someone on ao3 has been uploading ur old fics pretending to be u
hey so um that is me
tlou cat has hung up her hat for now :( this fandom is weird af and with the way the show is going i dont wanna be associated w that atm
i am reuploading some old fics on ao3 under the same name! (mostly to engagementmaxx) buttt im also writing for the pitt atm... mostly ship fics but if i get some good dr ellis screentime in the next two eps i might pivot into x reader again for a sec (i want her)
a/n: trying to write while on vacay is hard because all I wanna do is sit back and be lazy, but i'm still gonna try and push something out so here’s this lil headcanon for knight!ellie and targaryenprincess!reader, enjoy luvr’s! (THIS IS NOT PROOF READ!)
warnings: MDNI, book accurate alicent ifykyk, ellie n’ reader have mommy issues, metions of sex(?).
targaryenprincess!reader who’s the second last child to queen alicent and king i viserys.
knight!ellie who’s a bastard daughter of king borros baratheon and left on the streets of storm’s end.
knight!ellie who’s taken in by fisherman!joel on a stormy night, ever since then she’d stuck around the old man.
the night was cold and dark, as most nights were in storms end. she sat under a few broken down fish crates that she’d used to turn it into a small shelter for herself. she doesn’t remember much about her mother, just that a few nights after her fifth name day she disappeared. she told her she’d return after running a few errands but she never did.
her stomach rumbled, the last thing she’d eaten was around four nights ago, the hunger only grew whenever she saw townspeople walking around with crates, satchels and sacs filled with food. she didn’t cry, not anymore, her tears did nothing but take energy she knew she needed so she cut that out a long time ago. she’d huff and curl into herself wondering when she’d have a proper shelter and meal and by the gods it seemed she wouldn’t have to wonder for much longer.
dawn was approaching, she could tell by the color change in the clouds above, the streets were quiet as people had returned home hours ago to rest in their comfortable beds. the sound of horse hooves running through the street and yelling could be heard, a possible thief though she herself had stolen things from the market she knew better than to judge – but she only really took what she needed.
that’s when she heard footsteps coming down the alley, headed towards her crate. the person stopped in front of her shelter, she tried pulling herself back into the cover of her makeshift home but she could only go so far with how small the shelter was. she worried it may have been kings guard who came to kick her off the street, but to her luck it was the complete opposite. “well hello there.” the man spoke, he lifted the blanket she’d been using as a makeshift roof.
frightened, she didn’t answer, just watched him with a hard glare trying to calculate his next move. “What’s a little girl like yourself doing sleeping out here in the cold rain?” his hair and beard were going grey, she kept her guard up as most men usually approached women with intent, usually being rather dark.
the sound of horses running by could be heard once more “look, the kings guard are searching for someone and i’d hate to see you be taken and wrongfully convicted. come with me, you’ll be safe, i promise.” she hesitated at first but reluctantly decided to follow him.
his home was small and filled with barrels, she kept her suspicions raised. the man explained that he worked down at the docs, he was a fisherman usually gone for a day or two depending on their catches. he gave her a warm meal, let her take a bath, offered her fresh clothes and a place to sleep – she didn’t know why he did it but she was grateful, a few days would pass before she grew comfortable enough to speak to him.
she learned that he had a wife who he lost during the birthing of his only daughter, to which he would later lose her too due to a fight that broke out in the streets a few years back. She’d gotten caught between a few bandits and was wounded, he didn’t have the resources to tend to her wound and she died from the infection. he also mentioned that he had a brother who was sent to the wall after rising up against baratheon's law, he was alone.
maybe she was happy he was alone, she now had someone who understood what it felt like to be alone. she also learned the man’s name that day; joel.
targaryenprincess!reader whose dragon hatched late and grew rather slow.
young knight!ellie who was saved by a gold cloak in kings landing one day and pledged to one day become a knight.
knight!ellie who would practice combat in between work days.
targaryenprincess!reader who hates having her hair done.
“princess, please!” the handmaiden called as you ran through the halls without a care in the world, you giggled as you ran past the kitchen hands and gold cloaks. “and where do you think you’re off too?” your mother – the queen stood towering over you, your mother frightened you a bit but you wouldn’t let her see the fear she caused you.
“aemond said he’d take vhagar out for a fly, i thought i’d join him-” She wouldn’t let you finish, grabbing your wrist and dragging you back to your chambers. “aemond has duties to tend to as do you, the lannisters should be here soon. the handmaids will get you dressed and tame that hair of yours.” practically tossing you back into your room, you fell onto the stone floor – thankfully uninjured – she stood at your door. “i will hear no more foolishness from you or your brother.” She left you with your handmaidens.
You fought against the older maidens whenever they tried to do your hair, inevitably they finally held you down long enough to braid it neatly – it only took about six maidens and possibly a rope as well.
knight!ellie who gained her eyebrow cut from an unground duel she snuck out to one night. fisherman!joel who cleaned her wound and scolded her for the reckless act.
targaryenpriness!reader who loved watching helaena embroider fabrics, even going as far to earn it herself – failing terribly in attempt and requiring minor medical aid afterwards.
knight!ellie who’s first sword was gifted to her by the local blacksmith who claimed it was for the ‘prince’ but lord baratheon barely bore sons.
targaryenprincess!reader who named her dragon maelstorm after he’d destroyed part of the dragon pit
knight!ellie who would work the docks instead of the ships depending on the weather – per joel’s demands.
targaryenprincess!reader who’d observe rhaenyra from a far, too nervous to approach her due to their family feuds.
knight!ellie who visited the red keep a handful of times to deliver fresh fish for feasts.
targaryenprincess!reader who’d set animals free – usually the horses – to mess with the stable hands and get scolded for it later.
“The seventh time this moon! Have you no shame?” Alicent paced your room, you’d let around six horses lose this time – two escaping – causing your usual mayhem but this time was in front of the lannisters. Your mother was not happy.
“I’m not sure where the gods sent you from, but to burden my life with you foolish behaviour? I must’ve upset them in my past life.” You didn’t always get along with your mother – hell you were sure you were viserys’ bastard that she’d been forced to take care of – but it’d gotten to a point where you were sure she hated you.
