#beliegered

[dyrewrites]

As a reminder that writing blocks can be removed by removing the last things written and trying again...

I just deleted a whole chapter, a side character, and subplot.

Because they weren't working.

[dyrewrites]

Help make the words go

Wake and Glare (horror fantasy trauma monsters on the ocean)

Beliegered (knight x monster king horror romance)

Here there be witches (fairytale horror)

A Walk (lonely vampire horror)

Voting ended onJan 17

I'll work on them all eventually, this is my 'finish this year' list, but my brain is an egg frying in a pan set far too high.

So I could use some direction before things get scrambled.

[dyrewrites]

Fuck it. Brain refuses to write what it's told so I'm using you creatures to coax it into writing one of these things that are vying for attention currently.

They are all horror. It is, it is what I write.

Tags have the titles, if you're curious but I am using the most basic descriptors for the poll.

What should I write

Erotic clown horror

Vampire horror

Monster horror romance

Next book in horror fantasy series

Monsterotica

Mirror horror

Watch a puppet be gross for an unknown amount of pages

Voting ended onAug 2, 2025

[dyrewrites]

Nine Lines Tag

Got slapped by @keeping-writing-frosty over here, and my own sister (@rowanmgrey-author) over here.

So I guess you get double? Am I sharing eighteen lines?

Yes. Yes, I am.

--

The suns shone brighter at the border, a wall of orange simmering on the horizon just beyond the sea of gray light the kingdom was, and Ansul marveled at it. He had questions for his men, who’d lived longer beneath the stormy skies...but he wouldn’t have a chance to ask them.

Night approached and as the moons rose so would the ghouls.

His men went over the rites of the land, "a fleck of bone for the dead God, a spark of light for the suns, and a song for the soul."

The 'song' could be anything, Ansul knew, even a hum so long as it was done with reverence would pacify. His knights had other ideas, with one breaking into a dirge in a language unknown to Ansul's ears.

While the others prepared fire.

Those who could not wield magic, as Ansul could not, filled glass bottles with strong alcohol and stuffed a cork fitted with sparking stones into them. When needed, they would turn the cork, spark the flame and throw the bottle.

Iron, as all their weapons and armor were, fended off dead and magic alike. Useful when the fire failed or the undead were mages in life—their spells twisted to curse and rot instead of burn.

As all those oranges bled to blues, with the grays surrounding them dipping ever-closer to blacks, they abandoned carriage and horse to the border and walked into the village.

Nothing waited for them. Nothing living. Bodies were strewn, haphazardly, about the road and draped over fences. A few, torn wide with their insides hung glistening in the moonlight, dangled from rooftops and shop signs.

Silence hung thick and low, amplified by the dirge singing again from one of his knights and a layer of silvery mist. Ansul breathed deep of rot and damp, of blood and decay, and he grinned wider, painfully so, sword held loose and ready.

A droning froze them all. Deep and hungry, too like a growl it clawed through the mist, caught and reflected in eerie echos until direction grew meaningless.

--

I am tagging YOU, but also @cowboybrunch @olliexwrites @wyked-ao3 and @willtheweaver (yes I know it isn't nine, I've forgotten who is up for the games >.>)

[dyrewrites]

//wrote words today so have some words... from Beliegered wherein someone is proposing again without proposing and is caught//

Another change of clothes was required for the rain, with Ansul insisting on hanging his on the racks adjacent to the training hall where the washbasins were kept—for Nan's wrath—while Enric insisted they visit the library. To continue the sharing he was meant to do...with growing hope he'd be doing so with the right man.

"'Knights are forbidden in the library'," Ansul quoted, not attempting accent but pitch for Nan's sharpness, as he followed his king down corridors he'd not traveled.

Earning too scrumptious a giggle before explanation, "Two were caught trying to replicate a few lurid images they found with women invited from the village. I imagine Nan would not wish to see such a sight again..."

"Lurid art kept in your library," Ansul mused, leaning to whisper in an ear too close, "Is my liege lonely?"

