#eighthcest

Okay so please consider. You were raised in a cult with the weight of that cult on your shoulders from before your birth and you have been groomed to believe that you, as the leader of your House and the wider Empire’s religion are a moral backbone of society and as long as you follow what you perceive to be the doctrine of your God-Emperor you will always be correct and you are likely more morally correct than anyone else around you because you are the keeper of morality and you know the word of God and you know best and this is your role.

Now please also consider that you have made an oath to be bonded to a man who is not only sworn to protect you, but has trialed and trained for not just this role but specifically *for you* a decade before you were even born. You have both been told (and both wholeheartedly believe) that his sole purpose is to live his life for you and suffer physically and spiritually for the sake of your necromantic prowess. He would not exist but for his service to you. He was born for it. He vied for this position against his two brothers and fate (blood) chose him and only him as your correct match.

He is your constant companion. Your shadow. Your source of power despite the cost to his body and soul. Your conduit to people beneath your dignity to speak to. Your domestic servant and caretaker. You are hardly seen in public without him. You never hear the word “no” to anything you ask of him until he feels it necessary to put his foot down for his *own* morals, and it does not compute that they clash with yours, because he is nearly a limb of your own body. You would override his denial of your autonomy over his body if not for the shock of your right hand disobeying you and questioning whether you *are* in fact in the moral right, probably for the first time in your entire life.

He is one of the few people whose presence you can reliably stand and he is one of the few people who can reliably stand your presence. He loves you. Sometimes he does not like you anymore, and that is the only thing that has ever made you question your own righteousness, because he is the most righteous man you know besides yourself.

Despite him questioning you, despite something now fundamentally cracked in the foundation of your relationship, he is still devoted to you and your God enough to simply accept, with only resignation and without fight or hesitation, dying for your lyctorhood. It was what he was made for, after all.

And you… you love him devotedly enough in return to reject this. To disbelieve your God’s intentions for the both of you. Perhaps enough to even say that if this is what your God wants, he is *wrong.* You are angry at your cavalier for even believing for a moment that you would consume him for your own gain. You are probably blind to how hypocritical this is, but the fact is that despite the best efforts of society and custom and God, you do in fact see your lifelong companion as more than a body and soul to die for you. Your faith in him and his abilities is enough to take on a nascent lyctor. Your faith in him is a hubristic and desperate one as you both die of it, and in your last moments all you can do is call for him because he has always been there and until recently you thought he always would be and in your moment of need you still have that faith.

But he can’t come, because you got him killed, and now in the afterlife you must find him and drag him from the literal mouth of hell you sent him to. (It’s gonna happen in Alecto i know it trust me im not even joking)

And yes, of course your relationship with your cavalier taking on a more romantic or sexual tint would be taboo on a number of levels… but well… *you* are the righteous, moral leader of the Nine Houses’ religion. Who other than you could claim higher authority on what is right than the Necrolord Prime himself? And he has nothing to say on such matters.

Look all I’m saying is Silas Octakiseron is really wasting the potential of Colum Asht’s devotion if you ask me. And religious cults are full of repression leading to secret sexually deviant behavior.

Also I’m pretty sure Tamsyn Muir herself ships it cause like:

This shit is extremely and explicitly christian marriage coded language and you can’t tell me that’s not on purpose because the entire vibes of necro/cav pairings is supposed to be weird and marriagey that’s like half the point of the series.

And okay, I hear you saying over there “this ship is number 8 in the relationships tag filters for TLT on AO3 thats not niche” and I hear you. However. I think it still counts when there’s about 15 people seemingly shipping it and about two thirds of those fics were written by just two of them. Yes im one of them. Im obsessed with these guys. Thank you for reading my essay 🤍 🤍 have a nice night :D Eighthcest is the best

Oooh yeah I suspected it was going to be Eighthcest, lol. Thanks for the essay!

Yeah. I see it. I absolutely see it. As someone who does a great deal of Rotating Colum Asht in my mind myself (for reasons of shipping him with Babs, eek) that incestuous undercurrent is undeniably There. And the power dynamics??? Possibly the most imbalanced of any of the necro-cav pairs we meet. Yeah. And it regularly fucks me up that Colum's last words to Silas are to explicitly deny him consent to siphon him--and Silas steamrolls right over that to seal both their fates. There is. A Metaphor in there, for sure.

"In the aftermath of Canaan House, Colum finds himself barred from Silas' hospital room by the Master Templar himself, and shortly thereafter ushered off on a shuttle to the Third House with only a letter from his necromancer and everything practical that he might require to start a new life there, alone.

