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Incest, step-cest, pedophilia, teacher x student, character x character, and anything of the sort is NOT going to be written. If I find your request boring or am not motivated to write it, I'm not going to write it.
I ONLY write female and gn readers. I don't know how to or feel comfortable enough to write male readers yet.
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Zuko's breath shuddered, your hands trailing over his abdomen slowly, featherlight touches mimicking butterfly kisses only to be followed by the real thing, your eyelashes softly going en route while your lips whisper praise.
His hand's stay firm on your hips, golden eyes intense.
Exhaling, you sit up, straddling him now. Zuko's hair was fanned out, long like a halo.
"You okay?"
He doesn't answer for a moment, eyes anywhere but you, ears tinged in pink.
"'m fine."
He of course, was not fine.
"This- this doesn't-"
"It does, Zuko."
You grab his chin, tilting him to look at you.
"I want you."
synopsis: Beneath Zuko's usual calm and decisiveness, he grows shy and soft in your hands, still unused to comfort that comes so easily.
wc: 2.1k
The bedroom was too quiet for a place so large.
Candlelight flickered along towering walls of carved stone, catching on gold inlays and silk drapery that spilled from the canopy above the bed. The air smelled faintly of melted wax and something softer-jasmine, maybe-clinging to the sheets, to the curtains, to you. Outside, the palace had long since settled into silence, guards posted like statues beyond thick doors, the world held at a respectful distance.
Inside, everything felt… close.
Zuko stood near the edge of the room at first, as if crossing it required permission he did not yet have. Long black hair fell over his shoulders in a loose spill, unbound, unfamiliar like this. It softened him in a way no one else was ever allowed to see, save for the moments in battle. The scar over his left eye caught the candlelight when he turned his head-sharp, red against his skin-but even that seemed less intimidating tonight.
Because he wouldn’t look at you.
Not fully.
Golden eyes flickered in your direction and then away just as quickly, like he’d touched something too hot.
“…You should rest,” he said, voice steady, almost too steady, the kind he used in court, in front of others, when every word was measured and deliberate.
But there was no one here to perform for.
You were sitting at the edge of the bed, hands folded in your lap, watching him with a quiet patience that only seemed to make it worse. The mattress dipped slightly beneath you, silk whispering with the smallest shift of your weight. It drew his attention again-brief, betraying-and this time his gaze lingered a fraction too long.
Then his face flushed.
It was subtle at first. A faint warmth at the tips of his ears. A soft color rising along his cheekbones.
He turned away again.
“…It’s late,” he added, as if that solved anything.
You almost smiled.
Because this was the same man who faced down entire courts without hesitation. The same man whose presence alone could silence a room. Whose voice carried authority without ever needing to rise.
And yet now…
Now Zuko looked like he didn’t know what to do with his own hands.
They flexed at his sides, then stilled, then shifted again like he was trying to decide where they belonged. His posture remained straight out of habit, but there was tension in it now, something uncertain threading through all that practiced composure.
You tilted your head slightly. “You’re not coming to bed?”
The question was simple.
It ruined him.
His shoulders stiffened, just for a second, before he forced them to relax. Slowly, he turned back toward you-this time committing to it, even if it clearly cost him something.
Golden eyes met yours.
Held.
And immediately betrayed him.
The flush deepened, spreading down his neck, disappearing beneath the collar of his robes. His jaw tightened, like he was annoyed with himself for it, but he didn’t look away this time. That might’ve been the only thing he had left to cling to-his stubbornness.
“I…” He stopped. Tried again. “I will.”
A pause.
“I simply-”
He exhaled, slow and controlled, like steadying himself before stepping into battle.
Ridiculous.
There was no battlefield here. Just you. Just a quiet room and too many candles and the weight of something new settling between you both.
Still, he moved.
Each step toward the bed was measured, deliberate, as though he could maintain control that way. As though he could pretend his pulse wasn’t betraying him, wasn’t loud enough to drown out the silence.
When he reached you, he hesitated again.
Closer now, you could see it more clearly-the way his golden eyes softened despite himself, the way his breath caught almost imperceptibly when you looked up at him. The scar over his eye didn’t make him look harsher like it did in the daylight. In this light, it only made him look… real.
Human.
And very, very flustered.
“You’re staring,” he said quietly.
You didn’t deny it.
That only made it worse.
Color bloomed deeper across his face, and for a moment, he looked like he might retreat again- step back, put distance between you and whatever this was.
But he didn’t.
Instead, slowly, almost cautiously, he sat beside you.
The mattress dipped under his weight, bringing him closer, the space between you shrinking to something fragile and noticeable. His arm brushed yours- just barely- and he froze like the contact had sent a shock through him.
It might as well have.
His hand hovered for a second, uncertain, before settling on the bed between you. Fingers curled slightly into the silk, gripping it like an anchor.
“I have faced worse situations than this,” he muttered, more to himself than to you.
And yet he still couldn’t quite bring himself to look at you again without that soft, helpless flush returning. Calm. Honorable.
Except here.
You take his hand, guiding him to sit between your legs on the down-filled bed. gathering his hair between your fingers, the silky strands slip with ease. you lift a strand, smelling it- jasmine, burnt cedar.
Zuko goes still the moment your fingers lace with his. Not tense-no, not pulling away-but aware.
Deeply, acutely aware.
And yet he lets you guide him.
There’s no resistance as you gently pull him back, settling him between your legs on the plush, down-filled bed. The softness gives beneath his weight, but he feels anything but grounded. If anything, it only makes him more unsteady, more conscious of every point of contact-your knees at his sides, your hands in his hair, your breath just behind him.
His breath catches.
Your fingers gather his hair like silk, and it is; smooth, well-kept, slipping easily through your touch. He doesn’t tie it back tonight, didn’t even think to. Now he’s painfully aware of that too, of how exposed it makes him feel, how close it lets you get.
When you lift a strand and bring it to your nose, he nearly forgets how to breathe altogether.
Jasmine. Burnt cedar. Him.
“Zuko, my love, why are you so shy all of a sudden?” A teasing lilt graced your lips along with a smile he did not miss. You were messing with him.
He exhales quietly through his nose, like he’s trying to steady something unraveling in his chest-but it doesn’t quite work. Not when your voice is laced with that soft teasing, not when your lips brush his jaw-
Once.
Twice.
A third time, slower.
His hands tighten slightly where they rest on his thighs, fingers curling into the fabric there. His shoulders draw up just a fraction before he forces them to relax again, but the effect lingers-subtle, but unmistakable.
“You-” he starts, then stops.
His voice isn’t as steady as before.
He swallows, tilting his head just slightly-just enough to give you more space, though he doesn’t seem to realize he’s doing it.
“You’re… making it difficult,” he murmurs, quieter now, the words slipping out like a reluctant confession.
Another kiss.
Softer this time.
His composure cracks a little more.
A faint, helpless flush spreads across his cheeks again, deeper than before, and this time it doesn’t fade when he tries to will it away. His golden eyes flicker downward, like he’s searching for something-control, maybe, or the right words-but they don’t stay there long.
They close instead.
Just for a second.
Because it’s easier than trying to hold himself together while you do this to him.
“I'm not shy,” he adds, though there’s no real conviction behind it now. Not when his voice dips like that, not when his breath hitches almost imperceptibly as your lips linger near his jaw.
Not when he leans-just slightly-back into you.
As if drawn there without thinking.
“…I am simply unused to this.”
That, at least, is honest.
Painfully so.
You laugh softly. "Still? This is routine now, is it not?"
His hand lifts then, hesitant, uncertain, before settling lightly over yours where it still threads through his hair. He doesn’t stop you- doesn’t even try.
He’s quiet for a moment after that-your hand still in his hair, his resting over yours-like he’s weighing something small, something almost… embarrassing.
Then, softer than before-
“Will you do my hair?”
There’s a pause, just long enough to feel fragile.
“Just to sleep in?”
It’s such a simple request. Almost boyish, in a way that doesn’t match the man everyone else sees. No command, no expectation-just a quiet ask, like he’s not entirely sure you’ll say yes.
“Of course.”
The answer comes easily, warmly, and something in him loosens.
Not all at once-but enough.
His shoulders drop a fraction, the tension easing as he exhales slowly. Carefully, he shifts, turning just enough to give you better access, settling more comfortably between your legs. This time, when his back brushes against you, he doesn’t go still.
He leans into it.
Just slightly.
Your fingers move through his hair again, more deliberate now, smoothing through the long, dark strands. They fall easily into place beneath your touch, soft and warm from his skin. He lets his head tilt forward when you guide it, compliant in a way he never is with anyone else.
The room feels quieter now.
Closer.
His eyes drift shut as you begin, your fingers parting sections, weaving them together with gentle care. Each movement is slow, unhurried-something meant to soothe rather than impress.
And it works.
His breathing steadies, evening out as he sinks into the feeling. The faintest furrow in his brow disappears, replaced with something softer, something almost… peaceful.
“…You’ve done this before,” he murmurs, voice low, touched with quiet curiosity.
Not suspicion. Not doubt.
Just… noticing.
Your fingers glide through another section, smoothing it down, and he exhales again-this time heavier, like it’s pulling something deeper out of him.
There’s a long pause.
Then, quieter still-
“My mother used to do my hair.” Zuko says, breaking the silence. He rarely spoke of his mother these days.
The words are simple, but they settle heavily in the air between you.
He doesn’t open his eyes.
Doesn’t move away.
If anything, he leans back just a little more into your touch, trusting, unguarded in a way that feels rare-like something you’re being allowed to see.
Your hands continue their gentle work, braiding his hair loosely, something comfortable enough to sleep in. A few strands slip free near his face, framing it softly, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
Not tonight.
His hand, still resting over yours from before, shifts slightly-fingers brushing against your wrist, then settling there.
Not stopping you.
Just… staying.
“…It feels the same…yours I mean.” he admits, barely above a whisper.
Your hands still for just a moment in his hair.
Not stopping-never stopping-but slowing, softening, like the words deserve something gentler in return.
“...she used to brush my hair when I was a child,” he says quietly.
There’s no bitterness in his voice. Not quite. Just something distant. Remembered.
“Father thought it wasn’t a thing boys should do.”
Your fingers resume their slow rhythm, smoothing, parting, weaving. Careful. Intentional. Like you’re holding something fragile without ever letting him feel it might break.
“Your hands feel like hers.”
That makes your chest ache.
He doesn’t move when he says it. Doesn’t look at you. If anything, he sinks further back against you, his weight settling more fully, trusting you to hold it.
The candles flicker.
The room breathes around you.
And he-this man who carries himself like steel and fire in every other room-sits quiet and open in your hands.
You lean forward slightly, your lips brushing the crown of his head this time. Softer than before. Slower.
“Then I’ll do it as often as you want,” you murmur.
No teasing now.
Just warmth.
Your fingers continue the braid, loose and comfortable, something meant for rest rather than formality. A few strands slip free, grazing his cheek, and you smooth them back without thinking.
He exhales.
It’s different this time-deeper, like something long held finally eased.
“…He was wrong,” he says after a moment.
There’s a quiet steadiness to it now. Not defiance. Not anger.
Just certainty.
His hand shifts again, still resting over yours, but this time his fingers curl slightly-just enough to hold. Not to stop you.
Just to feel you there.
“I don’t care what he thought.”
Another pause.
Then, softer, “I would rather have this.”
And he leans back into you again, eyes closed, letting your hands move through his hair like it’s something he’s been missing for far longer than he ever allowed himself to admit.
synopsis: In the golden empire of Ochema, beauty is a currency, marriage is a weapon, and loyalty is a fickle thing. Promised to the moon-born prince of Kremnos, you are meant to bring peace between two ancient powers. But peace is shattered when a foreign man—beautiful, unknowable, and brutal—emerges from beyond the horizon and wins more than just glory in the arena. Winning you in blood, the balance between empires shatters. Torn between duty, desire, and ruin—you must decide what survives: the crown, the war… or your heart.
trigger warnings: psychological and emotional trauma, gaslighting/manipulation, power imbalance, implied coercion in both romantic and sexual relations, non-consensual voyeurism/voyeuristic practices, slow burn, pregnancy, sexual violence, dubious consent, mild body horror, torture, virginity idolization, reproductive control, forced abortion and miscarriage, forced marriage, religious control, parental abuse, cultural ritualism (dehumanizing and objectifying women), suicide ideation. cannibalism, kidnapping, love-triangle(?),alcohol abuse, sexual shame, loss of agency, pregnancy used as political symbol, p-in-v sex, oral (both). this list may be altered at any time.
wc: 7.2k
a/n: This story is mdni; minors and ageless blogs will be blocked for interacting. Full disclosure, not all of those tags are for Phainon and your relationship, and it reflects ancient Greece and ancient Rome with their philosophies slightly.
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VII. Bloody Sand
They did not rush toward one another—not yet. Fate, it seemed, delighted in cruelty, in dragging the moment thin as wire.
The arena churned around them. Men screamed. Steel rang. Bodies fell and were trampled into the sand until the ground itself darkened and clotted, a slick mosaic of footprints and gore. The sun hung mercilessly overhead, bleaching bone and blinding eyes, turning sweat to salt on every tongue. Dust rose with each movement, sticking to blood, to skin, to the hems of tunics torn half away.
You could not move.
The guards remained where they were, spears crossed before you like the bars of a cage. One of them shifted when you leaned forward instinctively, the iron tip scraping stone in a soft, final warning. Your father did not look at you. His gaze was fixed below, jaw tight, fingers gripping the arm of his seat as though he, too, were braced against something inevitable.
Your breath came shallow.
There—Phainon moved again.
He did not shout. Did not posture. He flowed.
A man lunged at him from the left, blade raised too high, too eager. Phainon slipped inside the arc with a pivot so clean it looked rehearsed by the gods themselves. The dull javelin struck low, then high—an ugly, efficient sequence—and the man folded with a wet sound that made several spectators gag. Phainon did not watch him fall. He was already turning, already reading the next threat.
It was horrifying.
It was exquisite.
You hated yourself for the way your eyes followed him.
Across the arena, Mydeimos roared—an animal sound torn from the chest—and drove his opponent backward with sheer force. He fought like fire: consuming, unrelenting, daring the world to withstand him. His blade flashed in broad, punishing sweeps, scattering men who dared crowd him. There was blood on his arms, his chest, his jaw, but he looked untouched by fear, by doubt. A prince, even here. Especially here.
The crowd began to split its voice without realizing it.
A name rose from one side—ragged, disbelieving.
“PHAI—NON—!”
From the other—fervent, loyal, ecstatic.
“MYDEIMOS—! MYDEIMOS—!”
The sound crashed together, a tide without rhythm, without mercy.
Your stomach twisted painfully.
They were moving closer now. Not deliberately. Not yet. But the arena was thinning, bodies littering the sand like offerings poorly received. Each time one of them struck another down, the space between them narrowed—step by step, corpse by corpse.
You shook your head, a silent, desperate denial.
No.
Not like this.
A man tried to take Phainon from behind—young, shaking, weapon trembling in his grip. Phainon glanced back once. Just once. Then he reversed his hold on the javelin and drove it backward without looking. The boy dropped instantly.
Something inside you lurched.
You squeezed your eyes shut for half a heartbeat—only to open them again, helpless, compelled.
Your father shifted beside you. “Guards,” he said sharply.
The spears crossed tighter.
You did not hear them.
Two storms—yes. But the arena had become a slaughterhouse long before they were granted the courtesy of meeting.
A man rushed Phainon headlong, screaming, blade raised in a wild, useless arc. The javelin punched through his throat with a sound like meat splitting on a butcher’s block. Blood burst hot and arterial, spraying Phainon’s chest, his jaw, the sand beneath their feet. The man clawed uselessly at the shaft lodged in his neck, gurgling, eyes bulging as Phainon twisted—not hurried, not merciful—before ripping the weapon free. The body dropped bonelessly, still twitching.
A pivot. A sharp turn of the hips.
Another came from the side.
