darius scarlett (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
onefellswoop) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
kingdomsofrain2024-01-24 08:25 pm
onefellswoop) wrote in kingdomsofrain2024-01-24 08:25 pmtexts texts texts
this one is for texts!
onefellswoop) wrote in kingdomsofrain2024-01-24 08:25 pm
2/2
Seeing as technically, I still work for you when I'm not helping out here or showing off what the good curse gave me? That seems like a lot of special attention.
[...]
Hey, speaking of this...body.
I have an [...] other-skin. Not the wolf, but not quite a man. I don't [...] remember exactly how it looks or feels, but I don't think this is it.
It's just [...]
It's like someone took my shoes and copied them, but made them a half inch too small, you know? It feels off.
I thought I was just crazy before, but now I've got a little better awareness here, that's what it is: my body's literally wrong.
...Until you touch me, anyway. When you touch me, nothing feels wrong anymore.
I think I chose my other-skin for you? Is that possible? I can't rememberI feel perfect with you, Desmond.
1/2
Shall I catch you at the corner by the fishmonger and demand a kiss? Ah, you must count on it!
Shall I corner you some afternoon at Null Set, and steal caresses on our couch? This, as well, is inevitable!
And then— Well. Gold’s premium package is for Puppy’s eyes and Puppy’s touch only. I daresay - I do say - you hold the one and only V.I.P. pass, certified by my own word, and my eternal invitation. 😌✨
(Read ‘V.I.P.’ as ‘Very Important Puppy,’ of course!)
Everything for you, my Love.
All that I am, all that I have ever been, is yours; I feel this as truly as I feel my own heart’s beat; as surely as I feel your presence like slow honey in my veins. ❤️❤️
2/2
It means the world to see you smile. Means worlds beyond to know that you can feel at ease with yourself, even in this other world, this form that doesn’t match precisely what you are.
My Puppy, you are always perfect in my eyes.
And! We’ll find these others forms of yours. Once this town’s stasis has ended, we’ll find every form you once held. We’ll hold each other in our truer forms, hm?
Do you know, I almost think I[ … ]There are times I think I might have held another form mysI can’t say what it might have been, or how I would have found it. I try to think its shape, my shape, and pain turns blinding in my mind[ … ]
We’ll see just what we made
offor?of one another, Love. It will be my pleasure to witness the wolf you are, as well as this other-skin.Just as it is always a pleasure to see you as you are, here and now. Clothed or otherwise; kneeling at my thigh or standing strong beside me, or curled warm against my throat.
I do wonder what it was about the curse that changed your body, if it was a kind of human in that other-formQuibbles of this curse; curiosities to muse on.I like this plan of yours, Puppy: To take what time you like before - perhaps, and if you someday find yourself inclined! - approaching Humbert. To relish the ignorance in hungry eyes, then return to
our denyour Daddy, where we might hold one another and celebrate the wolf you are. To accompany the local loan shark on his bits of business (and engage in furious, private pawings after if we like, hm?).There is no rush; as you’ve noted, nothing in this town will change.
And oh, the thought of a few hours along with you - let alone a few years! years, Puppy, to claim routines and fresh discoveries of our own; years to revel in the Complete Puppy Package and the Premium Gold Package alike! - is life itself. ❤️❤️
1/2
2/3
Joking aside, I[...]I didn't realize how much itI miss being kissed like that.
It's not your fault and I don't want you to be sorry; just let me say it.
I miss being kissed - You know. Without worrying who'll see. Without feeling like what we're doing is wrong. I mean, the past few months, I couldn't remember all the times someone's shoved me away or told me not to speak to them in public, and the allure of sneaking around was there with you. I had fun, being your secret. It was novel enough to be fun.
But [...] I remember now. I remember what I asked you the first time we spoke, and how much it meant to me to be called your pride. I remember how afraid I was that you'd turn out to be like all the others.
I was blissful, you know. Free and happy with you.
She put you in a position to take that away
She did this to us
[...]
Too many others.
Someone did that to us, too, and
[...]
So I'm going to need to ask for those Premium VIP perks as often as possible. Shop and Null Set and every goddamn street corner.
If we have to live here, I want the life we had for three perfect months.
3/3
[...]
But also, I love this form, too. There's a lot to be said for the current presentation you have going on. Perfect blue eyes, perfect [...] other qualities. ;)
You're doing better with the human male form at "fifty" than most guys are at twenty-five or thirty.
