraps around each of your knees and he pushes them apart—“get at this beautiful little cunt instead?”

“Rhett…”

He presses his lips back into the spot that stung with pain moments ago and moans into the skin. “There's a part of you that believes me,” he says, kissing his way up your leg. “There’s a transference in the blood. I can feel you and hear you—inside of you, all of you—just by taking in the smallest amount.”

Looking up, he finally kisses down on your mound, one hand landing across your lower belly to keep you down against the cushions of the couch. Everything’s still been that floaty feeling until now, a moment of pure clarity. Whatever he did, whatever the fuck it may mean, you’ve never felt this needy for him. Or this nervous

“Rhett.”

His name is punched out on half a breath and he glances up at you with a smile in his eyes as he moves down to kiss against you.

“Relax,” he throws up to your ears.

You can’t. Every part of your body is tensed up with him between your legs looking like this—like he could eat you. After all, is that not what he’s saying he can do?

He sits back on his heels again, “are you scared?”

Unsure of what you are, you shake your head. “Why would I be scared? It’s not like we haven’t fucked before, Rhett.”

Capable, callused hands cover the backs of yours, both of them clawed into the cushion at your side. “We've fucked plenty, sweetheart,” he agrees. “But my teeth have never been involved and your blood certainly hasn’t.” His eyes dart down to the apex of your thighs, exposed and on display for him, and smiles. “Well, that’s not exactly true but I hope you understand what I mean.”

You don’t.

With your head so full of cotton again, you barely register the small, circular motion of his thumbs against the pulse point of each wrist. Don’t even know when he flipped your palms upward towards the ceiling.

“Rhett, did you give me something?”

“Well, I think I may have bitten you a little too hard,” he says, eyes searching your face. “That's my fault, sweetheart. I should’ve gone easier on you”—he shrugs—“I probably shouldn’t have bitten your femoral artery either but here we are. I fucked up, I’m sorry. I haven’t done this in a while.”

“What do you mean you haven’t done this in a while?”

Rhett shrugs. “Bitten somebody ‘cause I love them.”

“You're being serious.”

“I already told you, sweetheart, I don’t lie to you.”

“Then what is this, Rhett?”

Between your legs, as he rises to his feet, his shadow falls over you in the soft light of the living room. “Honey, I—“ Running his hand across chin, he looses a half-choked sound from somewhere deep in his chest and leans back down towards you. “I’m trying to tell you what I am because I love you and I think you deserve it.”

“A monster?”

He nods, so close the tip of his nose runs against your own. “If that’s how you want to see me, sure.”

A beat passes and then another, his lips ghosting across your skin as he crawls over you and plants his knees into the cushion—one on each side of your hips.

“You sound sad.”

Two large hands frame your face rough calluses, from years—and years—of ranch hand and wrangling work, sliding across your sensitive windburned cheeks and smiles. “Little bit, baby,” he affirms, whispering into the cup of your mouth as he opens it with his own. “Little bit.”

This isn’t kissing, not really. He’s holding you against him, mouth still over yours as his body folds into you.

“Why are you sad, Rhett?” You ask, fingers trailing up his ribcage. “Hmm? Did I make you sad?”

“No, baby. I just thought this conversation would go different.”

Shushing you when you try to speak again, Rhett nudges your knee with his, encouraging you to open up for him, as his hands drop to your hips. By the time he readjusts himself, he’s pulled you up his body, rough jeans scraping against your sensitive core before pushing the flat of his cool belt buckle down on you.

“When I tell you I’m being serious,” he says, maneuvering his hand between the buckle and your heat, “I’m being serious.”

He catches your breath when he pushes in, the flat of his palm pressing down into your belly. When he bites your lip, there’s a sting to it followed by the taste of iron and that same intense feeling clouds up behind your eyes.

“My darling girl,” he whispers, his pace building steady, “I want you to know me—”

“Okay.”

“I want you to understand me,” he continues. “This is understanding me”—he pulls a high pitched whine from your throat on next thrust—“it might not be a well kept secret but that doesn’t mean I go around just telling anybody this shit. Okay?”

Crashing waves sound off between your ears, losing every other word he gives until all you can do is nod and hold on.

“You never wondered why I never pull out?” He goes on. “Never wondered why I don’t sleep when I’m with you, huh? His words are stunted with every thrust, falling against soft skin and tear stained cheeks. “Hey, hey, what are these?” He raises his hand to sweep the saltwater away with the back of his fingers. “Baby, am I hurting you?”

Maybe you’re shaking your head but you don’t know, the whole room is spinning and his cock is the only constant. “No,” you finally tell him, small hand wrapping around his, “you just feel so-so good, Rhett.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

“For what?”

He shakes his head and leans down to kiss your temple. “I told you I think I bit a little too hard. Like I said, it’s been a while since I bit somebody I loved.”

“And what happened to them?” You ask. “Why aren’t they sitting here with you between their legs right now, Rhett Abbott?”

Everything—every movement, every word, every breath—stills as he looks down with something like fear in his eyes. “Because I bit them too hard.”

And that’s it. It has to be. He’s not a good actor or a good liar, you know that even on your dizziest days.

“How are you not cold?” You ask him. “You’re always so fucking warm, Rhett. How are you not cold?”

Laughing, he catches your lips again, head cradled gently in his hand as he starts building pace again. “Don't ask me to explain the specifics, baby girl. Just take it like I know you can right now and then maybe you can tell me just—fuck,” his hips stutter. “Maybe you can tell me just what the fuck I did to that pretty little head of yours,” he continues, “to make you grip me this tight.”

It feels like it’s been hours.

“Baby—“

“Shh. I fucking love you.”

Rhett nibbles into your jaw and down to your neck, teeth scraping across your fevered skin and replaced by his tongue on the return as head rush after head rush pulses through you.

The sounds between you both mute out to nothing as he speeds up, heat and cold and heat again running in your veins. You don’t even feel it when it hits, can only hear the quiet sobbing he’s covering with his own body until there's a tight groan fed back into you.

“Rhett, I—“

“No, stop. We can talk about it later.”

“But—“

“I know what you’re gonna ask,” he interrupts again. “I can hear you, remember? I can feel you.”

“You have fucked my brain,” you tell him. “I can’t feel my body.”

“Only me, right?”

“Only you,” you affirm.

“That's us, honey,” he whispers back, sweeping hair from your forehead. “That’s both of us together.”

Arms crossing around your back, he moves to lay you down against the cushions while he slips from between your legs. “I'll be right back,” he says, tucking himself back into his pants.

Time moves slower without him hovering over you, body temperature changing rapidly from hot to cold to hot again as you curl into the back of the couch. As your eyes slip closed, those same rough hands find you again to slide up your legs and back below your skirt.

“What—“

“It’s barely been an hour since we got home, baby.”

You nod, head falling easily back against the soft seat of the couch. Soft mouth sounds fall on your ears before you can even comment on the wet washcloth between your legs, almost seeming to change temperature as fast as you.

“Baby?”

“Yeah, Rhett?”

He squeezes himself behind you, chest flat and strong against your back and buries his nose into your hair.

“Yes,” he answers before you can ask if he can still smell. “And my question was gonna be if I’ve made you feel unsafe,” he breathes deep again, lips ghosting the shell of your ear with his impossibly low voice. “At all, ya know… ever.”

“No.”

“Okay.”

Vulnerability permeates the space between you, palpable even in half sleep, and you push closer to the covered pillows in an attempt to make room.

“So you bit too hard?” You ask, a soft hum of affirmation buzzing against your neck before you’ve even finished. “Did they—“

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he cuts you off. “We’re here together now, that’s what matters.”

“Okay.”

He presses kiss after kiss into the crown of your head, thumb sweeping gentle circles into your breast bone over your clothes. Everything is evening back out again—your breathing, your heartbeat, the goosebumps on your arms—replaced by a dull ache everywhere his mouth had been.

Energy bursts through you and you sit up, looking down at Rhett, halfway off the edge of the couch now, the fabric of his shirt twisting between your fingers as every comes back into focus.

His eyes are wide in question as he tries to push himself up beside you but he can’t even get a word out of his mouth before you beat him to it.

“DID YOU SAY YOU SURVIVE OFF COWS?!”

#this was supposed to be for halloween so i guess... merry christmas?#rhett abbott x you #rhett abbott x reader #rhett abbott #outer range #outer range fanfiction #rhett abbott fanfiction #o writes

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etherati · 3 months

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Taproot - (5/25)

Things start to heat up.

Chapter content warnings: Decapitations, vague mention of anti-Romani racism, and Alucard kind of losing his shit because Trevor is just too delicious because of the Solstice.

🎵 Music pairing: Red - Sister Machine Gun

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The stone is smooth between her fingers, dark and cool and heavy, the starry expanse contained in its depths as inescapable as the spangled darkness spread overhead. The winter sky is the clearest sky, cold brightening the stars and blackening the spaces between, and from her perch here on top of the caravan, Sypha figures she could just about see forever, up there.

Cloudless. Bright. The eve of the solstice. Tomorrow, the shortest day, and then the night that follows…

She rolls the stone against her palm, wills her questions into it, wills it to answer. It remains maddeningly silent.

A wolf. Cold, icy blue eyes. A chase, a swell of grief. Tomorrow? Or some time in the further future? The wolves are circling, she remembers from the woods, that night months ago—archaic French, a warning in a vampire's hand.

The timing of her vision. Her father's impossible talents. That spiny, blue-eyed beast Trevor had gotten torn up fighting in Acasă, that had seemed almost designed, and Adrian had locked up the forges just about the first day after Dracula died but they never saw any sign of the men themselves, did they?

Acasă. Enisala. Braila. Desperate days spent in a dank cell, waiting for Carmilla to figure out who they were, the thought of her still sparking more than simple fear. Larger than life, a figure of nightmares, and then, impossibly: she was gone, undone, just like that.

None of it makes any sense, when she tries to cram it together. That's why Sypha's up here, away from everyone, away from the warmth of the fire—she's seeking clarity, and there's something about cold that sharpens the mind, focuses the attention. Her logical mind cannot make sense of these pieces, how they fit together, and she's had no more dreams to help out, no visions. But there is something tugging at her subconscious, a feeling that it could all be made to make sense, if only she could find the missing fragment, the keystone. She can see the shape of it in her mind, the hole where the last piece should fit—it looks like a spray of flower petals or blood, smells like cold steel and old books, feels like sadness—but she cannot fill it.

It’s been four days since her missive went out, since she watched the creature carrying it take flight. She knows that it took her a week to walk the same distance—it should have arrived at its destination by now. They should have found her with the mirror, opened the way, brought her home.

The pigeon might not have made it. It might have fallen prey to the cold, or a storm, or the jaws of a wolf or a wildcat, hunger winnowing a predator’s choices down to whatever is opportune. It might have just been delayed by poor weather, might still be on its way, spending this cold night sheltered under the eaves of a barn outside of Acasă.

Or it might have arrived—and found its destination empty and cold and in ruins.

The stone feels heavier when she indulges thoughts like these, feels more full of whatever it is it carries. It wants her to think about it, wants her to consider destruction, devastation, the worst case scenario. She doesn’t know if it’s just the nature of the thing, or if that’s truly what the future holds and it’s balking against her stubborn refusal to hear it.

One more sunrise, one more sunset.

They’ll be okay. They’ll bring her home and she’ll maybe have to pull their behinds out of the fire but they’ll be okay. There is no other way this thing can end.

Shivering hard, Sypha closes her fist around the stone and swings herself down over the edge of the caravan, quietly eases the door open, slips inside.

The winter solstice of 1476 dawns late, as it does every year—but only in the strictest sense. There is no sunrise to speak of, and the weather is dour and grey, the cloud ceiling low. The snowfall has ceased, at least, but just breathing the air outside feels like sucking down ice crystals; the temperature dropped precipitously overnight, and Adrian doesn’t make enough heat on his own to warm the air on its way in.

Hours on now, well into afternoon, and the wind is picking up, gusty and rolling in from the north. Overhead, the clouds roil.

To say the day had broken ominously would be an understatement, and understatement has never been in Adrian’s nature even at the calmest of times—right now, as tense as they are and with the inevitable approach of nightfall rattling the blood in his veins in ways he isn’t used to? It’s fair to say that it feels like goddamned doomsday, out here.

“Wow,” Trevor says, coming out onto the balcony behind him, two fistfulls of cloak crossed over his chest. His heartbeat is like a kettledrum, pounding in Adrian’s ears; it’s hard to hear what he’s actually saying. “This is the most miserable sky I’ve ever seen.”

“Have you been to the north, at all?” Adrian does his best to keep the quaver out of his voice. “Scandinavia and the like?”

Trevor laughs. “In the winter? Do I look like that much of a glutton for punishment?”

That conjures thoughts that are definitely not helpful—and Trevor really does make these things too easy. “...should I actually answer that?”

“God no,” Trevor says, quickly; it’s hard to tell if his face is red from the shame or the cold. “Never know who might be listening, out here.”

“I don’t think your ever-so-slight proclivity for pain is the secret we actually need to worry about guarding,” Adrian teases, beating the attendant mental images down hard. He pulls his own coat closed against a sharp gust of wind. “In any event. In northern Scandinavia, at this time of year? The sun doesn’t rise at all.”

Trevor steps up to the edge of the balcony, shoulder touching Adrian’s, the contact sending a shock of heat through him. “I’d heard that,” Trevor says, and that makes sense; sunrise patterns would be important in his family’s work. “We never hunted that far north, though, so I was never sure if it was just a bunch of bullshit or not.”

Adrian laughs, to cover the swell of affection. “No, it’s definitely true. The earth sits on a tilted axis, and…” he trails off, eyeing the distant clouds. There’s an energy gathering in them, a quietly mounting tension not unlike the approach of lightning, but the season is all wrong for that.

An animal scream, from the woods. A murder of crows explodes up from a huge, gnarled old tree over on the edge of the Belmont grounds, wing their way gracefully if noisily toward some undefined point on the horizon.

The wind dies, and it’s suddenly far too still, too tense, the air full of potential, all his senses wired up to respond to the first drop of blood that hits the ground—waiting, waiting. Expectant. Anticipating.

“Never mind,” he says, shaking his head in an attempt to clear it. This isn’t the time. “It’s true, but I can explain why later. Just be grateful we still have the sun on our side here—as lackluster as it is today.”

