I was so excited to find something this week to act as a prompt. To be able to write again and see if anyone else wanted to play along. Alas the universe had other plans this week. I have had an utter lack of any kind of inspiration this week because on Monday our family said goodbye to my beloved Pash Pash kitty. It has left a giant bleeding hole in my heart and others too.

Pasha was such a sweet boy, mischievous but loving. He enjoyed snuggling with just about anyone he met.  Life with him was a true blessing. He was not feeling well for a day and a half, before he suddenly just took a turn. I had planned on taking him to the vet right away when they opened, but when he took a turn, when I saw his distress I had to run him to the emergency vet. Of course I have written all of this in my previous post about grief. No sense in telling the entire story again. I feel silly repeating even here, but for this week because of this my Pash Pash has taken my creativity with him. I am sure it will come back, he would not want me to be without it. Pash Pash enjoyed hours upon hours of sitting in my lap while banged away at the keyboard writing one thing or another. He would then sit happily in my lap snoring as I did some crochet. Beyond that, of course, even when I was writing letters to pen pals there he was happy to snuggle and occasionally make a swat at the pen I was using. Many pen pals have gotten letters with random swipes and big blops of ink and me writing sorry about that it was Pasha trying to help.

I will see him again  know that, just like I know I will get my “mojo” back. Alas, it is just not going to happen for now. Perhaps maybe next week. Now it is time to close as Dutchy stares and yells at me.

 

 

 

While I won’t be posting the Saturday Sanc today, I wanted to announce that I would be bringing it back. On this eve were we say goodbye to 2016 a year that was not totally fantastic and we step in to 2017 hoping for a better year. I am not one who makes resolutions like many I try to make goals instead. One of my goals for 2017 is to get back into my blogging more. I have always enjoyed blogging and the stress of the last year has taken me away from some of the enjoyment.

It is time to take some of that enjoyment back. Work is an important thing and so is being there for other people. However, there comes a point where one must find a better balance and I know I need to find a better balance in 2017. In many parts of the world the new year is already here while in my part of the world there is but a few hours left. I am ready to see 2016 gone, like many are no doubt.

While we can never fully just shake off the things that have happened purely because a calendar date changes we can try to move forward with hope and a new lightness in our hearts. Something new always gives us a bit of hope. I really hope 2017 will be better, kinder if nothing else.

So here we go, stepping into the new year and I fully plan to make a goal of blogging more again. Here and at my other places. In the meantime, I am going to enjoy a bit of a tasty Scottish man for the rest of the year, while pondering if I should redo the theme on this blog for the new year as well.

I am not really up to writing this week for Saturday Sanctuary. A lot has been going on and I need a mental break for a little bit. That doesn’t mean I am not inspired in other ways however. I am just going to leave this here and perhaps it will inspire other people as well.

The Prompt this week *drum roll please* Slash. **This is a throw back post not feeling very creative this weekend but i wanted to post something. Hopefully next week will kick creative in the butt*

 

source

 

Day 1

The thing is McCoy has had a bad day. All the other cadets are way younger than he is and he bets half of them are going to spend their first evening on campus founding a fraternity. McCoy doesn’t need a damn fraternity to get himself comfortably boozed. Actually, he’s already halfway there and doesn’t plan on moving away from his bottle of bourbon any time soon.

Thing is, his life never went according to plan; it just laughed in his face and screwed him over. So he rolls his eyes and finally opens the door after having lived with its chiming for a few minutes. He’s drunk and pissed and this better not be one of these stupid fraternity boys asking if he wants to join them.

It’s his luck that the blue-eyed boy smiling at him just looks like one of its founding fathers.

“Who are you?” He barks.

From one second to the next the grin vanishes from the boy’s face and he looks like a kicked puppy … oh, yeah, that’s something McCoy remembers. He searches for a name in his mind, but it’s really difficult when the bourbon is spreading through his bones, and the kid is turning away, already a few meters away from his door, when he finally remembers.

“Jim! Jim, hey, stop!” The kid turns back to him and he sees the suppressed, but hopeful look in his eyes. “Don’t you want to come in? I’ve got enough bourbon for two.” A smile is spreading over Jim’s face and McCoy swears that swears the kid could do toothpaste ads with it. He must have said that aloud, because Jim is laughing when he follows him into his room.

Day 2

McCoy is cranky, and in a bad mood and Jim really is just the easiest target available and he kind of deserves it for coming to McCoy’s dorm again, and for pestering McCoy again.

After the first “boy” Jim doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even give any notice he had heard it.

After the second “boy” he reminds McCoy that he has a name.

After the third “boy” Jim grabs his stuff and leaves without a word.

McCoy feels even worse when the door closes again, and he never calls Jim “boy” again.

Day 3

“You got plans?” Jim asks, leaning casually at the door frame as if he had a reason to be here. He hasn’t, just for the record. He just keeps coming back like a stray cat. Stray dog. Stray … something. Not feeding him doesn’t actually help to get rid of him.

“Plans?” McCoy blinks and swallows the ‘Who the hell are you and why are you stalking me?’ that’s on the tip of his tongue. He kind of figures they covered that yesterday. And the day before.

“Yeah, you know, for tonight?”

McCoy rolls his eyes. “Drowning in Bourbon and feeling angry at the world sounded like a good plan until now. You got any problems with that?”

“No, that’s pretty cool.” Jim nods. “Mind if I join you?”

“Yes!”

“Great. I got crackers.”

Day 4

“I had a thought!” Jim exclaims theatrically as soon as McCoy opens the door.

“The hell …? What are you …?”

“I just realized we could drink bourbon and wallow in misery the whole night outside your room, too! So come on man, this is going to be a blast!”

He hasn’t even time to explain to Jim that the whole concept of wallowing in misery and ‘having a blast’ are mutually exclusive. In Jim’s world they’re probably not.

Day 5

“Are you drunk?”

He has kind of forgotten how he ended up next to Jim in Basic Warp Design. Or when he ever decided he should take a course about Basic Warp Design?! What the hell is wrong with him? He’s a doctor, not an engineer.

Since the moment he set foot on this shuttle, he knew he would crack eventually. And as soon as he decided to replace his morning coffee with bourbon today he knew he was screwed. Usually he can hold his liquor, but not even he’s that good.

This was a bad idea. Everything. The whole Starfleet Academy-thing. Bad. Bad idea. He’s too old and too cynical and he’s way too miserable. He doesn’t belong here, right in the middle between fresh-faced, overenthusiastic teenagers. He’s a doctor, not a student, and at the moment he’s not even a good doctor.

His wife was probably right about everything, including the fact that he’s a loser and will be a loser until the day he’s going to disintegrate into particles.

“I don’t believe it,” Jim hisses. “… You’re drunk!”

“I’m not.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. Shit. It’s like eleven a.m.!” He sounds exasperated, amused and worried, all at the same time. Jim is completely unable to be only one thing at a time like normal people. He’s everything at once, too intense and too bright and too much and he crashed into his life like a meteor … and McCoy doesn’t even remember how they’ve gotten out of the classroom. So yes, maybe he’s a little drunk.

“Look, don’t worry, it’s only the first week, they don’t know the faces anyway. Nobody is going to remember we weren’t there today,” Jim says walking next to him. “I’ll just take you to your room and nobody’s going to know anything. And Basic Warp Design is kind of … basic anyway. Who cares about the basics, right?”

“You should go back,” he says, because it’s the right thing to say, even though for the first time he actually doesn’t want Jim to go.

Jim waves airily, one hand casual and steady on McCoy’s elbow. “Nah, been there, done that. Basic Warp is not that hard. You promised to show me how to avoid space herpes anyway. I’m an eager learner.”

