knight writing letters. squire on the table next to them, lying face down, no shirt. knight takes turns with sealing letters, then pouring sealing wax on the squire, pressing the seal on. moving on to the next letter. squire ends up with several sealed wax rounds up their spine after an hour or so
Sir! I just found YOUR squire in my chambers. They had my garments in their hands, and- lord. I’m sure you can connect the dots. After some of my own interrogation, it’s become clear they’ve been stealing from me. ME!
I will be supervising as they reveal every little scrap they’ve taken, as well as what you will be doing to make this behavior cease.
No I do not want them to return the items. Yes you will be paying for the fabric. That was good silk.
i have composed the most beautiful melody for the courts but the troubadours say that they "only play real instruments" and "this isn't a song it's just moaning at various pitches" and so they won't play it >:( i'm going to bully the weakest squire to go blow off some steam. see you guys later >:(
I'm taking a crack at @vals-lente's charming Monstertober 2025. To stretch my creative muscles a bit, I elected to keep all of the prompts consecutive with their numbers, so it's only the cherry-picking of creative liberties (and a rearranging of the numerical order) for me this time around!
༄˖°.🍂.ೃ࿔*:･
Scaly | Hospital | Rotten
Himbo Squire / Naga Healer(?)
"I really must apologize," you say for the hundredth time since you met your healer. His smile, though far too wide and sharp for your comfort, comes across as beatific. Years in the service of your lady have sharpened your instincts, and you tend to have a fair sense for when someone means you ill. Not a perfect sense, but a fair one; fortunately your healer gives you no impression that he'll drop his concoctions, lunge for your helpless body to wrap you up in his giant tail, open that mouth as wide as it will go, and swallow you whole. Fortunately!
"There is no need, I assure you," comes his patient, sonorous voice. "It is my pleasure to assist."
You shiver and then grimace, avoiding the state of your leg. "You're too kind. To be honest with you, you might be the kindest healer I've ever met. But," you laugh, sheepish, scratching through the shorn hair at the back of your scalp, "I know how it smelled."
Yes, you may have been writhing, half out of your mind in agony when you were dragged into his halls, but your sense of smell still worked. You knew that the mad wizard's rot spell had set in, and it was only a matter of time. You ran into the fray to assist your lady, and you had to be rescued, instead. At least you know she's whole and hale; nobody else could move a man of your heft from the mad wizard's tower to... wherever you are. Plus, she came to visit once before returning to report on your success to the queen.
And now here you are, laying up in a small room day after day, with your healer and his staff for company. The staff are friendly, mostly diligent ladies who treat you with the same care, if less warmth, than their patron. The more interesting distinction between them, perhaps, is that the assistants, like you, are human.
Nobody who knew you would call you an intellectual, but one doesn't need a scholar's accreditations to know a serpent when he sees one. Your healer is quite tall, with a long face contoured by shimmering green scales, the same vibrant, mossy hue as the scales covering his long tail. The curtain of hair that shines like silk reminds you of the deep greens you have only seen in meadows nurtured by snow-fed streams.
His warm smile sends your pulse thudding like a drum as he coils by the side of your bed to check your bandages.
"I will remind you that I am an apothecary, not a healer," he says, and you did hear him the first several times he said it, but he healed you, didn't he? It's all semantics in the end. "Nevertheless, there is nothing to be ashamed of. Your body fell prey to a putrefaction curse cast upon you in a moment of great bravery."
"Bravery?" you ask, growing warm. His long black nails are so carefully filed, and his fingers on your leg are so smooth. He is one of the largest people you have ever met, but his touch is almost dainty.
"Great bravery. Your lady knight told me all." His touch is light enough not to disturb the healing flesh that has finally turned pink and healthy after his care, but heavy enough that to drag his thumb down the meat of your thigh makes you jerk in response. If he notices, he says nothing about it. Instead, he spreads a poultice over the wound and efficiently bandages your leg once more.
Under the light drifting in from the windows above, with his kindly smile and calm air of authority, he reminds you of a saint.
Once he's satisfied with your care, he turns that smile directly to you. "You must take pride in your efforts, young squire."