“It was a mere jest-”
“Jest? A joke? You’ve made this whole family look like a joke!” You resided in your room for the rest of the evening. The handmaids brought you dinner which you didn’t touch, helaena visited you, bringing a blanket she’d made for you over the last few nights.
targaryenprincess!reader who got caught kissing one of the stablehand girls by aemond, he swore to never tell but days later you weren’t able to find the girl anywhere around the castle.
knight!ellie who began solo travelling across westeros when Joel began to grow ill, giving her a bit more freedom to explore her interest in sword training.
knight!ellie who saved a girl from a few criminals one night, and in return – let’s just say ellie was good at more than just using her hands to wield a sword and catch fish.
targaryenprincess!reader who bumped into ellie during the celebration of prince daeron’s first name day.
knight!ellie who didn’t pay much attention to you the first time but started to after running into you years later – you and maelstorm.
short, sweet and posting this at damn near 3am, absurd i know, but anyways. Still working on part 2 of diet pepsi, i need to curate something perfect y'all please! anyways, uhhh if y'all wanna be tagged for this lil series comment! luv ya!
i'm drunk and have been thinking a lot about what's like to be eaten (literally) while having sex. also i haven't posted in a while so have abby.
warnings: THIS DOES CONTAIN MENTIONS OF CANNIBALISM, DEATH. also mentions of fingering (r!receiving), sex.
buffalo replaced - mitski
cannibal!abby who is patient. many wouldn’t know it, they see bleeding impulsivity as something all-consuming, something that remains unable to be swallowed. unable to be anything else, anything softer. oh, but abby could be so patient.
sitting, waiting. assessing. she spent her days counting vertebrae of the women who came into coffee shops, sloppily tracing the shape of collarbones into the wood of tables with her bumpy, bitten nails. cannibal!abby was a creature who had existed in hunger before she had quite known what hunger had truly felt like. what was hunger, separate from a yearning for skin under her fingers? what was the absent feeling beneath the sharpness of her teeth, if not love?
cannibal!abby had met you at a park. a wet, foggy day, wind gnawing at flashes of exposed flesh. your scarf had flown off your shoulders, sinked away into dewy grass — and abby, in all her shallow kindness, had picked it up. she hadn’t even meant to. the feeling of silk softness called to the prints on her fingers, and she had wanted to know what it felt like to touch it. something soft, something giving. cannibal!abby had only ever known the fight of last life, of the women beneath the harshness of her hands who had finally understood that no kindness was left within her. only hunger.
you had thanked her before she even looked at you, before you even got a good look at her. would you have thanked her still, had you seen the empty blue of her eyes? the starved creature chained beneath? could you even see it, she had wondered. you hadn’t seemed to mind if you had. short conversation followed, and you’d already invited her for coffee. something to ‘warm her in the winter weather’.
cannibal!abby who knew how to do everything right. who knew how to act a person like a puppeteer; far enough to let the strings on her own limbs pull taught, feel squeaking pain under her own skin — close enough to feel just the edges of existence, to know that feeling it was living.
cannibal!abby who was charming. soft laughs and genuine, somewhat genuine, interest in what you did. it was something practiced, like learning how to hunt, how to aim the barrel of a gun. something you never forget.
you blushed, and abby had imagined, then, the taste of your blood had she bit into the sculpt of your cheek like an apple. something gnawed at her, in the seams of her untoward existence. what was it? a craving, a yearning. it felt familiar, in its own way. like something she was born with, but had never found.
cannibal!abby who made sure to take it slow. she measured the days she would text you, mark them on her calendar. a plan was something holy, something needed, though, she had never taken this much time with anyone before. abby was patient, but she wasn’t kind with her time. she had been hungry all her life, so her life had thus been so rushed, so all consuming — chasing the facile feelings of hunger, of taste. she hadn’t breathed in a person this long. it was funny. on every date, you had smelled like honey and white wine. it made her hesitate. they say it takes the strength of biting into a carrot to bite off one’s own finger.
cannibal!abby who had invited you back to her apartment on the eighth date. she never takes this long, and she mentally scolds herself as she kicks her shoes off in the doorway. she felt it akin to aging liquor in wooden barrels, her waiting. she liked to think she could feel your blood getting sweeter the longer she held your hand in hers. but she just enjoyed the softness of your palm.
cannibal!abby who is gentle in bed. fear spoils the meat, she’d told herself some time, long ago. she’d gotten it from something, read it in a book or seen it in a show. either way, they were right. she’d hated the scream of people, the pitch of their voices as their life seeped in their last breathes; she hated it. it soured the experience. and the meat was tougher to eat, then. harder on the teeth of an animal.
cannibal!abby who runs her hands along your sides, mapping you like she’d forget you once you were gone. she spoke in dulcet tones, whispering trails up your neck like she could tattoo the pallor of your skin once life had left it.
‘that’s it’
‘good girl, you’re doing so well for me’
her fingers stretch you like they know you, like they’ve known you for longer than abby lets on. her breath is heavy on your chest, the taste of alcohol on her breath souring the flesh of them. cannibal!abby who kisses gently, softly, ghostly measures tracing the boundaries of your body like she was creating something new, sundering what you were and what she had so longed for.
iron and kindness were the same taste on her tongue.
cannibal!abby who feels how you flutter around her, how you want her like she’s never been wanted before, needed. something like a growl blooms in her chest, something mean but not inhumane.
‘fuck, baby’
‘yeah, you want it? tell me. tell me what you want.’
cannibal!abby who hears you plead and knows its for a taste. in the height of all, she wants to believe you want to know the feeling of her teeth tearing meat from bone. she wants to imagine how easy it would be, how much you would give her. cannibal!abby who admits that she doesn’t want to fight anymore. she doesn’t want to plan, to deceive, to trick. she wants to exist, and know that the world wants her to exist too.
cannibal!abby who brings a knife down like jagged teeth. cannibal!abby who forgets planning, forgets precision and patience. cannibal!abby who wants you dead because dead is easier to deal with. she feels your nails scratch at the bedsheets, something taught and horrible and scared, but you don’t scream. maybe … maybe you believe it’s an act of love. abby does. oh god, she loves you. and she wants you to know it. abby wants to believe you know it. abby wants to believe that you want her to be fed.
cannibal!abby who watches life leave like she has a million times before. cannibal!abby who takes a breath, something that sits heavy in the false life of her lungs, and feels nothing.
she feels nothing.
cannibal!abby, once so adept with her knife, with the separation of a blade in hand, slicing skin like she’d never touched it, who’s teeth come down like starving pearls. once, she’d cook the meat in a pan, in the starch of her kitchen, clean and organised. she’d use spices, and add sides of vegetables. she’d made it a meal. like a human would.
fuck that, she’d thought. no more distance, no more separation. she’d descended upon your dying flesh like an animal ashamed, teeth pulling at the fabric of your skin like it was any easier for her to tear you apart than it was for her to put you together. like you weren’t what you had once meant to her.
she’d felt your blood drip on her lips, felt the heaviness of your muscle sit in her stomach. she watched your face like it would move again. like the twitch of your lips post-mortem meant that you loved her still, despite it all.
cannibal!abby who felt your love in every swallow, and never felt hungry again.
you can find chapter two here and the series masterlist here
songs: yeh kya jagah hai doston — asha bhosle and barber: adagio for strings, op. 11 — samuel barber
summary: the crown now lays in your palms, but is glory so easily won?
warnings: 18+ mdni. angst and smut, oral (r!receiving), heavy political themes, political misdoings, class differences and struggles, major character death, child death, extensive descriptions of murder and violence, descriptions of blood, physical descriptions and overarching descriptions of famine, reader is cruel, literally a tragedy, profanities. dark themes. please read at your own discretion. semi-proofread.
wc: 5.9k
a/n: here’s the finale. good luck…
There was a ferocity in Abigail’s longing, a want for a flower poisonous and withered.
