simon ghost riley x fem!reader | warlord x servant | unspecified ancient greece/rome aesthetics | read on ao3 | pinterest
Bound forever as a servant to Emperor Shepherd, you find yourself unsure what to do when a band of barbarians swarm your city and slaughters your lord. A Warlord usurps the throne and instantly implements changes; a strange man who goes only by Ghost, many are wise to give him a wide berth less their skulls become the new faceplate to his mask.
Deciding to keep your shackles, you serve your new leader despite the monstrous scars that warn you otherwise, but your mutism garners more attention from him than you anticipated, and he seems keen on ensuring that you sing properly for him one of these days.
a/n: please heed the warnings on each chapter; overall; violence; depictions of minor non-con/dub-con; reader is mute
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Epilogue
annotated version of the story
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simon ghost riley x fem!reader | warlord x servant | masterlist
Chapter One: fall
tw: historical au, not specified ancient greece/rome aesthetics, violence, threats of rape, murder, ancient forms of torture/execution
There are whispers in the wind.
It arrives as a susurrus so faint that it nearly slips between your fingers like ocean water, leaving behind nothing but grains of sand for you to read. A vague redolence of smoke wafts on the early morning air where it burns your nostrils as you walk to fetch water, yet when you turn to face the sky you’re met with nothing but the same pale blue as you always are. It hangs high above you as you lower a wooden bucket into a well to fill your pitcher until it nearly overflows. It sloshes on your feet, but you can’t feel the discomfort over the sound of the gale swirling by your ears.
You’re not sure what the whispers say, you only know how it makes you feel. It leaves you with singing blood and twitching fingers. Something roars in the distance—it bellows loud enough to shake the earth like a mighty lion, forcing your bones to rattle with it. There’s something vaguely familiar about their words. Terribly sagacious, they know more than anyone living ever could, and though you have always been a good listener, their omen is something you simply can’t translate.
So you continue with your morning chores. Bare feet against smooth stone, you travel back to the palace with your arms occupied with your water pitcher while you focus on not tripping on your oversized chiton. Still shaking the fatigue from their bones, the other servants move lazily throughout the halls. Their eyes blink heavily, and their mouths open wide with yawns, but they still have the capacity to send grievous glares your way. Narrowed eyes and sly smirks, they ask you how your morning is.
You cannot answer.
But you are not petulant. There are no words left for you to speak, and even if there were, it would have no effect on your status. On the fact that you are a terrible creature—something meant to only be regarded with distaste. Your head stays high as you traverse through pale, cavernous hallways until you arrive at the chambers that house your emperor and lord.
His name is Herschel Shepherd and he sits at the edge of his bed waiting for you with sizzling patience. Half clothed and greying, he is not as virile as he used to be when you were a child. Soft around the edges, he stares at you with pale eyes while awaiting your services. You utter no greeting as you retrieve a small bronze water basin from beneath a mirror on the far side of the room—a thick bristle brush already sits in the bowl waiting for you. Emperor Shepherd says nothing as you place both the pitcher and bowl at his feet before kneeling in front of him.
He sighs. “Well. Go on, then.”
You fill the bowl with water from your pitcher, and then swirl the brush through the liquid before beginning to clean your emperor’s feet. This action has long since lost its humiliating connotation for you. When you were younger, the action left you feeling soiled, just as intented. Now, it is simply a chore; taking care of this man who can hardly bother to look at you with disdain anymore. Scrubbing his heels, rinsing his toes—nothing but a simple assignment.
You’re halfway through washing his left foot when he speaks again. “I’ll be dead by the end of the night.”
Pausing, you look up at your emperor with questioning eyes. There’s no bemusement to be found in his features; in fact, there’s nothing at all. Just those same stoic eyes that seem to stare right through you.
“Don’t look so surprised,” he humors blandly. “You’re mute, not deaf. I know you’ve heard the whispering and seen the wounded. I know you’ve heard that Emperor Price and his barbarians are closing in on the city, breathing down our goddamn necks for the last few months trying to suffocate us. I’ve seen you lingering where you shouldn’t be. I’d punish you for it if I was worried you’d go blabbering about it. Well, they’re here. We’re on our last breath of air.”
A wicked callosity quickly seeps into the pores of your skin as you stiffly return to your task. You’re not sure what to make of his words. This promise of destruction—of his death. A part of you wouldn’t care if this empire burned to a crisp with nothing but the memory of bones to whisper about its existence. Something to be studied by intellects of the far future. No one in this city has ever done you any favors. Though, you would miss your schedule, you think. Chores and all, you crave consistency. The routine.
As you move to clean his right foot, you think you might even miss this.
Though you would not miss him—Emperor Shepherd, so oddly named. Never has he shown the kindness and humility of someone nurturing a flock of sheep. He has only proven himself to be a butcher. No, worse than a butcher. A huntsman. Someone who slaughters and poaches just for the sake of seeing that sweet vermillion ichor. He maims. He shreds. He’s built his empire upon nothing but bone. It’s laughable to think he’s surprised that the corse is finally rotting and giving away beneath his feet.
“Tell me, girl, do you miss your tongue?” he questions.
You freeze.
You were only ten years old when he ripped it from your mouth. Even after over a decade you can still remember the way the marble flooring of the throne room dug into your knees as soldiers forced you to the ground. They had killed your father first. It was said he had spread perfidious propaganda and false accusations against Emperor Shepherd. His punishment?—to be tied to a horse and dragged along the streets. Both you and your mother were made to follow behind him as the bindings dug into his wrists, skin ripping from his flesh as the unforgiving streets tore into him. People threw rocks into the street for him to be dragged over, as if the stone wasn’t punishment enough. He died before you reached the palace—he gasped his last breath just at the base of the stairs—but they refused to cut him free. They kept dragging his mangled corpse until Emperor Shepherd could see your father for himself. Nothing but a limp pile of meat.
Next was your mother. Her punishment was worse—one that you never got to see, but you could hear plenty well. Shoved inside of a brazen bull, her screams contorted until she sounded like a dying animal as they slowly roasted her to death. Superheated bronze and charred flesh—you don’t think there was a body left to bury when they were finished. For someone they so desperately wanted to silence, the citizens reveled in her blood curdling cries until death ultimately consumed her.
Then, there was you. A trembling child who could hardly hold back her pules, Emperor Shepherd took pity on you. At least, he claimed as much. It didn’t feel like mercy when his blade cut through the wet muscle in your mouth while tongs pierced the tip of your tongue to hold you steady. It didn’t feel like mercy when you were forever seen as an outcast and forced to work as a servant to the man who stole your autonomy. It didn’t feel like mercy when you were made to wash his feet every day as if you should have been grateful for the second chance at life—as if your life was ever his to take in the first place.
Shaking your head, you continue to wash his feet. He chuckles at your claim. It’s dry and acidulous, just like he always is.
“You show such intrepidness for someone so pitiable,” he huffs. Suddenly, he snatches his foot out of your hand, forcing your neck to crane to view him. He does not wait for you to dry him off before placing his soles on the stone floor. “I’ll once again take pity on you, girl. Take today as a day of rest before this city is overrun. Emperor Price trains nothing but beasts. Do yourself a favor and sacrifice yourself before dusk, lest they rape you to death or sew your skin into their clothes. Not unless you’re brave enough to face those barbarians alive. Are you, girl? Courageous enough to face those brutes?”
Your teeth bite into the side of your cheek as you once again shake your head.
“Didn’t think so,” he hums. “Go. Let this be my last good deed.”
When you step foot back outside—far enough away from your emperor that you feel like you can finally breathe again—you realize the wind is still whispering. It’s louder now. What was once a gentle hiss in the air has now grown into small chatter. It chirps like a swarm of birds ready for migration; but they choke on the attar of smoke that hangs like a noose over this city.
How arrogant of Emperor Shepherd to think he commits a good deed by allowing you one day of freedom. As if he has any other choice than to cut you loose with John Price breathing down his neck.
The only sound strong enough to drown out the wind is the crashing waves of the ocean.
Brackish mist kisses the heels of your feet as you sit at the edge of the escarpment, legs dangling above the void. The palace has sat upon this cliff for what’s felt like eons; as if it was created when the world was. Always high upon a precipice, always looking down on the vast city that grovels at its feet. It’s given the impression that this building is important. Towering marble columns, statues of long lost gods and goddesses with forgotten names—the palace is fit for a king, and acts as a brutal reminder that it will always remain out of reach.
Or, that’s what it used to be seen as. Now, with you sitting behind the garden and staring out at the vast sea that crashes against the palisade below, it feels like a dead end. A terminus. Nothing but a corral to cage in the flighty livestock Shepherd has curated over his countless decades as ruler. The people feel it too. You see it in wide eyes and trembling hands; it lurks in rumbling stomachs that beg for food yet can’t seem to hold it.
The crying starts around midday when John Price and his warlords breach the edge of the city. They come with long pikes and horses strong enough to trample stone into gravel. The army is baronial and clad in a mix of leather and bronze armor that you can see from the palace—the glint of their swords is nearly enough to drown out the sun. Every man within their ranks roars and you swear you can feel the reverberation echo in the soil. They’re nothing but brutes. Animals. Barbarians. Your emperor had said as much himself, hadn’t he?
All defences crumble into fine dust within hours. The soldiers stationed at the city environs find themselves skewered like a hog on a spit, painting the road to the palace russet with blood and soot. They cut through the city like a hot knife through butter, rarely bothering any citizen; many of whom are locked inside of their homes as if a door would save them from an army. You watch them close in—from a distance they look like nothing but a line of ants. But those ants grow larger, and their marked prey couldn’t be anymore obvious as they slice directly towards the palace.
Shepherd does not bother with the theatrics. There are no grand speeches or lordly actions, he does not fight alongside the men who fruitlessly attempt to protect him—he simply sits upon his throne and waits. A dead man walking, he slumps as if he’s already in decay. Pallid and thin, you hardly recognize the man who stole your tongue from you all those years ago. You suspect he’s already been dead for quite some time; marked by John Price, there’s no room left for him to run.
When dusk hits, and the ocean mist has grown too cold for you to bear, you wander back into the marble palace while your heart is plagued with incertitude. Stepping foot into this building while an army marches towards it isn’t a good idea, but your curiosity pulls at your limbs. It whispers don’t you want to see the end? The end of this empire, the end of him?
Your mother always said your curiosity would be the death of you someday, but the promise of satisfaction is too great for you to ignore.
Chaos soaks every inch of the palace as servants flutter through the corridors like flighty birds from a forest fire. They’re nothing but wide eyes, quiet sobs, fists clutching valuables and loved ones—they pay you no attention. They never do, unless it is to sneer. You travel through the halls uninterrupted until you reach the throne. A lordly construct, a large chair carved out of marble sits upon a peak of stairs rising well above the floor. A dying emperor is slumped forward with dull eyes, and if he hears you enter through the side door, he does not show it.
You hide behind a pillar, obscured by numbra and poor torch light, hands against the cold stone, gaze peering around the curve of the structure just as the main doors burst open. Without guards to protect your hunted emperor, his life is cut short, quick and easy. There is no fanfare of conversation or shouting, or anything else that the old songs would have you believe. There is only a man—John Price—and his knife in Emperor Shepherd’s stomach.
