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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
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. šā¤ļøā¤ļø
Your collarOf course I have your[ ā¦ ]āØāØ
My Love, it has been far too long since Daddyās taken you on a proper, public date.
What do you think: Null Set, tonight, where no one will disturb us. Iāll 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, Iāll 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.
Weāll ease that out of you; Iām set upon it. In time, and with no pressure, no hurry. Youāll learn, Dearest, how truly you are mine, and how entirely you hold my heart.
Regina wonāt outstep us again. No hero will confound our love, and make it seem anything sordid. Weāve come through the worst of it; believe this, Love. There is so much we know know, and so much more weāll learn with every day and every kiss, every breath shared in consonance. ā¤ļø)
My mate. Let me love you where everyone can see.
Let Daddy take you out tonight, Puppy.
I canāt promise that I wonāt slip up onto your lap at some point, but then I canāt be faulted for wishing nearness to my mate.
[ ā¦ ]
Perhaps. If I [ ā¦ ] bring with me a pen. Red.
Perhaps you might grant your infinityās mark upon me?
It neednāt be my finger.
I know II donāt mean to rush, II donāt [ ā¦ ] expect allās 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, wonāt you?
2
I remember, yes. Distantly; as if dreaming.
I rememberā¦ I thought it was strange at the time. That you permitted my approach. Told myself it was a trap or that [ ā¦ ] 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 didnāt act. Didnāt 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 didnāt 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 [ ā¦ ] is followed by a dayās 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 wasnāt that. It wasnāt them. It was the sight of you, andā
I knew you too well, or some part of me did.
I wish I would have known you better. More clearly.
[ ā¦ ]
Some day, weāll learn what they did to us.
Some day, weāll ruin them all. Through hunt, through machination, through any route we please.
Gods, Iād be unsurprised to find the perpetrators thought themselves virtuous. Acting for the good of the realm, āto spare the kingdom.ā 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 Iām 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
[ ā¦ ]
I know the place you mean.
In the heart of our home. Nestled safe, and [ ā¦ ] yes, deep below the ground.
Oh, Love, our castle stretched upward to the sky and down into the earthās depths. There was no place I didnāt love you; no domain we didnāt reach, and live in harmony.
You and I, and all our family.
[ ā¦ ]
I didnātā I donāt believe I said. When you first spoke of our den. I donāt think I told you, but I approached it. Once, and once only.
I donāt know what happened. I recall only that the doors glissed open. I recall an overwhelm that followed me for days, for years.
I donāt believe I could have entered. I am glad to hear you fled. [ ā¦ ] I donāt 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.
[ ā¦ ]
We will return, my mate. Weāll 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 didnāt sayI donāt 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. [ ā¦ ] What I found was another name connected to ourselves. A part of the family, the life we had.
[ ā¦ ]
We know Corbin is our pup. Our beautiful, lovely son.
Your not-mother was with us as well. [ ā¦ ] Magdalena. She was no more human than you or I and I think [ ā¦ ] I knew her before even I knew my wolf.
Donāt linger on it long, my Love. But sheās another I couldnāt ever place. Another whose Forest identity was cloaked to me. Another piece missing in our puzzle.
Weāll find them all. We have time, and weāll bring our family home.
5
Self-declared virtue is artificial; acrid, if it lives long enough. Or perhaps itās 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 reserveā
Yes, Love. Thatās where taste runs deepest, fullest of vitality and most life-giving.
[ ā¦ ]
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 canāt say why the taste [ ā¦ ] echoes quite so clearly in my knowledge.
Why I know it like a rush upon my tongue.
[ ā¦ ]
Perhaps I joined my wolf in his bloodletting. I never was opposed to the use of human flesh.
Thereās something Iām missing here. Something critical about what I am, and how I lived with you.[ ā¦ ]No use in pushing, no. But Iād give my left hand to recall.The point stands that every self-proclaimed hero IS tasteless and irksome. That they live on categorizing othersā lives, and turning intricacies of life, intricacies of being into so-called āhorrorsā to be slain.
Perhaps after weāve slain the lot of them, weāll 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. šāØ
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
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?
1/3
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.
Iāll pick you up, of course. Transportation via
Cadillac[ ā¦ ] [ ā¦ ] Daddy Caddy is part of the premium package; itās marked quite clearly on page three!And as well, Iād like to, I need to see you, safe and kept within my car, by my side through as much time as we can claim.