Only hours later McCoy realizes Jim most likely had just saved his ass. And he has not the faintest idea why he did.

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“Tell me when you want me to stop.”
Her heart swelled with elation, filling her to the point of terror. She did not speak her answer. She breathed it, from somewhere deep within.
“Never.”
He hesitated for a moment—just the briefest of moments—his eyes probing hers for any sign of doubt. Are you sure you want this? they seemed to ask.
She arched up into him, and her fingers knotted themselves in his hair. She wanted this. This may have been the only thing she had actually ever wanted, really and truly. Wanted on an elemental level, an animal level, as insistent and undeniable as the most painful hunger or thirst.
She had only the vaguest idea of where this driving need was taking her. She had never been here before. Never seen it. Never tasted it. She did not even have a name for it, only knew that she wanted.
She wanted.
The longing in her gaze was his undoing. His mouth captured hers, and it was only when she felt the suddenly urgent pressure of his lips that she realized he had been holding himself back until just that moment. He sank his full body weight onto her, pressing her more deeply into the mattress, and the feeling of heaviness, of being pinned beneath him by her own desire, was delicious.
His hands had been cupping her face, drawing her closer to him, but now one of them worked its way into her hair, the fingertips massaging her scalp as they threaded through the heavy tresses. Gathering a fistful of her long locks, he tugged—gently but insistently—tilting her head and forcing her to offer up the vulnerable skin along her neck. His hot, demanding kisses sliced across her cheek and blazed a trail of fire all the way to the hollow between her collarbones that left her panting for breath.
“Are you all right?” he asked, and his voice was low and husky in a way that she had never quite heard before.
She could only nod her head yes. She did not trust herself to speak.
In response he took her firmly by the wrists and hauled her upright, using one arm to encircle her waist and keep her melded tightly against him. With his unoccupied hand, he gently brushed back the whisper-thin material of the short, diaphanous robe she wore over her nightgown, revealing the pale skin of her left shoulder. His lips followed immediately behind, searing every inch of her exposed flesh, and she could do nothing but shiver, wrap her arms around him, and cling on for dear life while he nipped at her skin and wrung gasps from her lungs. He repeated the process with her right shoulder, his movements teasing and agonizingly slow, before he finally pulled her arms free of the garment and impatiently tossed it aside. He then broke her hold on him, and—loose-limbed and gulping for air—she toppled back onto the mattress, her head thumping against the pillows and sending a small spray of feathers flying. As she giggled at him through the floating cascade, he lifted her hand to his face, pressed a kiss into her palm, and once again uttered the words that had simultaneously shattered and stitched her up again moments earlier:
“I love you.”
Reaching up for the collar of his shirt, she pulled him hungrily down to her, balling the fabric up in her fists as she opened her mouth against his and felt the glide of his tongue on her lips. Her hands slid down along his sides, searching for a way in, and finally brushed against the embroidered hem before diving underneath so that she might run her palms along the bare expanse of his back and abdomen.
It was not enough, though. Not nearly enough. Once more taking the material in her hands, she yanked upwards, desperately needing it removed. She wanted nothing between them; she longed to be as close to him as was earthly possible. The shirt bunched up and snagged around his neck, breaking their kiss and caused them both to laugh. He reached back for it just as she did, and she nearly pulled his ears off in her haste to rip him free.
Then, quite suddenly, he was.
He sat up and rested on his haunches as he carelessly dropped the shirt to the floor, giving her a clear view of him as he sat outlined in gold and all aglow in the pale morning light.
She had never seen him bare-chested before. This was new. New and startlingly intimate.
The frailty of his early years was reflected in his thin frame, but she could also see an emerging strength, the man within coming to fruition. But none of that mattered. No matter what stage of his life, no matter what incarnation of Francis with which she was faced, he was hers. Just as he had always been hers, and would always be hers.
He belonged to her, and she to him.
She pushed herself into a sitting position and peered up at him from underneath a fringe of long lashes. Without any idea as to what she was doing, knowing only that she wanted to taste the salt on his skin, she leaned forward and traced the ridge of his breastbone with her tongue, which drew from within him a deep, shuddering breath.
“God, Mary.”
She dragged her mouth upwards, feeling him begin to tremble beneath her lips. She reached the base of his throat and bared her teeth to nibble her way up to his jaw, and he ran his hands underneath the heavy weight of her hair and squeezed great handfuls of it between his fingers as he tried to regain his composure.
Her breath hot against his skin, she murmured, “You’re so beautiful.”
Gripping her hair, he tenderly tilted her head back so that she was forced to gaze into his eyes. He then brought forth his thumb and brushed it softly across her cheek, trailed it along the plump smoothness of her bottom lip, then used it to tip her chin upward as he dipped his head and lowered his mouth to hers in another kiss. “You are—” he brought his knee between hers “—the most—” he guided her back down onto the bed “—beautiful thing—” he pushed aside the thin satin straps of her nightgown “—I have—” his fingers peeled down the fabric, baring the top half of her breasts “—ever seen.”
The desire coursing through her was almost painful. “Francis, please.”
His hands moved across her breasts and then slowly down to her thighs. He spread them wider by insistently pushing them apart with his knee, which ground against her sex with a pressure that was both more than anything she had ever experienced, and yet somehow not enough. Wantonly, she rubbed herself against him, and he rewarded her with a low rumbling groan from deep within his throat. His touch then slid beneath the fabric of her gown, where she soon she felt it tiptoeing across the bare skin of her most intimate places while she writhed beneath him. His eyes bored into hers, searching for any signs of doubt as he cupped his hand against her and slid a finger into her liquid center.
A small cry, sharp and keening, burst from her, prompting him to sigh and drop his forehead against hers, whispering her name like a prayer. She twined her arms around him, one hand clawed into his hair, the other digging nails into the flesh of his back. Through sheer willpower, he held himself still as she trembled and melted and grew accustomed to the new sensation, and he forced himself to inhale and exhale slowly several times before adding his index finger and opening her even further.
It felt better than anything had ever felt, and yet somehow she knew that she still wanted more, needed more, and it was just as she thought this that something perverse within her called forth into her mind the realization that, while this was all so new to her—while his every touch charted unexplored territory—the moment held no such revelations for him. She may have been a novice, but Francis had been here countless times. She was not the first girl to go mindless at his touch, not the first to clutch him close and cry out against his shoulder. He had shared his bed with girls far more experienced that she, and their ghosts seemed suddenly to crowd around her, jeering her and mocking her. An image of Olivia appeared in her mind’s eye, bringing with it the echo of all the pain and heartache of the previous weeks.
You may be here today, her specter hissed, but I was here only yesterday. Which of us do you think will be here tomorrow?
And at those words, imagined though they may have been, Mary flinched.
Like an arrow loosed from a bow, Francis was off her and across the room almost instantly, leaving her feeling bewildered and exposed upon the bed.
“Francis, I’m sorry—”
“Don’t,” he interrupted, his voice strained. “Please don’t. I am the one who should be apologizing. I never should have…” His voice trailed off, and he reached down to scoop her discarded robe off the floor before holding the sheer bundle of material out to her like an offering. “Here. Take this.”
She glanced at it briefly before her eyes flew back to his face. “No,” she said flatly. “I don’t want it. Please. Please come back over here with me.”
He turned away from her and, raising his arm, leaned heavily against the window frame. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t—I should not have let it go this far.”
He thinks this is a mistake. The realization jolted through her, turning her desperate. He is going to ask me to leave. “I want this, Francis.”
“The way you reacted to my touch just now…”
“I didn’t mean—”
“No, please. This isn’t your fault.” He grew quiet for several beats, and when he spoke again his voice was thick with emotion. “It has occurred to me that perhaps you feel pressured into doing this. The way that I carried on with…” He faltered, then spun back around to face her with an expression that was pained in a way that tore savagely at her heart. “I need you to understand that this was never my intention. I didn’t turn to her because I felt there was something lacking between us, or because she could offer me something that you wouldn’t. I was only trying to force myself to forget you, and failing miserably.”
She shook her head and repeated, in a voice filled with a bitter sort wonder, “Only.”
“Only what?”
“You were only trying to forget me.” The air hung heavy with the things she did not say. You only caused us both agony. You only smashed both our hearts.
“Mary, forgive me.”
“Please come back to bed.”
“You don’t have to do this…not to keep me. I’m yours. Despite all my foolish behavior, I have always been yours. But though I have loved you, I know that I have not honored you, and, Mary, I swear—I swear—that from this moment on, I will. I will. God forbid, there may come a day when we both have to promise vows to others, but until it comes I will love you, and cherish you, and honor you, and that isn’t something you have to earn, Mary. As long as there is even a possibility of a future with you, there will never again be anyone else in the world for me.”
She had listened to his impassioned words with tears swimming in her eyes, and she quickly blinked them away as he walked over to her with his hand extended. “Take my hand. I’ll see you back to your rooms.”
“No.”
“Mary—”
She snatched up one of the pillows and held it before her like a shield. “No!”
“I’m trying to do the right thing here, Mary, but don’t overestimate my strength. You aren’t making this easy.”
“I don’t want to make this easy.”
“A moment ago I know that I said we had been doing entirely too much thinking, but right now I’m not sure if you’re doing nearly enough. If we were to continue, and four months from now you are forced to accept another man’s hand in marriage—what then? You are a queen, and when you marry, you will be vulnerable to slander and speculation in ways that I am not.” His eyes, stricken, dropped to the ground. “Don’t make me be the cause of some future punishment for you, Mary. I couldn’t bear it. I won’t see you hurt because of me.”
“Don’t you understand?” she exclaimed, flinging the cushion aside and leaping to her feet.
“Understand what?”
“That’s why I’m here!”
“Please, Mary, you’re upset—”
“Of course I’m upset! I just watched your mother poison a dozen armed men! I saw my friend brutally beaten right before my eyes! I was nearly raped, my future almost destroyed…”
His eyes had grown bright with threatening tears, and he rushed forward to gather her in his arms. “Oh, Mary, Mary, I’m so sorry,” he murmured, caressing her hair and rocking her weightlessly back and forth. “What can I do?”
“I told you what you can do.”
“What?”
“Make love to me.”
“Mary…”
“I know what you’re thinking. I used to feel as you do. Do you remember our evening by the lakeside?”
“Vaguely.” But he leaned back and offered her a small, teasing smile that made it clear his memories were anything but vague.
“I wanted you so desperately, but I was afraid,” she confessed wretchedly. “I was engaged to Tomas…we were set to leave France within a matter of days. It was only when I returned that evening and found him waiting in my rooms that he finally showed me his cruelty.”
Francis’s jaw tightened at the memory, and his blue eyes sharpened to steel.
“It wasn’t until…after…that I allowed myself to think about what might have happened…how my life would have suffered at his hands. The self-restraint you and I had shown by the lakeside would have done nothing to save me, nothing to spare me. I would have married Tomas and submitted to him according to my duty, but his pride and his anger…I know what my wedding night would have been, with him. He would have hurt me. Hurt me for pleasure. Hurt me for sport.”
Francis had remained silent, but now he squeezed her close, buried his face against her neck, and through gritted teeth choked out, “No, he wouldn’t. I would have killed him. One way or another, I would have killed him. He was a dead man from the moment he threatened you.”
She lifted her fingers to his hair, twirling the fair curls into golden rings around them. He was so protective, so brave, and so very, very dear to her. She forced herself to press on, though she knew her words were gutting him. “And then last night, with Count Vincent…I would have been ruined, in an instant. Left with no choice but to marry my rapist. My life in France, with you, would have been over.”
She felt a teardrop hit her shoulder, as soft as summer rain. “You think that I don’t know that?”
“Then why is it so hard for you to understand?”
He stared at her helplessly before releasing her and turning once more back to the window.
She refused to allow him to put distance between them, physical or otherwise. “Look at me,” she commanded, grabbing his arm and forcing him to face her once more. “Don’t you see? We’ve been lucky, so very lucky until now, but what if you aren’t there to save me the next time?”
“I will be.”
She reached out and touched his cheek, a tender caress. “I hope so.” She then lowered her hand, bringing his with it, and held them both clasped against her heart while she gazed up at him with pleading eyes. “But you were right, you’ve always been right, about the uncertainty of our future. And if something happens and tomorrow I am sent away to spend my life with another, or make room for a new dauphine, I want to go knowing what it’s like to be with someone who loves me. To be held…and touched…in that way. Even if it’s just once. Please, Francis. Don’t make me beg.”
He looked so torn, so incredibly torn. “But a moment ago, when I touched you—”
She flushed crimson. “You know I’ve never done this before,” she admitted sheepishly. “I know you have. I couldn’t help but worry about…how I would measure up.”
He shook his head, utterly bemused, but she could see his resolve weakening. Sensing that she had the advantage, she took his arms and wound them tightly about her waist, pressing herself so closely to him that they were breathing the same air.
“Take me back to bed, Francis,” she whispered, bringing her mouth to his ear, nipping it with her teeth. “I want it to be you. I need it to be you.” Then she pulled back to stare deeply into his eyes, so blue and so unlike her own, and finally said what she had yet to say, though it had been in her heart for years:
“I love you.”
His face went soft in a way that was both beautiful and heartbreaking. Closing his eyes, he dropped his forehead against hers and sighed like a man who had been holding his breath for a thousand years. “You don’t know how good it feels to hear you say that,” he told her with a joyous laugh, his beaming smile shining through his every word.
Her hands skimmed up the bare skin of his chest, across his shoulders, then down his back, accompanied by the gentle scrape of her fingernails. His gaze dropped to her lips, his eyes once more darkening with desire.
She grinned and bit her lip as she walked him backwards toward the bed, her flashing eyes both an invitation and a challenge.
“Show me.”

