#to Were It Not For The Laws Of This Land You Would Be Dead On The Fucking Pavement As We Speak
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Guilty Pleasures ( chapter four )
18+ 5.2k homelander x plus size f!reader. office romance, stalking, voyeurism, office sex, cunnilingus, cream pie, breast play, flight sex, lite overstim, riding. nebulously takes place post s1. part 4/4. AO3 link. CH I CH 2 CH 3
Homelander takes what's his, and you get what's yours.
welcome to the final chapter! thanks so much for reading. i really enjoyed the dynamic between these two, and i hope you do, too. 🖤
Homelander doesn’t hold it against you that you take him up on his suggestion to be absent the following day. He leaves a little peace offering in your office to say as much: a mug for your collection that reads simply, You’ve Been Mugged. He adjusts it seven times on your desk before he finally leaves it alone, surveying your office a while before letting himself out.
The thugs he lasered down in the alley don’t garner much attention, but it’s enough to warrant a statement on the truth of what happened. With them dead, the truth becomes whatever he makes of it, and his truth is that two vagabonds were assaulting a cherished Vought employee before he put a stop to it.
It’s precisely the kind of hero story the public loves.
“I acted on instinct,” he tells the newscaster. He relives the moment as he tells it, recalls only to himself how fierce you had been. How determined you were that if you were going to die, you would die fighting. “They were going to hurt her. I like to believe any good citizen in my position would have done the same.”
Madelyn taught him that conviction without contrition would always read as arrogance, so he speaks firmly but with a furrow to his brow, and he closes his eyes when he inclines his head to accept praise. No matter how dead she is, her voice remains an echo in his mind: follow the script, and you’ll be fine.
They use his words to segue into a discussion of gun control, and Homelander’s mind drifts somewhere distant, hearing without listening to the petty squabbles of humans crying about their little toys and laws. He supposes this is how God feels when humans pray to Him over every minor inconvenience. Bored and painfully above it.
While it’s easy enough to keep himself distracted during business hours, Homelander’s life comes to an abrupt halt alongside the end of the working day. Like the equipment that broadcasts him, there’s little use for him once the cast and crew goes home. All around him the employees commiserate at the end of their work day and pass around invitations to the bar.
He receives none.
Not that he would accept them if he did.
Seeking both council and companionship, Homelander finds himself in Noir’s apartment, seated in the chair Noir keeps for him. It’s the only one the hero owns, what with his interior design being deeply steeped in westernized ninja nonsense. The place is half dojo, half living quarters.
He laments his situation to Noir, explaining his patience in courting you, the lengths he’s gone to endear himself to you on a personal level, and the bitter sting of your rejection.
“See her,” Noir writes in his sketchpad, sitting on the floor on the other side of the low table. “If glad to see her, good. If not–”
Homelander snorts at the series of knife sketches that follow. He has no doubt Noir would put an end to anyone for any reason Homelander gave. Simplicity has allowed Noir an unwavering loyalty to Vought, and as an extension, Homelander himself. Luckily for you, he has no interest in that happening.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Noir,” he muses, clapping his hands on his thighs before he stands up. “You’re right. I’ll go see her. Thanks, buddy.”
Noir offers two thumbs up. A true uproar of approval.
Under the cover of darkness, Homelander returns to your house, the flight path a familiar one now. He lands silently on your roof this time, cocking his head. He’s not confident he’ll be able to resist your siren pull if he approaches now. He folds his hands behind his back and peers through each layer between him and your bedroom, stopping when he can see you.
You’re nestled deep in the splay of your blankets, lips parted around shallow breaths. He bites his own bottom lip, remembering how badly he’d wanted to feel them. Taste them. He’s certain now that if he allowed himself to be close enough, he would. Denial, for as much as it stung in that moment, has only made him hungrier for you. Fuck, the way he’s craved you from the moment you first brushed him aside.
He watches you shift in your sleep and his eyes narrow, honing in on a familiar flash. His stomach flips–it’s his cape, the fabric pinned between your blanket and your body. You really are sleeping with it, the star spangled blue fabric tucked up under your chin. Do you smell him on it? Homelander groans softly. Like your underwear in his bedside drawer, you sleep with a trophy of your own.
“Fuck,” he says, aching. His heart, his mind, his cock–all of it at once a cacophony of vicious yearning and impatience. The urge to peel the roof like a sardine can and carve his way straight to you nearly knocks the wind out of him, has him preemptively reaching for the shingled surface.
Only the lingering wound to his ego gives him pause. He’s been bitten once, leaving him shy to instigate, but this revelation feels like progress. You’re aching for him as much as he is for you. He’s sure of that now. It’s time that he made you feel that ache. Feel his absence. Then you’ll realize the foolishness of your coy game.
Clenching his jaw defiantly, Homelander lifts up into the sky.
He’ll be benevolent when you come to your senses.
The next day, Homelander keeps himself scarce, preoccupied. Ashley is perkier than usual, thrilled–if not suspicious–with his easy participation in whatever inane business she brings to him. It helps distract him from the endless feeling of waiting that he’s enduring.
He sticks stubbornly to his schedule, fantasizing about the torment his avoidance has surely wrought. He’s tempted a time or two to break, but each time he remembers the mortified Oh! you uttered before he kissed you, he refocuses himself.
You’ll come.
Not before lunch, but that is the perfect opportunity for it. He makes himself more available then, tapping his fingers against the armrest of his chair.
No sign of you.
He gives you the benefit of the doubt. A meal to embolden you.
Then you’ll come.
He waits.
Lunch long since over.
He waits.
The day is winding down.
He’s fucking tired of waiting.
Where the hell are you? He’s given you the entirety of the day to seek him out, ample opportunity to come thank him for his gift, to address the aching thing ruminating between you. You’d be a fucking liar to say you don’t feel it, too. By midday, he’s seething with impatience and hurt. There’s no chance he’s going to let you stand him up.
It’s precisely the wrong time for Ashley to rear her head back up. “Okay! That’s that, now regarding the amnesty for–”
“Ashley!” He snaps, a harsh and throaty sound. “Would you shut the fuck up?”
She stops in her tracks, staring wide-eyed. Of course it was too good to be true.
Homelander all but leaps to his feet, pushing out of his chair so hard that it flips backwards and into the wall in a heavy clatter. She clutches her vPad to her chest and quickly back steps out of his way, watching in frightened bewilderment as he storms from the room, making a beeline towards your office.
He doesn’t bother knocking this time. Still, his restraint is undeniable when he pushes your door open. He barely catches himself from pushing the damn thing clean off the hinges.
Your head snaps up from your computer, eyes wide. He hears your heart jump and he savors the alarm that shoots through you. Payback for the awful misery you forced him to endure in the hours since he last saw you. Still, the sight of you disarms him. For all his seething anger, there is something small in him that retreats it when your eyes are on him.
There’s a heaviness to your gaze that his strength can do nothing to alleviate. No incredible feat of his can wrench away what it is he wants from you. What he needs. It’s something you have to give him willingly, and that alone is enough to temper his rage. The familiar fear that you won’t.
He marches to the front of your desk and levels an accusatory finger on you.
“You like me,” he hisses, bending to brace his opposite hand on your desk.
You blink owlishly, lips parted. That clearly wasn’t what you expected him to say. He’s not sure it’s what he meant to say. “Homelander–”
“No,” he says, voice pitched low, a warning. “No, no. No games, no workarounds. You like me. You do. And I like you. So,” he abandons his point to make a vague encompassing gesture, but he doesn’t know what to say next. He didn’t think this far ahead. All day he had practiced the calm benevolence he would show when you approached him, chastised and yearning. He has nothing to back up this frenzied play for.
You stand. Homelander rises to his full height with you, jutting his chin out. He watches you with all the wariness of a wounded predator as you circle around your desk, your hand gliding along the wood like you would flank a horse so as not to spook it.
He can’t determine the intent behind your gaze. He angles his body towards you, facing you head on. You look like yourself again, in your element and free from the fawn fear of the alley. He can’t entirely decide which way he prefers you. When you were in his arms, he was your hero. In your office, his position feels more precarious.
The silence stretches on for hours–or seconds, it’s impossible to say–before he can no longer stand it. Sucking in a breath, he–
You kiss him.
Homelander goes shock still, hyper aware of your lips pressed feather light to his, your breasts against his chest, your hand on his forearm. He doesn’t know when he closed his eyes, but he senses when you begin to pull away.
In a flash he cups your face in his hands and pulls you in deep, inhaling sharply, like he’s only just remembered how to breathe. He kisses you, kisses you, kisses you as if he can trap you in the cycle of it. You don’t resist, you don’t tense. Instead, you sigh an angel’s breath against his lips. Only then does he break to look at you.
“I don’t understand,” he says, bewildered, flushed.
“I do like you,” you say, eyes glassy.
His brows pinch. “But… That night–”
“Wasn’t right,” you interrupt. “I wanted to kiss you, but not like that. Not then. Not because you saved me, not because I was in shock, not because of…” you rock your head side to side. “Whatever other bullshit… You let me down that night.”
“Let you down?” Homelander echoes, taken aback. “By saving your life?” He asks, his temper a perpetual simmer ready to flare. He’s immediately tempered by your hands taking his wrists, squeezing. You hold his gaze and your expression is gentle, but there is a firmness in your stare that he finds intoxicating. Not an ounce of fear, even when his anger emerges.
Good. You shouldn’t be afraid of him. He saved you.
“I was shaken. Badly. My date was an entitled asshole, those men, they tried to…” You shake your head, holding his hands to your face. “I didn’t need you to be a man. I needed you to be a hero. I wasn’t ready.”
A light in Homelander’s eyes flicks on. You just weren’t ready. He’d been right after all. He fixates on that, choosing to forgive you for that, at least.
“Well, why didn’t… You could have said something,” he says, feeling like a deflated hot air balloon, all slack expansion and heat with no purpose.
“I would have,” you say, your cheeks soft and round in his hands, lips slightly puckered from his hold on your face. “But you ran away.”
“What? I–” He laughs incredulously. “I did not run away.”
“Flew away,” you say, pushing in to kiss him again. He screws his eyes shut. Fuck, fuck. Oh fuck. He’s been dreaming of this, aching for it. To feel you against him, wanting him as much as he wants you. “Pretty fast, too. Looked like you shot straight up to the moon,” you say, breath hot and sweet on his lips.
“I…” He swallows, hands slipping down to either side of your neck, thumbs tilting your chin up. “I’m sorry. I wanted you,” he says, trailing his parted lips along your jaw, kissing and breathing you in the way he’s craved to. He can feel your skin growing hot against his lips, hear the uptick of your pulse as your heart begins to race.
“Do you still want me?” You ask, voice lower now. It sends a delicious hot pang all the way through him.
“You have no fucking idea,” he murmurs, nipping at the lobe of your ear, desperate to test the give of you under his teeth, the feel of your soft and yielding flesh branded into his memory the moment his lips touched your skin.
A knock snaps his attention away from you, but it isn’t at the door. He looks down and sees that it’s you knocking on your desk.
“So take me,” you say, voice laced with heat. His lips split into a wicked grin. He snatches the edge of your heavy wooden desk and effortlessly tips it backwards until everything slides off of it, clattering to the floor. He lifts you up, relishing your delighted little yelp, and places you down on the cleared surface like a doll, stepping in between your legs.
He kisses you again. Let me in, demands the press of his tongue. You yield to him, but it’s far from a surrender. Your tongue meets his eagerly, tasting him as much as he does you. Tasting you. That’s what he wants. He wants to map every inch of you with his tongue.
Homelander slips his hand between your legs, pushing your skirt up out of the way. He presses his fingers to the heat between your thighs, rubbing through the thin fabric of your panties. You sigh that same seraphic sound against his lips, slipping your hands up into his hair, already taking a handful of it to tug gently.
He breaks the kiss and takes his fingers from you after the barest tease of pleasure. The impatient sound you make goes straight to his cock, as does your flustered expression. He brings his fingers to his lips and drags his tongue over the leather of them, sliding them past his lips to give a quick suck. It’s not enough, too slight a hint of you. He needs more. You watch him with rapt attention, giving his hair a demanding little tug.
“You can pull as hard as you like,” he tells you with a smile, tilting his head against the grasp you have on his hair. “Tells me I’m doing a good job.”
“I’ll tell you when you’re doing a good job,” you rasp, giving his hair a sharp pull and then a downward push. That sends a shiver down his spine.
Fuck yes.
Homelander sinks down onto his knees, lifting each of your legs up over his shoulders. You give a little gasp when he yanks your ass to the edge of the desk, giddy with the way he manhandles you. He swallows, mouth dry, thirsty for the wet, heady smell of your pussy. He maneuvers his head under your skirt until he’s close enough to drag his tongue up the soft cotton of your panties. Your breath hitches and your grip in his hair tightens while you egg him on with sharp little rolls of your hips.
He closes his eyes, giving a rumbling moan for the taste of you, even through the fabric. He laps until the fabric is soaked, clinging to your skin, and he can feel your clit swollen and stiff on his tongue through your panties. He closes his mouth over it, sucking you through your underwear while you writhe above him, keeping yourself quiet.
That won’t do.
He wants to hear you.
He wants the whole fucking Tower to hear you.
Hooking the crotch of your panties with his finger, it only takes one sharp little tug to tear them, exposing you to him.
“Homelander,” you moan. The sound of it lances a spear of heat through him, leaves his cock throbbing needily in the rigid confines of his cup. He groans into you, rocking his hips against the empty air. The only proper answer is to dive in, to close his lips around your clit and finally suck the rich nectar of your cunt without the filter of fabric between you. You taste even better than you smell, like salt and sex and sweet ripe fruit. It overwhelms his senses immediately, his eyelids flickering.
The more he laps at you, the silkier your pussy becomes. Between circling your clit, he drives his tongue deep into you, drinking you down noisily and messily, a parched man gulping from an oasis. Your thick thighs are tight on either side of his head, your pulse pounding in his ears. He moans low and wicked for the taste and feel of you.
Your grip on his hair tightens sporadically, sharp little tugs that match the staccato cadence of your breaths. “F-fuck, your tongue feels-feels fucking unreal,” you moan, grinding down against it. The strength of it, the slight thrum of restrained power that courses through him, and the sheer relentlessness of his stamina is driving you wild against his mouth. “Fingers, use your fingers,” you tell him. He loves the rawness of your voice, the authority and desperation in your demand.
Removing one of his gloves, he moves his bare hand to the sweltering wetness of you, teasing his finger just below where his tongue is rubbing your clit. His index finger slips easily into the slick mess, and he savors the quiver of your velvet walls around it. He lets you ride his finger, stays all but still while you greedily bounce your hips, both hands fisted in his hair. You use him for your pleasure, and it makes him delirious with want.
Homelander's gaze flickers up. He peers through the layer of your skirt to catch a look at you, to watch you while you cannot watch him. You’re losing track of yourself, lips parted, eyes glazed with pleasure, shivering with each flick of his tongue and dive of his finger. Euphoria looks good on you.
Christ, he has been patient. He would chastise himself for waiting so long to touch you, to taste you, to feel you, but he can’t bring himself to. The wait gifted him with this exquisite hunger, and he proved something important; you both yearn for the other. You crave him. He can see it in your hazy eyes, taste it in the spill of your sweet cunt.
You belong to him. He needs only to take you.
One finger becomes two, and then three. Your heels dig into his shoulders and fuck yourself down on them, moaning recklessly now, not caring who hears you. It’s music to his ears.
“Fuck, Homelander, I-I’m coming, I’m-don’t stop, don’t stop,” you beg prettily. You don’t need to, but he enjoys the song anyway. He laps at your clit in quick upward pulls of his tongue, lips creating a seal around it. His brows furrow tightly, his own neglected arousal pounding through his body like a wardrum, but he doesn’t touch himself, too focused on you.
Your whole body locks up tight when you come, breath caught in your lungs, your clit fluttering delicately. He presses his tongue to it, savoring the taste of your euphoria, how it floods your system and changes the flavor of you. Your pleasure grows his hunger into something monstrous, something demanding, but there is satiation at least in bringing you this, in showing you all the things he will be for you.
You’ll never want for anyone–or anything– else ever again.
Homelander doesn’t stop. You begged him not to. He finger-fucks you through the aftershocks, lapping up every drop of your pleasure, stroking you inside and out while your cunt squeezes his fingers. He doesn’t stop until he feels you pushing him away, your sweet songbird moans sounding more like whimpers, oversensitized. He withdraws his fingers, giving one last noisy slurp before emerging from beneath your skirt. His face is shiny and wet with your slick, his pupils blown black. He's panting, looking every bit like a beast lifting its bloodied head from the belly of its kill.
Crawling up your body, still predator hungry, he rests his knee on the desk between your legs. He cups either side of your face, fingertips digging possessively into the back of your neck. He meets your eyes, pinning you with the intensity of his gaze, wordlessly drilling into your mind that this moment, this feeling, this tingling warmth in your body is him.
I did this to you, his expression reads. You’re on my lips, he says by pressing them to yours, kissing your own taste into your mouth, his body throbbing, desperate for an ounce of that same relief. You’re mine.
To his amazement, your eyes mirror his own savage hunger. You kiss him hard, shamelessly licking into his mouth, huffing shallow breaths from your nose. “Lie down,” you tell him, voice as sweet and coarse as raw sugar. “I’m going to ride you.”
Homelander doesn’t need to be told twice. Exhilarated, he rolls over, flipping you with him and steadying you above him in a fluid motion. The desk isn’t as long as he is tall, but it doesn’t matter. He’s already half suspended in the air with his own excitement, helping you with overly eager hands that fumble alongside yours with his belt, which falls to the ground with a distinct thud. He gives a little jump at the voracity you rip his zipper down with, grinning.
Together, you shuck his pants down to his thighs. You grip him through his red briefs, a fractured moan falling from his lips.
“Cute underwear,” you coo. His cheeks flush to almost the same shade. You flatten your palm over his cock and he bites back a whimper, teeth sinking into his tongue. You give a light squeeze, fingers curling around his cock through the fabric, and he lets out a rough breath. “You feel close,” you tell him, stroking him in a loose fist, your hand warm, the fabric soft.
He nods fervently, the friction and your voice already teetering him towards the edge. He makes a sound of both anguish and relief when you release him, his eyes snapping up to meet yours. You tug his underwear down, his cock bouncing free, engorged and dripping precome.
