kingdomsofrain | texts texts texts

[...]

You think I'm a pretty wolf?

~~Really?~~

[...]

Really?

Do I think you’re a pretty wolf?

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?  

😌✨❤️🐕

~~You remember our talk of~~ ~~Of 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 that~~

~~I’ve never tasted human blood in my~~ ~~A 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!)

Edited 2025-03-22 23:00 (UTC)

What I lack words for— Mm. One of many spheres in which I lack the words I’d wish...

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. ❤️

  < < <

😌?

Well.

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 hurting~~ ~~It was stupid, I was being dramatic~~

I'm sorry, Sweetheart. Please, I'd like it back.

I was white, yes, with yellow here and there. Gold if you want to be poetic, which you always are.

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.

They are boring. Imagine having to live your life justifying the shitty things you do to individuals for some weird "greater good". That would take up all my time, and then while I was trying to justify imposing my morality on other people, I'd have to live up to everyone else's so no one would call me a hypocrite -

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.

!!!

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 collar~~

~~Of 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 I~~ ~~I don’t mean to rush, I~~ I 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?

White stricken with gold—

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 Fe Puppy. My mate, here and in all worlds.

Edited 2025-03-23 21:12 (UTC)

Our den, yes.

[ … ]

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.

Edited 2025-03-23 21:13 (UTC)

~~I also didn’t say~~

~~I don’t believe I said~~

My 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.

Terror does eek itself into a sourness, doesn’t it?

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. 😌✨

Maybe you hunted with me. Beside me.

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.

The only thing I can say about my mother and what you remember is it's a good thing you didn't kill one another.

[...]

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.

Edited 2025-03-23 21:51 (UTC)

I would love to go on a date with you. You give me my collar back, and I'll give you your mark back.

On your finger, where it belongs. Where it's going to stay until we work out something a little more permanent.

[...]

Everything isn't healed yet, but I want to be where we were just as badly. There's no reason to punish ourselves for the hurts Lacey caused, is there? We should chase happiness together.

Mine is with you. It's always been with you. I'm not letting some random loon off the street - or a "dark curse" - tell me I can't have a "happily ever after" with my mate.

Bring the pen, please.

[...]

Are you picking me up or am I meeting you there?

Would you?

Of course you would. Oh, Love

Please, Puppy.

Mark me; grace ink upon my finger. Where your claim belongs; where I have missed the sight of you.

I’ll pick you up, of course. Transportation via ~~Cadillac~~ [ … ] [ … ] Daddy Caddy is part of the premium package; it’s marked quite clearly on page three!

And as well, I’d like to, I need to see you, safe and kept within my car, by my side through as much time as we can claim.

I’d like your hand on mine as we drive.

Ah, and bear in mind! We’ll be taking a circuitous route, with perhaps a stop of two along the way. Just to pull over and take a moment, who can say what for!  (I suspect my Puppy can envision. >;3)

I’ve missed you, my Darling.

Your collar is twined now through my fingertips; I draw my thumb against its symbol, our infinity. It waits only for you, my Love. It waits only for your mate to return it, settle it where it belongs.

Your collar for my mark; your forever for my own. There is no better, no more necessary trade.

It doesn’t feel impossible.

That I once [ … ] embodied something other.

Four legs, where most often I had two.

~~Scents brighter than I now can fathom. Sunbursts in the fragrance of gardenia, lilac laced with terror laced with iron. Blood on my [ … ] hands, not hands. A plunge of fur beneath my muz~~

~~I remember none of this. But oh, the feeling in it, the way I long to stretch muscles, coil myself into a tightness and then spring, then race, miles and miles, with a fond voice calling~~

[ … ]

There is something here I don’t remember, Puppy.

You’re correct [ … ] I think. What I am can’t be effected quite like other beings; a wolf’s biting kiss wouldn’t change me from myself. But there are other ways, always. Ways to become sometimes a wolf; ways to be a mate, preserved.

Your eyes were honeyed, bright, exhilarated. Beneath me, looking upward. Starlight’s reflection and around us, blood and sweetness.

My wolf, my Puppy, my light.

[ … ]

Careful. Careful, yes, I will be— Cautious. I have suspicions on this matter. Inklings; not-quite-memories burning beyond reach. I can’t approach them now - I won’t; not when they sear too sharp; not without my mate to hold me anchored - but in time, perhaps, I’ll understand.

In time we may remember.

In time we will; I'm sure of it. ~~And I will run with you again.~~

You spoke my name.

[ … ]

Love. Puppy, you drew your Desmond from the fire in that moment.

It was your voice, yes. And something bound to it, as well.

[ … ]

I thought I knew the feeling. I felt something [ … ] familiar, as you drew me away from those efforts to remember. Something that runs through my veins alongside my Puppy’s breath.

I take this as further evidence that certain artifacts are secure, and just where I would wish them.

I take this as further evidence, as well, that we were bound all through those memories we can’t recall. And I see no reason we can’t hold one another as we heal; as we mend and seek our broken pieces.  

The Daddy Caddy, huh? ~~Well, there's my dork~~

[...]

No, wait. I made that up! That was my joke! You were picking me up from the cottage and I said I felt like royalty, getting driven around in Daddy's Caddy!