Peculiar, she thought, how she found comfort in the sweltering chafe of chainmail, but not this; silver-laced brocade meticulously moulded to her body, embellished at the chest and cuffs with the sheen of saltwater pearls.
Perhaps armour was like a second skin to her now, a sort of animal comfort. Standing in these fine clothes, she missed the way it demanded attention; the clank of it, a person’s head snapped to the direction of its presence well before their eyes ever snagged on her form.
Now, her reputation relied on sight alone. Servants and nobles alike would bend at the waist when they saw her, or rather to the dignified mirage that stood in her stead.
With a string of flowery words, you had swaddled her name in grandiosity, spoken thus until the word traitor was peeled away, the tale spun until it was palatable enough to be fed to lily-livered aristocrats. Acts of bloodshed and treason, now spoken with the veneration of legends.
The half-truth of it engulfed her, secure and yet suffocating all the same. The sword fastened to her hip was flimsy and pin-light and the coiled braid snaked around her head pulsed throbbing pain up her temples. She had evolved into something higher, no longer a knight, but in the process she had become other. Like growing-pains, she felt the aching uselessness of her new title in the present, though her name would now be preserved in the ever-shifting tides of history.
But what consequence was the future to her, or the past? Immortalisation was for gods and men who pretended at divinity. To her, these waning minutes and days, weeks and months; they mattered little. Time bled, and she remained only influenced by you.
Her eyes flitted to her left, where you sat pillar-straight on your jewel-set throne, decorated hands folded in your lap as you listened to a man sputter and plead.
The gossamer veil that covered your head, a midnight blue, was studded with pearls as well, and it cascaded down your back like a waterfall caught in starlight. The gold of a crown glinted above your brow, a thing of delicate, curling flowers that descended sharply in the middle. It was crafted centuries ago and yet had collected dust in the treasury until your reign; queendom, after all, was a last resort.
Abigail felt her heart give a familiar thump, a fist of devotion enclosing around the organ and tugging. She had felt it the first time she saw you on that sun-blazed balcony, the earthy smell of fresh henna piercing her senses, and she had not been able to shake it since. Every time she laid eyes on you, she knew it; this beloved face, these certain hands… they were worth everything she had sacrificed.
She hooked her tongue beneath a canine and forced herself to linger on the emotion. Perhaps she could keep pretending she was something more glorious than she was, something righteous and true and not completely swayed by the faintest winds of love. To see a smile upon that face, to kiss the unmarred ridges of those hands; those were the only acts of fidelity that she clung to now.
Because, if not for you… what else was left for her? What else, but a hollow title and the hole of something that no longer prevailed?
⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚
Rainfall swallowed up the embers of night. It drowned the usual flicker of candlelight beyond and suffocated the world beneath its crash and spill. As if dipped in resin, time stood at a stand-still.
The royal council had finished only a few hours prior, but Abigail still felt the desperation of it lining her lungs, tangible as a salt-laced breeze. She remembered the sullen faces and furrowed brows of men she had previously considered callous, pleading for a cessation of rising taxes. She tried not to think about the farmer that one of them had brought with him, with his worked-raw fingers clutching to his threadbare clothing. She tried not to think about the placating stretch of your lips as he begged in a voice reeded with age.
Your words still rang in her skull, the ones you had spoken so resolutely before the meeting commenced. They sought to ruin my reign, so I will take all they hold dear.
Was it moral to let those caught in the crossfire of aristocratic squabbles suffer? Abigail had never known the answer to this, and she would not pretend to know now. Though she was now part of your court, she understood little of its ethics.
What understanding she possessed laid at the feet of her own loyalty. Every action stemmed from your beginning and your end.
So too was this worship an act of her unyielding faith. On her knees before your shining throne, the plushness of a silk-knotted rug shielding the press of marble beneath.
No spurious gestures existed here. Alone, with the lamps flickering tenderly while sheets of water curtained the windows, you had cast aside the role of benevolent queen the way an autumnal snake sheds its spring-scaled skin.
You were slumped against the velvet backrest, the silken fabric of your attire bunched around your waist. One hand gripped a gold armrest, the carvings of glinting vines digging into your skin. The other held Abigail’s now loose blonde tresses away from her face.
She wore a dreamy, drunken expression, her eyes submerged in the depths of brilliant blue lust. You tried to keep your watery gaze on her, even as pleasure traced its blissful, trembling fingers up your spine. You wanted to sear this vision into your memory, though you had seen it a hundred times over.
Her lips moved prayer-soft against your cunt. The strong line of her nose grazed against your wetness now and then, and each time your gut lept.
Your jaw went slack, head lolling back as the fog of lovemaking engulfed you completely. Slurring, pitched praises fell from your mouth in a fractured stream as your hips pushed up off the feather-filled cushion. The desire for proximity was all-consuming, and in this moment you would have sacrificed anything for her to melt, to slide up your veins and become one with you.
Her fingernails pressed crescent moons into the flesh of your quivering thighs as a groan slipped past her own lips, lost and saccharine. The sound, the feeling, of it sprawled over you like honey.
Starlight burst behind your eyelids and in your abdomen as you reached your high. Your thighs tensed around her head as you gasped into the cavernous silence of the throne room, the sound rippling about in the absence of crowds and chatter.
Your grip on her loosened as the flutterings of blazing orgasm began to subside into a buttery warmth. Your eyesight was hazy, but you stared down at her anyway.
Abigail had wiped her slick mouth and chin clean on the hem of her tunic, eyes dilated and dark as she stared at you in turn. She bent her head down afterwards, reverently, to your thighs and the four half-moons rising red and angry on them.