[...]
I have, unfortunately, become an expert on that subject.
[...]
I guess hunting them all is out of the question
for a while, huh?1/3
Anywhere, everywhere I find you, my adoration will ring clear. In my eyes, my breath, my hands set to you at every opportunity.
In every kiss I mean to claim upon your blessed being. Twelve years, Puppy; we have twelve years to turn them ill with our love, our bliss restored.
Twelve years in this senseless little town, and then through our eternity beyond. Where won’t I kiss you? What corner of this world and every other won’t bear the mark of our transcendence?
Ah, a helpful tip! Your VIP pass applies in every realm discovered and yet-undiscerned! So please, do take your perks and claim your backstage pass in each and every one. 😌✨✨
2/3
My poor PuppyKnowing what they were, what they did to youI curse myself for those endless months ofNo, I know you understand, it’s no matter of blame, only IIt ached me, burned corrosion through my blood to keep you as a secret, to urge our silence[ … ]
The messages they sent youThe ways they spoke of you, all that those men, those feigning lovers demandedWhat they took from you. What they took from us. We’ll find every hand involved, and they will suffer to their mewling ends.[ … ]
Vicious, pretty wolf—
Never despair and never doubt, hm?
That hunt awaits us. Twelve years will pass, and then what need have we for withholding our nature? What good need we find in restraint?
What cause to spare any one of them - grasping, puling, sad little men - from meeting their consequences?
Every injury will have its payment. Restitution is owed, and will not be forgotten.
Ah, Puppy. I will thrill to see my wolf take blood.
3/3
I’ve missed you, my Love. Missed being openly yours; missed declaring you my own, freely.
You are my pride, and remained so through those months of [ … ] enforced separation. Have I said— No, I don’t think I’ve told you how pleased, how proud I was to hear you’d kept on with your studies. How even before I saw you again, each mention of your name, of your actions, formed a lifeline.
Even kept distant, it was you who kept me breathing.
Now I have you again, and Love, I’ll cling with tooth, with nail, with scales alike. I won’t lose you again. I won’t let you be taken.
Nor will I go so much as a half-day without a kiss (and even twelve hours unkissed is quite a lot to ask, I think!), or without claiming my own. 😌❤️
Do you know, I’d follow you into the very depths of Tartarus - known in Storybrooke as ‘that goddamned diner’ - and kiss you there—
Or, no, that diner deserves no witness to our love. Say instead that I would enter, would call your name and crook my hand at your elbow, then command your presence outward, freeing you from whatever plight dared detain my Puppy. Then, at the gate, I would take my time in wrapping arms and legs around you, kissing my Puppy deep and deeper there upon the curb.
With a kiss each step our way home, of course. And perhaps a little nip here and there; a gift of teeth for Puppy and for Daddy both. 😌✨❤️
1
Not that anyone would mistake either of us for morally upright citizens if you're climbing all over me like a jungle gym out on the sidewalk. No complaints here: I'm looking forward to the attention.
Vicious, pretty wolf? Vicious, vain wolf, maybe.
You think I'm a pretty wolf? Really?[...]
Oh, huh. The conversation we had about heroes makes all kinds of sense now. You asked me what I think of them or something like that.
I tried to scroll back and look, but I don't have those texts anymore.
I bet you have them, though.
Later.
Let me tell you what I think about heroes: they taste rank. I don't know what it is about them, but every single one I've ever bitten in to tastes like they're rotting or full of metal shavings or [...]
No, you know what? They taste artificial. That's what it is. Couldn't have told you that in the Forest Before, but having had more than a decade of exposure to artificial flavoring, I'm going to decisively say that's the problem with heroes. They taste like someone made a human in a petri dish.
Can't eat them. Can't let them live, either, because they either try to kill me, or they talk along these weird dichotomous lines about good and evil and don't leave any room for reality.
Then again, I didn't really care for humans in general. Maybe I'm biased.
2
Definitely, no one's going un-nipped.
Besides, you need to be reminded of something: I'm proud of you, too. The difference between you and all those men, Desmond, is with them I wanted to be acknowledged. With you, I want to do the acknowledging. It'll be nice for people to see I'm wanted, but even nicer to be open about my choice.
It feels like something shared - me and you. Something worth living for.
And if you want to kiss me in the diner, that'd be just fine by me. A little love would be good to brighten up the place.
