In a kingdom made not of towers and thorned woods but of rain-slick runways, locked briefing rooms, gray barracks, and corridors bright enough to make every secret look pale, there lived a captain with gloved hands.

The world knew him as Captain John Price, commander of Task Force 141, a man built from smoke, command, old wars, and the kind of mercy that survived by pretending it was discipline. Soldiers followed him because he brought them home. Enemies feared him because he did not need to raise his voice to become a threat. Command respected him because he was useful, though not obedient enough to be comfortable. But beneath his rank, beneath his beard and blue eyes and weathered steadiness, beneath the gloves he never removed where others might see, Price carried a curse older than any government that would ever try to name it.

Long ago, before the world had learned to watch him so closely, Price saved a strange old captive from a cellar beneath a ruined villa, a wine-dark place where traffickers and worshippers of forgotten gods had chained something they did not understand. The captive was Silenus, mentor to Dionysus, and because Price refused to leave him behind, a god came walking through the cracks of the modern world. Dionysus, pleased by human kindness and careless with human cost, offered Price one wish. Price did not ask for wealth. He did not ask for crowns, palaces, feasts, or worship. Exhausted by dead soldiers, empty ledgers, bad orders, and the cruel arithmetic of war, he asked for the means to make every sacrifice worth something. He asked that nothing he touched be wasted.

So the god gave him gold.

Not riches. Not salvation. A curse.

From that day forward, whatever Price touched with bare skin could turn to gold. A bullet casing. A page. Food before it could feed him. Drink before it could soothe his throat. Living flesh, if held too long. The curse did not leap through air, did not seep through intact cloth, did not pass through gloves or glass or steel. It required direct touch, skin to surface, skin to skin, as intimate and terrible as a promise. So Price wrapped his hands, hid his palms, and made distance look like habit. The world saw a commander with strict boundaries. It did not see a man who had learned to fear comfort more than gunfire.

And once, before the curse had fully turned love into a room full of locked doors, Price loved you.

It was not a soft thing, though it had softness inside it. It was not simple, though there were moments that almost fooled him into believing it could be. He loved you with the restraint of a man standing beside a sleeping fire, knowing one careless breath could wake it. He let you near enough to know his silences, but not near enough to know what lived beneath them. He gave you pieces of himself polished smooth by omission: the captain, the tired man, the dry humor, the protective hand that always stopped short. But he never gave you the whole truth. Never the god. Never the cellar. Never the young soldier who grabbed his bare wrist and lost a hand to gold. Never the hunger of wanting to touch and knowing wanting did not make touch safe.

In the end, Price did what men in old tales always do when they mistake fear for wisdom: he made a decision alone and called it mercy.

He broke your heart to spare you from his curse. He told himself hatred would keep you farther back than truth ever could. He let you believe he had chosen duty, distance, war, anything but the unbearable reality that love had made you dangerous to his enemies, valuable to command, and vulnerable to his own hands. He left you outside the walls of his life and locked the gate from the inside, believing that if he could not be safe to love, he could at least be cruel enough to let you survive him.

Years passed. Wars continued. Task Force 141 became his kingdom of soldiers: Ghost, the masked sentinel who saw more than he said; Soap, bright as a struck match and twice as reckless; Gaz, steady as a blade laid flat in the hand; Roach, quiet enough to become the shadow behind a locked door; and Mutt, scarred, sharp, watchful, and dry as winter kindling. They were not knights, not in the clean storybook way. They were bloodied, difficult, loyal, exhausted men who laughed in bad places and kept one another breathing through worse ones. Price ruled no throne among them, but he carried command like a crown hammered from responsibility, and it cut him every time he bowed his head.

Then came Stirling Lines.

Stirling Lines was not a castle, though it had gates. It was not enchanted, though it changed lives with paper. It was a place of polished floors, rain-streaked glass, sealed files, clipped orders, badge readers, and transfer packets passed from hand to hand like fate disguised as administration. In older tales, a messenger might arrive at the king’s table bearing a ribboned decree. In this one, the decree came in a folder stamped with clearance marks, and inside it was a name Price had spent years teaching himself not to reach for.

You.

The ex he had abandoned.

The love he had buried.

The person he had tried to keep out of his war.

Now you had been transferred through Stirling Lines and placed within the orbit of Task Force 141, close enough to walk the same corridors, breathe the same gun-oil air, stand beneath the same fluorescent lights, and look at Price as though the old wound had finally found its way back to the blade. Worse still, you were not misplaced. You had earned the transfer. You were competent, capable, and no longer safely distant. Price could not send you away without questions. He could not keep you close without risk. He could not explain without opening the door to the curse. He could not lie without repeating the old cruelty.

So the fairytale begins not with a kiss, nor a curse newly cast, nor a maiden arriving at the castle gates, but with a captain standing over a transfer file while rain needles the windows and his gloved hand tightens over the name he once let go.

In the briefing room, Price must become Captain before he can become man. He must look at you in front of Ghost, Soap, Gaz, Roach, and Mutt and pretend you are only another transfer. He must let the team notice the tension without understanding it. He must feel Ghost’s silence sharpen, Soap’s curiosity spark, Gaz’s quiet perception settle, Roach’s stillness observe, and Mutt’s scarred attention cut too close. He must speak like command while every unsaid thing gathers behind his teeth.

And you stand there, no longer safely beyond the wall.

The long story is not about whether Price still loves you. That answer is already buried in the way he goes still. It is about whether love can survive the truth after being wounded by protection. It is about whether you can forgive a man who chose absence on your behalf. It is about whether Price can learn that keeping someone safe by denying them choice is not mercy, no matter how noble the wound looks from a distance. It is about gloves, secrets, old gods, bad orders, and the terrible intimacy of knowing why someone left.

In this tale, the curse is not broken by a single touch. The captain is not saved by being loved once. Your are not healed by learning the truth, and Price is not forgiven because his reasons hurt too. Every mission becomes another page. Every almost-touch becomes a test. Every flash of gold threatens to turn the hidden story visible. Every time Price orders you back, the past answers with teeth. Every time you refuse to be dismissed, the wall he built loses another stone.

And somewhere beyond the rain and concrete, Dionysus laughs softly into the roots of the world, amused that mortals still believe distance can keep love from finding the cursed.

But Price knows better now, or he will.

Because fairytales are not gentle things. They are warnings wearing velvet. They are knives hidden in roses. They are old truths told beautifully so no one can pretend they did not hear them.

And this one begins with a man who once asked that nothing he touched be wasted, only to learn that the one thing he wasted most was the chance to let you choose him anyway.

Well, Voidlings.

It's officially May, which means it's Make Believe May, Mermay, and I'm pretty sure Mythical May.

I for sure am doing Make Believe May and may throw some others in here as well.

I do hope you enjoy, little Voidlings <3

CW: Midas Touch being lethal, Anger, meeting after breakup, Gods not knowing how mortals work, curses, power imbalance, AI giving the genned woman two faces(I'm not fixing it), Call of Duty content, General LLM Tomfoolery