#He definitely has like a thick mane of fur that's all ragged looking

[puppetmaster13u]

Day 7: Bone

[delldarling]

bearberry bargain | pyre

male arctic fox shifter x gender/body neutral reader 10,261 words lemon | older shifter, knotting, oral, penetrative sex, no choking but there is throat touching, tricks and bargains, getting lost note: this was the Story of the Month for December 2020 over on my Patreon! It is loosely tied into the same world as my dragon fellow Arroven, but reading Arroven’s story first is most definitely not required. 

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The tundra is a gorgeous, but unforgiving landscape. You can hear the words on repeat in your head, clear as a twice damned bell. Worse than that, you can see Bristle, the orc woman that had served as your guide out here, in your mind's eye saying the words as she gestured to the fog drenched terrain. And The Mirrored Teeth are a little more dangerous than most. In the rain, or like now, in the fog, the stone spires gleam. They are beautiful, and all too easy to mistake for a far off porch light, or street lamp—but that isn’t what’s truly dangerous out here.

Bristle’s partner, a curly haired satyr by name of Rhim, with coins jingling in his carefully coiffed beard, had then stepped up to speak. Unfortunately, The Mirrored Teeth weren’t named for the teeth-like spires alone. The mirroring, or in this case, echoing, is the real danger. Voices carry strangely out here when the fog is thick, and if someone is lost? Our first instinct is to travel towards a light, or someone shouting. Whether the voices are our own, bouncing back to us from the spires or the mountains, or they’re the product of a still-living magical area?

They’d both spoken in unison then, smiling at each other with the ease of familiarity: Don’t follow the voices.

Each person in the tour group had been given a small token after their list of safety precautions, to serve as a tracker in case someone was separated. One person had asked if it was likely to get lost, and Bristle had snorted before she’d adopted her tour guide voice again. To come out here in the first place, everyone had been asked to sign a waiver because, inevitably, someone did end up wandering away. They followed voices that sounded like loved ones from past or present. They followed voices that sounded like themselves, calling out warnings. It was generally why people ended up taking the tour in the first place, listening eagerly for a voice they’d long since thought lost, or some kind of warning from their future self, so compelling and entrancing that they must be the product of magic. Most, though not all, of the people were generally found. Overtired and aching from sleeping on the ground out in the cold, but otherwise unharmed. Whatever caused the voices, magic or not, didn’t seem to hurt people, only leave them confused.

A few of the others currently with the group had come out for more academic reasons. Art and science in most cases, but otherwise those going on the tour were magic chasers, looking to record the fog voice phenomena for further study.

You might not have come out here with a recorder, but you can’t exactly deny that magic chaser applies to you as well. Claims of The Mirrored Teeth holding tangible residual magic are terribly rampant. You’ve wanted to witness it for yourself, to hear the voices, or feel the soft ache of magical energy on your skin, just the once. You’ve wanted… Well, it’s hard sometimes, not to want to feel the call of magic.

“And look where it’s led you,” you mutter, searching your pockets for the hundredth time. You know you won’t find the token, that you must have lost it when you slipped on some slick moss about an hour ago, but you can’t stop yourself now. It’s like trying to leave a loose thread alone once nervous fingers have found it. You keep reaching for the token, keep trying to find it, even though you know nothing you do will help any longer. You don’t recognize any of the surrounding terrain.

When you’d started out with the tour group, there hadn’t been anything but fog and the scrubby ground, hardened by a hidden layer of permafrost. You’d seen pictures of the teeth-like spires, but hadn’t been able to spot any when you first arrived. Now, every time you turn around it feels like you’re surrounded by the damned things. They radiate a soft glow, magnified further by the heavy mist and from far off? They look just like the teeth they’re named for. “Done in by moss,” you add, straining your eyes to see further through the fog. ”Not even by the voices!” Which, frankly, was disappointing. Not that you wanted to be lost in the first place, but hearing some of the voices the Mirrored Teeth are known for would have at least given you a better reason. An expected reason to be lost or wandering away from the group. Instead you’d simply slipped, brushed off a handful of withered greenery and pebbles, and had gotten back to your feet to find yourself alone.

You’d shouted yourself hoarse after the first half hour, calling out for Bristle and Rhim, staying in the same place, or assuming you’d stayed in the same place. You’d bent to find the token again, but even that had apparently been too much movement. Every time you lifted your head to look away from the ground, there was a different bit of flora springing up in front of you—and then you’d nearly smacked yourself head first into one of the spires, none of which are clearly marked on the map you have of the surrounding area. There’s always too much mist to plot them.

“Bristle! Rhim?” You call out again, cupping your hands around your mouth, not knowing if you should even hope for some kind of answer. What if they don’t answer because of the echoes? What if that’s the reason they’ve yet to answer in the first place?

