I need King of Darknight Elf Xavier

You hadn't even heard Caleb come in. But suddenly the entire room filled with his presence. Especially with the words he'd just delivered to his son, speaking in a tone so low that it was more threatening than if he had yelled.

"Now apologize to her immediately and never, ever speak to her like that again. You hear me?"

You want to tell him to stop. That you know your son was going through a rough patch and all teenagers behaved this way but you were too busy trying to hold the tears in to interrupt. Next to you, your son looks visibly pale. Sure, he admired and respected his Dad and almost never suffered any dire consequences for any mistakes he made but to see his father so visibly vibrating with the effort it took to suppress his anger, he was terrified.

When he fails to respond, Caleb's voice claps into the room like a lightning strike "Speak up, did you hear me?"

"Yes, sir" Your son is also on the verge of tears as he turns to you "I'm sorry, Mom"

You're about to respond but Caleb cuts in "Good. You're grounded for two weeks and will hand in your phone every night before bed. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir"

"Go to your room and tidy up. I'll be with you in a minute, we're going to address this little behavior properly" Your son has never faced his father's wrath this way and is desperate to make amends as he grabs your arm so you could shield him away like you always did.

Caleb's eyes drop to his trembling arms and he pulls you back against him, making him let go of you "No. You don't get to speak to her like that and use her as your defense too. She'll forgive you when she wants to"

You almost want to comfort your son when you see the kicked puppy look in his eyes as he sniffles, moving past you both to go upstairs and await further scolding.

For a long moment after he leaves, neither you nor Caleb move. He's still got his arm wrapped around your shoulder and after a tense moment, you lean into him "When did you get home?"

"Just in time to hear enough. We didn't raise him to be ungrateful like that. I almost threw him out of the house"

"Caleb-"

"No, Pips. He needs to learn that just because his Mother pampers him, he can't get away with talking to you like that" Turning you in his arms, Caleb bends to your eyelevel "And you need to stop letting him"

"He's just a little boy. Our little boy. You know he's had trouble adjusting since we moved last year. He's right, maybe we should cut him some slack"

"We can do that without excusing the disrespect" Kissing your shoulder, Caleb straightens "Let me talk to him, alright?"

He's about to walk away when you grab his arm "No matter what conclusion you come to, my son is not sleeping outside as punishment"

Smiling, Caleb presses a quick kiss into your hair "I'll try" When you give him a stern look, he laughs "I promise I'll try to be more...lenient"

You hear his footfalls on the staircase, a quick knock followed by the quiet thump of the door closing. As you start prepping for dinner, you relax more. Caleb pampered his son just as much, if not more. You trusted him enough to know he'd handle the situation with care.

You're putting the lid on the pot and clearing out the space when you feel arms around your waist, hugging you tightly from behind as your son sniffles against your back "I'm really sorry, Mom. I'll do better from here on out"

Smiling, you turn to hug him back "I'm really glad to hear that and-" You pull back till he's looking at you, nose red and eyes slightly puffy that indicated that he really did feel awful "-I forgive you, okay? Don't beat yourself up over it anymore" You squeeze him tightly once again and ruffle his hair before kissing his head "Now go freshen up before dinner"

He's exiting the kitchen, nodding at Caleb who was leaning against the doorway watching the entire exchange. Once he's gone, Caleb takes his place and wraps his arms around you, sighing deeply into your hair and making you laugh.

"How'd it go? I'm guessing good?"

"Hardest thing I've had to do in my life" Caleb admits as you run your fingers through his hair, patting his back while he tightened his arms around you "Thank God we didn't raise a troublemaker though I did promise we'll revisit the discussion for summer camp"

"You handled it well" You praise as Caleb pulls back to look at you, your fingers mussing up his hair into that cute, dorky look you'd first fallen in love with "Really well" At your conspicuous grin, your husband's eyebrows nearly touch his hairline when your fingers start twisting in his shirt "No one gets away with disrespecting your wife, huh?"

Caleb's fingers reach under your shirt, drawing patterns on your skin as he pulls you closer "You're my wife before you're his mother. He needs to learn that" Kissing your jaw, he nips at the skin as he whispers "So yes, nobody talks to my wife like that without facing consequences"

"Nobody?" You grin up at him.

Lowering his mouth against yours, Caleb's also grinning "Some of us have special privileges-" You jump when you hear your son's bedroom door shut again, trying to pull out of your husband's grip but he's insistent "Relax, babe. He knows how he was made and that the stock story isn't true"

Swatting his arm, you chastise "Caleb!" You're trying to escape his hold but it's hard to remember why you want to when he's got his hands on you like this and is kissing that secret spot under your ear like that "He could come downstairs at any time and- and...and dinner- oh"

↳ warnings: !!18+ nsfw!!, alternate universe-animal hybrids, animalistic character traits & behaviors, mating season/cycles, time period inaccuracies (medieval), non mc reader, elderly character death (murder), dark themes, light angst, hysteria & panic, moral dilemma, folklore/mildly religious themes, blood/gore, reverse harem, explicit descriptions of intercourse (see chapter summaries for specific warnings)

chapter one: coming soon…

S-FW

˗ˏˋ ★ 1. General look: How are they like? How do they behave around the darling? Are there any warning signs?

Ah, the General. You know, the tall, handsome and gentle man that watches over the Luofu and leads his people with quiet self-assurance and accustomed routine? He’s been in the office for as long as you’ve been alive, and according to the elders, the seat has been his for multiple centuries. Even your Vidyadharan acquaintance tells you that the man, Jing Yuan, has held the post for as far back as they can recall.

He’s tall, and he’s strong, and he’s kind, he’s good with his words, he moves so gracefully, his smile is so beautiful, his-, wait, what were you thinking again?

It’s fair to say that he has managed to catch your eye. From the red ribbon in his long, fluffy hair to the little mole on his left cheek... The sight of him gets you feeling certain things. One could say that you have become somewhat enamoured by him. You’re not the only one, no doubt: The General does have a little bit of a womanizer’s aspect to his personality. Many if not most would drop their current life to be with him.

It’s not a reasonable fantasy to have, of course. He’s been alive for, what, over 700 years, and you have been alive for… less than that. Besides, it’s not like you’re actually trying to court him. The little crush you have is more innocent daydreaming material and less an actual, serious endeavour. He doesn’t have a partner as far as you’re aware, but you’re not about to offer yourself up for the position. Being the General’s wife would be a hassle in a league of its own; plus, you doubt you would have a particularly good time in such role. It would bring a myriad of responsibilities, and you would have to become a public figure, too. That kind of life doesn’t really suit your tastes.

That won’t stop you from entertaining your fantasies, though. You wonder how it would be like to lie in his arms, to get to hear his voice the first thing in the morning; what it would feel like to have his fingers run through your hair, how his kisses would be, that sort of thing. It’s all in good humour, and you even tell your friends about your little reveries. They, of course, roll their eyes in a playful manner but engage in the conversation nonetheless. It’s no secret that the General is as dreamy on paper as it gets, and chances are that you have quite a few people to gossip with.

However, your interest doesn’t truly spike before you actually get to meet him in person. One fateful day, you are to visit the Seat of Divine Foresight: You need to bring a few documents in because of your job. It’s something that needs to be taken care of right away, and although such thing isn’t a part of your usual job description, you take on the task nonetheless. It’s not that long of a trip to the office, anyway, and you’re just going in and out.

Exalting Sanctum is quite a mesmerizing place. You don't often have a reason to visit the place since you live elsewhere, but it's always a joy to see the ever-so-lively plaza. The middle square is an especially beautiful sight: People are sitting by the stairs, going about their day, chatting, laughing... The place never disappoints. However, where you're headed is the grandest building amongst the many.

Just in case, before entering the Seat, you check your reflection in the window by the door. You briefly adjust your hair, making sure no strands are sticking to your forehead, before patting down your clothes. Your outfit isn't the most extravagant one, and you're going to stand out a little because of that, but it's not that big of a deal. If you knew you were going to have to take the gig today, you would have dressed nicer, of course — especially since there's always a tiny chance that you could be seeing the object of your interest — but you can do very little about that now. Besides, your clothes don't affect the quality of your work, and they're comfortable, so you decide to hold your head up high and step in.

Your thoughts take an unexpected turn the second you make it inside the grand building, though. Suddenly, when you take foot into where practically all of the Luofu's important decisions are made, your found confidence suffers a small blow. Everybody is dressed in fine garments, important-looking people are striding around the vast room, and there are guards everywhere. Without having even done anything, you have already gotten a few dirty looks. You’re completely out of your element.

You hold the stack of documents in your arms closer to your chest as if they’re going to fly away with all the bustle. The red carpet that leads to the General’s seat feels inappropriate for you to walk on: It’s like you’re trespassing an area that you’re much too low-class to be seen in.

What was her name again, uhh… Ah, Qingzu! You’re supposed to take the papers to someone called Qingzu. You were told she could be found somewhere in the office. You haven’t worked with her before; you have know idea what she even looks like, but surely it’s not that big of a challenge to find her amongst the staff?

After a quick look around, though, the task starts to seem more difficult than you originally thought: There are so many women who could very well be her, all looking equally high in position, carrying around papers and tablets, knee-deep in their own work. There are warriors, there are secretaries, messengers... You quickly give up on the mission and instead start scanning the room for somebody that appears like they could help you find her.

Cautiously, you make your way deeper into the hall, timidly peeking around like a kid lost at a market. Gazing at the opposite end of the place, you come to see that the General's seat is empty, as usual. Albeit you were secretly hoping for a chance to get to meet him in person, it’s a known fact that more often than not, he can’t be found where he should. You've heard various reasons for why it is, ranging from official business affairs to him being an incorrigible slacker. Personally, you believe that it’s a mix of the two: For him to be such an accomplished man, you doubt that he could spend half of his day just lazing around and still get so much done. Then again, there's always some truth to rumours.

You walk up to a woman that’s standing by one of the scroll stacks on the wall. Hesitantly, you introduce yourself and explain that you’re looking for a person called Qingzu, that you’re here on work errands. She looks at you with a slight knit in her brow before letting you know that who you’re searching for is currently on lunch break. Moreover, she suggests that you hand the documents over to her instead.

You’re not sure what you're supposed to do. Logically, it should be okay to trust the woman to handle the job to the end, but you were specifically asked to give the papers to a different person. Your boss made it sound like a literal request, too. So, you swipe your tongue over your lips in a nervous manner and tell her that you can wait for Qingzu to return, that it's not a problem for you. Hearing your response, the woman sends you a tiny look of distaste before insisting that she can take care of it.

It’s a tricky spot to be in. You’re sure that you have a few pairs of eyes on your back already. The guard a short distance away from you discreetly glances your way. The more seconds pass, the more awkward the situation becomes. At the Seat, the pace in which matters are handled is strict and unforgiving, and wasting the employee's time would be a faux pas like no other. It's evident that you're going to have to make a quick decision if you don't want more people to get involved.

Just as you're about to open your mouth, however, the woman's eyes move away from yours, looking at something above your head. Then, you feel a warm hand on your shoulder. A deep, rich male voice speaks behind you, the words demanding respect: "Please allow her to stay until Miss Qingzu returns from her break". Judging from the woman's reaction, the request is less that and more of an order. Without missing a beat, she gives you a curt nod before leaving you standing there with the documents still in your half-extended hands.

You turn around to greet the man. However, as you do, you’re only met with the sight of a chest.

Your heart nearly jumps out of your throat. Your gaze travels up the man's form, trailing from his red pants to the golden symbol of a lion on his right shoulder. You let your eyes stray higher, and soon enough, they come into contact with a couple of striking, yellow ones. It’s him.

Your immediate reaction is to completely freeze in place. A steady warmth makes its way onto your cheeks, as much as you would like for it not to. You become aware of how you're staring at his face, and you avert your gaze from the sight of him to look at the floor, the scrolls on the walls, the banners hanging from the ceiling. The situation is so horribly awkward that you think you would prefer for the ground to swallow you along with the documents. Your boss suffering the minor loss of some papers and an employee is something she would just have to survive. Though, realistically speaking, you prepare yourself to humbly take on a scolding from the General himself, and so you straighten your back and look him in the eye.

However, instead of whatever you were expecting for his reaction to be, the General simply smiles down at you with compassion. His brows are raised in something akin to intrigue, and one of his hands comes up to rest over his chin in a thoughtful pose.

He has to bend down in order to greet you properly. The action is simultaneously a tiny bit belittling and incredibly attractive. He obviously doesn’t mean it in an offending way, and the gentle smile on his face tells the same story. Though everything in his character gives off nothing short of serenity, you yourself are finding it difficult to even stay standing.

He asks for your name. You mumble out an answer, but your voice cracks in the middle. You wish you never chose this occupation. However, instead of acknowledging the blunder, he gives you a courteous nod and introduces himself. Obviously, you would have had to live in one of the cargo boxes at the docks to not know who he is, and even then you would probably have caught the name. The gesture is, however, out of courtesy on his end: It’s a clear attempt to treat you as an equal, as ridiculous as that is when it comes to someone of his status, and so, you accept it with gratitude.

You stammer out the reason for your visit, showing him the stack of papers in your hands. He hums a small, contemplative sound in response.

Then, he asks you to wait by his desk for when the rightful recipient for the documents returns. Your eyes widen at the proposal: You, him... What? But the... You're about to refuse the offer, assuring him that you could just come back later, but there's already a large hand hovering above the small of your back, leading you towards the seat sitting at the grandest spot in the entire hall.

Your head is going hundreds of miles per hour, and every thought is so jumbled that you nearly fail to notice how he plants his palm on the back of your waist in a fairly intimate manner. Obviously, it’s a bit strange for him to be this touchy with a person he has just met, but oh, how exhilarating it feels to be the object of the General’s undivided attention. The entire situation is like straight out of one of your daydreams. You pretend to scratch your arm in favour of pinching yourself, just to make sure that this is, in fact, not a result of your imagination.

You end up standing next to him at his desk, completely still and straight as a twig, for the twenty-something minutes that it takes for Qingzu to appear back in the Seat of Divine Foresight. It's the only thing you can think to do: You're not sure about the etiquette when it comes to places like this, and so you do your best to be as unnoticeable as possible. The General, however, doesn't seem to find it necessary.

He asks you about your work. Hesitantly, you tell him the basics, who you work under, what the documents are about. It’s an attempt at small talk, clearly, but you’re hardly even able to listen to what comes out of his mouth. He’s so close to you, you can almost feel his warmth, and oh Aeons, he’s so handsome. Dealing with something like this is way above your paygrade, but you can't help but thank whatever stars aligned for you to end up where you are.

By the time Qingzu returns from her break, your blush is so deep and your hands so shaky that she has to inquire if you’re feeling alright. Finally being able to hand the papers to her, you thank her profusely and assure her that nothing is wrong. Without any further explanations, you swiftly excuse yourself. Of course, you make sure to bid your goodbyes to the General as well, and you do it along with an apology and a slight bow. He lets you go with a smile so devastatingly good-looking that your blood nearly evaporates. You practically skip your way out of the building.

When you get back to your boss, the first thing she does is laugh at your reddened face. Your thoughts practically radiate off of you, and it’s not particularly difficult to guess at least the basics of what has gone down when looking at you. The deep flush, the way the corners of your mouth are forcibly tugging upwards, and most importantly, the dreamy sigh you let out the second you make it inside your own office. Chances are that she set you up for the whole thing, knowing that you have the hots for the General, but you couldn't care less: You can't wait to share all what happened with your coworkers. In your elation, you decide to set the pessimistic rationale of what he must have thought of the encounter aside, and instead, you go on to gush about it like reciting a romantic drama script. It's all light-hearted fun, and the tale is sure to entertain every lover girl at the office.

Though, whatever you're thinking is going through Jing Yuan’s mind all the way back at the Seat of Divine Foresight is most likely quite far from the truth. Outwardly, he doesn't seem affected at all: He appears like his usual self, going over some work matters with glazed-over eyes, reading through the scrolls, writing down notes. If anything, he looks like he’s about to fall asleep, which is not that far from the usual, but in his head, he's anything but drowsy.

You’re lovely. It’s all he can think about. From your pretty face to the way your hands trembled out of nervousness in his company, your hair, your eyes, your meek voice, how you carried yourself despite the anxiety. What a rotten coincidence it would have been if he had missed you: You nearly walked out right in front of his eyes!

Immediately, he recognizes that he's attracted to you. However, unlike with most yanderes, what he’s feeling is closer to pure romantic interest than the overwhelming desire to possess you. It’s been a good while, centuries, even, since someone has last caught his eye in this way, but it's nothing severe enough to make him spiral. For now, in his eyes, you're a terribly pretty thing, but that's as far as it goes. Though, if he were to get to know you better, things could take a different course.

As luck would have it, your boss sends you on the very same types of errands in the future as well. She’s a cunning lady, true to her Foxian blood, and so she has claimed it as her responsibility to see that you get more fuel for your crush. Not only are you much more efficient that way, but the gleeful grin on your face is more than enough of a reason for her to put in a bit more effort. All in all, it’s a wholesome turn of events.

You start seeing the General on a regular basis while conducting the tasks delegated to you. More often than not, he’s at his desk when you pop up, and each time, he greets you with the same warmth as he did the first time. The relationship between the two of you slowly gets more and more cordial, until eventually, you would dare to call him ”your acquaintance”. Anything beyond that is off the table since he’s still a much more powerful figure than you could ever be, but it's far beyond enough for you. He listens to you talk about your day, about your boss, about your personal life, even. He doesn't seem that keen on sharing his own stories with you, but you're more than happy with the arrangement. You have learned that listening is his strong suit.

Though, as time goes by, you start to notice that your initial crush on him has begun dwindling down. As you have gotten to know him better, the attraction has slowly lost substance until your heart doesn't even leap anymore when you see him at his seat. It's not to say that you don't like him, no, but these days, the romantic scenarios you used to make up of him seem silly, more than anything. He has become something ordinary.

He knows, of course, that much like many people before you, the interest you initially showed at him was the youthful, innocent kind. It’s no unusual thing for him to have to deal with; he knows he’s quite a handsome guy. From you, especially, it was incredibly flattering: He could have bathed in your gaze like sun-warmed lake water, relished the red that adorned your cheeks, but as time has gone on, he no longer senses the same type of infatuation from you. Now that the two of you have actually gotten to know each other, it’s almost like you think of him as a… friend.

