Tēķ ą§ķím bľøģųm/21

character: NO

There is something decidedly artful about the way Kara looks now, tied to the headboard of their bed.

It is not their first time, of course. Lena’s had many opportunities to delight in the sight of the gentle stretch of Kara’s arms whenever she’d struggle not to tear against the silk bonds around her wrists, the tense arch of her neck when her head’s thrown back in loud ecstasy, the flexing tendon there that Andrea loves to bite at then. It feels like the eighth wonder of the world every time, the Girl of Steel surrendering herself into their hands in unabashed pleasure.

This time, though, feels even better.

Kara looks ravishing and ravished in equal measure now, face already blissed out before they’d even get started, hair tousled, spreading out into a golden halo on the pillows under her head. Angelic, almost, even with the ties around her wrists and the sizeable strap-on jutting from her hips. Lena drinks in the sight of her: the heavy rise of her chest, the flexing of her abs under the half-unbuttoned shirt. Her bright blue eyes now hazy with desire, moving from Lena to Andrea’s figure, then back again. But Lena’s own gaze is drawn to Kara’s neck now, to the messy map of love-bites and lipstick stains they’ve left all over the hollow of her throat and the impeccable white of her shirt’s collar. Deep red and a muted pink, they stand out, loud, assertive, and oh, how Kara loves to bear those marks.

Kara’s leg pressing against her thigh jolts Lena from her silent admiration.

“Enjoying the view?” Her girlfriend grins, somehow managing to be smug still, and Lena rolls her eyes and shuffles closer. She only reaches out at first, stroking along the collar and chuckling when Kara instinctively presses up against her hand.

“Don’t be a brat now,” she murmurs and bends forward, letting her lips brush over her own marks, smiling as she feels Kara’s breath hitch under her mouth.

“You must make a good impression, daughter. And take care of the company you keep.”

She has to keep reminding herself of her father's words, to stand tall and smile, dutiful and pleasant, and not to pick at her nails. It is a royal ball, after all. The first in ten years that Lord Otto Hightower has been graciously invited to, recalled to court and to his seat on the Council. A triumphant, joyful return by all measures.

Alicent, as ever, is ill at ease.

She’s never quite gotten used to the Red Keep during the last of the old king’s reign. It’s a queer place, too young, too great, too foul already. Even now, with its great hall all illuminated, the walls reverberating with the sound of music and laughter, it feels dark, suffocating, the twisted shadow of the Iron Throne looming large on its walls. In Oldtown, there’s wisdom and piety at court, in Highgarden, chivalry and grace. Here, she’s only met with the dragonlords’ lewd, alien splendor.

And she faces it alone.

(There was, once, the princess Rhaenyra, then a scrawny, silver-haired menace. Alicent recalls brief flashes, a wide, toothy grin, her brazen tone, the petulant pout when admonished, the little bronze dragon perched on her shoulders, then later padding after her through the court. The enraptured, curious look of blue-violet eyes, listening to Alicent’s reading. It was long ago. It’s Crown Princess now, a woman grown, and wilder still than the Rogue Prince, or so the whispers that reach the Hightower from the ports say. Dragon’s blood, King Viserys is said to jest. Alicent tries to pay just as little mind to their tales as little Rhaenyra must be thinking about her. There must be graver things for the kingdom’s heir to think about than daughters of disgraced courtiers.)

Time passes slowly. Lords and ladies come to welcome her with their honeyed barbs, lordlings and squires ask for a dance and squeeze her hand too tight, all sweaty and overeager to ingratiate themselves with the newly-made Hand’s daughter. Alicent nods and listens and smiles and charms, always gentle and always delightful as her father would wish, until her cheeks hurt and her face feels like a rigid, half-cracked mask. She feels the court’s cold, prying eyes on her, knows how they must be seizing her up, measuring, judging. A good impression.

Yet there’s something else, too, a different gaze that she sometimes meets, the eyes of a lean, pale figure from across the hall, standing in the circle of a gaggle of courtiers. They follow her with such piercing intensity that she feels her face burn. (In confusion, surely. Embarrassment.)

She takes refuge by a pillar in the end, sinking into its shadow. She doesn’t even realize when she starts picking at her nails again. She only knows that suddenly, there’s blood running down her finger and she hisses in pain, almost tearing her handkerchief in her hasty attempt to cover it.

“You have not changed one bit.”

She flinches, shirks away from the unexpected company – or would, but there’s a hand wrapped around her wrist, gentle but firm, holding her in place. A laugh, low and delighted.

Alicent looks up. Her captor is the pale stranger – a youth clad in the royal red-and-black, a mess of short, silver-white hair framing a handsome face, lighting up with amusement as they watch her stammer and squirm. Not Daemon, not one of the Velaryons, certainly, not…

“I did not use to give you such fright.” They grin at her dazed stare, mischievous and eerily familiar, squeezing Alicent’s hand carefully, pressing the handkerchief just tightly enough against the bleeding scratch. “Not just by seeking you out, that is.”

“Rhaenyra.”

“Oh ‘the cloud’ is just what they decided to call it. What it actually means is that you use the internet to connect to some dedicated computer somewhere where your file is stored, and then you can access that file, which is why it only works with an internet connection. You’re just renting space on a computer the company owns.”

Closest match: Culicoides sonorensis genome assembly, scaffold: scaffold117 Common name: Biting midge

“That was wild.”

“This made my day.”

“Thanks I saw a picture of her on Instagram and I was like wow shit was wild.”

Women ✨️

Dreaming in the rain ☔️

For the City of Progress' Sweethearts event. Song: Taeyeon - Rain