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** Teaser shot**
** This is unedited raw work**

The moment he walked in the door and saw her standing there he couldn’t help himself. Discarding his jacket as he moved towards her with swift and sure motions. It didn’t take long to reach her as she was kneading dough over the table her back to him. Having closed the last bit of distance between them Ross wrapped his arms around Demelza and drew her back firmly against him, only to be rewarded with a little gasp of surprise and a small giggle at the end.

“Ye be home then?” came her slightly breathy greeting.

“I am..and I only want one thing?”

“Ye dinner?” of course she was being cheeky because she could clearly feel what he wanted up against her backside.

Ross smiled a bit to her cheeky comment but decided words were overrated at the moment and slid his hands down to get a firm grasp on the silk of her skirt and hiked it up slow inch my inch. Perhaps this was not the most gentlemanly way to go about things but today he did not care. He gave her pert behind a firm swat as he drew the skirt all the way up and simply tugged her unders away. The smack and the shifting of clothing had given him the desired gasp from Demelza.

As much as it pained him to waste any time he was not going to risk any hurt to his wife. He loved her and would never do that so as he used one hand to work his pants open the other slid over her bare skin firmly holding around her until his fingers found her core and slid over then gently in, grinning as he did he found her well wet and ready already. Good he mused inwardly as he freed himself from his pants shoving them down then reaching up to firmly press his hand to the small of Demelza’s back, holding in her place..controlling but being kind about it. He loved her after all and they had not been together like this yet, it had always been gentler in the bed.