“Don’t move,” you tell him, bracing one hand on his chest and sliding forward, your other hand moving between your bodies to steady his cock against the rapturously hot press of your soaked cunt. His hands fly to your hips, fingertips biting into the softness of your body. You allow him that, focused entirely on the act of taking him into you. The fat head of his cock it slips inside, evoking a sweet little gasp from you, and Homelander fights not to slam in the rest of the way.
Both of your hands fall to his chest, your eyes meeting his. He holds your gaze, mouth twitching around silent sharp breaths. He watches you sink slowly down the length of him, engulfing him in such sublime rapture it’s a wonder he doesn’t come right then and there for the feel of you alone. His grip on your hips flexes and he gives a sharp little thrust up, forgetting himself to the divine feel of your pussy.
“I said don’t move,” you remind him breathlessly. God, you’re beautiful like this. The fluorescent light behind your head haloes you, giving you the look of a debauched angel he plucked from the heavens to have and keep as his own. He expects you to move, to bounce yourself on his cock like you did his mouth and his fingers. He wants to watch your tits bounce, see your face clearly when you come on his cock, but the only part of you that moves is your hand.
His gaze drops and quickly darkens, watching intently as you stroke your clit. The initial contact alone makes you jerk, makes your pussy spasm and squeeze him so good he almost chokes on it. Your only response is to sigh, tipping your head back and spreading your legs a little wider, taking him deeper. He wants so badly to fuck you, to slam you down and rail you until your desk cracks in half.
“Mmmm, fuck,” you moan, rubbing yourself in circles, the lewd noise of it loud and irresistible to his ears. “Fuck, fuck–ah, god,” you start to pant, head falling forward, brows tightly pinched. You’re so sensitive after the assault of his mouth, the flavor of you still fresh on his tongue. The faster your fingers move, the closer he feels you get, the clench around his cock steadily tightening. He wants to thrash, but you keep him pinned in place with your look of expectation and pleasure. You’re getting off on him as much as you are your own fingers, on the swell and throb of his cock inside you, on the sheer power you hold over a god.
You’re loud when you come, nails clawing into the chest of his suit. Homelander’s eyes roll back, lips parted on a soundless cry of his own. The spasming heat of your release is too much and he loses himself to it, eyes flaring up with crimson light as he comes with you, every shudder of your climax stroking and milking him of his own, flooding you with his own wet mess.
His restraint breaks with the dam and he sits up abruptly, startling a noise from you, which he swallows with a hard kiss, cupping the back of your head. He holds you still and he fucks you, lifting from the desk entirely so that he alone supports your weight, driving you deeper onto his cock. Your legs tighten on either side of him, shaking.
Out of his mind with pleasure, he tears your blouse open with his teeth, diving in close to lick, suck and bite at your chest. He buries his face between your breasts, holding you tightly as he fucks you both through your respective orgasms, the slap of flesh against flesh echoing obscenely in your office.
Hitching your legs properly around his waist, he bounces you on his cock until the pleasure borders on pain and a secondary shock rolls through him like another orgasm, stealing his breath. Only then does he finally slow, mouthing languidly at your chest until he sucks your nipple into his mouth. He moans against you, grinding to an eventual halt. You comb your fingers through his hair and goosebumps erupt across his body, which shivers in the euphoric aftermath.
He loses track of how long he stays suspended like that, lost to the overwhelm of sensation. Your legs go slack while his angles slightly upward, his face pressed to your chest, your head resting atop his. He nuzzles at you, bleary eyed and slack with pleasure. He kisses a trail up to your clavicle, your throat, your jaw, smiling in the loose, easy way that only a good fuck can never make him.
“Wow,” he says after a while, voice thoroughly frayed.
You giggle, groggily lifting your head. He adjusts until you can relax against his chest, fold your forearms across it and settling your chin atop them, admiring him. He touches your face with his ungloved hand, stroking your cheek with his thumb, then the curve of your bottom lip. His smile widens when you kiss the pad of his thumb.
“Wow indeed,” you say, swinging your legs lightly. “Can’t say I’ve ever been fucked mid-air.”
“One of the many benefits of dating me,” he purrs, caressing your cheek with his knuckles. He kisses you again, drifting slowly back down, unhurried.
Your brows lift lazily. “Who says we’re dating?” You ask, but your smile keeps his hackles from rising.
“Me,” he says, eyes crinkled at the corners. He lands gently on the desk, helping you to it. “You and I are officially going steady.”
You give a thoughtful hum, carefully untangling your limbs from his. You slide off of the desk while he puts himself back together, your knees trembling faintly. “Fairly sure asking someone out requires a question mark. You know. The asking part. You didn’t even buy me dinner.” You attempt to button up your shirt, but it’s obviously a lost cause.
He exhales a quiet laugh, pulling you back into his arms. “Well, I certainly ate.”
“God,” you laugh, rolling your eyes, but they don’t stray from him for long. There’s a sparkle to your gaze that he wants to capture in his palm and never set loose.
“Will you go out with me?” He asks, lips brushing yours.
“Mmmmmmmm….” You hum once more, drawing it out, feigning a great deliberation. “There’s something you should know first.”
He quirks a brow. “What’s that?”
“My guilty pleasure,” you say, nose bumping his.
Intrigued, he inclines his head to prompt you to continue. Can’t be worse than mine.
“Superheroes,” you say conspiratorially. “Can’t get enough of them. Loved them my whole life. Especially this one in particular…”
He breaks into a frayed, charmed laugh. “Let me guess, name starts with an H?”
You suck in a breath through your teeth, lips curved downward in a mock grimace, and nod subtly. “ Total fangirl. Embarrassing, right?”
Homelander shakes his head. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never felt guilty about pleasure. Where’s the harm in it?”
The harm inflicted on those thugs couldn’t count. They had it coming.
“Harm to my pride, my ego, my reputation,” you list, tapping his suit to punctuate each one. “I made a pretty big fuss about not liking you. I had myself convinced that my Homelander only existed in my fantasies, and you were just the guy who plays him.”
My Homelander. The words stir an unexpectedly sentimental surge of emotion that wells up from somewhere deep in his chest. He clears his throat lightly. “What’s the verdict now?”
You sweep him with an appraising gaze. “Still deliberating.”
He clicks his tongue, nodding. “I don’t suppose I could arrange a meeting with the jury?”
“They’re available for dinner tomorrow,” you say, the tilt of your lips sly.
“It’s a date,” he murmurs, brushing the tip of his nose against yours. You kiss him, pressing your smile to his. He doubts he’ll ever tire of the softness of your lips, or the easy way you melt against him. He wraps his arms around you, content to let this moment pass only because he knows there will be more to come. He’s determined to make every one of them better than the last.
All of the pleasure, none of the guilt.
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taking a bath with jack marston.
౨ৎ SUMMARY... your favorite gunslinger seems to have trouble keeping himself together during the rough patch he is currently experiencing, so you decide to step in and tend to his needs.
౨ৎ RATING...fluff ! but, mentions of depression, implied grief, dirt, bacteria, nude body, alcoholism, scars, cuts, and bruises, implied financial situation, loneliness, implied to be shorter than him, GN READER. no 'y/n', just 'you.' Loosely proofread. established relationship.
౨ৎ CREDITS... thank you sooo much, @slversprngs for allowing me to use your jack drawings <3. you should definitely check them out because they make amazing art.
You were familiar with the young man and his family who lived couple blocks down from your ranch and your father would trade different products each month with the Marston's. This soon became a way to know the teenage boy as his mother, Abigail started to invite your family to dinner every other weekend, an attempt to make her loner son have some friends since all he did was read books and help out his father whenever they did ranch work.
Abigail thought you were a good influence, you liked reading books and engaged in conversations whenever her or her beloved husband would ask about your hobbies or they observed how you would treat their son. The Marston's loved having your family around and soon enough you became a family friend, and a best friend to Jack.
All those memories and dinners with the Marston family soon came an end three years ago, when Jack's father, John passed away and soon after that his mother passed as well.
It changed the young man - crushed him to pieces that it altered his personality. The old sarcastic boy you knew was far from that now, he was quiet and only kept to himself with that stoic mask he displays to everyone.
It seems you were an expectation because he wasn't entirely closed off, he still spoke to you occasionally about the things he's doing in his life - aiming to kill Edgar Ross, a man who murdered his father apparently.
You didn't know what to say to that, two wrongs don't make a right. But, you couldn't stop the young man as he let his anger out about the whole situation as he spoke about it whenever he would lean against the railings of his porch and you would quietly listen to his rambling.
...
Opening the crunched up newspaper that was left in your mailbox messily caught you off guard. The retired federal agent, Edgar Ross was reported as dead - something you didn't want to take literally due to how sweet the young man used to be in the past, nor wanted to believe his words of murder true. You felt terrible because you knew that the true fate of the man before it took place and deep down you knew you could've reported it to the law.
That's what you repeated to yourself numerous times - never to ever interact with an outlaw, a gunslinger, a murderer, someone like him, but you found yourself stripping naked to wash the young man as you slowly got into the bathtub.
"You don't have to do this," The gunslinger repeated as he took a heavy inhale, trying to respect you in the best way possible without making this awkward, "You know you can leave, right?" He continued but any conviction seemed to land on deaf ears.
"Mhm, I know." You muttered, reaching over to grab the shampoo and rubbing it on your hands before massage it into his scalp. The built up grease from days or even weeks was noticable but you decided not to speak about it.
Jack feels guilty - not for the killing a man but how he's making you, a childhood friend of his clean him up like he's a baby. The alcohol in his system doesn't make the anxiousness fade away as he is afraid you'll judge him - you'll will leave him.
He doesn't know how long it's been that he genuinely felt so clean but he won't ever even admit a side of vulnerability despite the fact he allowed you to take care of him.
After shampooing his hair, you gently wash off the shampoo and rubbed conditioner on your hand before going in and applying it to the outlaw's dark hair, causing him to hum. "What else are you goin' to do?" He questions as his gaze slowly meets yours, hoping you won't be grossed out.
"Do you want me to wash your shoulders? You...uh, can do the rest.." You mutter as your cheeks grew into a rosy red. Damn. He swears that look you give him anytime you get embarrassed will be the death of him.
Jack doesn't comment on it though, he silently reaches down and takes hold of your waist and pulls you closer. "Don't stress it," The gunslinger mutters, slowly dipping his face in the curve of your neck. "Darlin'..? Love you."
Jack Marston was not a vulnerable man, but in this moment, he felt safe and secure in your arms.
Thank you soo much for reading ! reblogs and likes are very much appreciated... please do not repost my work on any other platform. Masterlist
#john marston#rdr1#red dead fandom#red dead redemption community#adult jack marston#rdr2 john#rdr1 jack#jack marston x reader#jack marston nation#rai's rambles.#jack marston
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was talking abt this on twit but vace+sol is one of my fave exocolonist dynamics bc theres soooo many ways to take it like. theyre besties theyre worsties theyre going to kill each other in unarmed combat, sols got him on a childleash and is teaching him to stop biting every single person he knows, they flirt sickeningly and outrageously even when dating other people and they break up in every universe they start dating in unless they go into space together and die in a wormhole explosion, sols the entire reason he learns to be content planetside and find himself and peace and goes to therapy and if sol doesnt indulge his stupid manchild ego from the time theyre like fifteen to nineteen their entire rship can just crash and burn into absolute nothing, theyre jsut. theyer so much theyre so fucking funny. i love them
#sol+vace runs the entire gamut of Two People Who Grow As People From Just From The Luck Of Having Known Each Other to#You Two Are Fucking Perfect Together Don't Ever Involve Anyone Else In Your Toxic Mess#to Were It Not For The Laws Of This Land You Would Be Dead On The Fucking Pavement As We Speak#and that is soooo funny to me i adore them#ive mentioned this before but i do really like vace in the sense of i am putting him in the pringles jar and Shaking#i am not apologizing i am dropping him in there and going to fucking town#there are still chips inside#personal#i was a teenage exocolonist spoilers#teenexo stuff#besties worsties killing each other in unarmed combat etc etc
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how much do vanny and dr rabbit want to pummel eachother into the ground?
A LOT. A LOT-A LOT.
"Yeah that's my siblings that's my coworker watch me make them eat FUCKING DIRT" "NOT IF I MAKE YOU EAT DIRT FIRST" "WANNA BET???"
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getting a message that says "hey! aside from being sick, are you busy" i'll kill you
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Crystal Springs Chapter 6: now on ao3!
Give it a read on ao3 HERE.
Chapter 6: Freezer Burn
Jack and Jacqueline talk it out, featuring some fun mindscape shenanigans. Jacqueline comes up with an under appreciated term for Jack's apparent lack of power.
🆕‼ Chapter 6 fell victim to the rewrite treatment.
Yeah, I know, I know. AGAIN???
YES, AGAIN! LISTEN OK. I STARTED REREADING IT AND WAS TRYING TO TIDY IT BUT THERE WAS TOO MUCH TO TIDY! YOU KNOW WHAT WAS ALREADY TIDY? THE BLANK WORD DOC THAT IS NOW SAVED AS "Chapter 6 Rewrite. Yes. fr. not joking. HELP"
So what's new this time around?
🆕 Mindscape Shenanigans are now TANGIBLE
🆕 Cold Front chat just flows better and works better ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
And that's it! See? I'm not THAT out of control! I only added an extra like, 1k of words! That's NOTHING compared to Arc B's rewrite!
Anyway.
Wanna start Crystal Springs from the top? Read the Prologue: An Encounter on ao3 HERE and ff.net HERE!
#the santa clause#the santa clause 3#tsc#tsc3#you can see in this chapter that i absolutely HATE tscs mythos and have my OWN#were it not for the laws that govern this land#i would kill the series dead in a HEARTBEAT#anyway#cs updates#crystal springs#cs on ao3#dani speaks#dani writes
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BDS HAS CALLED FOR A TARGETED BOYCOTT OF PRO-ISRAEL PROPAGANDA CHARACTER SABRA!!!
BOYCOTT SABRA (RUTH BAT-SERAPH) IN MARVEL'S CAPTAIN AMERICA : NEW WORLD ORDER!!!
As Captain America: New World Order is released I urge all fans who are against Zionism to flood the Captain America tags with messages of Boycott Sabra. All the links provided in the graphic are publicly available from their websites, and social media.
Anti-Zionism =/= Anti-Semitism!!! We are boycotting Sabra not because she is Jewish but because she represents a Pro-Israel, Pro-Zionist message that should not be platformed in any media. Her comics have Pro-IDF propaganda.
Marvel was made aware of the fact that this character promotes a Pro-Israeli & Anti-Palestinian sentiment when the character of Sabra was announced for Captain America 4, despite fan concern, and calls for Marvel to remove this character from the movie and despite have more than enough time to respond to what type of statement this would promote, a Pro-Zionist, Pro-Israel stance and despite reshoots Marvel has still chosen to keep Sabra in the movie. Shira Haas is the actress playing Sabra, she is Israeli and has shared Pro-Israel posts online even during the genocide of the Palestinians.
Marvel claims they will be reinventing the character however a character whose very nationality and backstory relies on Pro-Israel & Pro-Zionist ideals is irredeemable especially because not once in all her comic appearances does she ever change her Anti-Palestinian stance. Israel is currently committing a Genocide against Palestinians. Since of October 7th more than 30,000 Palestinians, of which over 12,000 are children, have been murdered by Israel. Over 60,000 have been injured, more missing, and millions displaced in Israel's genocide and ethnic cleansing of the people of Palestine. This is in addition the 75 year long occupation, countless war crimes, and 16 year blockade on Palestinians.
Marvel claims to care about Jewish characters, but Marvel hasn't even cast Jewish actors for Jewish Characters like Moonknight. Marvel choosing to back a Pro-Israel, Pro-Zionist character like Sabra sends a very clear message that aligns with Marvel Comics long held Anti-Palestinian sentiment. There are other Jewish characters for Jewish representation, such as Magneto, and Kitty Pryde, who were not created with a Pro-Israel, Pro-Zionist background.
BOYCOTT SABRA!!! Send a message, write a tweet, make a post, and tag Marvel and Disney and let them know why you are Boycotting Captain America: New World Order. I love Sam Wilson as Captain America but I will never support a movie that has Sabra as a character.
For more information about the character's history here is a breakdown of her appearances in Marvel Comics.
The Incredible Hulk (1968) #256 - Sabra's Origin
On the cover of Sabra's origin issue is the image of a dead Palestinian boy.
continued...
As we read the issue, we find Bruce Banner/The Hulk has stowed away on the ship "The Star of David" to Palestine, in the comics it is called Israel, however Marvel Comics has long been erasing Palestine, calling it only Israel.
This is Marvel Atlas (2008) #2 page on Israel
Marvel Fandom Wiki states that Palestine was the name of the land before Israel. While I understand that Marvel's 616 Universe is fictional, it's important to state that they base their locations on Real Life locations, and in 1948 Palestine underwent The Nakba, in which Israeli Forces displaced over 750,000 Native Palestinians and killed countless men, women, and children, stole land and homes, and forced the remaining Palestinians into the Gaza Strip which is the world's largest concentration camp, or confined to the West Bank all of which is under Apartheid laws today, or out of Palestine with no right to return to their homes and lands.
That being said, Sabra was created in 1980, as a Mossad Agent, Mossad is the Israeli Secret Service which has done so much harm to Palestinians. In her first issue she was working as a cop in Tel Aviv.
The Editor's note states: "The word Sabra denotes a Native-Born Israeli, the name derived from an indigenous form of fruit - a prickly pear possessed of a sweet interior, and a spiny outer surface to protect it from it's enemies."
Sabr (arabic, it also means "patience") is a cactus prickly pear that is Native to and found growing in Palestine. Read more about it in this article talking about the politics of Palestinian erasure and the Sabr fruit.
The Prickly Symbolism of Cactus Fruit in Israel and Palestine.
“If you look at most Palestinian villages demolished in Israel, what’s left is cactus fruit and olive trees,” says Qattan. Since 1948, he adds, this has imbued the cactus plant with a “mythical symbolism.”
When Blum’s father started the farm, he knew that many parts of the world have cactus fruit plants, so he wanted to make theirs the best. They chose Dimona, in southern Israel, because of its intense sun and “the Zionist dream of making the desert bloom.”