[...]
I do love you. More than words are good for.
3
You think I'm a pretty wolf?
Really?[...]
Really?
1/3
Oh, Puppy, I know it.
(And think it as well, yes. 😌❤️)
Even in the Forest, when I was a creature driven half from my senses, careening after a wolf more shadow than flesh and bone, I knew it. There was nothing that better caught my eye, or snared within my knowing.
…I [ … ] hadn’t realized this before, not consciously, but [ … ] there were notions I carried. Stray images, stray certainties flashing gossamer through my thought. A sense of shadow as beauty; a sense of brilliance wrapping itself in night.
A sense of longing, though I couldn’t name it at the time.
[ … ]
I glimpsed you, one or thrice, with fur silver, gold, and gleaming. Did you know? The wolf, my wolf caught sleeping.
[ … ]
I’d almost forgotten. It’s another memory that’s difficult to keep in hold. But I saw the wolf you were, outside your shadow; I’m certain of it.
You’ve said you were weary; that your coat was disarrayed, your skin worked into torment by forest-needles and neglect. And perhaps your fur had grown matted, but I— What I remember.
What I saw was brilliance.
I couldn’t approach you. I watched you, and I left you there.
You turned my heart; you stole my breath.
My Love, I have never seen anything so beautiful as the wolf you are.
I’ve never seen something, someone so pretty. In the guise of man or wolf - and I dare to say, in any other form you might take - there is nothing so pretty as my Puppy.
Believe me on this, hm? And ask yourself (an unanswerable query, for there is no other): Who else could make the Dark One swoon?
😌✨❤️🐕
2/3
You remember our talk ofOf course you remember.I did, yes. Ask what you knew of their tales. It was incautious, perhaps, to venture into that vein. But then, as you may have surmised, when one endures the charading ‘virtues’ of heroes for centuries, the bile induced eventually builds beyond containment.
I’ve met so many of their kind; they’re dreadfully, painfully dull. Cookie-cutter glossed-up stock characters mouthing words oft-spoken, thinking their pat declarations brilliant.
They charge in with steel and righteousness, demanding ‘their right’ and the death of monsters. As if they commanded the world by virtue of a noble title or a well-turned jaw. As if their axiologies spelled perfect truth.
And you, Love, have described them exactly.
‘Rank,’ to the very center of their ideology.
‘Artificial.’ Composed from pre-drawn pieces, rather than grown from experience or understanding of a complex world.
’Artificial.’ Why does thatI’ve never tasted human blood in myA sample here and there. A taste to verify its utility before putting it to use, but that can’t account for this sense of[ … ]There was a surge of blood. More than once? A rush of blood, but I cannot pinpoint or begin to[ His head. A burst bright-shot through his head, and Desmond grinds a palm against his temple, shuts his eyes and breathes, waits, waits.
Whatever paths those thoughts pointed toward are explorations for another time. Let them be. Let them linger in mind’s distance, and slowly, slowly coalesce. There’s no need to rush, after all. ]
And you’ve landed precisely on a perpetual trouble of heroes: There’s little one can do about them. Gods forbid they keep their noses to their own business! And there’s little chance they’ll keep their viRtuOus idEaLs out of yours. >:/
I suspect the collection of them share one to two braincells, cycled daily among their number.
It must take very little thought, to live such strict dichotomies. Really, I suspect a few clear thoughts - or a few personal encounters with, gasp!, reality - would topple their structure entirely.
Fuck’s sake, they are a boring lot.
(And damn them doubly, for failing even to provide a serviceable snack!)
3/3
You speak pride in me, and Puppy, I—
I don’t know what to do with myself. How to [ … ] understand the form I hold; this being that I am.
I know that I feel relief like the dispersal of an ages-long weariness.
I know I feel freer; that I feel myself and feel like myself more wholly.
There is no one else I’d care to hear these words from.
And I am grateful, my Love, for you, for everything you are. My Dearest, I flourish in your care.
You protect and you discern me, you help me know the rightness in myself.
Beautiful, pretty Puppy; there is no rightness, there is nothing in the world without you. ❤️
< < <
😌?
1
As a treat.
3 3 3
;)
[...]
That reminds me. Do you have my collar? I'd like it back. I'm going to guess you fixed it, right?
I'm sorry I snapped it. It was just [...] everything happened so fast.