Phainon met him with the heel of his palm to the nose—bone cracking audibly—then drove the dull javelin up beneath the ribcage. Not a killing thrust. Not yet. The man screamed, high and shrill, as the iron head scraped bone and tore flesh inside him. Phainon leaned close, almost intimate, and shoved again until the sound cut off abruptly.
The sand was slick now. Men slipped in it. Fell. Were trampled.
The crowd was no longer cheering cleanly. Some cried out in horror. Some laughed. Some retched openly, vomit steaming as it hit the sun-warmed stone.
And still—still—your eyes would not leave him.
Across the arena, Mydeimos was no less brutal, though where Phainon was surgical, he was catastrophic. He split a man open from collarbone to hip, the blade catching, tearing free with a spray of red that soaked his forearms. Another he took by the hair, dragging him close enough to snarl something unheard before crushing his skull against his knee. Bone gave way. The body folded. The prince roared, blood flecking his teeth.
Royal. Savage. Glorious.
The space between them thinned.
Each corpse cleared, each survivor limped away, until there was nothing left between them but churned sand and gore.
Your heart battered your ribs. You leaned forward again without meaning to—and the guards snapped their spears tighter, iron crossing inches from your knees.
Below—
Phainon straightened.
Blood ran in slow rivulets down his arms, dripping from his fingers. His tunic clung dark and heavy to his body, soaked through. He wiped his mouth once with the back of his hand, leaving a smear like war paint across his cheek.
That cyan gaze hit like ice plunged into your chest. Sharp. Awake. Terribly aware. He did not smile. Did not bow. He simply saw you, as though the screaming masses and the emperor’s seat and the crossed spears meant nothing at all.
Your breath left you in a thin, broken sound.
And Mydeimos noticed.
He followed the line of Phainon’s gaze—and when he saw where it landed, his mouth pulled into a laugh.
It was not a happy sound.
It burst out of him—loud, barking, edged with fury—and he threw his head back briefly, shoulders shaking, blood dripping from his chin. His eyes burned when they snapped back to Phainon, bright with anger and something like delight.
“Oh,” he seemed to say without words. Oh, you dare.
He spread his arms wide, blade in hand, inviting. Mocking. Claiming.
The crowd surged into madness.
The cymbal struck—once, hard enough to rattle your bones.
“CLEAR THE SAND!” the announcer bellowed, voice cracking. “BY DECREE OF THE EMPEROR—THE FINAL CONTEST—!”
Bodies were dragged away, leaving dark trails. Survivors crawled back, clutching wounds, eyes wild. The arena opened at last, wide and obscene, soaked with the evidence of what had already been offered.
Two men remained.
Phainon rolled his shoulders once, loose, javelin hanging easily at his side, its edge no longer dull with use but slick with flesh and blood.
Mydeimos planted his feet, grin feral, blade raised in salute—or threat.
Your father leaned forward at last.
Your father notices.
You feel it before you see it—the subtle shift beside you, the way his weight leans forward, the sudden stillness of a man who has begun to count consequences. His eyes narrow, not at the sand, but at you, then back again, following the invisible thread that has just been drawn.
He saw the look.
He saw who it was meant for.
“Guards,” he murmurs, low and sharp.
The spears cross tighter still. One of them presses back against your knee, not enough to bruise, but enough to remind you where you stand in this moment: watched, weighed, owned.
Below, the arena breathes.
Phainon and Mydeimos circle one another slowly, boots sinking into the gore-softened sand. Flies already swarm where the blood pools thickest, buzzing madly, drunken on the heat. The noise of the crowd dulls into a roar without words, anticipation stretched so taut it trembles.
Mydeimos breaks the silence first.
He laughs again—short, sharp, ugly with humor. “Did you see that?” he calls, voice carrying easily over the din. “The farmer’s learned how to look up at the seats. Careful, boy. You’ll strain your neck.”
Phainon says nothing. He shifts his grip on the javelin, testing its balance, the point glinting wetly. His gaze does not leave Mydeimos, but the corner of his mouth twitches—as if amused.
Mydeimos’s grin widens, teeth red. “Ah,” he continues, pacing a step closer, boots squelching. “I understand now. Thought you were bold—or stupid. Turns out you’re just hungry.” His eyes flick briefly, deliberately, toward the imperial seats. Toward you. “Careful what you reach for. Some things bite back.”
A ripple of laughter rolls through the crowd.
Phainon finally speaks. His voice is calm. Almost mild.
“You talk too much for a man who bleeds so loudly.”
The crowd howls.
Mydeimos’s smile snaps into something sharper. “You’ll find,” he says, lifting his blade, testing its edge with his thumb, “that princes are allowed their voices. Farmers are allowed their graves.”
He lunges.
Steel shrieks as Phainon jerks aside just in time, the blade tearing through air where his ribs had been a heartbeat before. Mydeimos presses immediately, relentless—overhead strike, then a brutal horizontal slash meant to gut. Phainon drops low, the blade grazing his shoulder, skin splitting open in a bright, wet line. Blood spills fast.
You choke on your breath.
Phainon retaliates without pause—he drives the butt of the javelin into Mydeimos’s knee with bone-jarring force. The prince grunts but does not fall, snarling as he slams his elbow back into Phainon’s jaw. Teeth click. Blood sprays.
They crash together, bodies colliding, slipping in blood, grappling like beasts. Mydeimos rams Phainon backward, shoulder-first, forcing him to stagger. He laughs in his face, breath hot, feral. “That’s it? That’s what you brought? A stick and a stare?”
Phainon twists suddenly, wrenching free, and slams the javelin’s point down into the sand between Mydeimos’s feet—close enough that grit and blood splash up his legs. “I brought patience,” he says quietly. “You brought pride.”
Mydeimos bares his teeth. “I’ll carve that patience out of you.”
He strikes again—this time lower, faster. Phainon barely manages to deflect, the blade skimming along the javelin shaft, shaving wood, sparks flying. The impact jolts Phainon’s arms, and Mydeimos capitalizes instantly, kicking out hard. His boot connects with Phainon’s ribs. There’s a sickening crack.
Phainon stumbles—but does not fall.
Instead, he laughs.
It’s soft. Breathless. Almost boyish.
Mydeimos freezes for half a second, startled—and Phainon uses it. He lunges forward, slamming his shoulder into Mydeimos’s chest, driving him back several steps. The javelin whips up, slicing across Mydeimos’s forearm. Flesh opens. Blood pours.
The prince roars, more furious now than hurt. “You think looking at her makes you chosen?” he spits, circling again, eyes wild. “You think I won’t kill you for daring to imagine it?”
Mydeimos snarls, circling, blade dripping steadily now, each drop darkening the sand further. His chest heaves—not from fatigue, but from rage barely contained.
“You mistake yourself,” he growls, voice pitched low, meant only for the man before him. “You think this ends with you standing where I stand. You think the gods notice you.”
Phainon shifts his footing, blood running freely down one side, ribs screaming with every breath—and yet his posture remains loose, unbothered, almost… amused.
“How naïve of you,” he replies quietly, the words slipping between the clashes of steel and the thunder of the crowd, “to think of what my prize will be. That I want a prize. Let alone some woman.”
The insult lands like a blade between ribs.
Mydeimos’s eyes flash. “Watch your mouth.”
“Try to kill me,” Phainon continues, voice calm as still water, “but you’ll find the seed has already been sown.”
Mydeimos roars and charges.
The clash is brutal—no finesse now, only violence. Steel meets wood, wood meets bone. Mydeimos hacks downward with enough force to cleave a man in two; Phainon barely catches it on the javelin shaft, the impact splintering the wood, jarring his arms numb. He retaliates instantly, driving his knee into Mydeimos’s abdomen. The prince grunts, staggers back a step—then slams his forehead forward.
There’s a sickening crack.
Phainon stumbles, blood pouring from his brow, vision blurring—but he does not fall. He never falls. Instead, he swings the broken end of the javelin up, raking it across Mydeimos’s shoulder. Flesh tears. Blood sprays hot.
They separate only to collide again, like beasts locked in instinct and hatred. Mydeimos laughs breathlessly, wild-eyed. “You hear them?” he shouts, gesturing vaguely to the stands. “They scream for me. They always have.”
Phainon wipes blood from his eye with the back of his hand. “They scream for violence,” he says. “You just happen to be loud.”
The crowd is deafening now—chanting, shrieking, stomping. Names dissolve into noise. No one hears the words exchanged below, only the promise of ruin.
Above—
Your vision swims.
The world tilts grotesquely as another blow lands—steel biting flesh, a scream torn short—and your stomach finally rebels. You fold forward violently, bile burning your throat as you retch onto the stone floor, the sound swallowed by the crowd’s frenzy.
A maid cries out your name. Someone grabs your shoulders. The guards tense, spears shifting, but you barely feel it.
Phainon breaks first.
He turns and runs—not far, just enough that sand sprays beneath his feet and the distance opens like a wound. He cuts toward the edge of the arena where the ground is churned deepest, slick with blood and footprints.
Mydeimos throws his head back and laughs, loud and ringing, triumphant. “There it is!” he bellows, voice tearing through the roar. “Run, little farmer! Run back to your fields—oh wait—too late for that!”
The crowd surges, believing it. Believing the story they want.
But Phainon does not flee.
He slows.
Just a fraction.
His path curves, not straight—angled, deliberate—drawing Mydeimos after him like a hook beneath the skin. He glances over his shoulder, eyes bright despite the blood streaking down his face, and for the first time his mouth curves into something unmistakably cocky.
“You Kremnoans,” he calls lightly, breathless but amused, “all muscle, no patience. Is that what they teach you? Swing until the world gives way?”
Mydeimos snarls and charges harder.
Phainon plants his foot suddenly and whirls.
The javelin snaps up just in time to deflect a killing blow, the impact shuddering up both their arms. Mydeimos responds instantly, smashing his elbow into Phainon’s ribs again—harder this time. Something gives. Phainon gasps, sound torn from him, and Mydeimos uses it, slamming him bodily into the sand.
They go down in a tangle.
Mydeimos is on him in a heartbeat, knees pinning Phainon’s hips, blade raised—but Phainon jams the broken javelin crosswise, stopping the strike inches from his face. The wood cracks further. Splinters bite into skin.
“Look at you,” Mydeimos snarls, leaning close, breath foul with blood and heat. “Thinking yourself clever. Thinking yourself worthy.” He drops the blade and instead slams his forearm across Phainon’s throat, crushing down.
Phainon chokes.
Mydeimos’s fingers close tight, digging in, lifting him slightly off the sand. “You’ll never touch her,” he hisses, venomous. “Never smell her hair. Never hear her beg. You’ll die here like the mule you are—worked bloody and forgotten.”
Phainon’s vision blurs. His hands claw uselessly for a second—
Then his knee snaps up.
Hard.
It connects between Mydeimos’s legs with brutal precision.
The prince lets out a hoarse, furious sound and loosens just enough—and that’s all Phainon needs. He twists sharply, rolling them, tearing free as Mydeimos stumbles back, swearing loudly.
“Fuck you!” Mydeimos roars, recovering fast, fury incandescent. “I’ll split you open and feed you to the dogs!”
Phainon drags himself upright, coughing, blood drooling from the corner of his mouth. He wipes it away with his thumb, eyes still alight.
“You already tried,” he rasps. “That was… disappointing.”
Mydeimos lunges again—and this time he lands it.
A vicious hook catches Phainon square in the jaw. Bone cracks. Phainon spins with the force of it, collapsing to one knee, spitting blood and something white into the sand. The crowd screams its approval, a living wall of sound.
Mydeimos stalks forward, blade raised, shaking with rage. “Stay down,” he snarls. “Stay down and die quiet.”
“No,” he says, pushing himself up again, shaking sand from his hands. “I don’t think I will.”
They square off once more—both bleeding, both smiling, neither willing to yield—as the arena roars around them, ignorant of the quiet truth settling in your bones:
Phainon wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing blood across his cheek like war paint—and grins.
It’s wrong. It’s infuriating. It’s deliberate.
Mydeimos sees it and snaps.
“Laugh again,” the prince snarls, stalking forward, blade shaking with fury. “I’ll carve that smile into the sand.”
Phainon straightens slowly, ribs screaming, jaw misaligned, breath rasping like torn cloth—and still he stands loose, relaxed, as though this were sport.
“Is that all?” he taunts, voice hoarse but steady. “All that rage, all that lineage, and you still swing like a butcher drunk on his own name.”
The crowd explodes—half in outrage, half in savage delight.
Mydeimos roars and charges.
This time he does not stop.
He batters Phainon—blow after blow—driving him backward with sheer brutality. Steel bites into shoulder, thigh, side. Phainon stumbles, slips in blood, barely catching himself before the blade whistles past his throat. Mydeimos slams the pommel into his face. Cartilage crunches. Phainon drops to both knees.
“Stay down!” Mydeimos bellows, boot slamming into Phainon’s ribs. “Stay DOWN, you fucking nothing!”
Phainon coughs violently, blood splattering the sand.
Then he laughs again.
It’s ugly. Wet. Provoking.
“You hit like you fuck,” Phainon rasps. “Hard at first. Sloppy after.”
That does it.
Mydeimos grabs him by the hair and hauls him up, fist cocked, eyes wild. “I will rip your throat out,” he growls, veins standing out like cords. “You will die knowing you never had a chance. The princess will forget your name before the sun sets.”
Phainon’s hands close around Mydeimos’s wrist—not in panic, but in control.
“You’re wrong,” he says softly.
Then he moves.
He twists suddenly, wrenching Mydeimos off balance, slamming his forehead into the prince’s nose. Blood erupts. Mydeimos staggers back, swearing, and Phainon surges forward despite everything screaming in his body. He rams his shoulder into Mydeimos’s chest, driving him backward step by step, javelin stabbing in short, vicious bursts—thigh, side, shoulder—never deep enough to kill, just enough to bleed.
“You talk about princes,” Phainon spits, circling now, faster, feral. “About prizes. About women.” He laughs again, breath hitching. “You think the world bends because you were born screaming into silk?”
Mydeimos wipes blood from his eyes and snarls. “I was born to rule.”
“You were born loud,” Phainon snaps. “There’s a difference.”
They crash together again.
This time Mydeimos catches him mid-lunge, slamming his knee into Phainon’s stomach so hard Phainon folds with a strangled sound. Mydeimos wraps an arm around his neck, dragging him close, forearm crushing down.
“Die,” he hisses. “Die knowing you were nothing.”
Phainon’s feet scrabble uselessly for a heartbeat—
Then he bites.
Hard.
Mydeimos howls as teeth sink into his forearm, blood spurting. He shoves Phainon away with a curse, clutching the wound, eyes blazing with disbelief and fury.
The crowd is no longer cheering coherently. It’s screaming. Stomping. Frenzied.
Phainon staggers back to his feet, swaying, chest heaving, blood pouring freely now. He lifts the shattered javelin, broken and stained beyond recognition, and points it at the prince.
“Come on,” he says, voice raw, eyes burning. “Show me what a Kremnoan does when the noise stops working.”
Above, your father is rigid, knuckles white.
You can barely see through the blur of tears and sickness and terror as the two men circle once more—both ruined, both furious, neither willing to die quietly.
“Father—father please!” you hiccup, the sound ripped raw from your chest. Your knees hit the stone, the world tilting hard to the left as bile burns your throat. You clap a hand over your mouth too late. The roar of the arena swells, merciless, drowning you as you retch onto the marble. Cheers erupt anyway—confetti of sound, boots stomping, names chanted until they blur.
“Mydeimos—”
“Silence, daughter! Enough!” Your father’s hand snaps out, iron-hard, fingers biting into your jaw. He forces your face up, forces your eyes open. His pupils are blown wide, fever-bright. “Watch.” His thumb digs into your cheekbone. “Watch what becomes of men—of boys!”
Your mother’s voice cuts through, thin and cracking. “Let her go! She’s ill—she’s—” She reaches for him, hands trembling, but he shrugs her off without looking, his gaze locked on the sand.
Below, the fight does not pause for your plea.