You hadn’t noticed the sting until she pressed her lips to each one, feather-light as if to apologise with touch alone.
“I love you,” she whispered into the pucker of skin. “I love you.”
Over and over, the words entwined into the night air as certainly as a prayer.
⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚
Dawn was just an hour out of reach. The sky was still heavy with water, grey outstretched as far as the eye could see. Abigail stared into the colourless void as she waited, her back ghosting the damp stone wall.
Another sleepless night then. The correspondent, low-voiced, had said this was a matter of urgency.
He had spoken of an intruder, a ghost that had slipped past the outer gate of the Palace and had not been caught until they had half-scaled the inner wall. Such an occurrence had only happened once within the century. That blackened night when your father was assassinated, in Abigail’s flower-fresh youth. The plunder of a peaceful age, some poets now spew. A dynasty, ruined.
Abigail expected a being more weapon than human. Shadow-clad, skin silver with remnants of violence, eyes observant and a void of unfeeling. Somebody who was reared for dishonourable work, who perhaps enjoyed weaving the thread of misery.
She was rarely wrong in the way of bloody business, but how could she have expected this? Her jaw clenched to conceal her surprise, her fingers tightening around the hilt of the sword at her hip.
The proposed ‘urgent matter’ was a child, no more than ten, flanked by two looming guards. He was swaddled in a tattered cloak that did more to soak up the rain than to shield its icy assault. Even beneath such copious rags, she could notice it; the bird-bone frailty that reared its ugly head only in the midst of famine.
A guard threw something and it clattered hollowly against her feet. A bow, whittled by unpracticed hands but well-loved. Smaller than an adult’s.
How could a child scale a wall the height of a cavalry? How could he have slipped by the guards that Abigail had hand-picked and hand-trained?
These questions wilted in the back of her mind when she gazed upon his face.
He wore a beastly scowl, his nose scrunched and his teeth bared like a babe imitating its predacious mother. What struck her the most, though, were his eyes; black and shivering like oil-soaked coals, waiting to house a flame that they could stoke. She knew this look well, though she had not worn it herself in three long years. The expression of the foulest hatred. A contempt so burdensome that its presence is felt in every breath, every joint, every step. She knew how desperate it could make a person.
Especially a child on the river-bed of death.
Abigail felt an inkling of empathy seep into the corners of her heart, but she refused to acknowledge its presence. No matter the circumstances, he still breached the security of the Palace. Finding out why was her focal priority. It had to be.
She adjusted her stance and straightened her back so that her broad figure swallowed up more space. One hand was folded behind her back but the other remained enclosed around her sword. A warning.
“Listen to me,” she spoke evenly. “If you want to keep your life for another night, you will answer my questions. Is that understood?”
There was no response, only the subtle narrowing of his eyes. That would have to be answer enough.
“How did you get so far up the wall?”
“Your wall may be big but it is not impenetrable.” She inclined her head at him to elaborate more, but he spoke no more on the subject.
She could only assume that it was because of his stature that he committed such a feat. The stone may be jagged, but there were no alcoves to catch one’s breath. She had to commend him for his strength in that regard.
“Hm… and why did you try? Surely you must have a reason for such desperation. What was it?”
The boy’s chin jutted upwards at this, eyes shining in the torchlight with a reawakened savagery. He spoke honestly, frighteningly so.
“To collect your queen’s head and parade it around the main square. Why else?” he spat venomously. “Maybe then she’d finally see the empty markets or the diseased slums we’re forced to survive in.”
“Watch your tongue, boy,” she drawled, though there was no immediate threat laced in her voice. “What you speak of is treason. Men have been struck down on these grounds for much milder things.”
“And why should I care?! She deserves to suffer!” he bellowed viciously with the resolute naivety that only a child could possess.
“That is only for the gods to decide, not you! Surely you knew that this was a foolish endeavour,” Abigail said sharply, chest heaving with an unknown emotion rising like bile.
“It was akin to suicide, what you have done. You know it.”
Something shifted on the boy’s face, a veil of fog lifted from an early morning. He looked older, suddenly, archaic in the sudden crease of his lips and the steadiness of his once-ferocious gaze.
“Better to die standing with a bow in hand than curled around an empty stomach,” he spoke with conviction. “You must know that, too.
“Abigail,” his voice wavered in the wind. “... the Ruinous.”
She froze at the words, her stale title hitting her ears like the lashing of a whip. She hadn’t been stung by its cruelty in years, and had almost forgotten the blood-shrouded legacy that followed her name.
It struck her, then; no matter how good-hearted you made her seem, the common folk had long enough memories to know otherwise. They knew what she was and what she had done, even if it was in loyal service to the Crown. What was royalty to them, anyway? An oppressive force. A leash around their throats.
A brief inhale, and she was turning away from the boy. She could feel his eyes, hawk-like, trained on her back as she began to walk.
“Take him to the dungeons and do not harm him. He may have information for us yet.”
She heard no protest, only the scuffle of feet and the creak of armour. The child was swallowed up into the quickly disintegrating night once more.
⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚
It was an auspicious night.
A wedding was being held in the shining heart of the Palace, on the eve of the Kanwal Festival. The beginning of a summer flecked with roses and rain, the gods smiled upon this occasion.
Abigail wished she could agree. She did not feel the excitement that buzzed around the marigold-draped hall or the utter joy and affection on the bride and groom’s sweetly bright faces. Instead dread coiled inside of her, a slow rising feeling like smoke.
Dancers twirled around in vibrant silk, their anklet bells chiming elegantly to the rhythm of the sitar and tabla. There was a revered artist who sang words of a love so ancient but as beautiful as aged wine. Her voice was powerful, beating within Abigail’s chest the way rain beats down upon soil.
You were sat next to her, upon a more elaborate seating cushion than the others, entranced by the flutter of song and dance. It was unusual to see you within the sea of a crowd, noble may these people be. You were still a queen, a slayer of kin at that. Who knew what kind of enemies lurked about, a blade’s edge away?
“Your mannerisms are making me nervous, Abigail,” you said over the cacophony of clapping and chatter. You must have noticed her wandering eyes and the painful set of her jaw. “There is nothing to fear here. Enjoy the festivities.”
“How do you know?” Her voice was a hasty whisper against your ear. “These people seem to change as swiftly as a breeze.”
You laughed, barely audible over the sound of music. Your veil slipped off your hair as you tipped it back, the gauzy material landing on her shoulder. “They only change when they are not spoiled. Do I not look after my people?”