The soft crack of a branch makes you whirl, throat growing tight when you spot the shadow of three figures through the fog. They straighten up, huffing, and the fog slowly spins away, shadows coalescing and revealing an older man shouldering a pack that he’s clearly just dug up from the ground. For a moment, he’s silent, staring, hand clenching tight at his pack as his eyes rove over your face. His gaze dips to your feet and lifts quickly back to your face before he wipes the surprise from his expression. “I hoped I was mistaken,” he grouses in a soft voice, tossing his head to get his ragged mane of salt and pepper hair out of his eyes. “But ‘lo, a human. Those tours are getting earlier and earlier every year, aren’t they?” He sighs, not asking like he expects an answer, but more like he’s just making an unpleasant statement. For half a second you have a retort on your lips, but the longer you stare, the more words vanish from your vocabulary.

The man has clearly tried to tame his ragged hair, weaving it into a messy, short braid that’s just long enough to hang over his right shoulder. There are earrings hanging from his right earlobe, dangly things that clink softly while he brushes impatiently at the dirt on his knees. His jacket, once a lovely heather gray, and obviously a match to a long lost suit, is patched and worn in multiple places. His jeans are nothing to write home about either, with frayed hems and patched knees. He has silvery stubble on his cheeks, and crows feet at the corners of his copper eyes, and—and a long tail, like a bottlebrush, fur standing on end. Until he sees that you’re watching. The tail vanishes behind his legs and your eyes zero in on his sharp nailed fingers, the backs of his knuckles covered with pale, soft looking hair. He grimaces, baring razor edged teeth, and promptly makes to stride past you, not even bothering to wait for you to get out of the way. He draws a rough breath as soon as he bumps into you, flinching away from actually knocking you to the ground, but it’s near enough to set your temper stoking.

Frankly? His manners are atrocious. But you’re also lost somewhere out in the tundra, and even if he doesn’t know where your tour is, he knows of them. You wrestle your temper into staying silent and rush after him.

“Wait! Hey, wait up,” you ask, ignoring the thrill that runs through you when you snag hold of his jacket sleeve and his tail bristles again. He’s not just hiding a tail either. His feet look more like great canine paws, which means—

The man whirls, and you spot two furred ears hidden under his uneven hair before he yanks his arm away from you, breathing far too fast. “Surely you know better than to grab at a shifter?” He hisses, leaning in close to your face. For half a second, he’s close enough for you to feel warmth radiating off of his body, but then his nostrils flare and his voice grows quiet. “Or are you from one of those backwater humans only villages in the East?”

“I’m—I’m sorry for grabbing you,” you blurt, mildly startled by his proximity to your face. “And while yes, that wasn’t a smart idea, I’m lost out here. Would it have been smarter of me to let you leave me in the dust before I asked for directions?” You take a slow step back, though you don’t let your eyes drop from his. You’re not going to take your eyes off of him for even a second if it means the fog is going to swallow him up and leave you all on your lonesome again.

The shifter narrows his copper eyes, highlighting the faint wrinkles in his brown skin. “Lost, you said?” He straightens, and keeps staring, eerily still. His frown only grows more pronounced when you nod your head. “You’re three days out from where the tours start. How long have you been lost?”

“Three days,” you repeat, uncomprehending. For another few seconds, the words don’t make any kind of sense. You’ve been separated from your group, according to your watch, for just over an hour. When you glance at the timepiece, only another handful of minutes have passed, but not enough time to even come close to explaining three days worth of travel. Your pulse is already racing, but it’s beginning to grow past the point of discomfort and into painful territory with how hard your heart is working. How the hell are you supposed to get back? “That’s not possible,” you breathe.

He doesn’t soften, but for a few moments he doesn’t look quite so irritated. “If you heard anything at all on that tour, then I’m sure you know it is possible. Residual magic, yes? It can do quite a bit more than just throw voices like a puppeteer.” He shifts his weight, like he’s ready to leave the moment you give him a chance.

“I’ve been lost for an hour,” you say, hoping that will spell out exactly how ridiculous you find his claims. “And I did my best to stay in one place. I’ve barely even begun to walk anywhere, and I didn’t—didn’t feel anything magical.”

“Isn’t it terribly rare to feel anything magical?” He asks, only gently mocking. “So few people even notice when something magical has happened to them. Now, it sounds as if the fog leapfrogged you through space,” he adds, wrinkling his nose. “Or did those green guides of yours not mention that something like this might happen?” He waits, but when you don’t immediately answer, the shifter sighs again, shakes his head and pivots, heading back into the still-swirling fog, ready to leave you behind.

You make another desperate grab for his sleeve, thankful that he only grimaces when he turns back to face you again. “In fact, yes, they did forget to mention! If you happen to have a satellite phone, or maybe-”

The shifter laughs and your grip on his sleeve grows slack. He’s rather handsome when he smiles, and looks like some kind of down-on-his-luck musician, dreaming of his glory days. You hastily let go of his sleeve, before he decides to yank himself away a second time. “Me? Ol’ Pyre, wandering about the tundra with a satellite phone?” He lifts his bag, clumps of dirt still falling from it. “I’m coming out this way to spend the winter in my other skin, and generally? Foxes have no use for phones.” He lifts his chin, scenting the air, and then nods his head in the direction behind you. “Head that way and the fog is likely to lead you right back.”