Despite everything his uncle has put him through, this is the furthest thing from what he wants."

for @neverhornyoneighth's "A Tree of Life"

only in his final moments does he experience the accumulative horror of these loops, his composure and convictions crumbling to a raw point of madness, his cavalier's name a bellow on his lips

then he's back in the shuttle. back with colum at his side

hello i wrote a lot of fic for bulletproof and it's very good so you should read them okay thanks bye

Liquid Love Distilled (obikin, 7.3k, T)

bulletproof tag: A/B/O - Deeply Intricate and Meaningful Mating/Courtship Rituals

(Anakin's behavior changes quite drastically after finding out his former Master is an omega. Obi-Wan doesn't know what's going on, until he does.)

Blessed, Bedded, Bred (eighthcest, 773 words, E)

bulletproof tag: I physically can't get you pregnant but we can pretend

(Colum breeds Silas in his bed at Canaan House.)

A Lapse in Ability (obikin, 1.5k, M)

bulletproof tag: Holding someone's cock to help them piss

(Anakin holds Obi-Wan's dick while he pisses.)

darling, i'm fallin' (fucked up over you) (obikin, 4.4k, E)

bulletproof tag: Character pays back a loan with their body - each fuck for $$

(Anakin owes Sith Obi-Wan an enormous amount of money, and Obi-Wan only takes one type of payment.)

the corners where the light don't touch (isafrin, 1.5k, G)

bulletproof tag: That Time of Night So Late It's Early Again (And the Liminal Conversations Had At This Hour)

(Isabeau and Siffrin have a conversation so late at night it's early again, of a very fleeting nature.)

When the Sun Goes Down (obikin, 1.2k, E)

bulletproof tag: big fat useless dick on a bottom

(Obi-Wan fucks Anakin and while doing so admires how big Anakin's dick is.)

close those eyes (and let me love you to death) (obikin, 4k, E)

bulletproof tag: A/B/O - Consensual Non-Consent Roleplay Has Been Medically Proven to Increase Omega Fertility

(Obi-Wan gets knotted and bred.)

Recast Around You (obikin, 696 words, E)

bulletproof tag: belly bulge

Anakin fucks Obi-Wan so deep that his stomach bulges with it. Obi-Wan kinks on this a surprising amount.

don't wanna panic (but the volume's on 11) (obikin, 2.6k, E)

bulletproof tag: Character having sex is anxious that their partner will be annoyed/bored/put off by them

(Or, Anakin panics about "doing it wrong" and Obi-Wan shows him that they can do it anyway.)

don't go (stay in my veins) (obikin, 2.2k, E)

bulletproof tags: Comeplay - licking come off of own fingers, Comeplay - A pushing come back inside B's fucked hole

(Anakin needs to make sure Obi-Wan absorbs his come to save his life.)

if love were a shape (it would be the one that the corners of her mouth make) (obikin, 1.2k, T)

bulletproof tag: washing someone else’s hair as an act of service

Unfortunately, his best attempt at subtlety is not enough, and after a soft, short gasp escapes him he hears the brush of hair upon pillow and turns his head to see Ram – still laying on his back, but head turned toward him and eyes no longer shut – watching him, a strange look on his face.

He expects Ram to turn away after a moment. Ignore him, go back to trying to fall asleep. His eldest brother just stares, though, and Colum is beginning to feel very self conscious about the way his hand is – very noticeably – moving beneath the covers.

“Don’t look,” he hisses, louder than he means to, and a moment later he hears bedclothes rustling followed by a quiet snickering from behind him.

“Don’t mind him, Colum,” Capris says from the third bed in their shared room. “Bet he hasn’t even realized what you’re doing. ‘M not sure he even knows how to jerk off.”

Colum used to wish he had the privacy of his own bedroom. After tonight, he's not sure he minds anymore.

Colum’s always been big to Silas. 

He’d towered over Silas ever since he was a child, seeming impossibly tall in Silas’s memories. He had seemed so old, so experienced, a giant who could sweep Silas off his feet and toss him playfully onto the bed as Silas complained bitterly about being forced to leave his studies for the night.

“When I’m grown,” Silas would threaten, “I will stay up till morning reading the Tome.”

“Of course,” Colum would agree, and start arranging the pillows.

Now Silas is an adult, or thereabouts, he fufills his threats. He stays in the Eighth House libraries until his eyes ache, he reads the Tome until his head throbs with pain. He prays, and he fasts, and he completes his duties. He is praised, and worshipped, and Colum stands by his side, as proud as any cavalier with an exemplary necromancer. 

Silas should be happy.

Yet he cannot stop thinking about the size of Colum’s hands holding his rapier, or the way he casts a shadow over Silas as they walk, or the time that he walked in on Colum showering and saw his -