“No shit,” Trevor grumbles, low. “They could just attack now if they wanted. I don’t think there’s enough sunlight in Wallachia in a year to melt off those clouds.”

A suggestion of motion, off by the edge of the forest. Person-sized? Hard to tell; no frame of reference. The motion itself is alluring, makes him want to investigate, to give chase. The distance is deceptive. With these winds, their voices could be carrying frightfully far.

“Don’t give them ideas,” Adrian says, dour. No sane vampire would take that chance, not without good reason, but most of them are far from sane right now.

They have a few moments of respite, falling into a comfortable, companionable silence.

Then that motion again, just a flicker—a figure emerges from the treeline, and another, and another. He feels Trevor tense up next to him.

“That’s bold,” Trevor murmurs. “Not even trying to be sneaky.”

“If they’re an invasion party,” Adrian agrees. Bold, yes. Suicidally stupid. They’re coming out of the woods single-file, some of them in hooded cloaks and silent as the breeze, some of them bare-headed and noisier, clumiser, not at all bothered by the scant daylight. Almost as if…

“Huh,” Trevor says, narrowing his eyes. “Are there humans in that group?”

Adrian leans forward a bit over the balcony, watches the group reform into a knotted cluster, now that they’re in open space. Twenty at most. Possibly as few as sixteen. The wind shifts, carries the distinct smell of humanity up to him, the earthy, blood-tinged smell of prey. He quells a shudder, nods. “Good catch. That’s either our reinforcements, or our enemy is more desperate for forces than we realized.”

“My money’s on reinforcements. Look at the grouping—that’s not any kind of attack formation,” Trevor says, tone musing. “They’d be completely vulnerable to us just splitting them up the middle.”

They would—there aren’t enough of them to survive being split into smaller groups, not with experienced fighters standing against them and the night not yet truly begun. But vampires aren’t very strategic at the best of times; it’s a mistake they could easily make, right now. Adrian finds himself staring intently down at the group as it approaches, calculating vulnerabilities, weak spots. Considering how to take out the weakest links first. All of a sudden a fight sounds like a wonderful idea—he thinks he might be smiling, can feel his breath coming harder.

“Do you see anyone you recognize?” Trevor asks, snapping him back to the present, to reality. There’s a cautious note in his voice; something is making him nervous.

Adrian closes his eyes, opens them. These are likely their allies, not their enemies. He focuses in on the leader, scours for what details he can gather at this distance: female, green and gold cloak like the one Isabel had worn when they’d met at the castle, but this one with a hood, which fits for a vampire on a desperately cloudy day. It all lines up. “...yes. I believe so,” he says, turning to look Trevor in the face, and there it is—a little twitch around his eyes that would have been a full-body jump in anyone else.

So, correction: He is making Trevor nervous. There is a perverse part of him, one he immediately despises, that finds the notion thrilling.

A loaded moment passes in silence.

“Well, that’s my cue I guess.” Trevor says, breaking it, pushing away from the balcony and heading toward the inner chamber. “...right. I’ll just—”

“Take no chances,” Adrian says, to Trevor’s retreating back. “And make sure they’re here because they want to be. The humans, I mean.”

A grunt of assent, and then Trevor disappears into the castle’s interior.

Adrian folds his arms on the stone balcony, sets his forehead into them. Groans low and long, pure frustration. He should be better than this. He is better than this. He has not felt this disoriented by the pull of this night since he was a child; it’s something he had thought himself grown out of. If his father had taught him anything—and he’d taught him quite a bit—it was control: control over impulse, over instinct, over the kinds of urges that promise immediate, incredible gratification but would, long-term, bring nothing but regret.

The air around him still smells like Trevor, like oiled leather and clean sweat and rich, love-spiked blood. His shoulder still burns from the few moments’ contact. When he tries to redirect his thoughts, they land not on the reality of defenses and danger, but on the thought that he might have Sypha in his arms again tonight—on the imagined feel of her body against his, small and taut and fierce, rippling with fire. On the smell of her skin, the taste of her mouth, the taste of her—and he lets his head slip past his arms to thud on the stone ledge between them, because this is not the time.

If all things were equal, strategically, it would be best if he stayed far away from both of them tonight. But all things are not equal, and splitting up would be tantamount to suicide.

Below, the mechanical groan and creak of the castle’s doors beginning to make their ponderous way open. The group from the forest is nearly in speaking range.

All right. For now, he will just stay here, he thinks; he can watch the entire interaction from this ledge, can be down to the ground in a second or less if any of the strangers try to pull anything, try to hurt Trevor in any way—

No. Trevor can take care of himself. He doesn’t need protecting, no matter that Adrian’s drive to shield him from any and all danger is overpowering right now, is flooding out all his more logical impulses. Trevor can handle himself and he is due that respect.

But as Adrian well knows, humans can only take care of themselves until they can’t. Vampires, too; this isn’t an issue of species pride or ego. Anyone can make a mistake.

And he will be here, watching.

Trevor goes ahead and trips the mechanism to throw the main doors open, heads down the outer staircase two steps at a time. Under the fur-lined cloak, he's wearing his own gear, not that stupid jacket; this is his show today, and they will respect him as a Belmont or not at all. Can they trust these people, he’d asked—and if they survive the night, then he’ll have his answer.

Assuming the only danger tonight comes from outside. Assuming Adrian doesn’t—no. Trevor shakes his head, dismisses it.

The contingent approaches, and his instincts on the balcony were right: about half the group appear to be decently armed and armored humans, breath puffing visibly in the cold, leathers up to their chins. They’re mostly carrying swords, but there’s an axe and a few crossbows in there, too. The leader has something swinging from her gloved hand, heavy and wet, and it genuinely takes a moment for Trevor to identify it as a messily severed head—hair twined into her grip, fangy mouth hanging open in a silent scream.

The leader—Isabel, probably—tosses it into the snow between them, once they’re close enough to speak. She tips her head. “Belmont.”

“You know, ” Trevor says, eyeing the offering but not really taking his eyes off the vampires. “My sister's cat used to bring dead things home, too. This some kind of fucked up gift? ”

“A mob in the forest,” Isabel says plainly, a twist of a Spanish accent in her voice, “waiting for nightfall.” He can’t really see her face, under the hood, but people put too much emphasis on that, not enough on body language. She’s not standing like a liar. “We routed them from their hiding places, but they knew the forest better than we did and were able to escape. But,” she says, nudging the head with the toe of her boot, as if she means to roll it toward Trevor. “They no longer have a leader.”

“At least we know we’re not just jumping at shadows, now,” Trevor grumbles, crouching down to inspect the remains, one hand wrapped warningly around the hilt of his sword while the other turns the head onto its side. Under the crusted frost caked onto the skin, there are no tattoos, no jewelry, no distinctive marks; bastard didn't even have the good decency to write his own name on his forehead. “The rest of him somewhere?” Trevor asks, thoughtful; he’ll thank them in a minute, but if there’s a lead on who or what is behind all of this—

“They took the rest of the body. I don’t honestly know why,” Isabel says, tone faintly amused. “Perhaps they’re planning to eat it.”

That was a joke, whether he can see that she’s smiling or not, and Trevor laughs before he can catch himself—finds himself warily, carefully beginning to like this one. A bit. Enough to keep talking to her, at least. He stands back up, leaves the head where it is; maybe it’ll unnerve their attackers, when they pass this way. “That bad, huh?”

She shakes her head, frustrated. “No better than animals. They’re young, and they indulge their hungers freely. Neither of those things help, tonight.”

Indulge their hungers, huh? Interesting, that that plays into this, and the images it conjures make his neck itch—but he puts it aside, for the moment. “While we’re on that topic. What do we have to work with, here?”

“We’re not fighters,” she says, and damn but she could have fooled him. She’s about as fierce as pacifists come. “We have no soldiers to offer to Lord Alucard’s service. But we’re no strangers to defending ourselves, even under these... conditions. Which I know is the crux of your question.”

“Generally not a great night to have you people around, no.”

She inclines her head, huffs a laugh. “Does a Belmont actually suggest that there is a good night to have us around?”

“Maybe during the hippogryph migration,” Trevor counters, flashing what he knows to be an irritatingly smug grin. “Seem like you’d be good at pest control. Or being bait.”

A pause, then a shine of teeth visible under the hood that he can tell is either a snarl or a smirk. “I see now why he keeps you around,” she says. “You’re fearless.”

Trevor narrows his eyes. This is a fiddly game she’s choosing to play, all posturing and perceptions of power, and he needs to be careful to neither underplay nor overplay his hand. “I’m a Belmont,” he says, aiming for pride just shy of arrogance. “I’ve killed more vampires than you’ve ever met, and I’ve been doing it since I was twelve. So this group of yours backstabbing us? It’d be inconvenient. But I’m not losing sleep over it.”

It isn’t strictly true. It’s going to be enough of a hell night as it is; damned if he’s going to let these fucks make it worse by crawling inside his sphere of trust and then going bloodthirsty as soon as the sun goes down. But this isn’t about honesty, not right now.

“Noted,” is her only response, though her voice has an edge of respect, now. Good. “The vampires among us are all either elders of the clan or come from old, stable bloodlines—they’re in control of themselves. And the halfblood will be no trouble, of course.”

Halfblood? Trevor’s attention sharpens at that; they brought a dhampir? Hell, another dhampir even exists? He scans the faces in the group, anyone not wearing a hood, looking for that inhuman shine he’s so used to, that glimmer of otherness that he could never describe or explain but nevertheless knows when he sees it.

There. A young woman in fighter’s leathers, taller than Sypha, dark brown hair cropped close, eyes a touch too luminous to be called hazel. She’s making a valiant effort to be nondescript, a plain short sword on her hip and a calm, reserved demeanor that somehow fails to fully meld with the nerve-riddled silence of the humans around her.

“You,” Trevor says, nodding in her direction. He can hear the vague sense of wonder in his voice; to read the old Bestiary, he’d thought his family had wiped them all out in the cradle. He isn’t used to being grateful that the Belmonts of old failed at something. “You’re a dhampir.” You’re a child of two worlds; you’re like him.

“Good eye, Belmont,” Isabel says, approving. “Jeanne?”

The young woman nods her own head in acknowledgement. “A pleasure to serve,” she says, a glint of fang showing as she speaks—and oh, Alucard’s going to want to have a word with her later. If they both survive.

And Trevor really, deeply hopes this one survives; there are few enough of them left in the world. He glances up to where he knows Alucard is watching and listening from the balcony above, can feel the intensity of his gaze from here.

Which reminds him. “What about the humans? You all want to be here?” Trevor turns back to them, addresses them directly, watching for any antsy tells. For all their obvious nerves—which he expects, in the circumstances—all he gets are nods all around. Infusing command into his presence, he asks again: “Anyone who’s been enthralled into being here against their will, raise your hand now.”

Common wisdom would have him believe that this is a fruitless exercise; you can’t just ask an enthrallee if they’re enthralled. But real glamours—the kind that bind their subject to their master’s will alone, make betrayal a physical impossibility—they’re expensive. They require a lot of energy, a lot of magic, a lot of pricey materials, and this doesn’t strike him as a group with resources to spare. The quick and dirty way, the one that most humans don’t know about, isn’t much more than simple hypnotism. All it does is compel the victim to respond to any authoritative enough command, from anyone, with obedience.

Trevor can be plenty authoritative, when he wants to be.

Not a single hand goes up.

“Good,” he says, turning back toward the castle. He’s already done a headcount: seven vampires, nine humans, one dhampir. He runs strategies in his head, as well as probabilities of certain types of attacks, given what he knows of their enemy. Which… isn’t much. There’s a mob of uncoordinated vampires involved, leaderless, with who knows what motivations. They’ll be sloppy and direct, rely on their enhanced speed and strength tonight.

“Okay. I want four people with ranged capabilities on the entry here—two on each side, as concealed as possible while still being able to cover the door. There are service entrances here and there around the perimeter, so we need a runner at each one, to alert the rest of us if we’re getting anything other than a blind, stupid frontal assault—which I doubt—so we can relocate defenses. Probably want about six people inside, guarding the entry hall and the main stairs heading further up. No vampires in the castle.”

“You don’t trust us, yes,” Isabel interrupts, matter-of-fact. “You’ve made that clear.”

“No, I don’t,” he says, because he’s not going to play coy diplomatic games. “But that’s not the issue. Do you know what plumbing is?” he asks, dropping his voice close to a whisper. This is not something he wants the wind to carry away.

She shakes her head in the negative.

“Yeah, neither did I. But there’s pipes all through the castle that pump water around,” he says, gesturing vaguely above his head, “and we’ve spiked the supply with holy water. If we have to blow it wide open, we will, and any vampire that’s in there is going to melt, no matter what side they’re on. Fair enough?”

Her head crooks to one side, face still obscured by the hood. “I underestimated you, Belmont. Based on our conversation to this point, I expected you to be motivated solely by prejudice and hostility.”

“I did mention that I don’t trust you, right?”

“Yet here you are,” she continues, “concerned for our well-being.”

He isn’t sure if it’s sarcasm or deadpan sincerity, but he doesn’t have the energy to argue about it. “Yeah, well, I don’t like losing people on my watch,” he says, then pauses, a little surprised by his own honesty. He scrambles to reel it back in: “And allies are more useful when they’re not steaming puddles of liquefied flesh. That’s it.”

“Of course,” she says, infuriatingly knowing, and fuck, turns out it’s not just Alucard who’s a smug arsehole. It is, apparently, a species trait. “I’ll talk with my people, decide who should go where.”

And that should be that—there will be enough time for him to check on distribution of forces later, make sure they’re not doing anything stupid. But there’s something that’s been nagging him, has been since their first meeting in the castle—has been prodding him with guilty old memories and stoking his antagonism toward Adrian, toward them, toward their mysterious tree letter-writer, toward everything. And that’s not a good way to go into battle.

“One more thing,” he says, words slipping out before he can lose his nerve. “Why are you here?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You barely know us,” he says, “and you came here pretty sure that I was out to get you as much as any of our enemies. Your people could die here tonight. So: why are you here?”

Isabel takes a moment to consider her answer. Before she speaks, she reaches up, pulls the hood back just enough that he can actually look her in the face—under this cloud cover, she should be fine for a few minutes at least. She’s as collected and determined as he remembers, a dignified sort of elegance, dark skin flawless, deep burgundy eyes focused on him like she’s analyzing every breath and every blink, and maybe she is.