"Making the desert bloom" is a racist Zionist ideals and propaganda that has caused severe ecological damage to Palestine by destroying thousand years old Olive trees to plant non indigenous trees that are not native to Palestine in a form of ecocide. So even the character Sabra, her very name brings a connection back to the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians & promoting Zionism.
However Sabra's name also has another very real and very tragic memory. One I will discuss here before returning to the comics. Just two years after her appearance in comics in 1980, Israel's war crimes continue.
The Sabra & Shatila Massacre 1982
The article linked above has information of what occurred September 16-18, 1982. There were the Refugee camps of Sabra & Shatila, where Palestinians displaced from Israeli Occupation lived, and they, as well as Lebanon Civilians, were killed by the right wing Lebanese Militia working with the Israeli Military, which took the lives of 2,000 - 3,500 people in 2 days. Raped, tortured, murdered. Many Palestinians know the history of the massacre and bringing up the names of Sabra & Shatila is a constant reminder of the deaths that occurred, the war crime that was committed, and that 42 years later not one person involved in the massacre was held accountable.
The Sabra and Shatila massacre is remembered as one of the most traumatic events in Palestinian history and its memory is commemorated annually by Palestinians in Lebanon and in Palestine.
Marvel promoting a character like Sabra who's very creation ties into the Pro-Zionist Israel a statement that Marvel is promoting a Pro-Israel message. No matter what changes occur to the character in the movie, already her very creation, her very name is linked to the deaths and torture of thousands of Palestinians. It does not matter that she was created 2 years before the Sabra & Shatila massacre, her name is still connected to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the 1948 Nakba and the creation of Israel.
For anyone who says "Well Marvel couldn't change her name just because of Political Controversy" let me remind you that when the American Black Panther Party gained popularity Marvel changed The Black Panther's name temporarily to the Black Leopard because they didn't want to associate the character with the American Black Panther Party.
Now that you have an understanding of why Palestinians are rightfully boycotting an Israeli Propaganda character let me return to the the comics.
Back to The Incredible Hulk (1968) #256; this comic is one of the most Anti-Palestinian, "Arab Terrorist Propaganda" comics I have ever read so I will briefly outline the plot: The Hulk meets a poor Palestinian boy who was stealing a watermelon (The watermelon is the symbol of resistance for Palestinians) and Bruce spends time with the boy, Sahad, however Sahad is killed by a bomb. Hulk is enraged and fights the Arabs, Sabra intervenes and thinks Hulk is in league with the Arabs and attacks him.
Hulk takes Sahad's body away and Sabra thinking Hulk was fighting with the Arab Terrorists goes after him in order to protect Israel. However she finds that Hulk wasn't the monster she thought he was. Hulk's angry speech about the Israel-Palestine conflict leaves Sabra shaken and for the very first time she sees a Dead Palestinian Arab Child as human.
"For an instant, Sabra prepares to give chase. She is, after all, an Israeli Super-Agent... A Soldier... A Weapon of War.
But she is also a woman, capable of feeling, capable of caring. It has taken The Hulk to make her see this Dead Arab Boy as a Human Being. It has taken a monster to awaken her own sense of humanity.
Reminder this is her FIRST FULL COMIC, this is her ORIGIN, and you would think that perhaps she is more sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians after this but she isn't. Let's continue with the rest of her comic appearances.
Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions (1982) #1-3
Sabra is included in the contest of champions where superheroes must team up to battle their foes, she is teamed up with Iron Man, and The Arabian Knight (1st incarnation: A Saudi Bedouin with mystic artifacts/powers). Again, the Anti-Arab racist stereotype of Arab men being misogynistic towards women (misogyny is not a trait of ONLY Arab men, it is something that occurs world wide, however focusing it only on Arab men is racist) as well as the Zionist Propaganda lies that Arabs hate Jews, Arabs vs Jews, Arabs and Jews are enemies because of their religion. Not to mention that this Arabian Knight (Abdul Qamar) is from Saudi Arabia, he has no ties to Israel, so Sabra is judging him because he is Arab and has conflict with him because of their countries, it ties into the stereotype that "All Arabs are the same", Saudi Arabia is not Palestine.
Even after The Arabian Knight saves Sabra, she states her hatred and racism towards Arabs; "I would rather be dead than allied with you!"
The Incredible Hulk (1968) #279 - Sabra once again states it was the Hulk who taught her about Humanity.
Marvel Super-Heroes (1990) #6 - Sabra fights Israeli Anarchists who want to overthrow the Israeli Government and saves the American Ambassador's son, who is deaf. The main villain is a woman who Sabra saved by giving her some of her life energy, and she is upset because she did not want to be saved nor does she want to fight for Israel with the powers Sabra gave her. Sabra takes her life energy back and it kills her.
A constant running theme throughout her comics is that one of Sabra's repeated goals is the protection of Israel even above her own life.
The Incredible Hulk (1968) #386-387 - Sabra thinks the Hulk is in league with people who are trying to kill a boy, and attacks him. Later she thinks Hulk has defeated her and has this speech where she says that Israeli Soldiers are beating their wives out of frustration.
Again, how is that not the fault of the soldiers, why is it even when they are perpetrators of violence it's not their fault because they are frustrated?!
The main plot was that a Jewish man, who survived the German Nazi concentration camps, believed the boy to be the next Hitler which is why he wanted to stop him.
I never downplay the horror of the Holocaust or what Jewish people suffered from Nazis, from Anti-Semitism, throughout their history, but I am mainly focusing on how Sabra's character is in the comics and how that related to Anti-Palestinian, Anti-Arab sentiment.
The New Warriors (1990) #58-59 - Sabra reveals that her six year old son was killed by Arabs, bombed on a school bus, after she urges the New Warriors to kill Batal, a Syrian Super-Agent. Batal then states that it was the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) that killed her son and to stop generalizing all Arabs.
Batal: Well Sabra? There's a Palestinian over there -- aren't you going to push him out of his seat and claim it as your own?
Sabra: I don't respond to child-killers
Again, Sabra's racism against Arabs doesn't end at Palestinian Arabs, but extended to Saudi Arabia and now Syrian Arabs. LET ME BE VERY CLEAR THAT SABRA IS BEING RACIST: Batal has 2, TWO, only 2 comic appearances, he is there as security detail like Sabra is, there is nothing about his character that indicates he's anything but a Syrian Superhero, and Sabra still called him a child killer because she thinks all Arabs are child killers. Batal is written with the stereotypical racist Arab Man writing that many Arab characters suffer from, and he does insult Sabra by calling her an "Israeli Pig" after she treated Batal with disrespect, distrust, and suspicion ever since his arrival.
Sabra is then mind controlled into stopping the peace conference and killing everyone who allowed it to happen. She is stopped by the New Warriors.
Sabra's son is never once shown in a flashback, we are only ever told of him and how he died.
X-Men (1991) #67-69, 72-73
Sabra's dead son's name is revealed to be Jacob, she uses her position in Mossad to get secret information for the X-Men.
She later has plans to track down and kill Magneto, but ends up fighting with his clone, Joseph, before being told that wasn't the real Magneto and stopping.
Excalibur (1988) #120-121
Sabra teams up with Excalibur to defend "Israel" from Legion's ghosts. Then she is debriefed of her mission by Mossad.
Uncanny X-Men (1963) #366, 367, 379
Sabra takes Joseph (Magneto's clone) to an Israeli Military bunker where scientists study his DNA and state he is a clone of Magneto. Later Sabra attends Joseph's funeral.
X-Men (1991) #111
Sabra makes a statement about Magneto; Israeli Super-Agent Sabra weighed in on the looming war with her usual candor, "It is clear to me at least that Magneto has become the monster he claims to despise. There are some factions who believe this rumored son of Israel has brought much shame to his countrymen. Factions who believe he should be dealt with once and for all. Okay maybe not factions. But certainly Individuals... like me."
New X-Men (2001) #131-132
Sabra attends a funeral for Darkstar in #131. In #132 Sabra interacts with the mutants, and x-men, and says to Quicksilver (on the apparent death of Magneto), "I'm sorry Quicksilver, but good riddance. Magneto was a master-race lunatic who coherenced the entire Genoshan mutant population into a war with humanity and brought this on himself."
JLA/Avengers (2003) #4
Single panel appearance where Sabra is shown protecting the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. Again she is called an Israeli hero.
Side Note: I don't think there's been a single comic where Sabra has a major presence that has not mentioned at least once that Sabra is an Israeli Super Hero, a Mossad Agent, or an Israeli Super-Agent at least once. It's so noticeable that they always mention it and how big of a role it plays in her character.
Excalibur (2004) #5
Flashback two panel appearance of Sabra on Genosha.
Civil War: X-Men (2006) #1-4
Sabra fights on the side of Tony Stark/Iron Man and battles Archangel, then aids an injured Micro Max.
Civil War (2006) #6
Sabra fights on the side of Tony Stark/Iron Man.
Union Jack (2006) #1-4
The Arabian Knight has changed mantles, the 2nd incarnation is portrayed by a Palestinian Hero, Navid Hashim. I make mention of this because in Union Jack (2006) #1 Navid is called a Saudi, then in Hulk (2008) #45 Navid is called a Afghani, however the Marvel Fandom Wiki stated he was a Palestinian and I wanted to confirm it, which I did in:
Marvel Encyclopedia, New Edition (2019)
In the first issue of Union Jack, right off the bat, Sabra has an issue with The Arabian Knight, and is antagonistic towards him.
Navid is written in Marvel's usual racist writing; the misogynistic Arab man stereotype. Navid tells Sabra she should embrace her role as a mother instead of a hero. Sabra snaps and chokes him while telling Navid that Palestinians killed her son. Note how now it's Palestinians and not, Arabs, and not the PLO? Because by now the PLO is no longer considered a Terrorist group, so Marvel can't blame them and instead shift the blame to all Palestinians for the loss of Sabra's son. Arabs is too general, so of course it's the Palestinians.
To this date Sabra's son, Jacob, has still never appeared in any flashbacks, never seen drawn into a comic with Sabra, no mention of who the boy's father is. Nothing except Sabra's loss and hatred of the Palestinians. Even in her first solo comic series, which I discuss further down, does not mention her son. Using the death of an Israeli child to justify villainizing the entire group of Palestinian people is Zionist Israelis do. It's Anti-Palestinian Propaganda.
Later Navid gets hurt and Sabra checks on him, he tries to apologize;
Arabian Knight: About your son... I only meant.
Sabra: Don't. We are allies of the moment. Another day I would have driven the dagger home.
Later Sabra, The Arabian Knight, and others are mind controlled by the villain to attack Union Jack. Union Jack is told that he can distract them by turning them against their "natural enemies" and then Union Jack insults Sabra and uses Sabra's hatred and racism towards Arabs to turn her against The Arabian Knight. Sabra calls Navid a terrorist as she attacks him.
The mind control gets broken, and the team rallies to save the day by the last issue. The final exchange between The Arabian Knight and Sabra shows a tense acknowledgement between them meant to show begrudging respect. This is the nicest Sabra has been to any Arab character since her creation. The bar of "showing respect" is literally on the ground.
Secret Invasion #6
Cameo one panel appearance of Sabra in Israel fighting a Skrull.
Astonishing Tales (2009) #6 - Astonishing Tales: Sabra
Tagline in the comic states:
Sabra: Whether as an agent of Mossad, or a superhero, the Israeli mutant Ruth Bat-Seraph has never doubted her decision to put her country above self. Fighting alongside the Avengers, X-Men, and Captain Britain, as the patriotically garbed Sabra. Ruth has proven herself a champion to all nations.
"Sabra in Flight" - is one of the most disgusting pieces of Israeli comic propaganda I have ever read thus far in Sabra's comics. For my first time reading it I was shocked at how easily they projected the narrative of Israel as something noble and worth dying for. This piece of utter trash is the very first time Sabra has her own solo comic story. Let that sink in. This is the first time in 29 years since Sabra's creation 1980 that she has her own solo comic story. Sabra's total presence in the comics is 42 years.
The only things we know of her character is that her name is Ruth Bat-Seraph, she was born and raised in a special Israeli Kibbutz (Israeli settlement), that she manifested mutant powers that include; flight, energy quills, poisoned quills, super strength, and life energy transference. Sabra had a six year old son named Jacob who died in a bombing. She has always stated or maintained her solidarity and defense of Israel even above her own life. She is racist to any Arab, especially Palestinian Arabs.
It also important to note her costume changes over the years, her Star of David has diminished greatly from being on different parts of her uniform to just barely being a necklace/neck accessory. Her roles as Israeli Hero is greater than that of her being a Jewish Hero.
This comic introduces us to Ruth at a Israeli social function in Jerusalem, where is with her mother. Her mother tells her not to spill anything on her Sabra uniform, and mentions how people want to talk to her, Their Greatest Soldier. Again the emphasis on her being an Israeli Soldier and a Mossad Agent is hammered home in the first page of this comic.
Mother: "Your dad would be so proud of you, Ruth. To see his daughter in uniform protecting the Nation."
Ruth: "I just hate being put on display at these receptions. I am a Mossad Agent after all."
Then the next bit of news we learn is that Sabra has a brother. So now we know she has a mother and brother who is living, and her father is deceased. Next a old friend of Ruth's arrives with her teenage daughter, Yael, in tow, she introduces Sabra to her daughter and leaves them to talk. Sabra then mentions to Yael that she must be getting close to her mandatory military service soon. Yael mentions she is nervous because her friend was in the military and was paralyzed in Gaza.
Sabra then spends the next part of the comic reassuring Yael that it's ok to be nervous and that she was nervous too sometimes and mentions a story where she faced Hydra, and that when Yael goes into the Israeli military (IDF: Israeli Defense Force) she will learn a lot.
Sabra: "You'll learn a lot when you enter the Military. But the biggest thing you'll discover is that you have two families; your military family, and your personal family. Both will always be there for you, and perhaps even sacrifice themselves for you. A hard truth I learned the day my dad died rescuing me."
Yael mentions how her father was killed by surface to air missiles, and then goes on to say she was accepted into the air force flight academy and she always wanted to fly but that she was nervous. She mentions she might go into Military Intelligence. Sabra says that is good too but Yael then says she feels she was always meant to fly. So to convince Yael go into air force and alleviate her fears Sabra then takes her in her arms to fly her over Jerusalem and tells her that this land is what their dads died for. And she is convinced that Yael will make the right choice.
Side Note: Excuse me while I throw up, this entire comic made me feel so disgusted. I always try to write and speak about comics as professionally as I can but fuck this comic. Fuck this Pro Israel Propaganda. Fuck Sabra. Fuck this Pro-IDF comic. Fuck making an entire comic about reassuring a young teenage Israeli girl to go and join the IDF to fight in Gaza, to kill Palestinians. THIS. This is why Sabra will NEVER be able to be divorced from her origins, her character, as a Pro-Israeli Super Agent. No matter what Marvel tries to put into the movie this is who the character is at her very core.
Over 12,000 children have DIED since October 7th. Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people, but Marvel and the MCU, and Disney think it's ok to have a Israeli Superhero in a Captain America movie? Boycott. Scream out online to them. Tell them we do not want their Israeli Propaganda. Sabra should never ever be used for any platform, movies, shows, animation, comics, ever again. Over 30,000 Palestinians have been slaughtered by Israel in the last few months alone. Never forget.
I'm shaking with rage as I write about this comic but we move on. There's still some comics left to discuss. However in my firm opinion this character is indefensible, she literally is an Israeli Propaganda character. She is propaganda for the IDF.
History of the Marvel Universe (2012)
Cameo Appearance.
Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #685, Amazing Spider-Man: Ends of the Earth (2012) #1
Sabra teams up with Spider-Man and other heroes, she is introduced as a Israeli based mutant, she fights spider robots in Jerusalem.
X-Men (2010) #31, 34-37
In Paris, Sabra greets Storm and later she helps the X-Men using her influence as a Mossad Agent.
X-Men (2013) #9, 11, 16 + X-Men Legacy (2012) #23
Sabra aids the X-Men.
Captain America: Steve Rogers (2016) #18
One page Cameo, Sabra appears to have completed a mission and gathered files.
Avengers (2018) #11
Sabra and the Arabian Knight are at a meeting called by The Black Panther. T'Challa wants everyone to work together, they are currently discussing an issue with Namor the Sub-Mariner, King of Atlantis. Ursa Major makes fun of the situation; "Haaaa, look at Sabra and the Arabian Knight! Even the Jew and the Muslim are agreeing! How touching!
Zionist propaganda of making it seem as if the conflict between Israel and Palestine is a religious conflict between an Arab and a Jew. Making of a Jewish and Muslim character getting alone because they should be fighting is racist, Islamophobic, and anti-sematic. The conflict between Israel and Palestine is NOT a religious conflict, Israel has been occupying and murdering Palestinians for 75 years. It is a conflict between Israel being a colonizer and Palestine being colonized. Israel is committing a genocide as I create this post.
At the end of all her appearances spanning 42 years Sabra has not once changed from her palestinian, arab hating, israeli zionist roots. All we get is her trading a few words back and forth with Arabian Knight and acting like an adult at a table full of kids. There isn't even respect between them. That is all the appearances of Sabra.
Why is important to boycott Sabra? In addition to the character being Pro-Israel, Pro-IDF Propaganda, giving a large platform like the one an MCU movie provides will give the actress a larger platform.
Israeli Actress, Gal Gadot, who is Pro-Israel, Pro-Zionism, Pro-IDF, and was a former IDF soldier, was cast in a high profile role of Wonder Woman, she used her platform, power, and access to thousands of fans to further messages of Zionism and even promoted a Pro-Israel propaganda film to be aired in Hollywood. The film was used to further the Zionist agenda of continuing their genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. Bearing Witness (2023) is a Israel IDF propaganda film that Gal Gadot endorsed as Israel continued their genocide of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Wonder Woman isn't even Israeli, however the actress used her ties to the character to promote Israel. In Wonder Woman: 1984 there is a very racist, Anti-Arab, Anti-Palestinian message including a scene where Wonder Woman, played by Gadot, saves 4 Arab boys from a missile. Article Link
Why is that scene so controversial? Because Israel murdered four young boys who were playing on a beach in Gaza back in 2014 by a drone missile strike. Article Link
Gal Gadot and now Shira Haas having roles in movies with as much exposure as DC and Marvel movies promotes Israel, and Zionism. Pro Zionist groups have already voiced their approval of Shira Haas playing Sabra.