The old man falls, frail body sliding down the stairs, hands gripping the blade in his gut and yanking it free. Ichor pours from him like the fountains in the garden and the city square. It spews like rust in the light, but he makes no effort to stunt the bleeding. Instead, he looks around, dull eyes soaking in the view of his once great empire, until his attention lands on you. Hands still against the marble, head peeking around the curve of stone—it is the first moment since the knife made its bed in his stomach that he looks upset.
“Stupid girl!” he spits, throat closing, airway blocked by terminal secretions. “I told you to run!”
These are the last words he speaks before a new knife runs along his throat, kissing the tender flesh, marring his vocal cords beyond recognition—then, he falls forward, face flat against the floor, his last breath left sputtering in the blood.
Despite the body at their feet, all eyes in the room turn to you. Pathetic little thing, you can only stare back. Countless men clad in armor with swords clutched in their fists look at you with bored curiosity, but none of them strike fear into your heart quite like him.
You recognize him instantly only due to the hushed stories you’ve heard from guardsmen. Taller than any man or beast, twice as broad as a working horse, and face obscured with a human skull—they call him Ghost. Eyes darker than the night itself pierce through you from the empty shell of the faceplate of bone as scarred lips grow tight beneath the decaying teeth. It’s held against his head with leather straps, and though it obscures his cheeks, you can still see the keloids that dance along his jaw, hairline, and chin.
They say he’s slain a battalion by himself. That he’s moved boulders three times his own size to cut down his enemies. Conversation alone would not have you believe such claims from the mouths of garrulous soldiers, but now that you behold him yourself, you think they may have been telling the truth after all. Even his hands are large—long, thick fingers that would make quick work of your skull, squeezing it tight, popping you like a melon.
Just as your heart leaps into the tightness of your throat, fearing the worst is about to fall upon you, you realize these men are just like everyone else—they look away from you without so much as a second thought.
It is then that the empire that you loved—the one that never loved you back—falls. Brick by vicious brick, John Price and his Ghost dismantle the order of things until all men loyal to the deceased Emperor Shepherd are either dead, or have re-sworn their allegiance to a new host. You watch them stomp around the palace, swords heavy on their hips, gazes hard and stony as they redirect servants and bark at soldiers to do their bidding. The city transforms overnight. New flags are hung upon homes. Strange men demand order.
But for you, nothing changes. The death of your emperor does not regrow your tongue. It does not make the other servants respect you. At the end of the day, you are still in your room—one so small it hardly houses a mattress on the stone floor, with a single small window for lighting—alone with nothing but the distant sound of the waves and new shrieking to lull you to sleep.
And in the morning, the sun still rises.
A blood orange hue seeps through your small crack of a window, faint smoke still lingering in the air, rusting the gold rays into something macabre. The stench of death hangs heavy over the city as you rise, peeking out into the garden. Untouched, the plants still thrive and the fountain sputters a prismatic spray of water as it always has. Birds play in the basin. Seagulls squawk in the distance.
Since nothing else has seemed to change, you begin your day like you always do. A trip through the garden, bare feet hitting against the smoothed stone, curious eyes that flicker to you only to avoid your gaze the next moment—if it weren’t for the different uniforms covering the soldier’s bodies, you could almost be convinced as if this was just another normal day. Dip a bucket into the well. Fill your pitcher until it’s overflowing. Tread the path you always have.
It isn’t until you reach Emperor Shepherd’s chambers that you realize something has shifted. Once pure white linens made of the finest cotton now lay strewn on the floor, marred with darkened bloodstains—red fading to hazel. Bronze and leather armor sits by the foot of the bed, laying against the wooden frame next to a sheathed short sword; the wooden handle is stained with fingerprints. In place of proper bedding, there are now animal pelts. Soft deer hide, wolf pelts, and other creatures you can’t quite name.
When you see the hulking beast curled up beneath these trophies, you freeze.
Laying on his side, back faced toward you with no chiton or blanket to cover the pallid skin, you blink as if that will get the figure to vanish. You tread carefully, hands clutching the pitcher so tightly the stonewear nearly shatters beneath your grip as you drink in the lines of scars that pucker on roughened skin. He glows too much to be your dethroned emperor. His skin is full of life and vigor—strength radiates from him with each rise and fall of his shoulders, breaths silent and even.
You’re nearly at the edge of the bed now. Quiet sunlight illuminates patches of dried blood on his skin. Speckles of high impact splatters dot the side of his bicep, even going as far as to curl over his shoulder before it trails toward his spine. His calf peeks out from beneath the swathes of blankets, revealing dried mud and gore along the ridge of his foot and up his shin. He is sordid. Messy. The antithesis of Emperor Shepherd.
Still, this act is brazen even for one of John Price’s famed barbaric men. Soiling a dead man’s bed with gore and filth, making the most intimate of spaces his own. But it isn’t until you recognize the skull face plate and leather straps sitting next to the yellowed pillows beneath the beast’s head that you realize just who lays before you.
Ghost.
“You’re more quiet than the others they’ve sent in the night.” He speaks like thunder. Not a crack, but a rumble. Deep in the sky, dancing between clouds, chasing the birds from their nests and people into their homes. You jump at the sharp tone to the point water sloshes out of your pitcher, running down your chiton, forcing the cotton to stick to your legs. Unable to clean yourself, you watch in horror while Ghost turns to face you, legs swinging over the side of the bed as he rises, opaque eyes piercing through you like an onyx blade. “Are your people so desperate to be rid of me that they sent a whelp like you to drown me in my sleep?”
His face is curious, and for a moment you find yourself lost as you look at him. A deep scar carves into the prominent but crooked curve of his nose, reminding you of the cliff that looks out over the coast by the garden. Somehow, without his mask, you do not find yourself capable of being truly terrified of him. He is a man, like any other. The same breed that stole your tongue and your parents—there is not much left to be taken from you.
“Well?” Ghost stands. Blankets and animal pelts slide off of him, revealing his naked body, but you’re too entranced by his eyes to look anywhere else. He stalks forward, forcing you to take a step back as you shake your head. “No? Then what’re you here for?”
You swallow, thick and clumpy, saliva like sand turning to mud in your mouth. With no tongue to speak with, you opt to show Ghost instead. Gingerly, you retrieve the water basin and bristle brush that you always used when washing Emperor Shepherd. He watches you, eyes glinting with enough curiosity to allow him to hold back his clenching fists as you pour your pitcher into the basin. Then, you carry it. It settles by his feet with a dull thud as you kneel, sitting on your haunches, heels digging into your rump as you wet the brush.
You look up at him, uncomfortably aware of the heavy cock hanging between his legs as he stares down at you. Fables have told you of the way men ravage women in war. How spearing men isn’t enough for them, that they desire the blood that drips between trembling legs after they’ve been torn apart with a meaty cock. If Ghost wanted to, he could do the very same to you. You wouldn’t fight. You rarely do anymore these days.
It has been made painfully clear to you what happens to people who fight.
“You think I’m dirty? Is that it? Bet Shepherd told you all ‘bout us. Called us beasts. Barbarians. Do you think I’m not capable of cleanin’ myself up?” he asks. Once more, you shake your head. Scoffing, Ghost turns, attention now drawn by his own chiton laying across the foot of the mattress—he snatches it, and lazily begins to dress himself, uncaring about the gore that still stains him. “You’re quiet compared to the others. Your people like to bitch ‘n moan ‘bout everythin’ beneath the sun.”
Though he doesn’t know it, he’s talking to himself. Or rather, a wall. That’s all you are. A statue brought to life by a cruel artist—one who forgot to give you the muscle to speak. You can only continue to sit there and watch as he pulls the cotton over his body, stained cloth obscuring plush muscle and rigid scars. When he brings his attention back to you, you’re exactly where he left you; hands gripping the brush, water dripping from the bristles, eyes focused on him, soaking up his words.
“I’ve just insulted your people. Do you still have nothing to say? Are you that pitiful?” he questions. When you shake your head again, he chuckles this time. It’s tense, like a rope pulled too tight, fraying in the center, ready to snap. “Maybe you just like hearin’ me talk.”
Though his tone is jocular, you can hear the tremors of something different in the vibrations of his voice. He’s frustrated; or maybe curious. An accomplished warrior, he’s gotten everything he’s ever desired. The death of his enemies, valiant conquests where he can pillage anything he wishes—but he hasn’t gotten you. Your voice. Your words.
His determination seeps from him as he paces around you, knees bumping against your back as he reaches down. A firm hand grasps your throat and then presses, forcing your head backwards, chin pointing toward the ceiling. You recall watching a servant’s throat being slit like this before—head held high, skin going tight so that it may kiss the blade properly.
“Shame. Always love makin’ the pretty birds sing in the night. Gonna miss that ‘bout home. Now, I’m stuck ‘ere, leading the lot ‘o you. Somethin’ tells me it’s not so easy with you though, yeah? Gettin’ you to sing nice and pretty for me?” His hand wanders, palm rising from your throat up to your chin, thumb pressing against your closed lips. When you make no attempt at replying, he pushes further, the pad of his thumb hitting your teeth. There is no taste. Still, you make no sound, and he huffs; bored. “Do you truly wish to bathe me?”
You blink, then nod as best as you can with your head knocked against his body. For a moment, you think you see him smile—or perhaps it's just the trick of the light. The odd angle your eyes are forced to view him through. Either way, he seems content with finally getting something worthwhile from you. Something besides a denial.
“Then you’ll do it properly. None of this sponge bath bullshit. I thought I was supposed to be the barbarian. Don’t you people have a proper bath house?” When you nod again, he pulls his thumb away from your teeth, allowing your chin to drop until you’re looking back at your lap. Your hands are curled so tightly around the brush it mars your skin with indentations—the faint dreams of lacerations. “Good. Take me there. Then we’ll see to it that you sing properly f’me.”
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simon ghost riley x fem!reader | warlord x servant | masterlist
Epilogue
It has been two weeks since you’ve given birth to Ghost’s son—the heir to the throne, and the tiny love of your life.
Like his father, he is large. Nothing but squirming arms, kicking feet, and fat cheeks. The midwife said he was the biggest baby she’s ever seen anyone birth before, and he fought and screamed with demanding cries the moment he sucked in his first breath. Tiny hands clenched into fists, pumping them into the air as if already fighting; you cried with him the moment he opened his eyes. Darkness like the sky just after dusk—a pure reflection of his father. The moment they laid him on your breast he quieted just long enough for you to point the similarity out.
Now, those same eyes are closed as he feeds. Chiton pushed past your chest, limp cloth laying around your waist, your son eats as if he’ll be starved for the rest of his life after this. Greedy fingers pinching at your tender skin, you beam down at him as your body bounces on the edge of the bed to lull him to sleep.
It’s the quiet moments like these that make everything worth it. When it is only the two of you and the sound of the ocean through the windows with strong waves crashing on the shore as if the earth herself is singing a special lullaby for your child.
