An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Memento Vivere, Memento Mori has updated after GOD KNOWS HOW LONG! YES! FINALLY! I’m super sorry for the long wait, for the inconsistencies, but I promise I’m gonna try and stick to it this time.
Thank you to @burningsilence for all the encouragement, the reviews, and @themageandthemisanthrope for sticking through the fic for so long (or as long as it was last updated xD). You’re both too nice and too pure for me, and I love you so much thank you.
I hope all my dear readers enjoy this update, and thank you for reading the fic up to this point :D
Elder Scrolls OC: “Witness of the Hunt”, disciple of the daedric prince Hircine. They’re some sort of deer beast infected with lycanthropy and they see it as a gift from Hircine. They’re a skilled archer. I’ll come up with more eventually, I was just struck with the idea of a deer person worshiping Hircine and becoming a werewolf in his honor.
Something I wrote inspired by @silencebrulant‘s recent addition to Fortune’s Favourites Outtakes and the black sacrament.
Mildly disturbing.
Sweet Mother, sweet Mother; he comes in her sleep. He takes her lips, takes her sweet in the cold and heat, in the night and day. Slow, cautious, with the delicacy of glass filigrees, he pushes seeds into her open wounds, past the stitches.
Sweet Mother, sweet Mother; he tugs her when spring comes. The flowers bud into a withering green, skin sick with poison as they dig into her marrows. Her blood is a deep russet that bubbles into a purple when his blade grates against her bone, hands baring her open, tongue tracing curves and peaking knobs. She sinks into him, wandering, wondering.
Sweet Mother, sweet Mother; she follows the line that ties them both in vain, not knowing where she starts, where he ends. She's efflorescing into a garden as he feeds off her flesh, drinks her heartsblood with a carnality that reaches fever pitch. She groans, writhes.
Pleasure.
Pain.
What is this? Something cracks, splits, her ribs breaking under him; why let him? I love him
Fear, fear, love, respect; you want him.
Do I?
Through the mist in her eyes, through the curve of his lips, she smiles and everything shatters.
Sweet Mother, sweet Mother; he hangs in front of her when she's his, a scream clawing up her throat as nightshades blossom between her ribs. Her hand reaches for the mottling on his skin, the entrails spilling from the crevice across his stomach, ichor staining her fingers and it is so, so visceral.
His hands dragging her beneath, kisses hiding six pomegranate seeds underneath her tongue; six months spent with a torturous, beautiful creature.
Sweet Mother, sweet Mother, I pray for your embrace.
Sweet Mother, sweet Mother, this is the embrace I am granted.
A Russian idiom; to fall wholly and deeply in love; literally, fall in love up to your ears.
Freeform
(Martin Septim/F!HoK)
Posting it here; took it down on AO3.
God’s hands are curving her body, shaping her from the gases of the universe. Slender neck, silken hair, glass eyes and soft lips, all of this hers tonight even if they were not before because his touch is creation itself. Strange how he’s all too gentle, all too kind, she would have thought gods were crueler. Is he of a different kind? Yes. Fingers curling away, finding the knots of his tunic that he sheds with a shrug and she lets the smile on her lips emerge before she pushes the fabric back, skimming over taut ironwood skin.
Her hand drops to cup the heart that has started to glow, light filtering through the spaces between her fingers, warmth seeping underneath, whispering like shifting sands. He leans down to kiss her with the nebulae underneath his tongue, across his lips and it is the first time she tastes the otherworldly. It evaporates gently, mist lifting from the thicket of pines, air puffing into crystals. He cartographs the road from her lips to her navel, crossing the planes of her breasts and the expanses of her abdomen, teasing and kind, and fluttering hands on her waist to steady himself as thumbs draw circles onto her skin.
“You are a wonder,” he sighs into her, making sure she remembers by pressing a kiss to the peak of her hip and she laughs, unsure at how to take the praise, though far from discomforted. Even with verdigris growing from her flesh, he’s always loved her, she knows. His eyes never betray his voice. She sits upright on her elbows to watch him raise his head, the soft steel of his irises closing as he takes her lips and her back sinks into the mattress when he pushes her down.