“Likely or certain?” You press, scowling. “Because there’s a rather large difference between those two options, and I’m not going to risk myself on likely.”

Pyre huffs out a sharp edged: “Which do you think?” before he registers the way your hands are starting to shake with nerves. His mouth opens, and then snaps shut. For a long moment he’s quiet, gritting his teeth, eyebrows furrowed. “You’re not prepared for more than an evening trek through the tundra, are you? Enough food for a snack and dinner round a campfire before they herd you back?”

A small wave of relief loosens your shoulders. If he’s asking, then surely he’s not going to turn tail and leave you all by your lonesome? You start to smile, ready and willing to ask for further help, but Pyre turns away with a quiet curse.

“Pitiful idiots,” he says, glancing up at the sky, even though he can’t see anything but the vague hint of daylight through the thick fog. “Three days. And leaving would be akin to murder.” He bares his teeth, still looking up for a few seconds longer before he turns a sharp look your way, fingers curling and uncurling at his side. “I’ll lead you as far as the Slavering river. If you stick to that and keep yourself from wandering off into the fog again, you’ll certainly make it close enough for those idiot guides to find you.”

Slavering, the river is called, Bristle’s voice picks up in your head again, because they once thought the tundra a hungry thing, with teeth besides. She’d gestured to the West, though none of the group had been able to spot or hear the roar of the water yet. It had just been another wall of fog over hard earth and low growing shrubs. We’ll end our hike there.

You offer Pyre your hand, still worried about the trek, still ill at ease with what the fog has done, but feeling decidedly less panicked. Residual magic my ass. As soon as I’m back, the guides are going to expand that little safety speech of theirs.

“Thank you, really. I appreciate it. If I hadn’t—”

“Save your breath for the walk,” Pyre mutters and fully ignores your outstretched hand, skirting around you in a wide arch so he won’t risk touching you accidentally. He doesn’t get more than a few paces away though before he’s turning to look at you over his shoulder. “And keep up. If the fog decides to deposit you somewhere else, there aren’t many other helpful shifters wandering about the area.” He saunters off ahead, trusting you to make your own way, but the fur on his tail doesn’t lay flat until you’re jogging to catch up with him.

“Are there dangerous shifters then?” You risk asking, thankful for your heavy coat and the weight of your own pack. Bristle and Rhim hadn’t mentioned any shifters in the area at all, but then they also hadn’t told any of you that the residual magic might move you without your knowledge. Perhaps they would have, if you’d been allowed to stick around, but it feels like a glaring oversight, now that you’re all the way out here. Maybe this is why they make everyone sign the waiver. Not because of some idiotic, siren-like voices, but because of magical fog.

Pyre’s ears twitch, visible for only a split second through his hair. “Don’t wander off,” is all he chooses to add before he falls silent, doing his best to stay several steps ahead of you to discourage speech.

“That’s encouraging,” you mutter, and his ears twitch again, but he doesn’t respond. The walk to the Slavering is going to feel like a very long one from the looks of it, and it isn’t just because everything looks much the same no matter which way you turn. You shove your hands deep in your coat pockets, watching the middle of Pyre’s back, and do your best not to unconsciously search for the lost token. You already know your pockets are still empty.

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Despite Pyre’s desire for absolute silence, he mutters about things without thinking. He comments quietly on a hare speeding away when a noise startles you. He grabs up handfuls of wild berries off of the scrubby bushes you pass, promptly dropping any that are too spoiled to be edible. He flicks some of them away with soft, but mocking farewells until he recalls that you’re not far behind him, listening to everything he says. Pyre’s threadbare shoulders always rise with embarrassment, but after the third time it happens and he remembers you’re there, he sighs, shaking off his chagrin. He pauses just long enough to grab your arm and slap some of the berries into your open palm, doing his best not to meet your eyes.

When he speaks, he keeps his eyes on your fingers, touch careful and tense. “Eat those if you’re feeling peckish, or save them for this evening and you can boil them down into tea. Don’t dive into any of your stores if you can until sometime tomorrow.”

“What about you?” You ask, noticing that he’s barely kept any at all for himself. A berry or two slips away, rolling off of your hand and dropping to the ground.

Pyre arches a brow, closing your hand around the berries so no more can fall before he takes a step back. “I’ll be hunting as soon as I leave you by the river. I’m more than well equipped to look after myself out here. A few berries won’t make much of a difference.”

“Is this a regular thing for you then? Coming out here to the tundra once a month for shifting?”

“For the winter,” Pyre corrects in a sour tone, and then turns back to his chosen path again. “Coming out to the tundra isn’t a regular thing for you though, is it? Or was it just the magic that left you so frightened?”