"Yes, sir, my lord." You find yourself sitting just a little more upright.
"And in the wisdom you've gained from erring."
"To survive is to learn. That's what I believe."
His fangs peek out when his lips begin to part, his warm, slitted eyes forming crescents. And he leans into you, a long green strand of hair brushing over the back of your hand as he murmurs, "Perhaps you may have surmised from my appearance, but I am not human. I am not one to shy away from the scent of decay, young squire; a benefit of my anatomy."
You find yourself quite interested in the benefits of his anatomy. If he notices, he still doesn't say. That new glint in his eyes could mean anything.
Content: institutional power dynamics, institutional sub (reader as squire), possessive + claimant dom (dom as knight), service subbing probably, alcohol consumption, acts of service (also institutional), class power dynamics, insecure dom subtext, oral sex (reader giving), penetrative sex, accurate armour care (mostly), historically inaccurate knight/squire dynamic (more strict, more service), verbal consent
[Prompt from @strappedsword: possessiveness & claiming. Perspective is transmasculine. Reposted as a solo post from a reblog.]
First a page, then a squire, you have been in service to your knight for years by the time he and his cadre are called into a skirmish on the edge of the liege lord's territory. What was meant to be little more than a negotiation and power display over a minor border dispute turns bloody within the hour. It is quashed by late afternoon, but by then your knight and anothers' squire is dead.
Later, when the lord is done spitting his furore over letters and dinner and wine, he clasps his hands together and declares it would be an even bigger waste of years of resources to dismiss you from the household.
"Give it the dead one's place," he decrees (where of course you are the 'it', a resource to be allocated) and by the time the morning comes you belong to a stranger.
The first week is difficult. Your previous knight was older -- had held his station for longer than you have even lived -- but your new placement is with a man who has only been knighted for two years. He is the youngest of the cadre, likely only a handful of years your senior, and has only been under the liege lord's service for a month. Therefore he has the most to prove. He doesn't let you forget it.
His armour cannot only be well-cared for, it must be pristine. His destrier's coat and stable must be the same. His heraldry and armoury must be impeccable, every whim met-- eight hundred tasks, all familiar but gruelling given the new intense demand for total perfection, weigh on you from the minute you wake up until long after you fall asleep, dreams haunted by the smell of lanolin, linseed and hay.
Among the demands of perfection of his material belongings is you. Naturally. He really does seem to view you as a belonging, little more than a piece of furniture that happens to have useful hands and a brain with which to use on higher function. You must wear his heraldry, you must carry and protect his banner, you must act as an extension of him in service to him your every waking moment and you must do so perfectly.
You wake before every other servant so that you may wake your knight early so he is seen as dedicated and vital. You are up later than most while completing your duties. He takes out his frustrations on you when a more senior knight embarrasses him, demanding you do menial work as he supervises. He has a sour mood almost constantly and seems to be easy to embarrass, so you are used to it within days.
You recognise it for what it is-- an expression of power, trickled down from the liege lord's habits of using those at his disposal-- but there is little you can do but comply and comply with excellence.
He softens a little as the week progresses. From marble to alabaster, maybe, but it is a softening nonetheless. He lets you sleep properly on Saturday if only as a reward for waking even earlier on Sunday where you kneel and pray in the chapel, keenly aware of the flagstone carved in your old knight's image set in the floor at the foot of the altar.
The first week becomes the first month, the second, the third. Grief and anger at your previous knight for dying and landing you in the "care" of this man fade as you settle into a routine and his demands lessen a little. He keeps you busy, but no longer are you made to shoulder unnecessary burdens. Sometimes he even actually trains you.
Spring soon comes, your previous knight four months moldering in his grave in the chapel. A spring tourney is held among the cadre, a martial display and event held for Easter. You work yourself to the knucklebone for days and your knight saunters out onto the pavilion, armour gleaming, surcoat and cloth as clean as the day they'd been woven and sewn. He doesn't win but he comes close, close enough that he's not embarrassed by it.
In the court of tents adjacent to the tourney field, air alight with pennants flying from posts and the scent of blossom heady in the breeze, your knight stands with his back to you as you de-gird him. Once he's free of the weight of his armour, chain and confines of his jack, you sit and begin the task of maintenance.