I will boycott any piece of media that features Sabra, the Israeli Propaganda Super Agent.
Use the Captain America tags to Boycott Sabra.
If you have read this far then please support Palestine. Support Palestinians and fight against Zionism. Comics were created by Jewish Creators, do not let Zionists try to erase their contribution or use comics to promote Zionism. Comics are never created in a vacuum, they are the pulse of current pop culture, of current news. Comics are Political and always have been. Marvel choosing to keep Sabra in the MCU sends a clear message of support for Zionism & Israel.
Find a Protest near you
Donate or Join Palestine Action
Donate to Palestine , HelpGaza , Palestine Donations , Aid Palestine
Learn about Palestine
#sabra#ruth bat-seraph#captain america 4#captain america#captain america new world order#boycott#zionism#israel#palestine#boycottsabra
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"I need to find my darling husband!" Said Danny, dressed to the nines in a very elaborate royal dress with a lot of jewelry running through the ballroom after having been on the opposite end of a very worrying phone call.
"Seriously, what do you even see in that mortal!?" Screamed an observant and Danny stopped and leveled them with a glare cold enough to freeze over an active volcano and sharp enough to cut through obsidian.
"He makes me laugh."
Unlike those dead suitors went unsaid, but everyone at the ball (read: search for a bride/groom for the royal ghostling) practically heard it anyways.
Meanwhile over in the land of the living
Okay so Jason may have messed up. Now you see, he hasn't seen his platonic husband for tax benefits in a while, and he's been very careful to not let his identity as the Red Hood slip up before . Not even once in their relationship.
(He's not counting the time his in-laws sniffed him out as a Crime Lord, because Danny never believed them.)
Now, it wasn't exactly his fault he slipped up. You try to fight off an entire group after being pulled up on out of nowhere on the phone while trying to hide said noises of fighting.
Who was he calling? Danny of course since he said he was away for business. What business? Never specified and Jason wasn't going to pry.
So now here he was, bound 'helplessly' as Jason Todd along with a few other random civilians. Which, like, rude.
Wasn't he already good enough for this ancient ritual or whatever?
You know, he really should have walked with that "Anti-kidnapping device" he got that one time. Which honestly he feels like he should be surprised that such a thing exists but considering it was from Bruce. Well.
He's not surprised.
Oh, there's the Justice League now. Shame, he wanted to knock out a few guys himself- Oh, now he's being used to summon a ghost from the Infinite Realms of Royal Lineage.
Yea he probably should have walked with that "Anti-kidnapping device."
Wait a goddamn-
Is that-
"My darling husband!" Danny shouted, scooping him off the circle and away from the head cultist and swinging him around. "You had me worried sick!"
Now, he should ask the question anyone would in this situation when finding out your best friend and platonic husband for tax benefits was apparently a ghost of royal lineage.
"Why're you in a dress?"
"Okay, first of all I rock this thing." Danny huffed.
"That you do." Jason agreed rather easily.
"Second of all, blame those guys over there." He jerked his head in the direction of two very green floating eyeball people.
Not the weirdest he's seen, honestly.
The Observants were whispering to each other and leveling them-Jason in particular-a look.
"Now as you can see, I already have a spouse and I don't need another!" Danny hugged Jason closer for emphasis and he took the time to whisper in Danny's ear. "Did you really marry me to play the husband card?"
"Well, yes." Danny agreed. "But also because of taxes, because I love you and you're my best friend."
"So, we're still done for watching that movie right."
"Obviously."
A pained grunt came from below them and they both looked down to see Batman standing over a very unconscious cultist and looking up at them.
Hm.
He forgot they were there.
"So," Jason began, staring Bruce straight in the eyes. Batman's eyes narrowed. "Don't suppose we can push that forward to right now?"
"Yea, sure why not I'm not doing anything important." Danny leveled the Observants a look, and before either they, Batman, or the Justice League could do anything they both disappeared.
#dc x dp#dp x dc#dpxdc#dp x dc crossover#dcxdp#dc x dp crossover#I think this was originally supposed to be a Danny as Peach and Jason as Mario cosplay idea#With still a focus on their platonic marriage#Buuuuut#Then I got hit with the royal idea and#yea#Mostly because I forgot about said previous idea#Jason: Hm I'm going to have so much explaining to do with the old man#Also Jason: But I don't feel like it so *disappears*#Batman: *Tired dad sigh*#ghost prince danny#Or like#ghost heir danny#He ain't king and the title is vague#Just because
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ik this is known but no successful settler colony has reached relative "internal stability" without genocide. north america is the first example of this that comes to mind: during the early years all up to the 19th cent., wars and attacks between native americans and settlers were frequent. and yes, while the settler armies were more well armed and more powerful, the native americans were a great force against the european invasions and did cause casualties among white populations, "including civillians", and halted expansion and development for many of the colonies.
this was met in 2 ways:
federal programs sponsored by the colonial states (violent deculturation, seperation from families through residential & boarding schools, expulsion from ancestral lands and destruction of the indigenous identity)
and unofficial, "individual" settler and enlistee actions of massacres upon indigenous populations. these events obviously were never prosecuted because they worked in tandem with the colonial powers, supported and encouraged by them.
the extermination of the american indigenous people wasn't just a facet of american success but the foundation of it. if they weren't subject to the genocide, the wealth and vast land in north america wouldn't have reached the white populations and the continent would be unrecognizable today, with canada and the united states not slightly as globally influencial as they are today. imagine a usa reliant on tourism.
and ik this is all elementary level information, but israel mirrors this entire process in eery similarity, with ancient, ancestral lands seized from palestenians exploited and destroyed for capital gains following violent expulsions (the nakba created israel). palestinians remaining within the israeli border endure lynchings and attacks by settlers as well as repression and persecution under federal law. israel was founded on the same colonialist principles that america and other european settler colonies (algeria, mozambique, kenya) were: their survival just depended on how far they would go to destroy the indigenous population.
what im dreading is that israel is on course to go further and proceed with that destruction. we are currently is a uniquely horrifying moment: 2,600 dead palestenians and 6,000 in hospitals with 0 supplies and 0 power - and the ground assault following the impossible evacuations is looming. the massacres about to sweep palestinian lands with the gifting of the ten thousand rifles to settlers. the unprovoked, unwarned and constant airstrikes. the monolithic, hysteric nature of mainstream western media. the army's sentiment of hunting animals. the global unrepentant backing. the repeated promise of complete victory.
what would complete victory mean? you cannot quell palestenian resistance without exterminating palestine. the palestenian people are a tortured people, hungry, radicalized simply from their day to day life: not one gazan hasn't watched corpses being pulled from the rubble, not one gazan doesn't have murdered family, not one gazan doesn't have something to mourn. their friends and family disappear or lose limbs on the daily now, building on grief from the previous 7 decades deep destruction. the homesickness is constant. the sounds of explosions is never far. of course there would be resistance movements, of course there would be revenge attacks, of course it will be bloody, because no humans in the world could silently endure these conditions. if hamas was entirely destroyed tomorrow, the next generation of palestinian youths would simply form another. for a complete, permanent victory, you would need to raze palestine.
this is why i balk at people hoping for coexistence. coexistence goes against the very founding strategy of israel. it goes against every principle and long term plan israel has for itself. israelis themselves do not want coexistence, they want gaza flattened and the west bank annexed, they want palestine destroyed and the palestenian people extinct. any sympathy with israel is a transgression on humanity.
#palestine#gaza#anti zionisim#this is a very base level knowledge of native american history by the way im sorry
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Danny and Dani and Dan get Alfreded in three fell swoops
So like, sad time, but Alfred dies while Bruce is doing his world tour. He never survived long enough to see Bruce become Batman. Died alone in the Manor, after a particularly nasty fall and a broken neck.
But that was unacceptable.
Master Bruce, insufferable boy, could not lose another paternal figure in his life. Also the Manor was still a mess, and Bruce would need someone to make sure he didn't accidentally poison himself.
So he hid his corpse on the Manor grounds, and got to work.
And he was so glad he stayed; sure, it had taken a bit to stop glowing, but really the floating thing was amazingly helpful in reaching the chandelier, and after Master Bruce had returned he had gotten so many grandchildren.
Fast forward; Danny defeated Pariah Dark, he is Crown Prince of the Infinite Realms, Dan is attempting reformation and is technically a Prince by relation, and Dani is attempting to be Dan's parole officer and is definitely a Princess 100% she never forgets that no sir.
And Danny gets approached by some of the Observants, and they tell him that there is a very powerful ghost in Gotham, one that fully and completely blends in with humans and really needs to come to the Infinite Realms to complete his paperwork. But whenever they show up, this ghost thinks that they're there to force him to stay in the Infinite Realms.
And he kicks their asses.
Brutally.
For a bit he had a tiny kid ghost with him kicking their asses as well, but the kid randomly disappeared one day.
The Observants very clearly outline that this ghost is not Gotham herself, although the tax-evading criminal has been seen having tea with her.
Danny has no desire to deal with this; he just graduated high school and needs to focus on what college he's going to choose, so if Dan or Dani want to throw hands with some weird Gotham Ghost then by all means. Fuck taxes anyways, what did the Zone even take for taxation, what-?
So Danny splits his time college hunting and trying to find out how tax laws work in the Ghost Zone.
Dani goes to the old man first, and Alfred promptly sits her down and gives her cookies and hot chocolate, treats her like the kid she's never been treated like between Vlad and all of the Zone focusing on the Princess thing, and she feels at home for the second time in her half-life.
Dani gets a call from a nervous Observant, and promptly tells him she isn't going back either so nyah.
Dan goes to pick her up, and Alfred asks him if he is quite alright, he looks rather tense, and that if it is a fight he wants then the Justice League could probably use a new member, after all Alfred knows an upstanding young man when he sees one, and clearly Dan just needs a chance to prove to himself that he can be good.
Just like another young man Alfred knows.
Dan gets a call from a nervous Observant, and tells them that he's a little busy stopping an alien invasion, and is a tentative member of the Justice League now so he doesn't have time for their bullshit.
Also fuck taxes.
Finally, Danny has no choice.
He goes to drag this random old man and his little sister back to the Zone himself.
Alfred takes one look at him and slowly slides a flier for Gotham University across the kitchen island.
"Your younger sister speaks well of you," the dead butler says, eyes beaming, "and I believe that, given what she has said, you qualify for one of the Wayne Educational Grants for a full ride, so to speak."
Alfred never gets dragged into the Ghost Zone, although eventually he does learn that they weren't trying to drag him into the Land of the dead but were just trying to get him to do paperwork.
He never goes.
Bruce, however, is very fucking confused as to where these strange kids came from.
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(sorry this is from a week ago but) Wait, what's going on right now that's complicated with Amazonian farmers' land rights?
Not farmers, indigenous people
See, recently they put a new law through congress that severely reduces indigenous land to the borders established during the late dictatorship, or immediately post-dictatorship, in 1988. An absolute joke of a border that was dreamed up by some military assholes. People in america may recognize this type of society from the times of westward expansion and think this is a thing of the past because for you guys it is. But here it is a reality. Murder is rampant. The reach of the law is incredibly limited. Government is just too weak and landowners basically run things. THAT'S WHY it's so important to donate directly to the native peoples instead of random NGOs because native people are fucking there and the more power they hold in the land the safer the land will be from agroindustrial expansion.
Well the law was vetoed by the the president and the Supremo Tribunal Federal, aka supreme federal court, labeled it as unconstitutional. Which it is, because our 1988 constitution describes native american land rights in some of its first articles. We thought this would be it for the law
But then the senate (that already overrepresents landowners in rural states) just went along and approved it anyway. I had no idea they could approve something unconstitutional. The progressives and particularly the socialists are fighting this in court. But it happens that for now the legal border is the severely reduced version.
Doesn't mean they'll just give up, because as it happens we don't have any stand your ground laws so even if you own a piece of land, you cannot legally speaking just shoot everyone there. Or attack or threaten them in any way. They'll just have long legal battles individually for the rights to occupy land based on use. Also the Xingu national park, the largest preserved land of the Amazon described as 'larger than Belgium', is being encroached by huge farms that are poisoning their water supply. The border is Visible. I'll try to find video of it but essentially you have a forest and a desert separated by a strict line.
Just last week in the south of Bahia (not the Amazon, let me explain more about the Amazon situation in a bit) Hãhãhãe leadership Nega Muniz Pataxó was shot and killed by an armed militia group that invaded and occupied the Caramuru territory.
instagram
The situation in the Amazon, specifically the yanomami territory in Roraima our northernmost state, aka deep forest, is more dire than average given difficulty of access, sheer size, and government abandonment. It's a place that depends on government aid for medicine. It's land that is being systematically invaded by gold miners, pandemic, toxins from nearby farmlands, wood extraction etc. (wood extration is rampant everywhere tho). Early 2023 saw a massive federal government operation by now president Lula to empty the mines and try to look for where funding comes from. Yanomami land is still being invaded to this day, the struggle is ongoing.
The yanomamis need support right now more than any other. Last year saw a massive heat wave that (well, one, caused a girl named Ana Clara Machado to die during the Taylor Swift concert. This is unrelated but I feel like not enough foreign media covered this, Taylor even lied about it as well.) dried up a lot of rivers, killed a LOT of fresh water animals including an unprecedented amount of pink dolphins. Access that was already hard became damn near impossible without boats. I cannot overstate how many pink dolphins were found dead.
Another technique that landowners use to clear space for farms is to just set things on fire and then occupy the empty land, which they legally can do to land that was naturally burned in a forest fire. It happened that Pantanal, another national park of swampland, was massively devastated by fires last year too
this article is from 2020, the year that the worst fire happened, but in 2023 there was another one. It's been happening yearly now due to a) deliberate action and b) climate change aggravation.
And this is not nearly all. Just off the top of my head. If you speak portuguese I recommend following the APIB or the COIAB on instagram to keep up with the news. The FUNAI is the government branch of indigenous organization, but it's not generally that well liked. Still.
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The King of Qarth I
Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x Qartheen f!reader (use of third perspective)
Warnings: angst, dubcon (but not really), handjob, fingering, p in v, hints at sexual trauma, self indulgent use of sorcery
Word count: 11k (i know...i'm sorry...)
Author’s note: The foreign words you’ll find are stolen from Greek. Second and final part coming in two weeks. English is not my first language.
taglist: @zae5 @multyfangirl @arcielee @succnfuccubus @zaldritzosrose @kckt88 @venmondiese @miraclealignertlsp369 @ilikechocolatemilkh @credulouskhaleesi @bunbunbl0gs
He had taken each one of them. Dragons, power, the Crown. Snatched them from whatever divine plan the Gods had concocted, for others, never for him, and perhaps this was their punishment.
Death would’ve been a far too kind blessing, he would come to realise in one of those endless days spent wandering, roaming to find some meal, a softer clod to lie on, an identity.
Prince, Protector of the Realm, Rider of Vhagar, Blood of Old Valyria.
They were nothing more than shrouds. Once stripped of them, what was left was merely a man.
And a son. That’s what his mother saw when they threw him on the ground of the Throne Room.
Crawling on her knees like some commoner, she begged and sobbed until her voice became raw and her throat hoarse, chanting obsessively the same plea over and over like a mad woman.
"Please...have mercy in the name of the Mother… my only son...” she had bent so much as to graze the toe of Corlys Velaryon's boots with her face. “you took them all...you took them all...”
Whether she was talking to the Sea Snake, Rhaenyra, the Gods or fate, Aemond didn’t know. He didn’t know the woman kneeling before him, if he ever truly knew her. You cannot know ghosts, only walk through them.
He could not look at her. He turned his head and watched over that crowd of traitors looking down on him, as if they themselves had not looted, slaughtered, and burned more innocent than guilty.
Trained puppets they were, obeying like green little soldiers to Cregan Stark, a northern savage who had taken upon himself the right and duty to do justice. Corlys Velaryon knew it well, having spent days and nights in the dungeons as an accomplice in the poisoning of Aegon the Elder. And there they were, taking over the reins of a kingdom shattered and embittered by war.
But with the promise of Alysanne Blackwood’s hand in marriage, the Wolf had been tamed. He had stopped howling about trials and executions. Now, caution moved and bogged down their decisions. But one thing was clear as a law written in stone: there had to be peace, no matter the cost. Hence, a marriage had been arranged, between two children who, for no reason, had been taught to see the other as the enemy, whose eyes had seen too much death; orphaned and thrown like marbles into a game that brought neither smiles nor laughter to their sepulchral mouths.
She was looking at him, Jaehaera, and in her empty eyes Aemond could see Helaena climbing up the windowsill and letting herself fall.
“What happened to Vhagar?” The Sea Snake asked “Kinslayer! What about your dragon?”
"Dead.” He lied, although he didn’t know for how long that lie would remain so. That rope in his heart had loosened, weakened, but it still held. She must have crawled off to some remote place, perhaps beyond the Neck, to recover from the injuries to her neck and right wing.
Then the Sea Snake had turned his back, consulting with his council of leeches. Exile. He heard them say. Essos. And then that word he hadn’t heard for a long time. Dragonless. A kinder word for useless. Powerless.
“Let him go, Corlys. He’s always been a spoiled brat. He won’t survive for long in those savage lands.” Someone said outside the cell they threw him in, shackled with chains on wrists and ankles like some rabid dog.
He won’t survive for long.
How he wished they were right. How he wished to look into the beady eyes of the Stranger.
Alicent would curse him, perhaps she would slap him as she used to slap Aegon for being so blasphemous, not to the Gods, but to her. Aemond was no father, and no matter how much he could try, he’d never understood the fierce, unforgiving grip motherhood had on a woman.
When he saw her for the last time before being thrown on a ship to Braavos, he realized it was the only tether that kept her alive. Him and Jaehaera.
“Just a little longer, please…just a little…” she pleaded to his jailers. With the arranged marriage, cruelties had softened, and concessions became more frequent. The Dowager Queen was granted to see her son for the last time.
“Mother!” he screamed as they dragged him away “Keep your fucking hands off me!”
He needed to speak to her. He needed her to tell him she was lying.
“Mother, there’s a woman…”
“The Strong witch? Aemond, she’s…They captured our last allies from the Reach and…they said they found a woman in the woods but…she was in pain…and bleeding….”