The second that the revelation comes to him, his sanity, the figurative floor that has kept him from falling into depravity, shatters under him, and he falls head first into the endless pit of his own self-absorption. The change occurs in a heartbeat, quite possibly in the middle of a conversation between you and him. Uncharacteristically, he seems to pause in the middle of his sentence, as if having forgotten what he was about to say, but he quickly composes himself. However, in that single moment, all of his psyche has flipped upside-down. And, the worst thing is that, you won’t catch a single glimpse of it.

He’s skilled when it comes to the art of concealing one’s emotions. He has had to do it for the past seven centuries, so it would be quite embarrassing if he hadn’t already caught the gist of it. Despite the way all of his mental alarms are going off at the same time, he continues the chat with you, completely unfazed.

He can’t believe you don’t harbour that sort of affection towards him anymore. It wasn't obvious then, but it seems that he took your attention for granted. He feels like the chance he knew he had slips from his fingers right then and there, as if a switch had been flipped. His mind is flooded with beyond unpleasant thoughts about all the losses he has had to witness, the death, the pain, everything. The image of you turning your back to him is enough to raise his pulse to near hysteria. Everything is about to come crashing down, and he’s just quick enough to excuse himself for some mundane reason before he loses himself.

It's so selfish. How could he be so selfish? How did he not see that, with every conversation, with every exchanged smile, your interest in him had lost substance bit by bit, and now he's left with nothing but a friend. You were supposed to adore him, to be all jittery when looking him in the eye. He didn't consider himself a self-centered person, but it seems that he has to reconsider that. You, little, tiny you have been holding so much power over him and he didn't even notice it.

He hasn’t had to deal with his vulnerable side for a good while. In his everyday life, there’s hardly anything that would be upsetting enough to affect him like this. It’s a terribly egotistical thought, he recognizes, but he simply can’t stomach the idea of your interest dying down. Unbeknown to you, and, he sees now, to him, he has breathed in your presence like it’s oxygen to him. He sits down and buries his face in his palms.

˗ˏˋ ★ 2. Securing: How will they abduct their darling? When, where and how?

For the next few days after his breakdown, Jing Yuan ponders over the options he has. Obviously, the most reasonable and morally correct action would be to just… let you live. He takes pride in being justful and kind, and every other alternative plan would be sheer mockery of such descriptions. The Luofu is particular about the citizens’ rights, too: Wrongful imprisonment would be against at least a dozen laws, and even more when taking his position into the equation.

But, then again, he needs you. It's not justifiable in any way, and he doesn’t understand it himself, either, but he can’t deny the fact that he would cut off his own arm if it meant that he could wake up to the sight of you every day. No matter how many days go by, that urge doesn’t die down — it grows stronger and stronger, until abducting you is all he can think about.

He’s vaguely pretending in his mind that, no, he isn’t conducting a plan for kidnapping you, but that’s exactly what he’s doing. During this time, he spends more time in his house than usual — to the point where Yanqing has to question if "the General is feeling under the weather". Despite the concern, he assures everyone that he’s doing fine, that he has just been busy outside of work matters. Truth to be told, he’s at his wit’s end regarding the entire thing, but nevertheless, he doesn’t stop pursuing his goal.

The eventual, inevitable outcome is that he abandons his honour in favour of achieving, well, you. It's the result of multiple days' careful consideration and a generous amount of introspection, but no matter which way he looks at it, he always ends up choosing you over anything else. And, when he makes his final decision, it's like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders. Jingliu would be really proud of him for this one.

Ultimately, his plan isn’t even that grand or scrupulous as one would perhaps expect from him. Yes, it’s not particularly risky, either, but at its core, it's as simple as it gets. So much so, even, that when it has been conducted, you don’t immediately realize that you have just become a victim of his whims.

It’s an ordinary day. You have, once again, been tasked to visit the Seat of Divine Foresight, and as is usual, the General is there, sitting at his desk with a scroll of text spread over the table. He raises his gaze when you step in, welcoming you with his typical, soft smile that used to make your heart leap out of your chest. These days, you only feel the steady delight that comes when seeing someone dear to you.

You’re about to drop the documents off to Qingzu again, but this time, he stops you before you can begin searching for the woman. ”Actually, she informed me that it would be best if they were delivered directly at my residence”, he claims, gesturing at the papers in your hands. Your eyes widen a little, caught off-guard by the statement, but you're quick to compose yourself. It’s not unusual for him to take some work matters back to his house, and besides, for him to request something from you should be an honour! Hence, you don't think that much of it. You agree to his proposal, setting the stack on his desk instead of finding Qingzu, but he continues: ”That, and I have a few documents to send back to your boss. Would it be an inconvenience if your errand were to stretch a bit?”

You look at him, down at the documents, back at him. It’s a bit of an odd suggestion, considering that such a thing has never been asked of you before, but then your rational mind takes over. Surely, it’s not that big of a deal to walk to his place and back since there’s a good reason for it, too, right? You know roughly where the house is, anyway, so maybe you can make it back by starskiff before your boss starts wondering if you’re slacking off. Plus, there’s no reason for you not to trust the General. He’s been nothing but cordial to you, which has made your job far easier and much more pleasant than it would be under normal circumstances. And then again, your boss is probably going to be more than happy about you seeing an extra task through than not strictly sticking to the schedule.

You agree to the plan. His expression softens. He informs you that you’ll be leaving in a quarter of an hour. Nothing in his behaviour is indicative of anything out of the ordinary.

The two of you head to his house. Through the crowded streets of the Xianzhou Luofu and all the way to where his residence stands on top of a little hill, you walk beside him. You sit next to him in the starskiff that takes you to a completely different part of the ship. Throughout the trip, he makes little attempts at talking to you about nothing in particular, maybe trying to ease your mind, maybe just out of courtesy, but aside from those, he’s unusually quiet. That, and you notice that his pace is a tiny bit hasty. Your legs are starting to strain from constantly having to catch up with him. You don’t dare comment on it, however — it’s probably just your height difference. He’s really tall, so it’s likely just what he’s used to.

It’s not. He’s putting all of his willpower into not speed-walking his way through the entire commute. He’s very much aware of how you’re just barely keeping up with his pace, but it’s the best he can do, really. The more people there are that see you, the bigger the risk of somebody finding out what he is about to do. However, the great thing about being in his position is that nobody, nobody would dare to question him if it comes to having to prove his innocence. It’s a terribly corrupt use of his status, he knows, but moral sacrifices like that are only necessary when working towards a greater aim.

When you arrive at his residence, you can't help but marvel at the sight of it. His place is a beautiful, traditional Luofu house with a large yard and a tall fence surrounding the premises. You comment on it, telling him that you find the view gorgeous. He just gives you a smile as a response.

He leads you inside the house. You immediately come to question the fact that it's awfully dark: Maybe he's really that mindful about his energy usage? Though, even when the two of you get further into the building, he doesn't switch any lights on. An uneasy feeling is making itself known in the pit of your stomach.

You consider asking him to just retrieve whatever he has to from inside the house, but as he doesn’t suggest it himself, you conclude that it would be rude to question him. You follow him through a few rooms, gazing at the interior with curiosity, having your eyes travel over the ornate items on the walls, the paintings, a chess board spread on one of the tables… His house is surprisingly ordinary, at least according to your standards, though it's a bit hard to make it all out in the dim lighting.

He opens one last door at the very back of the apartment and holds it open for you to enter the room behind it. You walk past him, stepping into the darkness, squinting your eyes to see anything. You’re just about to gently propose that perhaps he should turn the lights on, but when you turn around, you hear the lock click shut behind you.

The room is pitch black. You have been rendered blind. The violent shiver that runs down your spine cannot be described in words. Your stomach flips in the same instant, and an ice-cold surge of terror floods into your bloodstream.

No, maybe he’s just… maybe he’s just… It’s because he’s…

The very same moment you realize that you have run out of justifications, his hand shoots out from the darkness to grab your form. You try to dodge, but of course, no person on this planet holds enough strength to be able to resist General Jing Yuan.

His arm wraps around your upper body, effectively locking you in place. His other hand goes to rest over your mouth, large enough to cover the entire lower half of your face. His chest is firm against your back, and no matter how you try to tear at his arm, he won’t as much as budge. When you start flailing your legs and trying to step on his toes, kick at his shins, aiming in between his legs, he lifts your entire body in the air like you weighed nothing to him. In a disproportionately calm voice considering the situation, he speaks in your ear, telling you to ”calm down, you’re only going to hurt yourself".

Naturally, that doesn't make you give up the fight even the slightest bit. Still, no matter how hard you struggle against him, your screams are muffled by his palm pressing against your mouth, and whatever little punches you’re able to land at his sides do nothing but tire you out further. The true panic is starting to set in, and your movements are getting more and more haphazard. He takes note of this, of course, and lets up his grip on your face a tiny bit to let you breathe. There’s nobody around that could hear your trouble, anyway.

When you run out of energy to put up a physical struggle, you resort to pleading with him, begging him to let you go, telling him that ”you won’t tell anybody if he just lets you go back, you won’t tell your boss, you won’t tell anybody, you swear”, but none of it really registers in his brain. At the moment, he's hardly capable of sensible thought. He’s still holding you in the air, just to be sure, but it seems that the worst is over for now. He lets out a sigh of relief.

A few tears have rolled down your cheeks and caught on the hand that’s still slotted against your face. He knows that you’re terrified out of your mind, that you don’t understand the least bit of what’s happening; you might even think that you’re in immediate danger, that he’s going to harm you. The idea of you going through such thing does cause his chest to ache a bit, but he’s sure that, with time, the fear you feel now will turn into something much more pleasant. And, fortunately for him, he has time.

˗ˏˋ ★ 3. Life: What is it like to live with them? How do they treat the darling?

The first few days are rough for you. Properly speaking, it's not because of him; he won’t put you through anything too harsh at the start (considering what he could be doing), but the frightening part is that you have been left in the dark regarding his intentions. It’s not that he means for you to feel that way — it’s more that he doesn’t know how to talk to you yet. You're in a highly vulnerable place mentally, and so, he doesn't want to inflict any further unintentional damage by getting too close too fast. Unless you make the initiative to talk to him, he won’t force you to converse with him at all in the first week or so. You have your own room that you’re locked in, and he doesn’t really talk to you when he brings you your meals and whatever else you might need. He greets you and says a few things, of course, but nothing beyond that.

When it comes to the room itself, it could be much worse. It’s nicely furnished: You have a large, plush bed to sleep in, you have your own bathroom, he has left you things to pass time with, and you can see the beautiful view of his yard through the tall window on the north wall. All things considered, it’s far from the worst place to be imprisoned in. It used to be one of his spare bedrooms, actually. "But it's all yours now", he tells you as he sets a bowl of rice in front of your huddled form in the room's farthest corner.

Though, after a few days’ ”settling in”-period, you're going to have to start cheering up a bit. He’s going to come into your room one day with your dinner. It’s just like all the previous evenings, but this time, he doesn’t leave after the few soulless sentences he utters. Instead, he sets his share of the food beside yours and sits down in front of where you’re balled up in the corner. It seems to have become your favourite spot — it must feel safe to you in some way. He makes sure to keep his distance for now, not entering your personal space, but it still leaves you feeling trapped. He slides your bowl closer to you, urging you to eat, but your hands remain tightly slotted against your chest as if you feared that he was going to cut off your fingers. He sighs at the display.

He asks you how you’re doing. The answer is obvious, you’re not faring too well, but the question is more about the sentiment behind it than your actual answer. He averts his gaze from your quivering form for a moment.

It takes a while for him to find suitable words for the situation. However, after he does, he opens the conversation by apologizing. You’re not the least bit impressed by his show of regret, and you make it known by pulling even further into yourself. You debate on if you should kick the bowl of food over just to get the point across, but as if sensing your intent, he moves the thing to the side.

He begins explaining your situation to you to the best of his ability. He lets you know that he’s not going to hurt you, that you haven’t done anything wrong, that he loves you, and that he’s not going to let you out. It all comes out of his mouth one thing after another, perhaps in an effort not to prolong the suspense. You’re equally horrified and confused by each of the claims, but the two latter ones are evidently the most shocking to you. The dried streaks of tears that adorn your face look like they’re going to get a fresh round in a bit. You swallow down a lump in your throat, willing yourself not to cry in front of him.

He promises to answer any and all of your questions if you have them. You have a difficult time deciphering what his eyes convey. It’s your decision whether or not you want to talk to him right away because the offer will remain open as long as you’re there with him, but he's a bit more receptive at the start of your captivity. If you don’t take the opportunity, he won't bother you any further with conversation attempts, and the two of you are going to eat in silence. Nevertheless, though, whatever your choice is, the moment marks the end of your adjustment period.

When it comes to his day-to-day life, you'll notice that his time isn’t really bound by that strict of a routine. He wakes up early in the morning, yes, and he has his job to attend most days, but other than that, you’ll be spending a lot of time with him in his house.

He feeds you, takes care of your needs, makes sure that you’re doing okay and that you’re in as sound of a mental space as you can be, circumstances taken into account. You have his attention whenever you desire it, no matter what he’s currently occupied with. He attempts to strike up chats with you, varying in topic, and slowly but surely, he has been able to get words out of you. Whether it’s you asking him for something or even complaining, he gladly accepts it all. He also takes you outside whenever he’s able: It’s important for you to get sunlight, and besides, the yard is much more spacious than the room you’re holed up in. It’s under the condition that your wrist is linked to his with a red tie, though, so you can’t make a run for it, but he lets you roam around as much as you’d like.

When it comes to his free time, as mentioned, he likes to spend it with you. From the conversations he used to have with you back when you were still free, he has a pretty good idea of the stuff that you're into. Whether it be arts or sports or anything in between, he suggests doing it with you. More often than not, you decline, and it does set him back a bit. If you're not up for doing it with him, he's perfectly fine with just watching you. You point out that it's equally as awkward if not even more so, but he insists that he doesn't mind. He likes to watch you do things, no matter what they are.

His personal favourite activities are, however, napping, gardening and chess. All of these are even better with you, naturally. It doesn't matter if you don't know the least bit about any of them (though napping is not the most demanding hobby to have), he guides you through with a gentle hand on your back. "I don't know the rules" is not valid enough of a reason to get out of playing board games with him, and neither is "I'm bad at it". He'll sit you on his lap and literally guide your hand on the pieces if he has to.

He also has a really sneaky way to get you to play with him. Times when you're clearly not feeling like it, he might pick you up and pretend to want to nap with you. Fearing the two-hour heater treatment and the sheer boredom that comes with it, you hastily propose that you do something else instead. "Hmm, what would you suggest?" is a difficult question to answer on the fly, and so, you end up going with the chess. Regardless of if you choose that or the nap, it's a win for him. Cunning fuck.

At night, the two of you sleep in the same bed; either yours or his. You won’t be able to escape from him since the only position he allows you to rest in is encased in his arms. You’re tightly pressed against his broad chest, head tucked under his chin. It gets kind of hot like that, but no matter how many times you complain about it, he insists on doing it. You feel like you’re cuddling a radiator.

Jing Yuan is not a bad yandere to be with, all things considered. If you weren’t held in his house against your will, one could think that it’s just an ordinary, happy relationship you have with him.

˗ˏˋ ★ 4. Rules: What kind of rules do they enforce? How lenient are they? How do they keep their darling in check?

He doesn’t really set out any rules for you. It’s more that he assumes that you understand them yourself. He did state that ”he’s not going to let you escape, unfortunately”, so that’s given, but aside from that, he’s incredibly lenient. You can yell at him all you want, insult him, curse at him, punch him, kick him — anything you fancy, really. Though, if you get really violent with him, he will restrict your movements. It’s not like your hits do a lot to his rock-solid body, but he would prefer not to be beaten regardless. Though, it’s good that you’re attempting to channel your rage to something else than yourself, he thinks.

Another thing is that he would rather not have you break stuff in your room. He can replace all of it, of course, but it’s always a bit of a hassle to do so. That, and hey, the room didn’t really do anything to you. It kind of pains him to see that you would place so little value on his home. However, if it makes you feel better, then who is he to say no to you: He could get you a dummy in your room if you're so keen on venting your aggression in violent ways.

The most severe restriction in your life is the fact that he doesn’t ever let you wander further than his yard. When he’s around, you’re allowed to explore the entire house (preferably where he’s able to see you), and he takes you outside whenever you’re feeling like it, but it’s going to be a miracle if you ever see the planet outside of his residence again. He knows it’s not ideal: It’s good for one’s mental health not to constantly look at the same view, but it’s a necessary evil, he thinks. He's simultaneously more lenient and far stricter compared to other yanderes when it comes to controlling where you get to roam: Though you'll never get to wander any further than his house, the entire plot is yours to explore (under his watchful eye, of course). He could be far less merciful.

A major part of his lenience comes from the fact that he feels remorse for having abducted you — especially now that you don’t seem to be particularly pleased about the turn of events. He’s not going to set you free by any means, of course not, but he still feels sorry for the anguish he has caused. That being said, he’s incredibly weak to things you might suggest. If you want anything, he’ll most likely get it for you (to a reasonable degree). If you want to go for a walk, he’ll take you. Whatever it is, he’ll abandon his work in favour of entertaining you.

When it comes to keeping you in check, he himself wouldn’t like to use that term. It’s more about ”making sure that you don’t so stupid things”. He doesn’t do violence, he doesn’t make threats, doesn’t tie you down, doesn’t really restrict you in any other way than locking you in your room, and even that is usually only if he has to leave for work or if you've been difficult. He’s fairly confident that you won’t be able to escape from there, so he doesn’t see the need for further precautions. Your furniture is much too heavy for you to lift, and the lock cannot be picked. Yes, if you rammed yourself into the window full force, you could technically make it out, but he doubts you have the courage for that. More on this later.

It’s not that he can’t be firm when it comes to setting boundaries, though. He’s a very confident man, and if there’s something that is absolutely off-limits, he will let you know in the calm, rich and absolute tone of his. And, you should know that when he says no, it really is a no.

˗ˏˋ ★ 5. Consequences: What kind of punishments will the darling face? How do they punish different offences?

Usually, his punishments are not that severe. He doesn’t penalize mild offences that he perhaps should: These include things like badmouthing him, yelling, trying to hurt him (with some exceptions), refusing to speak to him, that sort of thing. He doesn’t believe in reprimanding you more than strictly necessary, and the purpose is not to scare you or hurt you for the sake of it. Moreover, he doesn’t have any go-to methods; he will do whatever he deems suitable at the moment.