She watches the stardust splinter across their skin as gold sparks the freckles that decorate him, the pulsing of his heart more staccato than legato, starving, craving touches chilling her. He turns her into a garden, growing blooms into her marrows when she thought this wasted flesh of hers could never house such vibrancy. No mere mortal could bring with them spring, but she reminds herself that he is god himself.
Yet it’s strange how he is the one worshipping her.
With tongue and hand, and wispy breaths, he inks the words into her mouth as fingers drip star trails that engraves her flesh, weaving the constellations of Mara and Akatosh, Julianos and Kynareth into her hair. Their names are singing into the night, puffing into smoke as he cradles her in his arms, twining them together when she arches against fabric and touches skin, the roof of her ribcage meeting his, all that he is - ichor, starlight, lavenders, liquid gold - melting into her until she herself wonders if they are truly any different.
He lavishes her with the promises, the sweet pricks of her skin between his teeth while she marks him with jagged fingernails, their lips pressed together to muffle any cries that dare escape them. A stutter, a soft crow, and he’s heaving, pulling her into his embrace as a wash of contentment settles into her, nestling against his chest. Comfort, protection, the soft warmth of a fire, and she knows she’s where she should be (and she realises that he is half of her now).
Unspoken words hang in the air, mingling with the afterglow and mist, and slickness of sweat (and she’s suddenly afraid and cowardly, because she loves him ). She holds her breath for a moment as the confessions coagulate on her tongue, but he tells her that he doesn’t need to hear it, that it’s alright.
“I know,” I feel the same, she can almost hear him say. With a slight squeeze, one that tugs at her heartstrings like nothing she’s ever felt before, he ties them together. With famished lips that hunger (begs, longs, yearns) for him, she tilts her head up and kisses him, and the soft curve of his smile are hers.
Accepting the position as a Madgod means many things, the willingness to become something more deranged than she’s bargained for as the change twists her memories.
What has she got to lose?
Oneshot about F!HoK’s last thoughts of Martin before becoming Sheogorath.
Another one taken down on AO3.
Gold. Yes, yes, she remembers him to be gold - or was it amber? (No, too dull, not fitting enough. Something precious, something that glitters and demands royalty) - no, but he’s never demanded nobility. God’s blood - yes, he bleeds ichor. She’s never tasted ichor, which is a pity, because now she’ll never know how Akatosh feels on her lips (maybe she should’ve pinned him down). He’s all stone and ivory now, can’t be helped. She’s always liked seeing him ooze - did she really? (Yes, too much; sometimes she cried) - and oh, the delight when he glimmered in it. He dripped like nectarine (no, ambrosia), pavements of bronze running down the length of her stomach (oh, she remembers the way he kissed her into something worthy) as he steeped her body in Midas’ touch.
She would’ve thought he were rougher, but no, he had always been a little more gentle, a little more understanding - and what good does it do? Better to have a little fun and take her there.
His eyes used to stare at her with such wonder - as blue as the plants she used to pick (What was it? Bugloe? Bugalos? It had a snake in the name, she recalls) ( But why concern yourself with such mortal things? ) - skimming over her carefully and tenderly. They reminded her of the waves that crashed upon Anvil’s docks - ah, seawater and vomit, and dead fish, and the people lingering upon wet cobblestones, a scenery so commonplace atop the wretched mansion’s balcony (nostalgic; odd). But his gaze was never dead, they were always so, so alive. Sometimes they told her secrets, they told her fears and in some memory from her past days, she comforted him with truths, lies he believed. He should’ve worshipped madness instead of debauchery, maybe then she could’ve saved him.