A vision of the boy, so young and gaunt, flashed through her mind. She pursed her lips, unseeing gaze drifting back to the dancers as she absentmindedly slipped your veil back onto your head.
She felt your hand enclose gently around her wrist, a small tug that drew her vision back to you. You wore a concerned smile, eyes wide. “Let us go to the balcony. Perhaps some fresh air will calm your unease, hm?”
Abigail let you take her by the arm and stand. As you led her across the hall, people in every direction inclined their heads deeply. Downturned eyes and complying smiles; a wall of mirages.
The air outside was mild and sweet-smelling. The stars above were silvery, surrounding a full moon that shone brightly overhead. Such a beautiful night. It filled her with something unexplainable. Grief-sickness.
“Perhaps you are working yourself to illness,” you suggested, in a voice as hushed as a lullaby. Your eyes glittered, as if the night sky above also lived and burned within them.
“Your protection… while it is endearing, it is no longer a necessity,” you continued and held up a hand as if to stop the impending protest already bubbling from her lips. “I have an entire retinue of guards that you have trained for me, and… well, you of all people should know the brutality I am capable of. You… I want you to rest now. Leave the bloody work to others. To me.”
She wanted to laugh, but she bit the disbelieving sound down. “What will I do with my time when I rest?”
Your features softened, hand cool as it came to cup her cheek. She could feel your gaze roving over each new detail of her face; the sunken purple beneath her eyes and the tired lines that began to sculpt her forehead. Changed, yes, but no new tracery of scars. For you, that was enough.
“Build a future with me instead of trying to carve one out for me,” you said as your thumb traced a path over her soft lips. “Love me, not in the shadows or from behind my throne. Do it beside me, my heart. Openly.”
A thousand questions and logistics raced through her head, though they dissipated like mist sliced by a bright morning sun when your lips met hers. Gentle and slow, but the kiss said all the right things. It let her believe in it, of devotion without sacrifice.
Almost.
The sound cut through the air in such abruptness that Abigail paused, head tilting towards the hall. The sitar came to a twining halt and there was the sound of frantic shouting within. Boots slammed across the marble. The person was speeding closer.
Within seconds, a young knight burst outside, sweat on his brow and words coming out in a tangled stream. You left Abigail’s side immediately, worry flitting up to your face.
“What is it, my boy? What has gotten you in such a panic?”
“People…” he gulped in air, then remembered himself. With wide eyes, he bent at the waist.
“Your Grace, two children have scaled both walls,” he said quickly. “They killed the extra guards we posted at the outer gate, and they… they managed to disarm an archer. Luckily he was able to raise the signal before they killed him too.”
Abigail watched as you straightened, the concern on your face slowly hardening into an unreadable mask. “If they are killing my men, why are they not yet dead?”
The man kept his eyes lowered, a visible tremble running across his body. “I’m sorry, Your Grace. They said they wish to negotiate with you. In any other circumstance, we would have killed them immediately, but… well, we thought it was best to take them prisoner. They claim a great danger befalls the city.”
“Is that right?”
“Y… yes, Your Grace.”
Your body straightened, hands behind your back and gaze glacial. “Bring me to them.”
They truly were just children, bound and huddled together in a fetid dungeon cell.
They both had the same emaciated stature of the boy she had seen yesterday morning and they eyed Abigail in a wide-eyed manner. The older of the two, a girl with braided black hair, shifted her body to partially hide the younger child’s, as if that alone could protect them from whatever awaited.
Abigail slid the lock of the door out and swung the groaning thing open. She could feel the flicker of hope light up on their faces, only to be immediately snuffed out when your presence swallowed the doorway, casting a long shadow along the wall.
“So young you both are,” you mused though there was no kindness to your voice. Your jewellery glittered in the little light that dappled the room, your form as luminous as a moon spirit.
“Where is my brother?!” the older one asked in a panicked rush. Although her face was morphed to hardness, her small hands still trembled beneath her chains. Too big for a child’s wrists.
“Does it matter?” you asked back, a smile playing on your lips. It was cruel and teeth-filled. “Perhaps you should be more concerned about yourself, dear. And who you are speaking to.”
“I know who I speak to…” the young girl countered, despite the warbling uncertainty of her voice. Abigail watched as her black eyes flickered, and she realised instantly that the child’s brother was Abigail’s prisoner, the other boy who attempted to scale the wall. The same contempt, the same coal-like stare.
“Oh? Yet you refuse to bow to me or to acknowledge my title. How do you plan to bargain with me if you cannot even show the proper respect that is due to your queen?”
“When have you shown your people the respect we deserve?!” the girl raised her voice, dark brows scrunched in anger. “D-do you even know what is going on outside these castle walls? We are hungry, Your Grace. We cry for help, but nobody answers us!”
To Abigail’s surprise, you laughed at this. Melodious. Horrible. “Respect is not an equal thing. I am god-ordained, god-descended. Going against my will is going against the gods. It is treason. Worse, it is blasphemy.” No mention of their murders or their circumstance. Only their defiance to you personally.
“You know what happens to blasphemes and traitors, do you not?” You kneeled then, the jewels on your body twinkling as you did so. You eyed the girl steadily, watched as her indignation slowly disintegrated into regretful, bone-deep terror.
“Ah. I knew you were smart enough to understand,” you spoke, voice smooth like soothing fingers running down silken hair. “It must be done, little one. But have no fear, I won’t let you stew in purgatory, waiting for your fate.”
Yout stood up then, turning back to the entryway with gleaming eyes. The smaller child made a high, keening noise.
“Abigail.”
Abigail swallowed around her own horror forming at the base of her throat. “Yes, Your Grace?”
You gestured back to them as if it should have been obvious. “Will you do the honours?”
Honours? Abigail’s body stiffened, her fingers enclosing around the handle of her sword. Then, just as quickly they faltered. Her hand fell to her side.
“I… I cannot, my queen.”
“They are murderers, Abigail. Retribution must be served.”
There was an itching dryness in Abigail’s mouth, her tongue a block of lead as it tried to form the right words. “Children… they are children–”
A mirthless laugh left you at this. “Yes, but they are not innocent. They have murdered my guards. Why should I show kindness just because of their age? Would the emperors before me have been so forgiving?”
“I am not telling you to forgive their crimes, but there are other ways to punish them! Do not sully your hands like this. There is no honour in this kind of bloodshed.”
“Will you ever stop lecturing me on my honour?!” you spat. “When will it finally fucking dawn on you? I am not merciful, I am not good and I have no honour! I do what is cruel. I do what is needful, and I have no regrets.”