The priest said he is going to be adored by everyone. A true ruler with integrity and strength. There will come a day when he sits on the throne and his soft skin hardens with scars that are of the same vein of his fathers, but for now he is yours. Each little finger and toe, every coo, the cries that come in the night—they’re all yours.
“Starvin’ isn’t he?”
So lost in your own enervation, you miss the sound of Simon crossing the threshold into your chambers. Heavy eyes slowly blink until you’ve made sense of his figure crossing through the room, hands occupied with a platter of food. You smile at him as you squeeze your son closer to you. He grunts as he scratches at your collarbone as if your breast isn’t enough—insatiable little man, needing skin and bone, too.
Your husband sets the platter to the side before seating himself next to you. You both look down at the boy who lazily suckles on your breast; innocence reincarnate. The ache in your stomach grows with each moment he feeds—body contracting, blood flowing free from your battered womb, used up of all your resources. When you lean to the side and rest your head on Simon’s shoulder, his hand finds your back. Low, where your spine meets your hips, he rubs. Tense fingers into screaming skin.
“Tired, Mouse?” he asks. All you can do is hum in response.
Simon allows the child to eat for a few more moments before his hands slip around yours. Perking up, you watch as his limp body is lifted out of your arms and into your husband’s, his mouth detaching from your breast with a small pop. Though he seems to grow more and more by the day, Simon always manages to dwarf him. Hardly longer than his forearm, not even the circumference of his bicep—Simon smiles down at his son as he slowly stands.
“All that eatin’ and you don’t even give your mother a thank you?” he asks facetiously. When the child yawns with a squeak, Simon shrugs. “Suppose that will do for now.”
Bleary eyes lazily focus on Simon as he lays the child in the bassinet next to you. Animal pelts cradle him, keeping him on his back while his arms tuck close to his body before he goes limp with another ceremonious yawn. Simon places his palm on the boy’s stomach for a few moments, a habit you picked up shortly after he was born when you feared he would stop breathing in the night. You watch it rise and fall with each tiny breath, and your shoulders slouch with relief.
“Alright little mouse.” Simon’s voice is soft and quiet as he prompts your attention, each syllable delicate so as to not rouse the child. “Let me take care of my wife.”
He situates you on the bed so that you’re laying in his lap, head propped up on his thigh, eyes focusing on the distant ceiling that looms overhead. A large hand gently cups one of your breasts before carefully squeezing, fingertips rolling into the swollen tissue. The pressure that builds leaves you groaning as you shut your eyes, head rolling to the side as you nuzzle your nose into his stomach.
“Still sore?” he asks. He huffs when you nod. The birthing process has been strange for him—frustrating, almost. He does not like seeing you in a pain he cannot mend. “We will see the midwife tomorrow. I’m sure something can be done.”
Once he is satisfied in massaging you, he cradles your head with his hand. Tense fingers press into your skull, lifting you up slightly, but he bears all the weight. You open your eyes when you feel the cool skin of a grape against your lips.
Simon feeds you like this every day now. Whenever he’s able to step away from his duties as warlord, anyway. It’s his way of giving back—of taking care of the woman who gave him everything he could ever want in this world. Understanding, companionship, a child of your mixed blood. His fingers push into your mouth where he lines the grape with your molars and lets you bite before pushing the squished food around until you’re ready to swallow. Then it’s cheese, a slice of apple, tender meat, a sip of water.
“My sweet wife,” Simon murmurs. You could fall asleep like this—you nearly do. Cradled in his arms, his fingers in your mouth, the call of the sea pulling you beneath her waves. “Beautiful. I love you more than the sun loves the moon.”
Allowing your eyes to flicker open, you stare up at him. A humid breeze forces a shiver through your body and causes your nipples to harden, but even then his only focus is your face. His fingertips trace your lips, dancing along your smile, and when he decides seeing is not enough, he curls forward to kiss you. Tongue in your mouth, palms cupping your face, he partakes of your flesh like it’s the only sustenance that he needs.
When he pulls away, your eyes are wet. “I’m going to give you the whole world,” he promises.
If you had a tongue, you’d tell him that he already has.
A pathetic squeak is the precursor to your son’s crying. Both you and Simon turn your attention to the bassinet where you can already see the boy’s fingers reaching up in a desperate search for someone to catch him. You are slow to move, but Simon doesn’t rush you, but the moment his legs are free he’s standing. Your grunting stops him as you grab his wrist and pull back in warning.
Relenting, Simon allows you to stand and scoop the crying babe from his bed. Your touch alone already has his pules calming to whimpering as you press him to your still bare chest. Itchy feet wander around the room in slow, swaying steps, but you stop when Simon’s hands find your hips and he pulls your back to his chest.
The two of you rock side to side like this, like fish caught in a current, or swans dancing on the mirror surface of a lake. Simon’s cheek rests against your shoulder as he digs his nose into your cheek, lips finding that faint scar on the side of your throat and blessing it with a kiss. Your son likes it best this way; when both his parents are within his stunted view.
Still, his whimpering persists and doesn’t calm until you begin to hum. The melody is lost on you; unfamiliar even to your own ears. It vibrates through your chest as you capture the sound of wind through trees, and the gentle lament of a grandmother who will never hold her grandson. Soon, the boy is staring up at you with wide eyes as if he understands your wordless tune. Simon whispers how beautiful you sound before he takes the boy’s hand into his own, chuckling at how his fingers can’t quite wrap around his pinky.
Smiling, you place a gentle kiss on your son’s forehead. You have no tongue, but these days you sing anyway.
Your hand slips out of Simon’s grasp as you reach for the knife against your throat, but your reaction only makes the assailant’s grip tighten. A toothy bite against your jugular, breaking tender skin until beads of ichor line your neck like the world’s finest rubies. Stronger fingers—a killer’s fingers—dig into your shoulder as if staking some sort of claim on you. For the first time all night, Simon’s gaze breaks from you. Onyx eyes stare dully at your attacker as if bored, but you see the heat lurking in the depths. It’s thick, like molten lava—a fire Prometheus could only dream of.
Having yet to realize the silent battle taking place at the front of the throne, chatter still fills the room as the celebration continues unheeded. But there are some who notice. Old men with twinkling eyes glaring at the man touching you from over the rims of their goblets, soldiers with their hands caressing the handle of their swords ready to cut at a single motion of order from Simon—curious people who are already trying to guess whose blood will paint the floor first.
“What’s your name, boy?” Simon barks. The equanimity he exercises is impressive, but you note the warble in his tone—fierce and sanguineous.
“My name is none of your concern.” Breath is hot on the top of your head as the man’s chin brushes against the crown of your head, but the shiver it sends along your spine is nothing compared to the stark realization that you recognize this voice. Though you can’t put a name to it, this is the soldier who threatened you many years ago. The one who you found outside of the bath house with Caenis.
No wonder your nose is tainted with the scent of pork.
“Isn’t it?” Simon challenges. “Would you prefer an unmarked grave once I’ve gutted you for your transgressions?”
The soldier’s heart thuds so violently against his chest you feel it thump against your back, burrowing straight through your spine. Fluttering and begging, it pairs sourly with the sweat on his palms. It soaks into your skin and muddies your himation. You’re already mourning the loss of this clothing—you won’t keep garments that reek of pig.
“You barbarians are so full of yourselves,” the soldier snarls. “You pretend to be so brave but your idioticacy will be the death of you. Threatening me in such a way when I’ve got a blade pressed to your empress-whore’s throat? Not even a child would be so daft.”
This farce of a performance has garnered more attention now. Not even the men who have indulged in the most wine can ignore the way Simon’s chuckle rings darkly throughout the hall. The stinging on the side of your neck worsens as the soldier’s uneasy grip scrapes along your skin, yet you cannot bring yourself to feel fear. As you stare up at Simon—your emperor, your love—you only feel a giddiness that bubbles through your chest.
This only ends in one way. Water at your feet, jug shattered on the floor—Caenis’s sobs echoing off the walls.
“I’m predictable, am I?” Simon questions facetiously. He’s playing with his food. If he wanted to, this soldier would already be splayed on the floor for all to see, but instead he’s taking his time, scraping his claws over quivering flesh just for the fun of it. To lecture. “You say this not knowing Shepherd’s filth has stained you. You reek of his cowardice. Even now you prove this, grappling with an unarmed woman instead of fighting me. You wonder why your city fell by my hand, boy? It’s because Shepherd’s desire to save only himself rubbed off on you. You don’t know what it means to make a sacrifice.”
Simon’s words nettle deep enough to strike bone—you feel it in the blazing furnace of the soldier’s grip. His breathing quickens, a bull waiting to charge, and suddenly you are no longer in his grasp. Shoved to the side, discarded in the way you always are, the man lunges like a cat with his arm outstretched, blade slicing through the air in an arc that leads directly to Simon’s heart while he roars about wounded honor.
You cry out a gargled animal howl, but you should know better than to fear that something as simple as a boy throwing a tantrum could ever bring the downfall of your lover. Simon’s fingers wrap around the soldier’s wrist, and the snap that follows after it echoes throughout the stunned hall. The blade bounces on the ground as the man yelps and you can do nothing but sit and watch in awe as Simon produces his own blade hidden deep within his himation.
Iron sinks deep into a delicate stomach, sending a symphony of gasps throughout the hall. The soldier isn’t sure what to cradle—his fractured wrist or his split abdomen. It’s fruitless in the end. Simon puts the beast out of his misery with a slash along his throat, matching the one that would have fallen on your own body, before he shoves him to the ground. Blood spills onto stone, mixing with the faded remnants of Emperor Shepherd’s downfall.
Silence rings as torches continue to blaze and moonbeams wander through ported windows—then, there is the triumph. Salutes and cheering, hands clapping together, citizens whistling, old men barking with laughter as yet another young man perishes for a faded and cruel ideology. A dinner and a delicious show.
When Simon turns his attention to you, he finds you crumpled on the ground with a hand pressed against the side of your throat. Ichor pitifully stains your fingers as you stem the bleeding, but you make no visible direction of your pain. There is only a faint smile on your wine-stained lips as you stare at the soldier and how he cools on the marble floor.
“Little mouse.” His voice is tender when he kneels before you, fingers prodding at yours to see the extent of the damage. A small nick mars your skin, not enough to be fatal but enough to sting like salt in a fresh wound. When Simon thumbs over the cut, all coherent thought flees from your brain. “Look at what he did to you.”
You shake your head, an attempt to tell him that you’re fine, but he refuses to listen to it. His hands are on your shoulders, prompting you to your feet, arm wrapped around your waist as if you’ve lost enough blood to bring you to your knees without support.
As soldiers drag away the body of the man who threatened you at his beckoning—another pig butchered—Simon murmurs strict orders to his men to not be disturbed as he brings you to his chambers. Shadows cloak the room for only a moment before he’s lighting several tall-wicked candles. A honeyed glow bathes the bed, clashing like gold against the silvery moonlight that rains through the open window.
Simon directs you to sit on the edge of the mattress, and he kneels in front of you as he twists your head to the side to earn himself a better angle to assess your wound. He mutters to himself as he wipes at the blood left on your skin with the edge of his himation. Somehow, the purple darkens even further—a swathe of tenebrious night captured into the weaving of fabric.