“Any objections Wife?” he said his voice a low gravely growl.

“No…” she responded right away..easily her breath a pant as she wiggled that pert rear end for him, showing him more then her simple word said she was ready to be mounted.

The Saturday Sanctuary has been missing for a while but it returns this week I have been inspired.

This week on Saturday Sanctuary:

It had been two weeks since Francis had given her permission to be with Conde as long as it was kept discreet and although Mary thought that was what she wanted, she was finding that it wasn’t. Was it possible to love one more than one man at a time she wondered. Since the incident, it was nearly impossible not to picture Francis as part of what had happened to her and yet Mary still loved him. Not only did she love him, but she knew how much it had cost him to allow her to go to Conde. He loved her so much he was willing to let her go, to find happiness and to heal. Yet now Mary was asking herself constantly, what if it was truly Francis that she needed to find that healing? With so many questions constantly running through her mind it was getting harder to focus on matters of state and she could tell when they met that Francis was distracted as well. Mary knew she would have to make a solid choice and she would have to do it soon. As a woman, perhaps she could have had both men, but as a Queen, she had to make a choice her Husband or the man who might be her lover. It seemed like an impossible choice.

As time continued to spin on and she met with Conde for their sessions of speaking of leaving for Scotland and kissing Mary was finding that she may never be able to make a choice. Yet, it was not what had happened to her before that was keeping her from taking that next step with Conde, as patient and understanding as he was Mary knew it was Francis on her mind and in her heart that kept her from consummating things with Conde. It was as she waited now again for a meeting that she made her choice. When Conde came in to see her he looked paler than usual,

“What is it Louis?” Mary said softly.

“The man we sent ahead about Scotland has been found and your letters..”

Mary froze, looking terrified and she couldn’t really fully focus on what he was saying next. Something about him meeting with his man and knowing that it was not the French who had it but it could be the English. It was only when he got to something about secret meetings with a man about a possible wedding to Elizabeth that she snapped her eyes back to him.

“What did you say?”

“I am sorry Mary I just….”

Mary stared hard at him this man she loved and had almost given everything to and yet, before this she had made a choice. Still the betrayal stung and she couldn’t keep some tears from streaking down her face. Conde neared her to offer comfort and Mary backed away looking at him hard again before she turned and fled out into the cold of the winter. Her feet carried her fast over the frozen ground, she didn’t care who saw her as she ran. Let them say what they would the Queen running as she was across the grounds. It didn’t take her long to reach the palace, but she didn’t stop running once she went inside. Her lungs burned and she could feel a stitch in her side starting but she didn’t stop. Only slowing on a room that he might be in, but a brief glance told her that he wasn’t within and so she kept running her hair flying out behind her. The guards let her pace even at the rate of speed she was traveling into the rooms they once shared. The rooms that he now slept in alone.

That is where she found him, standing near a window and looking out, but at her footfalls he turned from the window and looked at her his face suddenly creasing with worry.

“Mary? Are you alright? Has something happened?”

The warm baritone, he spoke with genuine concern was a balm to her hurting pride and heart. She had made the right choice, Francis. The man who had been willing to sacrifice everything for her. Even if there had been mistakes and lies before, when it came to what truly mattered Francis had gone above and beyond. He continued to look worried as she didn’t reply to his question. Instead, she crossed the carpet between them and wrapped her arms around him. Flush from running, cold and a sudden feeling she had not felt in some time Mary pressed her lips to his.

Francis was understandably taken aback at suddenly having her pressed to him and tasting her lips, but his hesitation only lasted the briefest of moments before he pressed back to her, wrapping his strong arms around her and kissing her back with everything he had. It was too much for the young king to hope for that she had come back to him for good, but he would not turn this moment away. This moment would sustain him for as long as it had to and so he kissed her but didn’t push further.

It was Mary who gently pushed Francis into the wall near the window. Fitting her whole body against him and pulling her fingers through his hair. Finally, she had to break the kiss so they could both breath and now they were both gasping. Stripping off the leather gloves she had on outside against the cold Mary began to take away his jacket. It was then that Francis put his hand to hers gently and stilled hers.

“Mary, do not feel obligated in this….I told you before you don’t have to do this just for an heir.”

Oh, she loved him for that, but turning her face up gently she smiled, “I want you Francis. Not for an heir, but because I love you.”

That was all the encouragement he needed in that moment, but he didn’t go for her clothing not yet. He still wanted her to have a choice to be able to move away. Instead he stripped himself free of his jacket and then his shirt. Shoes followed and he began to work his pants. Pausing a moment, waiting to see if his Mary would pull away but she didn’t. No she was looking at him with the hunger she used to before that terrible night and so he took off the pants as well before moving in to hold her head and kiss her again.

Mary melted into that kiss and let her hands seek out his flesh. How could she ever have turned from him? His touch, his warmth, his smell and his kiss he was home. They were lucky for Royals they had love a deep and true love. It may have suffered damage with things that happened, but it did not break. How could she ever have thought her home and heart would break so easily.

***

More to come later today 😉

This week on Saturday Sanctuary

A very young Loki was walking towards his parent’s chambers and absently rubbing sleepy eyes. He was started out of his sleep and felt uneasy, so he’d crawled out of bed. When he got to their doors, they were open, indicating the rooms were empty.
With a start he realized there must be something happening down in the hall, so he darted that way.

ooo

The winged-woman in chains stood before Odin, a permanent sneer on her otherwise beautiful features.
“Lilith, you are herby sentenced to death. Your children and yourself killed many in the attempt to steal life-force from my people.”
The red-haired woman moved a step, the chains singing with her effort. “You killed my children! You killed them because you assumed we were murdering your people!”
Odin stood and pointed at the demoness. “You were found over the body of an asgadian warrior with his blood on your mouth and face, need I remind you!” Beside him, his wife Frigga shivered silently, and wrapped her arms around herself as he spoke.
“Not to mention your demon children have since been found stealing energy from countless others! Many have come forward and said they were raped or given terrible nightmares.”
Lilith sneered. “You know the ways of the Succubi are ancient. We offer pleasures in return for energy.”
Odin slammed his staff and called for silence. “Sorceress you are dying this night, and your children will be hunted down until they are all dead! I shant have my people or my family at risk to your devious natures!”
From behind, Lilith heard small, light footsteps much like her youngest daughter’s. She lowered her forehead, as if in despair, but she actually did so to grin widely with malice. Fools, the lot of them.
The guards had stood off to the sides of her, believing she was well contained by the chains. Metal rings could not hold her, most especially her great wings. They were mistaken to think they could contain her
In the span of an instant, she crouched, channeled her reserve energy, and her wings pumped with her rage. The chains snapped with ease and she directed them easily to the faces of her captors.
Once free, she had less than moments. She spun, caught the shocked gaze of the pale little boy behind her. She knew she was a sight to his little eyes.
Lilith stood, crouched with her wicked leathern wings fully extended and her clawed hands spread out, ready to shred flesh. She grinned at the boy, flashing her fearsome fangs and his jaw dropped and he stepped back with fear.
Then, at the next heartbeat, the demoness shot across the distance. She snatched the boy up with ease and spun around, claws on his neck and wings lethal as they covered her from shots.
She was taking a risk grabbing an unknown child. However, it paid off when she watched the queen hold back a scream and fall to her knees, while even the Allfather himself paled and took a step back.
“My lucky day. A little princeling to escort me out?” She was bluffing, and Odin knew it.
Lilith would never be able to escape with the loss of energy she’d already endured. She had spent too much hiding her most loved daughters before her capture…but she could take a consolation prize.
“What is your name, little dove?” she asked and the shaking boy still raised his chin as best he could.
“Loki, Son of Asgard.”
Lilith allowed herself a genuine smile. “You shall be powerful then. You will have the aid of someone I love one day…in return you will protect her.”
She didn’t wait for his response as she harshly bit into her tongue. When blood flooded her mouth, she bit down on the boy’s neck and he immediately began screaming for help.
“Mama!” he cried, as tears poured from his eyes and his captor forced her blood into his body. It was very primal and old blood magic, but she had accomplished her goal. Her daughters would know what to do with her final orders.
She dropped the boy and let him run away towards Frigga, who had rushed to met him.
Once he was freed, she knew her death was moments away. She began laughing and raised her clawed hands high into the air. “My legacy!”
Frigga tried to shield the boy’s eyes when Odin threw a ruthless attack upon the woman and she burnt under his power. Her dying laughter would haunt Loki for years until they gave him a draught to make him forget…
ooo