There’s a faint rim of brighter red, around the wine-colored irises. Adrian’s have had something like that too, ever since they woke up this morning. It’s not reassuring.

“We have travelled very far and very long to get here,” she says, repeating what she told them that first night. “It was not a safe journey. We lost people on the way—to hunters, but also to the intolerance of our own kind. Understand: evil is a choice. But it’s a choice our people make with sickening frequency.” She takes a steadying breath, something Trevor’s never actually seen a full-blooded vampire do, and looks up at the castle. “We kept coming because we hoped we could find a leader we could believe in. Should we now let his court fall, mere days after our journey’s end?”

“Word’s really travelled that far?”

“Oh, yes, Belmont. The golden dragon, risen from the ashes of his father’s court? Who keeps untamable humans as pets, and allies himself with the human world? There’s little else anyone talks about.”

Trevor finds himself smirking, feels like maybe he should be insulted but all he can think is what a wonderful thing it is, in battle, to be underestimated. “You think we’re pets.”

“No. I know the difference between a general and a guard dog when I see it. But the others do. More importantly, they see Lord Alucard as a presumptuous, disobedient halfblood that should be put in his place.”

“You mean killed.”

“Yes,” she says, unflinching. “And if that happens… nothing will ever change, will it?”

Trevor sighs, looks out to the cloudy, obfuscated horizon. He can still feel Alucard’s watchful eye on all of them, too intense, too much the stare of a wolf on prey, and he remembers talking about this with him, down in the ashy, ghostly Belmont ruins. Breaking the cycle. Preventing these tragedies from coming around again.

If vampires are capable of not choosing evil; if hunters are capable of seeing them as people who have that choice; if both can stop seeing each other as prey for five goddamned minutes...

“No,” he agrees, quiet. “Without him? I don’t think anything will.”

Trevor takes some time to walk the grounds, spare boots going soggy in the snow, getting a feel for the place. It’s something he’s done countless times leading up to this, but a landscape can be mutable, can bend to the will of weather and time of day and other, less definable things. Energy. Hostility. Intent. He stays away from the woods; there’s no point walking into an ambush and making things easy for them.

Somewhere out on the far side of the ruins, he catches a smell of spice and wood smoke that makes him think of the marketplace in the town below. If the wind is coming from there, and is moving briskly enough to carry odors the entire way, that puts them all decidedly upwind of the forest. Which means that their forces—number, composition—are no secret to any creature in those woods.

Trevor sighs. The weather is what it is; not every disadvantage can be mitigated.

On his way back, he cuts along the western edge of the castle, raising a hand in greeting to the first of the service entrance guards—a human man, middle-aged and Mediterranean, with a surprisingly easy smile and a steady hand on the sword he’s sharpening.

“You never really introduced yourself,” the man says, as Trevor approaches. “What should we call you?”

“Just Belmont is fine. I’m the only one left to answer to it. That a Damascus blade?”

“It is.” He turns the blade against what little light finds them; the watery rippling in the steel is deadly and gorgeous. “It was my father’s—he was a royal guard. His father’s before him. Not sure where it originally came from. The east, obviously.” He sets the whetstone down on his leg, offers his hand. “Luca Gregori.”

Trevor takes it, considers. “How’s the son of a royal guard end up travelling with a bunch of vampires?”

It’s a question that could be tossed right back in his face: how’s a Belmont end up living with the son of Dracula? But instead, Gregori only laughs. “By falling in love with the beautiful Romani maiden always playing music below my balcony at night, and not realizing until it was too late that there was a reason she was only ever there at night.”

“Too late because she glamoured you?”

“Too late because I was too in love to see straight,” the man corrects, laughter in his eyes.

“Hm. She still with your group?”

If he’s thrown by Trevor’s casual acceptance of his answer, he doesn’t show it. “Of course. She doesn’t like fighting, though—didn’t want to come. Didn’t want me to come either.”

“Why did you?”

“That question again. Did our leader’s answer not suffice?” He picks the whetstone back up, draws it along the blade in long, light passes. He knows what he’s doing. “Your Lord Alucard could be the key to finally changing things. And that’s the only way people like Mireli and I can ever live in peace. That’s worth fighting for—for her. We take care of each other,” he says, tilting his face to glance pointedly at where Trevor’s collar is drooping. “I can tell you know all about that.”

Trevor feels heat threaten to rise up his cheeks, smacks it down hard. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, here. This man for damn sure feeds his own love—but there are appearances to maintain, for the sake of respect. He is one of Alucard’s generals, not his convenient midnight snack.

“I guess we all look after the people we care about,” is what he finally settles on, shrugging his shoulders to resettle the fur of his cloak closer around his neck. There. Sympathize, admit to nothing specific.

Gregori just looks at him for a long time, weighing that. “Indeed we do,” he finally says, cautious. “And protect those that need protecting.”

And it’s strange—that’s something Trevor’s always thought of in terms of humans needing protection from the creatures of the night, the dark forces intent on sowing chaos in their lives. But it’s not Sypha and him that need to be careful in Acasă, and supernatural complications aside, he’s seen firsthand the frankly bullshit way the Romani are often treated, back when he was travelling in the south of the continent. Protection, and the need for it, are a much more complicated picture than he used to think they were.

He glances over to the estate ruins, hovering so closely with all of their ghosts and memories. Maybe that’s why they stood and fought, even though they must have seen it coming—because the people needed them, needed their protection, from the church more than from any vampires or werewolves that night.

And they lost. But maybe it’s enough that they tried.

“I do hope none of those are fresh,” Gregori muses, between long scraping swipes of the whetstone.

“Of course not,” Trevor lies, effortless. He remembers Isabel mentioning it, too: the vampires in the woods, indulging their hungers, and how it’s doing them no favors. He could use some clarification on that. “There a reason you’re asking?”

“Oh, just, you know what human blood does to them, tonight. Isabel keeps them all off it for a few weeks, before the solstice.”

Oh. Oh.

It’s likely that none of the shock that ripples through him is visible to the man in front of him. Open book he can be at times, Trevor’s good at masking these things when it matters. But it still does shake him—heart suddenly hammering inside his chest, a wash of cold passing through him like there’s ice in his veins.

Human blood. Hell, forget that Adrian’s been nibbling on him here and there—that’s not enough volume to worry about. But game’s been scarce, so Trevor’s fallen behind the curve on replenishing those canisters with animal blood. He knows for an absolute, immutable fact that Adrian’s had to dip back into the human supply again, and as recently as this morning.

“Of course,” he says, casual, leaning sideways against the castle wall. “Everyone knows that.”

Inside, though?

Shit. SHIT. We're fucking idiots.

Adrian has holed up in the study, both because that is where the transmission mirror is, and because it is a place only he ever comes to, so it does not smell like anything except books and himself and the lingering fury and sadness of his father’s time. So it isn’t a pleasant place, but it’s a safe place; it quiets his nerves, cools the heat in his heart, soothes the ache in his fangs.

It’d frightened him, overlooking Trevor and Isabel earlier, that he’d found himself wanting Trevor between his teeth as much as he’d wanted him in his arms. He can only hope that when he needs the man around later, the adrenaline and rush of danger will keep his instincts focused in other directions. The solstice has never affected him like this before; he wonders if it would have, had he had a lover in other years, someone so skilled at stirring his baser instincts that he does it without even trying.

For now, he touches the glass of the mirror, traces his fingers along the fault line where the shards don’t line up perfectly, letting the edge slice finely into the pad of his thumb. It’s a bright shock of pain, satisfying in the way it gives him something purely outside of himself to think about, the way it grounds him.

The door to the study swings open noiselessly. The smell of humanlovepreysexblood slams into Adrian, just about chokes him. He catches himself on his knees, hands braced there white-knuckled and nearly tight enough to dislocate his own kneecaps.

“All right,” Trevor says, sweeping into the room, and his voice is all I’ve fucking had it with this but he still sets a hand on Adrian’s back, steadying and gentle. The proximity, the contact, the feel of his pulse, hammering through his palm— “Wasn’t sure if I was out of line bringing this up, but you just answered that for me.”

“I can control it,” Adrian grits out, straightening up, because it’s true, because it has to be true.

“Really,” Trevor says, disbelieving, challenging. There’s a spark of trouble in his eyes. “So, you could hold it together if I were to…” he trails off, crowding up into Adrian’s space, sliding his hand up from the middle of his back to the back of his neck. It’s heavy and hot there, with no fabric in the way, and it twines into his hair—insurance, Adrian realizes. A way to get a solid grip on him, if it becomes necessary. Trevor’s wary, in a way he hasn’t been for months, but he still leans in recklessly close, the heat of his breath boiling over Adrian’s cheeks, the wet curve of his lower lip, the hollow of his throat. The scent of him is intoxicating and disorienting, inflaming, strikes Adrian dizzy with lust. The taste of him, too—his mouth soft and combative under Adrian’s, his body tense and hot where Adrian’s arm at the small of his back has dragged them together in a close press, binding him there in a predator’s grip, inescapable.

It wouldn’t take much to just have him, right here and now. They’re both hard, and the collar of the hunter’s shirt is already loose, exposed, and Adrian doesn’t know which his body wants more—to fuck Trevor blind or drink him dry, or both. What would that be like, to feel that strong body jerk and writhe in pleasure even as the life drains away from it, completely at Adrian’s mercy, heat and arousal thick on his tongue—

It’s not until there’s a jolt through both of them—Trevor’s back hitting the wall, the impact kicking a pained breath out of him—that Adrian comes back to himself enough to realize where they are and what is happening. To realize that Trevor’s fist in his hair is trying to pull him away, sharp but completely ineffectual in the wake of Adrian’s strength; that Trevor’s eyes are wide and urgent, not the languid half-lidded picture of lust he’d been imagining. That his own mouth is frighteningly close to Trevor’s pulse.

“...Adrian,” Trevor breathes, and Adrian can feel the vibration of his own name through his teeth. Trevor gives his hair another tug; it’s an attempt to get his attention, Adrian realizes, not an attempt to actually stop him. For that, Trevor has his weapons, which he has not even made a move to reach for. “Stop for a second, here.”

Adrian closes his eyes, pushes through the feeling of Trevor hot under his hands, through the sound of his heart thudding like a primal drumbeat, through the full-body ache that’s spreading through him, demanding he chasehuntfuckbitefeedkill—pushes it all aside with more force of will than he’s ever had to muster, grasps desperately for lucidity. He feels his head fall forward, forehead coming to rest against Trevor's collarbone.

“Hey,” Trevor says, relaxing his hold on Adrian’s hair, scraping his fingers against the scalp instead. “You back with me?”

Fuck. This was a test—obviously it was—and he’s failed it miserably. He wants to be angry at Trevor, because Adrian could have killed him, but maybe he shouldn’t have been so prideful about being in control when he clearly wasn’t.

This is his fault. If it had ended badly, that would have been his fault too. He backs away without another thought, hands up in placation. “I’m sorry. That was—”

Trevor coughs, rubbing at his neck self-consciously. His color is high, breath a little ragged. “Honestly? It was hot, except for the bit where I really didn’t know if you were going to kill me or not. That was sort of a mood-killer.”

Never. Never. Fantasies are just fantasies, even if they’re the unspeakable, fucked-up products of his own twisted and tainted and monstrous blood; he would never—

“Jesus, Adrian,” Trevor continues, sounding shaken. “Have you even seen your eyes?”

His… eyes? Adrian puts his internal diatribe on hold, turns to the mirror—he’d been looking at it before, not so much into it—and scrutinizes his own reflection. It doesn’t take much effort to see what Trevor’s talking about: a blazing ring of brilliant red, bleeding into the whites of his eyes and into the gold of his irises. It pulses and swirls like liquid fire, and even his pupils look brighter than they should be, a dim flame burning in the black.

“That’s… probably not good,” he says, transfixed. “When did that—”

“They were a little red earlier today, but nothing like that.”

He swallows tightly, ignores the way his body screams, hollow and empty. “Trevor, this… this has never happened before. This isn’t normal.” He shakes his head, trying to clear it. “This—this isn’t me.”

“I believe that,” Trevor says, and thank God—if he didn’t believe him, if he thought that this is what had really been lurking under the surface this entire time…

Trevor comes up behind him so that he’s visible in the reflection too, giving him a face to speak to but stopping just short of actually making contact. “Because I know why it’s happening.”

“It’s because of you,” Adrian says, weakly, but no, that came out wrong—it’s not that it’s his fault, but him being here—it would have been the same if Sypha were here, it’s nothing Trevor did…

Trevor laughs, though there’s no real humor in it. It’s pure showmanship. “Fuck you, you bastard. I’m not the idiot who decided to dip into the good shit right before the solstice.”

“The good… what?” he asks, suddenly confused. Is Trevor talking about the rare, aged bottles of wine they bring up now and then? “I haven’t been drinking—”

“Yeah, you have. All that human blood on ice?”

Adrian draws his brows together, gives that some thought, or tries to—things are still muddled, shocky-feeling. “That causes…”

“Apparently, that takes whatever solstice crazy you already have going on and makes it worse, yeah,” Trevor sighs. “Kind of obvious, to be honest.”

It’s… all right. That makes sense. He’s never heard that, never had it crop up as an issue before, but it makes sense. He lifts his eyes, meets Trevor’s reflected gaze. Digs his claws hard into what clarity he has, for the moment. “Do we have any animal blood on hand?”

Trevor shrugs, shakes his head. “I dressed a hare this morning—it’s not much, but it’s down there.”

Perhaps if he can dilute what’s in his system. Perhaps if he can gain back just enough control that they can survive this—both of them. All three of them, if they retrieve Sypha, and he’s giving serious thought to just doing it now and damn waiting for the attack to actually come. He wants her here, beside them, wants to be able to touch her and know she’s alive and press his lips to her throat and—

Trevor is looking at him with that same nervousness again, that look of Am I going to have to kick your ass?

He ignores it, scratches a few quick sigils into the glass to focus its vision on the front entrance of the castle, where Isabel’s people are lying in wait with crossbows and longbows and spears. All quiet, at the moment. Good enough.

“I’ll be back,” he says, sidling past Trevor in an attempt to make no contact whatsoever. “Just… keep an eye on things. Use your judgment.”

The hare’s blood is as rank as animal blood always is, but after a few minutes sitting on the cold floor of the storage room, letting it work its way into his system and displace some of what’s already there, his head does start to feel clearer—not clear, but clearer. He can, now, think about what happened in the study, what almost happened, and feel more guilt than arousal. Guilt is the only thing he should be feeling, but as things stand, this might be as good as it gets.