“I failed you tonight,” Simon sighs, beginning his harangue. “Everyone in this damn city should know better than to lay hands on you like that. A knife to your fuckin’ throat, degrading you into a hostage. Had I more time, he would’ve paid for it with more than his life, sweet mouse. I'd've ripped the meat from his bones. There would be no grand farewell for all to see, he’d simply be butchered like the animal he was.”
Despite the gnarly plans Simon shares with you, a smile flitters across your lips as you reach for him. Palms cupping his cheeks, your touch silences him. Through the candlelight, he stares at you, eyes slowly softening as your thumbs move to press against his bottom lip. Then, you tilt your head to the side. The cut on your neck strains as your skin grows taut, but it is an offering. A plea.
Kiss it better.
Putting his lips to better use besides a rant, Simon embraces the side of your throat. Hands falling from his face, you instead wrap your arms behind his head, forearms pressing against his spine, fingers rolling along the angry muscles in his shoulders. The very touch of his chapped lips sends a wave of dopamine coursing through your already torrid blood.
An unfamiliar hum reverberates in your throat. A sweet melody that gives Simon pause. He pulls back with his concupiscence hardly restrained.
“Everything in this city belongs to me. Every person, every home, every rock. It’s my duty to protect it,” he whispers. “But you? My little mouse. You’re the only thing I want to belong to.”
The more he speaks, the closer he gets. Stalking forwards, he’s pushing you until your back is flat against the bedding, animal hides and linens crowning you like a halo. His hands are on either side of your head as he straddles your hips. The entirety of his spine curves forward, a wolf guarding food, a minotaur judging mortals—your heart pounds out of your chest as if to offer itself to him.
“Will you let me belong to you, Mouse? Will you let us belong to one another?” he asks.
Your wine-fuzzied mind sobers up just long enough to nod before it goes blank. Void of all thought, your memories leave you as Simon descends upon you. Nose pressed against your cheek, tongue in your mouth—you explode. Hands reaching for him, pulling him closer, cheeks suctioning in to bring as much of him in as you can manage. You note the way the wet muscle taps against the roof of your mouth, your soft palate, traces the edge of your teeth; incisors, molars, canines.
You wonder what Emperor Shepherd would think of you if he were alive to see you like this—smiling in his bed with the man who helped to bring about his demise. You are about to be the ruler of a city that once hated you. Something that despised you, shunned you with a hollow mouth, degraded you to filth.
It’s impossible to know—and you don’t care to guess—but you just hope that whatever shallow grave he’s been tossed into, he’s turning in it.
Spit dribbles down your chin as Simon breaks your union, and you stare up at him gasping for breath as he leans back. His weight settles on your hips, a comfortable pressure that doesn’t threaten to crush you, as he reaches towards the collar of your himation.
The moment his hands grip the cloth, you know exactly what he’s going to do.
“Ah!” You attempt to vocalize your discontent as best as you can as you grab his wrists, head violently shaking side to side.
“I told you, Mousie, I like to rip into somethin’ of substance before I eat,” Simon chuckles. Still, you furrow your brows. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you new clothes. Nicer ones. Whatever you want. Tomorrow, I’ll get you a red veil. Yeah, you’d be a good sight in that, yeah?”
Pausing your silent argument, your body tenses as you realize what he means. Once he feels the slightest bit of slack in your grip, Simon’s hands dart apart, ripping the fabric clean down the middle, exposing your chest and stomach between a valley of frayed cotton.
“Like that, do you?” he teases. Scooting down your body, he continues to rip until there’s a clean line cleaved down the center, decking you in a robe rather than proper clothes. “You look so pretty in red.”
His eyes flicker to the cut on your neck before he’s cloaking over you once more. Tongue licking along your wound, gathering the stunted flow of ichor, swallowing down with a hum—your eyes roll into the back of your head as your back arches off of the bed. Yours and Simon’s heat begins to mix together, forcing your temperature to rise to the point you swear you’ll sublimate out of his very touch.
Then, he wanders down. A trail of kisses mark along your breasts, lips grazing along each nipple before he’s lapping at the sensitive skin just above your belly button. Palms against the inside of your thighs, he presses your legs apart before sitting back on his haunches to get a better view of you.
Warmth bubbles in your face and throat as his fingers begin to poke at your sex. Flippant nudity does not compare to the way he spreads your labia apart, wetness squelching as he prods at you. His eyes narrow, head tilting to the side as he bends forward as if ready to pry you open and climb inside.
“Have you never fed your fingers into ‘er before?” he asks softly. Unsure how to respond, you don’t answer until his fingers slide over your clit, prompting you to shake your head. “You’re still intact.”
Eyes wandering away from your cunt, Simon turns his attention to your mouth. Glistening wet with spit, he smirks as he raises a hand and presses two fingers past your lips. You’ve gotten used to taking him like this—you love it. The weight of something where it ought to be, filling you. He pets the place where your tongue used to be, and you groan.
He doesn’t linger long before he’s back at your sex, wet fingers now prodding at your entrance. You feel the resistance of your hymen and how he circles around the thin tissue. There is a small opening that he pushes one finger into and he scowls at the tightness as you stretch. It burns, like angry bramble against your skin, but once he’s in deep enough to curve his fingers into you, you gasp at the sensation.
It’s as if you’re being filled, more than just the empty space in your mouth, but the hollow cave that was carved out of you long, long ago. A cavern ready for painting, yearning to be marked—your heart flutters at the thought that maybe you are meant to be more than a servant. More than a lesson. You can be something great. Someone powerful.
A second finger is added and you are ripped apart like the clothes Simon tore off your body. Back arching, hips rolling into him, you groan as your eyes flutter shut. He’s drawing more sounds out of you here in this bed than you’ve made since you were ten—when ichor clots replaced your tongue.
“Pretty mouse squeakin’ for me,” Simon croons darkly. His eyes are stuck on the way his fingers push in and out of you, the tight ring of your hymen catching on his knuckles with each exit. “Wonder if I can get ‘er to sing.”
You pout when Simon removes his fingers from you, leaving your muscles contracting around nothing, but your eyes widen when you see the way he lines up three fingers against you. Thick, round, and strengthened from battle, from wielding blades and heavy weaponry, from slicing the throats of anyone who would question you; you nearly shriek as you reach for his wrist and hold him at bay—keeping a dog from a bone.
Simon raises an eyebrow. “What? You don’t want more?”
But oh, you do. A famished beast claws at your stomach. It’s eaten away the softer parts of you, leaving behind nothing but bones and desire, but even you are smart enough to realize that three fingers would rip you apart. Wide, thick, and made for cleaving. Instead, you whine as you pull at his himation as if you’re tugging on a leash.
Entertaining you, Simon obeys your request, though he does not make a great show of it. With deft movement he shrugs his own clothing off as it rolls over his shoulders and slides down his hips until he’s kicking them onto the floor. Quick and to the point. He’s no longer interested in toying.
This is not your first time seeing him naked. You’ve seen the way seafoam clings to his bare skin in the marmalade light of afternoon, and how the stars ignite his pallid skin into silvery blue—but you’ve never seen him like this. Hardened cock weeping in his hand as he kneels between your legs, knocking your knees wide enough to slot his thighs between them. He is red and angry, already anxious to meet you, to kiss you, to know you from the inside out.
He was doing a favor offering you three fingers.
“After we laid siege to this city and freed it from Shepherd’s wretched shackles, John Price told me to lead with honor. To settle and find a wife to bed and raise an heir. I didn’t want any of that.”
As he soliloquizes, Simon’s fingers curl into your hips as his cockhead presses against your sex. He kisses just past your labia, and the pressure on your hymen already feels overwhelming. You stare up at him, mouth open but with no tongue to speak.
“When you came here on that first day, I thought you were here to play. Sweet little bird toying with a lion. I saw the way you looked at me that night we killed Shepherd. Thought you were playin’ hard to get when you wouldn’t speak. Maybe you just wanted a good fuck. To see if the barbarians fuck as savagely as they kill, yeah? But no, as soon as you opened your mouth and I saw that we have kindred scars, I knew it. Knew I could only ever want you.”
Simon’s confession falls from his lips just as he pushes past the point of no return. He leans forward just as you gasp while rolling his hips into you, face falling into your neck so that you can hold onto him as your hymen tears the rest of the way. Thumbs into fruit. Pomegranate seeds shelled from its husk. He licks the wound on your throat as you keen, and you’ve never felt more alive.
When your tongue was taken from you all those years ago, it was the first time that you truly realized the way you draw breath. How it fills your lungs and flows in your blood. The red syrup pouring from your lips was proof that you are living—being so close to death. That’s what this is. As Simon’s cock kisses your cervix, shoving you full of himself, replacing the cavity that was left after the robbery of your tongue, you are alive.
“Do you want me, sweet mouse? Do you want this?” Simon questions as his hips begin to draw back. It’s difficult to swallow the drool pooling in your jaw, but you quickly choke it down so you can nod. “Good. Don’t think I could stop myself anyway.”
There is no holding back the way Simon tears you apart now that you’ve given him permission to take you. Jerking movements leave you trembling beneath his grasp as he fills you then rips himself out until you’re empty over and over again, a vicious give and take that leaves your head spinning. Iron is thick in the air as a pink ring of blood forms around the shaft of Simon’s cock and the scent has your teeth aching for his fingers. Soft pad against hard bone. Suck until you’re whole again.
Each thrust has you crying out in squeaky pules and gutteral moans, and the louder you get, the wider Simon’s smirk becomes. His breath is hot on your face as your nails rake along his back. Long, puffy trails dance beside his keloids until the scars from battle and the marks from love are indiscernible. Both brutal; both a result of taking and giving.
As pain and pleasure morph and mix below your navel, lightning is added to the mix as Simon suddenly reaches down between your bodies. He rubs at the place you’ve only dared to touch on the darkest nights when not even the moon can see you from your old chamber window. The hardened flesh between your labia pulses beneath his thumb as he presses down. It is the trigger that gets you to sing. To squeal like a mouse whose tail has been caught by prey. Legs twitching, torso writhing—a song and dance that your lover already seems to have memorized.
“Yeah, there she is, my sweet singin’ mouse,” Simon croons. His thrusts become more firm, rocking your body into the plush feather and wool mattress that keeps you chained to the earth. Each time you think you’ve got the rhythm enough to catch your breath, he changes it, drawing more of those sybaritic sounds past your lips. “They always say the seed takes better this way. Are you gonna come for me, pretty mouse?”
Your mangled tongue shoves out a sound that mimics confirmation, but if Simon had any doubt he would only have to look to your eyes. Wide, blown pupils, heavy lids, mouth agape and hips wiggling—you want this; you covet this more than anything.
When the pleasure snaps inside of you, thread fraying until there’s nothing but fibres left, you go silent. No breath leaves your mouth, no air is sucked into your lungs—there is only the fluttering of your eyes as everything builds then shatters all at once. A groan, trembling hands against his chest, fingers curling into his pectoral muscles until you’re certain the marks will be noticeable for days.