The Gods’ punishment flowed through the long-cowled robe of the Stranger. And he took them all.
Aegon, Helaena, Daeron. Alys and the baby.
Alicent could not bear to see the last piece of her flesh and bones being cloaked by the cold shroud of the Stranger. And so, she crawled and begged to preserve his existence.
But that, that was no existence.
It was a limbo, a hanging life for the damned. And he was one, wasn't he? He killed kin, he killed innocent men, women and children, coming from above like a heaven banished God unleashing his wrath on the world. And even gods pay for their sins.
Only he would gladly have stuck his head in a noose or waited for the hangman's blade, a death worthy of a soldier, rather than wandering like a derelict, rootless and restless, with that rope pulling and fraying day after day. Or Weeks? Moons? He had no idea how much time had passed since he’d set foot in that limbo.
He seemed to be living in a slumber, a Milk of the Poppy hallucination. And yet, the ground was real beneath his exhausted feet, as was the heat, and at some point, the hunger.
The leeches had tried to appear civil and compassionate, lying to his mother’s face about the gold they would give him, to sustain himself once reached the East. But naturally, they didn’t keep their word. If he died of starvation, he was sure they would have lit a candle to each God in the Grand Sept. They probably prayed for that to happen.
Or maybe not. Maybe there was no greater gratification and source of amusement to know that the haughty Prince Aemond was tasting the everyday humiliation of having to steal in order not to starve, of not having clean clothes, feather pillows to lie on, the disgrace of not being able to give orders to anyone, but rather having to suffer them.
He stayed in Bravoos for a short time. It was too dangerous, too close to Westeros and too wary if anyone ever caught the color of his hair under the cloak’s hood. He remembered his history books quite well. It was the only one among the Free Cities that did not yield to the Valyrian empire; indeed, it was founded by a group of rebellious slaves fled from the tyranny of the Dragon Lords.
Volantis, on the contrary, worshipped the Old Empire. But in equal measure, they worshipped slavery. The city swarmed with mercenaries and slavers, peddling men and women like meat for slaughter, ready at every corner to steal children from the streets. And in Volantis Aemond understood that if he did not want to end up in some butcher’s hands, he had to be what he had always been: a soldier. For he realized that everywhere in the world, the most valuable currency was not gold, nor castles and titles, but blood.
This man for new fresh clothes, that woman for few gold coins and a mattress to rest his back, not to sleep. Sleep eluded him, as well as remorse. Unless his body shut his mind out of exhaustion, he lied there for hours on end, with blood drying on his hands, listening to all the ghosts floating around him, and trying to find a grip—something to hold on to. Duty had been the blacksmith who forged him and the altar to which he devoted himself. Duty to his family, his brother, the crown, the throne, even Alys, yes. For all her riddles and stumps of prophecy, he wanted her. He wanted that son.
But here, he had no high purpose to serve but himself. Stripped of all honors and many more curses, he fell into a daylong stupor, made of blood, humiliations and silent cries for revenge.
Until one day, the rope went taut.
Vhagar burned away the stupor. She had found him. For the second time, she had been his salvation. And on her back, he found a fragment of who he was, but who he was supposed to be remained a distant thing, clouded in smoke.
He flew south, over the ruins of Old Valyria, and then east, crossing all of Vaes Dothrak to the Red Waste, and by the time he realized he should've veered north or south, it was too late.
He was in the middle of the widest and driest desert on the eastern continent.
The Garden of Bones, as they called it, and with good reason. For in those few times that Aemond decided to land to allow Vhagar to rest, all his eye could see were sand, devilgrass and bones. But he didn’t care about the thirst, the dry and cracked lips, the white tow his hair had become.
Vhagar was his only concern. She was starving. She could not fly too high in the skies. And so, along with all the misery and humiliation, came the dread. For if Vhagar died, the last rope, the last tether, which had perhaps kept him alive up to that point, and perhaps kept her alive, would break.
But then, just as it happens in some book of adventures, or simply in dreams, a mirage, a true oasis in the middle of the desert, surrounded by the highest walls ever built in the history of men, guarding the greatest city that ever was and will be: Qarth.
“Hmm” she ponders, pursing her lips. “I’m not sure about this one. What do you think, Nyla?”
The young maid stops her morning chore and blushes. “I think it would match your skin wonderfully, your Highness.”
She hears giggling behind her shoulders, where two of her most trusted maids are braiding her hair after oiling them with mirrh and cinnamon. “You hear that, Nyla? They’re questioning your candor.”
“I am not, your Highness.” says Dora, one of the giggling girls. “But if you were looking for a less partial opinion, let’s say a more objective one...you should have asked me or Mysha.”
“Well, as it happens, I was looking precisely for a partial opinion. Look at her. She’s changing my chamber pot and still, she thinks that shade of purple would suit me wonderfully. Oh Nyla, I think you will soon become my favorite.”
“Is that a yes then, your Highness?” the merchant wastes no time to ask, standing in the center of the room with silk drapes of several colors resting along his arm.
“Yes, Jorio. Two yards of that purple silk.”
The merchant nods swiftly, too swiftly she notices. The man is acting awkwardly since the moment he stepped into her private rooms. Usually, he’s a big talker, a true born seller. He could make believe one could heal from Greyscale if they just wrap themselves in the soft embrace of his silks. But not today. He seems in a hurry. The exhibition of his goods too quick and excited. And then the sweat, lumped in a wet sheen around his bald head.
“Anything else, your Highness?”
Her forehead creases, acknowledging a thought, new but not quite, as if it has always been there. “Perhaps something green?” she ventures.
“Green?” inquires Misha “That’s a first.”
She shakes her head in a dismissing way. “Must be my father’s sorcery.”
The shadows, kóri, they speak to you.
“What do you have in green, Jorio?”
The merchant fumbles with his silks, a turmoil moves his hands clumsily until a few drapes of fabric flutter on the ground. He stoops to pick them up, only to drop the others still clinging onto his shoulder in a chaotic rainbow of colors on the white marble floor.
“Jorio, what is the matter with you today?”
“I—Nothing, your Highness, my apologies...”
“You know if you have problems with your trades, the Salt King and I would be more than happy to help you.”
“It’s not that—no. Must be all the fuss in town.”
“Pirates again?”
“Uhm—no, it’s the…beast outside the walls.”
“The beast? What beast?”
The man swallows, visibly. “A dragon, your Highness. A huge dragon, higher than the city walls.”
“But…that is not possible...” Misha tries.
“I’m telling what I saw with my own eyes. The Thirteen gathered outside the walls. I saw the Spice King along my way here. He said they were about to parley with the Milk man, see through his reasons.”
"Milk Men don’t ride dragons.” she corrects, standing from the soft cushions piled and spread on the ground. “This man’s hair…what color are they?”
“White as midday sun.”
"Your Highness! Come..."
The Salt Queen joins Dora on one of the brightly sunlit balconies overlooking the Route of Trade. There is indeed a great bustle in the town, a motionless bustle however, gazing with open mouths and bewildered eyes at the small procession moving up the street. The City Guard is leading, with their shields and spears to protect The Thirteen, rulers of the most important trading city in the world. They are all dressed in bright colours and precious jewels embroidered in their silk tunics, hanging from their necks, wrists and fingers.
If she narrows her eyes, The Salt Queen can swear she can see the gold ring her husband wears on his nose. What catches her eye though, is not gold or any other bright color, but black, and then white.
There is a man walking down the street with the thirteen, a tall man with plain dark clothes and a mantle of silver hair, white as midday sun.
“Wife, may I introduce you to our noble guest?”
A woman comes forward to greet him when Aemond enters a lavish hall with several windows adorned with colorful drapes of silk. He is sure he has never seen so much marble in his life, feeling even more inappropriate given the state of his clothes and his whole demeanor, shamefully far from the clean, soldierly appearance that left mouth agape.
“Prince Aemond of House Targaryen, from Westeros.” The Salt King declares as the woman stops just before him. He stands tall and imposing, no matter the misery of his shabby clothes, the state of his disheveled hair falling in silver tangles down his back. He is still a Targaryen, his chin is high and proud.
“More like from the Old Valyria.” She says raising an eyebrow, and sizing him up and down. “He seems to have just emerged from the Doom, miraculously unscathed.”
The Prince does nothing but seethe his teeth behind his dry lips, a distant shame in his eye that quickly turns into a focused and unblinking rage.
“Welcome to Qarth, my Prince. I’d trust your journey was uneventful but…I can see the Red Waste takes its toll, even on Valyrian beauty.”
Aemond takes a good, long look at her, inevitably lingering on her chest, dressed as the common Qartheen fashion dictates: one breast exposed. But a lot more of her is exposed. Her shoulders, her arms and legs, a glimpse of her hips, all crossed by swirling bundles of lilac silk.
If any married woman in Westeros dressed like that in the open, he’s sure any husband would lock her up. At least he would.
“You must excuse my wife, Prince Aemond, or rather, get used to her habit of speaking her mind.”
“Come now, Xavos. Surely Westerosi women can voice their thoughts?” she moves, walking past Aemond and her husband to reach a small table inlaid with gold to pour some greenish beverage into a cup. “I had a maid once, she was from…Rich Garden?”
“High Garden.” He sternly corrects her.
“Ah, yes. A delightful creature, always smelled so good.” She says distractedly “Anyway, she fled from your lands because she liked girls and not boys and she didn’t want to devote her life to being a brood mare sucking a flaccid cock until her hair had gone white.”
Her maids snicker somewhere past Aemond shoulders, stiffening his posture at the liberties those commoners are granted. “I should hope you Westerners listen to your women more than you do your horses.”
Aemond watches as she takes a sip and laces his hands behind, slightly tilting his head for a moment. “Where I come from, women do not possess such a sharp tongue. Furthermore, and fortunately, most of them have manners. They know how to address a Prince of the Realm.”
She turns to leave the cup on the same table and glances at Nyla. “Oh, he bites.”
“This is not Westeros, dragon prince.” She says turning to face him with a righteous smile “I don’t need to ask your permission to speak. The Salt King is my husband, that is why you will hear my maids and everyone else address me as Your Highness. So, you may lower that chin and stop waiting for me to bow down to you because technically my rank is higher than yours. You might say the only one meant to bow in this room were you.”
The silence that follows is so stark that the air the Prince quickly exhales through his nose sounds like thunder, alerting the Salt King. "Come now, wife. Don't wake the beast.” he says lightly, stiffening a smile “And I mean it quite literally. You should see the size of Prince Aemond’s dragon.”
“I heard.” she acknowledges “Jorio said he’s higher than the city walls.”
“She. And twice, than your city walls.” The Prince corrects her again, just as sternly. “She’s the largest dragon alive in the known world.” His chin remains high and haughty, simply because he can. Because she knows he could raze the entire city to the ground just by snapping his fingers. So, she looks down and says “Since you will be our guest, it is my duty as matron of this house to make you feel welcomed. If you would be so kind to follow me, your Grace.” She forces her tone to be as much as corteous, but then she smiles “Is my tongue acceptably sharp to your liking now?”
“Where are you taking me?” he asks as he follows the Salt Queen along one of the corridors, made of the finest marble with high arches of white stone and gold glittering under the midday sun.
“Down and down, to throw you in the dungeons.”
Aemond stalls for a moment and she does the same. “I was joking.”
He gives her that stern, distrustful look she starts to think he has etched on his features since his first wail and huffs. “God, have you lost your humor in the Red Waste?”
She resumes her walking, and Aemond follows, glancing around as they pass through many people, some of them are dressed like maids and servants, some others with long tunics of silk and jewels embroidered in the fabric. They speak to one another, he notices, as equals. But they stop altogether upon seeing a living Valyrian walk among them.
“God?” he asks “Which one?”
“Whichever you want. R'hollor, the Many Faced…I’m not picky. It helps me sleep better at night to know I didn’t dump all my sins on one God only.”
He is sure from his education and his mother’s faith that religion doesn’t work that way, but he has more pressing matters at heart. “Will you meet my requests?”
“About your dragon?” she asks stopping before a large wooden door closed. “Can’t she hunt on her own?”
“In the Red Waste? In these barren lands? Perhaps you should put your pretty head outside the city walls and see with your own eyes how big she is.”
The woman smirks, seizing him up and down and furrows her brows. “You seem very keen on emphasizing how big your dragon is. I should hope it’s not a compensating factor for the lack of something else.”
She pushes the door open, not bothering to wait for Aemond who just stands there for a moment, a little dumbfounded by the salt of which the Queen's tongue seems to be made. His bewilderment is only destined to worsen as he crosses the threshold and looks around.
Right in the middle of the palace, amidst all that marble and white stone, stands a wild courtyard, wild and beautiful in its unspoiled nature. Climbing plants and fruit trees grow undisturbed around a large square pool, decorated with mosaics of a thousand colors, harboring the most crystal-clear water he has ever seen; small clouds of steam rise from the surface, pinching his nostrils with the unmistakable smell of sulfur.
There are people bathing together and, obviously, much to his dismay, naked.
“Do you not take baths in Westeros?” the Salt Queen asks, faking true curiosity at the puzzlement she can read on his face, slowly turning into repugnance as he looks at her with a cutting answer.
“We have decency, in Westeros.”
She does not bother to disguise the long sigh blowing through her lips and then she turns to clap her hands vigorously, three times.
“My friends, apologies for the interruption!” she announces as everyone in the pool and outside turns to look at her “I must ask you to leave the pool for the time being. Our…prude guest demands a little bit of privacy.”
She can feel the Prince glaring but ignores him altogether to stop one of the servants.
“Priya, fetch some oils. And some silks, fitting for a prince.” She turns her head to look at him from head to toe, as if valuing a new drape of silk or a new sculpture to put in the Hall of Trade, but then she creases her forehead, as she often does when knowing. “Blue perhaps? To match the sapphire.”
The constant scowl seems to leave his features and she hears his question before he utters a single word.
“My father is a warlock. Magic runs thick in his blood, he says, as well as in the blood of his blood. Sometimes I sense things, bits of knowledge, and sometimes they happen to be right. But you don’t need to be afra—”
“I’m not afraid of sorcery.” He cuts her, his tone flat, his features stoic as ever and she looks at him, curiously, perhaps wondering what lies behind all that stone.
“Very well. Sapphire blue for Prince Aemond.” his name slips into his ears in a strange, liquorous way; vowels are more open in this part of the world.
When they’re left alone, she signals towards the pool. “Please, make yourself comfortable.”
He hesitates for a moment, but it is not as if he has never undressed in front of one of his old servants. And frankly, he is too eager to get those filthy clothes off to be bothered by a foreign woman watching.
He throws everything on the ground without too much care, and she watches without too much shame, because that's not how things go there. Bodies, both male and female, they are not something to hide, but something to be displayed and worshipped.
Her eyes linger on scars, old and new, on a lithe body that once belonged to a prince and a soldier, now marked by misery, dirt and hunger.
“Everything.” she says at one point, when he’s left with only his battered cotton pants on.
Aemond thinks he heard wrong. But she only blinks, keeping her face blank.
“Is this the common way to welcome guests here?” he scorns.
“Actually, it is. At least after the incident with the scorpion.” she doesn’t bother to wait for a question or an eyebrow rising. “My husband’s great grandfather hosted a merchant from Yunkai once. He came here with gifts of all sorts among which was a poisonous scorpion, hidden in his clothes. The old Salt King died but so did the merchant. Fell face down in his chamber pot while taking a piss. Quite ironic, don’t you think? You have to be careful when handling such vicious creatures.”
He only looks at her, and she's the one to raise an eyebrow. “I could turn away if you like.”
Aemond sighs loudly, moving his cutting jaw at the umpteenth humiliation and then lowers his pants. She stares into his eye and surely, surely he thinks, she wouldn’t dare to wander down.
But a moment later her eyes sink past his snatched waist, and she smirks.
“I believe I owe you an apology.”
“What for?”
“Questioning your…natural gifts.”
Aemond blinks, running on the verge between scowling, raising his eyebrows and huffing a laugh. Certainly, it never happened to him to talk so bluntly about his cock with any highborn lady barely met, let alone a supposed queen.
“I’ll leave you to your bath, dragon prince. The Salt King and I have much to discuss.”
“Such as?” he deadpans, not really interested while he dives into the clean water.
“Well, a Targaryen Prince is not an everyday occurrence.” She says following his every move, the way water glides on his skin, silver hair floating on the surface like moonblooms. “We’ll make sure to have a feast worthy of your noble taste this evening.”
“And then talk behind my back about what to do with me?”
“Undoubtedly. And I will tell him the truth.”
“Hmm.” He hums, settling on one of the underwater steps of the pool, resting his shoulders against the rim. His mood instantly improves, so he pins her with his eye and looks her up and down. “Do you believe to know my reasons? You’re quite sure of yourself…your Highness. Unless your father’s sorcery allows you to read minds, I dare say even rather pretentious.”
“I don’t need sorcery to know that you, in the first place, do not know what you’re doing here.”
“And what makes you so sure?”
She sees that chin tilting, lifting with a hint of challenge. And she takes it. She has the truth, and indeed, she doesn’t need sorcery.
“Because Qarth is still standing.”
She gets no answer, just that diffident stern look to which she darts the faintest of smirks and then leaves the pool, under his watchful eye that stays on the door for a moment longer, before he lets his head sink underwater.
The Salt Queen gives instructions for the most sumptuous room to be given to Prince Aemond. She sees to it that he is provided with several silk suits and that food is served to him immediately when he has finished bathing. She has observed his body with pleased eyes, so scrupulously she knows the Prince has not had a decent meal in weeks.
“Did he settle?” Xavos asks when she enters his private room.
“In time, I’m sure he will. Valyrians have an impressive disposition to make their own what does not belong to them, do they not?”
She hears him murmur something in return from where he stands, on the balcony threshold that overlooks the city and its massive port. The Queen sits on a soft armchair and starts to twirl her hair around one finger, curling her mouth into a thoughtful pout. “I was thinking goose for dinner. Or salt beef? We should save goats and pigs for the beast. Apparently, poor thing is starving.”
In the silence that follows, she turns to her husband. “Xavos?”
The Salt King turns with one shoulder and a half-bitter smile. “We have a living threat who could burn us all to the crisp walking within our palace and our city, and you speak to me of geese and pigs?”