You're midway through a vambrace when another knight drops a helm in your lap, adding to your pile of work.
You're a squire, and this is familiar. At tourneys it is not uncommon for the knights to be accepting of sharing their squires so long as they personally get to the wine faster, and you're already considering how best to wipe out the sweat from the inside when a familiar arm, already sporting the bruises he earned today, sweeps past your nose and grabs the helmet. Snatching it from your lap and tossing it back at its owner, there's brief quiet followed by laughter. The conversation that follows is held over your head, and you desperately try not to pay attention as you polish the armour, ears burning, until he finally walks past you to join the others of his station at the table.
"You're my squire," is all he grumbles as he passes, not even looking your way.
"Yes, sire." You confirm for him as you move onto the next piece, working a grain of dirt out from a stubborn joint. You see him react, a silent half-turn to look at you over his shoulder before he continues on to his seat at the long table. You raise your glance enough to watch him stalk off.
Later that evening, the celebratory banquet is underway and has been for hours. You sit with the other squires, conversing and watching the lords and liege lord at the head of the table. Your knight catches your eyes and makes a tiny beckoning gesture by jutting his chin. You excuse yourself and stand, hastening around the dark edge of the room where the household servantry stand at the ready. You appear at your knight's side and lean to listen to his order. It is inconsequential, a routine task for tomorrow he is checking in on. When you straighten and move to leave, another of the knights sloppily thrusts a goblet in your direction.
"Wine!" He demands. You stare for a second, then locate the decanter, but before you can reach for it a hot, callused hand closes hard around your arm. You go still and wait for admonishment, but the look on your knight's face is more reminiscent of the fury felt by a rider insulted by someone who has tried to grab the reins of his horse. It is not directed at you.
He is deep in his cups and that might be the reason he is silent, relying only on his expression, but your knight makes his meaning clear. The other looks, scoffs, then turns and waves his goblet at a servant instead. Eventually, your knight releases your arm, if only to gesture his own cup up at you. You fill it for him, bow, and return to where you belong.
The evening continues. You occasionally look up from the courses and the celebration to see him looking at you, but he doesn't beckon. You fear you have done something wrong and the evening stretches out because of it, worry slowly building like a cool venom in your blood.
Later, you help him through the corridors and back to his chamber. Drunk, he seems to lean most of his weight on you as you shuffle together. He still seems to be seething about the day and you don't have to be curious as to what specifically has soured his mood, as the entire time he is slurring out a ramble about ownership.
You get him to his door. He wobbles in the doorway for a moment before he again reaches out to grasp you by the shoulder. He stares at you, albeit with an unsteady swimming gaze, and summons as much elocution as possible.
"You are my squire," he reiterates, hand heavy. You nod.
"Yes, sire."
"You only help me," both hands on your shoulders now, he leans in with an intense look. He smells like dark wine. You nod again.
"Yes, sire."
"You only do what I tell you to do." Unsteady, his hands roughly cup your neck and face. It isn't particularly tender-- it's more a gesture of someone who wants to be sure you're looking straight at them. His face is expectant. There's little else you can do.
"Yes, sire."
He stares. You stare. Eventually his hands slip away and he stumbles inside. You bow at his back even though you know he can't see and you close the door for him just as he slumps into his bed.
As soon as spring has come and gone, so too comes midsummer.
Another tourney, another feast, but this is a full tournament. The land squabble from winter forgotten, the liege lord has invited many neighbouring lords, and therefore you're fairly sure the man who killed your previous knight is in attendance. You think you see his pennant and wonder if you can get away with smearing soil in his hinges before the tournament begins. You can't, of course, but you have an exciting few minutes of picturing him humiliated regardless.
The tourney ends. Your knight wins, and becomes the midsummer champion. His pride is yours, his victory is yours, the excitement of the audience exhilarating as you step into the arena to meet him and hold his pennant high, willing the wind to capture the colours better than any other's and display them against the sky. The crowd cheers and they cheer for you both, the champion and his squire. You may be an accessory, but you are his accessory, and it is a taste of status you have not dreamed of. It is intoxicating. It is worth the months of labour.