With a start an adolescent Loki awoke on his bed. He felt pressure on his chest and looked up to meet glowing, red eyes in the dark. He jerked his head to the right, spotted his desk, books and scrolls just as he left them before bed. Knowing that slight comfort, he looked back up to the being.
His eyes acclimated to the darkness quickly and the face of his guest began focusing in around the blood red orbs. A bob of black, curling hair was the first thing he could see, as it transformed from the stark mass surrounding the eyes of crimson.
Loki was graced with the sight of fangs behind a feminine smile. Ah…he thought, with astonishment…A Mara?
“Hello!” said an energetic voice, with a slight accent.”
Loki smirked in the dim light, with his night vision finally at one hundred percent. She was a petite creature, with a seemingly permanent grin and a tiny waist to her slowly blossoming curves. She was a young adolescent to his eyes but he’d read that Mara, a type of Succubi, send their daughters out much younger. Still she was very small for a future as a seductress…
“I don’t believe we’ve met.” Loki said dashingly and she smiled widely, with her little fangs gleaming in the dim light.
“Not at all,” she said and tilted her head. “You’re my first mark ever, to be honest.” She whispered, as if in confidence.
“Mark?” he asked, as he lifted his hands to his head, and relaxed in preparation for some exchange of words.
He had not had anyone actually talk with him of late, besides his mother, Frigga. Occasionally, and fleetingly, his brother Thor would talk with him, though most of their conversations were on training or possibilities to join battles. There was no room for debate or speaking among the Warriors Three.
This little creature of lore was his first physical contact in ages, and he was not about to let her leave quickly. Even if he had to give her energy for the exchange, there was no way this little female could drain him to the point of damage. He would have fun with her.
“I think I should know you.” She said, and shook her head. “We don’t really know our marks but…since I’ve never done this before, what’s your name?”
“Loki Odinson, of Asgard.
“Oh!” she cooed and glanced around with interest, looking upon his room. “I think I’ve heard of you!” she said and looked at him with a wide grin once more. “Well, I’m Nyxet, but my sisters just call me Nyx.”
“Nyx,” he said and smirked. “Sounds like the name of someone who likes to have fun.”
She smiled and opened her mouth to say something, but there was a noise outside Loki’s doors. Nyx jumped and squeaked a little before Loki realized she wasn’t yet into her power to conceal. Without thinking much, he lifted his blankets and she darted beneath.
“Loki,” Frigga was heard through his doors.
“Yes, mother?” he said aloud and a heavy door opened to her face.
“The guards said they heard muttering in here. You aren’t testing spells are you, love?”
Loki smirked at that and shook his head. “No mother, just reciting them. I don’t want to forget what you taught me this week.”
A brilliant smile came to the queen’s face and she shook her head. “You flatterer…well, I’ll tell the guards to leave your room alone my sweet, but do try to get some rest?” at his smirk, she sighed. “Good night my love. Sleep well.”
“I shall mother.” He said and she closed the door once more.
He waited a moment more, before he lifted the blankets and spotted the Mara, curled up by his side. She was so small and young, he wondered if all her kind were so little at that age.
“It’s safe, Nyx.” He said and she unfolded slowly, before looking up at him.
“Sorry…” she said and sat up, shocked at the outcome. “Don’t say anything, please?” she whispered. “If my sisters hear about how bad I’ve bungled this they’ll lose their heads…I’ll have to lie no matter what but that would just be…”
Loki smiled at her and shook his head easily. “Who would I tell anyway, little Mara?”
She smiled in return and scooted forward on her knees, between his ribs and arm. With slightly timid hands, Nyx reached out and grabbed a little bit of his hair. “So, this is the silliest thing…I’m not like some of my more deviant sisters. They tend to um…hurt their victims. I would rather just be a friendly spirit! With maybe a silly or two?”
Loki kept his eyes on her and lifted a brow. “A silly?”
“A um…well, a trick or a joke on someone.”
At hearing that, Loki smirked and nodded. “Do your worst.”
Nyx grinned widely and it lit up her face. “You’re so nice, Loki!” She said and began to muss with his hair. “My sisters don’t let me.”
Over the course of her ministrations, Loki began to feel drowsy and his eyes closed. He’d never felt more relaxed and at ease. Her clawed fingers were surprisingly soothing and each time they scratched his scalp he felt a mild shiver. Eventually he fell into a deep sleep and didn’t wake until mid morning.
ooo

As Loki ejected from his rooms, he went straight for the dining hall with eager steps. When he’d awoken that morning, the female of the night before was nowhere to be seen. Because of the lack of evidence, he assumed it was all just a very nice dream. How could a Mara actually visit him? He’d never heard of one in Asgard.
Dream or no, he had actually slept-in long enough to eat breakfast with his family for a change. He knew Frigga would like that very much, so he made a point to get there.
As Loki entered the hall, Thor saw him first. “Good morn, brother…”
When Thor stopped speaking and stared at his brother’s head, Loki frowned and pushed on toward the table. “Mother, good morn.”
“Loki, my…” Frigga’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped. “My darling, why did you set your hair so?”
Loki sighed as he made to sit down. “I did nothing to my hair, mother. Why do you ask?”
Frigga stood and caught a mirror nearby, and brought it him. Loki’s face dropped and he stared upon his reflection. His hair was set in fine braids, which looked intricate and well done.
“Loki!” she cried and set a hand on his should. “My poor boy, targeted by Mara. At least those are weak and not of the pure Succubi…and those demons are all gone.” She said with an air of dismissal and moved back to her seat. “You are too strong.”
At her words, and her following wink, Loki could not contain his grin. “It will be just fine, mother. I’m sure won’t happen again.” He said and grabbed some fruit and eggs to set on his plate as Thor sat beside him, trying to contain a wide grin.
“You look most fancy today, Loki.” He said and stabbed some sausages before him.
“The crotch hairs on your chin are looking slightly less sparse this day.” Loki retorted and gave him mother a look that said he would watch his mouth. “Sorry, mother…”
ooo