Your emperor. Your Simon—only you will be able to brand him like this.
He likes the pain. It prompts a thick growl from him—a mark of his own. The sound is smothered when his lips collapse against you, tongue pushing past your lips, hips jutting forward, weight collapsing on you until—
Everything pulses. Cum spills into you thick and heavy as Simon keeps himself sheathed deep enough to kiss your cervix. Warmth. Perspiration and brine. You are full to the point of combustion; of exploding outwards in a mess of ichor and teeth too hungry to keep to themselves.
When the breathing slows and you and Simon lie next to one another in bed, naked bodies melding together, neither of you speak. After your many years in servitude, you’ve learned that words are not needed to convey the ardor that buzzes beneath your skin. You need only your hand on his chest, and his cum spilling from your cunt as proof of your love.
And to think Herschel Shepherd suggested that you end your life instead of experiencing this.
After dawn breaks, and your slumber has long held your body, you wake at Simon’s beckoning. A gentle kiss upon your forehead, and his hand slipping into yours to urge you out of bed. You’ve had little time to rub the sand from your eyes before he’s dragging you out of your shared chambers and through the palace. Remnants of the party still linger in the air—stale food and too much liquor—and your own wine-tainted memory begins to sharpen.
It hits full force the moment a red veil is placed upon your head, and you are kneeling before a priest in the only temple your city has yet to topple. In a way, you always knew things would end up like this. It should have been clear the moment you caught Simon—The Ghost—in the throne. Your lives would be intertwined. Braided strands of fate, now forever holding the two of you together by your little fingers.
Once the ceremony is finished, Simon sneaks you to the cove. The very place you used to bathe to avoid harm and hate from your equals has now become the place for you to laze about with your husband. Warm sand on your bare back, grains sticking to your skin—he spends much time between your legs. Head nuzzled against your thighs, Simon tries to differentiate between the taste of your cunt and the taste of the sea.
When your legs begin to quiver too much, and you’re palming against the top of his head to get him away from you, Simon lies next to you on the beach as the waves attempt to kiss your feet. His fingers trace the rise and slopes of your face; along your cheekbone and the tip of your nose, all the way to your lips as they puff out waiting to accept him.
“My pretty wife.” His fingers push into your mouth where you all-too greedily pull him in. Content with the warmth of you, Simon hums. “My pretty empress. Never realized how nice it is to have a lovely creature like you sittin’ on my lap while I rule this city ‘til I met you. Wild thing, just like me, huh Mousie?”
You nod in confirmation, tugging his fingers along with you, and the action gives him pause. Dark eyes flicker away from where your lips curl around his fingers until he’s pinning you with his gaze alone. He retracts his hand until his palm is against your cheek, holding you as if you’re the most delicate thing in the world.
“I love you.” He whispers it softly. Low enough that the wind can’t carry it away from you.
Smiling, you prop yourself up just far enough to crash into him. Mangled lips mixing together, hungry teeth against tender flesh—you swing your leg over until you’re straddling him. Surprised, he looks up at you with a smirk, and when you giggle it’s as if it comes from the heavens. Bright and melodious; a blessing among mortal men.
And as you collide with him once more, you pray that you can speak with touch in a way you no longer can with your tongue:
I love you, too.
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simon ghost riley x fem!reader | warlord x servant | masterlist
Chapter Four: tongue
tw: mouth kink/oral fixation, nudity
That night, Simon does not let you sleep in your own quarters.
Now that he has seen the animosity Caenis has thrown your way, he studies every servant and turned soldier with a wary eye as if they’ll lunge and bite the flesh from your bones at any moment. His prudence is not unfounded. Long have you been the laughingstock of the palace. A groveling critter that has been used as the butt of jokes and other scornful sources of entertainment. They cower now that Ghost himself leads you around the grounds with his hand in yours, or a palm on the curve of your back.
“Not everyone likes mice. Many find them useless, or nothing more than varment. But I’ve always been fond of things that squeak,” he tells you.
As the nights grow warmer, Simon sleeps without a chiton. Nude in the night, body thrown halfway out of the covers, he keeps you just as close as his blade. An arm over your stomach, his nose shoved into the back of your neck—each morning he always tells you that you smell like the anemone flower. Fresh petals and lingering salt. Warm sand caught in the beds of his nails.
Though he is soft with you, his lordly duties require something more tense. Usually he sends you away during his excursions within the city, or the mind numbing time he spends in war meetings, but there are times when you linger. He proves how he earned his name—Ghost. Barking and snarling orders at those who would question him, remaining steadfast in his decisions, yet leading his men with the strength of a bull. You’ve heard hushed comments from servants calling him a minotaur. Half man, half beast, all Ghost.
You think this is what he meant when he told you that you are the only person in this entire city who understands him. Both of you are creatures of habit, in some way. Flouted animals fighting tooth and nail to get by.
But unlike Emperor Shepherd, he is not cruel. Food within the city is properly divided among the people, ensuring things are equitable where they used to be less than equal. Every fountain is silenced. Ducks and geese still flock to the quaint ponds to cool themselves off in, but the aquifers are saved for drinking water now, not decoration. You hear less of people dying of famine these days because of his actions.
When you find yourself missing the fountain in the garden—how it refracted each ray of sun into a prismatic beam—you wander off to the ocean instead. Your quiet cove. Shepherd had trampled over the earth's beauty to prove his own might that you almost forgot how these views existed before him and his reign.
Simon finds you one day. Somehow. Perhaps you have not been as discreet as you thought you were, or maybe he’s just good at tracking mice, but you do not mind his company. Approaching without a word, he remains quiet enough for you to enjoy the rushing of the water that kisses your toes as you comb the pale sand for shells. For a long while, he sits perched on the flat rock you like to sunbathe on as he warms his skin and aching muscles against the darkened stone, and though he seems to enjoy it, he cannot force himself to sit still for long.
He is a natural swimmer. While you wander, he sheds his chiton and swims further out into the water than you’ve ever been brave enough to tread. You reach a hand out as if to question his direction but you can’t convey it in time. Vanishing beneath the waves, you find yourself holding your breath until he resurfaces, hair sodden and weighing into his gaze. His chest expands, lungs gulping more air before he dives once more, pallid skin turning aqua beneath the seafoam.
Eventually, Simon drags himself to shore with something in his hands, somehow managing to keep himself afloat despite how preoccupied he is. You wait for him at the shoreline where foam kisses the tips of your toes, anxious for his return as he breaks through the waves, naked body unbothered by the water beading on his skin. He smiles at you when he sees the way you press your lips between your teeth.
“Scared for me, little mouse?” he questions. Simon chuckles when you nod. “I have been in the water since I was old enough to speak. I’ll always return back to you.”
He’s close enough now for you to recognize the item in his hand. It’s a shell—the largest you’ve ever seen. It curls around itself before puffing out with fat, rosy lips protected by a rocky covering similar to the color of the sand between your toes. Simon shakes the water out of it before holding it for you. Lips parting, you drop all the seemingly worthless shells in your hands in favor of his gift.
The inside is as soft as silk, and you find yourself enamored by its glimmering pearlescence. There are small nodes on the outside that press into your palms as you turn it in your hands. When you hold it to the sun, the light bleeds through, though just slightly.
“Here.” Simon maneuvers your hand until you’re holding the shell against your ear. “Listen.”
So you do. It’s noisy, for something so relatively small. Crashing waves, a distant crowd, a portal straight into the ocean. Closing your eyes, you cover your other ear with your free hand as the sound blossoms. A smile pulls at your lips as you giggle—it’s such a foreign thing for you to do. Long neglected vocal cords strain in your throat as the beauty overwhelms you.
It’s as if you’re holding the whole world in the palm of your hand, and you are listening to each of her songs playing all at once.
“It’s yours,” says Simon. “Keep it.”
Something swells in your chest that has not shown its face for quite a long time. It cracks the long stiff tendons in your ribs, pulling on tissues until they burst and you are dealing with the aftermath of a great flood. You are drowning as you look at Simon, shell now clutched to your chest.
Your feet shuffle in the sand as you open your mouth as if you’ve forgotten that you cannot speak. If the two of you had met when you were children—before Shepherd stole your tongue and your parents were slaughtered—you wouldn’t say much to him. Even before that muscle was ripped from your mouth, you were never verbose. Still, you would at least like to thank him.
In place of any verbal statements, you reach for his face. Fingers trailing along his cheek, curling into his cropped hair, thumb pressed against his lips—he does not growl at your touch. Leaning into you, Simon lets you kiss him. Slow, and softer than you’d ever expect from a man like him, you nearly drop his gift when his tongue enters your mouth. He wanders deep, swiping where a tongue has not touched in many years. The smile on his face makes you dizzy by the time he pulls away.
That night, the two of you go to bed smelling like sun warmed cotton and salt, and in the morning his hair is so crunchy that he drags you to the bath to freshen up. He washes you, too, much like you did that first morning you stumbled upon his newly conquered chambers. Lavender soap froths across your skin as his hands lather it along your body, refusing to skimp. By the time he is finished, Simon holds you in the bath, cradling your body against his as the water cools and the gulls squawk outside.
Those weeks ago, when he first came barreling into your city, you never would have expected such kindness from him.
It isn’t long before the citizens in your city recognize Simon’s benevolence. He unravels many of your late emperor’s rulings over the next few weeks. Women are granted more respect and honor in the caste system, becoming more than just wombs to bear children and machines to watch homes. The lame and sick are granted care, children are seen for what they are—the bright future, and are therefore nurtured by society rather than seen as an annoyance or blight.
Breaths come easier. Laughter echoes among the streets. Smiles are bountiful and plenty on long scarred faces. Markets bustle with jovial jokes that you’ve not seen at all in your easily recalled memories. People finally recognize Emperor Shepherd for what he truly was—a daft old man living off a dying reputation.
So it should not surprise you that the people are preparing for a celebration.
It has been six months since John Price and his barbarians stormed your city and morphed it for the better, and you find the most recent change has come to the throne once more. Long tables stand against the marble walls with food thick on the grains like a second skin. Bread, apples, grapes, pomegranates, chicken, pork—you turn your nose up at the honey, but you know the sight of everything else would have your mouth watering if it still had the capability to do so.
“A party,” Simon informs you as his hand settles in the small curve of your spine. “Merchants arrived this morning with food and linens, courtesy of John Price. The soldiers and townsfolk insisted on celebrating.”
And by the looks of it, it seems to be quite the celebration. Besides the food and the generous amounts of wine, they add a plethora of torches to the marble walls for extra lighting in anticipation of the party drawing well past dusk, seats in cozy corners, sitting tables and cushions—you’ve never witnessed such opulence be extended to the common people before. A pit of excitement buzzes in your stomach at the thought.
This was the life your father so vehemently preached about when he was alive. This was the very notion that slaughtered him. Equal pedestals for each man to stand upon, partaking in meals as a group rather than separated by a caste system. When you saw his body, mangled by the streets of your city, you drowned all that hope in the rotting pit of his exposed offals. You became complacent. A devout servant, and nothing more.