What he does punish you for, for example, is the aforementioned breaking things. He has a spare room in his residence for when he has to have you out of your own for whatever reason. It’s a crammed, empty space with no windows, and that’s where you’ll be spending an hour or two if you decide to trash what he has so gracefully provided you with. It’s dark in there, and it’s so narrow that you’re barely able to lie on the floor without your head or your feet touching the wall, so you don’t particularly enjoy the times he puts you in there. He might also throw you for a cooldown in the damned cabinet if you seriously don’t stop trying to beat him up. As much as he would like to, he really can’t have you trying to punch his face in when he’s trying to bring you dinner. He would prefer not to spill the food on the floor.

Then again, if you start getting a bit more creative with your attempts at trying to cause physical harm to him, you will face at least some degree of consequences. If you were to, say, try to stab him with your utensils when he comes to have lunch with you, he won’t take the action lightly. He obviously dodges the hit — what kind of a swordmaster would he be if his reflexes were that weak — but it’s the notion that he’s more concerned about. He firmly grabs your wrist in the air, giving it a warning squeeze. He lets you know that ”if you do it again, he’ll have to think of another way for you to eat”. The point gets across, at least for now. The same thing goes for things like, eh, assassination attempts while he’s sleeping, hurling sharp objects at him, and so on. You should know that his threats are not empty, either: He could feed you by hand if you prove untrustworthy with your chopsticks.

If he has time and he needs to teach you a lesson, one of his methods is forcing you to sit in his lap for hours on end. It’s not a particularly comfortable position for you: His legs are hoisted over yours, effectively locking you in place, and he’s holding both of your hands in one of his. No amount of struggling is going to get him to let you go until he’s satisfied. The duration of this procedure varies: It could be just for until he’s done with his work, or it could be basically for the entire day. You never know with him.

It also serves as an effective method to calm you down. It's how animals are soothed as well; by holding them down until the body gets the message that there's no danger. That, and the more energy you spend on trying to wrestle yourself out of his grasp, the calmer you are afterwards. It's not even that much of a punishment, truly; you should be grateful that this is his method.

If you try to escape from him, though, you’ll come to understand the worst extent of the consequences he can offer you. As much as he would like for it not to happen, you almost flee once when you, against his expectations, manage to ram yourself into the window with enough force to shatter the glass. It’s after a considerable amount of attempts, and you had to switch elbows after a while since your entire side felt like it was bruising, but after numerous times of running against the window, you hear how it cracks. A few more hits, and your entire arm crashes through the windowpane.

Your forearm suffers a deep gash in the process. Blood spills from the wound, but you have no time to think about stemming the flow as you focus on making the hole in the window large enough for you to fit through. You tear away a part of the now broken muntin to use as a tool to break away the sharpest points on the glass, being as quick and as precise as you’re possibly able. Within a few minutes, you deem your work good enough, set your foot on the window sill, and climb out of the building.

The General has been away for quite some time now. It’s only a matter of time that he returns to the house, so you know you need to be swift. The main exit is at the front of the house, and if you make it there, you’ll be free. Not caring about the way your own blood is staining your clothes red, you start running your way around the building.

The residence is not that big. It’s just that your room is facing the back side of the premises, right into his garden. You have to make it past the twisting paths that line the ponds and fountains, and then you’ll need to cross the smaller fence that separates the back from the front of the plot. Your panic is keeping your arm from hurting; the adrenaline is blocking the agony. You’re certain that the excruciating pain will catch up to you soon enough, and you would prefer that moment to be when you’re already far out of his reach. So, you leap over all that garnishes his yard, wetting your socks as you scramble through the water and to the other side where the inner fence stands.

The thing is higher than you remember, now that it actually comes to you having to jump over it; it’s all the way up to your neck. It would not be as strenuous of an effort if both of your arms were still in the game, but now, it’s a bigger challenge to get past the thing. You wince as you slide the pads of your fingers over the barrier's jagged texture.

Regardless, you have no choice but to make it through. Determined to make your escape, you start manoeuvring yourself over the fence with only one hand. Every single spot on your body strains as you do your best to see the endeavour through, and your palms scrape against the rough surface, most likely drawing blood. Still, clenching your teeth, you grasp the edge with all your might, fling one of your legs over the top, and with great pain, you manage to cross the fence.

Your body tumbles down onto the other side of the gravel. You fall right on your back on the hard ground, and you're hit with an overwhelming urge to vomit. However, you only allow yourself a single second of rest before rising onto your feet and directing your attention to the exit.

He’s standing there.

Your eyes lock with his. The expression on his face is completely unreadable. Though, if there’s one thing to note, it’s the fact that the usual smile has disappeared from his features. He stands completely still, staring at the sight of you with his hands resting on his sides.

You don’t make an attempt to sprint for the exit. You know you can’t make it past him. All hope you had gathered in your being dissipates into the air like it was never there. Despite your heart still hammering in your ears, you’re suddenly all too aware of how your wounded arm aches to the point of it radiating into your entire upper body.

He strides towards you. As a last ditch effort, you attempt to dart to the side and dive under his arm when he reaches out for you. For once, he doesn’t expect defiance, and you manage to evade his grasp. You manage to get a few meters further before you feel his fingers dig into the back of your shirt. He yanks you backwards with an unusual amount of force. You let out a yelp, choking at the way your collar tightens against your throat. Regardless, you do your best to turn around and rip his grip off of you. It’s a futile effort, of course, and with a single tug of his hand, he immobilizes your body against his.

You don’t fight him when he wordlessly wraps one arm over the backside of your thighs. He hoists you over his shoulder with roughness you’re not quite used to. The air is knocked out of your lungs as your chest is thrown against his upper back.

The entire aftermath is messy. Not necessarily physically, although it can be that, too, but emotionally. He doesn’t show it on his face, but you can’t miss the way his hands tremble the slightest bit; such bodily reaction is so out of ordinary for someone like him. The feeling is the same as when he first realized that his love for you was less that and more obsession. It’s the sudden realization that you could very well leave him if you so desired, and now that you have shown him that you’re capable of it, he has to admit it to himself that he truly has been startled. He’s nothing short of a level-headed man, but you’re the one piece in his life that threatens that.

He brings you into his room. As much as he's trying to curb his anger, he can't help the way he flings you onto his bed. You let out a frightened little yelp as he does, but he can't find it in himself to care. Instead, he climbs on top of you and grabs your entire face. His fingers dig into your cheeks, your temples, your jaw. Your eyes are blown wide open, trying to suck in frantic breaths through where his palm presses against your lips.

Then, his grip tightens. Simultaneously, his other hand latches around your wounded forearm, squeezing tight. Strangled wheezes and muffled pleas erupt from your mouth as his fingers sink into the open flesh, his nails sting against the gash, meant to hurt. Your entire body is trembling along with the whimpers that spill past your lips. Despite how you beg, his grip only gets more and more crushing.

You fear he's going to shatter your jaw. Your arm has gone numb from how much pain it has been projected to. Instead of your words, you attempt to plead with him with your eyes. It proves to be a terrifying task, however, when you come to find that his gaze is solely focused on your own. His pupils are sharp, his face expressionless, and most terrifyingly, he doesn't seem to have heard a single word you said. Your tears catch against hand, but not even that is enough to pull him out of his trance.

It's only when you let out a desperate shriek that his hand flies off your face like he had set it on a stovetop. A simple "ow-ow-OW" is enough to break him away from the daze, and in a split second, he releases his grip. You immediately curl in on yourself, bringing your bloodied arm against your heaving chest.

He himself is breathing heavily, too: Seeing the state that you're in, the reality becomes apparent to him. He rises off your body, sucking in a deep inhale and closing his eyes. For a moment, he just stands on his knees above your form, straddling you with his arms resting on his sides. You're not sure what it is that he's doing: It looks like he has fallen into another stupor, almost, but the way his fists are clenched tells a different story. It's not like you can really concentrate on the sight, though. Your eyes are swimming with tears, and the pain is so unbearable that you wonder how long you're going to be able to remain conscious.

Still, after a long minute, he opens his eyes and slowly exhales through his nose. Blinking a few times, his gaze settles on your form. He couldn’t care less for how the blood that now stains his hand seeps into your shirt as he softly sets his palm above your stomach. Your increasingly rapid pulse rushes beneath your sweat-clad skin where he gently pushes down on your abdomen. His lashes fall shut again.

He lets you know that he’s going to have to lock you in the spare room for a few days. You hardly even react to the statement, much too absorbed in your own thoughts and the pain that’s shooting up your arm. ”I know it’s not pleasant, but considering what you did, I assume you were prepared for it”, he continues, stroking his thumb against your skin.

He asks you to remain still while he goes get something for your wounds. Your face contorts to something akin to distress, but the expression fades away in the very same second. Instead, you let out a near-silent sob, and a single tear runs down your cheek.

˗ˏˋ ★ 6. Emotions I: How do they show love? How do they attempt to make the darling love them?

Jing Yuan is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to affection. Not only is he a naturally gentle person but also a sucker for romantic gestures. That being said, be prepared to be showered in (unwanted) love.

The first and biggest thing for him is touch. Touch here, touch there, touch-touch-touch. It’s like he has a health bar on him that gradually goes down and only regenerates when he gets to have his hands on you. That’s how much you have to deal with his physical side.

He can’t help it. Every chance he gets, you feel his fingers dancing along the curve of your shoulders, brushing through your hair, ”adjusting your clothing” in favour of getting to touch you. He loves the subtlety of it all: It’s enough to satisfy his need for closeness while simultaneously being just mild enough for you to not get upset at his ministrations. Of course, if you show a negative response, he won't push the limit too far. Be mindful, though, because rejecting his advances will only work at the start: If you don’t allow him to touch you, the eventual outcome is that he starts doing it against your will, and it’s only going to escalate from there. The man needs his hugs.

Ah, hugs. Those and cuddling are the source of his life energy. He does both multiple times a day, and whenever he does, you feel like his body is about to consume you. He’s a large man: His hand fits around your entire bicep, and he can hold your weight up with only one arm. That being said, he gets creative with how he embraces you. He could have you lie in his lap, either straight or sideways, or he could spoon you, or then he could just hug you the classic way. The front, the side, the back, he doesn’t really have a preference. If he makes you nap with him, he also enjoys sort of half-lying on top of you. He can’t do it with his full weight, of course, since he would crush you, but it’s comforting to him while simultaneously making sure that you can’t flee from him.

Then, he loves-loves-loves to massage you. He would do it every other hour if you just would let him. As much as you don’t like giving in to his whims, you must admit that he’s ridiculously good at it. If you’ve been looking especially groggy and irritable, he might take you to the garden and sit you down on the grass. You wonder if he’s going to make you play a game of his fuckass chess again, but no. Instead, he takes a seat behind you. With the back of his hand, he lightly nudges your lower back to coax you to straighten your posture, and as you do, his touch moves up to your shoulders.

The way his thumbs press against the muscle connecting the back of your neck to your shoulder is firm yet as gentle as he could possibly be. Carefully, he makes a repetitive, round shape on your skin before moving a little bit lower. His palms are so warm, and oh, it feels so good that a part of you wants to just stand up and leave in order to not give him the satisfaction of knowing exactly how pleasant it is. However, you don’t, and within ten minutes, his hands come up from either side of your neck to softly tilt your chin up because your head is starting to droop.

It also goes when you’re lying down. He does it in the bedroom (in an innocent way) since it’s much more convenient to have you rest on the bed on your stomach. He can have your back bare that way, too, and he's able to straddle you unlike when you’re sitting up. Scalp, feet, hands, he massages them all like it’s his favourite thing in the entire universe, which is probably not too far from the truth.

Other physical things he does include unlimited headpats, carrying you around (he takes a lot of pride in this one, and you’re not pleased), and playing with your hair to the point that he messes it up. He would probably stick a finger up your nose if it meant that he got to touch you. Though, if you’re really resistant to having him close to you, he tones it down quite a bit. He’s a respectful man, but admittedly, your life is a lot more pleasant if you just entertain him.

In addition, bathing with you is a thing he takes immense pleasure in. He has got quite a mane on his head, and if you do as well, he would like nothing more than to care for your hair for you. He has a big tub in his house for both of you to soak in, and he prolongs the washing time to the best of his ability until you forcibly remove yourself from the bath. Usually, you’re feeling a bit spiteful and don’t let him go beyond what’s necessary, but sometimes, you allow him to conduct the entire menu: He washes your whole body down, gives you a good back rub, takes care of your hair, everything. He would probably go into cardiac arrest if you showed any interest in doing the same for him, so that’s something to keep in mind.

Lastly, Jing Yuan is very good with words. He knows it himself, and he uses it to his advantage. It manifests in well-placed praises, beautifully phrased compliments, and the way he talks to you in general. His voice has that natural, calming sound to it, and in any other circumstances, hearing him would make you feel at ease. He compliments your looks, your person, everything. If you’re occupied with something, he often says a few nice words about whatever it is. His praises are plenty: He’s kind of desperate for you to feel even neutrally about him, and that occasionally shines through.

˗ˏˋ ★ 7. Emotions II: How do they deal with the darling’s emotions? How are outbursts handled? How do they attempt to comfort the darling?

Jing Yuan isn’t afraid of emotions in the general sense. He has lived long enough to have experienced the entire human spectrum of feelings, and he’s more than skilled in regulating them, both in himself and in others. He’s empathetic by nature, and so, dealing with your feelings is simultaneously easy and arduous for him.

You don’t show him anger that often. It never gets a reaction out of him nor does it make him give you any leeway regarding anything, really. Yes, you sometimes scream at him and throw insults his way, but it never seems to faze him. The same thing goes with physically lashing out, as talked about, since he just holds you against his body until your little fit of rage passes. He doesn’t usually seem bothered by it, either: The startled animal analogy stands.

He does get much more receptive, however, when your emotions make themselves known in a more woeful manner, and only then does he attempt to genuinely console you. He knows you have a lot of feelings about the entire situation you have been put in, so here and there, he encourages you to vent them to him. His mind can suffer much more sorrow than yours, after all. He makes an effort to ask you how you’re faring quite often, and unlike most people, he genuinely expects an honest answer.

It’s not only the abduction and captivity themselves that you have a hard time processing internally. There’s also the factor that you used to be romantically interested in the man, at least until a certain point — and the sentiment is the complete opposite nowadays. You still haven’t quite taken the time for yourself to untangle the thoughts affiliated with the events that have taken place; the betrayal is a difficult topic to get into. Often, you prefer to let the anguish burst out when he isn’t around since seeing the person responsible for it all would only make it worse. In the middle of planning your escape and whatnot, you sometimes cry for a while, just to dull out the despair that ripples inside of you. It doesn’t help with anything, really: You’re aware that you’re wasting the precious hours of your time free of his presence, but you do tend to feel a little bit afterwards.

Even if you try to be discreet about it, there are bound to be instances when he happens to walk in on your weakest moments. Maybe he’s returning early from his work, and the first thing he seeks out, naturally, is you. However, when he opens the door to your room, he comes to find that you’re sitting on the edge of your bed, face hidden in your hands as your shoulders heave. It doesn’t take him more than a few seconds to figure out the situation, but he needs to spare a moment to consider what his next course of action should be. Soon enough, though, he slowly makes his way to your quivering form.

Your weight shifts as he sits down next to you on the bed. Of course, even if you didn’t acknowledge his presence, you noticed him entering the room. You guessed that he might try to offer comfort to you, and whether or not you wished for him to do so, you don’t reject his advances.

He wraps an arm around your shoulders, pulling you to him. He might open his mouth to either speak your name in a soft tone or just to let out a quiet sigh, but there are no words beyond that. Whatever it is that is the cause for your sadness, his main method is to calm you down with his physical presence, true to his nature. He coaxes you to lie down over his lap, to rest your head on his thigh. When he has you in that position, he starts running his fingers through your hair, careful and gentle. If you’re receptive, he may inquire about the reason behind your tears but if not, he’s going to continue lulling you into serenity until you tire yourself out enough to fall asleep.

Sleeping is a particularly effective way to get you in a better mood again, he has noticed. So if he catches you feeling down, his first suggestion is always to take a nap. He’s free to do so almost whenever you want, and even if you don’t accept the offer most of the time, he’s all the more elated when you do.

˗ˏˋ ★ 8. Thing to exploit: What are the darling’s best chances at escaping? Are there things the darling can use to their advantage? How can the darling make things easier for themselves?

The best things to take advantage of are mostly related to his trust in his methods and your perceived incapability of breaking through them. Compared to other possible candidates, he’s not the paranoid kind that would seal every single crack in the wall and chain all your limbs to the bed, so in that sense, you have a much better base for fleeing than with someone like, say, Sunday. The difficult part of it all is that although his precautions aren’t innumerable, they’re still, unfortunately, effective enough. As mentioned before, you can’t pick the lock on the door, and he installs iron bars on the window after your first attempt. Trying to shank him is off the table for obvious reasons. Despite not being aware of it yourself, you run out of options much faster than one would expect.

Under no circumstances are you allowed to have a phone; he took care of your previous one. That, and a few weeks after your disappearance, the efforts to locate you have been deemed unfruitful, and the search has halted. That’s all the more convenient from his perspective, but you’re quite devastated to hear the news. However, such is the life at the Xianzhou Luofu: So many people go missing yearly that they can only spare a limited amount of resources on finding a single person before they have to move over to the next case. The current theory on your vanishing is that you were ambushed by some Mara-struck beasts and failed to make it out of their clutches. Essentially, you have been ruled dead. That being said, the main take-away is that nobody is searching for you.

Your most notable chances at making it out are with outside help. Though, as stated, Jing Yuan doesn’t let you see anybody aside from him under normal circumstances, so it's not just any outside help. You’re going to need to get your hands dirty if you want to add people to your rapidly-shrunken social circle.

Namely, a certain healer is your best bet. You might think that Jing Yuan is never going to let you see anybody else aside from him, due to the fact that your location being leaked could cause a scandal that would quake the entire ship, but this is actually not the case. Namely, after your first escape attempt that ended up with the skin on your forearm being shredded, you’ll get to meet a strange Foxian man.

He shows up not long after Jing Yuan locked you in the spare room with your loosely bandaged arm and tells you that he ”has to take care of something”. That something ends up being calling a healer over since tending your wound seemed a tad bit too far out of his expertise. When the lock to your dark prison opens, instead of being faced with the familiar silhouette of your captor, there’s a shorter man standing beside the door frame. He has pale, peach-coloured hair and wears a red coat over the traditional Luofu attire. Most prominently, his eyes are closed, even though you sense that his attention is fully on you.

You don’t get to know his name, even though you make a point to ask him about it multiple times. You beg him to let somebody outside know that you’re alive, that you didn’t meet your end in the claws of the mara-struck beasts, but instead of helping you, he lets you know in a calm voice that ”he’s only here to take care of your injury, nothing more”. He doesn’t say it in a mean tone, though: It’s more of a statement. The ever-so-pleasant smile on his face is way too reminiscent to the one on your captor’s own that it makes you want to refuse the help altogether. However, looking at the sorry state of your arm, you swallow your protests and let him do his work.