You are his squire.
It is midsummer. The sun bakes. You are helping your knight out of his shell as he walks from the arena, the inside of his helmet hot and damp. You are happy to have worn gloves since the metal would scald your bare skin as you do your best to get him out of his many layers as soon as you can.
It is like shucking an exhausted silver oyster. You feed him water on the way to his tent and, once inside, strip him of his metal and his padding until he slumps on a stool in little more than his saturated linens. Everything he wore is hot and damp to the touch as if every piece is alive and breathing-- you leave the helmet upturned, the arming cap splayed on the grass, unlace the gambeson and spread it open. You are occupied with your work, working quick to prevent rust before it begins. On the stool, he sheds his tunic and sits glistening, wet hair now damp as his body heat alone is enough to banish the worst of it.
"Water," comes a command and you abandon the cuisses for now, taking a flagon and pouring it high with water before you hand it to him. He straightens, pours it over his head, holds the flagon out again. He uses few words when giving simple orders, naturally, and you are good enough at your job to need no further description.
"Drink this one," you say before you fill the flagon. You use the rest of the jug on him, pouring slow over his head and shoulders. He raises his head, angling his face into the thin stream. A bruise is blooming on his collarbone, an eye blackening, crusted blood shifting away from his nose and lips by the water. You leave him the jug as you examine the bruise on his back and the broken skin there.
You tend to him as he cools. Soon the water has evaporated but you offer him a damp cloth regardless to wipe away the remains of salt and oil as you continue to work on the armour.
You walk past him. His hand darts out, grabs you by the wrist, and tugs you hard. You stumble toward him and stop just shy of falling into his lap, but you end up with a knee to the grass regardless. You wait, head bent in a deferent half-bow, knowing better now than to apologise without knowing what precisely to apologise for. His other hand clasps your shoulder.
"You did well," he speaks low in a dry almost-croak that's almost inaudible over the noise of the rest of the arming camp, "it's good the best knight has the best squire." You glance up, and he doesn't admonish you for it, so you allow your head to raise slightly so you can see his face. His face is flushed in the heat.
"Of course, my lord." You don't know what else to say. You don't seem to have needed to know, as your knight accepts it by pulling your arm toward him again until you kneel between his knees, close enough to feel raw heat thrumming from overheated skin. The hand at your shoulder slides to cup your jaw, guiding your face up to his as he bends his own head toward you.
Hot lips tasting of flesh and salt press against yours, taking advantage of how you'd parted them in surprise; an insistent kiss that you can't parse as either being a reward for your service, an expression of appreciation, a reminder of your place, use of you as his belonging, or all of them at once. Lips move against yours and neither you nor the knight are surprised that yours move against his in turn, leaning into the kiss as it quickens, intensifies.
Your breathing hastens as you pass the same breath between you. At some point, both of his hands move to your head, one clasped in the hair at your nape and the other still at your jaw. The kiss deepens as his lips close fully against yours, tongue slipping through to explore your own, and your hands rise to brace against his legs with each palm against the still-damp linen of his long braies.
He delves, tongue slick and warm against yours. Your hands want to roam, to run up his body and clasp his own jaw as you kiss back, but hesitance means your fingers only venture a short measure up his thighs. He makes a noise into your mouth, something between a choked keen and a grunt.
"Does my squire want to congratulate me?" He finally withdraws his tongue, swollen lips grazing yours as he speaks breathlessly. His hand at your jaw slides down your arm, taking your one hand and slowly helping it further along its course as you hum uselessly against his lips.
"Yes, sire."
Your fingers only just barely graze the stiffness beneath his braies before there is noise outside the tent-- different noise, tell-tale approaching voices that open a pit in your gut-- and you each throw yourselves apart before his visitors enter.
On your knees among the armour, fretting over it and pouring the shaky adrenaline into maintenance, none of the cadre coming to congratulate him in a fraternal manner even spare you a glance. You're exactly where you're supposed to be. Your knight remains on the stool, playing the part of exhausted battered tournament victor wonderfully, managing to hide the evidence of your congratulation with the balled-up tunic he has thrown into his lap.