Simon has reignited that hope, not only in you, but in the entire city.
You find yourself hastily preparing. Donning a butter yellow peplos and a sky blue shawl to match, you pick your appearance apart in the mirror as if you are Narcissus himself. Golden bangles slide along your wrists as you secure your garments, and by the time you’re finished you hardly recognize yourself. You look younger. Full of life and a sanguinity that has long been lost on you.
“Beautiful,” Simon comments, finishing the thought that you would refuse to allow to bubble to the surface otherwise. He stands behind you, reflection dancing in the mirror, and you smile at him. He hasn’t bothered to change much of his appearance for the party, though he has changed into a peplos of a purple so deep it nearly appears as dark as the night. Warm hands settle on your hips before his own begin to sway, pulling you into his tide as you lean against his chest. “Come. I want everyone to see you with me. Everyone needs to know that you are mine, and a sacred thing.”
There are more people than you had anticipated awaiting you at the celebration, though you doubt half of them notice you. A wall of heat hits you the moment you walk into the room, and you find what feels like the entire city stumbling across the stone floors, drunk beyond their worth and feasting as if they’ll never see a morsel of food again.
A special place has been reserved for you and Simon. Cushions situated at the foot of the throne, and a wide table all to yourselves. There are platters decorated with tender meats, ripe fruit, lush vegetables, and two large jorums full of blood-like wine.
The padding is tender against your knees and hips as you stare at the expanse of the table before you. An empty plate awaits your choosing, yet your twitchy fingers refuse to retrieve anything other than the wine, which you pour into your cup. Simon scarfs down more than you’ve ever seen a man eat before all while entertaining the soldiers and citizens who greet him. Some even speak to you—blithe comments of your clothing, or how good it is to see you—to which you can only smile and bow your head in the way you always have.
“Are you not hungry, little mouse?”
Simon stares at you as he rolls a cherry tomato between his fingers, onyx eyes studying your grip on your cup. The fermented juice has burrowed into your mind, rendering each of your senses fuzzy like foam or moss.
There is no way for you to explain the pain that comes with eating these days. Though your nose can feign the feeling of taste, everything you put in your mouth is bland. Nothing more than a near whisper of what you know it ought to be. Then, there is your chewing. Or rather, your inability to do so without making a nuisance of yourself—without garnering attention of those who would sneer and mock you.
“Do you fear they will stare?” Simon concludes. Your nod is meek. “Let them stare. Should any of them open their mouths in disgust, I can always relieve them of their eyes.”
He says this with a reassuring smile, but you know he would do it in a heartbeat if you so much as requested it of him. Urging you further, Simon retrieves small items of food and places them on your plate. Grapes, soft bread and cheese. Braving the thought of eyes on you, you tenderly pluck one of the grapes from their bunch and place it in your mouth.
Without your tongue, there is nothing to move the food in your mouth. It sits in your maw, away from your teeth, rotting. Now, you must use your fingers. Sticking them in your mouth, you position the grape near your molars and bite down. Juice tickles the back of your throat, prompting you to swallow before you choke. Each time you bite, you have to rearrange the food, lest you continue to chew in the same place. It takes twice as long for you to eat compared to anyone else, and the reward hardly seems worth it.
Before you can grab your next piece of food, Simon retrieves one for you. A fresh slice of cheese, one he splits in two because he knows you can’t have something so large. You stare at him with questioning eyes as he prods at your lips with his thumb.
“Open,” he directs.
Following him, your jaw unhinges slightly; just enough for him to stick his own fingers in your mouth and place the slice of cheese at your molars. He moves to the pocket of your cheek, well away from danger, then hums.
“Bite.”
He does this for some time—feeding you by hand—until you’ve swallowed the cheese. Then half your roll of bread. Then all your grapes. Simon feeds you, assisting you with chewing, dark eyes focused on the way your lips wrap around his fingers to suck the juice clean from each knuckle.
You think you might love him. Simon, this man who came marching through your city, dethroning your rotten emperor and deciding you were too curious to brush away. He’s given you a voice where yours has failed, and power where you have been impuissant. When you swallow down your last bite of bread, you pull his fingers from your mouth, deciding that you are hungry for something else.
“What is it, little mouse?” he asks. You press his palm against the warmth of your cheek before your free hand reaches for his peplos. The fine fabric wrinkles in your grip as you impatiently shuffle on your cushion. A smirk blooms on his lips as he rubs his thumb along your cheek, spine curling toward you. “If you want something, all you have to do is take it.”
So you do. Unabashed and brave, you pull Simon toward you until your lips are on his. Even with so many eyes on you, you whine until he slips his tongue into your mouth—the true thing you’ve been craving all night. Wet and heavy, you suck on it as if you’re ready to swallow it into your own body, to heal the old wound left behind. After a moment, your ears can make sense of some playful whistling and hollering, but neither of you stop.
A dormant urge suddenly awakes in the pit of your stomach. You feel your thighs tighten; hips rocking as if begging for friction. Simon chuckles when he feels your movement, then breaks the union of your mouths to look at you.
“You’ve had too much wine,” he says. He chuckles again when you shake your head with a smile. “No? Then is this want that I feel brewing inside of you something of your own creation?”
Your smirk is the only response he needs. The anticipation of the explosion swells within you where it wiggles in your toes and twitches in your hands. His promise flickers in his gaze as it wanders down your body to the tender flesh of your throat, to the stomach hidden from him by your peplos. You would allow him to take you here in front of everyone if he wished. As he said, he could simply pluck their eyes from their skull should they bark anything. Instead, he reaches for your hand and urges you to your feet as he stands.
Yet, just as you make to follow him, there is a firm hand on your shoulder, quickly followed by the algid bite of a blade against your throat.
follow @mother-ilia to be notified of updates | get early access to chapters here
*full story is currently up for early access, updates will be posted every sunday night (may be a different day depending on time zones)
simon ghost riley x fem!reader | warlord x servant | masterlist
Chapter Three: pig
tw: dub-con, mentioned threats of non-con, mentioned/implied bestiality
To the victor belongs the spoils, but Ghost has no use for mere trinkets.
A man of his status requires something of sustenance—meat and blood, something warm and fresh to dig his fingers into, and he finds that in you. Tender offals spewing from a gored deer, viscera tainting his skin no matter how long he scrubs at it. A warrior is not complete without proof of his vitality; without the conquered to trail behind him as a reminder of the pecking order.
That’s what this feels like—your ripped, sodden chiton clinging to your body as you stumble behind him through the halls while he struts as if the palace layout has been burned into the back of his hand since he was born; as if he’s lived here his entire life. A birthright finally passed down to him. Servants gawk carefully from the corner of their eyes, ensuring that they do not test your new lord too vigorously with their gaze. You hold your bosom tighter, water squelching from the fabric and dripping down your stomach.
No—the pecking order is still the same. You’re still at the bottom. Fresh food. A toy for your new warlord.
After all, who wouldn’t be curious about the freak without a tongue?
Still, it is nice to pretend that you are something else for a split moment when Ghost brings you to the room that was once Shepherds throne, now turned into temporary storage. A small band of soldiers sort through various items, all seemingly taken from the palace itself. They garner swords, daggers, bronze shields and thin armor. Pottery, artwork, banners. Sandals, himations, shredded chitons and silk. Two men banter in the corner over a gold bracelet, while a larger group picks at the tip of a sword, degrading its creator for how dull it is.
If you pay close enough attention, you can almost still smell the blood that was spilt here yesterday—it almost stains the stone floor beneath the chair.
Eyes begin to wander when you’re brought to the center of the room. You’re still dripping, chiton running cold against your skin as Ghost begins to rummage through a pile of textiles. Prismatic linen against his skin, he intermittently chooses an item and holds it up to your body, eyeing the size of the cloth against your figure before either tossing it back into the depths or slinging it over his shoulder.
Eventually, there are five different garments shoved into your arms. Beautiful floor length peploses of saffron and rust, a chiton of delicate hyacinth, and two himations, beautiful shawls of seafoam green. You stare in awe at the delicate embroidery that laces the ends of the fabric. Geometric squares, delicate flowers of daisy and anemone, and sharp angles that remind you of the brightest stars in the night sky.
Gifts. That’s what Ghost says they are. He tells you to dress yourself how you please, and then dismisses you with the order to do whatever you wish for the day.
He leaves you with his soldiers, citing work that must be done within the city, alone and standing in the midst of their mess, stunned. Having no way to voice your concern, you simply do what you do best—follow your leader, your emperor; your new lord.
You spend your day the only way you can think of; down in your cove. It is a task climbing down there with your new peplos, but the moment you donned the cloth you knew you could never take it off. It is soft against your skin. Soaked to the brim with expensive dye and decorated with a craftsmanship you’ve never seen in your old, plain chitons. The pale sand is warm against your bare feet, and you spend many hours combing through the shoreline, tickling seashells as they pop up to kiss the soles of your feet.
When the sun heats you too much, you strip yourself free of all clothing before dipping beneath the waves. Kelp wraps around your ankles like loving chains meant to keep you in the only place you ever felt at home, and you float on your back and stare at the azure sky as the tide wills your body where it pleases. Then, when dusk begins to paint the sky with mulberry, you slink out of the water, bones having turned into liquid, and you lay on the rocks next to the starfish caught in tide pools until you are warm enough to drag yourself back to the palace.
Still, you are a creature of habit.
Come morning, you are in Ghost’s chambers again, now with a new peplos and your hands ready to serve. His body lays motionless in his bed, and you find yourself stealing glances as you go about your work. Crooked nose, almost parted lips, bare chest rising and falling with his breaths. He groans when the sound of sloshing water echoes from the basin and you see his body pulse beneath his animal hides as he turns on his side, dark eyes stricken with pink.
“No. None of that,” he dismisses. Pausing, you place your pitcher down before turning to fully face him. His face is heavy with lassitude. It pulls at his gaze and it trembles in his arms as he motions for you to walk toward him. “C’mere, little mouse.”
Obeying, you approach his bed, yet you are still surprised when his fingers wrap around your wrist and drag you downwards. As if falling into the hells, you collapse against the mattress and turn to liquid when he begins to maneuver you how he wishes. Bent on your side, head on his chest, arm wrapped around the back of your head as he lies flat on his back, breath huffing from his lungs.
“I was up half the night settling quarrels with your people,” he grumbles. “It’s only fair that one of their own aids me in sleep. At least you squawk less than them.”
The rattling in your chest rivals that of a family of horses trampling through open plains with unforgiving hooves. You think Ghost might feel it as he pulls you closer, body sinking into the linens, exhaling a soft chuckle before his dark eyes flutter shut and you’re left as a prisoner in his grasp.
Curious hands wander over your body just before his snoring overtakes him. Thick fingers paw at your waist, the dip in your hips, the soft pudge of your stomach. Just before his slumber devours him, he mutters something about how you are softer than silk—softer than anything else he’s ever touched before.
Ghost’s heartbeat sounds like war. It’s the pulsing of drums promising impending doom. It’s the throbbing in your mouth after your tongue was stolen from you, leaving behind nothing but rot and ichor. It’s the beating of your mother’s fists inside of the brazen bull, fruitlessly attempting to escape her sealed fate. Still, it sounds like solace, because war is the only comfort you have ever known.