“Please…” she begged, her broken blue gaze searching for a kernel of goodness. She could find none in the rage-sodden lines of your face.
“Enough of this.”
Before Abigail could move, you were lunging savagely for the dagger sheathed at her side. The blade glinted in your hand as you swivelled, as you closed in on the inconsolable children with spine-shivering determination.
She only had a fraction of time to veer her eyesight away, nausea enveloping her.
Blood seeped upon packed soil, vermillion splattered over delicate moonstones.
And the wailing. She knew that the sound of child-screams would haunt her, until the day she drew her last breath.
⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚
For the first time that night in years, Abigail went to pray.
The temple was silent as she knelt before her gods, before the deities that have shaped your legacy. She stared into their hollow eyes and their statue-frozen faces, and she wept. The tears fell to the stone beneath her. Her offerings, her repentance.
She understood it, in harrowing clarity; her salt would never be enough. A price was to be paid, and it was not found here.
Abigail walked back to her chambers with a bottle of the least pleasant tasting wine she could find tucked under her arm. She was planning to drown in it until dawn came, but as she made her way through flower-clad corridors, the plan withered. She steered down a different path, one so familiar and yet now dreadful to her.
She nodded to the guards outside your chambers, and they greeted her back. She had passed through this door many nights before this one. Who was to think anything had changed?
Low flamelight greeted her when she opened the door, and so did you. You stood at the other end of the room in fresh attire, new golden jewellery at your throat, ears and hair.
“Where have you been?” It was not a demand, nor was there any accusation in your tone. There was a blankness to your cadence, utterly unreadable.
“I went to pray,” she admitted after a beat, none of the lies that flashed through her head convincing enough to speak.
You crossed your arms over your chest, scanning her. Your eyes snagged on the bottle of wine cradled in one arm. “So suddenly? You have never been one for piety.”
“I had a change of heart tonight.” She placed the bottle of wine down on a low table, but she made no effort to cross the room towards you.
“Your heart has grown soft, Abigail,” you said gently. It sounded like a praise, and the way your features mellowed proved that you meant no ill intent.
Your legs swallowed up the distance, until you were before her, your warm hands on her shoulders. Your mouth was curled into a calm smile.
“I don’t resent that about you. It means you have finally felt love enough to let others in.”
One hand came up to trace her cheekbone. “But that is why you must leave the gruesome work to me. Leave it in my hands, my love. I will ensure the necessary things are done.”
They needed your help, she wanted to scream. They needed you, and you slaughtered them.
But exhaustion had eclipsed her despair. Abigail said nothing as she sighed, her face moving to meld further into the palm of your hand.
“I love you,” you whispered, the words brimming with intensity. “I would raze a thousand villages for you if it guaranteed your happiness.”
Ah, there it was. A sickening realisation only confirmed by your words.
Her own love for you was something devout and ardent, a thing that had always felt like coming home. But your love was violent, something with too many teeth. It consumed and it boiled until the edge of it began to blur with hate. It was like the pluck of a string within her, a clear, resonant echo. The realisation that she had suffered enough of your love’s bruises.
Did you truly know the shape of her heart if you could not even understand this? She had lived through a lifetime of war and brutality, had dealt its repulsive blow for as long as she could remember. The reason why she clung to you so furiously was because you were like a morning star. Brilliant and brave and tender-hearted in your strength and logic. You were the winding path out of that misery-steeped place.
Now, she can see it was all a lie. The truth of it was ugly. It was poisonous and rotten. It would eat her and her whole country alive if she did not smother it.
Abigail cracked open her eyes and stared at you. The soft line of your mouth, the fervent adoration in your eyes. She clasped her hand over yours, warmth upon warmth.
“Will it always be this way?”
“Yes,” you answered earnestly, pulling her closer to you. “You will always be safe with me. Shielded. I will care for you as you have cared for me.”
She made no movement as you embraced her. Her eyes scaled along the wall across from her. They landed on the blade propped up, shimmering beneath the flicker of lamps.
She remembered its shape well. The one she stole from a nobleman and threatened to gut you with, all those years ago. Now it stood as a testament. To her and to you.
Her arms encircled you back, finally. “I love you, too.”
⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚
You had drifted off pressed up beside her, a comforting presence. Abigail remained awake, unblinking, as she savoured the honeyed vestiges of the love she had for you. All while the revelation grew within her, rising and rising like fatal tides crashing upon a cliffside.
She slid out of the bed with little sound, her bare feet meeting a plush rug below. It yielded beneath her soles as she padded across the room. She knew what was needed of her. The sacrifice both gods and men demanded.
The weight of the knife was familiar in Abigail’s palms, cool from the predawn air. The feeling of it carved electricity through her veins, a danger and a thrill all at once. She turned back to the bed.
She loomed over you for what felt like hours, just observing the life that thrummed so outwardly, even in sleep; your even breath rising and falling from within your chest, your eyelids fluttering in the midst of a dream. The hand curled beneath your chin and your other arm sprawled out, towards her side of the bed, as if reaching for something that was no longer there.
Her heart cracked, as if already mourning.
She woke you with soft touches as she stifled a sob, feathery traces over the apples of your cheeks and your nose and the curve of your lash line. You deserved this, at least. A death with eyes wide open, last moments spent looking at the one you held closest.
“Wake up, my love,” she spoke on a shuddering breath. “Wake up.”
Your eyes opened, alert and then calm when you saw that it was her. “Abigail? What is it?” you asked, voice rolling and raw from slumber.
She leaned down and kissed your face; first each eyelid, your sleep-warmed cheeks, your nose. Then she pressed her lips to yours, firm and slow, as if she could pour all her regrets and past devotion into this one act.
“I’m sorry,” she said as she kissed you again. “I love you, I love you. I’m so sorry.”
You felt a hot tear drip onto your cheek, confusion rising in the pit of your stomach. “What…”
The words wilted on your tongue when you felt it; a pain so deep within you that it burned. A gasp left you as you looked down at your chest, at the beloved hands that pushed the dagger into it, further and further, your ribcage wielding to its sharp, stinging pressure.
A writhing sob ripped out of Abigail as if she were the one that had been stabbed. Tears scattered across your face, unbidden and unwanted, but her grasp remained ambitious as it held the dagger in place. Your blood rose up between her fingers, searing against her skin as it began to pool on the silken bedding below.
A part of her wanted you to fight your death. To scratch at her and to curse her existence. She wanted you to hate her. It would feel easier, that way. It would have tasted less like a betrayal.