They laugh, congratulate, jeer at one anothers' performance, encourage him to be dressed before they exit. You continue the work, pounding heart eagerly hoping both for the suspense and the continuation. A hand on your shoulder interrupts, a firm touch that slips around to your face as he walks around to stand before you.
You look up. Your knight stands over you as you kneel surrounded by his armoury. From this vantage his stiffness is vast, obvious, obscene, turning the linen of his braies into something of a tent with only one thick pole at its centre.
"I am missed," is all he says, "you'll have to be quick."
He takes your head in both hands, almost gentle, before one hand hooks his thumb over the band of his braies and tugs them down just far enough for his arousal to spring forth, swaying from the movement.
This is new to you. You aren't sure what your knights expects until he presses the broad head and its salted bead against your lips. You part them, bid him entry, and he holds your face so gently as he slips his cock into your mouth.
You are his squire. You can't let him go out there like this, bothered and distracted, humiliated by his own body. This, too, is your duty. Your heart and stomach flutter as he lets a low, stifled groan thrum from his throat as you close your lips around him. Your knight's hips shudder, moving incongruously with you as you try to take on the main share of the work of helping him, pleasuring him, so he may celebrate unhindered.
The rhythm is easy to master after a few seconds. His arousal feels new in your mouth, a velvety head and a slightly tougher shaft ridged with hard veins that slip back and forth across your tongue as you move together. It is not a mild taste-- musky, salty, reflective of the heat and effort of his victory-- but it isn't repulsive. His grip on your face tightens, his groan becomes strangled, his movements hastening until you let him move alone, thrusting into your mouth. He tenses, letting out a resonant and drawn-out sound, before he pours his seed into your mouth in staccato pumps. Pressing his cock's head against the warm pillow of your tongue, it is warm like blood and the taste is almost overpowering.
It is quick, as your knight said it should be. He bends to kiss you deeply one last time, slow and purposeful, and his tongue tasting his own seed in your mouth feels infinitely more sinful than the act that led here in the first place.
"Good squire." Your knight mutters against your lips when he is done. He dresses himself where he can and you help with the fastenings before he leaves you alone with the armour to tend to, the taste of him lingering no matter how much water you drink, and a neglected burning desire throbbing between your legs.
It is later that same evening and the banquet for the household is moving along at a good pace. The gardens around the castle are the perfect summer venue for such a glorious midsummer feast, but all you can think about is the kiss. The feeling of your knight's lips against yours. The taste of his arousal. The throb of unfulfilled lust that still lingers as a faint twinge of want, of desire, which spikes whenever you meet your knight's gaze from across the table.
Later still, when the banquet is cleared and the nobles are all deep in their wine, the evening festivities and dances begin. You drift between it, idly doing things that are asked of you, looking to be near your knight without being too close but constantly losing him as more nobles seek to get acquainted with the midsummer tournament's victor.
The inciting incident, you think, is a knight of the cadre who routinely forgot or disregarded your knight's preference of keeping you for himself. He asks you for something, probably wine, and as you step forward to fulfil the demand, you feel a hand grasp the neck of your doublet roughly enough that fingernails scrape your skin beneath.
"Apologies, lord," says the carefully manicured voice of your knight as a jolt of thrill surges through you, "but this is my squire, and I have need of him. Excuse us."
And your knight leads you away practically by the scruff, through the gardens and past a small gateway and around a corner until you both are alone in a deserted corner of the gardens, far enough away from the celebration and all thoroughfare to it to be unheard. He is either going to scold you beyond words or, well. Your body again responds to the memory of the last time you were alone with your knight just hours before.
He spins you around to face him and a kiss that tastes like spiced port crashes into your mouth. He speaks between fresh impacts of lips and occasionally teeth, growling out a soliloquy.
"I am sick to the death," he begins, pausing again to claim your lips hungrily as he plants his hands on your waist, "of the world pretending not to know that you belong to me." Another kiss, rough and slick. "You are my squire. You answer to me. Nobody else. Me."
His mouth travels beyond your mouth to your cheek, then jaw, then jugular, then neck, then collar, all the while his hands grasping yours tightly. You angle your head back, eyes closed in reverie, as your knight plants possessive kisses upon your neck, warm and slick and shiver-inducing.