Mydeimos stands planted like a god carved from blood and dust, chest heaving, grin split wide as a wound. He spits to the side, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and laughs—loud, ugly, triumphant.
“Look at him,” he bellows, throwing his arms wide to the stands. “Running already! The farmer’s learned his place, hasn’t he?”
Phainon doesn’t answer at first. He’s halfway up the curve of the arena wall, boots scraping stone as he moves along the perimeter—quick, deliberate. He’s bleeding now. A cut above his brow paints one eye red. His shoulder hangs wrong, breath rasping like it’s been dragged through gravel. But he’s smiling.
Not wide. Not loud.
Sharp.
He pivots suddenly, feinting left, then bolts right—low, fast. The crowd gasps, then screams as he slides under Mydeimos’ reach, sand spraying. Mydeimos swings anyway, overcommits, blade shrieking against air.
Mydeimos whirls, fury flashing. “Counting what, mule? How many seconds you have left?”
“How many mistakes you make when you think you’ve already won.”
The prince charges.
It’s brutal—steel on steel, the impact cracking like thunder. Mydeimos slams Phainon back with sheer force, driving him across the sand. A fist catches Phainon in the ribs—once, twice—and the sound it makes turns your stomach. Phainon stumbles, drops to a knee.
Mydeimos looms, grabs him by the throat and hauls him upright, fingers digging in, lifting him clean off the ground.
“Listen to me, you dirt-born piece of shit,” Mydeimos snarls, breath hot and stinking of blood. “You think you get to look at her? You think you get to plant ideas in that empty skull of yours and walk away?” He squeezes. Phainon chokes, boots kicking uselessly. “You will die here. You will die a mule—worked hard, used up, forgotten. And she will never even remember your name.”
Phainon’s hands claw at Mydeimos’ wrist. His face is purple now. Veins stand out at his temples.
Then he laughs.
It’s awful. Broken. Provoking.
“She already remembers,” he rasps. “That’s why you’re so angry.”
Mydeimos roars and throws him—throws him—across the arena. Phainon hits the ground and rolls, coughing violently. The crowd goes insane, chanting the prince’s name, stamping so hard the stands tremble. You can’t hear words anymore, only noise, only the blood pounding in your ears.
Your mother sobs openly now, clutching at your father’s arm. “Please. This is enough. He’ll kill him.”
“That’s the point,” your father snaps, not looking away. “This is what happens when peasants forget themselves.”
In the sand, Phainon drags himself up again. Slow this time. Painfully. He wipes blood from his mouth with shaking fingers and looks straight at Mydeimos.
“You hit hard,” he calls out, voice hoarse. “Is that all a prince has? Strength borrowed from a title?”
Mydeimos stalks forward, eyes blazing. “Careful, boy. Your mouth will be the last thing I break.”
“Good,” Phainon says, setting his stance despite the tremor in his legs. “I’ve said everything else with my fists.”
They collide again.
This time Phainon doesn’t retreat. He baits—steps in just close enough, taunts with a glance toward the royal box. Mydeimos takes it. Swings wild. Phainon slips inside the arc and drives an elbow up into the prince’s jaw. The crack is sharp, satisfying. The crowd’s cheer fractures, confusion rippling through it.
Mydeimos staggers back a step, disbelief flashing across his face—then rage, incandescent.
“You little bastard—”
Phainon grins, blood on his teeth. “What? Thought farmers couldn’t hit back?”
Mydeimos answers with violence, crashing into him like a living battering ram. They go down together in a tangle of limbs and sand, punching, clawing, cursing. Fists land. Heads snap back. Teeth cut lips. It’s ugly and endless and far from over.
You press a hand to your mouth, shaking, as the knot in your throat tightens again.
A sound splits the air—low, ancient, wrong.
A creak, long and groaning, like stone dragged across stone.
Your head snaps up before you can stop it, heart slamming so hard it hurts. The iron seams beneath the royal box tremble. Dust sifts down in a thin veil. You look back to your father, eyes wide, panic sharp enough to cut.
“You’re letting the gates open?!” you hiss, voice cracking. “Father—!”
His mouth curls, not quite a smile. Something colder. Older. “One of them must go down,” he says calmly, almost reverently. “Even by beast.”
Your mother makes a sound—half sob, half scream—and grabs his arm again. “You can’t. This is madness—this is—”
“Order,” he snaps, shaking her off. His eyes never leave the arena. “This is order.”
The creaking grows louder.
Across the stands, the noise shifts. Cheers stutter, break apart. A hush ripples outward like a bruise spreading under skin. People lean forward, necks craning. Some laugh nervously. Some go pale. Others—too many—light up with feverish delight.
“Beast! Beast!” someone shouts.
“No—no way, not today—”
“I’ve ten crowns on the farmer if he lives five breaths!”
“I’ll double if the prince takes its head!”
Coins clatter. Voices rise. Fear and ecstasy braid together until they’re indistinguishable.
The gates at the far end of the arena inch open.
Just a handspan. Enough to breathe out a smell—iron, wet fur, something rank and old. A shadow presses against the bars from the other side, vast and shifting, but whatever it is does not step through.
Not yet.
The crowd holds its breath.
Down in the sand, neither man looks back.
Mydeimos is laughing again—wild, unhinged, drunk on blood and noise. He barrels forward, tackles Phainon with a roar, and drives him into the ground. Sand explodes around them. Mydeimos’ hands find Phainon’s throat again, fingers slick with sweat and blood.
“Did you hear that?” Mydeimos snarls, breath coming fast. “That’s the sound of the gods agreeing with me.”
Phainon’s eyes flick—just once—toward the gates.
For a heartbeat, something tightens in his chest.
He doesn’t let it show.
Instead, he jams his forearm up between Mydeimos’ arms, trying to wedge space where there is none. Mydeimos’ grip is iron. Crushing. Phainon’s vision spots, but he twists his hips, digs his heel into the sand, bucks hard.
“Get—off—” he chokes, forcing the words out more to hear himself than to be heard.
Mydeimos slams him back down. “You’re not running now,” he growls. “No fields to hide in. No dirt to crawl back to.”
Phainon’s hand scrabbles uselessly at Mydeimos’ wrist—then drops.
Mydeimos laughs louder, victorious, leaning his weight in—
And Phainon moves.
Fast. Desperate. Calculated.
He brings his knee up hard between them, not pretty, not clean—just enough. Mydeimos snarls, grip loosening a fraction. Phainon twists, wrenches sideways, skin tearing as he slips free. He rolls, gasping, boots digging for purchase.
He doesn’t stand his ground.
He runs.
The crowd explodes at once—half screaming in delight, half in terror.
“Coward!” Mydeimos bellows, already on his feet, sprinting after him. “Run, little mule! See how far you get!”
Phainon doesn’t answer. He can feel it now—the pressure in the air, the way the arena itself seems to lean inward. He cuts toward the edge, breath burning, every instinct screaming to put distance between himself and both threats.
Behind him, Mydeimos is relentless, adrenaline-blind, laughing as the gates creak wider.
Above, your nails dig into your palms until you feel blood. Whatever waits behind those doors is patient, and it is hungry.
Phainon’s lungs burn like they’ve been packed with ash.
Run.
Think.
Find something.
The sand drags at his boots, uneven where bodies fell earlier, slick in places where blood has soaked dark and tacky. His heart is hammering so loud it nearly drowns out the roar of the crowd, the metallic groan of the gate, the thunder of Mydeimos’ pursuit behind him.
Idiot, he snarls inwardly. You’ve lost your own weapon. Find something!
His eyes rake the arena as he moves—fast, sharp, desperate. A dropped shield lies half-buried near the center, its rim cracked, leather straps torn loose. Too far. A javelin juts from the sand at a crooked angle, the shaft snapped but the head still wickedly sharp. He veers—
Something roars behind the gate.
Not fully. Not unleashed. Just a warning breath, deep and wet and massive.
His stomach flips.
He stumbles.
Not from injury—his legs still work, still strong—but from panic, from the way the ground seems to tilt as fear claws up his spine. He catches himself with one hand, sand biting into his palm, rolls hard over his shoulder and comes back up on his feet in one fluid motion.
Behind him, laughter.
“Oh—did you trip?” Mydeimos calls, voice bright with glee. “Careful, farmer. The sand here is soaked with better men than you.”
Phainon doesn’t look back.
He sprints toward the fallen javelin, chest heaving, vision narrowing. He can feel Mydeimos’ presence now—too close, like heat at his back. He dives, fingers closing around the broken shaft, yanks—
The weight is wrong. Too short. Unbalanced.
Better than nothing- I think.
He rips the metal head free from the splintered wood, nearly slicing his own fingers in the process, and spins just as Mydeimos lunges.
Steel flashes.
Mydeimos clips him across the shoulder—not deep, but enough to stagger him sideways. Pain blooms hot and sharp, but Phainon grits his teeth and uses the momentum to keep moving, ducking away before Mydeimos can capitalize.
Phainon backs away, breath ragged, javelin head clenched in his fist like a knife. His eyes flick past Mydeimos—past the prince’s blood-slick grin—to the gates.
They are open wider now.
Still shadowed. Still mercifully indistinct. But something shifts behind the bars, massive enough that the iron groans in protest. A shape presses forward, then recedes, like a beast savoring the moment before the kill.
I can’t fight both, Phainon thinks, cold clarity cutting through the fear. I just need space. One mistake. One opening.
He circles, slow now, measured—forcing his breathing to steady even as his pulse screams. He snatches a rock from the sand with his free hand, tests its weight, discards it. Too small. Useless.
Mydeimos stalks him, shoulders loose, eyes alight. “What are you looking for?” he mocks. “A miracle? Your princess isn’t here to save you.”
Phainon bares his teeth in something like a smile. “No,” he says hoarsely. “She’s here to watch you bleed.”
That earns him a snarl—and a charge.
Phainon pivots at the last second, sand spraying as he barely slips past Mydeimos’ grasp, the prince’s fingers grazing his arm. He keeps moving, never stopping, never committing—always angling, always searching.
The sound that tears through the arena is not brass.
It is not shaped by human breath or polished metal.
It is alive.
A trumpet—raw, furious, deafening—rips from the open gates, vibrating through bone and stone alike. The crowd’s roar fractures into something else entirely: shrieks, ecstatic howls, panicked laughter. The ground answers the sound with a deep, rolling thud—then another—each one shuddering up through the soles of Phainon’s feet, into his calves, his spine, his teeth.
No.
The shadow moves.
Iron bars bend outward with a tortured scream, not breaking—forced. Dust pours from the gate’s lintel as something vast presses through, gray hide slick with sweat and old scars, chains snapping loose and clattering uselessly against its bulk.
An elephant.
Massive. War-bred. Tusks capped in iron, their edges darkened with rust and old gore. Its small eyes roll white as it bellows again, trunk lashing the air, ears flaring wide like torn banners. A crest of painted symbols streaks its head and flanks—sun-gold smeared and cracked, ritual markings meant to sanctify slaughter.
The arena tilts.
Phainon’s breath stutters—not quite a gasp, not quite a cry. Fear punches him low and hard, but he swallows it down, jaw locking as instinct snaps into place.
Too big. Too fast. Too close.
The elephant charges—not straight, not yet—testing, stamping, its weight shaking the sand into rippling waves. One fallen body disappears beneath a foot the size of a cartwheel with a sound like wet clay bursting. Blood sprays up its leg.
The crowd goes feral.
“ELEPHANT—!”
“GODS ABOVE—LOOK AT IT—!”
“DOUBLE THE BET—DOUBLE—!”
Mydeimos throws his head back and laughs.
A wild, unhinged sound—drunk on adrenaline, on spectacle, on the sheer audacity of it. “Ah!” he bellows, spreading his arms as if welcoming a lover. “Now this—this is worth watching!”
He looks at Phainon, eyes blazing. “You hear that, farmer? The gods themselves want you crushed.”
Phainon doesn’t answer.
He’s already moving.
He runs—not blindly, not panicked—cutting sideways as the elephant’s bulk surges forward, tusks gouging twin trenches through the sand where he stood a heartbeat before. Wind from its charge slams into him, nearly knocking him flat. He stumbles, catches himself, boots sliding, heart slamming against his ribs like it wants out.
He doesn’t limp.
His gaze flicks everywhere at once—broken spear hafts, discarded shields, bodies twisted at impossible angles. A sword lies half beneath a corpse, its hilt slick. Too risky. He vaults over the fallen man instead, rolling as another trumpet screams overhead, so loud it feels like it scrapes his skull clean.
Behind him, Mydeimos charges too—reckless, laughing, shouting curses at both beast and man.
“RUN, LITTLE SEED!” he roars. “LET’S SEE WHICH OF YOU TRIPS FIRST!”
The elephant wheels, surprisingly quick, trunk snapping out and slamming into the sand where Phainon had been a second ago, pulverizing it into a crater. Pebbles sting his back as he dives, comes up coughing grit, hands scrabbling—
Something solid.
A shield.
Cracked, rim bent, but whole.
He wrenches it free just as the elephant bellows again and barrels forward, this time fully committed. The ground shakes. Phainon throws himself behind the shield, bracing, teeth clenched—
—but the impact never comes.
Steel clashes instead.
Mydeimos slams into him from the side, driving him back with brute force, fingers like iron bands closing around his throat. Phainon chokes, shield dropping uselessly as Mydeimos snarls inches from his face, spittle flying.
“You don’t get to die by beast,” the prince hisses. “You’ll die by me or nothing.”
Mydeimos snarls it straight into Phainon’s face, spit flying, grip crushing, forearm jammed hard against his throat. Veins stand out along the prince’s neck like cords pulled too tight, his eyes fever-bright, almost shining with it—rage, pride, ownership. He doesn’t even look back at the sound of the elephant’s breath thundering closer. He doesn’t need to.
Phainon’s fingers claw at the arm choking him, boots skidding uselessly in the sand. His voice comes out rough, half-strangled, but sharp with disbelief.
“Are you mad?!” he coughs. “The beast has to go!”
Behind them, the elephant trumpets again—louder, closer—its shadow swallowing half the arena wall. Sand sprays as it paws the ground, tusks lowering, iron caps scraping stone with a scream that sets teeth on edge. The crowd’s noise fractures into chaos: some cheering, some screaming prayers, others shrieking wagers through white-knuckled grins.
“LET THEM BOTH DIE—!”
“NO—THE PRINCE—!”
“FIVE HUNDRED ON THE FARMER—FIVE—!”
Mydeimos laughs again, sharp and cracked, even as the ground trembles beneath them. “Hear that?” he growls. “They want a story. And I—” his grip tightens, cruel, deliberate, “—I decide how this ends.”
The elephant charges.
Not at full speed—not yet—but fast enough that its bulk eats distance in seconds. Phainon feels it in his bones, that instinctive scream that says move or be crushed. Panic flashes hot and ugly through his chest, but he buries it, forcing his focus back onto the man killing him.
“Idiot prince,” Phainon rasps, forcing the words out through burning lungs. “Your pride’s louder than your brain.”
Mydeimos’s smile turns feral. “Careful. You’re still breathing because I allow it.”
Phainon’s hand finds purchase—slick leather, the edge of Mydeimos’s armor strap. He twists hard, jamming his shoulder forward, using the prince’s own momentum. Mydeimos grunts as the hold loosens for half a heartbeat—
It’s enough.
Phainon wrenches free, stumbling sideways, lungs dragging in air that tastes like dust and blood. He doesn’t stop to savor it. He runs.
Behind him, Mydeimos roars in fury, spinning just in time to see the elephant’s tusks plow into the space where Phainon had been standing moments before, gouging deep furrows through the sand.
The prince throws himself aside, barely avoiding being skewered, rolling to his feet with a wild grin that borders on madness.
“Good!” he shouts after Phainon, voice cracking with exhilaration. “Run! Plot! Scheme! It won’t save you!”
Phainon doesn’t look back.
His heart hammers so hard it hurts, vision tunneling as he scans desperately—broken weapons, fallen shields, anything. He snatches a sword from the sand, blade chipped but serviceable, and skids to a stop near a fallen pillar, chest heaving.