Chunks of magical ice grow organically out of the floor all around him, branching crystals, chaotic and natural looking; mist rolls off of them, chilling and soothing everything it touches. The cold of it is intense, bites through his clothes and sinks into him, grounds him like the pain did earlier.

He counts to ten forward and backward, first in his native tongue, then in Latin, French, German, Arabic. He runs through all the medicines his mother taught him about and what they’re each used for. He curls his fingers against the floor, clutching at the mist, and when he thinks of Sypha and of Trevor, it is more with worry and fierce, overwhelming protectiveness than it is with desire.

It isn’t ideal. It will, however, have to be good enough.

When he feels stable enough to return to the study, he finds Trevor pacing in front of the mirror, hand on the haft of his Morning Star, collar fastened up more securely than Adrian thinks he’s ever seen it. Through the far window, he can see that night has just about fallen, the last curling wisps of orange and purple glowing through the cloud layer.

“Oh hey,” Trevor says, frustration in every syllable. “Thanks for showing up. Where the hell were you?”

“Stabilizing.”

“For an hour?”

That throws Adrian; he hadn’t thought it much longer than fifteen minutes or so. He shrugs, steps to the mirror. “That’s how long it took. You’ll take comfort in knowing that your mere presence is no longer enough to make me want to tear your clothes off with my teeth.”

“Well, that’s good at least. I mean, hey, that could be fun, right? But not right now.”

God damn Trevor, and his complete lack of filters. That wasn’t a suggestion he needed. “Not right now, no. If you could refrain from—”

He never gets the rest of the request out, because there’s suddenly a fluttering noise by the window, like a rustling of wind through tall grass but with more weight behind it. Wings. They both whip around to look, and Adrian is expecting to see something deadly clambering through the window frame, a night creature or some other supernatural entity, blood of their allies already dripping from its toothy maw—

He’s not expecting an innocent, unassuming black and white pigeon, perched in the sill and idly cleaning its wing feathers. It’s dingy and drooping, obviously exhausted, and there’s a tiny roll of parchment tied to one of its legs.

“Huh,” Trevor says, crossing to the window. “Hey there, is that for us?”

The bird doesn’t answer, obviously. But it also doesn’t startle away as Trevor carefully reaches to untie the bit of paper, turns back to the room with it in hand. The pigeon, missive delivered, flutters clumsily into the room instead of out of it, and no wonder; it’s warm, in here.

“What is it?” Adrian asks; clearly from someone with access to enchanted beasts, which isn’t encouraging—a black magician, a sorcerer—

“It’s from Sypha,” Trevor says simply, eyebrows raised. “I almost forgot that the Speakers do this, with pigeons. Here.”

Adrian takes the note, unrolls it again, the paper wanting badly to stay curled.

A, T — I need to return home, as soon as possible. You’re in danger. I think you might be I’m worried about you b Use the mirror. I will see you soon. — S

“Well, that settles that,” Trevor says, once he’s sure Adrian has read the whole thing. “Let’s get her the hell here, now.”

“Agreed,” Adrian says, a little distracted by the feel of the parchment in his fingers, the smell of the ink. It’s very physical, very visceral, and all of his senses are on high alert right now—and there’s something about all of this that’s bothering him. He doesn’t doubt the veracity of the note—he can smell Sypha on it, even after days clutched to a bird’s breast. But there’s something…

“Adrian?” Trevor prods. “I can’t actually work this thing, you know.”

“Right, of course,” he says, pocketing the slip of paper, stepping up to the mirror. This is complicated, shaping the sigils correctly to point not to a place but a person—to find Sypha wherever she is. He has to take his time, inscribing them with care, but something is driving him to hurry, hurry.

Trevor is getting antsy next to him. Up near the ceiling, the pigeon has found a perch, is fluffing out its feathers noisily.

A scraping sound, against the stone wall outside. Below the window. The sigils are nearly done, and there’s still something—

Trevor makes for the window, to investigate. Adrian desperately wants to stop him but he couldn’t begin to explain why, just knows that he wants Trevor anywhere but by that window, anywhere. It makes no sense, the wards should be sufficient to protect—

The pigeon burbles from its perch, oblivious to the tension, content.

The pigeon.

The wards.

“Trevor!” he shouts, the last sigil sinking into the mirror glass, the surface starting to shimmer as it hones in on another place, a life and a world away—he catches a glimpse of a bonfire, of colorful fabric and blue robes, of a sky black as pitch—

Then the mirror doesn’t matter, because the night sky outside the window is abruptly blocked out. In its place, the bloodied figure of a vampire, crouched to fit in the frame, hair matted and disheveled, eyes wild. It hisses at them like a sick, starving cat. At other windows, more figures appear, all mad with bloodlust, all intent on very particular prey.

Trevor stays composed. He takes a step back. He reaches for the grip of the Morning Star.

The vampire isn’t interested. He leaps into the room with an effortless grace, sweeps Trevor bodily aside with a strength he’s never seen—is on Adrian before Trevor can even shout a warning.

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#castlevania #netflix castlevania #fanfic #fanfiction #sypha belnades #trevor belmont #alucard #adrian tepes #trephacard #taproot #wellspring #post s2

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nossbean · 1 year

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Ooh, I'd like to know more about Lion Husband!

Yaaay! this fic is one i am super excited for whenever i have time enough to get deep enough into it! It's also one I've posted several snippets of over the last year and a bit. So for years I've wanted to do a fairy tale something, anything, and one day when driving, Crane WIfe 3 by The Decemberists came on shuffle. I'd heard it roughly 634 times before but this time something about it struck me about help and harm and need and desperation.

In this, Jaime inherits from his mother the ability to turn into a lion, whose various body parts can be repurposed: his claws turn to swords for Tywin's conquest, his roar turns to command for Cersei's ambitions, fur from his mane turns to protection for Tyrion. Each of these things hurts him, takes it out of him. And indeed, when he loses a hand in battle, the requests for yet more claws, for yet one more roar, bring him to the brink of death. He stands at the edge of a cliff one day, morose, when the sea rises to take him.

He is found, a lion with a lost paw, on the shores of Tarth. Brienne is Evenstar before she's ready -- her mother, the former Evenstar, was lost in a storm at sea. Tarth is in a bad way financially, raids along its coast, and isolation and the refusal of help from the mainland make for leaner and leaner years.

Jaime can make means, if only the demand is made. Brienne will never, ever, ask of anyone that which they cannot give without harm to themselves.

Here's the rough first part of chapter one, when Brienne is woken to see what's been found on the shore (cw: description of an injured animal)

“My lady.”

Brienne opened her eyes to near pitch. The sharp crack of winter rain sounded on the windows, followed by wind shaking the shutters as vigorous as a giant of old had taken hold.

They’d need replacing by next winter. Her stomach clenched. Another expense.

Perhaps they might simply fill in the windows. They could reuse stone from the crumbling watch tower, employ labourers from the village — a better use of funds —

“My lady,” a more insistent whisper through the door, accompanied by a quiet knock. Not the storm that woke her then.

Brienne sat up, pushed away her covers. Clenched her teeth against the immediate chill. “Yes?” she called, glancing to the fire. There wasn’t a glowing cinder to be seen, she’d been hoping she’d get at least another night from the last log.

“You’re needed at the bay, my lady.” Urgent. Pia was rarely ruffled. She referenced the bay near the Hall, not their main port, so the problem must not be a threat to the Isle for once. Small mercy.

Brienne glanced again at the windows. Perhaps the barest lightening, around the edges. The bay was treacherous enough in a storm in daylight. “A light, please,” Brienne called, then squinted against the soft spill as Pia opened the door. “Then tell them I’m coming. Thank you, Pia.”

The lamp light was reluctant on Goodwin, highlighting only the flat of his cap and the hunch of his shoulders, stooped under an outcropping at the bottom of the path, smoking. He looked up as Brienne stepped from the muddy slip of the path to the packed wet of the sand, scowling disapprovingly from under his patch. “Thought you’d want your say,” he said by way of greeting. “Figured you’d not let me live it down, if I just did what was needed.”

Brienne smiled a little against the icy wet wind on her face. Goodwin was gruff, and moody, and his face was craggier than the stones he leaned on, and Brienne met his grey eye and he smoothed the edge on her worry, conjured the gentlest brush of warmth back into her belly. “I see. Thank you.”

Flicking his cigarette to be taken by the wind, he grunted and looked away from her thanks before pushing away from the stone face, a protected corner where only the bravest of rain had dared find him. Goodwin tugged impatiently at the lantern pole stuck into the sand, stomping forward with nary a glance when the lantern swung wildly with new freedom. He said, “It’s over here.”

Brienne fell into step beside him, never quite shedding the feeling of being seven and looking up at him with nervous wonder as he handed her a training sword. Goodwin was half a foot shorter than her now, and getting shorter every year.

“What is it?” she asked.

Goodwin gestured, and Brienne followed his motion. In the gloom, a huddled mass, the errant peak of shuttered flame when one person or other moved. Strange, a low rumble from the same direction, though this storm had yet to offer thunder. Brienne squinted as the winds turned, buffeting her back, but all she could see was the shadowy shape of people in heavy coats, shifting uncomfortably and staring at something on the ground between them.

“Move it!” Goodwin barked and a path cleared. Their nervous energy seeming to catch at her just as the wind whipped at her coat, tried its best to steal away her scarf. Brienne forced herself tall, her shoulders back, her strides even, as she made her way between them, the last person moving aside —

“Is that — a lion?”

He was enormous.

He was heartbreaking.

He was lying on his side, fur so sodden Brienne felt the cold damp as though it burrowed into her own bones. She gestured to one of the women and she handed over a lantern Brienne swung forward to get a better look. Those ribs. Prominent, shadows draped between each bone, slipping to pool into the hollow of his belly. His hind legs fell loose behind him, and taken with the rattle of each breath, sadness tunneled in Brienne’s aching chest.

His long tail flicked and she gasped — hadn’t realised he was awake — looked back to his head and swallowed. Half his face was pressed into the sand, clear paths where the tide had washed over him, then made quick work to escape back to the sea. His one visible eye watched her. Furious, and hurt.

She hadn’t realized she’d taken a step towards him until his sharp teeth bared, the low rumble she’d mistaken earlier sent from his chest to roll over the sand and vibrate from the soles of her feet to deposit ice in her belly.

“You’re safe,” she told him quietly from around new fear, and took another step. Regretted it as he drew a heavy breath which shuddered and filled his belly, grotesque, before he raised his head. It took so much obvious effort and determination that Brienne winced, before he looked at her directly, bared his teeth fully, sharp and long and dangerous still, and snarled, freezing her in place.

“Best to put it out of its misery,” Goodwin muttered at her shoulder. Brienne whipped her head to scowl at him, and the lion acted almost as though he understood, his snarl louder, sharper. “It’s lost a paw, Brienne,” Goodwin said, quieter now. Brienne looked back, startled. The lion shifted, again as though he understood, but no, it must just be instinct to hide an injury. Too late though, Brienne saw how he leaned heavily on his right elbow, where his leg ended only in a bloody stump. She saw it now, too, in the lantern light and the slow greying of dawn. The sand under him was deeper, darker. A flicker of flame provoked burgundy.

“Bleeding out,” Goodwin added meaningfully. “What is a lion without a paw?”

“Still alive,” Brienne said, turning to face him fully. Goodwin sighed. “Are you helping me bring him?”

“Aye,” he said, violently stabbing his lantern into the wet sand. “You know what to do.”

Brienne’s hands tightened to fists and she nodded. Turned back to find the lion’s eyes trained on her. A clever cat, she thought, taking a step forward. Seemed almost to despise her. She smiled sadly. “You wouldn’t be the first,” she told him. The lion’s ears flicked, eyes narrowed. She wondered what colour his mane might be, dry, and in the light. It hung now, in sodden clumps around his face, looking heavy and uncomfortable. “To think me unnatural,” she whispered to the question she imagined he might ask. She’d had too little sleep, assigning human responses. But if someone had asked her now, she’d have said confidently that the lion had narrowed his eyes at this.

She took another step.

The lion’s eyes dropped to her feet, and then his teeth appeared again as he looked up.

“I haven’t got much to offer you,” she went on. The lion’s ears flicked again. “Only kindness.”

Goodwin was quick and exacting and if Brienne imagined some hint of terror in the lion’s eyes just before his head dropped, it was only that, her imagination.

Endless WIP meme

#writing meme #fic: against the falling down #thank you for the ask 💙!

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adrianicsea · 2 years

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stone in a stream, a.c.w

raw text below the cut:

a stone in a stream diverts the course of the water around it. you’re gonna have to find a way around, buddy, because i’m sure as shit not moving for you. it doesn’t matter if it’s a creek or a stream or a raging whitewater— the stone stays the course, splits the current, changes the world around it all by standing still.

a stone in a stream can only take so much. the boulder that split the river in half a thousand thousand years ago is the pebble that your father used to teach you how to skip rocks, thirty-odd years back, when you still had a father who wanted to teach you those kinds of things. he was a boulder, and the river he split in half was you. or he was the river and you were the stone, ill-chosen, too heavy and awkward to skip, sinking in your father’s abyss, goddammit son it’s not that hard, if you can’t skip a rock what can you do?

or no, neither of you were water, because water gives, and you didn’t, and damn right he didn’t. you were both just stones, then, a boulder and his pebble. gives new meaning to the term “a chip off the old block,” when you think about it, which you don’t.

but back to the stone in the stream. maybe the current doesn’t move the rock, maybe the water has to go around, maybe the water never finds a way to pass through it, but the water carves away at the stone as it goes. eventually, the stone is worn smooth, loses all its imposing edge, is rubbed for luck in the hand of the worst man you know and then skipped out over the lake.

i used to shift currents, thinks the pebble, as it jumps like a rabbit across the water. i used to carve maps. then it’s just another rock in the lakebed, and it’ll never change the course of geography again.

a stone in a stream without the stream is nothing. a landmark at best, a place to smoke and tag with graffiti at worst. or no, worse still— it’s just a part of the landscape, something your eyes skip across like a pebble on a lake because there’s nothing to take notice of.

a stone in a stream knows all of this. i’m going to be broken down into something so small that i will cease to recognize myself, says the stone, and then i will sink down and be forgotten forever.

the stream says yes, now you understand, you’re making this harder for yourself, can’t you see this is all for nothing, who are you trying to convince?

the stone says, but i’m still not moving.

a stone in a stream is going to drown one day.

