#wovengold

birds, wolves, and girls with mandibles

Welcome to the fourth annual Dadrius week! Dadrius Week will start 1 month from now on Father's Day. Prompts are:

Day 1: Lost Day 2: Flyer Derby Day 3: Scars Day 4: Memories/Free Space Day 5: Abomination Day 6: Talk Day 7: Found

Some ground rules:

Any sort of media is welcome. Fanfic, fanart, edits, playlists, moodboards, headcanons, whatever form your art takes, we're happy to have it!

As always, prompts don't have to be done in order, and there is no pressure to finish within the week, or even finish all the prompts at all. Whenever and whatever you feel like completing is incredible, and we're happy to have it!

NO content shipping Hunter with Darius

In terms of content, pretty much anything goes except for rule 3, but PLEASE be sure to thoroughly tag your work for heavier/potentially upsetting topics. If you have specific questions/aren't sure if something is permitted, please contact me

Because here's the thing: It's not that easy to help someone who's being abused when they don't understand they're being abused. Especially when it comes to a case like Hunter's, in which not only was the person abusing him his family and legal guardian, but also the only person he was somewhat close to, since he was effectively isolated.

This isn't even speculation, it's clear in Hollow Mind. There's a degree of denial that comes with someone who hasn't been able to digest the fact they're being hurt because not thinking about it has been a survival mechanism for them. Having someone trying to change that perception of the world can make you lash out and snap, anything to preserve the carefully balanced status quo there. Anything to keep the one thing that has worked for survival.

Darius' options at this point were straight up kidnapping Hunter and lose all of his trust because Hunter would then think even more that he truly couldn't trust anybody but Belos, or try his best to become someone Hunter could trust, so when the time came, Hunter would know he was a safe person who could get him out of there.

Darius couldn't say outright "hey, kid, you're being abused and that's fucked up, let me get you out of here". Not with the layers of denial and fear Hunter had built because of Belos. The only thing that would have earned him would have been Hunter recoiling and pushing him away. Darius would have pushed him away even further into Belos' clutches if he had done that.

Of course, it feels terrible because we're not talking about, say, providing a safe space for a friend until they are able to get out of an abusive relationship, this is a child, but it's such a complicated situation. You can hardly call Child Protection Services on the Emperor of the Isles, provided they even have that in the first place.

Honestly I think Darius did the best he could have done and people who think he didn't do enough really do not give him the credit he deserves, because it's clear Hunter DID trust him, for him to be able to believe in him and let Darius reach out after running out of the coven, despite the intense fear and paranoia he had toward everybody from the EC.

Plus it's not only this single aspect that was on the line here. Darius had to be mindful not to accidentally push Hunter away and lose all the chances he had to get him out of that situation while at the same time being very aware he was being reckless by having the Emperor's nephew close to him when he was one of the main leaders of the rebellion.

He was risking so much here and he really didn't have to. He gave Hunter something to communicate with the world outside of the walls of the castle, he could have said "this is all I can do for him" and washed his hands off of him, continue his rebel work and just tell himself Hunter would be fine once they took down Belos.

But he didn't, he chose to be there, he chose to build trust, he chose to help as much as such a hard situation allowed.

Darius deserves some patches too

Dadrius Week Day 2 - Sewing

Dadrius Week- Day One- Puppet Special thanks to @badgirlcoven-official for helping with Belos's dialogue!! For @sergeantsporks's dadrius week!!

Bonus…

Protective Dadrius my beloved,,,,

Close-up under the cut!!