Behind him, man and beast circle now—Mydeimos too furious to yield, the elephant too enraged to distinguish prey.
Above it all, high in the stands, the emperor leans forward, eyes narrowed.
He sees it.
Not just the blood. Not just the chaos.
He sees the way the farmer moves—thinking, adapting, surviving.
And his mouth pulls into something like a smile.
Men spill into the arena through the side gates—too many, too fast, dressed in rough leather and bronze bands, chains coiled over their shoulders like serpents. The elephant’s caretakers. Handlers. Faces pale, mouths tight with the kind of resolve that comes from being ordered, not from believing.
“Easy—easy—!” one of them shouts, voice already breaking.
The elephant does not slow.
It swings its head once—once—and the first man is gone.
Tusks catch him square through the ribs, lift him clean from the sand. There is a wet, horrible sound as bone gives way. He doesn’t even scream. His body is flung aside like refuse, landing in a broken heap near the wall, armor ringing once before going still.
The crowd explodes.
A chain snaps tight around the elephant’s foreleg—another handler has managed it, teeth bared, muscles screaming. For half a second there is hope.
Then the elephant rears.
The man is yanked off his feet, dragged screaming across the sand, his nails leaving furrows as deep as prayer marks. The chain wraps around his torso as the beast turns—tightening, tightening—until there is a crack like a branch split by winter frost. He collapses, folded wrong, blood darkening the sand beneath him.
The remaining caretakers scatter.
Some drop their chains and run. Others don’t make it far.
The arena reeks now—iron, bile, fear.
Phainon backs away from the carnage, breath ragged, eyes darting between the elephant and—
Mydeimos.
The prince is laughing again. Not joy. Not humor. Something bright and broken and dangerous. His tunic is soaked through, clinging to him, dark with blood that isn’t all his.
“Pathetic,” Mydeimos spits, wiping gore from his mouth with the back of his hand. “They bring men to stop a god’s beast.”
Phainon lunges forward suddenly and shoves him hard in the chest.
Mydeimos stumbles a step, more surprised than hurt. “What—”
“No time,” Phainon snaps, already tearing at the hem of the prince’s tunic. Fabric rips with a sharp sound, the soaked cloth coming away in his hands. Mydeimos snarls, grabbing for him—
Phainon twists free, already knotting the torn tunic around the dull metal tip of his javelin, wrapping it tight, winding it thick.
Mydeimos stares at it, incredulous even as the elephant trumpets again, closer now, sand trembling under its advance.
“…What,” the prince scoffs, breathless, eyes flicking from the cloth to Phainon’s hands, “you’re going to sling it?”
Phainon yanks the knot tight with his teeth, spits, and meets Mydeimos’s gaze—eyes sharp, focused, alive in a way that cuts straight through bravado.
“You have a better idea,” he says, voice hard over the roar of the crowd, “or are you too princely to think?”
Mydeimos bristles, rage flaring hot and immediate. “I don’t take orders from—”
The elephant charges again, this time fully, tusks low, eyes rolling white.
Phainon steps back, planting his feet, javelin balanced in his grip like it’s an extension of his arm. The cloth at the tip darkens as it soaks, dripping.
“Then don’t,” Phainon snaps. “Just don’t get in my way.”
For the first time—the first—Mydeimos hesitates.
Just a breath.
Just long enough for the prince to realize this is not a farmer guessing. This is a man calculating.
The crowd’s roar crescendos, terrified and ecstatic all at once. Above them, the emperor’s fingers tighten on the arm of his throne.
Phainon breaks into a run.
Sand kicks up beneath his bare feet as he moves, circling wide, forcing distance as the elephant barrels through what remains of its handlers. One man—just one—manages to dodge beneath the sweep of a tusk, scrambling back, shrieking prayers to gods that are not listening.
The elephant catches him anyway.
A foreleg comes down—slow, inevitable—and the sound that follows is not a scream but a wet crush, like pottery smashed beneath a millstone. The crowd howls. Someone laughs. Someone vomits.
Phainon does not look back.
He swings the javelin over his head, faster and faster, the torn tunic screaming through the air, heavy now with blood and dust. His shoulders burn. His lungs seize. The world narrows to motion and timing and the violent math of survival.
Now.
He releases.
The javelin sails—not straight, not true like a soldier’s throw, but arcing, vicious, spinning end over end.
It strikes the elephant’s eye.
Not deep enough.
Not clean.
The metal punches in with a sickening pop, lodging half-buried, the cloth-wrapped head dangling grotesquely from its ruined socket.
The elephant does not fall.
It screams.
A sound like mountains splitting. Like the sky being torn open. The beast rears back, thrashing, blood pouring in thick, dark streams down its face, trumpeting in blind, incandescent rage. Sand explodes outward as it slams its forelegs down again and again, crushing stone chips, snapping old bones left in the arena floor from prior games.
The crowd goes silent.
Not cheering.
Not screaming.
Holding its breath.
Above them—
The emperor’s hand tightens fully now, knuckles whitening as he grips the arm of his throne hard enough that the carved lion’s head creaks beneath the strain. His jaw sets. His eyes track the farmer—not the prince—with something sharp and unreadable burning behind them.
“So,” he murmurs, low enough that only the gods might hear, “you bleed.”
Below, Mydeimos stares.
The laughter has drained from his face.
“What did you do?” he snarls, fury and disbelief tangling in his voice.
Phainon is already moving again, heart hammering, sweat cold on his spine. The elephant wheels blindly, tusks carving trenches in the sand, head swinging side to side as it searches for pain to answer pain.
“I made it angry,” Phainon shouts back, breath ragged but steady, eyes never leaving the beast. “Congratulations, prince. Now we’re both on its list.”
synopsis: In the golden empire of Ochema, beauty is a currency, marriage is a weapon, and loyalty is a fickle thing. Promised to the moon-born prince of Kremnos, you are meant to bring peace between two ancient powers. But peace is shattered when a foreign man—beautiful, unknowable, and brutal—emerges from beyond the horizon and wins more than just glory in the arena. Winning you in blood, the balance between empires shatters. Torn between duty, desire, and ruin—you must decide what survives: the crown, the war… or your heart.
trigger warnings: psychological and emotional trauma, gaslighting/manipulation, power imbalance, implied coercion in both romantic and sexual relations, non-consensual voyeurism/voyeuristic practices, slow burn, pregnancy, sexual violence, dubious consent, mild body horror, torture, virginity idolization, reproductive control, forced abortion and miscarriage, forced marriage, religious control, parental abuse, cultural ritualism (dehumanizing and objectifying women), suicide ideation. cannibalism, kidnapping, love-triangle(?),alcohol abuse, sexual shame, loss of agency, pregnancy used as political symbol, p-in-v sex, oral (both). this list may be altered at any time.
wc: 3.5k
a/n: Hi, guys! I'm gonna try to shoot for updates every friday. This story is mdni; minors and ageless blogs will be blocked for interacting. Full disclosure, not all of those tags are for Phainon and your relationship, and it reflects ancient Greece and ancient Rome with their philosophies slightly.
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VI. Soft of Night, Heavy of Heart
Some nights before…
The prince of the Kremnoans laid in your bed, a sea of flowering vines hanging just above your gaze, your hands seeking not just Mydeimos, but heat.
The kind that lingered beneath the skin, that made breath shallow and thoughts blur. In the dream, the world was reduced to closeness and warmth, to the familiar weight of him beside you. His presence was unmistakable even before you saw him—felt first in the press of air, in the way your body seemed to lean toward his without conscious command.
He was warm. Gods, he was always warm.
Sun-soaked, as though he carried the day with him wherever he went. His skin radiated it, a steady, grounding heat that seeped into you as you lay together, limbs tangled in lazy intimacy. In the dream, there was no arena, no crown, no watching eyes—only the two of you, breath to breath.
His arm was slung over your waist, heavy and possessive, anchoring you there. You fit against him as though shaped for it, your back pressed to his chest, the rise and fall of his breathing slow and even. Each exhale brushed the back of your neck, warm enough to make you shiver.
“You’re cold,” he murmured, voice low, half-laughing.
You weren’t. Not even close.
You shifted, turning slightly, seeking more of that heat, and he responded instinctively—drawing you closer, chin dipping to rest against your shoulder. In the dream, he smelled of oil and sun and metal warmed by use, a scent so intimately his that it made your chest ache.
His hand traced idle paths—nothing hurried, nothing demanding. Just familiarity. Just knowing. Fingers brushing, pausing, then continuing as though committing you to memory all over again.
“They look at you like you’re something to be taken,” he said quietly, the words threaded with something sharp beneath their tenderness.
You turned in his arms then, faced him fully. In the dream, his eyes were fierce and bright, all fire and devotion.
“Let them look,” you told him. “You’re here.”
His mouth curved—not quite a smile, not quite a snarl. He leaned in, foreheads touching, heat shared freely between you.
“I’m always here,” he promised.
“But are you?”
The words slipped from you in the dream before you could stop them—soft, weary, edged with something that hurt.
Mydeimos paused.
He lay propped on one elbow beside you, the lamplight of the dream-world catching on the sharp lines of his face, the familiar curve of his brow. At your question, that brow lifted slightly, more curious than offended, as though he had not expected doubt to creep into this place.
“Are you what?” he asked.
You watched him for a moment, tracing the rise and fall of his chest with your eyes. Gods, he looked so solid here. So real. Untouchable. You sighed. It was not dramatic. Not angry. Just tired.
“You don’t listen,” you said quietly. “Not about the things that matter.”
His mouth twitched, half a smile forming out of habit, out of charm he wielded like a second weapon.
“I listen,” he replied easily.
You shook your head.
“No,” you murmured. “You hear. That’s different.”
The warmth between you shifted—subtle, but unmistakable. His hand stilled where it rested against your side.
“You mean the arena,” he said.
You closed your eyes.
“I mean that stupid arena,” you answered, sharper now, the frustration bleeding through despite yourself. “I mean you throwing yourself into sand and blood and calling it duty. I mean you smiling at me and promising things you never intend to keep.”
He exhaled slowly, rolling onto his back, staring up at nothing.
“It’s who I am,” he said after a moment.
“No,” you countered softly. “It’s what you choose.”
Silence stretched. You turned onto your side, propping your head in your hand, studying him the way you had so many times before—searching for cracks beneath the armor, for something more than bravado and tradition.
“I ask you to stay,” you went on. “To be careful. To think. And you hear it as fear, or weakness, or something to be laughed away.”
He turned his head toward you then, expression unreadable.
“I fight so they never touch you,” he said.
Your chest tightened.
“And yet,” you whispered, “every time you fight, you leave me alone.”
That landed.
You saw it in the way his jaw tightened, in the way his fingers curled against the sheets. He reached for you then—not possessive, not demanding—just wanting. Wanting reassurance.
“I don’t know how to be anything else,” he admitted.
You softened despite yourself, leaning in, pressing your forehead to his.
“Then learn,” you said. “Before it costs you more than bruises and applause.”
For a moment, he said nothing. And then…
“…my soul, my heart—don’t you understand?”
Mydeimos pulled you closer as the words left him, his arm firm around your waist, grounding you. He leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to your shoulder, reverent rather than hungry, as though sealing an oath rather than taking a liberty. His golden locks brushed your skin, warm and familiar, and for a moment the world narrowed to that simple closeness.
“I am a man,” he continued quietly, breath warm against you, “and you are a woman—”
“Mydei—”
“Let me finish.”
He shifted, sitting up and drawing you with him, his movement unavoidably intimate. You ended facing him, knees touching, his hands resting at your hips as though he were afraid you might drift away if he let go. His red eyes—those fierce, molten eyes—searched your face, heavy-lidded and earnest, stripped of the bravado he wore so easily before others.
“We all have our roles to play,” he said. “Threads spun long before we are born. A man proves himself through action, through blood and will. A woman endures, guides, preserves. That is how the world stays upright.”
You swallowed.
“Why do you defy it so?” he asked, softer now, but no less intense. “What tempts you? What pulls at you, drags you toward the edge of what you are meant to be?”
His thumb brushed your jaw, tilting your face up just enough that you had no choice but to meet his gaze.
“Who is calling you away from who you are,” he finished, “and from who I am?”
The question struck deeper than accusation.
You didn’t pull away.
Instead, you lifted your hand and pressed it flat to his chest, feeling the steady, living truth of him beneath your palm. Strong. Real. Known.
“It isn’t freedom I want,” you said quietly, surprised by how certain your voice sounded even in the dream. “Not in the way you think.”
His brow furrowed.
“Then what?”
You searched for the words, feeling the ache bloom behind your ribs—the ache that had always been there, unnamed.
“I want… us,” you said. “Not as symbols. Not as duties placed side by side.” Your fingers curled slightly in his tunic. “I want to know that when you choose the sand, you are not choosing it over me. That when you bleed, it is not because you believe pain is the only language you are allowed to speak.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again.
You leaned forward until your forehead rested against his, breath mingling.
“I don’t doubt your strength,” you whispered. “I doubt the world that taught you it must always be proven.”
He was silent for a long moment.
Then he exhaled, slow and heavy, and pressed his lips to your temple.
“You think too much,” he murmured, affection threaded through the words. “You feel too deeply.”
This love was simple.
Beautiful, yes. Comforting. Known.
But simple in the way childhood certainties are simple—unchallenged, unquestioned, built on the idea that what has always been must always be.
You did not voice it.
You only tightened your hold on him, pressing closer, as though proximity alone could keep the thought from growing teeth.
You gasp awake, chest heaving before you even realize you’ve moved, a sharp breath tearing its way out of you as your body curls in on itself. Your hand flies to your stomach, fingers digging in as if to anchor something that feels like it’s slipping loose inside you.
The room is dark—your room. Familiar shadows cling to the walls, the low glow of embers in the hearth breathing faint orange life into the stone. Nothing is wrong. Nothing is happening.
And yet.
Your heart refuses to slow, hammering so hard it makes your ears ring. There’s a lingering warmth on your skin where his arms had been, phantom pressure at your waist, at your shoulder. For one disorienting moment, you expect to feel golden hair beneath your fingers, to hear his breath, steady and certain.
But there is only silence.
You draw your knees up, breath shuddering as you press your palm more firmly against your abdomen, as though something there aches—not pain, not exactly, but a hollow pull. Like the aftermath of a word spoken too late.
Mydei.
The name lingers on your tongue, unspoken, heavy.
You swallow and force yourself to breathe in slowly, counting it, grounding yourself in the present. The sheets are cool. The air smells faintly of smoke and old linen. Your body is here, now, not in some half-lit dream where his eyes searched yours for answers neither of you were brave enough to accept.
And still—
your chest tightens.
Because even awake, even with reason creeping back in, the feeling does not leave you. The certainty of him. The comfort. The terrible simplicity of loving someone without knowing whether love alone is enough to survive the shape of the world.
You squeeze your eyes shut, jaw tightening.
Tomorrow, the arena will still stand.
Tomorrow, roles will still demand obedience.
Tomorrow, Mydeimos will still be Mydeimos.
And you will still be you—caught between devotion and a quiet, growing understanding you are not yet ready to name.
For now, you call for Agnes.
Your voice is hoarse when you speak her name into the quiet, the word barely louder than a breath—but the guards outside know better than to ignore it, even at this hour. It is terribly late. The palace sleeps in layers: courtiers drunk on wine and rumor, priests wrapped in incense-heavy dreams, soldiers dozing with hands still close to their spears.
You sit upright against the headboard, drawing the sheets tighter around yourself as the moments stretch. The fire has sunk lower, embers ticking softly, and the shadows seem longer now, heavier. You rub your thumb against the heel of your palm, a nervous, unconscious habit Agnes used to scold you for as a child.
You’ll wear a hole straight through yourself, she’d said once, tapping your hands and folding them neatly in your lap.
Footsteps come at last—measured, familiar. Not hurried, not panicked. Agnes never rushes unless there is blood.
The door opens quietly. She slips inside with the ease of someone who has done this a thousand times before, a shawl drawn over her night clothes, gray hair braided and pinned even now, even at this hour. Her eyes flick over you in a single, sharp assessment: your flushed face, the tension in your shoulders, the way your fingers clutch the bedding.