The berries he’s given you are small and gleaming red, and you don’t much care for his continued irritable attitude. You pop three into your mouth while you ignore him, expecting it to be, at the worst, bitter. Instead it’s dry. You make a noise of distaste, which makes Pyre glance back again. He stops, confused for all of two seconds before his eyes widen and he chokes on his laugh. The sour twist of your mouth is clue enough. “Definitely not a regular traveling spot,” he states. “Unfamiliar with bearberries?”

“I hope that isn’t what they taste like when they’re boiled,” you mumble, doing your best to refrain from scrubbing at your tongue. “And no, the tundra isn’t really a prime vacation spot for me or most anyone else. The draw of lingering, tangible magic is a little too much for some people to ignore though. Maybe not everyone, but some of us.”

Pyre hums, tail raising when he hops over a strange looking crack in the earth. “Feeling a call?” He asks, voice far too even to be pleasant.

That’s a personal question in most places, and Pyre has already quietly mocked your interest in magic once. He does seem the type to poke at uncomfortable topics though, to try and get a rise out of someone. His tail is still bristled out as well, quietly hinting that he’s not in a pleasant mood. “Is that why you come out here during the winter? I don’t hear much about other shifters vanishing for an entire season, fox or not.”

“The only call I’ll ever feel is the one to shift,” he grumps, but he does smack his lips and slow down for a moment, letting you keep pace. “I make bad decisions,” Pyre finally adds, as if that clarifies anything at all.

“All the time? Or-”

“Smartass.”

“That wasn’t even hard, are you really going to fault me for that one?” You wait, patiently, but no answer is forthcoming, and then he rushes forward a few steps ahead. “I’ll take that as a yes?” You call out, but Pyre just keeps walking, like he’s reached the end of his tolerance for speaking politely with another living being. “Well, that was nice while it lasted,” you mumble, frowning when you spot his shaking shoulders. He’s—he’s laughing. Maybe he isn’t suffering from lack of manners entirely, but instead has been too long out of practice.

“Not all the time,” Pyre calls back when he trusts his rasp of a voice not to betray his amusement. “Just a fourth of it.”

For the season, he’d said. You snort and don’t even try to hold back a smile when Pyre tilts his head to look at you. His head immediately snaps forward and he shakes it, as if to ward off an unhappy thought. He’s grumpy because... he’s awkward and shy? The last of your fear, still borne aloft by the way he’s spoken thus far, by his quiet mutter of akin to murder eases immeasurably. You follow after him now in less strained silence, a bit more confident now that you’ll make it back to the tour group in one piece.

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Your confidence lasts until early evening, when visibility is becoming a huge issue for you. No matter how well you might see in the dark, the fog feels like it’s pressing in on you from all sides. Pyre hasn’t slowed by much, but then you see the pale, rapid swish of his tail, moving so fast it looks for a moment like he has more and then you recall that he’s a shifter. His eyesight, as well as his sense of smell, are by far better than your own. He might be able to keep going well into the night, but—You grunt, catching your toe on a white rock the height of your ankle. Before you can fall, or do much more than exclaim in quiet pain, Pyre has his hands on your shoulders, keeping you up and steady.

“It’s dark,” he says quietly, by way of apology. “We’ll stop for the night just up ahead. Can you make it?”

“Without tripping over rocks or falling on my face, you mean?” You breathe in, and promptly swallow. He smells a bit like fresh campfire smoke and the faint citrusy scent of the bearberries and he’s entirely too close. You don’t necessarily want him to move away though, not with the darkness growing thick around you. “Probably not,” you admit quietly.

Pyre hums, breathing in slowly, and the sound is terribly intimate. “...you need a hand?”

“Unless you’d rather I trip and skin my knees and palms in the dark? Yes.”

“Humans,” Pyre says, amused, and clucks his tongue as he takes hold of your wrist, turning away to continue on and pull you after him. He only pauses when you try to tug your hand away.

“You can hold my hand instead of towing me along like a kid at the fair. I don’t even have sticky fingers.” You turn your hand, thankful when he lets you adjust his hold. His fingernails, thicker due to his shifting nature, dig a little too hard into the side of your hand before he reflexes his grip.

He pauses, tense, even though his palm is a soothing warmth against yours. “Not sticky,” he finally agrees. Pyre hesitates, like he wants to say more, but a low, strange voice calls out something from far off. As soon as you hear it, the voice has it’s hooks in you. Your entire body grows tense, hair prickling, listening as hard as you can to try to make out the words. “No,” Pyre says in a low growl, trying to interrupt your concentration. He’s only barely louder than the voice. “Don’t listen. It’s all too easy to-”

“That sounds like—”

“It sounds like nothing that matters. Even if you know the voice, it doesn’t matter.” Pyre grunts when you turn your head, trying to follow the fading voice with your ear alone. He rips his hand out of yours so he can take hold of your face, pulling you close until you’re nearly nose to nose with him, thumbs on your cheekbones, fingernails scratching gently behind your ears. “Right now, the only thing that matters is making camp for the night. We’re heading this way and you are not going to go looking for that voice in the dark.”

