#obsession trope

[pink-petal-horns]

God Complex

Key: Smut 👁️, fluff 🥛, angst 🇺🇸

Oneshots

Collateral 🇺🇸

Dollhouse Diet 🇺🇸

Eclipse 🇺🇸

[birdieistheewordie]

✧ BENEATH THE VEIL OF VENUS ✧

emperor geta x female oc wc - 2.3k summary - attention has always been his. freely given, eagerly taken. she gives nothing. not even a hesitation.

She had to be Venus herself. 

There was no other explanation for his pull to her. 

No hymn, nor prayer nor drunken cheer in the streets could drown it out. The city roared with celebration, roses crushed under toes, wine leaking through the holes in clay cups, the air thick with incense strong enough to make any man’s head spin — and yet, all he saw was her. 

His breath caught, shallow, as though the smoke had lodged in his chest. He knew he was staring too long, too openly, and yet his eyes refused to be dragged elsewhere. 

She moved with precision, draped in muted silk, gold bracelets clanking with each twinge of her fingers as she bore the vessel of sacred water. 

Her hair had been braided back like the rest of the priestesses, airy curls leaving the tight plait despite how hard she tried to keep them back. Firelight clung to the ribbons of crimson and ivory that’d been woven in. 

Her skin was pale, kissed with the glow of torches and crushed berries. Soft, supple and unnoticed to the untrained eye. The silk she wore was simple compared to the jeweled and lavish gowns of the noblewomen — unadorned, the color of moonlight on the sea — yet on her it was richer than any royal purple. Each step shifted the fabric against her body, a suggestion of shape underneath, modest and elegant, but impossible not to follow. 

The bracelets chimed with each gentle lift of her arms, their weight a reminder that even her smallest gestures belonged to the goddess. He followed the sound like a man starved. Her hands, slender but strong, cradled the water as though it were the heart of Venus herself. 

Her face was not the flawless marble of the goddess she served, but softer, more human. A line of tension sat at the edge of her brow, as though the weight of the vessel pressed not just on her arms but her spirit. Her lips, stained with crushed berries and petals — curved, unsmiling — held the kind of quiet that could cut sharper than any blade. 

It was her eyes that undid him.

Lowered, dark lashes fanning against the supple skin, focused solely on the ritual — and yet when she glanced up, just briefly, across the crowd, his chest tightened as though she’d seen straight through him. 

She was a vision.

Worse. 

She was real.

For a moment he thought the smoke or wine had poisoned him. Nothing else explained it — the way his body betrayed him, every muscle pulled taunt, every breath shallow, as though his chest had been bound in iron armor. 

Did she know?

Did she know what it was to move like that? To let silk cling and shift, not scandalously but enough to suggest the softness it veiled? To tilt her chin just so, so that torchlight carved her profile like the very goddess she worshiped? To carry water as though the whole world’s survival depended on her touch alone?

It was maddening. Cruel, even. She wore no jewels, no crown, and yet he would have sworn she outshone every royal or noble in Rome. His eyes chased each chime of her bracelets like a man haunted, every note another chain around his throat. 

She wasn’t performing. That was the worst of it. No coy smile, no coaxing glance — nothing meant for him. She was wholly, fiercely devoted to her task. And somehow, that devotion, that untouchable reverence, made her all the more dangerous. 

His fists curled at his sides. He wanted to look away, to salvage what was left of his composure, but her eyes lifted for a heartbeat, lashes shadowing, and it was as if she’d reached into his ribs and pressed her warm palm to the frantic beat beneath. 

Venus may have claimed her voice, her hands, her vows. But the havoc she left in him — that was hers alone. 

He should’ve looked away by now. Any other man would have. But his eyes clung to her like a curse, greedy, and relentless and with every heartbeat it curdled into something sharper. 

Because in Rome, he was the spectacle. Men and women bent their necks just to catch his gaze — some out of lust, others out of greed, some out of fear. He was accustomed to it, fed by it. The way a senator’s wife would falter mid-sentence if he so much as raised a brow. The way young men started too long, daring themselves to prove they could. He never had to ask for attention, he commanded it. 

But her? She had not even flinched. Not once. He could have been another shadow in the torchlight for all she cared. 

It was maddening. Infuriating. He wanted her to feel the heat of his stare, to stumble over her words or steps, to know she was being watched by him. Not just some man. Him.

Any other woman would have flushed, faltered — but she kept her eyes lowered, her lips bowed in prayer, her body moving in holy rhythm as if he did not exist. 

And what stung worse of all was that she truly might not. That all of his watching, all his hunger, meant nothing to her. He felt foolish — like a boy chasing a vision that was not his to touch. 

His jaw locked. Foolish, yes. Weak? Never. He was Geta. He’d make her see. 

And still, against every command within himself, he looked. He longed.

She felt him. Of course she did, she wasn’t made of stone. 

Men looked. They always had. 

It came with the silk. With the bracelets. With the name of Venus woven into her every move. Her very existence. 

To be chosen for the goddess was to be seen, not understood. Men did not know how to look at devotion without turning it to desire. They watched as though devotion and holiness were something they could overcome. Something they could conquer. 

She had learned, long ago, how to make their gawking useless. To turn stares to nothing more than an act of folly. 

Eyes lowered. Movements precise and practiced. Breath steady. A body that didn’t react, didn’t answer, didn’t even acknowledge.

Let them look. 

Let it mean nothing.

Most gazes passed quickly, losing interest when they found no entertainment. Others lingered, curious, maybe even daring, but even with time those faded, slipping into the background noise of the city — as easy as ignoring distant laughter or the clattering of cups on stone. 