But you had no such intuition. Your shaking fingers dipped towards your chest, to the river of blood that flowed, and then they reached for her. They grazed up over her blonde hair, her neck and over her face, painting her in crimson. She watched as your eyes filled with tears. Not of anger or sorrow, but of acknowledgement. The greatest kind of love.
She pressed down harder, her breath ragged as the sound of flesh tearing caught in her ears. Your arms drooped to your sides and your eyes widened. Your mouth went slack as the last rattling breath was pushed out of you. There was a moment of tension until it snapped. Until you stilled completely.
That was the end of it.
There was no time to mourn you, to cradle your lifeless body to hers though her bloodied fingers twitched with the need to do so. She pressed one final kiss to your forehead, copper and salt mixing on her tongue.
“May we meet in the next life,” she whispered against your hair.
With that, she fled, clutching her chest where her shattered heart lay. She wound through tunnels, travelling deep below.
With this death came a possibility. She held it close, a droplet of hope within the ruins of her soul.
₊°｡❆
The north was entirely different to what she had once known.
Though Abigail missed the heat of her home, this snow-piled nation made the perfect place for two phantoms to live out the rest of their days. Unquestioned and unharmed, freedom had kept the both of them warm where the sun’s rays did not.
The boy was taller than her now, with eyes liquid black like the night and hair as dark as his late sister’s. He was quick to smile and even quicker with a bow. She had shown him how to properly string one and how to track game. As he grew older, he came to love these woods and all that resided within.
News trickled slowly towards the north, but she preferred it this way. Little information on the turmoil roiling in their homeland reached their ears. She knew that her kingdom had spiralled into disarray with no heir to uphold its monarchy. She cared little to know more.
The older she got, the easier it was to let paranoia slip from her grasp. Nobody would come for them on the outskirts of this white forest. The people here looked past their earthy tones of speech and the faltering way in which they spoke their language. They had other things to be concerned with, like the biting winters and a ruler of their own. As it was, people rarely visited this close to the border.
There was peace nestled within this little cottage of theirs, something she realised she had never truly touched until now.
As the years soared by, the boy became a man. With such tender-heartedness that she was certain she did not teach him, he fell in love.
It was when cradling his firstborn child that she could finally speak it; the truth of what transpired, in the rawness of her native tongue.
Though you were a wraith that haunted her each time she closed her eyes, she knew the events of that night would no longer hunt her down. It took this, greying hair at her temples and a dozing grandchild swaddled against her chest, to realise it.
She would never love again, nor would she pray. But it was no matter.
Beneath a sheet of milky snow, in front of a crackling hearth, she told him from the beginning.
She began with the smell of jasmine flowers and henna. The brilliant gold of their homeland’s setting sun. The electricity of a performance and a gaze. Your eyes, thrumming with challenge.
BEFORE YOU READ: consider donating to Palestinian families in need here.
𐚁 — 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐬 𝐥𝐨𝐰 | 𝐬. 𝐚𝐝𝐥𝐞𝐫
song: charlotte — hope sandoval & the warm inventions
summary: with rage and vengeance sweltering in her heart, love is something distant to sadie now. she’s still sweet on you, though — but only ever under the amber hue of lantern-light, stretched upon dusty sheets.
warnings: 18+ mdni. smut and a little bit of angst. porn with little to no plot, afab fem reader, fingering (r! receiving), tiniest amount of nipple play, semi-public sex (?? they’re in a tent so…), she puts her fingers in your mouth, pet names used (honey, seeetheart, darling). mentions of sadie’s past marriage and grief, canon timeline, mentions of guns, mentions of violence and death. kind of sad??? not proofread
a/n: this one’s dedicated to @catfern because without her i never would’ve played rdr2 🫡
Her heart is buried elsewhere, among the kindlings of her old life. What tender creature that laid inside that chest of hers remained where it was broken, beneath the ashes of home and husband.
You knew this when you first saw Sadie; her eyes wide, fearful pools that drank in ambery flame-light. You knew it when she arrived back at camp one day, the nagging sorrow evolved into something with teeth; the tang of gun smoke clung to her shirt and her slender hands were caked in the grit of a sin you didn’t wish to know the details of.
You’re aware of it even now, sprawled across tattered sheets and peering up at her in the warm glow of a single lantern. The same eyes and hands that tear open early graves in the daylight are now preoccupied with you; sweetly. Warmly.
The honey blonde tangle of her hair brushes against your collarbone as she leans over you, her lust-heavy gaze appraising you from top-to-toe. So close, you can smell the bite of gunpowder and the dry sweetness of hay lingering on her dusty clothing. There’s always a lick of danger that surges, electric, up from beneath her surface.
But she is never jagged with you. Her holsters lay like half-forgotten mementos, the gleaming handles of her guns glinting for attention but garnering none of it from her.
Revenge seemed a distant call now as her coarse fingertips kissed up your sides, slipping up the curve of your hips to the crook of your waist. Her skin is searing against the air-cooled body beneath it, and she can’t quite reel back the smile that graces her lips when you melt, so instantaneously, at the sensation.
It felt good for somebody to offer her all-encompassing trust again. To wish for her touch, to crave it and to respond so earnestly, even if no drum of love beat within this heady rhythm.
Her hands ghosted over your ribs, sprawling as they ascended to the supple flesh of your breasts. Your breath hitches in the back of your throat as the pads of her thumbs brush over your already stiff nipples, back arching like a branch in the breeze, bowing towards her.
Sadie laughs at this, and the sound is as warm as milk and honey on a drowsy night. It runs down the notches of your spine, balmy as it pools in the centre of your core. Repining fingers hook into the knotted teal neckerchief she’s wearing, and she tuts as you pull her body closer.
“Patience, honey,” she attempts to chide, but the word left her half-heartedly. When has she ever been patient?
The ghost of teeth and tongue graze over your neck, hot air tickling as she tugs at the buds on your chest. Softly at first, then harder, until your body sings shakily with a want for more.
One hand traces a fiery path south. Down, down, down, until she is met with it; silken and soaked, welcoming her so sweetly.
Something hybrid and base, a laugh twisted up in a sigh, leaves her lips. She parts your folds gently, the sound already obscene despite her feathery touch. Your hips lift off the sheet, a beckoning.
She wastes little time as she slides two fingers into your velvety walls, kissing a butterfly trail up your jaw as she does.
The speed of her movements is melodious with the grinding of your hips, the near-blinding desire for more of her, any of her. They reach deep and heavenly, ambrosial pleasure sliding thick through your veins as she curls pumps them in and out.