"Desperately," came a matched whisper. A sharp turn and a strong hand saw Ansul against the stones after, head tapping a painting he didn't get the chance to admire as gray eyes too hot admired him. Enric grinned close and sharp. "Will you cure me, sweet Ansul?"

Keeping lips from touching those twitching for them, Ansul did grab the waist and yank his king closer, as he breathed in far too slow. Speaking as he exhaled, "No."

Laughter, high and popped preceded soft hands in his beard, softer lips on his. Saw through me, did you?

You're terribly transparent, Ansul teased in thought and touch, sliding a hand up a shirt loose enough to beg for it. Given his tongue back, he used it, "I will gladly stymie your loneliness, however, for as long as you can stand me without the collar."

*taglist*

@kitcatling

[dyrewrites]

WiP Acrostic Tag

Tagged by @winterandwords here

📝 Share a sentence from your WIP that starts with each letter in the word given to you by the person who tagged you.

I am a tagging EVERYONE (and making the taglist post, I swear)

Your word is: TEAR

--

Mine is HEART

Wheel chose 'Beliegered'

Honor did not serve one while cutting down voyaging nobles, nor did rules serve in the blood-soaked terror of a village on fire when there were valuables to snatch and moaning toys to collect.

Enchanting, the man is enchanting, he would think often, say never, and retire to long baths in water colder than preferred—haunted still by gray eyes and broad shoulders, hands he imagined rough for the ax the King kept always on his back.

A few well-timed kicks and a bright and searing ball of agony later he woke on a cold floor.

Raucous the crowd, flooding the arena with howling bliss for the show.

There he dug iron under the man’s helmet, knocked it off, held his chin with swordtip and demanded, “beg.”

[dyrewrites]

It was just hot enough today that I passed out while writing notes on my phone and watching my son play Ghost of Tsushima (for like the third time, he's doing NG+ on hardmode now and likes to ask things because he knows I beat the ever-loving daylights out of that game).

I slept for four hours in the most awkward position on the couch. I went right to bed when I woke up too, slept maybe two more hours.

Now I'm awake at 1am and have no idea what to do with myself.

...going to try to write more Beliegered, as it has been gnawing at me. Can't lie either, it does seem the easiest to finish and maybe market of the things I've got going on right now.

Maybe. I don't really know. Who knows what sells.

I know it's fun to write and can only hope it's fun to read.

[dyrewrites]

Beliegered -- Simply Men

A long snip featuring the slow removal of armor and a lot of questions going unasked or ignored.

--

While a rather loud celebration reverberated through the castle the King maintained a soft voice as he led his knight into the low light of an elegantly decorated hall. A hall Ansul had never been in, as it was roped off for all but King and cleaning staff.

"You have exceeded my expectations," that soft voice told him and the grin, sly and small over a robed shoulder, inflamed, "and I set very high expectations…"

"My liege," it wasn't quite a question, or even a word so much as a puff of air pretending to be.

But understood, "none of that, remember? We are simply men in private. No titles. No lies."

"Lies, m—" caught before the title slipped, obeying the King's command, however gently it fell and, as he lost him around a corner, he swallowed and tried louder, "I guarantee I've spoken no lie to you."

Through an opened set of doors and massive, heavy curtains he found the King seated on the edge of an elaborate bed decorated in more silk and gold than he’d ever seen.

His crown removed, Ansul looked for it, finding it beside the entry on a pillow. With a nod to it, the King instructed him to set the helmet under his arm down as well.

On the floor, Ansul decided, with his sword, belt and its many pouches.

When all were set aside, he found his King’s eyes gazing and lost breath in the finger commanding him closer. The voice, firmly sweet, "you are perfectly honest with your words. So careful. Exact. But your eyes betray you."

He took him by his gauntlets and Ansul looked down at the King, considered the actions, the words, the very tone of voice and couldn't understand what they sang. Couldn't believe the want so blatant in their melody. Trying to kneel, to see the King as he should and not be above him… he was stopped.

By hands somehow stronger than his own. “No. You are precisely where I want you and wearing more than I believe either of us desires.”

