@heavenbloom - Tumblr Blog

Jan 27

🇵🇸 please boycott the franchise. an article as to why is here

ঌ — 𝐢 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲, 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐦𝐲 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 | 𝐚.𝐚

song: lilac wine — jeff buckley

pairing: abby anderson x afab reader

summary: long lost loves lead to imitations in the dark

warnings: 18+ mdni. smut and angst. infidelity on both ends, comphet abby engaged to a man, toxicity on both sides, thigh riding, biting (brief), brief mention of straight sex, reader and abby are both shitty people. not proofread.

a/n: long time, no see!! wanted to write about a relationship that is contradictory, so here we are

It must have been different, before this.

You remember it; the smell of oranges on the breeze, ripe and tumbling to the ground from green-speckled branches. Sunlight, the burn of it on your shoulders. The presence of her, pressed up beside you. Sweating skin. Lashes so long and fair they glistened gold in the afternoon.

But that moment in time has soured. Now, these lashes only blink at you in the semi-dark, lit only by the dying, humming bulb of a lamp and passing headlights through the slotted, soiled blinds. The only light to witness such sin.

You catch the slender ring on Abby’s finger glinting as she shucks off her coat and throws it onto the stained motel couch, and you don’t miss the way she catches its presence too. It’s like second nature, the way she slides it off and slips it into her pocket. Forgotten, perhaps, if not for the red indent on her finger.

You’ve come to hate that ring and the mark it leaves on her body like a branding. It doesn’t suit her. How could she marry him when he doesn’t even know her?

And you’re no better. You have a girl waiting at home, adoring and kind, probably wondering where you are right now but not daring to ask. It’s her jewellery at your neck and wrists. It’s the perfume that she bought you at your pulse points, warming with the heat in your veins. You can tell Abby thinks the same thing when she pulls you into her arms, nose pressed to your neck, inhaling deeply; it really doesn’t suit you.

But it doesn't stop either of you, does it? Not the ring, not the encroaching wedding, not even all the care and freedom you receive from this new girl, this new life that you had chased down like a dog.

But it’s a bittersweet thing. You wanted this life with her.

You don’t speak your thoughts — you could have screamed it until your voice shattered and it still wouldn’t have made a difference. How could it?

Instead, you settle for this. You melt into the mouth carving a path down your neck. You let her certain hands peel off your coat.

She steps away with the whisper of a kiss at the hollow of your throat, turns and hangs the garment over the back of a chair with — what? Tenderness? No. A wrinkled jacket, a strand of hair, a phantom scent… these things are dangerous now.

Her eyes catch yours, and you can see this whole mess reflected back at you. The guilt, the self-revulsion, but above all the want; a hunger that crushes all doubts, that devours any rationality.

You look to the floorboards and refuse to acknowledge what’s swimming in her gaze as you begin to strip. You don’t want her to see it mirroring back at her, that same desire burning and burning, burning until all the dignity that you had turns to ashes. How hypocritical. How disgusting.

You try to focus on the mechanical nature of this step; carefully slipping off your clothes, folding them neatly and setting them down on the couch. You see her in the corner of your eye doing the same, but you don’t dare to look at her, not until the last layer falls.

She stands in the centre of the room, freckled and filled with life despite the dreary winter night. Her braid cascades over her shoulder in honey tones and her eyes carve a path down your bare body slowly. Not in a salacious way, but thoughtfully; she wants to know the changes in every divot, but also wants to indulge in the unchanged. It is a ritual now, and you don’t know whether the scrutiny weakens your heart or pries the wound open further.

Her lips part, to utter your name, but you can’t stand to hear how she speaks it now, how she holds it in her mouth like glass. You crash into her before it has a chance to slip into the air. Your lips meet hers in a frenzy, swallowing the last drop of once-was sweetness and crushing it between the collision of teeth.

Despite your haste, she takes her time running her hands down your back and over your cheekbones. Feathery and light, a lover’s touch through and through. Your fingers squeeze at her biceps, claw at her forearms. You want to hate her for her gentleness. It’s not fair, you want to say. But the softer parts inside you win, and your lips slow.

But as soon as your back hits the mattress and the frame of the bed groans, you remember there is nothing romantic about this. No rose petals or dawns spent in each other’s arms. Imitation, fantasy, an illusion that gnaws at your bones.