The kiss in all its aspects lasts a long while once your knight eventually returns to your mouth. He has pushed you against the stone wall and pinned your arms above your head, rolling his hips against you with increasing feverish want; you feel his stiffness again and make a breathy, embarrassing noise against his tongue. He rewards it with a deep plunge of his own, as if trying to swallow what becomes a moan when he juts his hips against you.
Your knight withdraws his tongue slowly, with reluctance, to press his forehead against yours. Sharing the same warm breaths once more as you both silently recover, his arousal burling against your pelvis all the while. Once you've caught your breath, you finally speak.
"Yes, sire." It is two things; the first is an answer, an affirmation, to his soliloquy. The second is assent. (It is also a request, but it is not the done thing for a squire to ask something of his knight.)
He pulls you away from the wall only to spin you around and press you against it once more, hands scrabbling under your doublet for the waist of your braies. He tugs it down and your skin meets the chill night air, your own slick warmth of arousal suddenly cooling as it throbs hard in anticipation of what comes next.
You feel him wriggle from clothing behind you as he presses your front into the wall and the burgeoning head of his cock press against you, against your readiness. You breathe harshly, shakily, mostly from the effort of holding back a 'please.'
"My squire," is all your knight says as he slips his cock inside you, warmth plunging warmth as he slowly fills you wall to wall, "mine."
His gentleness lasts as long as good weather in April as he thrusts hard, fucking you against the garden wall as he claims you in totality the only way he knows how. His fingers dig into your hips as your slick warmth bids him welcome, begs him to stay. Your knight bends over you to rest his chin on the curve of your shoulder, moaning low against the side of your throat with each re-entry.
He coaxes out slight, choked gasps of fulfilment and pleasure with each stroke even as you try to keep quiet lest someone hear. He leans heavily on you, pinning you to the wall with his body as his pace quickens to that the like of an animal-- the very image of copulation-- and one hand slips from your hip to curl against your own arousal, swirling the hard pearl between two fingers.
You shiver, legs weakening, each of you racing towards completion. You whisper out utterances of encouragement, pleas to continue, gratitude and expletives and more, and they urge him on as his strokes deepen, change angle, thrust inside you with intention.
The pleasure builds like ambrosial pressure in your throat once he finds the spot that makes your body squeeze him as if trying to keep him inside. Soon, body shuddering, you can take it no more; you arch your back and he covers your mouth as you orgasm hard around his warm shaft, a pulsing wave of pleasure rolling up your spine that makes your flesh twitch, massaging his cock until he, too, can take it no longer. His hot seed spills into your body, warmth spreading through you in a hazy, pleasurable feeling. He thrusts lazily as you both ride out the wave. He whispers against your ear all the while.
"My squire. Mine. Nobody else's. Mine."
"Yes, sire."
You are his squire. You belong to him. You are exactly where you are supposed to be.
Two squires at a tourney silently competing with one another via their knights, both of them trying to outdo one another in their liege's presentation. One knight gets a louder cheer upon entering the arena and the opposing party's squire stays up all night making damned sure the next day their own gets the better response.
While their knights are jousting, they're staring at each other from across the pit. During the rounds, both manage to swipe a souvenir: the victor's squire scoops the spent wasted lance of their rival's knight, a handle replete with splintered stump, where the vanquished's squire pilfers a rose thrown from the stands, intended for their rival.
A few tents apart that night while their knights enjoy the company of nobles, each squire takes advantage of their solitude and their spoils.
The victor's enjoys the thrust of conquest, riding the grip of the vanquished lance until their thighs are shaking, conquering and owning the evidence of their rival's loss, imagining the look on the others' face from across the arena as they cum around the stiff shaft of wood again and again. A few tents over, the conquered's squire has the rosebud intended for the victor in their palm, its delicate velvet petals slick with furious arousal as the squire squeezes it around their clit as they fuck it, imagining the look on their rival's face from across the arena and how satisfying it will be to have proven them wrong tomorrow.
two people in full padding and chainmail walked past me in the middle of the day and I could smell the metal and body smell and i would've done anything either of them had told me to do