“My girl,” she murmurs, closing the door behind her. “Nightmares again?”
You nod once. That is all it takes.
She crosses the room and sits on the edge of the bed without asking, the mattress dipping under her familiar weight. Her hand—warm, steady, real—cups your cheek, thumb brushing just beneath your eye where sleep still clings.
“You’re cold,” she says, and pulls the blankets higher around you before you can protest. “And you’re shaking. Tell me.”
The words tangle in your throat. You open your mouth, close it again. Anger presses behind your ribs, sharp and restless, braided tightly with fear and something softer, more humiliating.
“I dreamed of him,” you finally say. “Of Mydeimos.”
Agnes hums softly, not surprised. Her hand moves to your hair, smoothing it back from your face in long, practiced strokes. She used to do this when you were small and feverish, when you cried because your lessons were too hard or because the court ladies had laughed at the way you held your fork.
“And?” she prompts gently.
“And I woke up like this,” you gesture vaguely at yourself, frustrated. “Like I’d been torn in half. Like I was… empty. Or too full. I don’t know which is worse.” You huff a weak, bitter laugh. “Everyone tells me I should be grateful. That this is a blessing. A Kremnoan prince, bound to me by treaty and fate alike.” Your fingers curl into the sheets. “But no one listens when I say I’m angry.”
She meets your gaze then, eyes sharp despite the softness in her touch. “I listen.”
The words undo something in you. Your shoulders sag, breath catching as the weight you’ve been holding finally shifts.
“They won’t let me speak to him about the arena,” you say. “Not truly. Not honestly. They smile and placate and tell me it is tradition, that men must prove themselves.” Your voice drops. “And my father—he looks at me like I’m still a child throwing a tantrum.”
Agnes’s jaw tightens at that, a flicker of old resentment crossing her face. “Your father forgets many things,” she says. “Including who you are when you are not his daughter.”
You lean into her hand, forehead brushing her shoulder. For a moment, you let yourself be smaller, let yourself rest. “What if this is all I ever know?” you whisper. “What if I mistake comfort for love, and love for destiny, simply because it is all I’ve been given?”
Agnes exhales slowly, her arm coming around you, firm and sure. “Then you are no different from any ruler who ever lived,” she says. “The danger is not in loving him. It is in believing that love alone absolves the world of its cruelties.”
You close your eyes.
Outside, somewhere far below, the city breathes—unaware, indifferent. The arena waits. The sun will rise whether you are ready or not.
Agnes presses a kiss to your hair. “Try to sleep,” she murmurs. “If you cannot, I will stay. Dawn will come soon enough.”
“But Agnes… I’m—oh, I’m so ashamed of myself.”
“Heavens, why, child?” She pulls you closer without hesitation, guiding your head to rest against her bosom. Her heartbeat is steady beneath your ear, slow and grounding, as if it has always waited for you here.
You hesitate. Your mouth feels dry; you lick your lips, tasting salt you hadn’t realized had gathered there. The words sit heavy, poisonous, refusing to come easily.
“I…” Your fingers twist in the fabric of her shawl. “I fear I am with child. And… I need to be rid of it.”
For a heartbeat—just one—Agnes is utterly still.
Then she exhales. Long. Controlled. Not shocked. Not angry.
Her hand comes up to cradle the back of your head, fingers threading gently through your hair, anchoring you. “Oh, my poor girl,” she murmurs, voice low, careful. “That is not shame you’re feeling. That is fear.”
You let out a broken sound that might have been a laugh, might have been a sob. “It’s more than fear. It’s wrong, Agnes. Everything about it is wrong. The timing, the consequences—what it would mean.” Your voice rises despite yourself. “I am not even wed yet. I am promised. I am watched. Every breath I take belongs to someone else.”
Agnes tightens her hold, firm now, unyielding. “Listen to me.” She tilts her head so you must look at her. Her eyes, pale and sharp even in the low firelight, search your face with ruthless tenderness. “You are not ruined. You are not wicked. And you are not the first woman to sit where you are sitting now, no matter what the priests thunder from their pulpits.”
Your throat burns. “If my father learns of this—”
“He won’t,” Agnes says immediately. “Not unless you wish him to.” Her mouth presses into a thin line. “And I would sooner bite out my own tongue than let gossip reach him before you are ready.”
You sag against her again, breath shuddering. “I don’t even know if it’s true,” you confess. “But my body feels… different. Like something has already begun without my consent.” Your hand drifts to your stomach, hovering there, not quite touching. “And if it is—Agnes, I cannot carry it. I won’t. I refuse.”
She watches your hand, then gently covers it with her own. Her touch is warm, grounding, resolute. “This is your body,” she says quietly. “Not the empire’s. Not the gods’. Not your future husband’s.”
A tear slips free despite your effort to hold it back. “They would call me monstrous.”
“They call women monstrous for breathing too loudly,” Agnes replies dryly. Then her expression softens again. “What matters is what you can live with. What you can wake up beside every morning without breaking.”
You swallow hard. “I don’t know if I can live with either choice.”
“No,” Agnes agrees softly. “You will carry the weight regardless. But one choice leaves you with yourself intact.” She cups your cheek, forcing your gaze back to hers. “And I would rather you be alive and whole and burdened with grief than hollowed out by duty and silence.”
The fire crackles. Somewhere in the distance, a bell tolls—marking an hour that feels far too close to dawn.
Agnes draws you back into her arms, rocking you just slightly, as she used to when you were small and inconsolable. “We will be careful,” she says. “Quiet. Thoughtful. Nothing will be done tonight. First, we breathe. Then we decide.”
You cling to her, pressing your face into the familiar curve of her shoulder. For the first time since the fear took root in you, it eases—just a fraction.
“I’m so tired,” you whisper.
“I know,” she answers, kissing the crown of your head. “Rest, my girl. I am here. I have always been here.”
You don’t lay though, no. You still have to speak. “Do I take poison? Herbs? Wine?” The questions tumble out of you in a rush, hushed but frantic, as if the walls themselves might lean closer to listen.
Agnes huffs softly, not unkindly. “Darling girl, breathe.” Her thumbs press gently beneath your eyes, grounding, steady. “No poisons. No reckless swallowing of half-remembered cures whispered by fools.”
You search her face, terror still coiled tight in your chest.
“I shall fetch the remedy for tomorrow’s breakfast,” she continues calmly, as if discussing bread or figs. “Something old. Something quiet. It will pass as nothing more than a woman’s stomach upset if anyone asks. And no one will.”
Her hands remain on your face, firm now, forcing your racing thoughts to still. “Be not ashamed,” Agnes says, voice low and resolute. “Not before me. Not ever.”
You close your eyes, breath shuddering.
“And I told you before—when you were a babe, red and screaming and already stubborn as a mule,” she goes on, a sad smile flickering at the corner of her mouth. “This is a dangerous love. Don’t you remember, child?”
Your brow furrows faintly. “You said… you said something strange. I was too little.”
“I said,” Agnes murmurs, leaning her forehead to yours, “‘beware the sweet face and sweeter words, for some men build fortresses not of stone, but of frogs.’”
You let out a weak, humorless breath. “Frogs?”
“Yes. Croaking promises. Swollen with importance. Leaping nowhere.” Her eyes sharpen, sorrow and knowing braided together. “A fortress that looks impressive from afar, but sinks beneath your feet the moment you rely on it.”
You swallow. “He listens,” you insist softly, even as doubt pricks at you. “He does. Just… not when it matters.”
Agnes does not argue. She rarely does when you cling to a truth you are not ready to loosen. Instead, she smooths your hair back, slow and patient. “And so you bend. And bend again. Until you forget what standing straight felt like.”
Silence settles between you, thick and heavy. Somewhere beyond the chamber doors, a torch sputters. The palace sleeps, blissfully ignorant.
“I loved him,” you whisper, the admission small and aching. “I still do.”
“I know,” Agnes replies simply. “That is why it is dangerous.”
She presses a kiss to your brow, reverent, protective. “Sleep now. Tomorrow will come whether you fear it or not. And you will not face it alone.”
As she rises to leave, you reach out, fingers brushing her sleeve. “Agnes?”
She pauses.
“Will the gods punish me?”
Agnes looks back, eyes dark with something like defiance. “If they do,” she says quietly, “then they are smaller gods than I was taught to believe in.”
She draws the blankets up around you, tucks you in as she has done a thousand times before, and slips away like a shadow sworn to your keeping.
Left alone, you stare into the dark—heart still tangled in love, fear, and a choice that cannot be unmade—waiting for morning.
Unfortunately, no one helped us, not even with $10, to buy my son a can of milk.
Thank you for your interaction and for sharing the post, but we haven't received any donations at all.
Please help us as we are going through difficult times. Your lack of donations and assistance is alarming because my son is drinking more water than milk. We add a little milk so he doesn't stop completely, but he's developed bloating because he's not eating well and isn't drinking the milk as directed on the carton.
You already know what I'm here for. Zodyl and body worship and praise. :4evil emoji: — 🌙
9:11
Zodyl w/ Body Worship and Praise
a/n: he needs more love. ty 🌙 anon. there is something to be said about the way that man seems to fit everything about nonsexual intimacy. forgive me, I'm still figuring him out.
Sitting on the metal crate, you paused mid-stretch.
This was not what came to mind when Zodyl had quietly sought you out. He wasn't some boy, he was a grown man who took the Raider's under his care as their new boss- not one to waste time and breathe with needless questions and small talk. And he definitely wasn't the type to get close and intimate, even in the smallest sense.
So why now, was the man on his knees before you, fingers deft but gentle as he took your hand, wiping away the smear of dirt from your last mission. His brows furrow with focus, movements deliberate- almost ceremonial.
It wasn't like the two of you hadn't discussed the back and forth of whatever it was. Zodyl wasn't one to cut corners either, which, if anyone asked, was almost annoying because you couldn't enjoy your delusions for a even a moment because he was quick to clarify.
You click your tongue, and he doesn't look up. "You need to watch yourself. Wasting time on the small things helps no one."
"Huh?"
"Earlier, when you came back. You overexerted yourself again."
He stands up, walking behind you to press a hand between your shoulder blades. "It's tense. You need to remember to breathe."
"Zodyl-"
"Without the mask, I mean."
A hand slides around to your front, resting on your collarbone. There's tension- maybe it's trust, maybe something more.
"Zodyl,"
His hand tracks back. Damn.
***
How long had passed?
You sit in the dark now, both of you breathing evenly, an exhale tradded for an inhale. He perches close, a hand hovering near yours but not quite touching. Zodyl's knees are pulled up, sharp eyes staring at the static screens of the tv's. You inch a little closer anyway. Aware of him, his quiet rhythm, the faint heat of his body. The proximity is anything but romantic, but it's intimate.
"I swear, one of these days, I'm going to get killed." you laugh awkwardly, trying to break the silence.
"Maybe."
You glance at him, noticing the dark circles under his eyes, the way that the dim light catches his face, and how he seemed stiff still.
He catches your gaze.
Studying you as if he were committing every detail to memory- and he probably was, save for the couple cuts on your arms.
"Remarkable. Honestly, it's a wonder how you function. It's honestly impressive."
The words feel strange on his lips, and they make your chest tighten. He reaches out then, fingers brushing across your forearm as he examines the scrapes more closely. His touch is deliberate, careful. As if he was honoring every scar and every mark- and you knew him better than to waste his time to do this, so why?
He gets, leaving for a moment before returning with some water and cloth.
It's hard not to make eye contact with him now.
"Let me," as he dips the cloth in the bowl. He presses it gently to your arm. It glides over the bruises and cuts and you flinch slightly at the feeling- not because it hurt, but because it felt closer than what you were expecting- with him.
"Hold still," his voice low as he wrapped a cloth around your arm now, careful not to tug too hard. There's a quiet respect in the way that he handles you; not like you're fragile, but more so that you're actually worth something to tend to.
You laugh softly. "You notice everything, huh?"
"I notice what matters." He corrects, voice hushed. "You...you've done well."
A warmth spreads through you at that- not his words, but the quiet that followed paired with the deliberate attention. The connection you shared through your mortality. Shifting slightly, your back brushes against his side. His hand is quick but doesn't meet you, as if ready to offer grounding should it be requested. The contact is minimal.
"Every part of you. Every mark. Every motion. All is remarkable. Don't forget it."
PLEAS EPLEASE PLEAS EPLEASE WRITE A FANFIC (OF ANY KIND) OF CORVUS PLEAS EPLEAS I BEG OF YOU JUST 1 I ASK PLEAAAASE
11:39
a/n: WHY ARE YOU SCREAMING AT ME DAMN HERE OKAY- but also feel free to request more (within my rules) cause my inbox is dry as shit.
The cleaner HQ was quiet except for the hum of the trash beasts far outside, the faint static of rain against glass. You sat curled up on his couch, knees to your chest, the faint scent of whatever still clinging to the air. Corvus stood by the window, sleeves rolled to his elbows, light catching on the ink that wound the back of his head— the same tattoo that always seemed to move when he did, alive in a way that words couldn’t explain.
He hadn’t said much since you got here. He never did unless he was in a mood. But the sweet silence was his language, and you’d learned to read it — the slow rhythm of his breath, the way his eyes softened when they met yours.
“You should get some rest,” he said at last, voice low, smooth. The kind that carried more weight than volume.
You shook your head. “You’re not sleeping either.”
A faint exhale — almost a laugh, though it never quite reached his lips. He turned, leaning his shoulder against the frame, gaze steady on you. “I don’t need much.”
You wanted to ask what does he need — what keeps him awake, what thoughts dig their claws into his quiet — but the words stayed tangled in your throat.
Instead, you muttered, “You always say that.”
He crossed the room, slow enough for you to feel every inch of the distance shrinking. His hand brushed the back of the couch, fingers trailing near your shoulder but never touching. "Yet you’re still here,” he murmured, more to himself than you.
The rain softened to a drizzle. Somewhere, a siren wailed far away, swallowed by the hum of the city.
“You don’t have to say anything,” you said, voice small- not because you intended to whisper, but because it got stuck as you spoke.
Corvus’ jaw tightened. For a moment, his mask slipped — the faintest flicker of exhaustion, of something heavy and human beneath all that control. Probably the whole ordeal with Rudo and the watchman series and all that bullshit. Then he exhaled, kneeling so his eyes were level with yours.
"I don’t want to give you anything I can’t keep.”
Your breath caught. His gaze flicked between your eyes and your mouth, but he didn’t move closer.
“You’re not giving me anything,” you mumble back. “You’re just… here. Here with a buncha paperwork ya gotta give Semiu at some point. Honestly, Corvus, it gets to a point-”
That drew a small, genuine smile from him — rare and fleeting. His hand finally found your face, thumb brushing the edge of your cheek. The warmth of his skin was startling against the cool air.
You didn’t answer — just leaned into his touch, eyes closing as the city blurred into the sound of rain and heartbeat.
“And that’s the problem, isn’t it?” he murmurs, a hint of something tired curling around his words.
Huh?
You blink, taken aback by the quiet honesty in his tone — the way it slips past that calm, steady exterior he always wears. For a second, you catch it — the loneliness he hides so carefully.
He exhales, pushing himself up and running a hand through his hair. “I made some coffee. Want some?”
The shift is subtle — the kind he always makes when the air gets too heavy, when you’re both teetering on something too fragile to name.
“Yeah,” you say softly. “Sure.”
He nods, disappearing into the small kitchen. The sound of a spoon against ceramic fills the space — rhythmic, grounding. You watch him move, his shoulders relaxed but his jaw set, like he’s trying not to think too much. When he comes back, he holds out the mug to you, the steam curling between you like a veil. His fingers brush yours — barely — and the warmth of that fleeting touch lingers longer than it should.
“Thanks,” you whisper.
He hums, settling beside you on the couch. His posture is calm, controlled, but you can feel the tension in the space between you — the unsaid things hanging like low fog.