“It’s useless to cry over spilled milk. You let him in. You let greed lure you all like a piper with a flute. I’m wondering, on which tune did he make you dance?”
He walks to her with slow feet and looks at her after a long sigh. “Dragon eggs.”
“I should’ve known.”
“Cyril began talking of an opportunity of a lifetime. Of the Greatest City that ever was and will be becoming even greater. Think about it. With dragons…Qarth might become the center of the whole world. A newborn Valyria. If we play our hand right—”
“Quit the fancy words. What exactly are you asking of me, Xavos?”
She knows he is asking for something. She has known him for more than ten years, and he has asked, has demanded, a lot of her. She knows that when his voice drops a note, he wants something, as if whispered, it becomes less degrading.
He trails his index finger on her chin and lifts it. “To make him dance to your tune.”
“You overestimate me, husband. I cannot reason with a tiger when my head is in its mouth. Besides, he might be easy on the eye, but he’s as agreeable as a plant of spikes.”
She speaks smoothly—not a flinch or a blink at her husband's hand sinking between her lilac’s folds, and then between her inner ones. “Since when you are so reluctant about who’s allowed in your bed?”
“Don’t confuse me with yourself.” she says lifting her chin to look at him, unbothered by the circling his finger draws on her dry bundle. “I fuck who I want for pleasure, rarely out of boredom, but never to prove a point.”
Abruptly, he slips his finger deep inside, hurting her. “I should have taken your tongue as well.”
“And still…” she forces a smile over the painful grimace twisting her mouth “it would not have given you what you so desperately seek in every hole.”
His unwanted touch leaves her and he straightens, pacing lazily behind her seat. “He’s young. He’s had a rough time. Surely, he must’ve missed the intimate company of a woman.”
“For that kind of company, there are pleasure houses.”
“Don’t play dumb, now. You saw how proud he is. How do you think he will take it if we send a whore to his rooms?” Xavos grips the back of the chair and leans down slowly, speaking to her ear. “Listen to me. Cyril is right. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We must make him feel…important…coddled, even.”
“Even if you shackle his feet with gold, you cannot turn a dragon into a lamb, Xavos.”
The Salt King sighs impatiently, and his tone drops just as earlier. “Do as I say.”
Young Nyla interrupts her masters as she enters the room, and the Queen turns her head. “Nyla, what is it?”
“We have escorted Prince Aemond to his rooms, your Highness.”
“Good.” Xavos says, and then looks at his wife with a pointed stare. “Make sure he has everything he needs.”
The Salt Queen barges in and halts on the door, bewildered upon seeing her trusted friend Mysha on the verge of tears, staring at the ground as if she’s waiting for an execution.
“My deepest apologies, my Prince, I meant no disrespect.”
“What happened?”
“Uh—Prince Aemond asked for some herbs, your Highness. An ointment, for his eye.”
“Aye. I did ask for that, not for you to fucking touch me.”
The Prince is snarling, his eye wide and menacing like a hound on the brink of defense yet hunting for flesh. His face is clean now, the Queen notices, shaven; his hair is damp and pulled back, leaving his chiseled features, that infuriating chin, and high, prominent cheekbones in plain sight. Stupid as it may sound, she can't help but think of one of those marble sculptures she likes to buy from art dealers.
“You may go, Mysha. I will assist the Prince.”
“I don’t need assistance.” He hisses with threatening calm. “Leave.”
He caved in the pool, but he will not suffer another humiliation in front of these foreigners. At least not with something so delicate and private as his eye. But of course, he realizes with annoyance, this woman will not falter at any of his empty orders.
“Are you dismissing me in my own Palace?”
He looks down, sighing and fuming, and she beckons Misha to leave the room.
“You must understand, servants here are treated differently. They’re granted more liberties.”
“I see. As the ones you so generously grant to slaves.” he mutters, and starts to fidget with a tray offering ginger roots, turmeric powder, and eucalyptus leaves.
“Oh, spare me. Of all people, you Valyrians are the least entitled to give a lecture on morals.” she counters, watching his long, tapered fingers hover without touching anything. Clearly, he was used to servants doing it for him.
“May I?” she offers, but doesn’t wait for his permission to make room next to him. “There are no slaves in this palace.” she tells him "How can you expect loyalty from someone you bought with something as cheap as gold?”
“Cheap as the golden ring your husband has stuck in his nose? He looks like a fucking boar.” he says as his eye trails on her profile.
“My husband is an imbecile. This city did not become the greatest that ever was and will be with gold. Trade is our currency. We call it antallagí. Exchange.”
“A true-born merchant’s wife.”
“Or a boar’s one?”
He huffs, and she turns, feigning shock at the faintest of smirks curling his lips. “So you’re not made of stone after all.”
She studies him for a few moments—more than is deemed proper for a married woman, in Westeros at least—but she can't help it. She wonders how it is possible that exile and moons of misery have not bent this man; what drives that rigid posture, whether it is too strict an education or it is all a lie, masking an effort to keep control, to impose it on others but perhaps more on himself.
“Ointment is ready, your Grace. It may burn a little, ginger is a godsend, but it’s tricky. I could help—”
“I need no help. Leave.”
The stone is in place once more. But she won’t have it.
She raises her eyebrows, biding all the time in the world.
Aemond chews thorns as he looks at her, swallows them, and tastes them again, piercing his tongue. “Please.”
“That must’ve cost you a lot. But it isn’t so hard, is it?”
His lips flatten in a thin line, and she smiles. “You are a second son, are you not? That’s the reason for that stubborn chin. You must stomp your feet to make anything yours.”
“Careful, woman. I’ve taken tongues for far less.”
“Why? Did you not see eye to eye with them?”
He moves like lightning, invading her space until he is a breath away from her face, and his mouth breathes fire. “Listen to me. I care not who the fuck you are or which title you make your slaves call you. I am not here to allow you to make a fool of me, Queen or no Queen. Mock me once more, and I’ll carve the word please on your vicious mouth.”
He waits for the fire to catch on, even though flames do not seem to touch her; she's unwavering and solid as marble.
“Get out.”
“I don’t—” she chokes on her words, on his hand seizing her jaw; cold fingers, leaving embers on her skin.
“I said, get out.”
That evening, the already lavish palace of the Salt King was polished and decked out duly to honor the foreign guest. The walls, lit by braziers of fire, stood like a beacon amidst a sea of marble and white stone roofs. The Hall of Trade was a treasury, crammed so full of gold that it looked like a pirate's dream. Pillows were piled on the floor, long tables held food of all kinds. A huge bowl of wine welcomed the guests, who were given a goblet they had to dip into the large bowl and drink, otherwise they would not be allowed inside. It was tradition, a sort of good omen.
It pinched Aemond's nostrils when he brought the cup to his mouth and, thankfully, drank it in small sips. Despite his prudence, by the second he felt his tongue on fire from how spiced it was. By comparison, Arbor Gold was wastewater.
He wears the sapphire blue silk tunic, with a silk belt cinching his narrow waist, but his hair is different. Mysha learned the lesson she asked, and when he gave his consent, she got to work and braided his silver hair. Most of them are loose, falling down his back in a curtain of white. Others are laced in one, two, three braids, softly meeting at the back of his head.
If he thought the Salt Queen’s hospitality was somewhat a little too forward and a lot more intrusive, he had to reconsider when he found himself cornered as soon as his silver head caught the eye of every guest. Men and women, old and young, flocked to him with eyes full of wonder, as if the Salt King had captured some wild and rare creature and called all his friends to make them look.
But they didn’t just look. They talked openly and freely, voicing thoughts that, in Westeros, would have stayed inside one’s head.
“Look at his hair! They seem like moon rays!”
“And the skin! Whiter than milk!”
“What happened to his eye?”
“If only my wife were here…she always wanted to see a Valyrian!”
He had just gotten there, and his teeth were baring.
“My friends, please! Let our noble guest breathe!” the Salt King chuckles as he comes forward among the bewildered audience, looking like the loot of some theft, for all the gold and diamonds and emeralds sewn on his orange silk tunic. “Come, my Prince. The first taste is yours.”
Aemond catches a movement on his right and there she is, the Salt Queen, in a crimson red sparkling like a bloodied dew given the little, tiny red stones woven in her silks. Her hair coils into an intricate bun crisscrossed by a paper-thin gold chain that crowns her forehead with small, rough rubies, like grains of salt.
For a moment, he’s so enthralled by her figure, and her eyes, even more piercing because of kohl, that he fails to notice the clay plate she’s holding, filled with fruits. Some he has never seen, except in books, but he has no time to take a guess.
“Your first taste, my Prince.” she chimes. “Sweet or tart?”
His gaze falls back to the plate, but not before stopping, again, for a blink, on that absurd fashion of one bare breast. “Tart.” He says tightly.
She smiles, as if she knew, and puts the plate down. Aemond watches her bejeweled fingers pluck off a grape and turn, her hand in midair but not quite outstretched toward him. He nothing but give her a pointed look, one that translates only into a stern and irrevocable I can eat by myself.
“My Prince. My wife means no offense.” the Salt King explains “In Qarth, it is deemed a great honor, given and taken, and an excellent omen for the guest's stay, if said guest is fed by the matron of the house.”
His throat bobs and the Salt Queen can’t quite decipher if the dragon prince is more humiliated or angered by the prospect of being fed by a woman like a baby who just teethed. At last, he sighs and leans in, but her hand withdraws a little, leaving him with his mouth slightly open, stretched forth like a beggar waiting for charity. It is not Aemond who bites the grape, but her who finally, after another straight stare into his eye, lets it drop into his mouth.
The crowd erupts in a cheerful clapping, as does The Salt King who goes to stand just between his wife and the Dragon Prince, placing a friendly hand on his shoulder “You see, Prince Aemond, this is one of the extraordinary gifts of Qartheen women. They know exactly how to hold...and when to let go.”
Aemond does not bother to look at him, he is too absorbed, annoyed and deep down, without him knowing it yet, enticed by the tranquil smile that curls her mouth and at the same time curls his pride, mocks it, strips it bare and outright laughs at it, goading everyone else to do so.
Behold, the pink dread!
“Without further ado, let the feast begin!” The Salt King announces joyfully and in the same moment, a delicate and sweet melody fills the room, while Aemond chews what’s left of that grape, tasting his own bile.
An hour later, Aemond is fuming. Fuming because ruling the most important and influential city in Essos, he should’ve known the Thirteen were aware of everything that went on and was currently going on in the West. Perhaps even more than he knew. Did they know something about his mother?
He banished that thought from his mind just as he trained himself to do in all this damned existence.
They knew about the Dance, they knew about Aegon the Usurper, they knew of Rhaenyra the Cruel, the Storming of the Dragon Pit. They knew the kingdom was dreadfully impoverished and in the hands of a young boy.
But they spoke about it as if they were discussing the weather. Qartheens cared nothing about what was going on outside their impenetrable walls; whether it was a new king on a throne far away or a war that had killed thousands and thousands, it was all tittle-tattle to kill time between one cup of wine and the next. He was asked about this battle or the previous one without thinking that he had lived through that war; he made it, he carried it and perhaps he still carried it within him.
He was fuming for this, he was fuming for how women, and even men, gawk at him, for their bizarre custom of hosting a feast without a decent place to sit and eat like normal people do. He was fuming because no matter how much he tried to ignore it, a spool of crimson would always catch his eye.
Grabbing one more cup of wine, he decides to take a breath outside, standing on one of the marbled balconies of the Palace. Air does good to extinguish his fires, but it does not clear up his mind. Perhaps he should blame the wine, perhaps his head is still smoky.
Because you, in the first place, do not know what you're doing here.
As much as he loathed to admit it, the Salt Queen was right. He tricked himself into thinking the main reason for his coming here was Vhagar. She was weak, due to the wing's injuries as well as the old ones, and most of all, she was hungry. But with the promise of goats and pigs, came the clarity and the knowledge that he had no reason, no plan. He only knew he had leverage—a dreadful leverage made of talons and fire on these merchants and their city. But what to do with it?
He hears voices somewhere near, and once more, crimson pollutes his sight. The Salt Queen and her husband are talking behind a tall white pillar. He can’t quite hear what they’re saying, but she catches his stare almost immediately. The talking ceases, and Aemond knows they were talking about him, of course they were.
Xavos comes out of his hiding place with a placid and benevolent expression, walking right past him without a word. But she stays, and she looks, and then she walks to him.
“That will go to your head.” She warns as he empties the cup “I didn’t see you touch any food.”
The spiced wine burns his throat, makes his tongue sour and impatient. “Is your husband aware of your excessive concern about your guests? Or is it a thoughtfulness he has ordered you to reserve only for me?”
“I’m just being considerate since you’re a foreigner and not well acquainted with Qartheen tastes.”
“How exactly am I supposed to eat? Standing?”
She huffs a laugh and shakes her head trimmed with gold and red as she gives him a bemused, though genuine, look. “Good God, how spoiled you are? I thought misery made men humble, but clearly not men of House Targaryen.”
His jaw moves annoyingly, and he leaves the empty cup on the marble, but he doesn’t let go, holding it by the edges in a white-knuckle grip. She notices it as she leans against the marble, with her back to the city, and gives him a long, inquisitive look. “After all the misery you suffered, I thought you would’ve liked the attention…perhaps you do…perhaps…you want more.”
“Do you ever stop talking?” he asks boringly, and just as sourly, staring at the city.
“I must say, I’ve hosted so many people, from so many different parts of the world, and yet…I’ve never found myself before a face so full of contradictions.”
His eye pins her. “Need I remind you how you left my room earlier?”
“With your hand around my neck, because you couldn’t take a joke.”
“I don’t like being mocked. And I don’t like being played like a pawn. So, unless this is another one of your absurd customs, tell your husband to stop parading you around me like a whore. It looks bad when you insist on others calling you queen.”
“We all play parts, dragon prince. Sometimes, they blend. But in the end…it takes little to know the real you.”
Aemond chokes on his breath as her hand slips between them like water, cupping his crotch with a grip of steel, and fire, burning from her fingertips through the fabric. She holds it like a weapon, and his defense is low. She sees his throat bobbing down once, and twice, rejection curls his mouth, but not strongly enough to shove her hand away, to not start to harden against the flames of her fingers, brushing all his length until she cups it once more.
“Whore or queen?” she whispers, brushing his parted lips “Someone in there doesn’t seem to care.”
His grip on the cup loosens, a tremor runs down his spine, and he dawdles in the sensation, one felt before, elicited by other hands, and yet new. It’s been so long. The surge to touch, to clutch, to taste, drains his head of blood. But she eludes him, tilting her head to the right and then to the left to avoid the vise of his lips; her grip loosens, running the back of her fingers against his cock in a feathery brush, touching without touching.
He grinds his teeth to choke a whimper, but then she’s cupping again; she feels him go completely hard for her, and the knowledge washes over her like tongues of fire prickling down her back and between her thighs. The soft, slippery silk allows her to unleash her lunges more fiercely, to easily close her hand around his cock, and that same silk helps her to glide her hand deliciously up and down.
He's breathing hard, almost panting, brushing the tip of his nose against hers; her eyes are open, basking in the sight, the little twitches of his mouth as bends to pleasure, the breathing turning heavier and heavier, his hand that starts to flex. She imagines how those slender fingers would feel between her folds, how easily they would slip inside, and why, why is he not touching her?
“Do it…” she breathes. “Do you want me to say please? I would…there’s no shame in begging, dragon prince….it only makes you free…”
“Your Highness, my apologies.” Nyla calls her Queen suddenly, and she stops her wicked ministrations, abruptly bringing Aemond back to his senses.
“The Salt King sent me after you.” The young maid says, apparently unfazed by what she clearly witnessed. “We’re playing kottabos.”
"Ah, yes, of course.” she tries to regain some control, although she was panting on the sole anticipation, and goes back inside.
Aemond stalls, taking a long sigh in the fresh air to try to stop the blood from boiling. And he follows.
Kottabos, he discovers, is quite a tricky game. The rules are simple: one has to throw the last drops of wine inside their cup to hit a white plate balanced atop a bronze pole. It requires a bit of dexterity, because the player must put the index finger through the handle of the drinking cup and throw the drops while sprawled on pillows, laying on their elbows.
The Salt Queen, it seems, is quite adept at this game. It takes her only two tries to hit the plate and she’s rising from the pillows, bowing her head to thank the cheerful audience. Aemond's eye bends as the crimson veils bend with her every movement; he slips between them and lets them wrap around him, even though he should not, even though he reproaches himself for letting the blood, the wine, the flesh, that has been starved of other flesh for too long, win.
“My closest friends know I’m very fond of sweets and cakes but…on such a special occasion, I choose a special reward.” She announces when the crowd has quieted down, and before she even turns around, he feels her gaze on him as if she had two more eyes on the back of her head. “A sweeter reward…or perhaps tarter.”
She moves towards him, and every step she takes barefoot on the marble is an unmasking. With every step she takes, it seems to him that she is touching him, as she did just before, and more; he feels like her fingers are slipping under the silk, setting fire to his skin.
She stops in front of him and yet, he still sees her moving, feels her moving like a sea creature and her thousand tentacles of crimson silk.
Maybe he should put the wine down.
Wine is not for you, brother mine, your mind’s too heavy. It’ll soak like a sponge and you'll fall into your own vomit.
What she does not put down is her aim, moving her hands diligently as she grabs his face and draws him close to kiss him on the lips, and tilt her head back to look at him, so close she’s breathing his breath. “This…is your first taste.”
“Good! The Queen has chosen her reward. Let us play another round, shall we?”
Again, Aemond does not bother to look at the Salt King, he looks at her and the faint twitch between her lips at her husband's words.
“Come.” She says taking his hand, and he doesn’t know what drives him to follow her, whether his mind is too soaked, or his flesh is crying out to be fed.
What is certain is that now her bare feet tread the marble of his rooms and he is closing the door.
“I hope you don’t mind if we do it here. I don’t take men into my rooms.”
“Why?”
“I’m jealous of my things.”
“Liar.”
“What?”
“So used to play parts and yet, you look down before lying. Disappointing.”
“I’m surprised you were able to look at anything above my cleavage.”
This time, he lowers his gaze, but not to lie. He knows he has looked, many times, and the excuse of not being used to such a custom starts to creak. She walks up to him and looks at him with that knowing smile that makes him want to clamp his hand on her mouth and wipe it off her face, and maybe stick his fingers inside.