#my writing #my poetry #poetry #will come back and adjust tags if it turns out none of those tags are right #also don’t mention the font or the squiggle marks google docs mobile is my sworn enemy #peter strahm

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macgyverbooks · 9 months

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Dragon Age: Inquisition FanFic

The Lies In Which We Linger - Chapter One

Summary: As Aza struggles under the weight of the Inquisition and her growing responsibilities she finds solace in the arms of a fellow Qunari. But not all is well in Thedas, as the threat of breach grows, old enemies from Asa’s past to threaten everything she’s built.

Word Count: 3500

Warnings: None

The gob of spit landed squarely on my boot. Suspiciously yellow it dribbled into the cracks of the flagstone in a thick ooze

“Ox-bitch,” I glanced down at the owner of the spit who snarled from under his Andrastian helm. He stood straight and proud in his polished armour, chin raised and jutted foreword with aggression.

The Valo-kas to my right didn’t move, not even bothering to acknowledge the slight. Holding my stare the muscles in the soldiers neck and shoulders tightened in preparation. He was young, almost too young. A few pale yellow whiskers sprouted from his chin as a feeble attempt at a beard while his skin remained smooth and unmarked bar the angry red of his cheeks against the cold. The boy leered showing crooked teeth eyes flashing with male pomp like a skinny cockerel fluffing its feathers daring me to respond. It was going to be a long day. Remaining silent I resisted the grin that tugged at the corner of my mouth and looked ahead readjusting the grip on my simple stave.

The view truly was lovely. A panoramic vista of snowy mountains and wooded valleys with an immense clear blue sky above. If you squinted you could almost make out the herd beasts slowly making their way along the slopes below snuffling through the snow for roots and old grass.

From my vantage point on the parapets I had a good view of the main gate of the Conclave as a river of people flowed through. Even from this distance I could make out the many coloured garbs from across Thedas. Every now and then I could even spot the telltale tall and broad body of a Qunari topped with their great curving horns. More than likely they were only bodyguards or soldiers but the excitement of seeing so many my kin in one place was still thrilling.

An angry stomp of an armoured boot brought my attention back to the little boy.

“Oi, you hear me goat face? Or are you as deaf as you are ugly?”

Mulling over my options I glanced about checking for any other Guardsmen but non were about. He was small and no doubt light, a simple kick and I could send him neatly flying over the balustrade and tumbling down to the rocks below to meet his precious maker but I thought better of it. We were, after all under special instructions to “make nice”.

Sending a withering look to my right I dropped my chin letting him feel the full force of my attention as I stared down unblinking. Gripping my stave I let the crackle of magic fizzle around my fingers. Stinking of ozone and singed wood I leaned over him, baring my sharpened teeth and growled.

“You say something, Imekari?”

Turning even paler the boy soldier bolted with an undignified whimper. Straightening up I listened to his boots clomp away and sighed again.

“They get younger every year,” I muttered.

“You’re losing you’re edge, Aza.” The Valo-Kas to my right mumbled, “you would have flung him off the parapet not so long ago.”

I chuckled and leaned my stave against the wall readjusting my pauldrons, shrugging the tension from my shoulders.

“Not so long ago Meraad, you would have beaten me to it.”

Meraad shook his head, his twisted ivory horns exaggerating the motion

“You insult me” he huffed. I raised an eyebrow in mock disbelief. “He was too small, there would be no challenge.”

Ignoring my look he dug in his pouch producing two pipes and a small bag of tobacco. Packing one neatly he handed one to me then packed his own

“If you could do the honours” he grinned as I rolled my eyes at him.

“Only cause its you,” with a snap of my fingers a flame leapt to life dancing about like a mad firefly lighting both pipes with a flick of my wrist.

Leaning against the stone balustrade looking out over the mountains puffing sweet smoke it was almost romantic. Had it not been for the armour and weapons at our hips.

Taking a deep puff I blew it out into the wind watching it twist and swirl away. Without letting myself really think about it I lent gingerly against Meraads broad shoulder, testing the waters, fully expecting him to pull away. He didn’t. In fact he leaned into me in return, staring straight ahead. Satisfied I allowed myself a small smile, fiddling with the stem of my pipe.

“Don’t celebrate just yet,” Meraad rumbled still staring out at the mountains. “We’ve still got a lot to talk about, you and I.”

A ball of emotion squeezed my throat and I had to clear it a few times before replying lightly

“Allow me one small victory.”

He grunted in response. Turning his head in a sweep of his board horns he glanced at me and grimaced, the corners of his full mouth pulled down in thought as he seemed to wrestle with his words. Opening his mouth to speak a single shriek of fear echoed from somewhere deep down in the conclave.

Both of us jerked upright on full alert heads on a swivel trying to pick up anymore sounds. The terrible cry came again, this time filled with pain. Hairs on the back of my neck prickled as tiny almost imperceptible shock waves of foreign magic began pulsating beneath my feet echoing up through the thick stone walls. Oh, that’s not good. Grabbing his shoulder I motioned to Meraad quietly

“I’m heading to the eastern stairs. Alert the Captain of the guard and start perimeter sweep with the others, now!”

Turning to leave I stopped when Meraad grabbed my wrist and pulled me close letting our foreheads gently knock together

“I will meet you at the campfire tonight,” he whispered “for that talk.”

At that he left hurrying around the corner to the steps leading down into the main hall. Staring after him I couldn’t help feeling hope bloom in my chest. He wanted to talk, after all this time he was finally ready. Turning to take a more direct route down through to the library and more private chambers of the Conclave following the steady thrum of magic I couldn’t stop the smile. Nothing could ruin this day. Nothing.

— A few weeks later —

Sat uncomfortably on the too low chairs I tried not to stare as the delicate elven barmaid served Cullen another beer. She hid behind her serving platter all blushing cheeks and doe eyes while Cullen, still suited up in his bright armour and fur mantle laughed and rubbed the back of his neck at her bashful tittering

Rolling my eyes in a painful groan I felt the pit of my stomach twist with embarrassment. Like I even had a chance. Glancing over I made the mistake of comparing myself to the beautiful elf. Where she was short and dainty I was long and broad. Her bright clear face only marked by the delicate lines of her tattoos, or Vallaslin, while mine was freckled, weather beaten and tattered with scars, some small some not so small. Running my tongue over the corner of my mouth I felt along the raised line of scar tissue that ran from eyebrow to chin, cleaving my lower lip on its way, and frowned swirling the dregs of my ale. I don’t know why I’d allowed it but my traitorous, stupid heart had leapt at the mere sight of the sweet and oh so charming commander. Like the hero in some star spangled folk tale he had appeared and like some idiot I had tried to flirt with him. What I had forgotten was that I more resembled the evil creature in the woods than the love struck, doe eyed heroine.

Not that my motives had been entirely pure. I’d wanted a fling, something light and inconsequential that wasn’t going to haunt me later. A chance to feel close to someone again. Perhaps it was a poor attempt at consoling my damaged pride but, after some time observing the commander I had decided he wouldn’t appreciate the occasional one nighter. In fact the more I’d thought about it the more he seemed like the settling down type, the kind who would’ve picked out kids names and drapes by the morning after. Maybe I was a closet masochist, at least that would explain a few of my horrific life decisions and downright inappropriate taste in men.

An image flashed through my mind like a ghost. A frozen scene of Meraad tending to the campfire looking over his shoulder with a grin tugging at his mouth. Shivering I shoved the memory aside and downed the last of my drink. Drowning out memories had become a habit of mine over the last few weeks. It was unfortunate the weaker human beers and ales were hardly enough to get me tipsy. Dropping some coins onto the sticky table I shuffled out, sidestepping around the crowd of drunk soldiers and servants.

Out in the cold night air I breathed deep letting it out in a great puff of vapour. Like a dragon I thought with a somber smile. Hushed whispers to my left had me ducking my head, my shoulders tensing up as the three sisters bowed muttering “go in peace, Herald of Andraste” as I passed. Offering a tight lipped grimace of a smile I moved away quickly, heading for my quarters.

Herald of fucking Andraste. What a joke. Not that it really mattered what I thought. Soon as someone figured out I wasn’t deliberately trying to blow the sky open the rumours spread like wild fire. Prophetic. Messiah. Heaven sent. It was enough to make my skin crawl. Even worse was the way they looked at me, staring up in either wide eyed wonder or deep sneering suspicion. I wasn’t sure which one I hated more. At least Varric is here I thought, skirting past his tent were a small crowd had gathered, no doubt wanting to hear his stories.

The dwarf had appeared from nowhere with enough suave confidence to think he’d seen this all before. He was gentle if sarcastic in his manner and had quickly gained my approval much to Cassandra’s exasperation. With his sharp eyes and clever tongue I was keen to keep him around, though I sensed there was much more going on with him than he let on. Split loyalties could prove problematic if this “inquisition” grew anymore momentum.

Approaching my temporary home I paused noting the door was open a crack, warm candle light spilling onto the snow. Old instincts rang in my head like an alarm and I approached warily, hand on my daggers before I could really think it through. Nudging the door open with a boot I cast my gaze about only to jump back, ripping the curved blades from their sheaths as a small figure dashed around the corner and through the door in a flurry of gold and purple.

“Oh!” Josephine gasped, stepping back and nearly dropping her note board as her back connected with the door frame. Sighing in relief I quickly replaced the blades and raised my hands placatingly

“Sorry, sorry,” I muttered, curling my shoulders and bending at the waist so I was closer to her eye level. “Thought you were a thief or something.”

“No need to apologise Herald,” Josephine waved airily, straightening her pristine gold cravat. Herald. I winced at the title, just use my name I wanted to say but I bit my tongue and nodded instead. “I was only dropping off some papers for you to look over.” If Josephine had been anyone else the following beat of silence would have been awkward. Instead she smiled, having to crane her neck up despite my efforts. “It is late, you should get some rest while you can. Tomorrow will be busy and we will need you at your best.”

“When is it not busy,” I grumbled light heartedly with a polite smile, noting the way Josephines eyes flicked down to my mouth, my sharpened teeth no doubt catching the candle light. Shit. Though technically similar in structure to ours I found humans soft, fleshy faces difficult to read. I never knew how to judge their reactions and Josephine was no different, she was just more forgiving about my confusion than most, though the fact she and Leliana could manipulate their faces so easily still alarmed me. At least Cullen and Cassandra were more verbal and plain about their feelings though, in Cassandra’s case, I sometimes I wished they weren’t. Despite all that I noted the minute widening of her eyes at my feral smile, the way she raised her note board a fraction higher. Damn it.

“There is someone here to see you, Herald.” She continued breezily, “They’re waiting for you by the Chantry.”

Clamping my mouth shut I nodded, waving goodbye as Josephine disappeared into the biting winter night, the strange metallic fabric of her puff sleeves reflecting the cold moonlight. Turning toward the great stone hall I couldn’t stop the small shake of my head at the absurdity of my situation. Me of all people rubbing shoulders with templars, ex-royalty and ladies of foreign courts not to mention the multitudes of holy men and woman. A shiver ran up my spine thinking of the conversations with Lelianna in her tent. Her eyes razor sharp with intellect while she pondered and muddled over her words like a mad zealot, grappling with her faith. The awful way she had stared as I floundered for an answer to her questions, my face screwed up into a pained wince just remembering it. It was becoming a terrifying trend in my advisors, them asking for advice and me fumbling under the pressure. Wasn’t it supposed to work the other way round? And what did they really expect from me, some kind of divine wisdom just cause I survived a fucking explosion? I shook my head, that wasn’t it. For all their niceties the questions smacked of judgment, clumsy attempts at testing my character, drawing me out with their tales only to slap me with a moral dilemma and see what I’d do.

Solas was a fucker for it. I’d stood in child like rapture as he spoke of his experiences moving through the fade, what he’d seen and heard, the spirits he’d spoken with. He spun the stories in his gentle voice lulling me into a false sense of security only to pose an innocent question, then snark at my response. Bastard. All of them bastards. Everyone working so hard to put the world back together and stuck with me to lead them. Poor, poor bastards.

Approaching the hall I spied a soldier, a mercenary most likely, waiting by the doors. His armour though battered from use shined reflecting the last of the evenings sun. He was handsome I noted, short but stocky with close cropped brown hair and a soft unmarked face, not your typical looking merc for sure.

“You the Inquisitor?” He asked in a flat, matter-of-fact voice, his eyes looking me up and down.

“Depends whose asking,” I replied, eyeing him in return

“We’ve got word of some Tevinter mercenary’s out on the Storm Coast,” he continued unfazed. “My commander, Iron Bull, offers the the information free of charge.”

Containing a snort at the name, I folded my arms instead and tutted

“How gracious of him, but I doubt anything is for free. What does this Iron Bull want?”

“An interview. Come to the Storm Coast and see what the Bull’s Chargers can do for the Inquisition.”

Shaking my head I turned to leave. Any idiot with a sword can claim to be a mercenary and in all my time with the Valo-Kas I’d never heard of the Bull’s Chargers. I wouldn’t waste precious resources chasing what are most likely unskilled peasants with more bravery than sense.

“There is no shortage of mercenaries wanting to join our cause, I don’t have time to-“

“We’re the best you’ll find.” The merc stated. Glancing over my shoulder I squinted at him noting the lack of pomp or anger, just his plain stare meeting my gaze steadily. He wasn’t lying. “Come to the Storm Coast, see us in action, then decide if you need us.”

My lip curled at the wording but I nodded, grudgingly impressed by this soft spoken man.

“Fine.” I conceded with a tired sigh, “tell your Iron Bull we’ll be at the coast in a few days.”

At that the Merc nodded and left, walking off toward the ale house without so much of a backward glance.

Closing the door of my quarters I poured over the new paperwork Josephine had left. A scout report caught my eye detailing a particularly nasty fight that had broken out in a village in the Hinterlands between the mages and templars, only a few had escaped. It twisted my stomach just how fast things turned to shit. Everyday reports streamed in from every corner of new rifts opening, demons spotted in one place after another, missing people and rogue mages and templars causing havoc. That first trip through the Hinterlands still hung over me. So much death and destruction and not a damn person to stop it. Still despite it all my heart lifted at the prospect of going to the Storm Coast despite my doubt. I hadn’t seen the ocean since I was a girl. With a sigh I stood and grabbed the report needing to organise a few things before I went to bed. Time away from the Haven was time well spent and I was anxious to be out from under the many eyes of this place.

