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Come here, my sweeting.
yes daddy
Indeed, I have your attention. Splendid.
For only a clever man knows how to play the fool.
I had seen her. I’d been watching her. Soon, I would have her. Yet even sooner, I would lose myself in her.
Peace Talks,
Anticipating the welcome feast tonight gnawed through me. I did not relish drinking or dancing. Most certainly not dancing.
A princess never puts herself first.
An Autumn female did no such thing—plaits and headdresses reigned in my land—and allowing my hair to run rampant was a recipe for tangles.
she's so Virgo, I love it
And like a sudden quickening of the pulse, there he was.
The woman didn’t return. The orchid he’d stolen was nowhere in sight.
did he push the orchid her?? 😭
Poet.
Privately, I winced but kept my chin raised.
In The Dark Seasons, the gift of a ribbon symbolized a person’s esteem for someone they admired. But this didn’t feel like a gift. It seemed like a tease. Or something more dangerous—like a target.
My one true friend. And a transgression.
It was not romantic between us. Eliot preferred males, and I preferred anything but romance.
No one else was worth the risk. No one else would ever tempt me.
I’d been jealous about that. I didn’t know how I wanted to die, what I wanted to be doing when it happened.
In The Dark Seasons, the term “born fool” was universal across the courts. Although I detested giving anyone such labels, these individuals were divided into two classes: the “mad” and the “simpleton,” and both belonged to the Crown.
“She leaves her throne. She leaves her home. At night, she roams. The dark, her own. Alas, Princess. You’re not alone.”
trick.
SHE SAID IT
the jester and the princess locked in motion, our bodies going round and round.”
I would try to forgive myself for that unkindness later. My breeding and conscience should have known better than to belittle his position.
I balked. “I don’t believe you.” “’Tis all the same to me, Sweet Thorn.” “Stop calling me that. I forbid it.”
“Nerves,” I repeated. “You must be jesting.” Poet set his palm on his chest. “Who, me?”
this... this bitch. this audacious sarcastic bitch
“What precisely do you have against fuck? ’Tis a lovely word. I do have a fetish for lovely words.”
*enter Morgan Freeman meme* he has a point you know?
“Have you ever lost control with someone?” He burrowed closer, his tone dropping another octave. “Have you ever wanted to?”
“Have you ever fantasized about flinging yourself into the fire?” the jester murmured, pupils glittering with intrigue behind the diamond cutting through his left eye. “Have you ever imagined being naked and breathless, clasping someone who’s as rampant as you are? Ever opened yourself for a man or woman, spread yourself so wide they could reach every deep, tight, and moaning part of you?”
“Would you allow yourself that pleasure?”
The corner of his mouth tipped. And there, amid a hundred mirrors, the jester blew me a thousand fiendish kisses.
Allow me this: I regret nothing.
Alas, I hadn’t begun to lament my every move, nor drown in every forsaken thing about her. She hadn’t devoured me yet.
I’d learned my lesson there once already. It wouldn’t happen again.
Briar—a brisk, no-nonsense name. Despite its lack of flair, it was confident without trying hard.
If a man groaned that name, the sound would be guttural—a husky eruption of noise.
So one might say I followed the princess. And one might say I hadn’t been able to help myself.
At first glance, her tight face, tight lips, and even tighter temper lured the troublemaker in me. Then her accusations offended the fuck out of me, roused the adversary in me. To say nothing of her interest in my bracelets.
My words hit their mark, ignited a spark. And wicked hell. I’d enjoyed that part.
Not my best effort, but I had an excuse since the princess still took up valuable space in my head.
Those steely eyes. That smart, tenacious mouth. That willful tongue.
Basil waved me off. “Poet, would you mind lifting your ass from my wife’s chair? And give your thoughts a rest. Have an apple,” he suggested. “They’re a gift from Autumn.”
there's a reason why I like basil in my damn pasta so much. you tell 'im daddy
Because perish the thought of anything being “unnatural,” whatever the fuck that meant.
Thereupon, I imagined pressing my finger into the slant of that female’s throat. I imagined counting that sharp pulse, wondering how many beats it would take until her lips parted for air. I imagined getting a sneak peek at that whiplash of a tongue. How would her shocked gasp sound? How would it look if that tongue swiped across those lips, her mouth glistening?
he's down bad, imagining her from a mere sight of an apple. rip poet you would have loved the word "simp"
Rhys the Rotten
DYING AJSKDKSKSKDJL;L
My jaw locked. Someday, that could happen to …
no, it won't.
Slowly, my features tightened like fist. Even slower, my eyes skewered toward him.
The king’s comparison had sounded as if enslaving human beings versus employing a trained fool dressed in lace and leather was a matter of inconvenience rather than barbarism.
The problem was I couldn’t trust myself to speak without giving myself away. Not when the ribbons around my wrist clung to me for protection.
I knew someone else who would have loved to hear this recital, set among the gardens’ lush shrubs and alcoves. That someone would have also loved the bubbles floating from a collection of wands, which several of the guests wielded. That someone would have loved to be here with me.
If this thorn weren’t careful in the future, she would eventually out-dress me.
“In Autumn,” I repeated, “color infuses the trees like spices, and ladies interpret dreams by candlelight, the wicks illuminated for the long night.” I piled the next words on my tongue and hurled them at her. “Burning hot before melting into a lovely disaster.”