Eventually, it lulls you to sleep; stuffs your skull full of cotton until your thoughts are just as fuzzy as your body. Dreams come sweetly like honey, but the smell makes you gag as your mother drizzles it on bread and holds it for you to eat. You always speak in your dreams. Though, it is rare that anyone ever understands you despite it. When you tell her you cannot stand the texture of honey in your mouth anymore, she only smiles and pushes it to your lips.
Grip like tongs on your tongue. Knife meant for flaying. Blood spilling like juice.
Forever scorned—a little girl so desperate to sing.
You wake to Ghost’s fingers in your mouth. Gentle, hardly invasive; he doesn’t even push them past your teeth, just keeps them behind your lips to feel the way you instinctively suckle on it. He knows you’re awake when your actions cease.
“I am a soldier, little mouse,” he says, pads of his index and middle fingers rubbing against your front teeth. “I can’t stand politicking.” Groaning, his body twists, elbow digging into the bed to prop himself up, torso curling over yours, hips rolling over your thigh. He is naked, and you feel the bite of his warmth through your peplos. “But I keep tellin’ myself it’s worth it, if it’s for you. My little treasure. All for me, yeah?”
When he pulls his fingers from your mouth, he drags them down along your chin, dipping to your throat, and then lower. A thin trail of saliva is left in his wake until it runs dry, and the rough calluses of his fingers trace between your breasts unheeded.
“Dunno why I find myself so infatuated with you,” Ghost admits, though he speaks more as if he’s talking to himself than to you. “Maybe it’s because we’re not too different. You’re the only one in this fuckin’ city who understands me, yeah?”
His words mean nothing to you, and still you nod. Your eyes are locked onto his lips and how they dance as he talks.
“My name is Simon.” It’s a blunt reveal. Something that leaves your mind spinning. Ghost is a name fit for him—something you would not be surprised to hear that his mother herself named him—but his true title softens your aching heart. Simon smirks as he leans forward, nose knocking against yours. “I trust you enough not to tell anyone.”
Then, he seals this revelation with a kiss.
Simon’s lips are heavy against yours, chin rubbing against your own just as his thumb brushes your cheek. Never before have you had anyone embrace you in such a way, and you’re not sure how to react. So you lay there motionless as your ribs attempt to keep your fluttering heart at bay.
It only worsens when his tongue slips into your mouth. It’s an action that brings along the very stars themselves with it, sizzling and sparkling to life what you once thought was long dead. Your mouth opens wider, cheeks hollowing out in order to bring more of him in, throat bobbing in anticipation, but he halts your endeavor with a chuckle as his mouth breaks free from yours with a quiet smack.
“Greedy girl.”
After that, you cannot leave Simon alone. Not now that you know his name. Not now that you’ve gotten a taste for his tongue.
He enjoys it. At least, you think he does. He never allows you to trail far behind him when he’s running an errand somewhere within the city, always keeping a hand on your back. When he sits with his men, he ensures you’re next to him, if not damn near in his lap, arm snaking around your waist, hands quietly toying with you when the war talk riles him up too much.
It’s gotten to the point that people now regard you with some sort of authority as if you are brimming with power and wealth. But don’t you look the part with your purple peplos and hand tugging on the arm of the vicious dog who now leads your city? Soldiers greet you with salutes and bows, and even the servants have begun to follow suit. Heads lowering. Knees bending.
Still—there are others who know you as you are.
A worm, groveling in dirt.
That life finds you again when you wander into the kitchen, having been sent away by Simon to fetch something to eat when he was too concerned about your growling stomach to focus during his meeting. Before you lies a medley of breads, fruits and vegetables, oils and salts—nearly anything your mind can imagine. The aroma is nearly enough to trick your mind into believing you’re tasting it for yourself. Garlic, onion, chives, sun dried tomatoes.
Your stomach growls, but the want is not here. The joy is bland. The action is a chore. It worsens when you spot a small jar of honey.
Pale orange refracts the streams of sun slicing through the windows, and you stare at the liquid with contempt. When your tongue was ripped from your mouth, it was the only thing you could eat for weeks. You’d slather it on the tip of your fingers, then smear it along the open wound within you, rubbing it along the tender skin and pray that the antimicrobial effects would save you from infection. Each time you remember the way it coats the roof of your mouth, or how it sticks to your fingers, you shiver.
Still, you fill your plate with kinder memories. Grapes, bread, butter—anything soft. Anything your traitorous throat can swallow. Then, your mind wanders to Simon, and you grab extras. Apples, cured meat, cheese. You’re nearly weighed down by the cluster in your hands. This is the most greedy you’ve ever felt, yet no one gives you a second look; not in your attire, not with your newfound status.
No one except Caenis—the one who remembers you from before.
The one who remembers you for what you are.
Hands occupied, you nearly clash into her when you exit the kitchen. She stands tall and proud as ever, delicate fingers holding a fat pitcher of water against the side of her hip. For a moment, fear clouds her eyes. You suppose that’s what most of the servants feel these days—something you ought to feel, too, in your newly conquered city. Then, her eyes wander, golden like the metals from the earth tracing your body, reading the embroidery on your peplos, naming the color of the woolen fabric in her head. Then, fear melts into rage, and her lips press into a tight line as she glares at you.
“Look at you. You’re enjoying all this, aren’t you?” she asks facetiously, each syllable dripping with ire. “Oh, of course you can’t answer me. Kissing the new lord’s feet still hasn’t grown your tongue back for you, I see.”
Though your legs yearn to flee, you do what you always have done. Turning to stone like the statues in the garden, you stand there and take her berating the same way as you have always done.
“Everyone’s noticed. You pleaded your innocence so much that day your wretched parents were snuffed out, but look at you now, bedding with The Ghost and following him like some well trained bitch.” There is movement behind her. Quiet, and swift like a diving eagle—it’s Simon; you’ve learned to recognize him anywhere. Curiosity pulls at his face when he rounds the corner in the corridor and spots you. You’ve taken too long. Fingers curling into your plate, you attempt to step around Caenis to meet your lord, but she only chuckles and slaps it out of your hand, sending your food clattering to the ground. “You might think it’s fun to pretend that you’re anything other than filth, but we all see you for what you really are.”
Her throat catches on the last word she speaks as Simon’s foot swipes at the back of her knees, sending her pitcher shattering on the ground as she follows behind it. Caenis’s lambasting is silenced with a squeal as he runs his fingers through her hair, pulling her head back as the fresh well water wets both her chiton and your feet. It swirls with the bread on the floor, softening it until it’s soggy—a true waste of mush.
“I am sick of this city’s kvetching,” Simon sighs. Caenis sends her hands backward, fingers pulling at his grip in her hair to get him to relent, but she freezes the moment she realizes who has a hold of her. Her face blanches. “Your tongue is wasted on you.”
With his free hand, Simon retrieves a small knife sheathed in the side of his chiton and proudly displays it in the pale glow of the sun. Caenis whimpers as he twirls it, toying with her, and it’s nearly enough to get you to feel sorry for her.
“Perhaps I should relieve you of it,” he muses before looking up at you. “What do you say, little mouse? I think her tongue would be of greater service in your mouth than it is in her own.”
For a split moment, you entertain the idea. This notion that you may yet have a tongue to sing with. Something to stitch yourself up with so that you may be whole again.
Then, you remember a time when a soldier cornered you outside of Shepherd’s chambers. Truly, he was handsome. The quintessence of strength and beauty, he sneered at you for a solid five minutes speaking of your wretched hideousness, how no one would ever want a woman as ugly as you, that he had thought of raping you just for his own pleasure but decided to get that relief out of a pig instead.
Some time later, you caught Caenis with that soldier outside of the bath house. She was kneeling before him as he pulled his chiton up over his stomach, taking his cock into her mouth. Though you are not sure how true his claims were, all you could think about is how he must taste like pig.
You do not want a swine flavored tongue.
When you shake your head, Simon smirks before stowing his blade. “The only reason your blood is not on the floor is because of her,” he mutters to Caenis. Then, he releases her with a heavy shove, forcing her hands to brace against the wet floor as she sobs. “Remember that the next time you open your mouth.”
Wide eyed, you stare down at her as you watch her shoulders shudder and head bow as if silently begging for your forgiveness. It’s a sight you never thought you’d see in a woman like Caenis, always so prim. So proper. So above you.
Simon then reaches out his hand, taking yours into his own, before leading you away from the mess at your feet. His warmth and rage are palpable as it bleeds into you, but still, you cannot help but smile as Caenis’s pules echo off the corridor walls behind you.
follow @mother-ilia to be notified of updates | get early access to chapters here
*full story is currently up for early access, updates will be posted every sunday night (may be a different day depending on time zones)
simon ghost riley x fem!reader | warlord x servant | masterlist
Chapter Two: mouse
tw: non-con groping, dub-con, nudity, bathing, mouth kink, minor spit play
You stare at your palms the entire way to the bath house.
Indentations still plague your skin, nettling deep into the thick tissue where it saves the memory of the brush you clutched in your hands. Sturdy wood and bristles thick enough to shed long rotting skin. You attempt to recall the last time someone had ever got your hands to curl, either out of indignation or panic, yet nothing comes to mind; not much phases you these days.
Ghost is sure to change this, you think. The tips of his toes nip at your heels as you lead him through the palace, and you’re certain you feel his breath huffing on the back of your neck. He looms. Lowering clouds kissing the horizon, promising a flood, promising lightning and destruction. You’d feel the wrath of the sky if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s already fallen upon your city. You see it in the changing of banners in the corridors; pristine white and silver cloth like wispy clouds are now replaced with red and gold, and an unfamiliar crest—the symbol of barbarians, of your new leaders. The storm has come and passed, and you’re wading through the aftermath. Through the lingering destruction that lies at your feet.
There is a detached bath house that lies away from the palace, past the garden and just before a steep trail that leads down to a placid cove. The building winks in your periphery as it stands outside the windows while your feet carry you further down the corridor. It is one that’s saved for servants and soldiers. Anyone expendable. Anyone deemed not important. Communal, and with a single pool, it’s a great source of socialization where people sit among the curved stone, lathering each other’s backs, or diving into the depths of the water.
It is a place free from prying eyes. Free from judgement of the superiors, of the aristocrats, of the kings one step below the gods themselves.
Once, you attempted to use the same water as the others when rain had punished your city for a near week straight. Voices echoing off of the stone walls, wet skin glistening in the shrouded sunlight, they all fell silent the moment you entered. They questioned what you were doing there knowing full well you could not answer, only point in the water that they shared with one another, but refused to share with you.
I’d rather share water with a pig.
Caenis. That was the name of the servant who spat at you, sneering at the way your feet uncomfortably tapped at the marble floor knowing there was nothing you could do to spit back. No one has ever been kind to you since you lost your tongue and your parents, but no one has been quite as cruel as her. Pristine skin left unmarred, laying with soldiers to get favors, living as an underground princess beneath Emperor Shepherd’s very nose, she always gets her way.