—

“This is bullshit.”

Varric cackled. “Not a fan of the rain, Lucky?”

“Rain. Rifts. Templars. Demons. Fucking giant spiders.” I listed staring down the beach, “what else am I forgetting?”

“Darkspawn.” Solas added dryly.

Nodding I hooked my thumbs into my belt and sighed. It had been one shit show after another, first the Hinterlands then that mess at Val Royoux and now this gods forsaken coastline. Looking down the beach from our little base camp the rain pelting down my neck all I wanted was to crawl back into bed. After the long gruelling trip over here, slogging through knee high mud and fighting off bandits we’d arrived cold, wet and tired and I’d stupidly spent most of the night going over notes, replying to messages from Scout Harding and looking over acquisition demands from Quartermaster Threnn. Now an ache had settled between my shoulder blades from hunching over my too low desk as exhaustion dragged at my eyelids.

Below the sounds of fighting echoed up the beach, the clanging of swords cutting through the roar of the waves that battered the rocks. Taking a long breath I nodded at Cassandra and started down the rocky slope. Scout Harding had let us know the Bull’s Chargers were waiting on the beach but I’d let them sit for a few hours, instead heading out to find the few rifts that had been reported on. Demons had felt more important at the time but now I regretted the decision, after being blown off my feet by a fire demon and attacked by giant spiders I was in no mood to play diplomacy with a bunch of mercenaries. Plus my hand ached, the throbbing going straight to the bone as the sickly green light flared and arced.

“Here we go,” I muttered under my breath as we emerged onto the beach right into the fray. Charging ahead I ripped my blades from their sheathes and tore into battle, all weariness forgotten, my blood singing. This I could do, rip and tear till the job was done. The simplicity appealed to some base part of my nature, the part that wanted to smash heads when some snotty peasant sneered “Oxman” to my face.

Plunging my daggers in the neck of a Tevinter a shadow loomed over my shoulder. On pure instinct I spun and raised my blood soaked blades braced to be blown away by the massive arc of the war axe that sang through air like quicksilver. Feeling the whoosh of air tussle my braids I lowered my knives an inch in surprise. At my feet lay a tevinter who’d been creeping up on me twitching in pool of blood, an axe imbedded in his spine. Glancing up and up and up I squinted at the massive Qunari, his broad horns and even broader shoulders blocking the weak sun.

“Well hello, Inquisitor!” The Iron Bull said with a blood splattered grin.

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revelisms · 11 months

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Excerpt: An Artificial Sun

Silco recounts a past life.

From 'bitter bright wings,' a character study of Silco and Jinx set after Episode 5. Full story on AO3

"In the river, you told me..." She turns her cup in her hands, warm against her palms. "You told me you let—let a weak man die."

He tips his mug into a slow sip. "I did."

Her nails click over the porcelain. "I guess I—I was just...curious."

He waits for her to elaborate further. She doesn't. "About what?" he prods, and glances down at her. The fire of his left eye glows in the dim. "Who that man was?"

"Well—" She curls her fingers slow about her cup. Shrugs softly. "Yeah."

He turns back to the skyline. There's a pause in the way he lifts his cigarette, something one might call hesitation, before he takes another drag. He lets the smoke sit in his throat. Breathes it out.

She hates it, when he's quiet like this. She hunches upon herself, so close to ripping the words back; spitting out forget it, or I'm sorry, or fleeing, entirely.

"I spent years, looking for purpose," he says then, and his tone is strange. "In the dark. In the mines."

He tacks off the ash from his cigarette, peering absently over the balcony's metalwork to the sea of emerald-fogged buildings cobbled below. "Digging through the rocks, until your fingers bleed," he continues, faraway. "One can lose their minds, down there. No matter how hard you fight for something—there's always more earth to slough through. More tunnels to carve out. Every hour longer than the last; every day bleeding to another."

She looks up at him, quietly. The wind has loosened his hair from its usual coif, scattered over his brow. He's dug one hand into the crook of his elbow: the cigarette turned slow, pensive, within the other. The light washes out the red of his shirt to a bloody brown.

"That sort of life," he mutters on, embers in the words, "it starves you, for reassurance. That every bone you've broken has been worth something—and all the time you've wasted away will pay off, in the end." He stares out over the smog, the winding dark of the rooftops, the ghoulish giant of a city on a hill high, high, above, and chuckles, bitterly. "Can you blame them?" he muses. The fire of his eye burns on something she can't see.

He takes another drag, slowly. "I was willing to do anything, to get out." Venom, in that word—and she has heard it before. He's never shied away from baring the ruthlessness of those years in the filth, climbing rung after blood-stained rung. In some ways, it is a mantle: a declaration of achievement, fought for tooth and nail. The cigarette bounces in his fingers. "But," he says quietly, and his mouth turns tense. "You spend so long underground, it roots inside you. The sun turns cold. And everything you spent months, years, scavenging for feels like dust, blown away."

She looks down into her cup, fingertips caught on the smooth slope of its clay. His words pause again, muddling—but it's alright, now. She focuses on what she can. The city is never quiet: but this early, a stillness blankets it. A breeze whispers about the building's edges.

Smoke unspools blue above him. "Then, one day," he continues, frowning, "someone comes along, who lights that fire in you—and you forget. All the fight you had in you; the power you gave yourself. You burn it all away." He rests his head against the rough stone of the Drop's old wall. "That faith in something that is not your own—it breaks you. Turns you reliant." The word stings, like a blade. "An artificial sun, replacing whatever that dead thing in the sky used to be—and when you lose it..." The words trail out to a whisper. He taps the unlit end of his cigarette on the railing, once, twice. "You're nothing."

The memory festers, in the quiet. It fills the space between them, thick as oil. He takes another drag. "Or," he breathes out, waving the embers towards their slow-built empire. "It frees you. Reminds you why you survived, before. How you survived, before."

She rests her cheek on her knee, and swallows. She can feel his eyes slip towards her: weighing out his words, turning them over.

"Sometimes," Silco murmurs, and it is gentle for all the fire that sits in it, a furrow creasing his brow, "we have to kill parts of ourselves, to remember. But those parts of you—they never leave you." He swirls the dark pool of his coffee. Takes a slow sip. "Not completely."

#arcane #arcane fanfic #fic excerpt #silco #silco arcane #jinx #jinx arcane #mentioned vander #some hints of vanco #i will yell forever about their mess of a familial relationship but mAN #you can't tell me they don't *get* each other #and that the identity conflicts Jinx has fought to untangle within herself with her idea of “Powder”#and her relationship to Vi and the boys and even Vander #isn't something he also *sees* and *knows*#a sense of self that was also stripped from him after the fallout #and a need for a newness/a seperation that he relates to #writing

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heartofspells · 2 years

Text

Just because Family on the Mend is almost finished doesn’t mean the Sirius and Harry content has to end, right? Right!

Cw: small injury and mentions of blood (but it’s fine, i promise!)

---

Sirius comes to a very sudden halt when he enters the bathroom, eyes raking around, taking in the various items scattered over the floor.

"Er…" he says intelligibly.

Harry sits on the floor, surrounded by the madness. His back is angled towards the door and Sirius, and his shoulders hunch forward a little when he hears Sirius speak (sort of).

"Haz," hedges Sirius, not entirely sure what to think, "is there a…a reason you've dismantled our first aid kit?" He's desperately trying to keep the panic from his voice, because from the looks of it, Harry is hurt, but he seems fine, from what Sirius can see. So. Not panicking. Externally.

Harry mumbles something that Sirius can't understand, and he sighs quietly.

"Repeat, please," he says, losing a small amount of patience as the confusion and panic mount a little higher. "What are you doing?"

Harry huffs from the floor, turning to look at Sirius over one shoulder, half his face hidden from sight. "The biscuit jar bit me," he finally admits.

Sirius frowns. Firstly, Harry knows better, but they've been having an issue lately with the boy spoiling his meals by sneaking an outrageous amount of sweets when Sirius isn't around to catch him. So, Sirius had done some research and found a harmless charm to ward against the thievery. It wouldn't hurt Harry – Sirius had been sure to test it on himself first – just startle him and hopefully deter him, the lid of the jar growling and snapping when reaching in without disarming it first. Secondly, Sirius had placed the jar in a higher cupboard to further thwart the six-year-old's attempts.

But none of that explains why Harry would be rifling through their bandages like he's on a mission.

"All right," murmurs Sirius, still trying to remain calm. "We'll talk about your sneaking later. Did it hurt you? It shouldn't have."

"No," mumbles Harry. "But it scared me, and I slipped on the counter. I broke a glass and cut my hand."

"What?" cries Sirius sharply, darting forward and dropping to the floor beside Harry, grabbing up his hand in still gentle fingers to inspect it. The cut is there, drying blood around its edges, but it isn't deep, and already seems to have clotted over. Sirius exhales a breath of relief. "Harry, mate. Don't scare me like that, sprog. Why didn't you come to me? I would have helped you."

Tears well in his godson's eyes and the panic returns, but for a different reason. Sirius soothes over the sides of his face, trying to calm him before he bursts, not understanding the small amount of fear visible in his glistening green eyes.

"You would have been mad at me," he moans out thickly, sniffling a little, and Sirius deflates. His arms wrap around Harry, pulling him close as the boy begins to cry into his chest a little, mostly silent tears dampening his shirt. "I was bad."

"Oh, Haz," murmurs Sirius, his hand smoothing down his godson's back. He rocks him, gently shushing him quietly, trying to soothe. "I'm not angry about the biscuits, but you can't hide away when you're hurt. That's not good, Harry. You have to come to me. I'll never be angry with you for that, all right? I only want to help."

Harry sniffles again but nods against him. Sirius gives him a while before carefully pulling him back enough to see his face. He brushes the tears away from his wet cheeks with soft touches of his thumbs, smiling down at him.

"Let's get your hand cleaned up, hm?" he says as brightly as he can manage. "Then why don't have some pizza and ice cream for dinner to make up for it? How does that sound?"

When a smile breaks through Harry's misery, Sirius' heart clenches a little in his chest, something warm settling over him. He makes fast work of bandaging Harry's injured hand, and then he presses a kiss to the exposed skin beside the cut.

"All better?" he asks, cocking his head to the side a bit.

Harry beams at him. "All better!" he chirps happily, and Sirius grins.

#sirius and harry #sirius raises harry #sirius raising harry #dadfather sirius #good godfather sirius black #best dadfather #sirius black #harry potter #cw: injury #cw: blood

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shiningwonderland · 4 months

Text

Camus (All Star) Memorial

Translator: Mimi (twitter: _mimisaurora)

Memorial 4 - Camus-senpai's Performance

It was midnight.

Unable to sleep well, I awoke.

“....”

I remove the bath towel from my face and get up.

I drew out my pocket watch to check the time, and found it was still far from dawn.

“Unfortunate…”

Sleeping through the night appears to be difficult these days.

I'm not one to fall ill after a few days of no sleep, but I have important issues to deal with now.

I can't afford to do anything that would hinder my focus.

“I’ll have to look through some literature…”

I’m wide awake, so going back to sleep anytime soon is not in the cards.

And I had no desire to waste time now that I was up.

I pulled back the sheets and stepped out of my bed, my gaze drifting to the cello I had placed in the corner of the room.

I brought it with me from my home country when it was decided I was to do this job in Japan.

“Haven’t played it in a while…”

I walk over for no specific reason, and lightly brush my fingers against the side of it.

I trace its smooth surface with my fingertips.

The candlelight reflects off the amber instrument, its shadow flickering on the floor.

I first saw this instrument when I was eight years old.

It happened when I was summoned, like always, by Her Majesty the Queen, inviting me to the palace.

Back then, Her Majesty had little in the way of politics and, apart from studying state affairs, she spent much of her time alone in her room.

“Camus! I’m so happy to see you!”

That day, too, Her Majesty had ran over as soon as she noticed I arrived in her room along with an attendant一

She tripped on the edge of a rug and fell over.

“Gah!”

“Your Majesty!!”

Attendants were not allowed to approach her, so it was up to me to help her back on her feet.

Despite being eight years old at the time, I had already acquired the proper schooling to be allowed an audience as the son of a nobleman, so I reached out to Her Majesty without a second thought.

“Your Majesty, were you injured…?”

She frowned glumly. Her Majesty, who must always conduct herself as a queen, only ever wore these kinds of expressions in front of me.

“Of course I was. Insolent fool. Why did somebody place a rug here?”

“I will speak to my father immediately and confront the person responsible. And at the same time, we'll work on removing the…”

She addressed me in an attempt to stop me from standing.

“That’s good. But you’ve come all this way. I’m bored. Talk to me as you always do.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

I could never disobey Her Majesty’s orders. I silently followed her as she returned to her chair.

“Camus, don’t tell anybody that I fell.”

“As you wish.”

I was preparing to stand by Her Majesty’s side, as I normally always do, when I noticed a musical instrument positioned behind her.

It was a large amber-hued string instrument.

In hindsight, it was smaller in size, but to eight-year-old me, it appeared much bigger.

“Is that…”

“Yeah, that’s a cello. I started learning how to play from a court musician a few days ago.”

“With all due respect… That instrument seems to be a little too big for your size, Your Majesty…”

I realized I'd misspoken when her brow raised.

“I’m going to get taller, you fool.”

“Ah. …My sincere apologies.”

“I am still growing. In no time I will be a tall and beautiful woman.”

“Of course...”

“Otherwise, when Mitjana comes for me, he’ll lose his interest. I have to grow into a beautiful woman suitable for…”

“...Your Majesty?”

“...It’s nothing. Certainly none of your concern. More importantly, is anything interesting going on out there?”

“Yes. The other day, while on patrol through the territory with my father, we witnessed wolves running across the snowfields... “

“Wolves?”

“Yes. A pack of them, mostly gray, but one was pure white.”

“That's fascinating. Did you see that wolf from up close?”

“No… I was simply watching from afar.”

“Hmph. Coward.”

“No way! This Camus, though young, is still a knight. I am not intimidated by such beasts.”

“I don’t know. I’ve yet to see this Camus fight with a sword.”

“Permit me, and I will present you with Camus' sword at once.”