As if like clockwork, Nïx appeared on his chest the following night with a pure grin of excitement. He’d spent the day in the library, researching her kind. He couldn’t help but grin at her in return; he’d truly made an impression on her then.
“I assume you didn’t care for my act.” She said. “You know, with your hair.”
“Quite possibly, though that outcome was an issue for my mother. I found it to be a surprisingly solid trick, Nyx. You are not like the others of your kin.”
“So, you’ve had the chance read up on us have you not? You probably know quite a bit.”
“I can teach you much more than you know now.”
At that, she sighed and nodded her head slowly. “I am not the um, not the norm when it comes to my other kin.”
Loki shook his head. “I didn’t mean disrespect, Nyx. I meant that I could be an ally to you. I understand, you know…what it feels like to be the odd one of the family. My father tends to treat me a little differently.”
From her place, perched on Loki’s chest, she couldn’t help but feel a little flutter in her chest. “You’re the baby too, aren’t you?”
“The baby?” he asked, with an irritated look.
“You know, the youngest? The one that no one expects to do anything of importance? Everyone is looking at your older siblings instead.” She said.
Loki knew what she meant, and he felt a bit of a connection with her in that moment. “So, are you supposed to…you know, find male or female victims?”
Nyx blushed and immediately frowned. “We can choose our own direction to take energy. The early years are important, I think, because some of my oldest sisters didn’t have to worry about consciences…my mother was angry in the beginning.”
Loki had pulled Nyx off his torso and she instantly lied much like the night before. They were young and similar souls, so they seemed to know what the other wanted with ease.
When he pinched her side and smirked, she squeaked and pulled her knees up, to curl into his side.
“Tell me about them.” Loki said with a light smile.
“I have some very old sisters who are so powerful. I feel silly around them, like a little girl.” Nyx said and filled with the fabric of Loki’s green silk shirt. “Some of them are as old as my mother now, when she died. Most of them either utilize sexual energy or take from their hosts without any return. I do have two sisters who take very little and give in return…like I did in mussing your hair. I made you sleep.”
“Yet you were sent to me as your first mark?” Loki said incredulously, thinking he felt a little bit honored. She comes from a powerful line…and they sent her to him. He smirked and threw an arm over her side.
Nïx nodded at his question and smiled, feigning innocence. “Well my sisters found your signature and thought you would be a good match for my power blend…which I know nothing of.”
“Now I’m confused.” Loki said, “Power blend?”
“Well, my mother had many victims and few mates, and she chose each of them purposely.” The girl said with a snort. “To be fair she was a pure Succubus. Mother was one of the first and she had many names. Her nature was to seek power and even more powerful mates. She protected nine of us from danger and kept us separate, under heavy guard. Of those mates she chose…I was her last birth before she died.”
She sounded sad, but also at peace. “I’m supposed to be like my older sisters, but I don’t think I want to.” Loki understood her, but he felt that she would be capable of power, if she gave into it.
Something told him he should keep an eye on this one…
“Nyx,” he said and she looked up at him, expectantly. “Come to me when you need anything. If you need to feed, you come to me.”
She smiled brilliantly. “You mean it?”
Loki smirked but felt a bit of jealously at the idea of another person being touched by her. “Yes, I do. If you ever need to feed, in any way, come to me and I will give you all you need and more.”
That was the single most incredible sentence she had ever heard she wiggled a little with giddiness. “Loki, you can be my Schützling.” She said with a thick accent, before she hugged him quickly. “You name it, I shall come to your aid. I swear it!”
When their eyes met, she lifted her claws to his forehead gently, and then slowly rolled them down his face. “Sleep, Loki…” she said, in a voice that encased his mind and lulled him easily.
He woke the next morning, and grinned as he flew into his day and hoped for night to come. Loki went to bed early and waited until he woke the next morning without any sign of Nyx. He did this day after day…week after week…until she never came back.
It was centuries before he ever saw her again, and he had nearly forgotten their fleeting nights of whispers and secrets…

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I know third week in a row of the same picture, but that is my inspiration. Again if you would like to have another one you certainly can. I might be unstuck from this one now, but might not be..lol what can I say I am stuck on trek. Enjoy your Saturday Sanctuary.

Dante had described nine circles of Hell but had missed the tenth and worst of them all: the Terran Empire. This was one hell, in which Khan did not want to rule. This was the kind of hell one could only escape. This was the true city of woe drawn in the sea of terror it had created and that was now crushing it. He had known it all along, but Carol’s coming to him like a lamb to the slaughter, in a misguided and unnecessary attempt to seduce him, had cemented it. What under different circumstances would have been Carol’s crystalline, brilliant mind was now altered by trauma and the horrific abuse and violations she had endured. He had derailed her by inviting her to dinner, only to watch her imbibe to dull her fear, her accelerated heart-beat unbearably loud in the stillness of his quarters.
She drank until she could barely stand up straight and her eye-lids were drooping, her eyes glassy, red blotches creeping onto her cheeks. Even so she was beautiful, but it was her mind, even twisted and tarnished, that truly interested him. After everything she had been through, bent as she was, she was still not broken. Every now and then he caught a sparkle of what had once been a roaring fire in her eyes. She averted them quickly and the light was dim, but it was there. It glimmered whenever she found something fascinating about the weapons he had built, or whenever she liked one of his plans and sometimes when his people spoke to her as though to an equal. Khan was in no hurry to extinguish those embers for good.
He stood and rounded the table to get to her. Drunk as she was, her heart still stuttered, her fear no doubt intensifying. He helped her to her feet and she wavered, all but falling against him. She would not look at him. He half-carried, half-supported her to the bed, pushed the duvet away, and lay her down. Then he removed her shoes. Her breathing was loud in the too quiet room. She was staring blindly at the ceiling, shivering ever so slightly. He pulled the covers over her and ordered the lights off.
“No,” she whimpered. “Don’t leave me alone.”
The bed clothes rustled, as she shifted around probably blindly groping for him. He didn’t know if she was asking, because the sudden darkness had scratched at the open wounds trauma had left on her psyche, a result of her alcohol-impaired judgment, or her isolation, trapped on a potentially hostile ship with nowhere else in whole galaxy to go to, had finally caught up with her. But in any case, her desperation-laced plea found an echo in him and it all came crashing down right at that very moment: the long, exhausting patrol, the responsibility of protecting his imperiled crew and the nightmare, to which he had been awoken. He toed off his own shoes and lay atop the covers next to her, resting an arm over her waist. She sighed softly and shifted even closer, cuddling up to his immobile body.
In the silence that followed, he waited until her breathing evened out as a sign that she had fallen asleep. He almost never admitted to it, but sometimes even he craved comfort and a warm, human touch.
# # #

Carol awoke, warm and securely held in someone’s arms, her cheek pressed against a solid surface, a steady beat rapping against it and reverberating painfully inside her skull. Her eyes opened to complete darkness and when she tried to shift around, one arm tightened possessively around her waist. She moaned softly. Her head was splitting and her mouth felt like cotton. Then she was rolled to the side, the move making her queasy. A familiar deep baritone said something about a hang-over. That sounded about right, but she never remembered feeling having one this bad. She drifted off only to snap wide awake, when something pinched at the side of her neck. Khan’s face floated into view. She blinked.
He held up a hypo. “Hang-over remedy,” he said in an even voice and then lifted a glass of water to her lips.
“Thank you,” she croaked then drained the liquid thirstily. Her thirst was beginning to clear and she realized with a start that her head had been the only one to hurt and she was still fully dressed.
Her memory of the previous night was fuzzy at best, a few disjointed imagines dancing in her mind, but still she was fairly certain nothing had happened between them. The question burnt her lips. Why? After all, it would have been easy and drunk or sober, she had been willing. So why not take advantage of it, if it had been easy? But she did not get to ask. His severe gaze silenced her.
“Never attempt something like this again,” he said, voice cold.
Panic leaped in her throat, but she did not flinch away, gaze buried into those kaleidoscopic orbs of his. If he were to kill her for her mishap, she wanted to die on her feet so to speak, looking her killer in the eye. Instinctively her hand leaped to her chest, her palm pressing onto the cloth-covered patch where her slave serial number had been. She was irrationally grateful to him that she would not have to lose her life with that particular scarlet letter etched onto her.
“I need what you know, what you can do,” he further elaborated. “Nothing else. Do you understand?”
She gave him a jerky nod, still unsure of the damage her thoughtless move had done to her safety.
“Say it out loud,” he commanded. “Do you understand?”
“Yes, I do,” he said quickly.
He looked at her hard, his gaze so piercing, she felt as though it was trying to reach into her head and verify the verity of her reply. Maintaining eye contact was a chore, but she managed it. After a while he nodded back.
“Good. You may use my bathroom, if you wish to.”
# # #