For a long moment, you just sit there, listening to the rain again. He stares into his mug, then glances at you from the corner of his eye.
“What?” you ask, tilting your head, a teasing smile tugging at your lips. “Something on my face?”
That actually gets a chuckle from him — low, quiet, and real. The sound surprises you; it feels like something rare, something you weren’t supposed to hear. He shakes his head, lips curving slightly as he sets his mug down.
"Nah. Not yet anyways."
Something warm settles in your chest — not sudden, not overwhelming, just steady. Familiar. You want to say something, to ease the weight of it, but all that comes out is a quiet, “You surprise me sometimes.”
“Good,” he murmurs, and when his eyes find yours again, there’s that same look — calm, unreadable, but full of something unspoken.
Neither of you moves for a while. The clock ticks somewhere behind you, the faint scent of coffee still lingering, the world outside dim and far away.
Then, in that same low tone, he asks, “You staying for a while?”
Are you bored with the posts asking for help from Gaza? You're right, but imagine our situation as we live this war day after day for two years.
Asking for help isn't easy; it's extremely embarrassing, especially for a family that used to live a decent life and were self-sufficient. Asking for help isn't easy. But the situation is very difficult, and we urgently need donations to save my children's lives. They are my whole life.
Do you think we're tired, too?!!
Our hope for survival comes from the generosity of your hearts. Your donations are the lifeline that keeps my family strong and our only source of income. Every contribution brings us closer to providing food and medicine for my family. Please, don't leave us alone; your kindness is the light that dispels this darkness.
News. We live in a tent, my children are shivering with hunger, and all I can do is pray.
Please, don't just watch or participate. Even a small donation could be a lifeline for a hungry or sick child suffering.
Don't turn a blind eye to our suffering. We are appealing to your humanity.
My campaign is very weak; I will only receive a few donations.
Thanks to your generous donations, we were able to purchase some of the basic necessities we cannot do without, despite their high cost. Many thanks to everyone who contributed to feeding my children, even with a piece of bread. Your generosity gives us hope in the face of these unspeakably catastrophic circumstances.
Dear friends
I know you are sharing my story out of love and humanity, and I am truly grateful for that.
The painful truth is that sharing alone does not feed the hungry or provide medicine for the sick.
A bag of flour costs $300.
I have started this campaign for Yussef, his previous campaign on another platform was closed. Leaving him with no route to fundraise.
synopsis: In the golden empire of Ochema, beauty is a currency, marriage is a weapon, and loyalty is a fickle thing. Promised to the moon-born prince of Kremnos, you are meant to bring peace between two ancient powers. But peace is shattered when a foreign man—beautiful, unknowable, and brutal—emerges from beyond the horizon and wins more than just glory in the arena. Winning you in blood, the balance between empires shatters. Torn between duty, desire, and ruin—you must decide what survives: the crown, the war… or your heart.
trigger warnings: psychological and emotional trauma, gaslighting/manipulation, power imbalance, implied coercion in both romantic and sexual relations, non-consensual voyeurism/voyeuristic practices, slow burn, pregnancy, sexual violence, dubious consent, mild body horror, torture, virginity idolization, reproductive control, forced abortion and miscarriage, forced marriage, religious control, parental abuse, cultural ritualism (dehumanizing and objectifying women), suicide ideation. cannibalism, kidnapping, love-triangle(?),alcohol abuse, sexual shame, loss of agency, pregnancy used as political symbol, p-in-v sex, oral (both). this list may be altered at any time.
wc: 8.4k
a/n: This story is mdni; minors and ageless blogs will be blocked for interacting. Full disclosure, not all of those tags are for Phainon and your relationship, and it reflects ancient Greece and ancient Rome with their philosophies slightly. Also, reblogs are highly appreciated!
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II. The Promise of Union
“...and when you are Queen, you’ll need to oversee the naming rites of the next generation. It is tradition for the Ocheman line to—”
You stifle a yawn, quickly. Your mothers gaze turns to you sharply.
The women around her chuckle politely, oblivious to the drowsy irritation burning behind your eyes. Their adoration for your betrothed is exhausting—endless praise of his posture, his swordsmanship, his glorious hair that glows like ambrosia in the sun. They speak of him like he is carved from marble, all brawn and glory, cast in the image of war gods.
You, however, know the truth.
You know how he talks in his sleep. How his laugh sounds when he’s trying not to let barley water squirt from his nose. How he once got kicked by a mule and tried to act like it didn’t hurt—until you offered him a fig and he nearly wept from gratitude.
You know the shape of his softness. The silly, secret shape.
And still, you sit here, nodding, all grace and obedience.
You pause, imagining the delighted laugh he'd have if you snuck him some of the pastry dough from the kitchens next time he visited Ochema- he loved to bake. He was quite good at it, too.
Thinking of his delicious treats made you hungry
Your stomach growls—loudly. One of the noblewomen glances your way, eyebrows twitching, but you cover it with a dainty cough and smile.
Pastry dough.
You can almost hear his voice—“It needs more honey, don’t you think? Just a kiss more.”
You imagine the way he’d crouch beside the hearth, flour smudged across his cheek like war paint gone terribly wrong, a delicate custard tart cradled in one hand like it were a precious relic. “Tell me the truth,” he’d say, eyes big and pleading, “is this one better than the last?”
It never was. But you always said yes.
You blink back into the meeting. Someone is droning about irrigation logistics in the western province. Your mother is nodding sagely. Another noblewoman compares the price of fish to the declining moral fiber of youths. You suppress a groan and rest your chin on your palm.
They speak of Prince Mydeimos as though he rose from the sea fully formed, bronzed and brilliant, wielding a sword in one hand and statecraft in the other.
You think instead of him wearing your favorite apron (the one with the olive branch print), tongue between his teeth, trying to cut figs into perfect symmetrical slices. He always fails. They always taste wonderful.
“You’ll be queen one day,” your mother’s voice rings in your ear..
And I’ll be the baker’s wife, you think, hiding a smile.
You’re not sure which sounds better.
Across the palace, where the golden sun did not reach so freely, where the air was thick with sacred silence and the perfume of crushed frankincense and cedarwood, the temple walls pulsed with ancient memory. Here, the ceilings were vaulted like heaven itself, high and dark and adorned with gold-dusted murals of gods and stars, stretched endlessly into spirals that made the eyes ache if one stared too long. Candles floated in bronze dishes, their flames bowing reverently, casting trembling shadows that made the columns seem alive—each etched with old language, old names, old prayers never meant to be uttered aloud again.
The sanctum breathed, not with the clamor of the court, but with a living stillness—an unspoken reverence that swallowed sound and bent time. White-robed priests moved through the hallowed space like wraiths, their heads shaved in ritual precision, their bare feet whispering over cold stone. Some were bent over star charts, hands smeared with ash and ink as they measured the tilt of constellations. Others whispered to bowls of water lit with floating coals, peering into the ripples as though the future might unfold in the flick of steam. Scrolls were unrolled in the inner chambers, long sheets of lambskin and bark, covered in symbols that danced with divine madness—read only by those who had trained since childhood to recognize the voice of gods written between the lines.
Above the sanctuary doors, the great eye of Ochema was carved into the marble—open, lidless, watching.
And down the winding hallways of that sacred place, through tight corridors lit only by slivers of sun through amber-colored glass, a girl ran barefoot, red hair a stark contrast to the white walls carefully made pure.
No older than ten, wrapped in temple linen, the gold sash of the courier barely knotted around her thin waist. The girl’s breathing came in sharp bursts, chest heaving with urgency as she clutched the scroll to her chest like it was aflame. Behind her, the priests she’d passed scowled and hissed for silence, but the girl didn’t stop. She had been sent for.
Raced past the garden of the moon-well, where lilies bloomed only in the shade, their silver petals pale as mourning veils. The statues of the minor gods loomed, blind-eyed and silent, their arms held out not in welcome but warning. Doves scattered as he passed, the sound of their wings like a sudden thunderclap in the hush.
She arrived at the sanctum's threshold, heart hammering like a war drum. Before her, obsidian doors rose twice her height, carved with the story of Ochema’s founding—the first queen bathed in firelight, her spine straight beneath the gaze of heaven, the first king, on his knees, arms shackled to her waist as if to anchor her down to Earth. The girl dropped to her knees, pressing her forehead to the polished floor as the door slid open not by hand, but by command.
Inside, the air was warm and thick with oil. At the center of the chamber stood the High Priest, draped in a mantle of raven feathers and gold thread, his eyes lined with ancient sleep. He stood beside the Eye-Basin, a bowl of molten silver that shimmered with images yet to be seen.
The girl scrambled forward and held out the scroll with the trembling hands. “High Priest Thales!” she called out, breathless. “A news from the smoke!”
Thales, his beard braided with tiny golden charms, his face as lined as an olive tree’s bark and eyes sharp as a hawk’s narrowed at the girl.
“What is it, Tribbie?”
"I—it came from the Oracle's pool. She whispered again- I couldn’t catch all of it. I just-” she hands the priest the scroll, Tribbie’s eyes darting nervously to the robed figures looming behind the High Priest.
The man put a hand on her shoulder. “Breathe child. Speak what you remember.”
“I..I uh…” she clears her throat. “A shadow beneath the withered laurel, a hand that holds nothing, um…” she takes a deep breathe. “And the sun weeps in winter, where the sky splits in two. Gold is the ash that seeps.”
A murmur rippled through the elders. One of the younger priests scratched a hurried note into wax, his stylus trembling.
Thales closed his eyes, as if weighing the fragments in his mind. “All prophecies are broken things, girl,” he said quietly. “It is the burden of men to fit the shards together.”
Hot kisses. Hot, wet kisses from the prince they all foolishly praised—just beyond the thin marble wall of the chamber your mother insisted you stay in for a meeting that had nothing to do with you.
The voices of the ladies droned on like a summer cicada chorus—linen shipments, grain tallies, the proper placement of foreign envoys during a feast. None of it reached you. Not really. All you could hear was the faint hitch of breath, the soft scrape of Mydeimos’s sandal against the wall as he pressed you deeper into the shadowed alcove.
His mouth was warm, insistent. The faint taste of pomegranate clung to his lips from whatever he’d stolen from the kitchens earlier. Somewhere down the corridor, a servant’s footsteps passed, and Mydeimos’s hand tightened at your waist, daring the world to notice.
“You smell like boredom,” he murmured against your neck, his voice pitched low enough that only you could hear. “Did they make you listen to talk of olive yields again?”
You huffed a quiet laugh despite yourself. “It was worse. Seating charts for foreign dignitaries and talks of barley.”
“Oh, the horror,” he whispered, feigning sympathy, though his smirk ruined the act. “And here I thought the future queen’s duties were all glory and power. Not… grain.”
Another kiss. Slower this time, meant to pull you under. “You poor thing,” he teased. “Trapped with your mother’s circle, talking about nothing. I’ll save you. Right here. Right now.”
Before you could retort, the muffled scrape of sandals came again—closer this time. You both froze, his breath warm against your cheek. A shadow moved across the sunlit floor just beyond the alcove’s edge.
The shadow lingered a heartbeat too long, and then moved away. Mydeimos didn’t waste a breath.
He caught your hand—warm, steady—and tugged you past the end of the corridor, behind a carved cedar door used more for decoration than function. The hinges groaned faintly, swallowing you both into the dim space beyond.
You expected the same roguish smirk he wore for everyone else, the one that made servants blush and visiting dignitaries grind their teeth. But when the door clicked shut, the air between you shifted.
His eyes softened.
It was almost startling, how quickly the court-perfect prince—the confident, polished heir of Kremnos—melted away. Here, away from every watching gaze, there was no arrogance, no posturing. Only him, holding you as if you were something precious, not political.
His fingers brushed your cheek, feather-light, as though memorizing the shape of it. “You’ve been trapped in there too long,” he murmured. His voice was quieter now, stripped of teasing. “You look… tired.”
Before you could answer, his mouth found yours—not hurried, not claiming, but unhurried and deep. He kissed you like he had all the time in the world, like there was nowhere else he’d rather be than in this forgotten little room with you.
His hands traced the line of your jaw, the column of your throat, then settled over the curve of your waist. Not greedy—just there, grounding you. When he pulled back, he rested his forehead to yours, his breath warm and even.
“They don’t get this side of me,” he whispered.
“I know,” you breathed, the words almost catching on the space between you.
His thumb brushed the corner of your mouth, slow, deliberate. His eyes didn’t leave yours—not even to glance at your lips again. It was unnerving, how earnest he looked, how the teasing curve of his mouth had straightened into something almost solemn.
“And…” His voice dipped lower, gentler, as though he was offering you a secret no one else would ever hear. “…I really do intend on marrying you, princess.”
Oh.
The word wasn’t spoken, but it reverberated through you all the same. It was a shift—like the air had thickened, like the ground beneath you had become something fragile and new. You’d known, of course, that the betrothal was inevitable, a decision made long before either of you could even choose what clothes to wear. But hearing it from him—not as a duty, not as an edict, but as a promise—was entirely different.
Your lips parted, though you didn’t know what to say. His breath brushed them as he leaned in again, close enough for the heat of him to sink into your skin.
He smiled then, faintly, but it wasn’t the smirk of a prince showing off. It was smaller, softer, almost shy. “You look surprised,” he murmured, his fingers still at your waist, his touch almost reverent.
You swallowed. “I am.”
“I meant it,” Mydei said simply, though his gaze softened, as if hearing something he’d long since hoped for. “I know it was our parents' plans, but I won’t take you unless you’ll have me.”
His words settled over you, warm and steady, breaking through the cool distance that had defined your meetings until now. It wasn’t just a royal obligation spoken—it was a promise forged in the quiet space between you.
“You already know I’ll marry you, Mydeimos. Why so serious?”
He smiled, a slow, steady curve that seemed to steady the very air around you. “Because I respect you. And it’s only right, should we want to obtain Hera’s blessings—gods know we’ll need it if our peoples are to be joined.”
His words hung between you like a solemn vow, not merely about politics or duty, but something older and deeper. The merging of two realms, two destinies—held in the fragile balance of your union. You felt the weight and promise of it all settle quietly in your chest.
The sun was unrelenting, its golden heat spilling over the white marble of the amphitheater like molten metal poured from a forge. The air shimmered, thick with the mingled scents of dust, sweat, and the faint coppery tang of blood carried up from the sand-pit below.
From your seat beside Mydeimos, you could see every detail—the coiled muscles of the fighters, the sharp gleam of their blades, the sweat catching in their hair. Their breath came in sharp bursts, steam rising from their bodies in the swelter. A crowd roared around you, stamping feet and clapping hands in rhythmic waves, their cries blending into a deafening tide.
One man lunged. Another staggered back. Steel kissed flesh.
You winced. “It’s barbaric,” you muttered, your eyes narrowing as another strike was met with a spray of red across the sand. “Reducing lives to sport. Entertainment built on suffering. It’s—”
“It’s survival,” Mydeimos said without looking at you, his gaze fixed on the combatants. His voice was calm, almost too calm. “The strongest thrive. The crowd sees courage, skill, the will to live. That is… instructive.”
“Instructive?” You turned to him sharply. “You call slaughter instructive?”
“Life is slaughter, Y/n. Here it’s only made plain. At least they die with purpose, in the eyes of their people.” He leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees, eyes bright as the sun flared in them. “Is it worse than dying nameless, unseen, for no cause at all?”
You shook your head, heat prickling your neck—whether from the argument or the midday sun, you weren’t sure. “A cause chosen for them is no cause at all. They didn’t consent to be pawns in this spectacle. Strength isn’t forged in cruelty—it’s forged in perseverance.”
“And yet,” he said quietly, “crowds don’t gather to watch men persevere in quiet corners of the world. They gather here. For this.”
Your gazes locked, the din of the arena fading to a dull, distant roar. His expression was unreadable—half fascination, half something that felt dangerously close to longing. You searched for a crack in it, a place where you could make him see what you saw. But there was none.
The fighters circled each other below, kicking up clouds of pale dust that caught the sunlight like drifting gold. Somewhere in the crowd, a horn blew, summoning the final charge. The clash of metal rang out again.
