nape | a post-canon sonnet

the watchmen sight the ship not far from shore. on beaches teething, soldiers bolden guns. they capture six— three, traitors long before; three, countrymen, of base and faithless tongue.

the island, verdant green and crumbled walls, awaits the bloody execution day. "for justice!" ardent seas of fever call. the queen, her head in thorns, will not betray.

the traitors grace the citadel on knee. cathedral bells raise fervent cries higher. at trial sits not judge nor juror, for he who fans the flames must one day face the fire.

so falls the blade, struck swiftly on the neck. in blood they taste the fate of mortal death.

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Armin Arlert/Onyankopon Characters: Armin Arlert, Onyankopon (Shingeki no Kyojin) Additional Tags: During the Four Year Time Skip (Shingeki no Kyojin), Canon Universe, Implied Sexual Content, Friends With Benefits Summary:

“You would make a good scout,” Armin tells him.

Onyankopon’s smile is blue in the twilight. “And you, a volunteer.”

it’s been almost 5 years but anon guess what

Chapters: 12/12 Fandom: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Reiner Braun/Porco Galliard Characters: Porco Galliard, Reiner Braun, Pieck Finger, Zeke Yeager, Theo Magath, Porco Galliard’s Parents, Karina Braun, Gabi Braun Additional Tags: Canon Universe, Canon Compliant, Pre-Marley Arc (Shingeki no Kyojin), During the Four Year Time Skip (Shingeki no Kyojin), Porco Galliard-centric, Original Character(s), Pregnancy, Abortion, Sterilization, Medical Experimentation, just snk things~, Sparring, First Kiss, Developing Relationship, Getting Together, ...sort of Summary:

War is coming. It's only a matter of time before the rest of the world realizes Marley has lost two of their titans and strikes on their vulnerabilities. Until then, the empire is biding its' time. The remaining Warriors are sent home and instructed to stay behind walls, lay low, and lie.

If only standing still were that easy.

last chapter of little streets tonight

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Tales of Symphonia Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Anna/Kratos Aurion Characters: Kratos Aurion, Anna (Tales of Symphonia), Mithos Yggdrasill, Yuan Ka-Fai, Pronyma (Tales of Symphonia), Kvar (Tales of Symphonia) Additional Tags: Pre-Canon, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon Universe, Character Study Summary:

Kratos falls.

highly underrated moment in tales of symphonia is when the party ends up back in sylvarant and drops off their 4000 year old maniacal genocidal angel overlord stowaway to be babysat by a civil servant named neil

a piece of a thing that will otherwise never see the light of day. post-canon armin/annie, nsfw-ish

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"how's the lovemaking?" pieck asks.

annie supposes they are friends. funny, that word, as funny as pieck, no longer the long-legged little girl annie remembers, always wearing a dopey half-smile that made annie want to kick her in the face. she's become something far more irritating now, something lithe and beautiful with the long dark hair and the pale heart face. tall and sharp and thin— the kind of woman who can ask about lovemaking as she finishes her manicure and watches the waves out the window.

something annie has never wanted to be, not until she knew it was something she is not. she hates pieck for even making her wonder, staring in the dim cracked mirror of their steerage cabin and seeing herself, really, for the first time. she hates her for it. so, friends.

"you don't have to ask every time," annie says. never mind that the lovemaking— pieck's word— is few and far between at all, let alone in these small bunker cabins where one can hear a neighbor drop a pin on the carpet. she's not so callous to deny that she likes the feel of armin's collarbones beneath her hands and the heat on his skin pressed into her thighs, though she wouldn't call it lovemaking. she wouldn't call it anything. it's probably better that way.

clean (tv) 🤝 eremika

it is fine cotton, they had told mikasa. thin and rich and good for humid days on the coast. harvested from the lowest valleys and spun by craftswomen in the hills on the other side of the sea. their sea, not hers. the other sea. fine white cotton with tiny pearl buttons down the back. it had taken two women to dress her the first time she put it on, but what she remembered most was the sea. that there was more than one. 

funny, the way the stars look tonight. it's what she thinks about then, sand in her socks as she stumbles to the foot of a dune and paws at the deep red splatter on her breast. another sea. seven of them. when her fingers come away wet, some part of her thinks first, blood, but the taste of her tongue is like cinnamon, like fire. her lips, like fire. and under the stars it's all funny, the little splatters down her neck and dress where her lips had slipped and the lanterns had danced in her eyes when she blinked, when she finally let go of her gaze and turned away. that was when she'd spilled the wine all down her front, and now it bleeds like fire from her breast. now she sits in fine white cotton, spitting into her hand to wipe it away as the constellations giggle overhead. 

there's still dust when the soldier lifts his hand. bertholdt sees his skin— grime laid in patches across his palm where his hand glanced over the hot metal, never grasping round the surface of the barrel to keep from getting burned. even so, his fingers are pink beneath the dust and dirt, from the heat or just from the wear of the ropes that pulled the cannons from their carts and onto the field.