The Augments made a run for it. They broke off from the Klingon border and crossed into imperial territory, keeping complete subspace silence, as they crawled their way at snare pace on thin ice with the water below booby-trapped through what was de facto enemy space and towards the uncertain and distant safety of the Barzan wormhole. If they were caught, they would be killed. Not immediately, of course. They would be tortured first and then killed. Slowly and as painfully as possible. If Cartwright had managed to gain enough clout with Starfleet Command, he would be given the honor to do in Carol. Khan required her on the bridge almost at all hours, since, as a former Starfleet officer and daughter of the highest-ranking admiral, her knowledge of internal security was much more advanced than anything that had been allowed to him. Even if what she knew was slightly out of date, it still was of great help in their insane endeavor of sneaking through the Empire, while a manhunt was undoubtedly on-going for them.
She fainted twice from exhaustion and the doctor pumped her full of every stimulant her human body could take. She got several allergic reactions from them, but she refused all offered breaks. Worse than the fatigue, the splitting head-aches, the irritated, red blotches from the too many hypos or the ensuing infection in one case, was the idea of getting caught. She could not go back into the hands of the Empire. She could not bear the thought of seeing Cartwright again, let alone that of what he would do to her, what others like him would do to her, if she were to be captured. When she tumbled to the floor, drained of all energy, for a third time, Khan himself carried her to the infirmary himself and when she woke up, threatened to tied her to the bed, if she did not rest.
She scrambled backwards on the biobed, panicking. “Please… don’t… I’ll do anything you want.”
The crease between his eyebrows deepened, an emotion she had never before seen in him flickering on his features: pity. Then it disappeared, replaced by the customary authority-tinged blankness.
“I know,” he said quietly, stepping closer to her bed. His right hand shot forward and gently clasped her shoulder, his fingers pressing into her tense muscles and squeezing slightly. “You have been of great help to us.”
“I can’t go back… I can never go back,” she babbled, fear still singing in her veins.
His hand slid up, stroke briefly against the side of her neck before cupping her left cheek, and she shivered. “You won’t,” he insisted. “Look at me!” He would not continue, until she stared him in the eye. “There is nothing I would not do for my family. As long as you are on this ship, you are safe. I promise.”
Perhaps it was an off-shot of her fear, but she believed him. She nodded. His palm was warm and steady against her face, while she trembled. He bent over her and brushed his lips against her, the touch nothing but chaste.
“I though you said…,” she murmured.
“I know what I said, but if you want to, genuinely, I am willing to discuss it, once we are on the other side of that wormhole. Just as long as you are aware that denying me comes at no cost and bears no consequences.” He straightened himself and released her. “But you should also be aware that sleeping is also not a means to curry favors.”
She lowered her gaze again. “I asked you to stay with me… that night, after we had dinner and I got drunk. And you did. I thought I dreamt it, but I didn’t, did I?”
He sat on the edge of the bed, next to her. “No, you did not.”
She raised her head to look at him again. His expression was stormy, a hint of something much like sadness adorning his eyes.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked.
He drew her into his lap, his arms squeezing her against him. She let him.
“Because humans aren’t the only ones in need of comfort.”
She pressed her face against his chest, her nose scrunched against his biceps. “He raped me… Cartwright and others,” she said after a few minutes of companionable silence. Tears leaked out of her eyes, wetting the material of his shirt.
“I know.”
There was a strange twinge to his voice and she wanted to lift her head again to look at his face, but his fingers treaded into her hair, trapping her against his chest.
“Your father employed a wide variety of methods to control me, in addition to keeping my friends prisoners.”
She froze, as her stomach roiled. “Did he…?”
“Not personally, but he did order it and was in the room… watching every time it happened.” His fist tightened in her hair, pulling on it so hard, that her scalp tightened and hurt. She thought she heard tears in his tone, when he spoke.
“How can you stand to look at me?” she asked after a moment’s hesitation. There was a funny ringing in her ears. Agonizers, torture and murders were daily occurrences in Starfleet and part of the Empire’s official policies. She had accepted them as such, though striving to have no part in any of it. But some nights, in the privacy of her innermost thoughts, she used to fantasize about running away and joining the resistance, although she could have never stomached the thought of ending up shooting at her own father. Now she regretted not having done it.
“I have your father’s confidential files. I copied them when I escaped and failed to share that tidbit of information with Pike and Kirk later. I know you are innocent of all of his doings, which makes it all the more ironic that, though you were the one who lived, you are also the one who paid the worst price.”
She shuddered again but said nothing only wept quietly cradled in the arms of his father’s assassin, to whom she felt connected through an unexpected link of victim-hood. They were both broken beyond repair in a universe that was just wrong.
# # #

Khan sat in the captain’s seat on the bridge of the ship he had built for the Terran Empire only to run away with his people in it and watched the vortex of azure and silver of the Barzan wormhole burst open against the eternal night of space. They had made it. A hostile world stretched behind them. The unknown awaited on the other side. He could feel everyone’s eyes on him. He glanced to the helm.
“Lay in a course for the wormhole. Warp factor 6,” he ordered.
Next his eyes tracked Carol at a console to his left. In the chorus of heart-beats on the bridge hers rapped the loudest, as though it was attempting to break free of her rib-cage. Their gazes met and held. He let his lips curve in what hoped was a reassuring smile. Her lips trembled, when she smiled back.

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yes same pic as last week..it was my inspiration 😛 😉 feel free to use your own.

Carol was changing out of the medical gown, while Renhol surveyed the readings on the screen attached to the biobed. “You are recovering quite nicely, but I would like to keep you on calcium hypos for your bones for a few more weeks… if you would keep your appointments from now on.”
“I will,” Carol rasped. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to leave my quarters.”
“If the augments want a room on this ship to be off limits to you, it’d be locked by a code you don’t have and protected by a DNA scan you cannot hope to match.”
“Why did you help the augments find a way to remove the slavers’ serial number?”
“Because I wanted mine off.”
Carol jumped off the bed and stared her at her. “You are a slave?”
“Was a slave,” the Trill corrected sharply.
“I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just that I’ve never heard of a slave trained to be a doctor. Medical studies are too expensive for that.”
Renhold’s face took on a far-way look. “I wasn’t always a slave, but I had the wrong ideas about the practice of medicine. I thought doctors should be healers, not torturers and executioners. It was just a matter of time, until I treated the wrong person the wrong way and I was caught. Khan bought me because he needed someone knowledgeable of 23rd century health care. All I am on this ship is a medic, not a slave, not a whore and not a Trill without a symbiont. I have free reign of my infirmary, free access to its replicator and nobody abused me, since I set foot on the Vengeance. Did you know that its agony booth is disabled?”
Carol frowned. “You admire them?” she blurted out incredulously.
The Trill shrugged, as she picked at a hypo from a nearby tray. “I’ve heard they were condemned as criminals in Earth’s past. I don’t care. In the present, they’ve treated me fairly. All they’ve asked in return is my loyalty. A reasonable price in my book.” She brandished her dispenser. Carol inclined her head to let her inject it in her neck. The hypo pinched its way in.
“Wherever the augments are going can’t be worse than where we’ve been, can we?” the doctor asked thickly, as she put away the device.
# # #