The fighters circled each other below, kicking up clouds of pale dust that caught the sunlight like drifting gold. Somewhere in the crowd, a horn blew, summoning the final charge. The clash of metal rang out again.
“Would you do it?” you asked suddenly, your voice low but sharp against the roar of the crowd.
Mydeimos’s lips curved, but it wasn’t quite a smile. “Perhaps.”
Your head snapped toward him. “You will not.”
He only looked back at the arena, eyes glinting like a blade catching the sun, saying nothing—as though the answer had already been given.
“Would it make you feel better if I lived? Because I surely would.”
His voice was a low hum, just loud enough for you to catch over the crowd’s cheers. “It is not arrogance that snakes onto my tongue either, my love. And even so…” His gaze flicked toward you, and you felt the weight of it. “Fear does not suit your pretty face.”
The words were almost swallowed by the roar from below as a fighter was knocked to the ground, but then his hand found your thigh—light, deliberate, unshakably sure.
“Watch now,” he murmured, leaning closer, his breath warm against your ear. “Pay attention. See how it would be child’s play for me. You know me well, princess.”
Down in the arena, the dust swirled around the victor’s feet like smoke, and you swore Mydeimos’s fingers pressed just a fraction tighter.
You huffed, folding your arms as the clash of steel rang out below. “That is beside the point. The men there are not but boys, save for the few our years and some more. They’ve been reduced to animals for our entertainment—”
“They do it for the honor and for the chance to provide,” your father interrupted smoothly, his voice carrying over the crowd’s roar.
You turned toward him, startled to realize he’d been listening all along. His eyes were fixed on the sand below, unreadable, but there was an edge to his tone—one born of conviction, not curiosity.
Beside you, Mydeimos only smirked faintly, leaning back in his seat as if this were a conversation he’d been waiting for all afternoon. The air between the three of you felt suddenly taut, stretched thin like a bowstring just before the arrow flies.
“The boys in that arena are more often from the impoverished villages,” your father said firmly, his gaze never leaving the ring of sand where two combatants circled one another. “This brings a name to not only them, but to their homes—displaying the potential of their people. Should they win, they may demand any prize they wish. So they take money, and go, and provide.”
Below, one fighter lunged, his blade catching the sun before striking his opponent’s shield. The crowd erupted, some in cheers, others in groans, and the sound washed over you like the crash of the sea.
You opened your mouth to speak, but Mydeimos’s hand brushed your arm lightly—whether to quiet you or to steady you, you couldn’t tell. His eyes, however, gleamed with that infuriating mixture of mischief and thoughtfulness, as if he were silently asking which of them you thought he would be, should he stand in the arena.
Your mother’s voice cut through the noise like a silver knife.
“Prince Mydeimos is our guest,” she said, her tone cool but carrying the weight of habit and expectation. “You’d do well not to forget that—and sit up straight. He’s here to watch the battle, not debate over whether it’s nice or not.”
You bit the inside of your cheek, tasting the faint tang of copper. Below, the crowd roared again as a combatant fell to his knees in the sand, the air rippling with the heat and the stench of sweat and dust. Mydeimos’s hand lingered where it had brushed you, the barest touch—a reminder that while your mother’s words were meant to quiet you, his eyes now fixed on you, red and sharp and alive, as though the debate was far from over.
You look back at the arena just in time. Your eyes widen, your lips opening in shock.
The boy lay in the dust, his limbs twisted in the way that no living body allowed. His chest rose once—shallow, tremoring—and then fell for the last time. Blood, thick and impossibly red, seeped from the jagged tear in his side where the opponent’s blade had found him. It traveled in tendrils over the pale curve of his ribs before spilling down into the earth, darkening the ochre sand to a deep rust. From so high above, you could still see it glisten in the sun. The scent of iron seemed to rise even to your place in the stands, riding the dry wind that hissed over the arena walls.
He couldn’t have been more than sixteen. His face still bore the soft roundness of youth beneath the dirt and blood; lashes too long for a soldier fluttered half-closed, catching the light for an instant before stilling entirely. The fingers of his right hand twitched once, curling faintly toward the hilt of the weapon that lay just out of reach, before slackening for good.
The crowd roared—some in approval, some in pity—but the sound came to you muffled, as though the air itself had thickened. You did not cheer. You did not look away.
Under your breath, you whispered the words your nursemaid had once taught you when you were small and frightened by storms:
"May Hermes guide you swiftly, stranger. May the gates open for you, and may the river bear you to gentler shores than these."
Your lips shaped the prayer with care, for you had never seen death’s hand so close before. This was not a distant tale told in the safety of a hearth, nor a shadow behind a closed door—it was here, sprawled in the dust, wearing the face of a boy who might have been a farmer’s son, a poet, or a friend in some other life.
Beside you, Mydeimos leaned forward slightly, his expression unreadable. But his eyes—those molten, unblinking eyes—were fixed on the still form below as if measuring the weight of what had just transpired.
Your voice was steady, though you felt the pulse in your throat.
“I do believe this will be my last time accompanying you to these… games,” you said, keeping your gaze fixed on the arena floor so you wouldn’t have to meet the approving glances of those around you. “It’s too upsetting for me.”
Your father’s brow lifted slightly, but he said nothing at first, his hands resting like carved marble on the armrests of his seat. Your mother, however, released the faintest sigh, the kind that spoke more of inconvenience than of sympathy.
“Such delicacy,” she murmured, adjusting the fall of her himation. “It is the way of the world, my dear. You will see far worse when you rule.”
Her words slid over you like a cold draught, but you did not answer. Below, the body was already being hauled away, limbs dragging, the dust settling over the dark stain as though to swallow the evidence whole. You kept your eyes on that mark, refusing to let it vanish without witness.
In the periphery, you felt Mydeimos’ gaze on you once again—not mocking, not entirely approving, but present. He said nothing either, and that silence felt heavier than the noise of the crowd.
The banquet hall was a temple to excess, aglow with the golden light of oil lamps that swayed faintly in the draft from the high arched windows. Their flames caught on the hammered bronze of the braziers and the gilded patterns carved into the cedar beams above, casting the room in a shifting warmth that almost—almost—hid the coldness lingering in your chest. You had washed your hands twice before supper—scrubbed them until they stung—yet the memory of that boy’s blood still clung, stubborn as a shadow.
The room itself was a masterpiece meant to dazzle, every stone and beam a testament to the wealth of Ochema. High, vaulted ceilings disappeared into darkness overhead, where murals of gods and titans locked in endless battle sprawled in faded but still potent color. Bronze braziers burned with fragrant cedarwood, their smoke curling upward in pale ribbons, mingling with the hum of voices and the occasional ring of silver goblets meeting in toasts.
The table—long enough to seat thirty—was draped in deep red cloth embroidered with patterns of laurel leaves and seashells, a nod to your city’s twin patrons. Along its length, servants moved like well-trained shadows, refilling amphorae of wine, exchanging emptied platters for fresh ones. The feast was excessive: a whole lamb roasted until its skin shone like polished amber, slick with honey and thyme; golden pastries stuffed with spiced dates; steaming bowls of lentils and onions perfumed with coriander; grapes so dark they were almost black, still clinging to their vines; pomegranates split open, their jewel-bright seeds spilling onto silver trays. The air was thick with the perfume of crushed herbs, sweet fruit, and the faint salt of olives just pulled from their brine.
Your father sat enthroned at the head, his purple cloak gathered in loose folds over one broad shoulder, the gold embroidery catching fire in the lamplight. The laurel crown resting on his hair seemed almost to hum with authority. Beside him, your mother sat straight-backed and elegant in a gown of ivory linen so fine it seemed woven from mist, layered with a cascade of gold chains that draped from shoulder to shoulder. Around them, courtiers wore the full palette of the city—saffron and indigo, deep green and rust red—each ring on their fingers a miniature proclamation of status.
Mydeimos sat across from you, and though the low murmur of conversation between him and a nearby noblewoman suggested casual ease, his gaze found you more often than the food before him. He was dressed for spectacle: a cream chiton belted in bronze, a crimson cloak pinned at one shoulder with a disk of beaten gold. His hair, the color of late summer wheat, caught the lamplight, and his eyes—those molten, unblinking eyes—were brighter than any jewel at the table.
You did not return his gaze. Instead, you fixed your attention on the rim of your wine cup, turning it slowly in your fingers as though the deep red inside might reveal something more interesting than the present moment. The music—a pair of lyres and the steady, heartbeat pulse of a drum—seemed too loud, the laughter of your mother’s ladies-in-waiting too sharp, the scents of roasted meat and fruit too rich, as though they sought to smother the memory still raw in your mind.
You saw the boy again—no, the man they had called him, but he had been no older than sixteen. You saw the way his body had crumpled into the dust, the way the earth had swallowed his blood without ceremony. You remembered the prayer whispered under your breath, meant to guide him swiftly to the underworld, to keep the shades from pulling at him. You had prayed with all the force you could muster, as though that alone might erase what you’d witnessed. But prayers, like feasts, could not change the truth.
You kept your head low, chewing slowly when you had to, sipping when spoken to, but otherwise silent. The boy’s face haunted the golden light around you, and though Mydeimos’ eyes lingered—patient, almost concerned—you let them pass over you like the wind over still water. You did not wish to meet them, not tonight.
His lips curved—not quite a smile, not quite a taunt—as he leaned just enough for his words to be heard only by you.
“You avoid my gaze. Are you still troubled?” he murmured, his voice low, careful, like a thread pulled through silk.
Your eyes stayed fixed on the fig you were tearing open, its red heart glistening under the lamplight. “I am simply disgusted with today,” you said evenly, the sweet scent of the fruit suddenly cloying. “It is not you.”
“But you are still angry I did not agree,” he pressed, his tone threaded with something between challenge and curiosity.
“Mildly upset,” you allowed, glancing toward your mother to ensure she was still distracted with her ladies.
“Ah,” his mouth tilted, the faintest spark of mischief in his eyes. “So angry.”
You turned your head just enough to glare, but he only looked more entertained, as though your disapproval was a flavor he intended to savor.
“Come with me to the gardens?” he asked suddenly, the request wrapped in that careful casualness he used when he wanted something he knew you might refuse.
You hesitated, your gaze darting to the high table where your father was listening intently to some nobleman’s story, goblet in hand. The air inside the banquet hall was thick—roasted lamb and honeyed wine, the press of bodies, the glitter of gold thread in tunics under firelight. You could feel the weight of the day still clinging to you, heavy as the braided crown in your hair.
The gardens would be cool. Quiet. Removed from the lingering stench of the arena that still seemed to cling to your mind.
“Please,” he added softly, and the glimmer in his red eyes was enough to make you place the fig aside and rise, your hand brushing against his as you did.
He stood with you, courtly grace intact, though you caught the faintest smile tugging at his mouth—just for you—as he led you toward the marble archway, away from the noise and toward the hush of moonlit leaves.
The palace gardens were carved into tiers that stepped down toward the sea, each level a careful arrangement of beauty and order, as if the gods themselves had drawn the lines. White marble colonnades framed walkways of crushed seashell, pale beneath the moonlight. The air was cool and alive with the perfume of night-blooming jasmine and the sharper scent of rosemary shrubs pressed into neat hedges. Cypress trees stood as sentinels along the periphery, their dark spires rising into the starlit sky.
He guided you down a quieter path, the crunch of shells underfoot mingling with the soft trickle of a nearby fountain—its basin carved into the likeness of nymphs, their stone faces worn smooth by time.
“You’ve kept the same braids as when you were a child,” he remarked idly, his voice warm but without intent, as though talking simply to fill the space between your breaths.
You hummed in acknowledgment, and he gestured to a cluster of pomegranate trees heavy with fruit. “They’ll be ripe soon. Do you remember when we tried to steal one and your nurse found us? I think you cried more from her scolding than the scratches.”
Pointless words, light as the moths drifting around the torch flames set in bronze sconces. He stopped only when the colonnade gave way to an alcove half-hidden by climbing vines, their flowers pale ghosts in the dark. The walls muffled the rest of the garden, the music and laughter from the banquet fading until it was only you and him in that secluded pocket of stillness.
“I’m sorry for upsetting you,” Mydei says softly, cupping your face. “However, I won’t change my mind on the matter.” His thumb brushes across your lips, his gaze never leaving them, either.
“I know,” you breathe, though the words feel caught somewhere between surrender and defiance.
His palm was warm against your skin, calloused just enough to remind you he was not merely a prince who lived in scrolls and strategy. The faint scent of the gardens clung to him—crushed jasmine, a whisper of olive oil from the feast, and something sharper, uniquely his.
“I will not lie to please you,” Mydei continued, his voice low, deliberate. “You deserve more than a man who would shift with the wind simply to keep your favor.” His thumb traced the curve of your lower lip again, slower this time, as though testing how long he could keep you suspended between thoughts and feeling.
You swallowed, unable to ignore the way his gaze stayed fixed on your mouth—like a priest watching the smoke of an offering curl upward, searching for omens in its shape.
His eyes darkened, shimmering with something fierce and tender all at once. “And… I’d like to think I have earned your favor and respect,” he murmured, voice dropping to a husky whisper.
Before you could respond, his hand slid from your cheek down to cradle your neck, fingers threading lightly through your hair. The world seemed to hush around you—the soft rustle of leaves, the distant song of nightingales—all fading into a delicate silence that belonged only to the two of you.
His lips brushed yours, slow and deliberate at first, a tender exploration. The kiss deepened, warm and soft, yet charged with a quiet fire, sending ripples through every nerve. Your breath caught as his fingers tightened slightly, pulling you closer, the subtle heat of his body pressing against yours beneath the cool moonlight.
He tastes like pomegranates and sweetness, a heady mix that catches you unguarded every time. You are a fool for falling for it—again and again—each kiss pulling you deeper, each touch unraveling the walls you thought you built.
With a soft sigh, you return his kiss with ease, letting yourself be drawn in by the warmth of him, the tenderness hidden beneath his boldness. Your hands rise instinctively, framing his face as your lips move in quiet harmony, the night wrapping around you like a velvet shroud.
He tastes like pomegranates and sweetness, a heady mix that catches you unguarded every time. You are a fool for falling for it—again and again—each kiss pulling you deeper, each touch unraveling the walls you thought you built.
With a soft sigh, you return his kiss with ease, letting yourself be drawn in by the warmth of him, the tenderness hidden beneath his boldness. Your hands rise instinctively, framing his face as your lips move in quiet harmony, the night wrapping around you like a velvet shroud.
And if only your mother knew, knew that her daughter wasn't a pure virgin, knew that this prince had taken her many times before. She would be livid.
The thought brings an ounce of shame and an ounce more of excitement.
The sleeve of Mydeimos’ robe had slipped down, baring the smooth expanse of his chest, sun-kissed and warm beneath the fading sunlight. Your fingers traced the line of his collarbone, then slid lower, mapping the rise and fall of muscles beneath soft skin. His breath hitched as your hands journeyed further, fingers pressing into the planes of his torso, pulling him closer.
And here you are, perched over him, setting a leg down, the other slung lazily around him, watching the way his breath stutters beneath your fingertips. Whether from you or the cool night air, it didn’t matter.
“You’re being very kind, Mydeimos,” you murmur, your voice a slow ribbon of syrup and smoke. “But that doesn’t mean you get what you want.” Your nails ghost down his chest—light enough to tease, never enough to satisfy. You tilt your head, almost admiring him.
“You like this.” He matches your tone. “Being all pretty, waiting for me to maybe touch you.” He leans closer, lips brushing the shell of your ear, whispering, “Maybe.”
A whimper escapes you. But he knows better.
“And you know only I can really give you what you want- to ease your woes, to make it all disappear.”
He trails a single fingertip down your ribs, slow, torturous. You tremble. Whether from being sensitive or from nerves, it didn't really matter.
He drags his hands up from your trembling waist, taking his time—skimming over the flushed, overheated skin of your torso until his palms settle lightly on his breasts.