Iād like your hand on mine as we drive.
Ah, and bear in mind! Weāll 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!āØāØ(I suspect my Puppy can envision. >;3)
Iāve 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.
2/3
That I once [ ā¦ ] 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 [ ā¦ ] hands, not hands. A plunge of fur beneath my muzI 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[ ā¦ ]
There is something here I donāt remember, Puppy.
Youāre correct [ ā¦ ] I think. What I am canāt be effected quite like other beings; a wolfās biting kiss wouldnāt 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. Starlightās reflection and around us, blood and sweetness.
My wolf, my Puppy, my light.
[ ā¦ ]
Careful. Careful, yes, I will beā Cautious. I have suspicions on this matter. Inklings; not-quite-memories burning beyond reach. I canāt approach them now - I wonāt; not when they sear too sharp; not without my mate to hold me anchored - but in time, perhaps, Iāll understand.
In time we may remember.
In time we will; I'm sure of it.
And I will run with you again.3/3
[ ā¦ ]
Love. Puppy, you drew your Desmond from the fire in that moment.
It was your voice, yes. And something bound to it, as well.
[ ā¦ ]
I thought I knew the feeling. I felt something [ ā¦ ] familiar, as you drew me away from those efforts to remember. Something that runs through my veins alongside my Puppyās 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 canāt recall. And I see no reason we canāt hold one another as we heal; as we mend and seek our broken pieces.āØāØ
1
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.
2
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.
3
Did I hurt you?!
1
It was in fact your joke, and one that stayed beside me.
One Iāve
waited towished tobeen eager to speak. šāØNo sense in permitting a pleasing turn of phrase to go unused or forgotten, hm?
And Daddy does like to see you in his Caddy. šā¤ļøāØāØJust 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 youāve 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 ofā 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. ā¤ļøš
2/3
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 otherIām [ ā¦ ] not certain how I would have reached that magic. Where I might have learned its cadences, or found form beyond the one Iād claimed.
But I could have found a way. There is much about my own magic that [ ā¦ ] 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.
[ ā¦ ]
[ ā¦ ]
A secret to be disclosed once more. It canāt hide from my knowing forever, Love.
Weāll roam field and forest together again.
3/3
There was no ruin, because you spoke my name.
You didnāt hurt me, no.
I donāt believe you ever could, andā
My Love, you saved me. Drew me from the edge of burning, breaking.
Brought me back to you, and to myself.
[ ā¦ ]
It isnāt and it is simple to explain. The basic fact of this artifact, and how it relates to myself and my behavior.
[ ā¦ ]
The artifact is [ ā¦ ] bound to me, and I to it.
[ ā¦ ]
Please, my Puppy; understand that there was no harm done, and no act you took that I wouldnāt have asked or commanded, had I been more cognizant.
Understand how much it means, that this artifact may be [ ā¦ ] 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.
[ ā¦ ]
A simple fact regarding the Dark One, and the dagger that bestows their - his - magic: If a hand beyond the Dark Oneās holds the dagger, that hand may [ ā¦ ] 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 artifactās 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.
1
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.
2
Redacted!
3
[...]
Here's something weird. You never told me it was going to end, or when, but I knew.
I think I know how, too. Generally, anyway. I don't know who it is, but I know the delivery format.
But I don't know how we're going to get back if there's no magic here. I feel like if we had been the ones to set all this up, we'd have made a way to get home.
We are going to be able to get back, right? We're going to be able to reach our magic again?
I don't want to stay here.
Please - tell me you have a plan?
4
Daddy's Aut[...]
Autumnal Prince.
I remember laying in leaves and there was a crown of them on my head, but I don't remember how they got there.
I say I remember, but I remember dreaming about it.
I dream about it all the time: the glade, sunlight in patches through the trees, a creek nearby.
Butterflies in summer, red falling leaves in autumn.
Being loved more than I've ever felt in my life -
Except when I'm with you. During those first months, before Lacey, that was the feeling.[...]
I suppose I remember it now, too, from more than just dreaming.
I was smallish - I must have been just a little more than a pup. I told the frogs in the creek that I was the Autumnal Prince. That it was going to be cold soon and it was time for them to think about hibernating.
I remember feeling so proud of that leaf crown, like it was my most prized possession.
You're calling me your Puppy Prince now; I'm going to bet that's not anything new.
[...]
What do you suppose that makes you? Not a king. Kings are dull. A wild god, maybe?