Still, you let her approach you with all the reverence that screams true love. She kisses her way down your collarbones, your arms, between the valley of your breasts and the swell of your hips. Her touch is warm and worshipful and her face is drawn up, with pleasure or pain, you do not know. On her face, they look the same to you now.

Your mind wanders and twines into a bitter tapestry of envy. Does she look at him the same way when she lets him inside her? Does she let him touch her in the ways that you have, or is their lovemaking unknown and unreachable to you?

She coaxes your thighs apart, still staring at your face as her lips make her way from your right shin to your upper thigh. Your gaze turns upward to the ceiling when you glimpse the tears shining along her lashline. The dust in the air flurries above your head, and your eyes try to follow the swirl of it, but your vision blurs, hot and stinging.

“Do you want this?” she asks on a burdened breath, air ghosting over your cunt. You swallow down the ache that clutches at your throat, and you prop yourself up on shaky elbows.

“Yes,” you whisper, your fingers dancing over the damp contour of her cheek. “But not like this.”

You make Abby sit on the edge of the bed and you slot yourself over one of her thighs. Your chests are pressed together and you grasp at the bulk of her shoulders. She immediately grips onto your hips, her head tilted upward to look at you. Her features are flushed and slack, and a prick of pride runs through you at the sight. She could never look at him like this, you think. These lust-dark eyes and these rosen cheeks. They were yours and yours alone.

The bare skin of her thigh is searing as you experimentally drag yourself against it. Abby’s hands squeeze at your hips and her mouth falls open, a silent plea for more.

You lay your palms flat on her chest as your hips grind faster, harder. The sound of your movement, of the curses and moans that fall from your lips, are filthy, but you revel in it because you know this is what she craves, what unravels her. If she doesn’t want you as something to cherish, then at least you could be this; debauched and heady, a kind of ruin that she will never be able to abandon.

Her mouth is back on you, teeth nipping at your neck and trembling bottom lip. You should have cared about the marks that would ripen, but the warning dissolves on your tongue as she shifts beneath you, bouncing her leg up and down to create more friction. Trails of ecstasy race up your spine, and you breathe rapidly as your hips begin to stutter.

It takes little more than her tongue flicking over one of your breasts for you to reach your height. You arch your chest further into the air as your body seizes up and as the ambrosia of release washes over you. Her teeth graze over your nipple as she watches you come undone, leg still undulating to draw out your pleasure.

As your body relaxes and your breath slows into satiated pants, you deign to look between your legs at the sheen on Abby’s thigh. You then look up at her face, the red ears, the mussed up hair, the half-lidded eyes.

The moment cools as quickly as your body does. You clamber off of her and sit beside her on the bed. What is the point of lingering touch, of dreamy post-sex intimacy? It had no place here, on this wailing bed, in between these clandestine walls.

You watch her shoulders droop as she rises and you try not to notice the flush that creeps all the way down her back.

She vanishes into the bathroom with her clothes and leaves you in the gloom of the semi-lit room with the guilt festering where euphoria just sat. You lie on the crumpled sheets, listening to the hiss of the shower and the gutter of old pipes.

She comes out the way she always does. Perfect, with her coat buttoned and crisp and her golden hair combed back into a neat braid. That ring, slipped back on and winking with mockery.

There are no kisses in your farewells. As she slides her bag over her shoulder, she looks at you. Naked, sprawled out across the bed and distant-eyed. There is a terse nod and then she is slipping out the door, into the snowy evening.

You rise from the bed and roll your shoulders as soon as you hear the click. The bathroom is still steamy, humid and heavy with her presence.

I better hurry, you think as you step around the wet footprints left on the yellowing tiles. My girl’s waiting at home.

#abby anderson fanfic #abby anderson smut #abby anderson x female reader #abby anderson x reader #abby anderson x you #tlou writing #abby tlou #tlou2 #tlou fanfiction

heavenbloom

Jan 21

heavenbloom

🇵🇸 BEFORE YOU READ: DONATE • BOYCOTT TLOU

𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐬

𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒊𝒊: 𝒈𝒍𝒐𝒓𝒚

knight!abby x princess!reader

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.

And a promise, vowed and broken long ago.

#can’t believe this is what i last wrote on here woah #the burnout crushed me after that

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