You feel your breath stutter. Feel the way your muscles twitch beneath his touch.
He pulls the top of your robes down, too
Then his thumbs brush your nipples.
You jerk—instantly—a full-body flinch like you’d been shocked by him. Sensitive. So responsive. The faintest touch and you’re arching into it, like your body doesn’t know whether to run from the sensation or melt under it.
He hums, almost thoughtfully, rubbing slow little circles. “These are so soft,” he murmurs, flicking them once, teasingly. “But you’re so loud.” Mydei’s grin is almost wicked as he rips a piece of cloth from his robe, putting it into your mouth. A broken sound escapes your throat, gag muffling it into something thick and desperate. He pinches- lightly at first, then harder- and the moan you let out vibrates through your whole frame.
“There it is,” he says, low and amused. Rolling them between his fingers, alternating pressure, watching you unravel with each twist, each pull. You’re almost panting now, drooling a little- humilatingly- around the gag, thighs shaking with the effort to hold still as the pleasure teeters on the edge of too much.
“You’re so thoughtful, princess. Just let go. Let me carry the worries of men instead. You won’t even…have to think.” His breath brushes against your cheek, warm and stark against the now cold air. He brushes his lips against your skin.
He pinches a nipple harder all of a sudden, grinning into your skin. He feels it, hot and wet where your bodies meet. You’re nearly dripping, desperate for at least a little friction- and you don’t even realize what you’re doing, trying to move into him.
He doesn’t stop you.
Doesn’t let you.
Mydei’s hands settle on your waist , steadying you. Not to guide- just to let you know: he knows And he’s watching every helpless move of your hips, every gasp muffled by the piece of clothe he tore from his own robe.
“That’s it,” he murmurs. “Go ahead.You want to grind on me like a needy thing? Do it. Don’t think. Don’t worry. Forget it all.”
He pulls you now, into his lap on the bench hidden by roses, letting your ride his thigh in slow, stuttering moves. Every stroke barely there. Every second an exercise in control you don’t have anymore.
And still, he doesn’t move.
He lets you take what he thinks you need- while he stays now perfectly still, calm, powerful. Letting you break yourself on his thigh like the mess you are.
“Look at you,” he whispers, hand trailing up your back. “Dripping all over me. You should be grateful I take care of you this well.”
You can’t do much but nod in agreement.
He tugs the cloth from your mouth gently, watching the way your jaw slackens, the stretch of your lips glossy with spit. You gasp when the fabric leaves you, gulping air like it's the first breath you’ve been allowed in hours.
“Messy.” His thumb trails along your bottom lip. “Always such a mess for me.”
You whine, eyes half-lidded, flushed and trembling. So easy to read- you always were.
He lets his finger trail lower, gathering a trace of that aching, leaking need of yours.
And then without asking, he presses his slick fingers to your lips.
Your eyes flutter. You part them willingly, instinctively.
“Open, my love.”
And you do.
You taste yourself on your tongue, on his fingers, moaning around them like it is the most natural thing in the world.
“Please,” you gasp when he finally pulls them free. “Please- please, I can’t- please let me-”
He hushes you with a look, a brow raised.
You can’t help but take a deep breath, trembling under the weight of anticipation as he opens his robe more, exposing himself deliciously.
Truly a perfect prince.
Mydeimos places his hands on your hips, thumbs stroking calming circles into your skin. “You’ve done so well,” He murmurs, voice thicker with something you can’t name.
But your only response is a whimper, body relaxing into his touch, trusting.
His finger trails lower again, brushing over your skin, down your navel where the whispers of your pleasure started. He cups it, humming in appreciation. “I want to see you. You’ll let me, surely?”
You can’t help but nod.
He watches now, eyes not leaving as you suck your stomach in, nerves stealing away.
Mydei lets out a breath. “So pretty like this. So open. You were made to be spoiled…alas, I still can’t do that for you just yet, princess.”
He lays you down on that bench, your legs open as he holds himself above you, spitting down, a lazy glide down your skin, his red eyes glazed over as the shine glistens. He spreads you reverently.
“Breathe, my love.”
He guides himself into place, the weight of him grounding you as he moves closer. One hand stays firm on your hip, the other gliding under the small of your back, steadying you.
Mydei’s tip nudges your folds, and you feel your breath stutter.
“Stay still, let me in.”
With one steady motion, he began to press forward, grip firm on your hips as he felt you stretch around him, slow, steady, aching with intimacy.
The sound you make is desperate and beautiful, head dropping to the side, fingers curling into fists, crescents surely pushed into your palms.
“Easy, you take me so well,”
He guides himself in more, feeling the resistance in your walls give away as your body opens up to him— inch by inch, deliberate, measured. The pressure is thick and unrelenting, and he lets out a sound somewhere between a gasp and a moan. Your muscles flutter around him, instinctively tightening, trying to accommodate the stretch. It’s not pain—it’s a full ache, an overwhelming fullness that borders on blissful.
You try to take more, try to angle yourself, even as your thighs tremble. Mydei presses a palm to your stomach, pushing you down, feeling himself buried inside as he eases the rest of the way in.
He stays there for a breath, buried deep, feeling your body pulse around him, trying to adjust to the fullness. Your lips are parted, eyes heavy. Any thought of being upset with him positively gone now.
He pulls back, pushes in slow. Again, and again and again, easing you, rocking you into a deliberate rhythm meant to make you feel every inch of him.
Mydeimos touches you like you’re someone precious. Presses kisses into your collarbone after a roll of his hips.
You moan, wrecked. “Feels so good. You feel—s-so good—”
You reach around to stroke his chest, your fingertips brushing over his nipples, earning another shiver.
His pace picks up just slightly, each motion a promise, each press of his hips reminding you that you’re desired, safe, completely his.
“You want to come? Or do I get to keep you like this—shaking, full, begging?”
And by the gods, your body is shaking almost like you have no control of any part of your body anymore. You’re so tense, right on the edge. And oh, Mydei feels it- red gaze watching how your breath hitches, in the desperate twitch of your hips while you try to chase that high, chase more friction, more permission.
He doesn’t give it to you.
Instead, he pulls back slightly and lets his hand trail down to your flushed skin, giving you one firm spank. The sound is soft and sharp, and you jerk , whining.
“Not yet. You don’t come unless I say.”
Your moan is a little broken noise, somewhere between frustration and pleasure, your nails sure to have broken skin in your palms by now.
“You’re doing so well,” Mydei murmurs, his palm now soothing over the sting he left. “But I want to feel you fall apart because of me—not just because you need to.”
He rocks his hips again, slower this time, dragging every motion out like he’s carving it into you. Your head turns to the side, eyes glassy and wet, lips parted with whimpers you can’t bite back.
“I can’t, Mydei- please, I can’t.”
“You can,”
And that was the end of that.
The summons came just after dawn, when the air still carried the cool breath of night and the palace corridors smelled faintly of wet stone and laurel leaves. An attendant bowed low at your threshold, voice smooth but edged with urgency.
"Her Highness is expected in the great chamber. Your father and the high priests await."
By the time you arrived, the room was already a hive of motion and murmurs. Sunlight spilled through the arched windows in thick, gold beams, catching on the polished marble floor and the carved columns that coiled with scenes of gods and heroes. The long cedar table was crowded—your father at its head in his crimson mantle, the high priests in pale linen robes cinched with yellow sashes, their shaved heads gleaming like polished bronze. The festival coordinators sat further down, clutching scrolls and wax tablets, their lips moving quickly over schedules and ceremonial orders.
“Y/n,” your father said, gesturing to the chair beside him. “We are here to speak of matters sacred. The Sun Festival is nearly upon us, and with it, your coronation.”
One of the priests unrolled a narrow scroll, his voice thick with reverence. “When Helios reaches his throne in the sky, you will stand upon the Temple Steps. The people will see you, clothed in white, the very image of purity. Wheat, figs, honey, and gold will be laid before his altar, and the hymn sung until the last echo fades.”
You nodded politely, though the way he said purity made something twist low in your stomach. They all believed it—believed you were as untouched as the marble beneath their feet. It was part of your role, your story in the eyes of the pantheon: the virgin heir, beloved of Hera, favored by Artemis, blessed by Athena. A vessel of sanctity, ready to unite two great kingdoms.
Only you—and Mydeimos—knew that the gods had not been the only ones to claim you.
Another priest chimed in, his tone warm but heavy with meaning. “The people must see their princess unblemished, holy, as the goddesses themselves were in their youth. Your virtue is the sun’s own reflection—it is what keeps the favor of the pantheon upon Ochema.”
A coordinator leaned forward. “The day after the Festival, your betrothal will be reaffirmed before the gods. Prince Mydeimos’ absence is… unfortunate, but his envoys assure us he will return in time to stand beside you.”
Another chimed in. "The Prince was already summoned to return for the Festival, Dear Basil."
"So soon?"
"Yes. His mother- Her Majesty insisted."
You kept your gaze steady, though the mention of his name sparked the ghost of a memory—the garden’s shadows, his hands warm at your waist, the taste of pomegranate on his lips the night before he left.
Your father, catching your silence, spoke firmly. “My darling, these rites are not merely tradition. Helios watches from his chariot, and Hera herself will weigh your worth. When you ascend the steps, the people must believe they are looking upon the embodiment of the goddesses’ will.”
Outside, the wind stirred the laurel in the courtyard, the same kind that had brushed Mydeimos’ hair when you last saw him. You tried to root yourself in the present—in talk of offerings and processions, in the scent of burning frankincense—but that night still pulsed in the quietest corners of your mind.
And as the priests droned on about purity and divine blessing, you could not help but think: if they knew the truth, would they call you holy still?
Your father’s words cut clean through the incense-thick air.
“And of course,” he said, leaning back in his chair with the self-satisfaction of a man who already knew he would be obeyed, “we simply must keep it in schedule with the next show. We’ll have people even from the southern borders coming to attend.”
Some of the coordinators exchanged nervous glances. The southern borders rarely came up.
You stiffened in your seat. “I’d rather we didn’t, Father.”
The murmur of quills scratching against parchment stopped. A priest glanced up from his scroll. The coordinators shifted in their chairs.
Your father’s expression hardened, that commanding stillness settling over him like a lion pausing mid-step. “Such nonsense, my darling. This is tradition.” His voice deepened, rich and immovable. “We mustn’t break it. Especially if we wish for blessings.”
A priest beside him nodded in fervent agreement, his hands resting on the sun-embroidered sash at his waist. “The games honor Ares and Heracles—heroes who knew the worth of blood and strength. Without their favor, the Sun Festival would be… lacking.”
Your gaze slid toward the tall windows where the daylight cut into the room like blades, and you thought of the boy in the arena weeks ago, his blood seeping into sand, the prayer you had whispered for him.
Your father’s hand came down flat upon the cedar table. “A queen cannot pick and choose the customs she likes. We are not here to please ourselves, but to serve the gods and the people. Remember that, Y/n.”
You felt the weight of all their eyes on you—their future queen, their perfect, pure vessel—and knew there was no winning this fight today.
The chamber smelled faintly of oil lamps and crushed sage, the golden afternoon bleeding through the high windows and setting the white marble aglow. Scrolls, clay tablets, and lengths of dyed silk covered the low cedar table, each marked with a different aspect of your coronation.
The High Priest gestured toward a diagram inked in deep red. “We have planned the sacred bath for the evening before. As per custom, you will be veiled from sunset until your crowning, so that no mortal gaze falls upon you in your most sanctified state.”
You couldn’t help it. The words slipped out before you thought to temper them. “And what of the day after? What of the night I am wed to Prince Mydeimos? Surely, I cannot remain pure if I am to fulfill my duty and produce an heir.”
The room stilled. A few of the younger attendants darted glances at each other, but the High Priest only inclined his head slowly, like a patient teacher with a stubborn child.
“Purity,” he said, “is not always of the body. It is of spirit, of intention. Hera will bless your union because it is sanctioned. But there is tradition, and there is prudence.”
One of the elder priestesses, a matron in gold-dusted robes, cleared her throat delicately. “There is precedent, Your Highness, for delaying the consummation of a royal marriage—at least for a year, so that your reign may be established and the gods’ favor unshaken.” She gave a small, knowing smile. “Concubines may attend to the Prince’s… needs in the meantime. The High Priest thinks it unwise to consummate anything so soon as of recently.”
Your father raises a brow in question but did not push it.
You stared at her, the words sour on your tongue. “So I am to be crowned queen, the vessel of Hera’s will, yet my own husband may bed others before he is permitted to bed me?”
“It is to protect you,” the High Priest said firmly, though there was a faint tremor beneath his solemnity. “Your person will be the seal of the throne. We cannot risk any perception that Ochema’s queen was not—”
“Untouched?” you finished for him, the word like a blade between your teeth.
No one answered. Somewhere beyond the temple walls, a bell tolled for the afternoon prayers, its deep note rolling through the marble like distant thunder.
hi, i'm sorry to ask but could anyone help me out with $25 for dinner tonight? i'm disabled (physically, mentally & developmentally) and have nothing in the house that i can eat and the family member i live with refuses to help. this is all i have in my bank account.
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girl dad xavier................will be thinking ab this for years to come I fear
5:18
have some hcs then
He’s sat cross-legged at more pretend tea parties than he can count, sipping invisible tea from plastic cups, complimenting every teddy bear guest’s outfit with full sincerity. He’s also been made to wear a tiara more times than he’ll ever admit out loud. He’s the biggest person at the tiniest table, knees practically touching his ears, sipping air from a plastic teacup. One time she smears pink glittery eyeshadow all over his face. He wears it to the store without realizing — doesn’t even flinch when the cashier says, “Love the look.”
He reads her bedtime stories in full character voice- ndeep pirate growls, squeaky mice, posh dragons — and does the sound effects with Oscar-worthy commitment. If she asks for “just one more,” he always says no… and then reads one more anyway. (cause like hes done this in events and some cards like the kitty cards he did a high voice for the kitties)
Xavier made up a nonsense lullaby when she was a baby — half lyrics, half hum — and she latched onto it like a comfort object. Now even as a toddler, she still reaches for his shirt and mumbles “sing it, Daddy” when she’s sleepy.
If she hands him a plastic tiara, he wears it. If she puts a sticker on his forehead, it stays there all day. One time, she covered him in butterfly clips before he left for work and he left them in. Didn't care.
He’s not controlling — he just pays attention. Knows which kid made her cry at daycare. Remembers the placement of her stuffed animals and the pot that she likes to chew the handle of.
He has a folder. A physical folder. And a secret stash of his favorites in the drawer of his nightstand- all filled with every single craft and drawing and scribble.
He calls it "recharging." She curls up on his chest or sprawls across his lap while he lays on the couch, a baby show playing in the background neither of them are watching. One of her socks is always half off. His hand stays cradled on her back the whole time.
It happens gradually, and you welcome it with open arms. It's…hard to continuously care for someone, hard to care for anyone but yourself these days. Especially when there was no physical attachment to nurse in the beginning. He’s always gone, and it was draining to keep worrying. He would be fine. He always was.
But he was never there when you accidentally cut yourself,
Never there when you cried yourself to sleep missing him,
And never there when you craved him.
Although you knew it was not a one-sided love, it was not fair. Kazuha was not fair.
Even if his whole thing was that he would never stay in one place for too long.
Even if he said that though the wind may carry him, you would still be his rock in the world, that he would always return.
Even if you had worked so hard to get him to be comfortable with the idea of a place to stay, to settle.
Kazuha was not fair to you, and you were not fair to yourself to do this to yourself.
Your history with him was long, and in it, you built this castle of happiness. And the walls became so, so high. But the higher they became, the more blind you were, and the foundation became weak.
Sinking in the armchair, you sighed. All your friends seemed to be missing these days, but you knew better than that. This is what happens when you fall in love. But then again…
Maybe you were the problem. Because you let your friends go, claiming you didn’t have time. Because you couldn’t let go; even now, when you had just waved him off onto his next journey, there was still a feeling that maybe one day you would be paid back in full.
For now, though, you welcomed the idea of falling out of love with Kazuha…
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