The Vengeance had been patrolling the Klingon frontier for three times as long a regular Starfleet ship would. The tension of being only a flimsy strip of space away from a well-armed and hostile alien empire and the exhaustion of the long shifts got even to the augments. Nerves were frayed and should they confronted by a host of birds-of-prey, Pike’s cowardly plan might just come to fruition and the problem they posed to the humans would come to an end. Even if they were to be called back across the border, Khan knew they would be walking into a trap and Starfleet would blow them to smithereens. No, there was no going back now. It was time for that, for which he had been preparing for a while by acquiring supplies and people with valuable expertise.
In Starfleet loyalty came at a price and the Terran Empire recklessly squandered riches someone like him with his ear to the ground got to pick up. So he had bought himself various pieces of information that might come in handy. This way he had heard of a technologically backwards humanoid culture that had stumbled across a natural wormhole. It was unstable and offered no safe passage for any ship that might venture through it, but it did open to random points in the Gamma and the Delta Quadrants, decades away from the Sol system. No one knew what was out there in those two quadrants, but Khan knew what was not: the Terran Empire. Other than that, all he wanted was a planet with a breathable atmosphere for himself and his family, a place they could make into a home of their own.
The journey to the wormhole would not be easy, as they had no way of avoiding imperial territory and the Vengeance was not the kind of a ship to avoid detection. But he saw no other way. The Terran Empire and his family could never co-exist.
# # #

Carol nodded on her neighbor’s door with a hesitant hand. The augment woman opened almost instantly and looked at her with curious eyes. She was dressed as the rest of her people were, which was a lot by 23rd century standards: a long-sleeved tunic buttoned all the way to the neck and pants that reached to her ankles.
“Hello,” Carol began uncertainly. “We started off on the wrong foot.”
“We didn’t start off on any foot. You’ve barely spoken two words to me.”
“I was afraid of what you’d do to me.” Carol extended her arm to her. “My name is Carol Marcus.”
The augment grinned and grasped her fingers, squeezing them firmly. “Kati. Come in. We can share a cup of that awful concoction the replicator mistakes for tea.”
# # #

“Permission to come on the bridge,” Carol requested from the threshold.
The augments manning the consoles did not react. Khan was seating in the captain’s seat, his hands spread on the armrests, his posture positively regal, dominating the bridge effortlessly. He turned his head towards her, but his body remained ramrod straight. “Granted,” he said in a calm, neutral tone. He gestured one-handedly that she approached.
She stepped towards him, acutely feeling as though she were walking towards the throne of a king. “What do you need me to do?” she asked once she was right in front of him.
# # #

Carol wanted to believe it was all real: Renhol’s words, Khan’s assurances, the access to food and medical care and the promise of freedom far, far away from the Empire’s tyrannical clutches. But hope was a rare commodity in her world, an illusion that could easily get one killed. Still she was tempted, eased into it by the disappearance of the serial number branding her a slave and the absence of pain from her body. Her skin was milky white again, devoid of bruises and scratches, and the left side of her chest no longer ached from prologued sessions with the agonizer or from being locked in the agony booth. She slept on a real bed and if her nightmares didn’t let her rest, she could always ask and be given a sedative. She was beginning to build muscle mass again and had free access to the ship’s gym.
In some odd ways, she felt safer on the Vengeance than she had ever had anywhere else before. Despite her father’s position, she had never been completely spared unwanted advances, impertinent looks and the occasional invasive touch. But the augments kept their distance. Nobody stared at her body but looked her in the eye and nobody, not even Khan, even got close enough to lay an outward finger on her. It was surreal and it made her very much aware of how much worse it could have been and what she had escaped. But at night, the dreams returned, leaving her shaky and uncertain in the morning, and reminding her how easy it could all go away. Her world survived on terror. Even Khan had acknowledged that much. And terror was the very reason she had been born.
Her mother had been an artist, whose paintings had been deemed unpatriotic. Her father had offered to make the charges go away, if she slept with him. She had refused or so the rumor had it. Carol didn’t doubt that it was true. It was what she would have done in her place and cliché or not, blood was thicker than water. Her mother had been executed, before Carol had turned one. Her father thought she didn’t know any of this, just like he thought she didn’t know that the rebellion had not been completely crushed, when Hoshi Sato proclaimed herself empress a century earlier. But he had loved her in his own way. She had been the only being in the entire universe her Dad had ever loved. And though at times she had hated him, she had also loved him. He had been her only family, the only person she could truly trust. That was why she had never run away, despite her secret sympathies for the rebellion. In the end, it had been her downfall. Members of the resistance were executed on sight so that news of it could not spread; daughters of disgraced admirals were sold into slavery. It was no questions of which she would have preferred.
It was also beyond the shadow of a doubt what she had to do to ensure her place on the Vengeance. For now Khan needed her, but what was to become of her, once she had outlived her usefulness? Still it was hard. Just the thought of a man on top of her, after what the Orions and Decker and his senior officers had done to her, turned her stomach. She wondered if it had been easier, if Khan had given her an opening. But he had not. At first, she had suspected he had lover or a wife among those of his kind and was loyal to her out of some outdated 20th century social convention, but she had not noticed him afford any special favor to any of the augments, though he was on friendly terms with all of them. Then she had thought the way she dressed and carried herself was unappealing to him and replicated herself clothes like those of those of the augment women: plain, lacking in embroidery and golden finishes, beige, white or dark in color, and covering her from neck to ankles. She knotted her long hair in twists on top of her head or wore it in a simple pony-tale.
The Trill doctor and her augment neighbor complimented her on the changes, but Khan could no care less. It would seem she would have to take initiative all by herself. So one evening by ship’s time, she put on a long, wrap dress, like she had seen the augment women wear while they were off-duty, strapped her hair in a loop on her nape, and went to knock on Khan’s door. He opened it with a frown marring his face, several creases denting the upper part of his nose. His eyes were dark. They traveled over her from head to toe in a clinical manner, no heat permeating his gaze. He stepped aside without a word, letting her in. The door sealed itself shut behind her.
Carol spared his quarters a single, furtive glance. They were startlingly similar to those of the rest, simple, furnished with the bare minimum. The only notable distinction was the stack of antiquated, paper book piled on his desk. She turned to him and stretched her arms to wrap them around his neck. He moved before she could see him, fast as a cobra, and grasped her wrists, blocking her advance.
“Have dinner with me,” he said coolly, the scowl smoothening itself off his face.
She blinked. “What?”
“Dinner,” he repeated, releasing her. “Would you like to have dinner with me?”
Carol nodded, recalling the Decker had liked to eat first, too. Dinner was a relatively modest affair: a chicken dish and dessert, but he had actual sapphire wine, which was more than welcome given that her replicator didn’t produce anything stronger than coffee. Maybe a little alcohol would help things go a bit easier. A little more alcohol would help things a lot so she drank heavily, especially since he was more interested in nursing his glass throughout their entire meal. He did most of the talking, too, about weapons, tactics and plans to get to a wormhole nearby the Barzan homeworld in order to flee to another quadrant. It was a good move and she found herself not the first time admiring his obvious brilliance and his talent for strategic calculations. She peered at him as discreetly as she could manage with the wine clouding her head and noted just how handsome he was, too. And he had lovely hands, with elongated, perfectly-drawn fingers. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to feel them all over her body. But at the same time, she knew that those beautiful hands could be deadly, possessing a strength that Decker or any Orion could never have, and inflict untold damage upon her.
Her heart sped in fear and she drank even more to quell it, welcoming the rapidly progressing dullness of her senses, until she could feel and remember nothing anymore.