Hello again everyone!!! Please help me welcome @shardminds to the CSSNS!!!
How long have you been in the CS/OUAT fandom?
It's been about six months. I binged watched OUAT in September '19 and immediately dusted the two years of dust off this tumblr account to get stuck in. I've met so many lovely people and met some fantastic friends!
When did you start shipping Captain Swan?
Tallahassee! I know they hadn't had much screen time at that point and Killian was well and truly a bad guy but enemies/rivals to lovers is one of my favourite tropes. I started reading fic when I was partway through season 5 and that just solidified my love for them as characters and as a pairing.
What drew you to this event?
EVERYTHING! The combinations of CS and supernatural subject matter is a match made in heaven for me. I love supernatural elements in fiction. Vampires? Werewolves? Ghosts? Magic? Demons? All of it! I'm so excited to be able to take part! Also, so many fantastic CS works have come from this event in previous years. I can't wait to see what this year brings!
What inspired your topic?
In short: The Witcher universe. I hadn't even considered that I could use it as my CSSNS idea until Nat @carpedzem reminded me that I'd promised her a CS Witcher!AU late last year. It's all grown from there. I could go on and on about the lore and the intricacies of the world have been my favourite to get lost in for the past 5 years but... I'm hoping it'll all show when the fic drops.
If you would like to share a snippet/sneak peek/summary of your fic or artwork, please use the space below.
For the first time in a long time, he’s asleep before his head hits the pillow. The exhaustion of the weeks passed weighing his bones like lead, as if they’d sink straight through the mattress and into the nether below. He wishes they would.
He jerks awake—no, not awake. Asleep. Further into the embrace of a dream. Oppressive darkness and silence surround him, his keenest senses rendered useless in their wake. Beneath him, a plush leather armchair. It’s painfully familiar. Precious, somewhat. Worn and comfortable and moulded to him as if he’d spent a century sat only here. This dreamscape. This void.
A woman’s voice— her voice.
“And I thought you’d forgotten about me.” She smiles, suddenly appearing in his lap, hips straddling his thighs as if it hadn’t been almost five years since they’d last parted. Five long, arduous years.
“Impossible, love. You’re not so easy to forget.” Killian can feel the steady beat of her heart as his hands instinctively take her waist. Soft, so soft. And centuries old.
“You never thought to stop by on your travels then?”
“The path is the path. I know.” Pouting, she brings her arms around Killian’s neck. The thin swath of lace she’s wearing does nothing to hide her figure but its intricacies marr the details he wants very much to focus on; the blush of her breasts, the swell of her arse, what lies between those slender legs. Each time he tries to take her in, see past the veil of fabric, it shifts, obscuring his gaze once more. Fucking magic. “But I have missed you terribly.”
“Emma Swan, legendary sorceress and advisor to the throne of Misthaven, missing but a lowly Witcher?” The pale expanse of her neck calls for his kiss, so close and yet so far. “People will talk.”
With a violet flash, Emma winks. “Noise complaints, hopefully.”
His eyes slip shut, trying to maintain what little composure he has left. As disconcerting as dream magic is, he doesn’t want the spell to end. The feel of her so close is maddening. Waking to an empty bed will be torture.
Words he can’t possibly say nor mean jump to his throat, aching to be whispered against her mouth, passed to her tongue by his own. They burn.
“I need you. I can’t tell you why—not here—but I need you.” There’s a silent plea hidden in her words, behind the typical bravado she always favours. He almost doesn’t catch it. She adjusts herself slightly, sitting back on his knees and letting her hands reverently trace the scars across his shoulders and chest. Ones she’s seen before and ones she hasn’t, long healed but still raw to her touch. It’s been too long. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips and it takes every modicum of restraint he has not to kiss her there and then. “Come to King David’s court in Misthaven. There’s a tourney one week from now.”
“I’m sensing I don’t have a choice.”
“Of course you have a choice. It’s in your best interests to make the right one.”
Killian sighs, letting his palms slide from her middle to her thighs, taking in the phantom warmth he’s missed so greatly. Emma Swan is an enigma. She’s centuries of power wrapped in mystery and untold sorrows and it lingers beneath her skin. She’s the first kiss of morning sun, the dark chill of winter, the wild lilacs that grow along the dirt roads of Misthaven. She’s true love’s first kiss and the denial of destiny. She’s nothing and everything, the beginning and the end.
“One week?” He muses, too focused on the way her nails feel against his skin, as if she were there, as if it were real. Her eyes, green as woodland moss, captivate him in the way they always used to, but they’re not the same. A mere mimicry. Beneath his fingers, the dream begins to fall away.
There’s no depth, no glimmer of magic below the surface.
Everything’s hollow and when he finally presses his lips to her fading visage, all he tastes is ash, dirt and the absence of all things.
It echoes around the cramped room, a whisper in the darkness not yet reached by morning’s soft first touches. A reminder.
What are you looking forward to most about participating in this event?
READING EVERYONE'S ENTRIES! SEEING EVERYONE'S ART! CELEBRATING THIS SPECTACULAR SPOOKY SUMMER EVENT ♥
I’m not familiar with the Witcher universe, but I am BESIDE myself for this fic!!! I can’t wait to read it when it drops on July 13!!! Everyone go welcome Ems to the event and give her lots of love!!!