I wanted to hurt you like I was hurtingIt was stupid, I was being dramaticI'm sorry, Sweetheart. Please, I'd like it back.
2
I spent so much time as a shadow and [...] when I wasn't, I was dirty, injured, covered in sores. If you snuck up on me while I was sleeping, I must've been exhausted because I didn't sleep well otherwise.
...But it's nice, actually. Thinking you were there, thinking you maybe loved me a little, even like that.
[...]
I don't really remember how I look when I'm clean or well. But I must have been, right? At some point, I was healthy and my coat was full, and if I can't remember it but I know there was a time, then it must have been when I was with you.
It must have been in that tower, Desmond, because I wanted to be there so badly. Wolves don't want to be inside castles or up in the sky like that; it's not natural - unless I learned something good was in there. Something better than being free, better than having all the woods to myself, better than finding a den or a mate or something to hunt.
Den?[...]
We had a den.
Not in the tower. Down in the bottom of the castle. I found it and smelled [...] you and "the man with the wolf in his bones". I smelled us and our mating. The smells were so strong that I ran from it, but I think it's because the door was closed for so long, sealing all of it in.
I'm not going to be sad about it. I'm going to say it was just waiting for us to come home.
3
Christ, what a miserable existence.
Much easier to just mind your own business - and maybe eat some fruit now and then so you taste less like the afterthought of a flavor.
You know who tastes best? I mean, other than creatures in castles? Hunters.
Especially the ones that aren't afraid to die. Something about terror makes everything taste bad, but those seasoned hunters that want to die, or they know they deserve it, or they're just ready for it for whatever reason?
Delicious.
1
You see, you have made your Desmond swoon! Ah, it was necessary that I place both hands upon my counter and steady myself, having borne witness to those hearts completed. Having seen how well my Puppy hears me, and responds. 😌❤️❤️
Your collarOf course I have your[ … ]
My Love, it has been far too long since Daddy’s taken you on a proper, public date.
What do you think: Null Set, tonight, where no one will disturb us. I’ll pick you up at six-thirty, and bring your collar.
It has been mended, yes, and waits only to be nestled at your throat.
Tonight, I’ll affix it for you, never to be stolen away again.
(It was no fault of yours, my Love. All evidence pointed to betrayal; all of you experience in Storybrooke taught you that each promise is a lie, that every loving word is poison.
We’ll ease that out of you; I’m set upon it. In time, and with no pressure, no hurry. You’ll learn, Dearest, how truly you are mine, and how entirely you hold my heart.
Regina won’t outstep us again. No hero will confound our love, and make it seem anything sordid. We’ve come through the worst of it; believe this, Love. There is so much we know know, and so much more we’ll learn with every day and every kiss, every breath shared in consonance. ❤️)
My mate. Let me love you where everyone can see.
Let Daddy take you out tonight, Puppy.
I can’t promise that I won’t slip up onto your lap at some point, but then I can’t be faulted for wishing nearness to my mate.
[ … ]
Perhaps. If I [ … ] bring with me a pen. Red.
Perhaps you might grant your infinity’s mark upon me?
It needn’t be my finger.
I know II don’t mean to rush, II don’t [ … ] expect all’s healed, or waiting precisely where we left it.But red ink from my Puppy - anywhere at all - would bring me bliss itself. Give me that half heart, that sign toward infinity? Anywhere. Tonight, or whenever you might feels its rightness.
And in any case. Prepare yourself for a date upon our couch, won’t you?
2
I remember, yes. Distantly; as if dreaming.
I remember… I thought it was strange at the time. That you permitted my approach. Told myself it was a trap or that [ … ] perhaps it was only that you were weary. That your bones feel the exhaustion seeping through my own.
I watched you through the brush, and didn’t act. Didn’t strike; the thought never occurred to me. It would have been a shame to set onslaught on a sleeping wolf, I must have told myself. A game ill-played against a seeming-antagonist so majestic.
I didn’t wish to harm you; I know that now, and clearly.
It hurt to look upon you long. What I recall of those visions, those sightings [ … ] is followed by a day’s worth of blistering headaches. Pains I told myself were incidental. Pains I attributed to the posturing of varied nobles
In fairness, their natterings did yield countless irritations.
And in truth, I know it wasn’t that. It wasn’t them. It was the sight of you, and—
I knew you too well, or some part of me did.
I wish I would have known you better. More clearly.