You suck down a fierce breath, closing your eyes as the last of the echoing voice fades away. As soon as it’s gone, your shoulders start to slump, and you feel strangely hollow. “That is why they make us sign that waiver?” You ask, opening your eyes to find Pyre still terribly close, his hands still cradling your face.

For a moment, he lingers, breath warm against your lips, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepening the longer he stares at you up close. The bright copper of his eyes is muted in the darkness, but the white in his hair, in his eyebrows, stands out brilliantly, and you think there might be more of it now than there was earlier this afternoon. “I knew you’d be a bad decision,” he whispers, and inexplicably, you think he might be about to kiss you. Your heart begins to gallop around your chest, your hands lifting to grasp at his wrists, his own still on your face—and then Pyre pulls away, dragging his nails over your skin. He tangles his fingers with yours and leads you quietly through the dark.

You’re not sure whether you should ask about his other bad decisions again… But you desperately want to.

Putting together the camp is a chilly affair at best. The shelter you help Pyre fumble through in the dark, though of course he has no trouble navigating the process, is little more than a heavy tarp tied securely between two of the tall, white teeth. There isn’t much wind, but now the mist is heavy enough to dot your eyelashes and bead along your sleeves. You don’t quite believe Pyre when he says he can get a fire going, forcing you to sit next to the small ring of stones he’s gathered. “There’s a copse of trees not far from here,” he explains, tilting his head to your right, though you can’t see anything through the fog, and especially not in the dark. “And I’ll be able to scrounge up enough for a fire.”

You want to ask him if he’ll be able to find his way back to you. If he thinks you’ll be safe sitting here on your own, especially after the voice from earlier. Voicing your concerns feels a bit too much like an invitation for bad luck though, and you still don't know Pyre very well. He might be helping you out of the goodness of his heart, but he's already dubbed you a bad decision. You're not sure you want to push things. “Won’t the wood be wet?” You ask instead, chafing your hands together to stir up a little bit of heat.

“No fear of shifters,” Pyre scoffs, straightening up and pulling his bag off of his back. “No screaming at strangers when you're lost in the foggy tundra, but you're worried about damp firewood?" You scowl, knowing full well he can see your expression. That surprises a rough sounding laugh out of him. "I may choose to spend my winter as a fox, but that doesn't mean I don't turn back into a man when spring comes." Pyre brandishes a small box, a tin filled with what sounds like matches. He rattles them about for emphasis. “Charmed matches are a necessity out here, not optional. Even if the wood is damp, they’ll catch well enough to last us the night.”

Charmed matches aren’t exactly common. A package of them, when used only in dire situations, should last someone a score of years at least, and as the spells to make them are some of the few guarantees of still working magic… They cost a pretty penny. “...should you be wasting them on me when I’m supposed to find the tour guides tomorrow?”

Pyre shakes the box at you, silently insisting you take it from his hand. When you take it from him, there’s more hair, more fur on his fingers than there was earlier in the day. You wonder if it’s a conscious change to help stave off the chill, or if it’s simply too close to when he shifts. “We need some way to boil a bit of water for bearberry tea, don’t we? Unless you’d rather eat them plain.” He sounds like he’s smiling, but the dark is getting more oppressive and you can’t see it. Pyre’s tone turns a little more serious, a little more apologetic as he continues: “And using them seems to keep away the voices, so yes. As I’ve taken responsibility for your safety—”

“Responsibility,” you murmur, arching a brow, but you can’t exactly disagree.

“—I’ll do exactly as I said. You’ll get to the Slavering, and I’ll even give you a match as a gift. You can make a torch as you head back and the voices should leave you be.”

You don’t shake the tin of them, knowing that they’re valuable, but you stroke your finger over the top, following the raised patterns of letters. “Will they work, even if they’re unlit?”

Pyre waits, and you don’t know whether he’s reluctant to give you an answer or he doesn’t actually know. “Are you worried about me going to grab the firewood?”

Well, it was kind of ridiculous, trying to hide your nervousness from him anyway. You’re lost in the tundra with someone you don’t know. No matter how resilient you are, it’s going to be nerve wracking. “I’ve never felt quite as strange as when I heard that voice, even with you pulling me back from it…” You stop, a frown growing on your lips. “But the voice didn’t do anything to you. You had no problem telling me not to listen to it.”

Pyre crouches, his knees popping, and groans quietly, rubbing at the patch just under his left kneecap. You can see his hands, pale fur the only spot of brightness in the night. “They don’t much affect shifters. We’re…. We’re already rather full of magic ourselves, even if it isn’t the kind one can use by uttering spells or mixing ingredients in a pot. Whatever the reason, the voices don’t seem to like magic. So a box of those matches?” He reaches out to tap on the tin with one long nail. “It should keep you from falling prey for the few moments it will take me to gather wood. I still wouldn’t get up though, then you might risk dropping it.”