At first, it’s no use trying to ask him for anything. You come to find quite quickly that the guy has an equally morally questionable streak as the General himself; or perhaps he’s just incredibly good at masking his intentions. If you attempt to chat with him while he stitches you up, he might entertain you if the topics are light-hearted. Anything else is a no-go, though — it seems that he has been given quite specific orders about what he can and what he cannot talk to you about. So, after he's done with his job, he leaves without having left you with anything useful.

It’s not the brightest idea, perhaps, but you figure that if you got hurt badly enough, he would have to come in again. There are multiple ways you could go about it: You could pretend to have twisted your ankle, or perhaps you could convince your captor that you have been suffering from a terrible headache. Then again, it’s likely that he would see through your act, so going the authentic route is unfortunately the better option. You could shove a handful of dirt in your mouth from the flowerbed when his attention is elsewhere. The fever you end up getting is admittedly a pain, but you succeed in your main objective nonetheless.

The healer is merciful enough to give you his name now that the two of you meet for the second time. Jiaoqiu, he calls himself. You get a strange vibe from the man: He doesn’t exactly wear his heart on his sleeve, and you have a difficult time making sense of his intentions. He doesn’t seem to be completely under Jing Yuan’s foot, however, and you decide to take advantage of that.

You could offer him something in return or conduct a plan that would guarantee that the escape would never be tracked to him. You must have quite a lot of wit to pull it off, but Jiaoqiu might very well provide you with some vital knowledge on how you could concoct a certain type of drug from the plants in the garden. Be careful, though, because discerning whether the glint in those squinted eyes of his is of genuine benevolence or something downright malicious is a tough task. It would be a shame if your escape would end up with you in a different house but under the exact same circumstances.

˗ˏˋ ★ 9. Further notes: Is there anything that sets them apart from the other yanderes? What unique qualities do they possess?

Firstly, your will to fight is much weaker than with other yanderes because Jing Yuan is just so… nice. That's not to excuse any of his actions, but he’s just a remarkably pleasant person to be around aside from all the immoral things he puts you through. He’s rarely rough except for when a situation strictly requires it, and he’s never anything but kind when it comes to you. Don’t be fooled, he can and will be firm when need be, but it’s not his usual way of going about things. He likes you most when you’re as happy as you can be, considering the context.

It doesn’t mean you won’t still rebel against him, though — the occasions where he has to take something away from you because you’ve been planning an escape are practically a weekly event. That, and you still try to throw hands at him sometimes. You're lucky he finds it sort of cute, but it's really not something he enjoys.

So, he comes up with a plan to maybe redirect your thoughts from the schemes and struggling. Specifically, he will present you with a deal: Alright, he will let you go, but it’s under a singular condition. You’ll have to beat him in a swordfight.

You look at him like he has lost the last bits of his sanity. Surely, he must know it himself that you’re not going to bite on such obvious bait: There’s no way that you would ever be able to best him in any form of martial arts, be it a sword or a glaive or a bow or anything in between. You wonder if he’s poking fun at you, mocking you for being so weak that you can’t even put up a proper fight against him. That would be the most obvious answer, but the expression on his face tells a different story; there seems to be something more to the suggestion.

You haven’t held a sword more than a few times in your entire life, and truth to be told, you didn’t expect the next instance to be when you’re about to duel the General himself for your compromised freedom. Nevertheless, that’s where you find yourself: You’re standing a short distance away from him in the yard, with a much-too-heavy blade in your trembling hands, while he’s holding his weapon of choice with accustomed composure. He teaches you the etiquette, instructing you to point your sword at him and greet your opponent. You roll your eyes, doing just that, and he mirrors your movements before the duel commences.

You barely manage to register the shape of him as he lunges towards you in a fraction of a millisecond. In the blink of an eye, a deafening sound of two pieces of metal clashing together pierces the air, and the next thing you know is that your sword is sticking out of his fence, the blade having sunk deep into the stone, horizontal. You can’t help the way your jaw falls slack as you stare at the sight. You look at the fence, then at your hands, then back at the fence. You foolishly thought that he would maybe go a little easier on you since you and him both are very much aware that you’re no swordswoman, but apparently, that was not the case.

He lets out a soft chuckle. ”Hm, looks like I have come out victorious”, he utters through poorly masked amusement. You wonder how quick you would have to be to punch the smile off of his face.

NS-FW

˗ˏˋ ★ 10. General look: How does their sexuality manifest? What does sex mean to them? How horny are they?

Yes, he is a somewhat sexual person. As mentioned, bodily closeness is a big thing to him, so it's only logical that it extends to this side of things as well. He sees sex as a tool to use for bonding, something to show affection with: Naturally, you’re going to be the target of said form of love.

Outwardly, he keeps his urges reserved. It wouldn’t be becoming of somebody in his position to be very open about their sexual side, after all. He does take care of himself in private, though. He has quite a high drive — or, perhaps it would be better to talk about a need for physical intimacy. He doesn’t like to talk about ”urges” himself since it makes the matter sound like it’s something uncontrollable. He’s adept at keeping himself in check, and so he doesn’t indulge in sexual pleasures as much as one would expect. Yes, he does turn to his hand a few days a week, but nothing beyond that.

He wouldn’t describe sex as being exhilarating to him, either. He doesn’t think of it as dirty or something to be ashamed about at all. It’s not about taking care of needs for him; it’s for two people to enjoy each other’s presence. He’s a bit conservative like that, but can you blame him? He has been alive for multiple centuries, so for him to crave something beyond a few strokes and a quick release is more than fair.

Don’t get him wrong: He has his fair share of experience when it comes to sexual activities. He didn’t spend all his years celibate, so he wouldn’t call the wonder of the female body a mystery to him. He’s quite receptive when it comes to how you react to his touch in general, and he seems to know just where to prod and press to get you to melt under his hands. You’ll soon come to know that there’s another way for him to benefit from that particular skill.

˗ˏˋ ★ 11. Limit: How long does it take for them to have the darling? What is the first time like? Do they care about the darling’s willingness?

He would really prefer it if you came to him willingly. Taking away one’s sexual autonomy is one of the cruelest things that he thinks could be done to a person, and so, you’re given a generous amount of time before he gives in to his feelings. It does depend on your behaviour, somewhat: If you’re particularly averse to the idea of him touching you even in completely innocent ways, his patience can stretch for months on end — he has got time. Then, on the other hand, if you don’t seem to mind him having his hands on you, the period might be shorter.

When it does happen, though, he won’t be callous or forceful (in a sense) about it. On a random Monday, as he serves you your breakfast, he will inform you about a certain plan this week. Specifically, he lets you know that ”sometime during this week, he’s going to have you”. Of course, you need to go over the sentence a few times in your mind before you even begin to comprehend the meaning behind it. Your eyes widen, and you shake your head in defiance, telling him that ”there’s no way you’ll do something like that”. However, by this point, your fate is pretty much set in stone, and he won’t relent even if you were to throw a fit or two. Besides, he’s being lenient: He assures you that he isn’t going to just take you without a warning — you get to decide when it happens, but it has to be in the following six days, or even today, if you’re feeling like it!

So, needless to say, you make him hold out until the very last hours, all the way to when the last rays of daylight disappear behind the horizon. You have been nothing but anxious the entire week, he has noted. You’re much jumpier than usual, and you have been evading his touches to the best of your ability, no matter how soft he has been. That, and he has had to watch out for your escape attempts even more than normal. You really aren’t fond of the idea, he thinks to himself as he watches you sit in the dark in the corner of your room, knees pressed against your chest. You’re completely motionless and rigid, down to your eyes: You’re looking directly at his form in the doorway, not even blinking in case that would open a window for him to reach for you.

He attempts to talk to you. The task proves to be difficult, however, as you only continue ogling at him in silence, flinching at even the tiniest movements he makes. Perhaps it would’ve been better not to give you a heads-up about the sex after all, he ponders: You wouldn’t have had time to build up the fear as much. Your head must be swimming with all kinds of horror scenarios about what he’s going to do to you, he thinks. He sighs out loud.

Your jaw clenches as he crouches down in front of you. You have made yourself as small as possible, and he feels like he’s approaching a flightless bird. Still, you don’t kick at him when he rests his hand over your leg and begins stroking the skin up and down in a soothing manner. You do try to pull away from him, but considering your position, you’re unable to make a difference. ”You don’t have to be scared”, he tells you, gently pulling on your ankle, coaxing you out of your hiding place.

You’re not about to tolerate his advances even a second longer. So, you fling your hand out, land a mean slap on his wrist, and fight yourself out of his grasp. You yell words of defiance at him, standing up from your spot with shaky legs before trying to leap past his form. He's quick to catch you by your thigh, however, and you nearly fall over. Instead of making your escape, you land in his firm grasp.

If there’s one thing that you have learned while in captivity, it’s that Jing Yuan’s grip is inescapable. No matter how you flail, he catches both of your arms in one hand and lifts you in the air with little to no effort. By this point, you’ve resorted to pleading with him to give you a few more minutes to prepare. More concerningly, though, you start spewing out things like ”please don’t hurt me” and ”I’ll be good, I promise I’ll be good”. Goodness, it does wound him a little bit that you would think such things of him. Of course he isn’t going to hurt you. What he’s about to do is the farthest thing from that.

You’re laid on the bed. He frees your arms for a second to adjust his own position, but he snatches them right back before you can even think of clawing at him. You’re hardly able to move at all as he presses his weight down on you, effectively pinning your form in place on the mattress. He leans down so that you’re face-to-face, his open hair coming to frame the sides of your head. Still smiling, he's looking down at you with a tiniest amount of pity in his gaze. In contrast, your teeth are clenched, and you’re breathing as heavy as if you had just finished a run, but he really can't find it in himself to care that much.

He lets you know that there’s no escaping your fate, but that he’s open to suggestions if there’s anything you would like to do. There are a few options: You could start by making out, or he could go straight to prepping your downstairs for him. He could massage you, even. It could get the blood flowing, he muses. He talks to you in such a soft tone that you wonder if you’re understanding his words correctly. Maybe you would prefer it if you just kissed for a little while beforehand? Would you like him to eat you out, perhaps?

You're unable to get a single word out. He waits for you to take courage for a moment, caressing along your neck and chest area with his free hand. He means for it to be calming, but the effect is the exact opposite as tears fill your waterline. He looks down at you with a sympathetic expression, swiping the pad of his thumb under your eyes, and then he leans in to kiss you. Unlike the brute strength he uses to hold you down, his lips move tenderly against yours; it's a maddening, incomprehensible contrast. Your sobs are swallowed by his mouth.

You feel him start stripping you down. There's not much you can do when he pulls your shirt up, when his touch lands on one of your breasts. His hand is large enough to fit the entire mound in its grasp. Then, his fingers creep down your stomach, and in the next moment, they slip down the front of your bottom.

Nonetheless, no matter what kind of foreplay you chose (or if he chose for you), you’re going to eventually end up under him, completely bare, chest pressed against the mattress with your lower half in the air. His hand is heavy on both of your wrists, pinning you down with the force of a thousand boulders. You can feel his naked body flush against your back, and something prodding between your thighs. He has prepped you thoroughly, but no amount of stretching in one night could ready you for what is about to come.

You know there’s no stopping him now. Not that you would've been able to reason with him before, but as the main course is now becoming reality, the dread in your stomach is boiling over. You don’t know what you should think: You have been sniffling the entire time, you have struggled as hard as you could, but he’s still being so damn gentle with you that your brain is having a hard time keeping up. You understand, at a conceptual level, that you're about to be violated to a point of no return, but at the same time, his touch is so tender. No matter how you will your body to resist, you're unable to summon the strength to find his ministrations repulsive. His strokes are like a sedative seeping into your skin.

His cock nudges against the entrance of your cunt. Your eyes widen, and every muscle in your body tenses. His grip on your wrists tightens.

It’s big. It’s really big. You feel the shape of it against your inner thighs. There’s no way something like that is going to fit into you just like that: It would be like ramming a log into a keyhole. Fortunately, he himself is aware of the very same fact: He knows he’s generously sized when it comes to his dick, and he’s also conscious of the fact that the first time is probably going to sting a bit. For you, not for him. Furthermore, he feels the way the muscles in your lower abdomen have gone completely rigid, and there’s no way he can get inside you like that.

His exhales tickle your ear as he leans into the side of your face. His warm hand snakes around your waist and presses just above the curve of your cunt. ”Relax these here for me”, he rubs his fingers against the area over your pubic bone. When you don’t do as you’re told, he forces your chest even lower with his body weight, deepening the arch your back has formed. He’s as patient as ever, but his breaths are the tiniest bit laboured. You loathe the implication.

”And these ones as well”, he instructs as the pads of his fingers glide over the inner sides of your hipbones. You can’t help but shudder when you feel his cock twitch against your thighs. ”Don’t fight it… There you go”. His hand is large enough to rest over your entire lower abdomen. It’s searing hot against your skin.

You hear a container pop open. In the next moment, his lube-clad fingers slip inside your cunt as a final act of mercy. You whimper at the sensation, clenching your fingers into wrists, trying to twist your arms free, but it's no use. He hardly pays any mind to your struggling at all, spreading the slick around with care, and after his hand withdraws, you hear the squelching sound of him giving the same treatment to his cock. Then, you feel his tip prod at your entrance.

You and him both know that it’s not going to be pleasant the first time around. His chest rests heavy against your back, moulding you into a horribly pliant position. He moves your hair out from in front of your ear. His voice is husky and soft as he gives you a final warning: ”It’s going to hurt a bit. You’ll be alright”. His entire arm wraps around your ribcage, effectively locking you in place. ”3… 2… 1…”, and he pushes in.

Oh, it’s excruciating. You let out a shriek so loud that it could be heard in the entire Luofu if he didn’t shove your face against the pillow just in time. You feel like your bottom half is being skewered on a pole: He went in all the way with a single thrust. The agony you're in couldn't possibly be put into words: It's searing hot, agonizing pressure that reaches all the way up to your stomach. Still, even though he feels how your little cunt is spasming in place, doing its hardest to push the intrusion out, he keeps you firmly pressed against him, preventing you from allowing yourself even the slightest bit of slack. "It's better this way", he thinks. It's like tearing off a band aid: It's only going to hurt more if you go slow.

He swipes his fingers around where his cock is stretching your cunt and brings his hand up to his eyes. You let out a wretched sob, and in a voice no louder than a whisper, you ask him if you're bleeding. ”A little”, he gives a scant answer to your question in a rather nonchalant tone. He doesn’t seem too bothered by the pain he has caused, though, because after the few minutes of adjustment time he grants you, he starts thrusting into you at a pace that conveys nothing short of the frustration he has been building up for the past however long it took for him to have you. In an act of clemency, his hand slithers in between your legs to roll your clit in between his fingers as he kisses the side of your face. You can only clench your hands into fists and take what he has in store for your poor body.

˗ˏˋ ★ 12. Preferences: What is sex with them like? What sort of stuff are they into? What kind of kinks do they have?

He likes traditional sex the most. You know, the two of you, on a plush bed, bodies pressed against each other, warm and full of passion. He prefers sexual activities to be loving and emotionally fulfilling above all, hence the partiality. Though, that’s not to say that he doesn’t indulge himself in certain tools in the bedroom in favour of spicing the act up a little.

Bondage (shibari in particular)

Jing Yuan isn’t particularly interested in trying to pleasure you with anything other than his own body, but there is one exception to that: Rope. Red rope, specifically. He enjoys restraining you with his own strength, yes, and he does that a lot of the time, but tying you down is, admittedly, a lot more effective. He can enjoy himself a little more that way, too, since he doesn’t have to worry about you trying to struggle yourself out of his grasp.

He just… brings it up one time when your form is already settled on the sheets. He stands at the foot of the bed with a hank of scarlet material draped over one of his forearms. Smirking down at your shivering body, he whips the rope in his hands, testing its durability in an impish manner. He twirls it around his fingers, relishing the way your expression portrays the swarm of thoughts rushing around in your mind. He can’t help but find it cute; the way your lip quivers and how your legs tremble with anticipation for what is to come.

He knows all kinds of things when it comes to the art of bondage. He has had plenty of time to acquire experience in this field: Knots, links, he can do it all. You come to understand his expertise the second he gets to work on your body. You’re going to be bound from head to toe, clad in intricate patterns he weaves with his hands. He’s so thorough with it that you’re not even able to do as much as wiggle your fingers when he’s done. He doesn’t have a favourite routine, either! Everything goes — criss-cross over your body, twisting you in all kinds of bizarre positions (hopefully you’re flexible), even crotchrope. The crotchrope is a common occurrence, in fact. Not only does he love how it looks on you, but he often makes a knot on it right where the rope presses against your cunt. He can only marvel at the way it rubs against your clit when you move even the slightest bit.

He will absolutely have you suspended from the ceiling while tied, too. It allows him to see you as you are, without all the defenses you have put up against him, in all of your beauty and complexity. Of course, the main objective is to either fuck, finger you or eat you out, but sometimes, he can’t help but enjoy the mere sight of you. It’s adorable, really, how you’re all helpless in your bindings, whining at him to let you down, how ”the rope is chafing against your…”. Little do you know that that sentence alone is enough to spring his cock up like stepping on a rake. He only coos at you before sliding his finger underneath the string traveling between your thighs before pulling it taut.

Occasionally, when he has time, he might just hang you from the ceiling in his work room. You’re dangling there, all still and pretty while he takes care of his more boring responsibilities. Your bare nipples are pebbled from being exposed to the cool air, and your cunt is glistening from the relentless stimulation that the bindings are subjecting it to. With every tiny movement you make, the knots rub directly against your clit. He watches the show with keen eyes and merely chuckles at your misery.

Oral

It’s easily his favourite. The second is dicking you down, naturally, but there’s just something about eating you out that gets him going like nothing else. It’s intimate, it feels incredible, and his technique is impeccable. He devours you like he’s starving, and you should know that it’s not going to be only one round when he truly gets excited.

It could be while you’re tied up, or he could simply hold your hips down when he goes to town on your bits. His hands are firmly slotted around your upper thighs, keeping you flush against his face. The tip of his nose nudges your clit with every lick, his tongue is rubbing against your walls, and no matter how you tug at his hair or tell him to stop, he won’t. He occasionally dips down to your other hole as well. He knows it can be incredibly stimulating down there, too, so what kind of a person would he be to not take advantage of that?