“I shall look forward to it, then. When you confront that white wolf…”

Whenever Her Majesty shifted, the instrument would come into view.

Even as a child, I wouldn't normally have been distracted by anything apart from what Her Majesty had to say.

But in that moment, I was inexplicably captivated by the instrument.

Her Majesty, noticing my behavior, tipped her head curiously.

“Hm? What, are you curious about the cello? It's unusual to see you so interested in things.”

“With utmost respect… Why did Your Majesty choose that particular instrument?”

“Oh… I like how it sounds.”

She stood and walked over to the cello, picking up its bow.

“Its sound makes me think of night and snow. It works well to soothe loneliness…”

Her Majesty turned around and asked me.

“Do you also like the cello?”

“Yes. If it’s what Your Majesty enjoys, I enjoy it too.”

I answered as my father had taught me, and she happened to look a little sad.

“...Right. Then, I will teach you how to play.”

“Personally by Your Majesty!? It would be an absolute privilege…”

“Perfect. That cello is still too big for you, but eventually, you’ll grow into it. You’ll even be better than me in no time. How’s that sound?”

“Absolutely. If it is something Your Majesty desires, I would be delighted to oblige.”

“...Is that so.”

“Yes! It is my role to ensure Your Majesty’s happiness as you remain inside. It is what my father ordered me to do.”

I nodded, and once more, Her Majesty broke out into a dejected smile.

“Well.. I am very much looking forward to hearing your performance.”

That was… about 12 years ago.

I am no longer a child oblivious to what is happening in my country, and although many things have changed, the gloom in Her Majesty’s face remains.

I suppose the sound of the cello couldn’t save her after all.

“That is… all music can amount to be.”

For several years I have been placed in this world for the sake of my mission. I am surrounded by music every day, but still fail to understand what is so wonderful about it.

All I could do was laugh at the people who proclaimed their love for music like Cecil Aijima, a kouhai in my care during the Master Course.

Music is nothing more than a form of entertainment.

There’s nothing comforting about it.

And yet… Only the sound of the cello seems to elicit a feeling of calm.

“Night and snow…”

The sound of solitude.

I silently take the bow in hand.

It is only for entertainment. Nonetheless, it will help pass the time until I can sleep again.

I have participated in a few concertos during the course of my work, but I still prefer to play alone.

The sounds of others do nothing but disturb me. It is equally annoying and despicable.

I drew in a small breath and pulled my instrument closer to me. Hair in the way, I tuck it behind my ears.

It was terribly bothersome to think of something. I will just play from the heart.

“The beauty of music is how one can avoid useless thoughts while playing…”

It has that going for it. Just that little bit of delight.

I close my eyes once, open them slowly, and in the twilight, begin to play out my emotions.

A sound no one will ever hear, except for me.

I now had a small understanding of how Her Majesty must have felt, always wanting someone to talk to.

It was a while before the sound of a piano built upon the low notes I played, melting together into the night.

#utapri #all star #all star camus #camus utapri #camus memorial

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wordstro · 2 years

Text

[10:01 PM] + fae!yeosang + "would you like to dance?"

a/n: 1.5k, gender neutral reader, i've been thinking about the concept of faerie court ateez for daaaays and this barely touches the surface of it but idk what to write about it lmao

taglist: @leeknowsalot

it's in the way he moves. with a grace you would never dare associate with any human. he glides, dances almost, despite the tree branches and the darkness. he moves like rain drops trickling down a window. your fingers curl around the car keys in your hand.

you were never one for superstition, not like the rest of the townsfolk, but the pretty man before smiles something wicked, and you can feel the draw of him. your skin crawls, goosebumps settle over your skin, but you cannot stop staring. his smooth skin, his sharp, delicate features. the curve of his nose, the twinkle in his eyes. the way he tilts his head the slightest bit as he regards you.

your hometown was always a peculiar place, situated at the edge of a deep forest and hours away from any proper city. the closest chain supermarket was a two hour drive west. an elderly lady with a milky eye ran both the gift shop and apothecary at the same time, despite never seeing her leave either store. the town itself was never the peculiar part though.

it was the forest lining the east side of town. there was always a stillness to the forest that brought chills down your spine, and you and the other children in your neighborhood used to spend hours playing at the edge of the forest, always looking in, but never stepping in. you often wondered if it even had an end. it did not help that you'd always been warned to stay away from the forest.

long ago, when you were still a young child, your neighbor's daughter had gotten lost on the trails for a full twenty four hours. she was doing the same thing all the other children did - played by the forest's edge. but that day, you learned she was out there alone.

the one-man police department refused to go into the forest to look for her, so the milky eyed woman - mrs. lee - went in his stead. mrs. lee emerged from the forest the next morning with chungha curled up in her arms. but she came back different. changed, some of the adults whispered behind her back. replaced. a changeling.

of course, as your peers grew older, you stopped believing such nonsense stories. sure, chungha had become a bit strange and nervous since she got lost in the forest, but wouldn't anyone? the forest is already quite eerie on its own. you could not imagine the trauma of losing your way in such a forest at eight years old. you certainly would have came out of that worse off than chungha had. since then, chungha's gotten into the top dance schools in the country. sure, the forest still sent chills down your back sometimes, but the eerie dread certainly wore off.

it probably helped that now that you and the other kids your age were older, you all braved the woods during your summers back home often. nothing like getting absolutely wasted in the woods until two in the morning to ease your mind and guarantee that the warnings about the forest were just stories made up by your parents to keep you all from playing in the woods. three summers went by without incident.

so, of course, you thought nothing of it when you left the circle, promising you would come back with more cases of beer and some snacks you left in your car. you thought nothing of it until now.

you hadn't thought about those warnings for a long time, but as the man in front of you steps closer, your heart races and you know this must be the reason for all those stories and warnings. he moves, you think, the way chungha did at her televised recitals. with a lightness in his limbs that takes your breath away.

you must be too drunk. this isn't real.

"are you?" his voice is musical, soft and light. "too drunk, i mean?"

you shake your head. you nod. oh. "i d-don't know. who are you?"

the man hums for a moment too long. the sound is prettier than his voice, lovelier than his face, but the draw of it is what makes you dig your heels into the forest floor.

"kang yeosang," he murmurs. even his name is pretty.

"that's it?"

yeosang tilts head. "what is your name?"

something tells you not to tell him. you remember mrs. lee sitting behind her apothecary counter as you flipped through her old magazines, ogling the boybands plastered across the pages. she'd said once that names shouldn't be given out so easily.

"do not give it to anyone, and certainly not strangers," mrs. lee croaked, her milky eye fixed on you, while her good eye darted around the apothecary watching your mother shop.

"i just wanted to know if you had the mail-in card to enter the concert contest," you'd pouted, waving the magazine page at mrs. lee.

your mother snatched the magazine from you, handing it back to mrs. lee as she placed her herbs on the counter and said, "i never said you could go."

"if i win it would be free!" you whined.

your mother apologized profusely, but mrs. lee merely put a wrinkly hand over yours and said, "names have power, sweetheart. there are creatures out there who can ruin you with them."

you never thought a concert sweepstakes deserved such a speech, but her milky eye was strange, and though she looked so withered, her voice was so young and lively. she was a strange thing, and her words stuck with you because of that.

you wonder, briefly, if she'd known this encounter was to come.

you say to yeosang, stepping back, voice firm, "i don't know."

"you don't know much, do you, you sweet thing?"

his voice is soft, teasing almost, and you frown, "i know you're dangerous."

"i am hardly a danger to you at this moment."

"at this moment," you repeat.

he steps forward, and you notice flowers curling in his hair. pink and white petals stick to his hair, his skin, his silken clothes, and they drift gently. he doesn't look dangerous. at this moment.

he is quick, languid, but you blink in surprise when he is mere inches from you. he lifts a hand, and a flower blooms in his hand, glorious and bright and not at all normal.

your gaze flickers up to his dark eyes. "what are you?"

"someone meant to help you find your way."

"do you always answer questions with non-answers?"

a small smile tugs at his lips. "oh, you are quite clever. and here i thought you knew nothing at all."

he still holds the flower. you peer down at it.

he says, "i'll answer your question if you take this."

you hesitate. he raises a brow.

slowly, you take it. something about his dark eyes and the petals in his hair softens you. you're not sure, maybe it's because he's still talking to you. if he wanted to do something, he would have done it already.

so, you take it.

his smile widens.

you examine the flower, and as you turn it over in your hands, and then you yelp when a thorn digs into your skin, drawing blood.

“i’m fae,” yeosang says, “keeper of this lovely forest. i help the lost find their way.”

you’ve heard of the fae. your mother used to tell you stories about them when you were a kid. they were mischievous, and playful, but they couldn’t lie. which explained the strange way he answered your questions.

“i just need to get to my c-”

“y/n! where are you?! we already got a new keg!”

your eyes widened at the distant voice of your friend, your fingers curling into tight fists at your side. shit, shit, shit.

yeosang’s smiles with all his teeth, and he tilts his head to peer at you. he steps closer as you whip your head.

yeosang says, “y/n. pretty name for a pretty thing.”

the way he says your name sends a small shiver down your back, the kind that curls under your ur skin. it isn’t the same as the fear you’d felt earlier, and that worries you.

you say, “that’s not my name.”

“it isn’t?” yeosang lifts a hand, and presses a long finger to your cheek, “y/n.”

a flower blooms at the very tip of his fingers, and he murmurs once more, “y/n.”

the stem of the flower seems to snake around his fingers, up his long finger, and along your cheek, threading slowly down your skin. it tickles as it curls around your neck, like a vine, once, twice, and when you reach for it, to yank it off or something, it pricks your finger, and you see red once more.

“y/n.”

this time, your name sounds like honey from his tongue. you’re intrigued almost and that’s worse you think then if he’d just brainwashed you or whatever creatures like faeries do.

“would you like to dance, y/n?”

a wicked grin spills from his lips, and it only widens when you hesitate in your response.

a pause. yeosang twirls in place, his silken clothes fluttering gently about him as he laughs. then he pauses and bows, holding a lovely hand out to you. he says, “would you like to dance with me?”

no, you should say. instead you nod. you say, “yes.”

you take his hand.

"you'll love it," he says, as he pulls you deeper into the forest, humming all the while.

#ateez scenarios #ateez angst #yeosang angst #yeosang #ateez #faerie au

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dragon-wisteria · 1 year

Text

Origins: Draco (Part Two)

Akira smiled weakly as Shinobu began to rattle off her ambitions. To be honest, the idea had been in her mind ever since she was eight years old and discovered she was a Stella. A strong one at that. She’d poured every ounce of effort into her classes, even the basic ones, scared that if she skimped in any area she’d lose her chance.

That’s all it was, though. A chance. There were still hundreds of Stellas in Star City, and she couldn’t be the only one who had strong magic and was good at school. Who knew if that was even what mattered - it’s not like they released official requirements for Maidenhood.

Despite all of that, she couldn’t give up hope. This year would be her only chance - In another five years she’d be on the verge of losing her magic. They never chose girls who were past high school. So this was it. Her one chance.

She barely even noticed she’d arrived at school until she was heading in to class. She smoothed her churning thoughts and hurried to her desk. She put down her bag and was about to sit down when her eyes caught on a glimmering box sitting on her desk. What was that?

Akira picked up the box to examine it more closely. It was a round, flat topped wooden box, small enough to sit in the palm of her hand. The lid was ornately carved, displaying an intricate little dragon, dyed red. The edge of the box was encrusted with little silver stars that glimmered in the light from the window. It must have been expensive - who could have put it there? Curious, she undid the clasp that held it closed and flipped up the lid.

Bright light flooded out from the box. Akira yelped and staggered back, dropping the box and tripping over her chair. Both crashed to the floor with a clatter and everyone turned to look as the light faded.

“Congratulations! I have graciously chosen to extend you an offer to become my new partner!”

Akira blinked as her eyes adjusted and she tried to see who spoke. As the light cleared she could make out a bright red creature sitting on her desk. It was a dragon, not much bigger than a puppy, neck craning as it grinned at her. Akira rubbed her eyes.

“I must be dreaming,” she murmured.

“I assure you that you are not!” said the dragon. “I can bite you and prove it if you want.”

Akira pulled herself up off the floor and mentally tugged at her chair. It flipped back into place without her even looking at it. She sank down into the solid wooden seat and stared at the dragon.

The dragon stared back, sitting erect and patient. Its ruby-red body was slender and elegant, covered in smooth scales. The scales along the underside of its neck, torso and tail were a pale, glittering silver. The dragon blinked its large silver eyes, set in an angular face topped with two slender silver horns. No one else in the classroom moved a muscle.

Finally the dragon spoke again, clasping its claws together in an oddly human and awkward gesture.

“It’s alright, take your time. I know it is always a shock at first. Perhaps I should clarify. You have been selected as the next Draco Celestia, one of the wonderful Maidens that watch over this city. If you do not wish to take on the responsibility, I can always pass the offer on to someone els-”

“No!” Akira interrupted. She mentally kicked herself for being so rude. “I-I mean. You don’t need to find someone else. I’ll do it.”

“Are you sure? You can take some time to think about it, I don’t mind.”

“Yes! Yes. I’m sure.” Akira drew in a shaky breath. She suddenly became aware of everyone else watching. Her eyes fluttered over their stunned faces before coming to rest once again on the dragon on her desk. Tears prickled at the corners of her eyes and she smiled.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “This means everything to me.”

The dragon flapped its wings and arched its back, stretching like an elongated cat. “Well then, Akira Hoshino. I look forward to working with you.”

It flew up and landed on her shoulders, nestling against her neck, then turned its head to face the rest of the class.

“Let it be known! I am Draco, and from this day forth, this girl is a Maiden, and I am her partner.”

#my stories: mahou celestia project #magical girl ocs #short fiction #art #my art #my characters

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dicerollsix · 1 year

Text

Aja by Steely Dan

Released September 23, 1977

Superlatives are a dangerous thing to tack on to music, or any broad subject for that matter, but Steely Dan’s Aja is perhaps one of the closest things to perfection that the industry has ever seen. Of course this isn’t exactly a new or surprising opinion to hold as many (if not most) Steely fans are in agreeance with it, but since this album holds a good amount of significance in not only the history of music but also my own life, I feel as if it’s a very valid one – though my judgment may be a bit biased on the personal end.