“Are you a virgin, my Prince? Did you have a wife in the West? Children?”
He swallows, and her eyes fall on his throat.
“Is that guilt you just swallowed? Or sorrow?”
“Why don’t you listen to your father’s sorcery while keeping your hole shut?”
“I told you, I am no witch. Qarth is the center of the world. Do you think we don’t know what happens in the East, West, North and South?” she angles her head and whispers in his ear “We know everything… Kinslayer, Terror of the Trident.”
She speaks his war titles in that liquorose way, opening the vowels as if she is casting a spell, but he hears the mockery. It is the same that loosened the tongue at the Strong bastards, the same one perpetuated by Alys. But Alys' mockery was different. She spoke in riddles, visions and flames. This woman speaks in truths.
“Do you regret it?” she whispers, and her tentacles thread their way through the silk “All those innocents you have burned…all the ones you have lost.” lazily, she pulls at the laces of the blue tunic and he stiffens, flaring his nostrils. “See? I don’t need sorcery. The more you stiffen, the more cracks reveal.” She straightens her head to look at him with eyes darker than tar, wandering over his face and he feels branded. “I can see them around you…ghosts…why don’t you set them free?”
“What is your fucking game?” he wants to seethe, but she’s so close to him it comes out as nothing but a hiss.
She smiles again and this time the victory is full. "The game is over, your grace. I won, and you're my reward. I will admit I never had such a pretty one...care to show me that sapphire or are you still keen on playing the prude bashful prince?”
Aemond has no qualms about touching her, grabbing her face with nails digging into her cheeks as he pulls her close, turning her chin to spit anger and all his tumbled restraints into her ear “Perhaps I should shove my cock into your mouth to make you shut it, hmm? Is that what you want? What your husband wants? That I fuck you like a whore?”
She stiffens, thrashing in his hold that she may not have expected, and manages to turn her head just enough to look at him, scoffing. “Is this the only way you know to use your hands?”
A taunt, another one. It turns his eye pitch black and he leans closer to her lips, almost baring his teeth, almost as if he wants to bite the words—the mockery, the victory—off her mouth. But once more, she eludes him, tilting back and so, any reason burns and dies into his head.
“D’you want to play games, don’t you? Let’s play, then.”
Still gripping her cheeks, he roughly pushes her into the room, letting her go for only one fleeting instant of freedom, just long enough to grab her shoulders and force her to turn around. A gasp escapes her lips, but the next moment she’s bending on the table, he’s forcing her to. A thrill spills into her blood, making her insides clench with anticipation, and dread.
He traps her, planting his feet between hers to stop her from closing her legs. She tries to pull herself up with her back, but he scowls, pushing her head down to keep it firmly glued to the table. She whines as his long fingers pull at her hair, tearing the gold and red chain off, and she can hear him fumbling with the silks, the other hand hiking her crimson gowns up.
“My Prince, please—”
“Begging already?” snarling, he spits into his palm and gives a few quick tugs to his cock, hard and aching “I wonder who’s coming from. The whore or the Queen. Either way, you’ll get your reward, your Highness.”
“Wait—” she whimpers as she feels the head of his cock teasing against her folds, something coils in her belly, and something else, something cold, grips her heart. “Not like th—”
She chokes on her tongue as he slips inside her, easily but painfully, all the way in. Hissing, his hold on her hair tightens, a coarse exhale coming out of his parted lips as he adjusts to her walls, hot and wet, but tense. She’s tensing all over.
“Why are you fighting me?” he pulls her up by the hair, leaning his face close to hers “You wanted this, did you not? You have been teasing and mocking me since I set foot in here.”
“I—”
“No. I’ve had enough of your talks and taunts. Here’s what’s going to happen, whore queen. You will keep quiet and take it. And if I want to fuck you again later, I will. You are not in charge here—not you, not your husband, not all the fucking Thirteen. So don’t fucking push me, unless you want to die with fire skinning you alive.”
Without too much grace, he forces her back on the table and starts a relentless pace, fisting the crimson fabric and pulling to keep her low back flushed to his crotch. His pants mix with flesh slapping harder and faster as he tries to pour on her, and into her, the grief and rage, the misery and fire he’s made of. She writhes beneath him, arching and crumpling against the wooden with violent gasps; she feels like burning but inside, she’s torn in two.
She clamps her hand on the wood to grab onto something, just like that evening. She feels her, and his, arousal coating her thighs, just as blood did that evening.
The little girl wants to run, but the Salt Queen doesn’t want him to stop.
She’s sinking in her mind, but burning in every corner of her body and soul.
She can only moan, her mouth agape and dry, leaking saliva on the surface as her head bounces at each wild rut, hitting that inner spot over and over.
“Look at you, hmm?” he taunts her with purpose, perhaps vengeance “Fucked so good she lost her wits.”
Look at you, little whore. Bet you like it, eh?
Squeezing her eyes shut, she finds a raw voice hidden somewhere. “Harder—”
“What?” he slurs with a heavy-lidded eye, the braids are almost loose, dangling on his face at each thrust.
“Harder—” she pleads with her eyes still shut.
“Greedy wanton thing—” hips start to snap brutally, in a hurtful way, just as she wants, even if it’s hard to even breathe. Pleasure overwhelms her, drives her up towards the peak. But she finds she cannot climb; her mind is holding her down.
He grunts with each snap and curses in some foreign language she’s not aware of, and she doesn’t care; she’s too focused on letting herself burn. But it’s like sitting in front of a fire and barely feeling the flames.
And then his hips jolt faster, once, twice, and he halts, gripping her hips firmly, coming inside her with a long, satiated groan.
Completely spent, he slumps on top of her, resting his head on her shoulder blades to catch his breath. However, she is quick to slip from the scorching alcove, to slide out the door with her mind drowned but her heart pounding out of her chest.
"Your Highness!" Dora wakes from her slumber, and reaches for her Queen.
"Nothing, Dora." she says in a voice still hoarse, almost scratching. "Draw me a bath, please. And fetch mint and wormwood." Moon tea.
She starts to undo her silks and feels a distant smell of smoke sticking to her skin. Like one who has bathed in fire.
The morning after brings no clarity, because truthfully, Aemond does not need clarity. Everything is drastically simple. He is no coward. However his mind was less clear than usual, he could never blame wine for how he behaved a few hours earlier. And why would he?
Whether she was acting on her husband’s orders or not, she wanted him. And he wanted her. He could concede that he'd acted in a harsher way than usual, that he’d let rage and grief guide his purpose. It was not the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. But it all worked in his favor. A demonstration, a shift in whatever power game the Salt King and the other merchant Kings thought to play out. He only made it clear that he was not some precious pet to be coddled and ridiculed.
She had teased and mocked him at any occurrence. He’d only showed her the price of playing with fire.
His blue silks are fresh and clean when he sits down to have breakfast with Xavos; his long silver hair is tied up in a single low braid that starts from the center of his head and gathers lazily down his shoulder.
He has yet to get used to this strange Qartheen custom of sitting on pillows to eat; at least, however, he regains his appetite when he is served dishes once familiar to him, and less exotic.
"I took the liberty of having you prepare a breakfast akin to your old habits.” Xavos says chewing bread with olives “Ham, cheese, venison. And we have fresh fish every day. Blessed be the trades."
The Prince is sincerely grateful, though he would be a lot more grateful if the Salt King were able to shut his mouth when the sun is not even high in the sky. He goes on and on about the supposed trades, and then about the salt he so proudly sells to every corner of the world. He is just about to go on another monologue about the Thirteen and their hopeful wish to receive the Dragon Prince in their Palaces when he stops, frowning at the young maid clearing the place set next to the king. “What are you doing?”
“Apologies, Your Highness, but the Queen will not attend breakfast. She feels indisposed this morning.”
Immediately, Aemond glances up at her and she’s brave enough to hold it for a bunch of seconds before looking down and making her way to the door.
“Maid?”
She halts upon hearing the Prince and turns around.
“Tell your Queen I was promised something. She said she would see to it personally. And I expect her to keep her word.”
“Yes, your Grace.”
“Wait.” he stops her again, his tone almost bored, and slips a hand into the folds of his blue silks, pulling out a gold and red chain. “Take this. She left it in my room last night.”
He throws the jewel on the table and resumes his knife and fork, not bothering to look at anyone, certainly not at the Salt King who is indeed looking at him, looking as pleased as ever, like the cat that caught the mouse.
The Salt Queen did not in fact forget her word. She promised him she would see to Vhagar’s condition, ordering to save goats and pigs to feed the beast, put them on carts and send someone with the Prince to reach the desert, where the dragon was resting.
However, she should've probably assumed that such an apparently simple task would've turned out to be a lot harder to carry out.
She’s just about to finish her late breakfast with Mysha and Dora, when Nyla breaks into the parlor with quick feet.
“Your Highness—uhm—Prince Aemond is at the door, he asks to be received.”
“What is it now? He doesn’t like how the sun rises here?”
Mysha and Dora giggle, but the Queen stays serious and turns to Nyla. “Tell the Prince he will have to wait. I am sure that even in Westeros, barging in during meals stands for bad manners.”
Nyla leaves, but it’s with even quicker feet that she returns to her Queen in barely a minute.
“My Queen, Prince Aemond is quite adamant on being received immediately. He…also says that…keeping guests at the door is a synonym of bad manners in Westeros, as he is sure, anywhere else in the world.”
Tapping her fingers on the table, it takes her a minute to sigh loudly and stand up, throwing the kerchief on the table.
“My Prince.” She greets him as she stops at the door.
In his usual soldierly stance, he looks past her for a moment before locking her blank gaze. “Still adamant on not letting me in?”
“You were not that drunk last night. I believe you heard me just fine when I told you I don’t take men into my rooms.”
“Hmm. But you did take me, and quite eagerly, if memory serves me right. Are we not past such formalities?”
“Gloating like some common man is not very royal of you, your Grace—"
“Tis’ not gloating. And I might say, not very royal of you either to beg me to fuck you harder, your Highness.”
“You’re right. Fucked me so good I didn’t come.”
The proud mischievous smile that kept stretching his mouth vanishes in a blink, and she has to sigh to stifle her own. “What is it, my Prince?”
“You gave me your word.”
“Indeed. And I kept it. What is your complaint now?”
“Your slaves refuse to escort me in the desert.”
“Well, I can’t blame them. Can’t you feed your dragon on your own? Or are you too humiliated by the prospect of carrying a cart of dead pigs?”
From the way he is staring at her, and having already tickled his pride when the sun is not yet high in the sky, she knows he will not yield on this matter.
“Fine. I’ll go with you.”
“My Queen, it is not safe.”
“Do not worry, Dora. I’ll take the Sorrowful Men.”
Aemond almost laughs to himself as he stands on the left edge of an enclosed inner courtyard of the palace, resembling the training yards of Westeros. There are men intent on training with spears and swords, dressed in strange uniforms made of blue drapes and a strange golden mask on their faces. The carving makes the mask weeping, with a single tear embossed on the gold.
Aemond has no idea how they can see, as there seem to be no holes in those eyes of gold. But his gaze returns at once to the Salt Queen, talking to one of those men, with a large turban on his head. Some kind of commander, he assumes.
He bows to her and then six of these mysterious men march forward and surround the woman.
The Prince glances at each one of them, standing tall and proud as ever with his hands laced behind, seeming unperturbed by these safety measures. In fact, he says “Truly there’s no need to trouble these men, your Highness. What do you expect me to do? Feed you to Vhagar as soon as we are in the desert?”
“These men are not a safety measure for me, but for you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. To prevent you from having certain…Targaryen ideas.”
“Six armed men against the largest living dragon seems like a somewhat unequal battle.”
Narrowing her eyes, she watches as the same placid arrogance bathes his features, but she thinks now it’s the right time to wipe it off, and she knows exactly how to do it. “Sorrows bring sorrows.”
All at once, the Sorrowful men move, drawing their spears with impressive speed and aiming the sharp points at the prince. His whole demeanor changes, becomes menacing, she notices, but he does not flinch. She walks among the weeping men avoiding the spears until she stands in front of the prince and snatches the mask off his face, to wear it herself.
“Listen to me. These men live to serve me. They were slaves once, bought with something far more valuable than gold: freedom. And they chose to stay by my side. If I told them to take the only eye you have left, right now, they would do it. If I told them to cut your cock and bring it to me right now, they would do it. A shame, I will grant you that. So, you’re right, you may be in charge here…but if you push me…you will be dead before you have the chance to say Dracarys.”
Whatever cutting remark the prince has in mind, he does not have time to say it, as he is suddenly distracted by a strange sound, a whistle, like the cry of a bird.
Aemond turns his head and the Queen does the same, recognizing that sound at once. The Sorrowful Men lower their spears and a man steps forward, dressed in a strange purple robe. Aemond stares at him warily, wondering why, in the name of the Seven, this man’s lips are blue, like a corpse.
“Father…” the Salt Queen greets him, taking Aemond by surprise, but sounding a little surprised herself to see the blue-lipped man.
He doesn’t speak, doesn’t answer to his daughter, because he can’t. He starts to move his hands in strange signs, circles and lines. And Aemond is grateful for his strict education, for he knows what that man is doing. Sign language. He is either mute, or tongueless.
Unfortunately, he cannot understand what he’s saying, but his daughter can.
“Kóri. Will you not introduce me to your noble guest?”
The Salt Queen sighs, casting a brief look at the Prince, and then she introduces him. “Father, this is Prince Aemond, of House Targaryen.”
The blue-lipped man looks at him with wide eyes, charmed to the point of looking unsettling. And then he bends into a long bow. Not even when Aemond sat on the Iron Throne, someone had bowed so low before him.
He tilts his chin down to greet him, and sees the warlock’s hands moving. “On behalf of the Warlocks of Qarth” the Salt Queen translates “I welcome you, your Grace. It is a great privilege to see a descendant of Old Valyria in the flesh. Your blood is as ancient as our beloved great city.”
Aemond cannot stop his eyebrow from raising, nor his tongue. “It seems at least one member of your family knows good manners.”
“You must excuse us, father, we have to go.” she hastens to say, but as soon as she takes one step, her father grabs her arm.
“Don’t run from me, kori. You have been knowing, yes? More than usual.” and then his hands rise and fall once more. “Trees wail. Leaves are bleeding. The doom, kori. The doom is near.”
PART 2
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❝ꜱᴏᴜʟꜱ ᴛᴏ ᴄʀᴜꜱʜ❞ — chapter three | coriolanus snow
「ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢ:」 NSFW | minor character death, Coriolanus Snow is his own warning
「ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ:」 young! Coriolanus Snow x fem! Reader
「ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ:」 Coryo finds out the consequences of his actions and finds one of his friends dead
「ᴀ/ɴ:」 third chapter is here!! Do remember to give feedback, thank you!!
beta read:: @nowitsmissing <33
series masterlist | navigation | previous chapter
According to Coryo, Dean Highbottom deserves to be punched. Coriolanus truly wishes he could punch that man's face and break his teeth in the process.
As soon as he entered the classroom, with you in tow. Highbottom doesn't waste a second to praise your insight into welcoming the tributes at the zoo and how you acted in front of the cameras. Creating the very spectacle they had been aiming for. Snow was fuming because he was sure it was because of his songbird, not his soulmate that the views had gotten up.
But, he doesn't think Mr. High As A Kite cares. Coriolanus almost thought he wouldn't even get any attention, neither positive nor negative. He was willing to accept that outcome considering the fact he perhaps broke several rules being inside the cage along with the tributes.
He was wrong.
‘Three demerits and you will be expelled.’
And he officially has his first demerit, on his perfect darn record. He opens his mouth to speak against it-
“Snow falls down on the cage.
It falls down on the cage
But it landed…” Dr. Gauls’ voice echoes around the classroom as she walks down the stairs to Coriolanus level.
“On stage,” he replied, his face nonchalant but his hands fisted on his lap, hidden from view. He had an urge to kick at the table, his mind reeling over what if Dean Highbottom removed him from the games. Would that mean he will be disqualified from the Plinth Prize?
He can't have that. He can't.
Before his mind spirals into a panic attack, dr. Gaul steals his attention with her words.
“You're good at Games,” she said, “Perhaps one day you'll be a game maker like me.” Coriolanus Snow couldn't possibly think of a future in which he's a gamemaker, he never thought of it as a real career. Nothing of his interests nor challenging enough for him. Of course, he doesn't say his thoughts out loud.
He doesn't reply at all, he doesn't have to because Dr. Gaul asks him a question. What are the Hunger Games for? There's no true answer to that. Something so cruel, something so horrible. There's no way to justify that with the truth. Lies perhaps, lies he was taught in the textbooks.
“They’re to punish the districts for their uprising,” he said, only to be replied with “Dull, dull, dull,” by Dr. Gaul.
“Why the games?” She asked again. And Coriolanus had no answer. Because there were plenty of ways to punish the districts. Starvation. Bombing. Public execution.
Why the games?
Coriolanus Snow had no answer and Sejanus Plinth took over instead. As usual, he spewed about the wrongness of the games. The words that will go one ear in and another ear out. Dean Highbottom butts in the discussion as well, talking about how the game had run its course.
Coriolanus can't have that, he can't even fathom the thought of the games gone and in return losing his chance of winning. Coriolanus stands up, gaining the attention of his peers and authoritative figures alike with a daring but simple sentence.
“Dean Highbottom is wrong. My classmates too,” he said, his voice filled with the confidence he didn't feel.
His fingers twitch, feeling the urge to touch the burned soulmate mark on his wrist as a way to calm his soul down. He did no such thing, burying the urge deep in his mind as he began to explain his reasoning.
“People need someone to root for and to root against. . .” He continues, “And if we bend a few Capitol laws, we can even get people to place bets.”
He swallowed, trying to ignore the fact that his palms had begun to sweat as he waited for a reply. After a bit, dr. Volumnia Gaul grinned. Her smile made his bones chill.
“Very well, Coriolanus Snow,” she said, her tone calm yet underneath laid excitement. “I’d like you to write a proposal of these thoughts, Mr. Snow.”
Before Coriolanus could agree to the opportunity, you jump in. You stand up, beside Coryo. Your soft voice rang in his ear and he subconsciously closed his eyes to savor your voice no matter what it said. For a moment he didn't even seem to hear what you were saying, he quickly opened his eyes, looking down on the wooden floor instead. His pale cheeks burning, praying that no one saw that.