He gets creative with the positions, too. It could be the classic one where you’re lying down on your back and he’s on all fours in between your legs. Or, then it could be something completely different like folding you in half with your entire lower body off the bed, or having you basically sit on his face as he comes up from underneath you while you’re suspended in the air, or it could be him standing up, holding your weight up by himself, your cunt in his face and his crotch against yours.

Oh, and he does like 69. He’s alright with it no matter how: You on the bottom, him at the bottom, the two of you sideways, in the air, anything goes. It’s a known fact by now that his junk is big, so it’s a bit of an effort on your end to even get him into his mouth without your jaw locking. He won’t fuck your face, ever, partially for that very reason — it would not be very sexy to have to explain what went down to Jiaoqiu when he would have to come in to take care of the aftermath— and on the other hand, he doubts it would be very pleasant for you either way. His goal is not to have you choke, obviously. Though, be prepared to take at least a little bit of him past your lips: 69 is a two-person activity after all.

He likes to stick his fingers in you in the meantime, too. Cunt, ass, or both at the same time. It gets a bit exasperating after a while, though, because he has you coming in a matter of minutes meanwhile he’s not even close to his own climax. He tells you that ”it’s quite alright, he wasn’t done with you anyway”, and despite his ”well-meaning” words, you only feel dread. Getting him to finish proves to be a more arduous task than you figured it would be. That, and he won’t stop eating your cunt before you succeed in getting him to come, too. He promises that he won’t overstimulate you too much — he can keep a little break in between — but you’ll still be a complete mess when he finally gets his climax. And then you’ll take his cock. Good luck.

Praise, voice, and words

Oh, his voice. His tone is pleasant: It’s calm, it’s comforting, and he always seems to know just what to say. Before the sour side of events took place, you would've been fine with listening to him talk about his day, what’s going on at the Seat of Divine Foresight, whatever, for hours on end. His voice has that certain ASMR quality to it, almost. However, you just wish he didn’t have to speak such filth directly in your ear while his dick is splitting you in half.

It’s never, ever, mean, though. He would rather set you free than ever degrade you. Sex is supposed to make you feel good about yourself, so what purpose would that serve? That being said, the praises he utters are both genuine and so exaggerated that they nearly make you roll your eyes. ”You look ravishing like this”, he whispers against your temple as you’re tied up from head to toe, his fingers knuckle-deep in your cunt. ”This here”, he continues, circling your clit with the pad of his thumb, ”is especially mesmerizing”. Not only does he punctuate the sentence with a deep curl of his digits, but the way he so closely scrutinizes your bits is enough to inadvertently humiliate you beyond repair. You feel his gaze on you, and with every soft hum he lets out of his mouth, you get closer to your climax.

Even though he doesn’t mean it, his praise occasionally comes off as belittling. You’re lodged under him, speared down on his dick, and he has the audacity to open his mouth. ”You’re doing so well, just bear with it for a little”, or ”there’s only a little blood, you’re alright, you’re alright”, or ”you’re being so good for me, darling”. It’s all the while you’re struggling to even breathe with how deep he is inside you. He loves pet names, too: His personal favourite is, ironically, the aforementioned darling, but the list also includes names like good girl, babybird and pretty little thing. They all have a bit of a nasty ring to them, considering your circumstances, but nothing you say will stop him from using them.

He also tries to get you to communicate during the deed. It’s a common thing for him to ask you how something feels, if you’re feeling good, if you’re hurting anywhere. The concern he shows is genuine, unlike with someone like, say, Aventurine: He’s open to criticism when it comes to his performance. If his fingers are prodding at a bad spot (which they rarely are), then by all means, let him know and he’ll fix it. Oh, ”the ropes are digging into your wrists”? Give him a second, he’ll loosen them up a bit. "Too deep"? Well, there's not much he can do about that one, sorry.

Lastly, he has a very true-to-him thing he does in the act that always manages to flip your stomach upside down. While rocking into you and twirling your clit in between his fingers, he’s coaxing you closer and closer to your climax. No matter how hard you try to fight the feeling, no matter how you try to distance yourself, when he presses his lips against your temple and hums out a deep, low note directly into your ear, you’re done for. He finishes the action by planting a kiss on the lobe, and just like that, your cunt constricts around him, and your stiff body goes completely slack under his touch. He has you right where he likes you the best.

Manhandling and size kink

He likes to claim that it’s unintentional. It’s not — he’s doing it fully on purpose, and it’s one of his favourite parts of the act. If he wanted to, he could fold you into every position imaginable, and you would have zero say in the matter. Compared to your strength, he’s like a damn Aurumaton. A single hand of his is large enough to clasp around both of your ankles; not to mention your wrists. You weigh practically nothing to him, and so he’s able to hold you against the wall, in the air, however he likes. There’s also the aspect that, technically speaking, he could snap your spine in a single movement if he so desired. He’s a large man: No matter how tall you are, he’s taller, and no matter how strong you are, he’s stronger. He’s faster, he’s more agile, he’s better than you in every single physical way. You can’t really blame him for using those qualities to his advantage.

That being said, he gets kicks from seeing you struggle. It’s not something he wants to admit out loud since it would emphasize the implication that it’s against your will, but he does enjoy it nonetheless. He has a clear dominant streak to him, and it manifests in being in complete control of you. He gets to be in charge of the pace, he gets to determine when you're going to come, and he gets to lay his claim on you in this incredibly primitive way. The sheer thought of it makes him hard.

It’s kind of a protective instinct, too. More often than not, when he’s dicking you down, his body encases yours, his warmth seeps into your skin, and there’s no escaping his embrace. It’s suffocating, but at the same time, you do feel secure in a sick, twisted way, almost. It’s like being contained in a glass box where nothing can get to you, but you can’t get out, either. And the box also makes you come, whatever that implies.

Then, there’s his size. And the talk is not only about his stature here. He likes how small you are compared to him. It’s so easy to pick you up, to throw you over his shoulder, to carry you to the bed and give you a thorough fucking when you’re being disagreeable or if he just wants some. He finds the size difference quite arousing in a strange way: He doesn't know how to describe the feeling out loud, but seeing such a pretty little thing like you under him, how one of his hands is large enough to grab both of your breasts, how even a single finger of his enough to give your cunt a considerable, stretch... Oh my. Can you really blame him?

Lastly, occasionally, although he doesn’t mean it, he leaves marks on you. Namely, bruises are somewhat common, and there are very few times when he doesn’t at least leave red patches on your skin from where he has been holding you. He swears it isn’t his intention, but you start to doubt his credibility when he doesn’t make any efforts to tone it down. Your hips, thighs, waist and wrists are the usual spots of interest, but he can't get himself to worry about the imprints too much since he's the only one that gets to see them, anyway. Ah, but he understands that they must ache a bit. Come here, he'll massage them all better. He promises not to go as hard the next time (he doesn’t even believe his own words).

Insane mouth game

Simply put, he's a slut for tongue action. Whether it be a good, long make-out session or just a chaste peck on your cheek, or even his face in between your legs, he's all in. It's how he shows that he cares, among all the other things he does to you. It doesn't matter what has gone down that day, bedroom or otherwise, he's sure to have his lips on you in one way or another. In his mind, there's nothing more intimate than giving your partner pleasure with only your mouth, and you'll come to see that he lives by that statement.

It turns out that the Aeons blessed him with quite a long tongue, and he couldn't be happier about it when it comes to you. It reaches all the way deep into your cunt when he's devouring your lower half, and when he's kissing you, you can feel the thing in the back of your throat. He isn't particularly shy when it comes to mouth action in any way, and so, his kisses are wet, sloppy and incredibly intense. When he goes down on you, he sucks, he licks, and truly eats you out. Other things he enjoys doing is licking his way down your body, leaving streaks of saliva along the juncture of your neck, the valley between your breasts, your inner thighs, your feet, even. He plants open-mouthed kisses on all of your most sensitive spots, and the way you shiver and whimper from the feeling is truly and utterly exquisite in his eyes.

Your neck is quite often the target of his actions. It doesn't even have to lead to sex, either. Sometimes, when you're sitting on his lap, he likes to cover your entire upper body in his love. Despite your struggling, his lips are flush against your shoulders, your neck, your collarbones, leaving traces of spit all over your skin until you feel all gross. He tends to leave a good few marks in his wake, too: Bright red hickeys in various sizes litter your form, and even when you comment on them looking vulgar, he does very little to change his ways.

Then, the proper kisses. The endless stream of pecks on your lips, his tongue in your mouth, his saliva mixing with yours. It's like he's attempting to breathe you in with how his lips mould against yours. You can't refuse his affections, either: Usually, he tilts your head up by your chin to kiss you, but if you pull away, he's going to grab your jaw and squish your cheeks together. The outcome is always the same. He does it numerous times a day, too.

˗ˏˋ ★ 13. Punishment: What do their sexual punishments look like? What methods do they prefer?

Jing Yuan prefers not to punish you sexually. It goes against everything he believes in when it comes to the act itself, and he refuses to weaponize something like that.

That doesn’t mean he won’t still do it, though. He swears up and down that oh, he would never, but here we are. If you’ve been doing something you shouldn’t have, he won’t immediately toss you on the bed and fuck you stupid like a lot of other yanderes would, but you’ll come to see later that day that, no, he didn’t just forget about it. When the evening comes rolling around, his irritation is nearly palpable. Usually, he would give you at least some warning before the deed would commence, but now, he just picks you up bridal style and carries you to his bedroom.

He doesn’t prep you as well as he would any other time. The stretch is even more painful, but he doesn’t seem to give two fucks about how you slap his arm and try to tell him that it hurts. He tells you to bear with it, unlike the gentle approach you’re used to. His grip on you is harsher, too, but despite it all, his attitude hasn’t changed much. His tone is still soft, but it doesn’t translate to how roughly he’s fucking into you. Surprisingly enough, he never ties you down when he’s making a point, but it doesn’t make the experience any more survivable. By the time he’s done, you will have been reduced to a barely coherent mess.

Uncharacteristically, he tends to overstimulate you when he’s mad, too. Usually, as mentioned, he will give you breaks in between your orgasms, but not this time around. Instead, no matter how fast or slow you have come, he just keeps going without missing a single beat. You may struggle all you want, it’s only going to make him go harder. You complain that ”it’s too intense”, and to "please give you a break", but with a soft, warm tone, he tells you that it’s exactly how it’s meant to be. He makes an effort to spread your labia to get his finger directly on your clit, rubbing his pad against it in a manner that's nothing short of torturous. His touch is directly on your nerves, and the overload of simultaneous pain and pleasure is so agonizing that you wish you could pass out right then and there. Sometimes, he won't stop until you have done just that.

So, punishment sex with him (again, he doesn’t like to describe it that way himself) is basically just marathon sex. Plenty of rounds, all lasting a considerable amount of time, and he twists you around like a ragdoll. Even if you start crying halfway through, he won’t care much. Most he will do is use the back of his finger to wipe your tears away, but that’s all while he’s thrusting into your tired insides. Yes, he does try to make it feel nice to you, sort of — he focuses on your clit, your nipples, kissing the back of your neck and along your spine, stroking your thighs, but it’s still a harsh ride.

Seeing the effect these sessions have on you, it becomes a bit of a habit for him to fuck his vexations out on you. That includes when you’re in a mood, too. It’s like a tool to calm you down: After a few orgasms, you have got some feel-good hormones running in your veins, and you’re much more compliant. Less insults, less sulking, less rejecting his touches. He makes sure to praise you when you’re this way, too.

One thing that he does when he’s slightly irked by your behaviour and doesn't really have the time for the full thing is have you sit down on his cock while he works. Obviously, your cunt is doing its absolute best trying to accommodate his size, and even with zero movement, it’s an entire achievement to stay still for the hour or so that it takes for him to cave in. He doesn’t let you shift even the slightest bit, not even to adjust your position in his lap. One of his arms is tightly secured around your waist, preventing you from squirming. He himself can’t even focus on what he’s doing: Truth to be told, he has to read the same block of text at least three times to understand what it says. Each time he exhales, your cunt squeezes around his cock, and as much as he wants to make a point with it all, he himself is about to go insane. It won’t be long until he takes care of both of you.

˗ˏˋ ★ 14. Aftermath: What does their aftercare look like? Is there any?

He’s very thorough about it. Sex with him can be emotionally intense, especially when it comes to the long sessions, so he puts a lot of importance on taking care of you after he’s done.

The very first thing he does is ask you how you’re feeling. It comes before anything else — you haven’t even come down from your last climax of the night, and he has to repeat the question for you to make sense of what he’s saying. More often than not, you’re a bit offended by the gesture, spitting out a weary yet snarky response before rolling over to your side and turning your back to him. While he isn’t particularly pleased by you reacting like that, he understands that it’s better than he could hope for, taking the context into account.

Both of you are all sweaty afterwards, but he prefers not to take you to the bath immediately. He likes to bask in the afterglow, enjoying your (reluctant) presence while he slowly lets his breathing become even and his heartbeat settle. Cuddling during these times is a must-do for him, and it doesn’t matter what kind of a state you’re in, he does it regardless. You do have input when it comes to choosing the position, though: If you’re in a more of a grumpy mood afterwards, he just lets you rest your head on his bicep, sort of half-hugging you on one side. Then again, if you’re a crying mess, he takes you into full embrace, tucking your head under his chin and pressing your naked chest against his own. It’s like hiding you from the world, albeit it feels terribly suffocating at the same time.

He enjoys pillow talk immensely, but more often than not, you’re not up for it, so it usually ends up staying in his head. Though, if you are receptive, he could chat to you in a hushed tone for hours on end. It’s about nothing in particular: Work, life, you, him, whatever. He also spills you a considerable amount of praise.

Falling asleep after the act would be a preferable outcome for him — you know the General well enough by now that he likes his rest a bit more than he would like to admit, but if you’re not drowsy, he won’t nap either. Since sex with him usually takes place in the late hours of the evening, you’re often quite sleepy in the aftermath, but if that’s not the case, he thinks of something to keep you occupied. For example, he might give you a back rub; the usual. Whatever spot is hurting, he makes sure to give extra attention to it. If you’re complaining about aches, he may get up in favour of getting you a painkiller and some water. This is also the only way to get him to leave the room if you want some time for yourself.

He tends to be in an excellent mood after sex, so if there’s something you’ve been meaning to ask for, this is the best time for it. Obviously, if it’s something completely outrageous, he’s going to gently shake his head and refuse while stroking his knuckles against your cheekbone, but if it’s nothing that crazy, he may very well give in to it. The things that you can get this way are stuff like certain snacks, more time outside, less time with him, and so on. In addition, he’ll be utterly elated if your request involves him in a positive way, and so, you have a chance to pull a kind of a double-exploit tactic here. The man isn’t easy to manipulate, but he does have some of that golden retriever energy in him, and there’s not much he can do about himself in that regard. Be careful, though, because if you’re too nice, you might accidentally set yourself up for round two.

˗ˏˋ ★ 15. Further notes: Is there anything that sets them apart from the other yanderes sex-wise? Are there any unique aspects to them?

Surprisingly enough, with Jing Yuan as your captor, you get to speak your mind when it comes to sex. While there are some basics that he won’t let go of, like tying you and him being in control, you’re allowed to express your opinion on things like positions and what type of foreplay you want. He listens to your requests and takes them into account to a surprising degree. The reasoning behind it is that you being vocal about your preferences implies that you get at least some enjoyment out of the sex, which is a part of his goal, so he’s not opposed to your thoughts.

He sometimes asks you about them directly, too. ”Would you like to be eaten out today? Or does fingering sound like a more preferable plan?” he might inquire. Don’t be fooled, though: It’s either-or, and refusing the entire thing is never an option, but you still get to choose between the two. It’s better than nothing. When it comes to positions, he’s open to pretty much anything — even you riding him if you asked really nicely. He’s going to be in full control the entire time, however: It’s more him lifting you up and down on his dick than you actually doing any of the work. Most likely, the request to ride him would be to make the stretch less painful, but you come to find that you being on top brought very little help to that problem.

Moreover, if you’d like, you could also get him to explore new horizons when it comes to his sexual preferences. He doesn’t really favour things like toys when it comes to the bedroom, but if you were to suggest them? That’s an entirely different story. He raises his brows, pondering the idea for a bit before shrugging and wondering why not. Sure, he can get a vibrator or a few for the two of you to use. Hm, ”for you to use on your own”? Ha-ha, nice try.

On a completely different note, Jing Yuan likes to make you feel things, for the lack of a better word. Not just any things, though — specifically, he likes it when you squirm and shiver. He has noticed that a very effective way to get you to tingle is whispering right against your ear or even licking the inside. He does it in the most unexpected moments, too: You may be sitting on your bed, reading a book or something, and he gets in behind you before blowing a puff of air directly in your ear canal. Obviously, you slap your palm over the side of your face and snap at him, asking him ”what the hell does he think he’s doing”, but he just gives a soft chuckle as a response. He has a bit of a mischievous streak to him in that way.

By that point, you know it’s going to be go-time soon enough; this is just some foreplay for the actual foreplay. If he’s feeling even friskier, he might start nibbling on your earlobe and uttering uncensored filth against your temple. Not only does it make you embarrassed, but you’ll know exactly what he’s going to do to you that night.

A/N

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He didn't cry like a soldier. Not like a Duke. Not like the Commander of Crown's Guard forces. He cried like a man who had waited too long. Like someone who thought he still had time. Like someone who believed happy endings could just be postponed until the war was over.

His hands fisted in the grass. His breath hitched until it turned into sobs that sounded like someone dragging a blade across something already bleeding.

"I thought..." He choked, voice shattering mid word. "I thought it would be alright. That you'd be here." That you'd be waiting. Just like before. He pressed his forehead to the stone, chest heaving. "I was going to come back. I did. I fought, I ended the damn war-"

But the war had already taken you. Quietly. Without a blade. While he'd been spilling blood across foreign soil, you'd been fading. Alone.

"I should've come sooner" His voice broke again. "I should've never left." He cried. "I shouldn't have made that damn arrangement..." He didn't know how long he knelt there. He didn't know how long he cried there.

The moon had risen fully by the time the sobs quieted into a hollow silence, tears drying on his cheeks as he stared at the ground. The grave. The place where the only person he ever truly loved now slept, beyond reach.

The village lights were dim in the distance. And even though no one came near, he knew they heard him. He knew the way grief sounded when it wasn't polite anymore. When it tore out of you, loud, raw and humiliating. When it made you into something that no longer resembled a man. And they heard it.