His skin had been the colour of ironwood shells, smooth and withholding unnaturally taut muscles. I was not always a priest. No, he wasn’t, she knows. Sanguine had never learnt to treat his followers kindly (or maybe he did and the ex-priest was just foolish). Underneath all he was, she knows he’s capable, stronger than he lets on. His ribs must make a pretty cage for his heart, one crafted out of steel, and yet she finds herself remembering that he’s never been too harsh. He’d alway tried his best to treat her like porcelain (and she riveted in it once; now she doesn’t think she’d like the same gentleness).
He wore the night sky upon his back, but these ones never changed. Always marked with the same scars, the same freckles and she’d once wondered where they led. Now she does not. These ones did not glow, instead serving their purpose to remind her that despite his immortal lineage, he was still as human as her.
There’s more, oh, there’s always more. The unfinished picture hangs behind her irises as she strains to piece him together. He’s always been too perfect (nothing close to a prince, though). She tries to catch his scent, but lavenders are a newfound hatred and the sweet taste of promises that he tried to keep are more ashen than anything she’s ever eaten.
Disgusting. Is that all she can grasp? (You disappoint me. Why focus on such intangible things? A doll need only be physical).
What else to remember? What else, what else? A man is incomplete with just his eyes and his blood, and his skin and bones. (His hair, his thoughts and lips. Mould him, mould him, mould him). Do not scream, little cur, I will.
She takes a moment to compose herself with a breath because the voices are a little louder today. Whose voice it belongs to is unknown to her, it’s just there. You’ll be hearing more once you’ve completely turned, it cackles (ah, a female this time).
She tries to dig a little deeper into the recesses of her mind, then, and she’s greeted by the faint smile on his lips, the silken threads of his hair running through her fingertips while he calls her name before he leans in to kiss her (the feeling is oddly fresh, as though new, untarnished). Her shoulder scorches, her hand immediately going to the injury as though to staunch an open wound and she’s hissing his name under her breath because his words have sunk into her flesh (all the confessions, the soft praises of reverence).
It hurts, it hurts, no more, one of them moans.
Forget the boy, he’s of no concern, another growls.
Make it stop, it stings, the third voice beseeches.
Amongst the clamour, she asks herself which of them belongs to her, because she knows she would disagree because she must’ve loved him, maybe held him close. She knows she brought him to bed, made pleasure in the dead of night, but no disagreement comes and she finds herself wanting this wretched feeling (painful things, painful words, painful memories) gone.
So she lets go of his writhing memento (good riddance), lets the fondness go up in flames so she sees him as an Emperor, a Septim, some saviour who ended like all others, not as some man she kept to her heart (and look, his name’s all gone. What was it again? Maron, Marin? Savarins? No, that’s a cake).
Savarins? Brilliant.
Don’t you feel lighter? Yes, she does, although, for some reason, she finds that the pain on her shoulder is sharper than ever. Don’t mind that, that’s not important. Yes, that’s not important, this pain is incompetent and dull, and it’ll fade as her dreams do.
A hoarse, brittle laughter escapes his (her?) lips, and she can feel it cracking around its edges. He can sense it creeping up his skin, making her into something different, changing her mind. But she welcomes the change, she welcomes this new, twisted deliriousness, the halls echoing with each growing cackle, snarl and snap.
His visage turns to tatters in her mind. She recalls his name for a moment (Martin, they called him), his golden scales rippling across the dark. (Hardly fair to any of the previous Septims. They never got to rule as a dragon). Then it just dwindles away as the waves overtake him.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
And chapter five! Longer than I thought I would take xD Been drafting up future chaps so xD
I hope anyone reading this is enjoying it so far. I also want to thank anyone who has left comments, kudos, because they really mean the world to me and they leave me smiling every time anjdfnankflafm
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
AND CHAPTER FOUR IS OUT! Admittedly faster than the usual ._. Hrmmm. Anyway, I had a bit of trouble with this chapter but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Thanks for reading, leaving your kudos and comments, because they really mean the world to me. They encourage me to do better and it’s where my motivation comes from.