1
Only one other hand has held it. Early on and [ ā¦ ] it was a mistake. An error in my judgment, made when my mind was still too much a manās. When I believed I owed my son
A father owes something to his offspring and I
[ ā¦ ]
A subject for another time.
You couldnāt have known, Love. You hardly knew the artifact was with you, hm?
I trusted you. I [ ā¦ ] must have known then what I know now: That my heart is your own; that our present, past, and future sing entwined. And I suspect my hope in giving it to you was threefold, at the least: To protect the artifact, to protect you, and to leave you with the means of protecting me in an exceptional, dire circumstance.
You acted perfectly, my Love. I know you didnāt use my name as an infliction; I know you acted only to reach me, save me.
Should necessity arise again, I urge you to do the same. Iāll command it in perpetuity, if you will allowā And think of it this way, wonāt you? If Daddy orders his Puppy to - in potential future situations, in the most dire of circumstances - command his Daddy, then Puppyās future, potential command is itself a sign of obedience to Daddy, as well as a sign of Puppyās love.
Itās a safeguard, and a way of accounting for and working with my nature. A bit like the contract you so wisely (so compassionately) proposed, an agreement that our family comes first, agreed to and enshrined so that I neednāt risk compromising our family or acting against the being I am. Something that may never prove necessary, something we might not like to use or to rely on, but that doesnāt hurt to have on-hand.
My Love. I know itās nothing you wish to do, and I hear the conflict it brings you. But if necessity arises, if your voice upon my other name is what will call me back and keep me here with you, you must speak it, and know your Daddy trusts you, know I love you.
Iāll erase this message - and all others referencing the artifact - but Puppy, please understand: I want to remain with you, always. And you protect me very, very well.
2
(For our record, which is the only accounting that matters. š)
I enjoyed - I reveled in - the play of our recent contract; it eased and thrilled me both to see my Lovely in command (never forcing, never requiring; direct, but I never felt apart from my own agency; you treated me with such care, and in the future, here and there, Iād be pleased to step into that space again). Even soā
I much prefer commanding you. šā¤ļø
I love to see my Puppy melt beneath my touch, and hum contentment at his Daddyās thigh.
The excitation that speeds your pulse and turns your body wild when Daddy calls for your obedience; when my Puppy chooses again, again to obey.
The smirk that shows itself the moment before my brat presses at the boundary of obedience, seeing just how much he can get away with.
The quiver in your knees when I tell you to sit. To kneel. To step forward, closer, so Daddy can see you.
My obedient, my cherished Puppy. Weāll always have such fun. >;3 ā¤ļø
3
Oh, Puppy, Puppyā I never would have let our mayor cast this curse if Iād had no exit waiting.
We will be returning home.
And we will have magic before that. Here; within the boundaries of this town. It returns with the breaking of the curse.
Just think, Dearest: Your abilities will be returned. Your other form is waiting.
Twelve years, my Love, and youāll roam again, fur and fangs, paws and
shw[ ā¦ ] brushing tail, and all.[ ā¦ ]
I long to watch my wolf run free. To hear you howl; to see your beauty racing through the trees, and after
to curl, to nestle my??to curl against you, to embrace you and nestle my head at the warmth of your throat, the fullness of your coat.[ ā¦ ]
We must have done that, as well. Cuddled, man-not-man and wolf.
In the tower, fireside [ ā¦ ] where I laid my cloak.
In our den.
Perhaps in the same glade that saw my princeās coronation.
[ ā¦ ]
ā¦My Autumnal Prince.
Yes.
Words that sing somewhere in my knowing. Words that shower pinprick pains of severed memory, and at the same time rush my lungs, my heart with vast relief, with sanctity.
I know the glade you mean, and the stretch of moss and loosestrife and ragged robin by the creek. [ ā¦ ] It blurs in my memory, much like the cottage that looked so like your A-frame here. Much like the ink marked throughout our castle, red and persistent.
I amā
Oh, Love. I wish I could remember.
We must have had decades ofHow long did we live side-by-sideTo have watched you flourish, watched you in every form, and to have forgotten all of this; to have had every moment stolenSo much was taken from us.
Weāll have it back. Our memories, and our home. When the curse breaks and our magic is restored, weāll have what we need. All of the tools to return to the Forest.
It will take some time, but trust me, my Autumnal Heart, my Puppy Prince; your wild god will take us home.
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