But they shut their windows. Turned their faces away. Because no one wants to witness the man who once commanded armies. Who was said to be carved from stone, beg the dead for forgiveness.

The wind picked up, brushing through the leaves above like a lullaby too late. He stayed. Until the sky began to pale. Until the world reminded him it still turned. Even if his had stopped.

And when he finally rose, unsteady and broken. The only thing he took with him was a single dried bloom that had sprouted at the base of the stone. He held it in shaking fingers, cradled it like it was your heartbeat. And walked home to the son you left behind.

-

The scent of eggs and toasted bread clung to the quiet.

A pan sizzled lowly on the stovetop, and the kettle gave a faint hiss as it cooled beside him. Caleb stood at the stove, sleeves rolled past his forearms, hands steady even though he had barely slept. He moved with practiced familiarity, not from habit but memory.

The memory of you, in this same kitchen, moving between the cabinets barefoot and humming some half forgotten song. He tried not to look at the empty chair by the hearth. The one that still leaned a little to the left.

Instead, he focused on the task at hand. Cooking. Something simple, something warm. Something that might look like the life he was supposed to have if only for a few hours.

The soft patter of feet across the wooden floor pulled him gently from his thoughts. Ash stood at the threshold of the kitchen, his dark brown hair tousled from sleep, cheeks still creased with the shape of his pillow. There was no greeting. No yawn. No bright eyed curiosity. Just the still, unsettling stare of a child who had seen too much and said too little.

Caleb straightened slightly, brushing a hand down his apron like it mattered. "Morning." He offered, voice low, careful. "You hungry?" The boy said nothing, only moved slowly to the table and climbed into one of the chairs.

Caleb placed a plate in front of him, then one for himself. Eggs, lightly salted. Toast browned just a little too much. A small dish of berries. The ones Ash had picked with his friends in the grove just last week. Caleb had learned that from the headwoman. She doesn't want to tell him anything at first. But grief softened even the hardest lines.

He sat across from his son, watching as the boy stared at the food. "You don't have to eat it." Caleb murmured, trying not to sound nervous. "But I made it the way your mother used to." Ash blinked, then slowly reached for his fork. Still, no words. Just silence. Heavy and pulsing like a second heartbeat between them.

Caleb tried to eat. He managed two bites before the food began to taste like ash. He set the fork down carefully, fingers twitching in his lap. Then he cleared his throat, bracing himself against the chair's edge.

"I was thinking." He said, voice as even as he could make it. "That maybe… you might want to come with me. Back to the duchy." The fork paused halfway to Ash's mouth.

He looked up. Slow, unreadable and stared straight at Caleb with his eyes. "What if I say no?" Caleb met his gaze, trying not to flinch. "Then… I won't force you." He said. "But I wanted you to know the door's open." He added. "I'll stay here with-" Ash leaned back, chewing slowly. Then, quietly. "I'll go."

A rush of something. Relief? Hope? bloomed and then withered just as quickly in Caleb's chest. "But I have a condition." Caleb stilled. "Of course." "I won't call the princess my mother." Ash said flatly. "And I won't treat her like one. My mother is dead. She'll always be my mother."

The words hit like a blade. Caleb swallowed around the sudden tightness in his throat. "You won't have to." He said softly. "She's not- she never was. We were never married. It was a political arrangement. Nothing more." Ash didn't move. Didn't nod. His gaze was cool, distant.

"That's not what everyone else said." "I know." Caleb's voice dropped. "But the truth is... The only person I ever wanted to marry was your mother." There it was again, the flicker of disbelief in Ash's face. Not overt. Just a tightening of the jaw. A downward twitch in his brows.

You used to do that too, when you didn't believe something but were too tired to argue.

"I know it doesn't mean much now." Caleb continued, quieter. "But it's the truth. I never stopped loving her."

Ash didn't reply. He went back to his plate, taking a few more bites in silence. The weight of it. Of not being believed has settled in Caleb's chest like sand. He pushed back from the table after a while. Clearing some of the plates with a mumbled excuse. "I'll just- clean up."

But instead of heading to the kitchen, he headed to the small bathroom at the end of the hall. He shut the door behind him quietly, like if he made a sound, it would crack the fragile truce between them. And then he broke.

Silently, violently, with his back pressed against the door and his hand clenched over his mouth to stifle the sobs. His whole body shook with it.

Not just for the boy outside the door or the wife he never got to call that or the years lost to silence and war. But for the awful question that haunted him now.

Did you believe it? Did you spend your final days thinking he had chosen honor over you? Duty over love? Did you die thinking he let you go willingly?

His knees buckled and he sank to the floor, trembling. "I came back." He whispered, voice raw. "I swear I did. I just... I didn't know how much time I'd lost." He pressed his hand over his mouth again, trying to breathe.

In the other room, his son cleared the table quietly. And Caleb stayed where he was. Not just because he couldn't face him yet. But because he didn't know if he could survive the answer written in Ash's eyes.

-

Caleb didn't ask to join him. He just followed.

Ash didn't say much, didn’t offer directions. But he didn't tell him to go away either and that, in itself, felt like something. So Caleb walked three steps behind his son through the quiet village letting the boy's smaller boots set the rhythm of their day.

They stopped by the well first. Ash helped the older woman who always came too early and left too late, steadying her bucket without being asked. Caleb recognized her vaguely from years ago. She gave him a long, pointed stare but said nothing. The water sloshed once and Ash kept walking.

Next, they passed the small chapel at the edge of the hill. The priest sweeping the steps looked up sharply, paused mid motion and Caleb nodded politely.

Then came the bakery. A boy around Ash's age ran out and handed him a small bag. Ash muttered something too low to hear. Pressed a few coins into his friend's hand and kept walking, tearing off a piece of bread to share and only handing half to Caleb without a word. He accepted it with a quiet. "Thank you." And tried not to let the silence feel like punishment.

They continued down the lane. Caleb couldn't help but feel the stares. Villagers paused in their chores to glance over their shoulders. Conversations softened when he passed. He heard his name whispered once. Not Duke Xia, not the Commander. Just Caleb. The familiarity stung more than the suspicion.

He couldn't blame them. They had known you in ways he hadn't in seasons he had missed. They had watched you walk with swollen ankles and unspoken worry, raise a child with gentle hands and a quiet laugh, all while waiting. While hoping. And he hadn't come.

So now, they looked at him not with fear, or awe, but with something colder. You're too late. Ash didn't seem to notice. Or if he did, he didn't react.

He led Caleb to the riverside where the wildflowers grew. Sat cross legged beneath the tree. Caleb sat beside him, not too close. Just enough to be near. They didn't speak for a while. Just sat in the breeze and watched the water move.

It was peaceful, almost. Or it could have been, if not for the tension lingering in Caleb's chest. The weight of unsaid things, the dread that Ash might never truly forgive him and the deeper, quieter fear that maybe he shouldn't.

But Ash spoke first. "When are we leaving?" Caleb blinked. "Soon." He said. "I sent word to my army days ago. They should be near. Once they arrive and rest, we'll head out." Ash only nodded.

The sun was dipping low when the sound of hooves reached them. The unmistakable beat of trained horses, fast but disciplined. Caleb stood, instinct sharp, eyes scanning the road as familiar banners crested over the hill.

The army had arrived. And at their head rode a man Caleb trusted more than most, his first lieutenant, Sir Ryns, whose armor caught the dying light in silver glints. His expression shifted when he saw Caleb waiting by the road.

"My Lord." Ryns dismounted quickly, bowing once before speaking in a low voice. "We've arrived as ordered. The men are camped near the eastern ridge. We came straight when we received your last raven-" Then his gaze drifted past Caleb.

To the boy standing a little behind him, quiet and watchful. Ryns frowned. His eyes narrowed faintly, curious. "My Lord." He asked cautiously. "Is that…?" Caleb turned slightly. "Yes." He said without hesitation. "This is my son. Ash Xia."

There was a beat of silence. Many of the soldiers exchanged glances. Caleb saw confusion flicker in Ryns' eyes. Ash stood still, his hands in his coat pockets, his face blank but guarded. He looked like he expected the questions, maybe even the judgment.

One of the younger knights finally spoke, hesitant. "My Lord… Forgive me, but... We were told you came to this village to... See her. Is she-?" He didn't finish. The assumption hung in the air. You're alive, aren't you? Caleb's jaw clenched.

Ash looked up at the man and answered before his father could speak. "She's dead."

Silence fell. It wasn't a dramatic thing. There was no gasp, no collective outcry. Just a sharp shift like the wind had suddenly turned too cold. The soldiers' expressions changed. One by one, Caleb saw their eyes fall to him registering the tightness in his shoulders, the hollow in his face.

Only then did they truly see him. Not the Duke. Not the Commander. Just the man who had lost something he'd come too late to claim.

Caleb gave no explanation. There was nothing left to explain. He simply turned to Ryns. "We leave at dawn. Have a carriage prepared, one comfortable for a child. And make sure the escort is discreet. I don't want attention drawn on the road back." Ryns nodded, his voice quieter now. "Yes, my Lord."

The soldiers began to disperse, respectful in their silence. No one dared ask more. Caleb looked down at Ash, who still hadn't moved. For a brief second, their eyes met. Neither of them said a word.

But Caleb saw it. The question buried behind the boy's quiet stare. Why now. And though he couldn't answer it yet, he would spend every day trying to.

-

The carriage rocked gently over the dirt road. Its wheels cutting through the morning hush like a lullaby too tired to sing.

Outside, the house of Xia's banner trailed behind the lead riders. Catching what little breeze the early day allowed. The army rode in disciplined silence. A formation tight enough to shield but respectful enough to keep their distance. No one said anything. No one dared to intrude.

Inside the carriage, Caleb sat across from his son. He hadn't wanted to impose. Had considered assigning Ash a separate space. A smaller, lighter carriage fitted for comfort. But the thought of being even a stone's throw away from his boy made something inside him twist too tightly. So he stayed. And hoped it didn't make things worse.

Ash didn't complain. He didn't talk much either. He sat with his knees tucked close, arms loosely folded, gaze fixed on the passing trees. The morning sun painted his profile in soft gold. His silence wasn't hostile, not exactly. Just… Practiced. Like he'd learned to speak only when the world gave him a reason to.

Caleb watched him in the quiet. Noticed how his shoulders didn't quite relax. How his fingers picked absently at a loose thread in his sleeve. A nervous habit. One Caleb had once had himself.

Halfway through the ride, Ash finally spoke. "What are you going to do when we get there?" Caleb blinked. "To the duchy?" Ash gave a small nod. "Well." Caleb started slowly, choosing his words with care. "The first thing I'm going to do... Is declare you as my son."

Ash's brows lifted a fraction. Not in shock. More like he had expected it eventually, but hadn't thought Caleb would say it so plainly. "And then?" The boy asked, voice quiet. "Then." Caleb exhaled softly. "You'll live your life. However you want to. You'll have a room, a library, land if you want it. But mostly, I just want you to be a child. To grow up safe."

Ash tilted his head. "Don't I need lessons? Or etiquette stuff? Nobility things?" Caleb shook his head gently. "You'll have tutors, yes. But only the basics. No one is going to shove the whole court on your shoulders. I won't let them." He paused. "You've carried enough already."

Ash looked down at his lap. His fingers stilled. "… So I can just live?" "Yes." Caleb said firmly. "That's all I want for you." That's what you'll want for him too.

There was another stretch of silence, broken only by the soft clatter of the carriage wheels. Then Caleb smiled faintly and murmured. "Ash…" But the boy looked up. "Mavius." He corrected, tone neutral. "My name is Mavius Caelum Asher."

Caleb froze. The air left his lungs. He hadn't heard that such familiarity in years. Not since- He blinked once, twice, and looked at the boy more closely. Mavius. Caelum. Asher. "… You named him after her." Caleb whispered.

Ash didn't meet his eyes, just turned to look out the window again. "Yeah." He said, voice distant. "Mama said she named me after someone important. Someone you lost."

Caleb felt his throat tighten. He remembered now. MC, his little sister. Bright eyed, fever sick, too young to go. The necklace he had given you once had belonged to her. You had kept it, even then. Even when things were falling apart. You remembered. Of course you did.

He pressed a hand over his mouth. Told himself no. Not here. Not in front of the boy. But the tears came anyway. Slow and silent. He turned his face to the side, away from Ash, eyes shut tight against the sting.

He had told himself he had no tears left to shed. That he'd mourned enough for a lifetime. But then his son, your son, said that name. The name that came after hers. The grief returned like it had been waiting all along, patient and sharp.

Across from him, Ash said nothing. He didn't reach out. Didn't offer comfort.

He just stared out the window, his profile still and unreadable, as the Duke, the Commander of the Army, the man called a legend in five kingdoms quietly broke beside him.

Outside, the army rode in perfect formation. Inside, a father wept for the love he had lost... And the family he was only now learning how to hold.

-

They stopped in a modest trading town just near the duchy's border. One of the outer territories under Caleb's name, tucked between sloping hills and terraced farmlands. It was quiet but prosperous, the kind of place where news came late but pride came early.

Caleb thought it best to ease the transition here. To soften the sharp edges of what was coming. So he took Ash shopping.

It wasn't extravagant, not in Caleb's eyes. Just enough to ensure Ash had clothing suitable for court, for winter, for meals that didn't happen on wooden benches. But Ash moved through the shops with the same quiet expression he wore on the road. Unbothered, unexcited, composed in a way no child should’ve had to learn so early.

He let the tailor measure him. Nodded when shown fabrics. Said nothing when asked preferences. Caleb finally broke the silence. "I'm sorry." He said, standing beside Ash as a shopkeeper carefully adjusted a collar near the boy's shoulder. "About the suddenness. The change. I know it's a lot."

Ash didn't look at him, but his voice came out flat. "I'm used to change." Caleb's mouth went dry. He tried again. "I used to come here with your mother." He said quietly. "Before the war. Before… before the agreement. It was one of the few places we could go without anyone recognizing me." Ash blinked. Finally turned his head a little, just enough for Caleb to see him.

"She liked the old bookshop two streets down." Caleb added. "Used to complain that they never dusted the top shelves, then spend hours there anyway. I once had to drag her out with her hands and a whole bag of books she swore she'd return." He gave a soft, nostalgic chuckle. "She didn't."

Ash looked at him now, fully, and though his expression remained guarded, he asked. "Did she laugh a lot?" Caleb's breath caught. "She did." He said. "Gods, she did." And so he kept talking.

As they moved through the square and stopped by the cobbler and then a modest jeweler, Caleb told him stories. About the time you nearly got kicked out of a tavern for arguing with a chess hustler. About how you once braided a red ribbon into his hair and threatened to tell the barracks it was tradition if he took it out. About the stolen apples from a merchant's cart, the nights spent beneath a shared blanket, counting stars and whispering names for constellations that never existed.

Ash didn't speak much. But he listened. And for once, Caleb didn't mind the silence. Not when it felt like this, like remembering.

By the time the carriage rolled toward the duchy gates, the sun was beginning to dip behind the tall white towers that stood in the distance. The roads widened. The banners came into view.

And the people. They were waiting. The crowds lined the outer walls, nobles and commoners alike. Some carried flowers, others waved embroidered flags. There were children on shoulders, elders holding lanterns, merchants standing still in the middle of their trade stalls just to catch a glimpse.

Because the hero had returned. Their Duke, their Commander. The man who had come victorious at the war. The man who gain everything, power, status, honour. But he was also the same man who lost everything he had.

Caleb looked straight ahead but he could feel Ash watching him. He didn't wear armor today, but the weight of expectation wrapped tighter than steel ever could. He wondered, faintly, how long it would take before Ash felt it too.

The carriage slowed. Trumpets began to sound. Ash leaned toward the window, just slightly. "… They're here for you." He said, voice unreadable. Caleb looked at him. "No." He replied softly. "They're here for us." Ash didn't answer. But he didn't look away either.

And as the gates opened wide, letting them pass beneath stone arches and golden banners, Caleb let his hand rest. Briefly, gently on his son's shoulder. It wasn't much. But it was a start.

-

The duchy castle was colder than Ash expected.

Grand, yes. Its marble floors and soaring ceilings soaked in light, with chandeliers like frozen stars and banners heavy with heraldry. Every inch of it whispered of history, of victories won by men with unbending spines and names carved into stone. But still, it felt cold.

Caleb, however, moved through it like a man who had shed his armor but not his discipline. He walked with his hand resting lightly on Ash's shoulder, guiding him gently toward the entrance hall before leaving him with Sir Ryns, his most trusted aide.

"I'll be away for a few hours." Caleb murmured to his son. "There's something I need to settle. You'll be safe with him."

Ash didn't argue. He simply nodded and watched him go. Tall, cloaked in command, disappearing into the echoing halls where power liked to gather. Sir Ryns gave a respectful nod. "Shall we?" Ash followed.

In the court council chamber, the temperature was different.

Not the air. The mood. Stiff collars and older men, faces lined not by time but by caution. A place where no voice raised unless it had weight behind it.

Caleb stood at the head of the long table, straight backed, unshaken, in the same travel worn coat he arrived in. He didn't need titles or emblems today. He was the title.

"Mavius Caelum Asher Xia" He said, voice steady. "Is my son. By blood. By name. By will." He didn't smile when he said it. There was no softness in the way he spoke of it, only certainty.

It didn't take long for the murmurs to begin. "My Lord Duke." One of the elder vassals said, clearing his throat like it might buy him courage. "Surely such a proclamation should be delayed until-" "No."

Caleb's eyes didn't waver. "It will be announced before the week ends. The court will bear witness. The documentation will be sealed in my name." "But the boy." Another tried. "He's not been raised in noble society. He may not be-" "He's my son." Caleb said again, this time like it was a weapon.

There was a pause, brief and sharp. "And the mother?" A third man asked, cautious. "Will she be named? Brought forward?" Caleb's jaw tensed. "She died. Years ago." The silence thickened. "Your Grace." Someone dared again. "This decision... May unsettle the houses who've pledged their banners-" "Then let them be unsettled."

The words dropped like stone into still water. "I've served this duchy for years. Given it my youth, my loyalty, my blood. And I have buried every dream I once had for the sake of peace. But not this. I will not bury my son."

He leaned forward slightly, hands braced on the table. "Let me make this simple. I am not here to ask for your approval. I am informing you. As Duke, as Commander, as father, that Mavius Caelum Asher Xia is my heir. You will recognize him. You will show him the respect his name demands. Or you may leave your posts before sundown."

No one spoke after that. There was nothing left to say.

Meanwhile, Ash followed Sir Ryns down a quieter wing of the castle.