You don’t know everything about the tundra, even with what research you did before you came on the trip, and the talk of magic here? It’s still something people want to study. One of the ones that came with a recorder would probably be thrilled to hear this much about the place from… Pyre might not be a year-round local, but he knows quite a bit. If he can hold off his shifting, maybe you’ll ask him to talk to one of them. “I’ll be safe,” you say, extrapolating, “as long as I stay sitting here. You’ll be able to find me again?”

“...I’ll be able to follow your scent, yes,” he admits, like he expects you to be irritated with the thought. Far, far away, another voice echoes, much fainter than the one you’d heard before. It doesn’t sound pained or panicked though, it sounds a bit like—Pyre takes your fingers, almost crushing them around the tin box in your hands. The voice vanishes. “You’ll be safe,” Pyre repeats, and a breeze whisks through the area, catching at his wild grey and white hair.

“Then get the wood,” you say, before you lose your nerve. “I’ll wait.” Pyre’s hand, still curled tightly around your fingers, eases. He brushes his thumb over the valleys between your knuckles and then pulls away.

“A few moments only. I promise,” he whispers, and then his canine-like feet are scuffing through the hard dirt and lichen covered rocks.

As soon as he’s gone, you soothe yourself by running your fingers over the tin of matches, trying to figure out what words are written along the top in fine, curling letters. There are too many loops though and when you do your best to try and focus on it, bringing it up close to your face, all you can see is that places on the tin have been worn down. Whatever it might say, the color on the tin won’t help you figure it out. It feels like only seconds, but another noise echoes in the darkness, your heart jumping back into overdrive. You clutch at the matchbox, but then Pyre is stepping out of the heavy fog, dropping a heaving armful of twisted branches and thick tangles of what looks like weeds.

“Moments, I thought you said! What was that, 30 seconds?” You ask, trying to calm your racing heart.

Pyre laughs. “I think you were just lost in thought, hm? It’s easy to lose track of time in the dark.” He kneels at the ring of rocks, cursing, even though you can’t hear any popping in his limbs this time. “Now, give me the matches and let’s get things a bit warmer, hm?”

You hand them over, and then get to work. You feel more than see Pyre’s surprise when you start picking up the branches and weeds. “I may be human, but I can help do a bit of work. It’s the last I can do after you helping me like this, what with your shifting getting close.”

“Noticed that, did you?” He asks, tin creaking as he opens and closes the lid. You glance over, but other than his pale fur, you can’t make out what he’s actually doing. A second later and he’s striking one of the charmed matches over a rough rock, and then it blazes merrily in a bit of fire smaller than a penny. “I won’t be a danger. I’m old enough to keep my wits. My… I should warn you, my breed of shifting isn’t always so pretty as others though.”

“Is that why you come out here?”

“One of many reasons,” Pyre mutters and holds the match to the wood in the fire pit. The match doesn’t burn down immediately though, or even catch the weeds when he touches it to them. Pyre deposits it carefully in the exact middle of arrangement, planting it almost like a seedling in the wood and weeds. Only after he removes his hand does the match start to spark, and then fire twists open like a blooming flower. It’s gorgeous. You lift your eyes to Pyre, awe clear in your gaze, and then you have to blink. He’s still the older man you saw this afternoon. He still has a mostly human face, but his arms look longer now, and his copper eyes flash strangely in the firelight. He glances at you, and you see that his mouth has grown wider, the edges either curling back towards his cheekbones or… Or his jaws are elongating. “Frightened?” He asks, and then you realize that you’ve been staring.

“Mildly startled,” you correct, refusing to look away. Whether he’s a pretty kind of shifter or not, you can still see him in his eyes and the way he holds himself.

He chuffs, and the noise warms something deep in your chest. “Smartass,” he says, sounding very fond. “I’ll make some of that tea now then, if you’d like it.”

“Bearberry tea,” you muse, reaching in your pocket for the rest of the berries he’d given you. Pyre unearths a small cooking pot from his bag, as well as an earthenware mug, glazed some kind of deep green. He hands you the mug and then holds out the pot, nodding his head when you lift your berry filled hand over it. It takes longer than you would like. Pyre has to mash the berries down and then he surprises you by standing and tugging at the tarp edge of your shelter. Water, mist really, beaded so heavily along the taut plastic that there’s enough to fill the pot near to overflowing. It’s much more than you would have thought, but Pyre seems unsurprised, even though you’ve both been relatively dry since he started building the fire.

“Alright,” you finally say, watching Pyre stir the faintly pink water with a metal spoon from his bag. “You mentioned bad decisions, and I’m not wise enough to leave it well alone. What are all these ‘bad decisions’ that drive you out into the tundra for an entire season? And, I can’t not clarify, were they flings?”