"antiques," the soldier announces, as an observation, or an accomplishment, as if that's something to be proud of and he expects to look up and find bertholdt nodding in agreement and appreciation. "these suckers killed a good few of your lot back in the day."

his fingers smudge together as he dusts off his hands. he looks up with a dark grin, his eyes hidden behind the glare of the sun. bertholdt nods in agreement. some things are just facts.

it's a burning on her tongue, something dark and warm that coats her throat and gleans through her insides, feeding the embers in her that she did not know were stoking at the pit of her stomach: a fire, burning low, sparking in the night as the drink seeps deep into her blood and the heat on her skin rises higher.

she sees it in him too.

something roguish and puerile in her grin and steps at the shouts of boy that echo after her when she runs, quick on the street with the wind on her face. she's playing a game, dodging down the dark roads and weaving through the shoulders of passersby. it's a night out, a dare, a child's play with new rules made up each minute, and she is a marble rolling down the road, bumping between the cracks in the stones and laughing to herself, her hair pinned back beneath her cap, her cheeks flooded with the flush of drink on her face.

it is all a game until he pulls the cap from her head with one deft hand, her starry white hair falling over her shoulders in the dark. and the blood rushes in her, the flush on her skin paling out as she whips around to look at him, only to catch him walking away, already ahead of her, his stride long as his silence beckons for her to follow. then that boyish grin is gone, slipping into the shadow as something else overcomes her. she would call it merely curious, but she knows there are better words for what she feels, even as she treads through the quiet of the dark streets, each step left its second thought in its wake.

even without thinking, she knows better. the touch of his hand in her hair feeds her like the fire stoked inside her stomach. the hottest flame she has ever felt. so she follows. 

it is sunset on the twelfth day when annie first notices her cracks. the world is new, and so it seems all the sunlight. it glimmers over her skin as it sinks beneath the mountains, its warmth fragile and distant. something she thinks she should reach for as it disappears. something to bask in like the others do, like all of them at the end of the world, waiting for something better on the horizon. they all seem to understand what that might mean. annie finds she cannot begin to imagine.

she is coming apart like crystal, like the loose threads of a uniform she used to wear. she doesn't know now whatever held her together. when the sun does down, she realizes she has been breaking for a long time.

twilight comes, and she is kissing armin. something sweet and new. something that should taste like sunlight for a new world. it feels like the first time to her, every tender touch he lays on her skin, but she thinks he must have been here before, if only for the way she lets him dip her onto the bed. she couldn't just let him do that. she'd have to pretend to make him ask first, pinch her cheeks pink, and say something coy. that's what he would expect. that's what she should do.

when he breathes in, he can smell the smoke. something bitter lingers in the acrid aftertaste that touches his tongue, but he breathes again, and the room is warm, the cabin alive with golden light, the pale smoke from their fire drifting out the window into the night. it is open, the window by his bed, and in his warmth he feels the chill wrap around him like a blanket. warm in the cold night, watching the shadows of his friends dance on the cabin walls from where he sits in his top bunk, legs curled up beneath him. the beat of his heart feels strange in the back of his throat. it tastes the smoke, another day, another place, another fire. someone is reciting a poem to the beat of a drum. the world is heavy, like a bottle of wine stuffed with a cork, and he feels as if he could sink into its deep red, watching the glow of the fire light reflect his shadowed face on the glass. he feels as if he will never wake again.

when he does, it is night, still. still. he wakes to the cold wind with a leaden head like he's rising from a thousand days, like he has not slept in years. these years, he has done nothing but sleep. his throat burns, dry, and his eyes are heavy. it must have been only minutes. an hour. two. minutes, still, somewhere in the night over the walls of shiganshina.

48. things you said on our honeymoon

they are married under the willow tree.

married, perhaps, is a strong word; there is no court in the land that accepts their union. even the crown cannot change that. but what is a wedding if not bittersweet? a morning in the tall grasses by the river as the depths of a new world linger on the other side of the walls. a queen with a tiara of rosemary, for remembrance, and chrysanthemums to last through the cold winter; and her lover by her side, at once both consort and captive. 

a marriage by any other means is a failure of the heart. historia decides this one bleak morning in the palace, listening to the hummingbirds through the open windows as she lays sprawled in her clean white sheets and wills away the heat in the air. marriage, for most people, is the end of their lives. for some, like her mother, only the mention of it was enough to kill. 

the moon is waning. that’s what he’s thinking about in the hesitation, what he’s looking at in the darkness as he blinks and finds himself in a blue field of wheat, a space somewhere quiet away from the lanterns and fiddles in the distance over the hills. the grasses are tall this time of year, summer's burning just around the bend; and the moon has passed from its peak to something smaller, slender, disappearing into the milky midnight. 

for a moment, it takes him aback, this passing of time. in this strange land, this other, with no newspapers, no radios, no wars and orders to measure the days, they mark their time by the phase of the moon. when it is full or ripe, and when it is narrow, impossible to see. the seasons are their hours. when the wind blows, reiner turns to see he is not alone.

canonverse arranged marriage part two

a drink is proposed. they are led to an antechamber and sat down in matching arm chairs, small glasses of something bittersweet and amber delicately handed to them. reiner does not stop to consider if it is laced. it could not kill him. and why would they want to, after all this fuss? all the time and money they’ve already spent on this affair. there are two thousand people lined on the streets outside and a silk altar waiting for them where the sea grass meets the water. 

his throat is burning when he sees bertholdt watching from the corner of his eyes, and reiner realizes he is waiting, hesitating, waiting for the amber to slip down his throat and sear a hole into his stomach. he does not doubt there is something in the drink to dull their senses. perhaps just the alcohol. perhaps the sugar will make them drowsy and the sea winds will blow away any thoughts they have of fighting. there is nothing to fight, as far as he is concerned. he watches bertholdt take a sip and wonders if he feels the same way. 

“the princes of old often joined in matrimony.” the bottle clinks into another glass as tybur takes the seat across from them. he takes the drink handed to him. it looks the same to reiner. he wonders if it tastes just as sour.