"This part of the keep isn't shown to most visitors." The aide said mildly. "But your father asked that you be given access. These halls are his private wing." Ash barely nodded.

He walked slower now, fingertips grazing the stone as if memorizing the shape of it. The rugs here were more worn. The windows opened onto smaller courtyards. It didn't feel like a palace. It felt like someone's home.

They rounded a final corner. And that's when he saw it. At the end of the hallway, tucked quietly across from the Duke's chamber door, hung a portrait. It wasn't regal. It wasn't formal.

You were painted sitting beneath a great blooming tree, one hand resting over your lap, a gentle smile dancing at the corners of your mouth. The sky behind you was warm with color.

Ash stopped. Sir Ryns paused behind him, then gave a small bow. "I'll give you a moment." He stepped away. And Ash stared.

You looked... Alive. Not like the worn memories, not like the soft dreams that blurred at the edges. This was clearer, sharper. He could almost imagine you laughing just out of frame.

And the way the painting was placed, nnot in a public gallery, not in the halls meant to impress but here. Here, where only Caleb would see it every time he passed his chamber.

Ash took one step closer. Then two. And just like that, something broke inside him.

Because all this time, despite everything you told him. Everything you left behind, some small, childish part of him had wondered if it was just a story. If his father had loved you less than duty. Less than legacy.

But this? This was not a thing done out of guilt. This was devotion. Frozen in oil and light.

And just for a moment, he let himself imagine what might've been. You, laughing down these halls. Your hand in his father, watching over him. The warmth of something that wasn't stolen by silence or time.

But it was only a painting now. And Ash? He turned away before the ache could swell too wide.

-

The garden had always been yours.

Even when the rest of the duchy bore the mark of lineage and strategy, marble and bloodline. This garden remained untouched by politics. It was a space you claimed not with words but by presence. By laughter echoing against the ivy. By your barefoot steps on wet grass at dawn. By the scent of jasmine clinging to the folds of your dress when you came in from the evening mist.

Now? It had grown wild in your absence.

The path was nearly swallowed by moss and wandering weeds. The lavender stalks bent heavy from months without pruning. The peonies, once carefully coaxed into bloom by your touch, were wilted. Their heads drooping as though even they were mourning.

Caleb stood beneath the worn stone archway, the sky already softening into late dusk. A breeze passed through, stirring the overgrown hedges, sending petals drifting onto the stones.

He didn't step forward just yet. Because there, between the tangled hedges and forgotten rosebushes, was Ash.

The boy moved slowly, quietly, his small hands brushing against leaf and bloom with an odd reverence. As if, instinctively, he knew this garden had once meant something. As if he could sense that someone, you, had once walked here every morning, humming softly to yourself, hands filled with shears, ribbon and soft flower threads you tucked into your hair.

Caleb swallowed hard. He couldn't bring himself to speak. He just watched, hand tightening around the edge of the pillar beside him, eyes following every movement like they were watching a ghost retrace your steps.

Ash crouched down near the base of the old stone bench. The very one where you had once curled beside Caleb with a worn book in hand. You always fell asleep midway through your stories, cheek pressed to his shoulder, your words slurring into nothing, warm breath fogging the pages.

It hurt. Gods, it hurt.

Caleb's throat ached from how tightly he clenched it. He hadn't stepped foot in this garden since the war began. It had been years. He had ridden out with armor and banners and men at his back, chasing glory that never filled the hollow parts of him. He never came back. Not until now. Not until everything else had already been lost.

How many things had he missed?

His son's first cry. His first steps. The first time he scraped his knee. The way he might have tugged at your sleeve and asked about the stars. The way you might have lit a lantern when he had nightmares, pulled him into your arms and told him stories about a man named Caleb, far away, fighting for peace.

Did you tell him you loved him for the both of you? Did you tell him he was worth all the waiting?

The wind stirred again. Ash turned his face toward the breeze and closed his eyes. The exact same way you once did. Caleb's heart broke in a quiet, restrained kind of way. No dramatics. Just pressure. Like something cracked deep in his chest and kept splintering.

He stepped forward. Ash opened his eyes at the sound of boots brushing against gravel but didn't turn. Just kept staring out over the garden. Caleb stopped beside him. "I used to come here with your mother." He said, voice low, almost too rough. "She always said this garden looked better wild."

Ash tilted his head. "She came here a lot?" Caleb nodded. "Every day. Before everything. She would talk to the plants. She hated when the gardeners trimmed too much. Said flowers should be allowed to reach for whatever they wanted."

Ash didn't respond. Just reached down and picked up a fallen peony petal, curling it between his fingers. The boy didn't speak for a long time. Then, softly. "Mother told me you were a hero." Caleb swallowed.

"Mother told me stories about you." Ash continued, fingers tracing a small blooming flower. "Said you were brave. That you were fighting for everyone, not just us. But some nights… I think she cried when she thought I was asleep." Caleb closed his eyes. "I'm sorry." He said. "For not being there. For not coming home sooner. For… Everything."

Ash looked down at the petal in his palm. Caleb crouched down beside him, fingers trembling as he rested a hand over Ash's shoulder, tentative, unsure. "I don't deserve forgiveness." He whispered. "But I want to try. For you. For her."

Ash finally looked at him. And for the first time, there was something softer in his eyes. A recognition. Maybe even… A beginning.

They stayed like that for a while, father and son, in a garden left wild by grief and time. And near them, the first bloom of the flower unfolded. Quiet, patient and unafraid to reach.

-

The halls of the duchy were quiet that night, save for the faint sound of torches flickering against the stone walls. The air held a kind of stillness that only came before something irreversible. Not quite dread, not quite anticipation. Just the soft weight of change, gathering like fog on the edge of dawn.

Caleb stood just outside Ash's door, hand hovering over the latch. He told himself to walk away. Let the boy sleep. Let him have the only peace he could offer before the court tried to take it away. But his hand moved anyway.

The room was dimly lit. A candle flickered low on the desk, half melted wax trailing down its base. The boy was curled on his side beneath a heavy quilt, not asleep. Just staring toward the window, as if the stars outside had something more comforting to say than Caleb ever could.

Caleb stepped in and closed the door behind him. "Can't sleep?" He asked softly. Ash didn't turn but his small voice broke the silence. "Too much noise in my head." Caleb pulled a chair close to the bed and sat with a quiet exhale. "I know the feeling."

They sat in silence for a while, just the two of them, the gap between their pasts too wide to be bridged with words. But Caleb was learning that closeness sometimes started like this, not with conversation but with presence. With showing up and staying put.

Ash shifted slightly under the covers. "I don't know how to do any of this." He murmured. "You don't have to." Caleb replied. "Not yet. You just have to be yourself." Ash's brow furrowed. "That's not what everyone else expects, is it?" Caleb smiled faintly. "I stopped caring what they expect a long time ago."

Ash didn't respond to that. Instead, after a beat, he asked. "Do you think mother be proud of me?" Caleb's heart clenched. He reached over, gently brushing a bit of hair from Ash's forehead. "She'd be proud of you for waking up in the morning. For breathing. For surviving." His voice faltered. "She'd be proud of how brave you've been."

Ash looked at him then, eyes shinier than before and with some hesitation. "Are you proud of me?" "I've only known you for a short while." Caleb said, voice rough. "But yes. Every single day, I'm proud of you. And I wish I could've been there sooner to say it."

The boy blinked and turned his face away. But not before Caleb saw the wetness in his eyes. "You're not alone anymore." Caleb added gently. "I'm here. I'll always be here." And for once, Ash didn't pull away when Caleb tucked the blanket tighter around him.

The next morning came with ceremony.

The great hall was transformed into something out of legend. Tall banners unfurled from the rafters, tapestries lined the walls with the crest of House Xia. Black and purple, the colors of night and their eyes. Every noble family of note stood waiting, their formalwear glittering, their expressions carefully controlled.

Caleb stood at the head of it all. The Duke, Commander, war hero returned from the frontlines after uniting the warring kingdoms, take back some throne for the right ruler to lead. All for the sake of peace. And beside him stood Ash.

He wore a suit cut to fit, his brown dark hair brushed neatly though his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. Caleb placed a steady hand on his shoulder. And stepped forward.

"My people." He began, voice resonant through the hall. "I have led you through war. I have fought beside you, bled for your families, and returned peace to this land not through conquest, but through righteousness." Murmurs rippled through the crowd.

"But I come before you not as a hero." He continued, eyes sweeping across the nobility. "I come as a father." The air shifted, tense, expectant. "I stand here today to name my son. The heir of House Xia. The rightful child of my blood." Gasps whispered down the aisle, hushed disbelief tugging at curious glances.

"He was raised far from the court." Caleb said, lifting his chin. "But not from love. His mother, though not of noble birth, bore the heart of a saint. She raised him with strength, compassion and grace. His name is Mavius Caelum Asher Xia, my son and my legacy."

There was silence. Then applause. Hesitant at first, then thunderous. But even as they clapped, the nobles whispered behind fans and under breath. A commoner. Was he conceived before the war? How could the Duke hide such a thing? Who was the mother? Was it that village woman from the old rumors? Caleb heard it. He always did.

"My Lord." One older vassal began. He must have missed the first meeting. "We mean no disrespect. But surely the title of heir must pass through... Clearer channels. The duchy-"

"Will be inherited by my son." Caleb interrupted. His voice cut cleanly through the chamber. "Not because of his blood, but because of what he represents. He is my future. That is not up for debate."

Another tried. "But his mother-" "Will not be spoken of with anything less than honor." Caleb said, tone sharper now. "She gave her life raising him. She gave me a reason to come back. If you cannot speak of her with respect, then you do not deserve to speak at all." That silenced them.

And in the shadow of his words, no one dared challenge him again.

That night, Caleb sat in his chambers. The old box you left him still untouched on the bedside table.

Ash had long since gone to bed. But Caleb sat quietly, the moonlight pooling across the desk, and whispered your name like a prayer.

"I'm doing my best." He murmured. "I don't know if it's enough. But he's here. He's safe. And I won't let him face this world alone."

The box remained closed. Not yet. He wasn't ready to open the past. Not until he could face it with something steadier in his chest than grief.

-

The duchy was never silent, not even in the early hours.

There was always movement. The shuffle of boots on stone, the hum of court gossip, the rustle of silks as nobility drifted through the corridors like ghosts dressed in gold.

But within one particular wing of the castle, one newly opened after years of being shut. There was a kind of hush that wasn't born of reverence, but of adjustment.

Ash sat stiffly at the edge of the chair, back too straight as though posture alone could hold him upright through this.

The tailor buzzed around him, muttering about hem lengths and shoulder seams, fussing over measurements like his thread held the fabric of the kingdom.

Caleb stood near the door, arms crossed loosely, a patient look on his face. Ash caught him watching. "I can do this alone." He muttered. Caleb only shrugged. "I know." "Then why are you still here?" A soft smile makes its way on Caleb's lips. "Because I want to be."

Ash didn't answer, just looked down as the tailor moved to adjust a sleeve. It was like that most days. Stiff, clipped responses. Ash kept his emotions guarded. His trust locked behind layers of survival. But Caleb didn't push. He stayed.

He was there in the mornings, walking Ash through the halls and introducing him to the staff. He was there at meals, quietly explaining noble etiquette while pretending not to notice when Ash refused to use the proper cutlery out of spite.

He was there during riding lessons. Though Ash already knew how to ride. You had taught him, after all. But Caleb still showed up, still walked beside the horse, still held the reins steady when the stallion bucked just slightly.

Ash never said thank you. But he didn't push him away either. That was enough.

At night, they played chess by the fire.

Caleb let Ash win the first few games. After that, he didn't need to. "You're holding back." Ash said during one match, brow furrowed. Caleb smirked. "Am I?"

"I'm not a child." "No." Caleb said, moving a rook. "You're my son." Ash stared at the board. "You don't know me." "I'm trying to." Caleb replied gently.

For a moment, Ash didn't move. Then he said, quietly. "You missed a lot." Caleb nodded. "I did." Ash made his move. "Why didn't you come sooner?" The words were like flint, soft but capable of sparking every buried grief between them.

Caleb met his gaze. "Because I thought I'd have time." Ash didn't look away. "You didn't." "No." Caleb's voice was barely above a whisper. "I didn't."

Ash stared at him a moment longer. Then, finally, looked back down at the board. "Your move."

-

It was small things, after that.

Ash asking him to join for tea in the afternoons. Caleb fixing the saddle on Ash's horse without being asked. Ash staying just a little longer at the dining table instead of retreating to his room. Caleb brushing his hand over Ash's shoulder when they passed in the hall, the way fathers do without thinking.

They didn't speak of love. Not yet. But it was there, beneath the silences. The kind that didn't need words, only time.

-

The snow had fallen without mercy that night.

Pale and soundless, it coated the roofs of the duchy and swept down the narrow roads like a silken veil. It blurred the horizon until the world outside the windows looked like something imagined. Soft, distant, dreamless.

But inside the west wing, there was no dream. Only fever. And the ragged breathing of a child calling out for someone who would never come.

Ash had not been well for days.

What began as a stubborn cold had twisted into a high, searing fever that clung to him like a curse. The court physicians had done all they could. Steam, broths, tinctures too bitter to keep down. But Ash fought them. Resisted, pushed away hands trying to help.

He was crying again. "Mama..." The boy whimpered, thrashing under the heavy blankets, eyes glassy and faraway. "Where's Mama…?" And then. "I want to go home..."

The servants wept quietly in the hallway. They didn't know which home the young lord meant. Be it the one made of wood and warmth tucked at the edge of the forest or the one now buried beneath the tree near the river side. Either way, neither could be returned to.

The physician knelt helplessly beside the bed. "He won't take the medicine." He muttered. "He won't-"

The door slammed open. Boot steps thundered against the stone floor. The Duke had returned.

Caleb didn't say a word as he stormed into the room, frost clinging to the edges of his cloak. He looked like he hadn't slept in days. His hands were still red from the reins, his shoulders dusted with snow. But none of it mattered.

Because his son was screaming for someone who couldn't answer.

"Mama-!" Caleb's heart twisted so violently he thought it might finally split in half. "I'm here." He breathed, crossing the room in a heartbeat. "Ash. I'm here."

But Ash didn't see him or if he did, he didn't recognize him. He was somewhere else. Somewhere safer. Somewhere warmer, where your arms still waited and your voice still sang.

The boy's body shook with sobs. "Please- I want Mama- I want- her-" Caleb sat on the bed and pulled Ash into his arms. The boy didn't resist. He clung. Like drowning. And Caleb, for once, didn't know what to do.

He held him tighter, rocking him gently as the boy cried and gasped and called for the one person neither of them could return to.

The physician hesitated. "Your Grace, the medi-" Caleb reached out, took the cup, and held it to his son's lips. Ash turned his head away violently, a sound breaking in his throat like a wounded animal. He trembled, gasped, cried. "No- no- no-"

So Caleb pressed his forehead to Ash's temple. "You want her." He whispered, voice cracking. "I know. I know." His eyes stung. He bit back the tears, but they came anyway, hot, silent and furious. "I want her too."

The boy hiccupped still half in delirium. "I miss her so much." Caleb whispered. "Every day. Every breath. You might not remember it, but I know she used to hum when you couldn't sleep. I know she'll kissed your forehead when you had bad dreams. I know she carry you when you wouldn't stop crying. I know she loved you more than the stars, Ash. She would've fought the gods themselves for you."

Caleb paused. Swallowed. "But I'm here now. And I won't let you go. Please- Let me stay. Let me take care of you. For her. For you. For us."

Ash whimpered. Then slowly like something inside him recognized the grief in that voice, he opened his lips. Caleb raised the cup. Ash drank. Not all of it. Not without difficulty. But enough.

The boy collapsed against him after, exhausted. And Caleb held him through it, through the shallow breaths and the sweat and the half conscious murmurs that still whispered for you.

He brushed the damp hair back from Ash's forehead. Kissed his brow. Wiped away the tears neither of them knew how to stop.

Outside, the snow kept falling. Inside, time stood still.

Later that night, long after Ash had fallen into a fevered sleep, Caleb remained by the bed, hunched forward with elbows on his knees, your son's small hand still wrapped tightly around his finger.

He stared into the fire, eyes hollow. "I should’ve come sooner." He whispered to no one. To you. To the silence. "I should've given it all up. Just for one more year. Just to hold him like this, while you were still here."

The flames didn't answer. But your presence was everywhere. In the scarf folded on the nightstand, the lullaby Ash had murmured before sleep, the faint scent of lilies that lingered on the Ash's blanket.

You were gone. But you were in everything. He looked at the sleeping boy. Pale. Fragile. He was all that remained of you. And he was everything.

-

The fever had passed.

Ash was on the mend, stronger with each passing day, the heat of illness gone from his skin, the distant haze fading from his eyes. But the space between him and Caleb remained quiet, still slightly tense. Not cold. Just… Uncertain.

Ash didn't avoid him anymore. He no longer pulled away when Caleb adjusted his blanket or sat beside him during meals. But neither did he reach out. Not yet. There were no arguments. But no real conversations, either. Not about the things that mattered. Not about her.

He didn't hate his father. He kept telling himself that. But sometimes, when the shadows settled in just right, he remembered the years spent wondering why the door never opened. Why the man in his mother's stories never arrived.

It was easier to pretend he didn't care. Harder to accept that he did.

So one afternoon, while the palace was caught in the lull between meetings and duties and Caleb was tucked somewhere in council, Ash wandered.

Down the halls echoing with memories he wasn't part of. Past portraits he didn't recognize. Through rooms filled with polished furniture and untouched heirlooms. Until he found the door. It wasn't locked.

Not his father's main office, no. This was smaller. Tucked away behind a quiet hallway near the west tower. A study, maybe. Or something older. He hesitated, hand on the latch. Then pushed it open.

The room smelled of aged parchment and cedar wood, soft and worn. Bookshelves lined the walls, dustier than they should be. A map of the old provinces lay unfurled on a desk, corners curled from time. And on the far wall. A painting. He froze.

You, his mother and Caleb. Young. Laughing. Radiant. Your hands in his. His arm around your shoulders, a look on his face that Ash didn't think he'd ever seen in person. You were smiling at him in that painting. And Caleb. His father wasn't looking at the artist at all. He was only looking at you.

Ash stepped closer. His heart beat too fast. Beneath the painting, there were boxes. Not marked. Not sealed. He knelt, fingers trembling slightly, and opened the first one. Letters.

His breath caught. Dozens of them. Some torn at the edges. Some ink-smudged. Some wrinkled as if they'd been carried in the rain. He unfolded the top one.