Ridiculous, really. He found the King enchanting, yes, followed his instruction for more than loyalty to some crown. Had dreamed of exactly what was unfolding, in a manner that haunted too close to reality, but, he couldn’t, he fretted, studying warm, implacable gray eyes. He couldn’t...

The King kept the sly smile as he unstrapped each gauntlet—leaving the linen gloves beneath—and chuckled as Ansul gasped and stood so still. But he didn't stop. Standing, certain to keep close, he moved to vambraces. More straps released and Ansul remained still, eyes tracking the King. His thin, white plate was placed on the bed as the King moved to feathered pauldrons, rubbing rougher on Ansul’s shoulders as he pulled each off. As he took the cape, and massaged sore muscles through thinner linen, Ansul fought not to gape.

"May I," the King asked, grin wide as he slid a hand around and under the scaled surcoat.

Ansul nodded.

The tinkling light metal was up and over his head before he could blink, his King yanking straps slow and careful. Yet he tugged on the blood red gorget before removing it, biting his lip for the narrow eyes it earned.

Ansul found more questions in that bite, in the way the eyes tracing him seemed to smolder as skirt was unclasped, laid carefully on the mattress and each piece of plate around it removed.

No words, however. Ansul couldn’t find them.

Even when the King touched the hauberk beneath it all. Even when he pressed and tested the muscles of Ansul's chest and back and set more light plate pieces on the bed with the rest... he found no words.

"And these," the King asked next of Ansul's cuisses, earning a gasp for hands so firm on his inner thigh, fingers teasing between the armor.

Another nod and he popped straps, with more delicate touch given to the hose beneath.

When they were placed with the rest the King slid hands up his sides, suggestion given with the motion, and removed all the loosely fit hauberk. Another touch and test, watching for the nod, before he rubbed and tested every bit of trembling skin beneath Ansul's tunic—pointedly not removing it.

Despite tunic and hose and shining sabatons Ansul was stricken with a sense of nakedness he’d never felt twitching along a confused smile as words bubbled, sputtered, but refused to pop.

Pressing him toward the bed, sitting him down, the King worsened it as he knelt before him.

Ansul couldn't breathe, though the odd spice of whatever the King bathed in was mixing with perfumes in the room... demanding he breathe. Begging him to devour it all. Royalty was rubbing down his leg, kneeling before him, removing what remained of his armor with hands too sweet. Too delicate, intimate.

The words scratched in stone, the jests from his knights, all he dreamed of, bubbled and still Ansul refused to accept it, refused to believe his desire returned.

“Why,” he managed.

The King laughed, stood to shuffle a step back and with a swift tug at something tangled in the threads under his hair he dropped his heavy robes to the floor. Earning a tightly hidden smile for the performance, and the painfully thin silk robe he wore under it. One Ansul recognized and swallowed hard for.

Kicking cloth too complex to have dropped so easily further from the bed, the King knelt again to squeeze between Ansul's knees. Savoring the gasp, he sought another. Biting the fingers of his gloves, he removed each and set firm hands on rough cloth, rubbing to a waist near as wide as his own and swooning for thick, if stiff, muscles along the way.

"Do you not want me Ansul," he cooed for his knight.

Who was still having issues, more in fact, for the show of it—the familiarity. The dramatics and hearing his name on the King's lips again wasn't helping.

A dream, he told those issues, I've fallen asleep on the way back and this is another dream. I'm flopped on that monstrous horse wandering into wilderness right now...

Hands refusing to stop teasing worked to convince him otherwise.

"Does all of this not ache," crawling forward, the King gripped tight to Ansul's thighs and leaned to kiss an exposed and sweat-licked neck, "for me."

“I,” again, the breathing. He knew how. Was accustomed to being in more control of his breath in such situations even, but it wasn’t any situation. He’s the King, his mind screamed, defiantly accepting it as reality but unable to work out if he should agree out of fealty or handle it as he would any other man he desired climbing on him.

The King nibbled his lip while waiting for an answer, gray eyes studying as his hands roughly teased beneath Ansul’s tunic. Hands precisely as rough as Ansul imagined, and he chose the latter.