Pyre stares at you, eyes gleaming in the firelight, his too wide jaw falling open due to your blunt questions. When he laughs this time, it’s a sharp bark and more fox-like than human. “Oh, you are one of them. Much more perceptive than many of the others.” He licks his lips, still human-smooth, but his ears have grown longer. They’re peeking out from the sides of his head, poking through his hair now. “Some of them were flings. Some of them were just… A way to stave off loneliness, even if they were unpleasant.”

“And where am I falling on that scale?”

Pyre arches a thicker brow, baring his sharp teeth in a slightly eerie smile. “I wouldn’t be opposed to a fling with someone like you, but your companionship is more than enough if that’s all you want to give.”

You can’t help but laugh. “Then how, exactly, am I a ‘bad decision’? Making friends isn’t a bad thing, is it?”

Pyre’s smile wavers. “No, no it isn’t.” He looks away, into the middle of the fire, where the charmed match is still blazing like a seed of flame. “The bad decision is that my loneliness drives me to go looking in the first place.”

You let a few moments pass in relative silence, puzzling over his words. It sounds more than strange, but you can’t put your finger on why. “What does that mean?” You finally ask, noting the way he’s digging his nails into his thighs.

He looks back at you. “Anyone who wanders out here is an offering, of sorts. To help bear the brunt of winter. The tours… They’re more like a ritual than those guides of yours realize.”

Your head feels strangely empty. Ritual, he’d said. Slowly, you think back to the myths linked to the tundra, to the Mirrored Teeth, to the folktales attached to cities and Serpent Towers. There had been something about bearing the brunt of winter, holding it back from sweeping over the land…

“Your time here will be no more than the three days I promised. You will be taken back to the Slavering, with only this time gone from the memories of others, and I will do nothing but what I promise: to lead you back, if that is all you desire.” Pyre creeps closer, long arms and long fingers bracing himself on the dirt. All it takes is a single stretch and he’s by your side, towering over you in his half shifted form. “The bad decision was that I was given the right to choose without any warning. That I could only claim those I charmed away.”

“You charmed me?” You whisper.

“You heard my voice,” Pyre explains and your heart beats painfully in your chest. He is why people vanish from the tours and come back tired and dirty but… But most of them come back unharmed.

“What happens to those that don’t make it back?” You ask, trying to quell your panic.

Pyre’s shoulders hunch. “Sometimes people react poorly, and they run. Running in the fog is never wise.”

“How am I… How am I supposed to help you keep winter from swallowing the world?”

Pyre barks out another laugh, though he’s grimacing. “Those years I don’t have a companion, winter escapes my hold. It’s much easier to keep in check with help.”

“Helping how?” You ask, voice going brittle.

“Companionship. You’re already bound to the three days,” he says quietly, nodding his head to the pot of slow boiling bearberries on the fire. “You ate three of them. If…. If you choose to help, to spend the winter with me, then you can drink. You’ll be with me through the entire season—”

“Out in the middle of the tundra, with nothing but a tarp and an evening's supply of food?” You ask, getting to your feet. You take a step away from the fire, nervous energy making you move, and then freeze when you hear a far off voice again. You glance down at Pyre, angry and convinced it must be him, but then you recognize it. The voice, low and soft as it echoes strangely through the fog, is you.

“The voices are possibilities only,” Pyre says, talking over the needy sounding moan. It vanishes, like nothing more than smoke on a fast moving breeze. “And I would take you back to my home, I wouldn’t make you wander out here and sleep on the freezing ground!” Pyre starts to get to his feet and then thinks better of it. He stays where he is, looking up at you, holding out a hand. “If you drink, all I require is companionship. Loneliness lets the ice creep further out, but friendship, or, or anger or passion keeps it at bay. With your help I can bind the overflow of ice in the teeth. But if three days is all you’ll allow, then I’ll find another, I promise. You’ll be free of this, and you’ll forget this ever happened.”

You’re out in the middle of the tundra, wreathed in magical fog and standing before a shifter, a… a spirit? A deity? That keeps winter at bay. You did want magic, didn’t you? You ask yourself. You look down to his open hand, brown palm calloused, nails long and sharp, white fox fur growing longer along his arm.

“No one will even notice I’ve been gone?”

“You’ll be lost in the fog for three days, according to them. What life you’ve missed will feel like a blink, but no. They won’t realize you’ll have been gone for the entire winter.” Pyre’s mouth closes, stubbled throat working as he swallows.

Slowly, you sit back down, picking up the glazed green mug and holding it out for Pyre to fill. “The winter then. If we end up hating one another? You have no one to blame but yourself.”

Pyre doesn’t answer, but he watches like a predator after he fills the mug with bearberry tea, copper eyes caught on your lips. You finish half the cup, and what chill lingered in your bones slowly fades away. Carefully, Pyre takes the cup back and downs the rest, long tongue licking stray droplets off of his lips.