At the same time. The west wing was quiet. Quieter than the rest of the castle.

Even the wind seemed to hush as it pressed against the high windows, like it, too, knew not to disturb what lay behind that half opened door.

Caleb hadn't been in that room for years. Not since before the war. Not since before everything unraveled and was never stitched back together again. It was a personal room, not the Duke's office, not the public study. It was a room only he had reason to enter.

And now, the door was open. And the silence inside was not the silence of emptiness. It was a silence full of grief. He pushed it open slowly.

Ash sat on the wooden floor, legs tucked beneath him, small fingers curled around a sheet of yellowing paper. Around him lay scattered envelopes, some torn open, some still sealed. The box that once held them had tipped onto its side.

The boy didn't look up. Not even when Caleb stepped fully into the room. Ash's voice was small when he finally spoke.

"You wrote her." Caleb's chest tightened. "I didn't know you ever did." Ash's eyes were red, but dry now. His throat worked as he swallowed. He glanced down again and began reading aloud voice trembling, fragile.

I still see you in my sleep. I wake up thinking I'm back at the old tree, and you're lying beside me with grass in your hair. I reach out, and you're never there. That's how I start my mornings now.

Ash picked up another.

They tell me to forget. They tell me duty matters more than anything. But if they saw you, just once, they'd know why I couldn't.

Caleb froze in place, unable to move, unable to speak. Ash kept going.

I heard rumors you had gone south. I spent a week riding with no name, no insignia. I searched every village. Every market. Nothing. No trace of you. I started to think you were a ghost, sent to haunt me just long enough to remember what love felt like.

Another.

I'm sorry I left you behind. But I would make it right. After the war I'll find a way back to you. I know we had more time ahead of us.

Ash's voice cracked. He reached for another. And paused. This one had your name on the front. Just your name, in Caleb's slanted, uneven script like he had written it in a moment of weakness and haste. He opened it, carefully. His voice dropped. Ash's hands trembled.

I know I wasn't enough. I couldn't protect you. I couldn't choose you. But gods, if I could turn back time, if I could see you one last time… I would give away this title, this honour just to hear you laugh again. To hold you. To say goodbye properly.

The letter slipped from Ash's fingers. And when he finally looked up, his eyes were brimming.

"You didn't know about me." He whispered. "You didn't know I exist." Caleb finally found his voice. "No." He said softly. "I didn't." Ash nodded slowly.

Then like the dam finally cracked, the tears spilled over, full and messy and childlike.

"But why didn't you try harder?! Why didn’t you come sooner?!" He shouted suddenly, voice breaking. "She waited for you! She told me you'll come back! Every year she said it, every year! And then she got sick! And you weren't there! She said you were a good man! She said you'd come back! But you never did! You never came!"

Caleb stepped forward, kneeling down, hands open. "I didn't know-" "You should've!" Ash cried. "She believed in you! And I did too! And you weren't there when she died! She died! She died before you came! And I was alone! I was- I didn't know what to do-!"

He hit him then, small fists pounding against his father's chest. Caleb didn't stop him. "She said you loved us." Ash sobbed. "She said you loved her! And I kept waiting and you never came!" "I'm sorry." Caleb said, voice hoarse. "I'm so sorry."

Ash's fists slowed. His little body trembled with the weight of grief he shouldn't have had to carry alone. Caleb wrapped his arms around him gently. "Everyone told me stories - stories about you- about how you married someone else- that you forgot us- and I didn't know what to believe-! I hated you- I hated you so much-"

Ash finally crumpled against him, the fight falling out of him all at once. "She always said you'd come back." He hiccupped. "I kept believing. I waited. I really… I really did." "I'm sorry." He whispered into his son's hair. "I'm so, so sorry."

"I wrote to her because I didn't know where to go." He whispered. "Every letter was a prayer. Every day I thought I could find her, I thought- gods, I thought I had time. I thought once the war ended-" He couldn't finish.

"I missed your whole life." He choked. "I missed everything." Ash hiccupped against his chest. "She always told me stories about you." Ash whispered. "She said you'd come back. That you were brave. That you had a good heart. But sometimes... I didn't believe her. I thought she was lying. I thought you'd left us."

"I didn't know I had a son." Caleb whispered. "But I knew I had a reason to live. I just didn't know it was you." Ash pulled back slightly, looking at him. "Do you still love her?" "I always will." Caleb said.

Ash hesitated. Then, in a tiny voice, asked. "Can I call you Dad?" Caleb's breath caught. He nodded, one slow, shaking nod. "Yes." He whispered. "Yes. Please." And Ash, still sniffling, wrapped his arms around his father.

"I don't hate you anymore." Ash said. "And I forgive you." He said quietly. "But you have to promise to stay this time." "I will." Caleb said burying his face in his son's hair. "I swear. I won't lose you too."

-

Time had softened the ache, but never erased it.

Years passed, as they do in places built from stone and silence. The Xia Duchy become prosperous from war given the fact that they played a big role taking the princess side who was now the queen of her own kingdom. It was rebuilt beneath its people's pride and their Duke's stern discipline.

And through it all, Caleb ruled with the quiet steadiness he had always been known for. Colder now, more distant perhaps, but respected without question. And beside him, his son.

Mavius Caelum Asher Xia, now older, sharper, taller than before. He had moved through the estate like someone born to its halls yet always with a piece of himself withheld. He was polite in court. Composed in lessons. Exceptionally bright in every diplomatic event or noble function Caleb took him to.

But he smiled less than most boys his age. And he trusted even fewer. His heart, after all, had already broken once. And while it had learned to beat again, it remembered. Always.

Caleb tried not to think about how many nights he had missed. How many birthdays, how many mornings, how many firsts. But in the years since he had brought Ash home, he had never spent another one away. He did not plan to.

Ash had become his world now and every day Caleb tried to become the kind of father you would have wanted him to be.

But grief did not stop time. And time did not stop society.

It started with a letter. Then a visit. Then three more. Ladies, noble blooded, marriageable, politically useful arriving with simpering smiles and folded hands, trailing daughters as carefully dressed as they were clearly rehearsed. They came with tea and embroidery, cloaks lined with lace and intention.

Each one mentioned Ash with practiced warmth, with concern, with a motherly tone none of them had earned.

And Caleb? Caleb refused them before they finished speaking. "I am not looking for a wife." He said coldly, every time. "But my daughter-" "Is not her." He cut in once. And that was the end of that conversation.

But then came the bold ones. The ones who sought out Ash. In the garden. In the stables. Near the training fields. With carefully measured smiles and low voices.

Once, a lady bent to place a hand on Ash’s shoulder and said softly. "You must be so lonely without a woman's care. A boy needs a mother to-" "I had one." Ash said flatly, stepping away. "She died. I don't need a replacement." And he walked off, back straight, face unreadable.

Another tried to invite him for tea. Brought a cake she claimed to have made herself. Ash took one look at it, smiled politely and handed it to the kitchen staff without taking a bite. "Looks heavy." He said. "Just like your expectations." The staff nearly choked on their breath.

By the time he was thirteen, word had gotten around the court. Mavius Caelum Asher Xia, the heir of the Duke was not a boy easily charmed. And if you approached him with pity, manipulation or anything less than honesty, you were going to walk away very embarrassed.

Once, someone tried it in front of Caleb. A highborn woman, twice widowed, always circling. Had the nerve to say. "Ash is such a thoughtful child. I've always dreamed of being a mother to a boy like that." Ash glanced up from his book. "You dream too much."

The silence was palpable. Caleb didn't hide his smirk. Didn't wven try to hide his chuckle.

Later that evening, in the privacy of the Duke's study, Caleb leaned back in his chair and looked over at Ash, who sat curled up in one of the armchairs reading. "You know." Caleb said mildly. "There are more diplomatic ways to discourage suitors."

Ash didn't look up. "You want me to stop?" "No." Caleb said. "Just wondering if you took more after me or your mother." Ash shrugged. "I take after her." "Clearly." There was a beat. Then Caleb added, quieter. "She would've liked that."

Ash looked up. For a long moment, they just looked at each other. Then Ash said softly. "Do you miss her even now?" "Every day." Ash set his book down, carefully.

"I don't want another mother." He said. "No one could be her." "I know." "Some of them think they can just… smile their way in. Like she didn't matter. Like they can take her place." "They can't." Caleb said. "And I won't let them."

Ash tilted his head. "Even if it helps the court? Even if people say it would be good for your image?" "I've never cared much for appearances." Caleb said, smiling faintly. "I let them say what they want."

"Even if it hurts your reputation?" "Even then." Caleb said. "Because you're my son, our son and has more sense than the entire court combined."

Ash blinked, not used to compliments. He looked away, pretending to read again. But Caleb could see the smallest twitch of a smile at the corner of his mouth. That was enough.

And that night, as they passed each other in the hallway. Ash heading to his room, Caleb to his study and the boy, his boy paused, turned slightly, and mumbled. "I think she would've liked you now." Then he disappeared behind the door before Caleb could say a word.

-

The halls of the duchy were once again filled with light.

Banners fluttered from balconies and carved archways, catching the late spring breeze that danced through stone colonnades and across the open courtyard.

Servants moved briskly. Nobles arrived in their finest. And in the grand ballroom where years ago Caleb had once stood beneath a crown of duty, the people now stood for a different Duke. A younger one. One born of quiet strength and hidden roots. Of love, not arrangement.

Ash stood at the center of it all. Tall, sure footed, his features a blend of both memory and legacy. Dressed in a deep indigo regalia stitched with silver thread, he wore the weight of his title like it had always belonged to him.

But today was not just about ascension. It was also about love.

Because standing beside Ash, hands clasped in his, was a young woman in a simple cream gown. No crown, no courtly title, only a soft look in her eyes that said she saw him not for his name but for the boy who once cried for his mother in fevered dreams.

She was from the duchy. Not noble, not titled. Just kind. Clever. A girl with ink stained hands and warm laughter who had met Ash under an apricot tree, the one Caleb planted all those years ago, with you. And argued with him over books, not bloodlines. And somehow, she became his future.

From a distance, hidden in the far end of the courtyard, away from the clamor. Caleb watched it unfold. He stood in shadow, still in his formal clothing but without the heavy cape. Age had crept into his bones more fully now, silver threading through his dark brown hair like early frost. His posture remained dignified, but there was a weight in his gaze.

The quiet ache of a man who had spent his life carrying the consequence of choices.

But in his eyes… There was peace. Because Ash had done it. He had broken the cycle. He had chosen love. And Caleb, though it cost him years and memories and the warmth of you beside him was here to see it.

When the crowd erupted in cheers and the lovers were announced, Ash looked up. Searched the courtyard. And found him. Their eyes met. Ash smiled. So did Caleb.

Later, after the festivities had dimmed and guests wandered off into courtyards and wine drunk laughter, Ash found his father standing beneath the veranda near the old marble fountain. The air smelled of roses and old stone. His footsteps were soft.

"You're not staying the night." Ash said gently, already knowing the answer. Caleb smiled faintly, not turning. "No." "You really are going back to the village, father?" "That's always been the plan." Caleb said, looking out at the stars. "I kept a promise, once. That I'd live simply. Return to the roots where it all began. It's time I kept it."

Ash looked at him, expression unreadable. "And you're fine with that? Leaving all this?" "All this." Caleb echoed, gesturing around. "Was never mine to keep. It was only ever a placeholder for something I lost. Now… Now, it belongs to someone who still believes in it."

Ash was quiet. Then, quietly. "Will you be lonely?" Caleb turned, finally. "Not if you come visit once in a while." Ash's face softened. "I will." Caleb reached forward and fixed the clasp on Ash's cloak. The way you used to do for him. He stepped back. Nodded.

"You look just like her when you smile." Caleb murmured. "But you live better than I ever did. I'm proud of you." Ash swallowed hard. "She would've been too." They stood in silence a moment longer.

Then as Ash was called back to the celebration, he gave his father one final look, half smile breaking the serious line of his jaw. "Don't forget to water the tree." He said dryly. Caleb chuckled. "Brat." "Old man."

They parted with quiet hearts and full ones. And as Caleb left the duchy that night, cloak fluttering behind him in the wind, he felt for the first time in years. Like he was going home.

-

The house stood at the edge of the forest, just beyond where the village road curved and gave way to thickets of pine and soft grass. It hadn't changed much.

Still weather worn, still crooked in the corners, but sturdier now. As though someone had seen the cracks and mended them with care. The roof no longer sagged. The fireplace, though cold, was clean. The porch steps creaked less than they used to.

Caleb stood at the doorway for a long time, hand on the wooden frame, just... Stare. He had brought little with him. A trunk of clothes. A satchel of books. A few mementos he never quite had the strength to throw away. But most importantly, he brought the box, that box. Still sealed, still untouched after all these years.

He didn't open it yet. He didn't feel ready. He set it on the table where you once used to leave wildflowers in a chipped vase. For now, that was enough.

The village welcomed him quietly. They nodded, offered faint smiles, and went on with their lives. They knew who he was. What he had lost. What he was trying, quietly, to remember.

Caleb spent most mornings walking. Sometimes to the baker, who remembered still sell the kind of bread that you like. Sometimes to the tailor, who once helped stitch Ash's baby clothes. He didn't speak much but his presence was never unwelcome.

In the afternoons, he wandered down the path to the river, the same way you used to. The tree was still there, that same old tree, roots like fingers pressed into the dirt, still standing guard over the world the two of you had tried to build.

He would sit beneath it, right next to your tombstone as if siting right next to you for hours. Watching the way the sun reflected on the water. Listening to the breeze as it rustled the leaves. It was quiet, peaceful. The kind of quiet he used to hate when he was younger.

Now, he craved it. Because in that stillness, you lived again. He saw you in the way the river curved around the stones. In the way the light filtered through the canopy, golden and soft.

In the echo of children laughing in the distance. The same way Ash once did, toddling across these fields before either of them knew his name.

Sometimes, he would hum. A tune only you would remember. The one you used to sing when you were cleaning or when you danced barefoot by the firelight, coaxing him to join you even when he said he couldn't dance.

Caleb never responded to those memories with words. He just closed his eyes. Let them hurt. Let them stay.

Each night, he would return to the house, make tea the way you used to and sit by the window and write. Not letters, he had written too many. It was just thoughts now. Notes. Fragments. Pieces of love, tucked between lines of grief.

He wasn't waiting anymore. He wasn't chasing anything. But every now and then, he'd glance at the box on the table. The one filled with your handwriting. Your last truths.

And he would wonder if maybe, tomorrow, he would be brave enough to open it. Just not tonight.

Tonight, he would light the lamp. Pour another cup. Sit by the fire. And remember you as you were. Laughing, brilliant, alive in the only place you ever truly belonged.

Home. With him.

-

The fire had dimmed to embers.

Caleb Xia sat in the worn wooden chair by the window. The same one you used to claim on restless nights, knees tucked to your chest, voice soft with laughter. The air was still, the kind of stillness that only comes when life has slowed into memory. Even the wind outside hushed for him, as if the trees themselves were holding their breath.

He had lived many lives in one. Soldier. Commander. Duke. But none of them had ever felt as heavy, or as holy, as being yours. And then, being a father.

The box sat beside him now. Old, weatherworn, the latch loose from travel and time. He had carried it for years, across courts, across time, through years of frostbitten regret. A box he dared not open because some part of him was afraid that once he did, the last thread tethering you to this world would snap.

But now, he was ready. And the lid creaked open.

Your handwriting was the first thing that struck him. Still familiar, still you, the loops and softness of your letters holding time like pressed petals between pages. He read.

Caleb,

If this letter reaches you, maybe I'm gone. Maybe you're back. Maybe you're sitting under our tree again, pretending not to cry. You never did cry easily. Always so composed. Always carrying everything alone.

But I hope you let yourself cry this time.

He smiled faintly, tears already slipping past his lashes. Another letter.

Ash took his first step today. It was clumsy. Beautiful. He fell straight into the garden soil, laughed, and held his hands up to me like he'd just conquered the world.

He looks like you. But when he sleeps, he curls into himself the way I do.

I tell him stories about you. I call you his brave father. The hero who fights so no other child has to lose their home.

And sometimes, when I'm tired and the house is too quiet, I let myself imagine you're just late coming home.

He bowed his head, fingers clutching the edge of the parchment. His shoulders trembled. The words blurred.

Letter after letter, unfolding like spring after too long a winter. Telling stories of scraped knees and lullabies. Of hopes you never voiced out loud. Of a love you never regretted, not even once.

I never blamed you. You must know that. I chose this. I chose to keep him safe. I chose to stay hidden, to keep you from the shame and blood of scandal.

You always said love was dangerous. But I think ours bloomed because of that. It bloomed in the cracks between duty and longing.

It bloomed in silence.

His hand moved to the pendant at his throat. The one that used to be yours. The one he'd found around Ash's neck that day in this village. The moment that changed everything.

If you ever come back here... Tell him I'm sorry. For everything I couldn't be. For every night he cried and I couldn't stop missing you enough to smile.

But remind him, our son, that I loved him. And remind him you loved him too, even before you knew he existed.

I see you in him, Caleb. Every time he looks at me. Every time he stares off like the sky is whispering something only he can hear.

You don't have to carry guilt. Just love. That's what we leave behind, isn't it? What was left to bloom.

Caleb exhaled, long and slow, like his heart had finally been given permission to rest.

What was left to bloom. Yes. That had been Ash. A child born from love that never got to finish saying everything it wanted to. A child raised with stories, not presence. But still full of roots and meaning.

He placed the last letter back in the box. Closed the lid gently.

His eyes drifted toward the window. Beyond it, the tree stood tall. Your tree. Their tree. Our tree. Blossoms just beginning to peek out from its tired branches, defiant against the last bite of cold.

Caleb's breath came slower now. He leaned back in the chair, fingers curled around the box. And there, in the final quiet of early spring, with sunlight pooling at his feet like an old friend, Caleb closed his eyes and let go.

-

Ash arrived just before dawn.

He'd brought fresh bread. He was planning to convince his father to come into the village square for tea. Maybe watch the river again. Maybe talk, like they'd been doing more lately.

But when he stepped inside and saw his father still and peaceful in the chair, the box of letters on his lap, the quiet smile on his face. He knew.

He said nothing at first. Just knelt beside him. Held his hand. Then whispered. "She waited." His voice broke. "And you found her."

-

Outside, the river moved slow and sure. The breeze brushed past the blooming tree with a hush, as if the world itself was bowing.

And in the years to come, when Ash would walk through those woods with his own children, he would point to that house, that tree, and say. "This is where love once bloomed. And this is what came after."

[ⓒdark-night-hero] 2025°