He finally hears what you say.
“Let's not limit the Games to the Capitol. Let's unite the whole of Panem with it,” you said, your voice filled with conviction. “I am sure Dr. Gaul if you give me the chance to write a proposal too, you won't be less than impressed.”
“Very well, miss,” she said, cordially, “I will be looking forward to seeing what the star mentors have to say.”
“Do not disappoint,” Dr. Volumnia Gaul grins before taking herself out of the classroom.
✧ ▬▭▬ ▬▭▬ ✦✧✦ ▬▭▬ ▬▭▬ ✧
After a quick lunch (not, he decided to sneak food for Lucy Gray) and a plan to meet up with you in the library at night. He sets out in the Zoo with Sejanus Plinth on his toe. The rich boy carrying a whole bag of food, something Coriolanus could only dream of. While Coriolanus had some sloppy sandwich and cold cookies wrapped in a napkin.
Shamed filled his veins about the fact that in his current abilities, he could bring stolen food for his tribute. He takes solace in the fact Sejanus’ tribute refused the bacon sandwich offered to him. A satisfaction in his mind to see Sejanus being rejected by his tribute while Lucy Gray was cooperative as before.
She takes the food, giving some of it to the district twelve boy. Coriolanus frowned as he saw her share the food he bought her. He leaned into the cage to whisper, “Are you going to share everything I give you?”
Lucy Gray replied, not skipping a beat, “You think I ought to build up my strength so I can strangle him in the arena?”
Coriolanus wishes to snap at her and say yes but he knew he had to show kindness to the songbird for her to do his bidding. He takes a deep breath to calm himself down, as Lucy Gray's eyes divert to his classmate, Arachne, his classmate who was busy amusing herself with her district ten tribute.
“Hunger is a weapon in the districts,” Lucy Gray comments, “Seems like your friend here knows it.”
Coryo barely suppressed a snort as he replied, “She's not a friend. She's poison with perfect teeth.” He smiles along with Lucy Gray. He leans down to Lucy Gray's level, his fingers gripping the bars between them. He whispered, “I may have the chance to help you. Make suggestions. I might even get the chance to send you gifts in the arena. Food and water.”
Lucy Gray replied, her voice hardening with the fact that she knew there was a catch, “What's the catch?”
“You might need to sing.”
“I don't sing when I am told. I sing when I have something to say.”
Coriolanus furrows his eyebrows as he hears her response. She would rather die in the arena than create a spectacle of herself. Stupid in his opinion, to value the integrity of art over their life. He opens his mouth to convince her otherwise but then an incident happens that leaves him shaken to his core.
The district ten girl, the tribute Arachne was playing with snatched the water bottle from his peer, smashes it against the cage… and in a blink of an eye, Arachne had her throat slit.
Horror fills Coriolanus as he rushes to her side. His hands over her wound, putting pressure to stop the flow of never-ending crimson blood. He sees her eyes losing life, he almost didn't hear the gunshots killing the tribute who caused this. He cried out for help, only to be ignored. He was grabbed by the shoulder by a peacekeeper. He was dragged away, as Arachne Crane bled out in front of him.
She was dead.
The people from the district were truly animals is his last thought, as he blinks away the tears and shock and goes to his home.
✧ ▬▭▬ ▬▭▬ ✦✧✦ ▬▭▬ ▬▭▬ ✧
In the comfort of his ruined home, he had taken a shower and had dinner with his family. He listens to the warnings his grandma’am spewed and hears Tigris voice her opinion against it. He doesn't say a word in between, his fingers tracing the scar over and over again, it was the action that managed to keep him sane for the moment.
After the dinner, he begins to change his outfit. He wears a black shirt, something from his father's closet, and too-tight grey pants. He looks at his hands and imagines Arachne on them. He takes a sharp breath and watches the red fade away from his mind. He tugs at his shirt sleeve and the burned tissue comes into view.
He does so hoping that you're waiting for him in the library. Lucy Gray was a disappointment, Sejanus too. Arachne death is a disappointment too. You were the only one he could rely on not to do the same.
He pressed his lips to the scar and for a mere flash of the moment imagines kissing you instead. For a moment, he forgets you're District, for a moment you're just his and he indulges himself in the fantasy of having your soft lips against his.
Tigris breaks him from his daydream by asking, “Are you sure that she will be waiting, Coryo?”
He looks back at Tigris, his lips pulled in a smirk, his thoughts free of mourning. He covers the scar and replies,
“She was never one to disappoint.”
Next Chapter
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caught at a crossroads
prince regent!aemond targaryen x stark!reader
summary: while seeking safe passage down the Kingsroad to Dragonstone, you travels come to a halt.
word count: 1.5k
a/n: i would consider a part 2 if people are interested
warnings: AFAB reader, mentions of violence and death
The journey thus far had been so silent with hardly any issues arising. Twelve men at your aid - six Stark men and six Queen's Guard - were ready to lay down their lives to safely deliver you to Dragonstone. After the eldest of Rhaenyra's sons came to call upon your brother in haste, an alliance was formed through the most sworn occasion. A marriage between the Queen's firstborn and Cregan Stark's only sister would tie your houses together.
Cregan and Rhaenyra had reached such a favorable outcome for the people whom they cared about most. Still, Cregan understood the dangers that came with swearing an oath to the Black council. If the Green's went North, he did not want you to fall into their capture. As such, an agreement was made that the young Lady Stark was welcome to reside on Dragonstone, within the sacred walls of House Targaryen.
Passage of the Kingsroad was a risk for anyone who dared to use. Miles of the path lived anarchic tribes that cared little for the proper laws of the land. With this in mind, the band of men were forged together to keep you safe from those on the road, and from those who would come to hear of the betrothal.
Already, your group had been riding for eight days, traveling south. They decided to avoid traversing the Westerlands, things swaying off the main road would do little to help if word ever got to King's Landing. It was better to take the faster route so that they could escort you quickly to proper safety. Instead, your path would take a slight risk. You would cross over the trident and pass through the villages on the outskirts of Harrenhal.
Harrenhal and its neighboring lands had become greatly abused during the war. The entirety of the Riverlands had been battered and bruised with forests of ash becoming more regular by the day. It was rumored that Prince Aemond Targaryen had laid siege to the region in reaction to the loss of his nephew, Jaehaerys. If you could lay low and stay away from the rotation of troops that came through the area, the remainder of your journey would be guaranteed safety.
At first, the ambush seemed to be nothing. Just a few bandits who were looking to start trouble. Yet when they drew blades of Valyrian steel, your guards had alerted you to seek cover. Metal crashed against metal, the sound echoing through the forest. Luckily, being a northern girl, you had some natural knack for survival. Swiping a jagged rock off the ground, you first hid behind the cart your band had been traveling in.
From the position, you could see how furiously your enemies brandished their swords. The experienced men of the King's Guard had no issue holding their own against the fierce warriors. However, the youngest of the Stark men was the first to meet his fate as a guard slashed his throat open. A broken cry had escaped past your lips, watching the body fall to the earth below. You had recognized him as kin to your dressing maid, a good boy, now dead.
As another Stark man fell, you took this as a warning sign to advance further into the woods. Gripping the stone, you slunk away from the makeshift camp and towards a mixed assortment of oak and evergreen trees. The candle in your lantern would soon be snuffed out by its own wax, but it did aid to light your path. Behind you, more men continued to fight and fall. However, huffs of aggression and assertion echoed towards your ears. The enemies were advancing.
"The scouts said there were thirteen," A voice barked out, "Find the last man. We must know what the Black's are planning."
Quickly, you moved behind the trunk of a large oak tree and immediately blew out your candle. There was just enough bush to keep you covered unless someone was searching intently or you gave any sign. If you stayed silent, maybe they would brush over you.
However, you heard the grunts of one of your guards, his gravely voice panting as you heard him being drug down the road, "Who is your final man? Where were you going?"
A low chuckle resounded from his chest, "Queen Rhaenyra's army is growing, and soon she will march on King's Landing and the Usurper."
As you went to peak upon the seen, you heard the sound of a sword being drawn and plunged through the guard's neck. Now all your guards were dead. You were alone in the Riverlands. Alone in the Riverlands with a two-day journey to Dragonstone ahead of you. If you could make it through the night.
Footsteps filled the area surrounding where you kept hidden. The width of the tree and the bush serve you well to keep you hidden in the dark of the night. With baited breath, you remained on edge, hoping they would soon give up.
"Ser Cole," A guard called out to his superior, "We have reason to believe the thirteenth traveler is a woman. If the raven from this morning is true, then I believe it could be-"
"I'll alert the prince," The other man replied shortly.
Nearly an hour passed with little disruption. Only the chittering of the forest kept you company. That was until a sinister voice echoed through the trees.
"Little wolf... Where are you hiding?"
So they were fully aware of who you were, but they still didn't know where you were hidden.
"C'mon, little wolf, if we don't catch you here, we certainly will before you are ever able to reach Dragonstone."
The voice held some familiarly to you. Though deeper and more confident, the rhythm and tone reminded you of just a few years ago. Your first and only visit to the Capitol.
It had been the King's 65th name day had approached and your father had decided that the three of you would all take the journey to King's Landing. While visiting, you had the honor of meeting the King's children from his second wife. His eldest son, Aegon, and his sister-wife, Haelena, the youngest, Daeron, and lastly, the owner of the current voice...
Prince Aemond Targaryen
"The hunter has become the prey it seems..." He called out to you once more, "It's been quite a few years, little wolf, won't you do me the honor of reuniting?"
Your heartbeat began to increase, hammering against your chest. Part of you feared that he could hear it pumping in your chest, or even the panting of your uneven breaths.
Silence returned to the wood, and you knew it might be your only opportunity to move until morning. As you moved to stand, a twig crunched beneath your boot. A moment later footsteps could be heard running in your direction. It was time to act, time to find a nice place to hide. Your feet carried you quickly and lightly through the forest floor, the feeling similar to chasing your brother through the Godswood as children. A feeling of hope grew in your chest...
Only to be crushed when a sword glinted in the moonlight. You came to a scathing halt as Aemond stepped out from behind one of the trees. His platinum hair and sapphire eye reflected bits of pale light as he observed your movements, "Ah... Lady Stark..."
"Prince Aemond," The lady quickly straightened her posture.
The man sheathed his sword as he approached the lone Stark lady, "Seems you haven't heard the news, it's Prince Regent, now. Though you would know that if you were where you belonged in Winterfell."
"I-" You attempted to stutter out.
"Yes?" Aemond smirked, knowing that he had you practically cornered, "Well, my lady, it seems you should come with me. It is dangerous for a Lady like yourself to be unaccompanied on the King's Road."
Aemond stepped forward which in turn caused you to take a step back. His smirk only remained at this behavior from you, the excitement of it all getting to him. Another step forward and he snatched one of your wrists in his large, callused hand. He tugged you forward to keep you close and minimize your attempts to run.
"I have a promise of safe passage, it's... it's a royal decree," You stuttered out as his glare only continued to intensify, "I have the right to go to my intended destination."
In an instant, his smirk fell quickly, "Your intended destination or your intended betrothed?"
Everything began to piece together as he continued, "That's right, my lady. I received word this morning that a dozen Stark men and traitors were seen along the Kingsroad escorting a young woman. This news arrived shortly after news about my Strong nephew's marriage approached, I simply connected the dots. But it's alright, little wolf, you are now a welcome guest at Harrenhal."
Your head shook at his words, "No, no, I-"
"It wasn't an invitation," Aemond quickly interjected as he pulled you closer, "By royal decree of Prince Regent Aemond Targaryen, you are my guest until I see fit to dismiss you."
#aemond targaryen#house of the dragon#aemond targaryen x reader#hotd x reader#prince aemond targaryen#aemond targaryen imagine#hotd#ewan mitchell#house targaryen#prince regent aemond#mattie writes
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Happy holidays, Shana! Some WWX/JYL ran away if you don't mind? I'm hooked!!
a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
"Even if you didn't know that we thought you were dead," Jin Zixuan says, "you knew that everyone else did. What was your plan for announcing your return from the dead?"
Wei Wuxian frowns and scratches his nose with his flute. "I don't have one, really. I imagine quite a lot of people still want me dead. But not anyone important, right? Sect Leader Yao wanting me dead isn't remarkable. That's like a Tuesday."
For fuck's sake. That kind of forethought is how they ended up in this mess in the first place.
"I'm pretty sure my father wants you dead," he says.
Wei Wuxian makes a face. "I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that I care even less about your father's opinion than I do Sect Leader Yao's."
Yeah, he'd made a point of that when he'd stolen every Wen from him and set up camp in the land between the Jin and the Jiang.
Yanli rolls her eyes. "We were thinking some sort of secret mission to explain A-Xian's absence and special training for A-Ling's." Then, apologetically, "I had been hoping your father would be dead by now."
"I can just kill him," Wei Wuxian offers.
Jiang Cheng pinches the bridge of his nose. "Do not reenter society by killing a sect leader."
"We can also hide out as new disciples," Wei Wuxian says. He really must be worried about his brother if he's dropping it that easily. "Which might not be a bad idea until we can find out what was happening to all our letters."
There's a pause. Finally, it's Lan Wangji who says, "You and Jiang Yanli are rather recognizable to most cultivators."
Jin Zixuan is surprised that they managed to go thirteen years without being recognized, even with staying out of cultivator territory. They certainly won't manage the same now that they're back into it.
"Plus the several dozen junior disciples who already know who we are," Yanli says gently. "A-Xian, we came back so we could stop hiding. So our children could stop hiding."
Wei Wuxian softens. "Okay, okay. But then, realistically, I am going to have to kill a sect leader. Or two. Definitely no more than three."
It really says something that Jiang Cheng is his less irritating brother in law.
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Text
a cyberpunk interactive fiction
demo: prologue 1&2, 20k. play here.
Streets, empty - gnarled roots burying deep below the city. The gleam of teeth, an endless buzzing like flies. Dry, dead rock. There was water here once. Now toxic sludge seeps into the dirt, leeching life from the land. They staked metal, twisted it into the dead earth to block out the sky. They know that is too late, but they try to defy fate all the same.
Esurio is a city divided. You know this all too well. As a smuggler of black-market tech into the city from the outlands, you would like nothing better than to be free of Esurio once and for all. Yet the city seems to pull people in, and after a job gone wrong you find yourself entangled in a net of lies, inexplicably strange murders, and the one question that no-one knows the answer to -
What lies below Esurio?
[features]
pay off your debt through smuggling goods into the city
run from law enforcement
investigate strange murders, while trying not to end up the next victim
regret every life decision you have made
uncover what lies below the city?
meet (and optionally romance) 5 companions - 2 gender selectable
finally free yourself from Esurio?
[companions]
[ros]
Argo [nb] they/them, asexual :
If there's anyone in Esurio that you trust, it would be them. They've been by your side since you were young : first as friends and then (literal) partners in crime. When they were younger, they dreamt of changing the world. At some point they buried that dream. For now they keep to smuggling, hacking, and breaking every speed limit possible.
Appearance - shoulder-length coily dark brown hair, medium brown skin, dark brown eyes. prides themself on wearing the most colourful jacket they can find, and wouldn't know colour or outfit coordination if it hit them in the face.
Sora [f/m] she/her or he/him :
A private investigator with a moralistic streak. They attempt to fill in the gaps left by law-enforcement, dealing in all kinds of information, and know practically anything on anyone, while remaining a perpetually shadowy figure themselves. Motivated by curiousity and an alarming lack of self-preservation instincts, they're determined to uncover the truth about Esurio at all costs.
Appearance - straight, dark brown hair that flops over their brown eyes. olive skin. always wears a leather jacket and heavy boots: dresses practically. carries gadgets + a notepad in their bag: they are prepared for anything, especially a high speed pursuit across rooftops.
Brontë [f/m/nb] she/her, he/him, or he/they :
A failed musician with a trail of poor decisions behind them. They were going to make it big in the underground music scene, until, one day, they weren't. Cast-out and adrift, they're cynical and conflicted, a perfect example of a delicately poised balancing act. It's only a matter of time before they fall.
Appearance - wavy blond hair, dyed purple at the ends, reaching about chin length. pale, freckled skin and green eyes. wears light jackets, oversized tshirts, boots that are falling apart, and as many bracelets as possible.
Asha [f] she/they :
She ran with Argo, Jaya and you for several years, after her illustrious political family abruptly fell from grace and she had to look out for herself any way she could. A skilled mechanic, and never one to back down from a fight, she bounces from person to person, always living life at high speed. After Jaya's disappearance, she split from the group, and you haven't spoken to her since.
Appearance - straight, shoulder-length black hair. dark brown skin and dark brown eyes. wears work overalls most of the time, and is frequently covered in smudges of oil fromch her work as a mechanic. else, she dresses casually and comfortably - loose shirts, ripped jeans and a necklace.
Cas [m] he/him :
An artefact dealer in the outlands. You know his name, and not much else. He seems to float from place to place, avoiding strong attachments. Never talks about his past, his strange dreams, and pretty much anything personal. Knows what to do in a crisis, though, and is frequently the voice of reason.
Appearance - straight, short light brown hair, fair skin, eyepatch over his right eye - his left is brown. wears glasses. Always in a fashionable long dark coat and heavy boots: somehow manages to look constantly poised and well put together despite Esurio's characteristic humidity.
[other]
Acheron [nb] they/them :
They control much of what flows from the outlands into the city. After they rescued Argo and you from capture by law enforcement, you have been working for them in order to pay off your debt to them. They're level headed and ruthless, and you can't work out what makes them tick.
Jaya [f] she/her :
She was part of the underground smuggling group involving you, Argo and Asha, until she disappeared abruptly and everything went to shit. To this day, you've been unable to find out what happened to her. But thats in the past, right? [option to have been in a past relationship with her]
Valentine [nb] she/her and he/him :
Practically anyone in Esurio knows Valentine, or has at least heard of her. She's the person to go to for weird tech, fast cars and a way to vanish quietly. Despite her notoriety, and her fame as a guitarist, she always seems to be able to work just under the radar of the authorities.
[content warnings]
17+ (may be subject to change). violence, slight gore, horror aspects. implied sexual content.
#interactive fiction#cyberpunk#interactive novel#interactive game#twine game#twine wip#twine if#i am so nervous !!
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