This one did not fade. 

It did not shift when she moved.

It did not soften when the crowd thickened.

It did not disappear when it should have. 

Her grip adjusted slightly on the vessel, not out of nerves, but out of correction. Control. The gold on her wrist chimed once before settling back into their proper rhythm. 

She did not look. Would not.

There was power in that. To deny a man any acknowledgment was to remind him of his place. Far from her, far from the goddess, far from anything that mattered. 

Whoever he was, he would grow tired. Uninterested in the routine of her uninterest.

And yet, he didn’t. 

The awareness of his gaze pressed at the edges of her focus, not intrusive, not overpowering, just constant. Like heat from a nearby flame, not enough to burn, but enough to be noticed. 

Persistent.

Purposeful. 

Irritating. 

Not because she had not felt it before, but because it refused to behave as it should. There was no ebb to it, no natural waning of interest. It did not drift with distraction or dissolve into the swell of bodies and noise. It stayed with intention, as though it had been decided upon her and would not be wavered. 

Her spine remained straight, shoulders replaced beneath the fall of the silk, every inch of her body a lesson in discipline. If anything, she leaned further into the ritual, letting its structure harden around her like armor. Each step was deliberate, each breath measured. 

You will not have this. 

No attention. No reaction. No satisfaction of being noticed. 

The bracelets chimed again as she lifted her arms, this time perfectly in sync with the others, the sound swallowed into the greater harmony of the ceremony. Nothing about her betrayed the awareness that lingered beneath her surface. To anyone watching, she was untouched, unbothered, utterly given to the goddess she dedicated her life to. 

And yet, a question lingered.

Not quite curiosity, but calculation. 

What kind of man watches and does not falter after not getting what was needed to satisfy? What kind of man stares despite no invitation, no reward, no encouragement to continue? There was no fumbling arrogance, no drunken boldness, no intent to disguise his intent as something softer. 

It was…deliberate. 

Her jaw flexed, just enough, the only fracture in an otherwise seamless composure. She had ignored men more persistent than this. She had walked through worse, endured worse, remained untouched by it all. 

And still, it did not leave. 

A flicker of decision. Quiet. Controlled.

Decided. 

She lifted her lashes, not drawn or tempted, just, chosen. A single glance, precise and fleeting, nothing more than an acknowledgement of presence.  Enough to place him, categorize, understand. 

There he was. 

Not obscured by the crowd, not softened by the distance, not behaving as though he had been caught. He stood with the kind of stillness that didn’t need to be announced, the space around him subtly altered in ways most would not notice unless they knew to look. 

The emperor.

The title did not startle her. It settled, cold and exact, slotting into place with the same clarity as everything else she observed. It explained the stillness. The lack of shame. The absence of hesitation.  

Her eyes lowered. 

The moment closed as easily as it opened, sealed without ceremony, without weight. He had been seen. That was all.

Rituals didn’t pause for emperors. 

Her hands moved with the known practice they always did, the vessel lifting in quiet offering before returning to its place. Silk whispered with each shift of her body, the gold at her wrists wandering in soft, measured chimes. Around her, the other priestess followed the same rhythm, the same devotion, each movement folding seamlessly into the next.

Nothing broke. 

Nothing changed. 

The air remained thick with incense, the low cadence of prayer steady beneath it, rising and falling gently like the goddess’s breath. The temple held its shape, scared and unmoved by the presence of anything beyond what it was meant to contain. 

So did she.

She did not look again. 

Did not need to.

The space he occupied remained fixed, unaltered, as though marked once and left alone. Not shifting. Not advancing. Simply existing.

It was the least of her concern. 

The final sequence approached, signaled not by any call but by the natural closing of motion, the gradual slowing that came with only dedication. Her chin lifted a fraction, shoulders settling as the last offering was given, the last step completed. 

The bracelets stilled. 

Silence followed — not complete, never complete, but something quieter compared to the usual rowdiness. The kind that came when something ended and the world had yet to rush back in and fill it.

She stepped back in unison with the others, gazes still lowered, their postures unchanged. The ceremony was complete. 

Only then did the temple shift again. Soft movement; sandals on stone, voices returning in low murmurs, careful not to break what lingered in the air. 

It would dissolve soon enough. It always did.

She turned with the rest, not hurried, not delayed, the motion as deliberate as everything that’d come before it. A practiced exit. A life contained within repetition. 

She did not look for him.

She did not scan the crowd. 

She did not acknowledge the space where he had stood.

And yet — as she passed beyond the threshold of the ritual space, just at the edge where sacred gave away to ordinary, the awareness followed. 

Unchanged. 

Unmoved. 

Still there.

ahem ahem....heyyy....how yall doin? sorry it takes me months to upload because all i do is get blocked and don't know how to stick to a storyline LMFAOOOOOOO anyways i hope you guys like this, ive had the idea for a lil bit but was scared! thanks for checkin it out :3

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[afterdarkseduction]

Old blood lullaby

Thal’rith A’mothar

A’vrēn ta'ru vel ehlira, or drāth ehlan kavar Ka Sil’varai shi’reth senn’ka shal… Yveth, yveth, yveth…

Nara valen, dresta lunai,

Kael’tha mor’dak, ta'ru or ash'na ehlan va'en

Yveth, yveth, yveth…

sel'nor.

English Translation

Sleep, Child of Shadow

I sing to you, child of blood,

in shadow and silence.

The stars weep with silver light…

Hush, hush, hush...

Close your eyes, forget the moon,

The old ones call to you,

in ash and bone.

Hush, hush, hush...

Sleep.

🖤 Keep dancing in the dark...we'll be waiting for you in the shadows 🖤