[ … ]
Some day, we’ll learn what they did to us.
Some day, we’ll ruin them all. Through hunt, through machination, through any route we please.
Gods, I’d be unsurprised to find the perpetrators thought themselves virtuous. Acting for the good of the realm, ‘to spare the kingdom.’ As if I could care a shit about devastation when I had my wolf to love.
As if anything could matter more than you, or tear me from your presence.
One thing I’m pleased to know, and to consider: They took you from me, and me from you, but they could never burn my fascination with my wolf. My desire to see you, know your peace, even when I took you for a foe.
You have always been the sight fondest for my eyes. Know this, my
FePuppy. My mate, here and in all worlds.3
[ … ]
I know the place you mean.
In the heart of our home. Nestled safe, and [ … ] yes, deep below the ground.
Oh, Love, our castle stretched upward to the sky and down into the earth’s depths. There was no place I didn’t love you; no domain we didn’t reach, and live in harmony.
You and I, and all our family.
[ … ]
I didn’t— I don’t believe I said. When you first spoke of our den. I don’t think I told you, but I approached it. Once, and once only.
I don’t know what happened. I recall only that the doors glissed open. I recall an overwhelm that followed me for days, for years.
I don’t believe I could have entered. I am glad to hear you fled. [ … ] I don’t think either of us could have withstood its force. How clear-writ the truth must have been; that I was yours, and you were mine.
[ … ]
We will return, my mate. We’ll return, and bless every inch with joy and with our scents renewed.
We will have our home again; there, just as well as here.
4
I also didn’t sayI don’t believe I saidMy Puppy, take these next words slowly, carefully. Blank them out if they begin to sting; do this for your Desmond.
When we sat together and I reached deeper than was wise. [ … ] What I found was another name connected to ourselves. A part of the family, the life we had.
[ … ]
We know Corbin is our pup. Our beautiful, lovely son.
Your not-mother was with us as well. [ … ] Magdalena. She was no more human than you or I and I think [ … ] I knew her before even I knew my wolf.
Don’t linger on it long, my Love. But she’s another I couldn’t ever place. Another whose Forest identity was cloaked to me. Another piece missing in our puzzle.
We’ll find them all. We have time, and we’ll bring our family home.
5
Self-declared virtue is artificial; acrid, if it lives long enough. Or perhaps it’s that the acridity comes from their miserable self-conciliations, every effort to reform hatred and damage as heroic action.
And life without horror. Brazenness without reserve—
Yes, Love. That’s where taste runs deepest, fullest of vitality and most life-giving.
[ … ]
These tastes ring so clear to me.
I know why I understand some measure of this. Small tastes taken of blood and bones to weigh their efficacy. I can’t say why the taste [ … ] echoes quite so clearly in my knowledge.
Why I know it like a rush upon my tongue.
[ … ]
Perhaps I joined my wolf in his bloodletting. I never was opposed to the use of human flesh.
There’s something I’m missing here. Something critical about what I am, and how I lived with you.[ … ]No use in pushing, no. But I’d give my left hand to recall.The point stands that every self-proclaimed hero IS tasteless and irksome. That they live on categorizing others’ lives, and turning intricacies of life, intricacies of being into so-called ‘horrors’ to be slain.
Perhaps after we’ve slain the lot of them, we’ll let their bodies burn and warm ourselves beside them. No sense subjecting ourselves to sourness, hm? Best to enjoy the fire we make of them. 😌✨
1
I can imagine you - before the cane - running full-speed at prey and maybe using your teeth. (Weren't they sharper?)
I think I can even imagine you now, using the cane to make up for the drop in speed. Oh, that would be fun: hunting with you in the woods here. (Hunting YOU in the woods, maybe? Mmm.)
[...]
I don't think I turned you. I can't remember, obviously, but I feel like something about your magic would have prevented it from working and I would've known that.
No making you into a wolf, even though I'd have wanted to.
That's what we do. My mother turned my father, my brother turned Granny. It's a way to preserve your mate.
[...]
Too bad.
You'd have made a beautiful wolf. Small and sleek.
2
[...]
I saw you reaching for a memory. I saw I almost lost you, but [...] you came back to me.
Something about saying your other-name made you come back.
You have to be more careful, my Love. Please don't let me lose you again.
3
1/3
2/3
3/3
1
2
3
1
2/3
3/3
1
2
3
4
1
2
3
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)