Her lips find their way to your hair, and they whisper honeyed praises into it, a cooing chorus of sweetheart’s and that’s it in the guitar-stringed voice you have come to adore. She pecks your temple and your quivering brow as your cunt flutters around her digits.
Your moans crest the quietness of the night, soaring to a crescendo as you shudder beneath her. Sadie clicks her tongue. It’s too late, too crowded, in the camp. Although she doubted any of those crooked folks would mind, a part of her wants this sliver of heaven for her own selfish self.
“Shh, shh,” she breathes against the shell of your ear. The hand that was on your chest now hovers above your agape mouth. “Gotta keep quiet, darlin’.”
You feel the pads of two fingertips skim along the bitten-red lips and you know just what to do. You take her middle and ring finger into your mouth, the corners of your lips slick with drool as you suck on them.
The sight of you, with eyelids flickering and velvet tongue laving over her rough skin, makes her own cunt throb in her trousers. Debauched, all for her…
She curls her fingers inward as her thumb joins the symphony, rubbing tight, determined circles on the swollen bundle of nerves above. She’s set on it now; seeing you come undone on her fingers, a mass of shivering limbs and saccharine bliss. She needs it.
Her fingers in your mouth twitch on your tongue as you slur worshipping words around them. Cool metal presses against your chin, an added layer to your ecstasy. Her wedding ring, glinting beneath the obscenity of your lips.
You crack open your bleary eyes to look at her as the pressure roils within you, threatening to break. Chestnut eyes, half-lidded, stare back, and a blush blooms from her golden nape up to her sharp-lined cheekbones.
In this lighting, beneath the haloing glow, with her tousled waves slipping from her plait and her rosy skin, you could imagine it. Loving her. Being loved by her.
Your peak washes over you, crashing over you like frothy ocean waves. Your body trembles beneath her roaming gaze. She doesn’t stop, not until the tremors pass, until your voice quiets around her fingers.
When her fingers slip out from within, Sadie lets you reach for her. She doesn’t protest when you pull her close and she doesn’t move when your limbs tangle with hers.
Chest-to-chest and hip-to-hip, your breath evening out as she traces a finger across your swollen bottom lip. Kissing your forehead, even as the sheen of gold on her hand is a reminder of why she shouldn’t.
Yes, her heart is a burnt, battered thing. But it still exists, doesn’t it?
In the hushed aftermath, she thinks she feels something. Weak, hesitant, but a heartbeat nonetheless.
i wish i had the strength to chip your words into rock like the rosetta stone because i need whatever's left of humanity in 10 years to remember this deeply and worship you like i do
a vague continuation of this, but you don’t have to read it to understand this one
song: vicino a te — stevio cipriani
summary: after your first, brief encounter, ellie sends you a letter — with this sweet, foreign feeling blossoming in her chest, she’s too nervous to say anything in person.
warnings: 18+ mdni, fluff, letter format, ellie’s pov, yearning, kinda love at first sight, mentions of (greek) mythology, religious imagery, probably ooc, flowery language, not proofread
a/n: i should be writing other, bigger projects but i love letter writing so much, they’re the purest form of love
Dear moonlit one,
How terribly confused you must be by this letter; I am sorry for it in advance.
Perhaps it might have been more appropriate to visit you, to speak more than a few pleasantries before scampering off into the night, but, as you may have noticed… well, I have no talent for speaking.
How ironic that seems coming from a poet! Words are my profession, perhaps even my religion. I suppose, however, I can only wield them with ink and not with my lips. I have always been this way; a penchant for the quill in preference to conversation.
That is why I write to you. I can be honest here, without my nerves getting the better of me.
I want to express my deepest apologies for my insolence on that revelrous eve. Rushing off without so much as a goodbye in spite of your good nature was unkind of me, and there is no justification for it. Even so, I must explain myself;
Excuse my cynicism and my continuous irony, but I have never believed in a fairytale love. I have an apt appreciation for the picturesque and I feel deeply about many-a-thing; these qualities have made me an adequate enough poet, for I can replicate the beauty of the world that surrounds me. I can structure stanza upon stanza inspired by a scent or a face. I am an observer, therefore I have endured.
But a love that strikes as abruptly as a serpent unsheathes its fangs? A love that robs the lungs of air and renders one’s body feather-light? All because of a glance, a smile, a laugh— of course I was skeptical. How could one not be?
But it was not until I saw you on that argent night, dreamy and gentle, that I could at least come to an understanding. You appeared like the goddess Selene, so very luminous that no words could form in my useless mouth. What was I to say, in that moment? What words spoken could have done justice to the divinity before me?
And your laugh, oh, that laugh… it was as if the sound of your voice was laced with the very harps of heaven. I have not been able to listen to another’s joy without missing the beauty of yours. How foolish I am.
Why do I ramble in such a way? What I mean to say is that your mere existence has awoken me to the pearl ensconced within the centre of our lives. A precious and delicate thing that hit me, unabated. That is why I left you in such a hurry. I was enchanted, and I was afraid of it. In that moment, I was afraid of you, too. The power you held over me was seizing.
But I have gained my bearings. Of course, I cannot say that I love you, a stranger. I know near-nothing about you, and yet, in these sleep-laced hours before dawn, I wish I knew everything.
Sealed within this envelope are dried apple blossoms, birthed from a late-blooming tree. The little buds make the paper smell fragrant, but they also reminded me of our fleeting encounter. And of you; sweet and vibrant. Cheerful, even towards a person you had never spoken to. I hope they soften the suddenness of my letter.
In earnesty, I pray that you write back to me. Even if it is just to reprimand my audacious behaviour, that would be enough.
it's very surreal to see posts about palestine dwindling down after the ceasefire. israel is still blocking aid to and trying to make life difficult for palestinians in gaza. we still have to continue to speak up about gaza.
in this ceasefire, many palestinians are trying to rebuild in attempts to try and return to what they had before the genocide. despite the heavy and unbearable loss of life that gaza has experienced, her people continue to try to make a better world for their children.
alaa is a mother of two young children. she wants to rebuild her house and get a better future for her children. please have heart and consider helping her out. her fundraiser has been verified.
In the Haret Hreik neighborhood of Dayihe, Beirut, a banner is raised to honor Aaron Bushnell, who self-immolated in front of the zionist embassy in Washington in solidarity with Palestine and in rejection of his country's position supporting the genocide war waged against Gaza.
"Aaron Bushnell, from the people of loyalty and sincerity, to your pure soul. Your devotion and loyalty to the Palestinian people will remain a trust in our necks for eternity."
In March, signs honoring Bushnell were raised in Areeha, Palestine and Sana'a, Yemen.