I was about to call you adorkable again, but it was all me this time.

[...]

I've missed you, too, Desmond, in ways I couldn't explain. I've been aching to be happy with you. To joke with you like this.

To be able to hold your hand and not be anxious someone will see. To smile with you and not worry that someone will know what those smiles mean.

You know what your Puppy can envision about driving the long way around? Music and afternoon sunlight, falling leaves, and your hand in mine; the destination not being a place where I have to walk away from you and pretend you're anything less than the love of my life.

Is that something you think you might've done? Turn into a wolf?

I think I would have loved it. I'd love it now. I think [...] seeing you take that form, knowing you did it for me, would be something close to heaven.

I don't mind being this for you, but knowing we could be both ways together? It melts my goddamn heart.

It's okay; don't try to remember anything for me. The speculation's good enough for me right now. I can't stop grinning at the idea.

What does the artifact have to do with what happened? I thought you just [...] heard me calling you, I guess. Like I was calling to the deep part of you, and that was enough to impart the urgency.

Did I hurt you?!

Ah, you’ve caught me!

It was in fact your joke, and one that stayed beside me.

One I’ve ~~waited to~~ ~~wished to~~ been eager to speak. 😌✨

No sense in permitting a pleasing turn of phrase to go unused or forgotten, hm?

And Daddy does like to see you in his Caddy. 😌❤️  Just as I love to see my Puppy smile, and meet you with my own happiness, uncurbed, without caring a damn who might see. Wanting everyone to know just how dizzy you turn me, and how ardent my heart sings for you.

These words you’ve painted: Music and sunlight, falling leaves, hands graced with holding and no threat of departure, no need to tear my eyes from your own. The ease of— Oh, simply of existing beside you. Knowing how clear you see me; knowing how close in resonance my own breath twines with yours.

All of this gifts balm upon my soul.

Ah, and! For the record? You are royalty: The lord of all Daddy holds dear. My Perfect Puppy Prince. ❤️🐕

For you, Lover?

What would I not dare for my Puppy. What would I not have found my way toward, if it meant knowing you, and the world as you saw it. If it meant hearing your voice.

~~You had a name. I know I spoke it, know it filled my throat with joy, in human-adjacent tongue and something other~~

I’m [ … ] not certain how I would have reached that magic. Where I might have learned its cadences, or found form beyond the one I’d claimed.

But I could have found a way. There is much about my own magic that [ … ] I believe has been closed to me. Lost in whatever struck between us. But I know my own resolve; I know how ceaselessly I seek for what I wish.

I would have found that form for you.

I would have wanted to roam beside you; I would have made myself a wolf.

[ … ]

[ … ]

A secret to be disclosed once more. It can’t hide from my knowing forever, Love.

We’ll roam field and forest together again.

When you called my name [ … ] I was nearly beyond reach. I’d reached deeper than I ought to have dared; it might have been catastrophic.

There was no ruin, because you spoke my name.

You didn’t hurt me, no.

I don’t believe you ever could, and—

My Love, you saved me. Drew me from the edge of burning, breaking.

Brought me back to you, and to myself.

[ … ]

It isn’t and it is simple to explain. The basic fact of this artifact, and how it relates to myself and my behavior.

[ … ]

The artifact is [ … ] bound to me, and I to it.

[ … ]

Please, my Puppy; understand that there was no harm done, and no act you took that I wouldn’t have asked or commanded, had I been more cognizant.

Understand how much it means, that this artifact may be [ … ] near to you. That if it is where we believe, I must have given it to you freely; that this represents a choice we both made.

[ … ]

A simple fact regarding the Dark One, and the dagger that bestows their - his - magic: If a hand beyond the Dark One’s holds the dagger, that hand may [ … ] speak command, and the Dark One must follow.

Even if I stray beyond comprehension of any voice - even the call dearest to my soul - the artifact’s pull will reach me.

Do you see, Puppy?

Do you see, Love, why I know complete relief to think it is with you?

Why I placed the artifact within your care?

In the wrong hands, my dagger can spell hazard.

In yours, it is salvation, guardianship only.

You guard your Desmond well; never doubt this, Puppy.

[...]

That's a good reason to hide it somewhere no one can get to it. Good reason to hide it with someone you trust.

For the record, I didn't know. I didn't have any idea it would compel you to [...] obey, I guess. You probably figured that already, but it needed saying.

I've never liked giving you orders, even when we were playing around with that contract. I preferred giving you the choice. (Well - I prefer obeying you. Much more fun.)

I wonder [...] how much of that reluctance to command is a holdover from before.

Maybe I knew without knowing that you wouldn't have a choice.

Wouldn't have been right.

Forcing someone to obey isn't right.

I don't know how I feel about what I did. I suppose if you're okay with it, and you know it wasn't intentional...that's all right. And it was because I was afraid for your immediate safety. An exceptional, dire circumstance.

[...]

I don't like the idea of someone else potentially getting their hands on the artifact in question and using it to force you to act any way you wouldn't otherwise. It reeks of enslavement.

~~Seems like something Lacey would try to do.~~

Anyhow. At least I didn't hurt you. At least you came back to me.

[...]

Desmond, I'll always protect you. Even if you weren't mine, I'd protect you.

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