But you do not take Ghost to the same place the servants bathe—to the very place where you were made a fool of—instead, you bring your new lord to the same chambers Emperor Shepherd used when he still drew breath. Private. Quiet. Held with the decorum expected to be given to a ruler.
It is a small room adorned with stone nestled far back in the palace, well away from foot traffic and echoing conversations. A round hole cuts deep into the floor with stairs to lead to the bottom, and a lipped ridge to sit on. It reaches deep enough to kiss your hips, and is wide enough for you to stretch your arms, but not much more. Private. Not meant for sharing. A hand lever pump that joins directly to the aquifer stands towards the back of the room, waiting to fill the carved tub to the brim. Grandiose, this bath is one of the single greatest wastes of drinking water, second only to the ever flowing fountains that peasants sneak sips out of when soldiers aren’t looking.
“Fuckin’ hell,” Ghost murmurs. Stepping around you, he marches to the side of the tub, curiously eyeing the craftsmanship. Engraved in the stone are various creatures of the sea. Clams, gulls, schools of fish and animals from ancient stories—krakens, ship eating squids, merpeople luring unsuspecting men to shore. “All this artistry for a man who starved his people.”
Now, it’ll be wasted on you. A wretched and unkind way to think, but it springs to mind. The blood that taints his skin. The scrapes on his arms. How many civilians did he cut down for this one spoil? For a bath soiled by another wretched man?
Ghost looks to you as if expecting an answer, but you instead direct him to a wooden table against the wall behind him that holds all of Emperor Shepherd’s old oils and soaps. There are countless ones with various scents, consistencies, and medicinal effects crafted by the best artisans. He only scoffs at them.
“Need me clean and smellin’ like a pansy?” he grumbles.
Still, he offers you reprieve in distracting himself as you work on filling the tub. Ensuring that the metal plug is in place, you begin to pump water from the spigot, allowing it to gush and wet the stone at your feet. You are grateful it is not designed like a regular pump. It flows long after you’ve stopped working it, water still gushing from the pressure, spilling and babbling as if it were a waterfall. What should take you hundreds of pumps only takes you fifty before it’s full enough to bathe in.
Not bothering to wait for your direction, Ghost removes his chiton with a stiff grunt while his shoulders pop. Now that you no longer look at him in terror, you take note of all the wounds he’s gathered from the battle. There’s nothing of importance. Nothing that would take his life now or later when the wound goes bad and rotten. He shamelessly struts before you, flaccid cock swinging between his legs, broad shoulders swaying and knees groaning as he steps into the water, hissing at the way the frigidness kisses his skin, smoothing over each injury.
When you realize he hasn’t pointed out a preferred soap, you squeeze your eyes shut and breathe out your frustration before approaching the table yourself. Lavender. Lemongrass. Mint. Yes, mint will do. You grab the bar before you kneel at the ledge of the pool just next to Ghost, hands dipping in the water and lathering it as best as you can.
“I don’t think you’ll be able to clean me from there,” Ghost deadpans. Pausing, you turn your attention to him. His elbows are on the ledge, head tilting to the side to look at you. “I’m a big boy.” As if to prove his point, he stretches his legs just as he rolls his hips. You try not to let the distorted image of his cock through the water distract you. “Gonna be hard to reach all of me if you’re sittin’ pretty by that ledge.”
You freeze. Prey caught in the sights of a predator. If he wanted to, Ghost could gralloch you right here with his bare hands—nails digging through your navel, splitting you open, turning his bathwater pink. You clutch the bar of soap so tightly it nearly slips from your hands, and you opt to hold it against your stomach instead.
“C’mon then,” he urges, not impatient but rather intrigued. “In the water, little bird.”
Knowing better than to deny a powerful man his whims, you stand to your feet and pitifully trudge to the stairs. Ghost watches you like a vulture licks its beak over carrion, waiting to peck and tear flesh—to devour something rotten and whole. But you are a defiant creature to an extent. With no tongue to sing with, you hold onto what little power you have left. You do not shed your chiton before descending the stairs, cotton turning wispy in the algid water, hugging your body tight and tangling around your shins as you wade towards your relaxed warlord. The cold has your nipples hardening through the cloth, but you pay them no attention as you keep your chin high and your lips tight.
He’s chuckling by the time you’re standing in front of him. Thick fingers tap against the stone at his back as he watches you wordlessly begin to wash him up. You start with his hands. His knuckles are split like grapes that are too ripe, but he doesn’t hiss at the sting. Meaty palms nearly devour your own hands, fingers and all, and you try not to pay too much attention to the way he seems to linger against you as you swipe the grime out from beneath his fingernails.
Tendons pull taught in his forearms once you begin moving up. There are countless scars to trace. Deep ones that deform his skin, to lighter, silvery ones. Your knees knock against the sitting stone as you lean forward, reaching further along him, body bending at your hips.
“D’ya always make things so difficult for yourself?” Ghost questions. Pausing, you look at his face for further explanation, brows nearly furrowing, but he seems to be waiting for something. On someone. For you. When you don’t respond, he sighs—then, he grabs. Hands slicing through the water, fingers digging into your hips, he pulls you towards him until your legs are spread wide around his thighs, rump resting in his lap. You gasp at the sudden movement, and a smirk pulls at his scarred lips. “Better?”
Mind still spinning from the sudden movement, you attempt to distract yourself with your task only to realize that the soap has slipped from your hands. It floats along the surface, half buoyant and ready to sink, drifting further from your reach. You point at it, finger trembling too viciously to truly follow, but Ghost grabs your face. Thumb and forefinger digging into your cheeks, he turns your head towards him before releasing you.
“I don’t care ‘bout the soap, little bird,” he says. His fingers drift from your face, down your neck, and to your collarbones. You pray to the gods that he cannot feel the way your heart thunders in your body. “Don’t care ‘bout the bath either. Just wanna hear you sing.”
Dipping between your breasts, his hands grab your chiton and then pull. Thread yanks apart, linen ripping down your sternum, bosom on full display as the remaining tatters slip down your arms. Another gasp from you has him humming with pride as you look down at yourself, hardened nipples dancing with each shuddering breath you exhale. No one has ever exposed you like this—so scandalously on display before your lord like a whore.
“This is what you wanted, yeah?” Ghosts questions. His hands are on your chest now, palms cupping both your breasts, swallowing them whole with the ever growing cavern in his eyes until he drifts up to view your befuddled face. Despite the water, he’s warm. Too warm. Sweltering against your skin, the mixture of hot and cold threatens to undo you. “Or are you really expectin’ me to believe that a pretty thing like you would waltz into my room to serve me so willingly? Watched me conquer your city, now you want me to do the same to you, is that it? C’mon, pretty bird. Sing.”
Ghost pinches you where you are soft and tender. The ripening bud of your nipple screams as he squeezes it between his finger and thumb, and it’s as if the sky is angry. Billowing clouds. Cracks of thunder and lightning rippling throughout your body. Your mouth opens enough for a squeak just as your body jolts, and he relents. Pauses. Eyes darkening, head tilting—Ghost looks at you with a fading smile and pursing brows.
Then, he demands; “Open your mouth.”
The softest part of you. Ripe flesh around a peach pit. Teeth like brittle sand dollars waiting to crumble. You obey. You always do.
Lips parting just enough to open, Ghost hooks his thumb into your mouth without warning where he finds purchase behind your bottom teeth, then pulls. Jaw wide open, you stare at him as he peers into your mouth, and you note when he sees it. You. How you were marred beyond recognition. Humming, his thumb dips lower into the space that would harbor the soft tissue beneath your tongue if it were still here. A phantom tells you that you feel it; him. Prodding beneath the wet muscle. A bitter memory of what you once had.
“I see.” He fits two fingers into your mouth and rides them along the ridges of your teeth. You feel him count each one. He presses against the edge. Each point. Enough for your jaw to ache. Nearly enough to draw blood. “You’re no bird. You’re a little mouse, yeah?”
Soft palate now. Dragging forward. Hard palate. Incisors. Then, cheek. Hook and drag, saliva gathering on the tips of his fingers, running over the smooth skin and the indentations left from your teeth.
“I’d ask who did this, but I have a feelin’ I already know. It was that bastard Shepherd, yeah?” Ghost questions with a hum. With his fingers still in your mouth, you nod. “Dirty cunt. This isn’t fresh either.”
He pushes further towards the back of your throat where the mangled remnants of your tongue lie. A branch cut too short on a tree, too much scar tissue and no reach. The nub pushes against the back of your throat as you swallow, skin melting beneath Ghost’s gaze.
This is the most bare you’ve ever been in front of someone. Breasts spilling from ripped cotton, mouth open, lips wrapping around a stranger’s fingers as he pokes and prods at your greatest source of shame—of the hellfire and scorn wrought upon you that still lingers as embers and the smouldering remains of your past.
Eventually, Ghost retrieves his fingers from your mouth, pulling them out slow and steady, prodding at your front teeth before his own lips part. Then, they’re in his mouth. Tongue lapping at your saliva, humming content at the flavor you can no longer taste—a sapor long forgotten. A shaky exhale fans across his face as you watch his eyes dilate. He has kind eyes, you think. A stark difference from the ruggedness strewn across his body, scars like mountains, bruises like valleys. They are soft. Warm like the rocks you sunbathe on after cleaning yourself with the brine of the ocean. Warm like the heated iron used to cauterize your tongue.
“This city was bequeathed to me,” Ghost says, fingers popping free from his mouth before placing his hands on your hips. His thumbs wander. Rubbing, repetitive and soft against your waist, sending water singing around your bodies. “Everythin’ here belongs to me. Includin’ you.”
Perhaps in another life his words would make your stomach churn, but the prospect of being owned by yet another ruler does not phase you. It’s something you require, now. Someone to take care of. Someone to serve. His words prompt you to nod, but his fingers squeeze against you and you freeze—a rabbit ensnared, a doe catching scent on the wind, a little girl kneeling before a man playing god.
“But unlike Shepherd, I take care of my things. I don’t go destroyin’ things that could be easily fixed or corrected. And you—” Ghost pulls you closer, body dragging across his lap and chiton bleeding around you in the bath, forcing your hands to brace against his shoulders to steady yourself as water sloshes around you “—might just be my favorite possession yet.”
For the first time you can recall, something besides fear or contempt swells in your chest. It is not pride, nor flattery, but something deeper. A beast with its maw opened wide, waiting to swallow something—but what? You? Unsure of what to do—here, in your city’s usurper's lap—you nod. You cannot name if it’s because you are saying you understand him, or if you’re agreeing with him.
You tell yourself it’s the latter, but each beat of your heart strangely sounds like yes please, let me be something, anything more than this, something of importance, let me be useful, please let me mean something.
Either way, Ghost chuckles before he taps your hips, legs stretching out behind you. The added buoyancy of the water allows him to move you easier, weightlessness taking over your body as if you’re caught in some sort of dream.
“C’mon, little mouse,” he prompts. “No prized possession of mine will walk ‘round wearin’ rags like these. I like to rip through somethin’ of substance before I eat.”
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