As I discovered the Dan for myself at 16 years old and fell deeply in love with their discography – most notably with Aja and 1975’s Katy Lied at that time – I had formulated a belief that I still keep and occasionally repeat in conversation to this day. If one were to look at the development of Steely Dan’s musical style through the years, and I mean really look at it – it’s no wonder that Aja came to fruition. Every album before it was a catalyst for the next, making moves toward something so desirable and so cognac-smooth until reaching the final destination of their long sonic journey with 1980’s Gaucho, as founders Donald Fagen and Walter Becker called a hiatus in June of the next year.

The aforementioned journey would most clearly be seen if you were to place Katy Lied through Gaucho in particular under a microscope. Katy Lied, with its polished and cynical Fagen/Becker songwriting plus increasingly interesting rhythm-driven tracks could most definitely transform itself into 1976’s The Royal Scam. Then The Royal Scam took part in scattering traces of Aja everywhere with the greater presence of horns, more cynicism, a Fender Rhodes piano, and Bernard Purdie emerging through the forefront. The pieces were scooped up and put together in a way that was less rough around the edges, produced and engineered to the nines, and sent off proudly boasting a large roster of musicians – with many more never making the cut.

As soon as you start to believe that the group couldn’t advance further, Gaucho bursts on the scene with new technology and songs that were put together even more meticulously than its predecessor, with the créme de la créme of meticulousness being the introduction of Wendel the drum machine after Fagen and Becker were repeatedly unsatisfied with the human drummers that tried their hand at what the two had given them. Gaucho amped up the cocaine-era sleaze by 10 and was a culmination of everything that the Dan had been leading up to, perhaps making Fagen and Becker masters of slow-burn foreshadowing.

But at 16, my biggest focus was Aja. It was unlike anything I’d ever heard before, and upon first listen I was captivated from the beginning groove of Black Cow to the fade-out of Josie. I listened to the album obsessively from that point on, gaining a top favorite Steely Dan song with Deacon Blues, feeling an emotion I still can’t fully place during the entirety of Aja (the title track), and losing myself in the velvet scenes of Home At Last. To this very day I still find myself with the same pit in my stomach as I indulge myself in the world of Aja, overwhelmed with its greatness and feeling every last bit of its swirling atmosphere and imagery as if it was my first listen all over again.

As an opening track, Black Cow is as fitting as you could get. Oftentimes the power of the first track on an album goes overlooked, but in reality it sets the tone for the listener, depending on their reaction to it. The overall crisp sound coupled with extremely pleasing chord progressions, backing vocals, and a well-placed solo on the keys are nothing short of impressive. Impressiveness, in fact, carries over through the entirety of the first side – the sophisticated Aja spotlighting Steve Gadd and his masterful drum solo and the gloomy tale of a washed-up musician intertwined with the seamless musicianship in Deacon Blues leave nothing and everything to the imagination. The tracks lay everything out for you to consume while keeping a simultaneous open air of interpretation within its lyrics.

Peg, a radio and live staple, begins the second side to continue the tradition of impressiveness. Its acclaim doesn’t come for no reason – featuring none other than Michael McDonald on backing vocals and a guitar solo by Jay Graydon, a solo that has now become known for being the product of long labor after Fagen and Becker were unhappy with seven different guitarists’ take on said solo. The silky chords through the keys and peppy rhythm section are other notable points, most of all, the bassline – having the story of Chuck Rainey and the duo’s rule for “no slapping”, which Rainey broke, ultimately creating one of the catchiest basslines of all time.

The Purdie shuffle and perfectly mixed layers of horns accent every corner of Home At Last. The nautical themes of the chorus had always stuck with me, with vivid images of rough seas being spread across my mind. To me this is perhaps the most underappreciated track on the album – it bursts with life and could easily become a jazz rock standard. I Got The News could be seen as a masterclass of its own in every instrument that is featured on it. There’s phases of slight sparseness within its sound where the drums, bass, and piano could only be heard, until horns and guitar swell through like billowing smoke, keeping the listener swaying and on their toes simultaneously.

Finally we end with Josie, being thick yet not overwhelming in the slightest in terms of sound. Josie’s lyrics are amongst some of my favorite in Steely Dan’s entire catalogue, and the extremely unique opening riff that carries you away into the 4 and a half minute escapade makes Josie equal yet opposite to Black Cow in that in terms of a closing song, Josie is as fitting as you could get, leaving you grasping for more as the needle reaches the end of the album, the sound fading away almost exactly how it started, with the pointed slightly disco-esque guitar that becomes a mainstay of the track.

In short, only a handful of albums are crafted as finely as Aja, and very few make me feel the same way that it does. It has been part of the core soundtrack of my life since I was 16. I always come back for more, wanting to experience the scene at Rudy’s that was described in Black Cow, to witness the double helix in the sky in Aja myself, to break out the hats and hooters with Josie. The closest taste I could have to such a thing is through listening to the portraits that Steely Dan have painted, and with their clever expertise I never find myself feeling left out.

The word “timeless” is often placed upon works of art just as superlatives are, but with this album it’s more accurate than ever, along with “perfection” and “best”. Aja is an album where I could comfortably make an exception to the anti-superlative rule. Aja is a seismic wave, a tsunami of feel and proficiency, and its aftershock is still being felt in the wake of its 45th mighty year of reign amongst the greatest and most acclaimed collections of music of all time.

DR6

#steely dan #donald fagen #walter becker #album review #70s #70s music #music review #music #music recs #music recommendation #jazz rock #yacht rock

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sabraeal · 2 years

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Both Fair and Foul in Equal Measure

[Read on AO3]

It is not until Obi closes balcony’s doors that Shirayuki smells the smoke on the wind, birch and hawthorn and rowan all together. Elder too, and oak-- woods with their own magic, their own meaning. Tonight the fires burn-- protection against the mounds, against what might press through that thinning veil and find this mortal world too accommodating-- and tomorrow they will be ash, spread about the fields to see them bear fruit. The sort of spellwork the lay folk did rote, not understanding the ritual, only knowing it’s what their fathers did and their fathers before them.

And here she is, in a manor meant to withstand a siege, wishing the wind might carry its protection. It cannot-- the manor is too far from the village, squatting at its edge like an unwelcome guest, the scent of sacred wood too weak to carry anything more than memory.

“I’m sorry to say, Miss.” Obi sing-song is just slightly off-key, like a fiddle out of tune. “You may be the guest of honor, but attending this banquet would be a mistake.”

If only she might ask one of the guards to go fetch a torch from the bonfire-- ah, but it would take time for man to walk the manor’s lands, to pass the light over each door and window, to banish every shadow from its corner. It would take far more than a single torch to light the great hearth, and for all the bedchambers...

Ah, but these rules aren’t made for manors. The old kings might have lived in their castles, holding themselves above ordinary folk, but they could never have dreamed of such luxury as having home with a hearth in every room.

Her hands smooth over the silk of her gown, its sunshine and sweet grass lost beneath the sickly scent of copper. “If this is a... a hunt, wouldn’t it be better if I hid amongst the guests? Raj had already told me that nearly a hundred have arrived already, and more to come to, er...”

To gawk at her, really. Not that she could blame them; who could resist a glimpse at the girl who traveled beneath the mounds?

His head shakes, hair scintillating into shadow before he grows solid again. “No. If it’s easy for you to hide, then it would be easy for me to lose you. And if that pretty boy rides with more than just himself...”

Obi’s outline is hardly ever distinct at night, always flirting with the deep shadows the lamps cast, but tonight-- tonight it’s as if he can barely hold his shape, as if it is an effort to pace her room by foot instead of flitting through the dark the light leaves.

His hand lifts, fingers stretching impossibly long before they snap back, pinching at the bridge of his nose. “If they were to come tonight--”

It’s as if Obi had but spoke an incantation; the wind rises, howling at their door. The windows rattle in their casements, hard enough that the glass cracks, a thousand spider webs spelled across its panes. Shirayuki can’t help but flinch, her arms raising as if that might ward off the storm of shards that would follow, until--

Until the balcony doors blow open, and there, there--

There stands a boy.

The boy on the balcony isn’t human.

Shirayuki can’t say how she knows; at this many paces, an aes sidhe looks like any other man. But there’s something in the tilt of his eyes, in the way his features are neither masculine nor feminine but a perfect meeting of the two that speaks of sidhe haughtiness instead of man’s hubris. And, well, the way he balances on that narrow balustrade, as if he weight nothing more than a moonbeam-- no mortal could manage that.

“Found you.” His teeth flash, too even, too perfect for a man’s mouth. “Shirayuki.”

Her joints lock, knees barely holding her upright. Shirayuki. The way he said it-- the way he knew how to speak her name, it’s truest expression--

He shouldn’t be able to, not unless he had been at her naming itself. Age may be but a glamour beneath the mounds, years shed and gained as easily as doffing or donning a cloak, but-- he is too young. Time does not weigh heavy on him as it does on others, tempting him toward melancholy or madness. Ageless he might be, but a child as well.

“I’ve been looking for you.” He steps off the balustrade, flaunting his casual acquaintance with gravity. The room blooms with the scent of honey and alder.

“Obi,” she breathes, reaching for him. He’s solid beneath her hands, wool scratching her palms. “Is it--? It’s--”

“The pretty boy,” they chorus, barely more than a whisper.

Not hushed enough for that boy’s keen senses. His mouth purses, knotted in disapproval.

“I get that a lot,” he admits, stepping closer. “But I had hoped better from you, Shirayuki.”

Her fingers loosen in Obi’s cape, hardly able to keep their grip. “Who...who are you?”

A mistake. The boy’s small-- hardly taller than her-- but there’s something about the way he holds himself that fills the room, and when he grins--

Obi’s arm reaches around her, pulling her closer to his back, pine and the sharp tang of copper flooding her mouth.

“Are we giving each other our names now?” the boy lilts, a discordant sing-song. “Then how about you go first, mister?”

Obi’s teeth bare in something only related to a smile in the mechanics of it. “Does a master ask a hound its name, or does he give it one?”

A laugh bursts into the air, twinkling yet heady, and the taste of honey coats her tongue. Shirayuki nearly gags at the sweetness of it, less like a drizzle from a comb and more like nectar drunk straight from the source.

“You’re a mortal!” the boy crows, too pleased. “I could barely tell with all those geasa. Are you from the knowe? Whose will binds you?”

Obi’s muscles coil beneath her palms, poised to pounce. “Does it matter?”

“No.” That bright smile flashes, sharp as a blade’s edge. “Not a bit.”

The second man who drops to her balcony is also not human. The glowing eyes give it away.

“Miss!” Obi’s face is made for winks, for smirks, for smiles. So when he turns to her, fear deepening the shadows of his glower, it stills her more thoroughly than her name. “Get out!”

“I...” Whatever the pretty boy’s bloodline, his friend doesn’t share it. While their first intruder is small, all silver-tongued and swift; this man is huge, nearly the size of Mitsuhide. He’s clad in human finery, breeches and waist and coast, just as the rest of Raj’s glittering guest would be, but it does little to disguise the power in his frame. The man walks, and teeth rattle beneath the mound.

The giant lunges. “Obi!”

Obi’s outline flickers, fading to shadow. She expects him to disappear, to slip right into them-- but he stays solid, twisting out of the giant’s grasp instead. He grunts with the effort, body strangely heavy.

Shirayuki stare, helpless. This isn’t how he fights, keeping every part of himself flesh instead of shade. But that is how he faces this mountain of a man, dodging his bone shattering blows with a physicality that wearies him. The magic is thick in this room, but the scent of pine is steady, not dulled. His magic isn’t blocked, but something keeps him grounded, solid--

He glances back, and-- ah, it’s her. He won’t fade if it means he can’t shield her.

He’s right, she needs to leave. She needs to get help.

“I don’t think so, Shirayuki.”

That jolt goes through her again, compounded by the fingers that wrap around her wrist-- and then let go.

“What?” The boy’s face is perplexed, staring at his hands in disbelief. “How--?”

Obi fades for a blink, a breath, and when he returns, it’s behind the behemoth, the edge of his hand chopping right at his neck--

And his head rolls off, hitting the floor with a thunk. It stares up at her-- at no, he stares up at her, more weary than worried. “W-what--?”

Her question is lost in the screams. Not her own, not Obi’s but-- but the children at the door. Raj’s siblings, hardly Ryuu’s age, and they just saw--

“His head!” Rona shrieks, and with no fanfare at all, faints dead away, pinning her brother to the ground.

Shirayuki stands, torn between running to them and seeing to Obi. He hadn’t seem injured, not beyond exertion, but it’s can he hard to tell with a man so fond of black, and of pain.

She turns, and it is just in time to see the mountain’s hand pull back, and in the space of a breath, return the favor. As her scream steal from her throat, Shirayuki can only be glad that it is Obi’s whole body that drops, not just his head.

“Not that that’s settled,” the boy says, turning to her with renewed interest. “Let us see...”

His gaze scrapes over her, a dull tool over skin, stalling at her neck. His fingers dancing close, brushing her throat before skittering away, stung. “Ah,” he laughs, “so that’s how it is? Well then, I suppose we’ll just have to get creative. Won’t we, Shirayuki?”

Her legs go numb, jellied beneath her, but it’s not until he strips off his jacket, hooking it around her shoulder, that they finally go out beneath her.

“Let me go,” she growls, cheek pressed to the floor. It’s the perfect view to see the giant crouch down to pick up his head, placing it back on to of his cravat as if nothing’s happened at all. “Let me--”

Fear spikes as the mountain moves closer, his hands outstretched to take her, and when she says “go,” it is on a shriek.

Strangely, it stops him. Even drives him back a step, blinking.

“Well, well,” the boy says from behind her. “The old man didn’t mention that.”

The giant grunts, shaking himself forward another step. She sucks in another breath, ready to yell--

“Shirayuki.” She can hear the smile in the boy’s words. “Don’t.”

Her breath stills painfully in her lungs.

“Breathing is fine.”

It is, when he says so. He grins, patting her head as the giant lifts her onto his shoulders. “No, no, don’t look at me like that. It’s all for the best. You’ll see. Just let us take care of everything.”

#obiyukibingo22 #obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #snow white with the red hair #magic au #fae au #my fic #ans #god i have finally done it i have finally gotten this bit all cleaned up #and expanded into a proper chapter #one less tumblr-only exclusive #just the little izanayuki pieces hanging around now #maybe those will go up on AO3 as my boxing day gift this year 🤣

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