————-　🦊　————-

You travel with Pyre for three days before you reach the banks of the Slavering, only when you do, the tour guides aren’t waiting for you. This is where the Slavering begins, the thick snowmelt coming off of the high mountaintops and rolling down through the craggy rocks to make a river. There’s a cave entrance not far from the rapids, covered over with weeds and just large enough for Pyre to stoop over and fit into. You stop at the entrance, with him close behind you, and stare into the far off dark.

“It’s not like a dungeon in there, is it?”

Pyre grumbles, somewhere between indignation and a laugh. “You always know just what to say. No, it’s not like a dungeon. There’s plenty of modern day amenities inside. I’m a shifter, not a beast.”

Cautiously, still not entirely trusting him, you head inside. It’s dark at first, and earthy smelling, just like a cave, but then Pyre strikes another one of his charmed matches and pulls you to the side so he can lead. There’s a lamp up ahead, the frosted glass globe just big enough for Pyre to reach in and set the match. Heat and light seem to roll through the entire area, a locked, wooden door revealing itself to the side of the lamp. The cave floor, still cold and a bit damp, is actually stones, pieced together into what looks like a strange little map. You frown down at the stones, eyes tracing the edges of a single, deep blue vein, wondering why the chips of pale rock surrounding it strike you as strange.

“The Teeth,” you murmur suddenly. “You have a map of the teeth in front of your door?” Some of the spots are much smaller than others, more like a pinprick of pale stone as opposed to some of the hefty chips. If you unfocus your eyes, the map looks like a reflection of the stars.

“Magic,” Pyre explains, though he doesn’t sound pleased with his own answer. “There’s plenty to talk about when it comes to the Teeth, and the voices, just… Let’s go inside. It’s going to start snowing soon.”

When he opens the door, all the lamps inside are lit. Much like Pyre himself, his decor is frayed and worn down. There are heavy furs on the walls, and tapestries too, both simple and grand, but fragile looking. There are furs on some of the furniture as well. There’s a large stone fireplace, with hooks over the mantle made of horn and a set of stone stairs that curve out of sight. There’s no sign of things like phones or televisions, but you feel like you should have expected that. Companionship through a screen probably didn't fulfill the parameters of his… his curse?

That’s something you decide to ask about later. After all, you have the rest of the winter to spend with him, and he explained plenty over the three day trip to the mountain. The teeth are made of contained winter. The larger the teeth are, the more someone helped Pyre through that season. Through friendship, or anger, or passion, they melted the ice and snow. Pyre would take the melt and bind it in magic-made spires, but he couldn’t build on only one. Each spire was the product of a different person, each fling or friend made or fight had melted the snow at different rates. If your help has already begun, then you know some of the snow must have melted already due to your anger over the past few days, but it’s not something you think you can hold onto. Pyre tricked you into the three days, gave you the bearberries and bid you eat if you were hungry. You’d eaten three of them. The rest of the winter though? That you chose yourself. At least for a while, you’re ready to try and enjoy a little bit of the magic, keeping back winter or no.

“It’s not quite past midday,” Pyre says quietly, voice a strange melding of fox and man. “If you’d like food, I will make it for you. If you’d like a rest, I’ll show you to your room.”

“My room?” You ask, only sounding mildly sarcastic.

Pyre narrows those coppery eyes of his. “Sometimes I think you say these things on purpose. Yes. Your room.” He heads for the staircase, his toenails clicking on the stone floor before he reaches the layers of rugs, the soft padding of his feet on them makes you smile. “I would hardly complain if you decided to join me in mine, but even so, you will have your own space.” He tosses his head, earrings catching in his hair and then vanishes up the stairs.

You move at a much more sedate pace, still examining your surroundings. There’s a very old looking table, covered with the remnants of a puzzle that looks to be from forty years ago at least. There’s a rack of old bottles, some of them look like wine, but others are clearly beer, and still others look like glass bottles of soda, the liquid half evaporated. Pyre’s house is going to be a treasure trove of history, of things left behind by others. The winter is going to be very long, you’re certain, but it won’t be forever. All of the people that left these things behind have obviously left and returned to their homes. You turn on your heel, slip your bag off of your shoulders and leave it at the foot of the stairs. You can come back for it later.

The lamps, all seemingly lit from that single charmed match, spiral up the staircase. There aren’t any doors that open up off the sides, only a hallway at the very top and three open doors leading to the far end. The first one you pass is a bathroom, with a large tub carved out of the stone of the mountain. There are elderly looking cupboards in there, and what looks like a wood burning stove, though it’s empty. The toilet, you assume, is behind the drawscreen, and when you peek your head farther in, there’s also a shining, copper mirror hanging on the wall. The second room is where Pyre is, hands fussing over the thick curtains around the bed. There’s a fireplace against the wall, and a nightstand next to the bed, and more furs draped over a chair made of wood and horn in the corner. There’s a worn desk, obviously hand-made by someone unskilled, but a beautiful bookcase next to it, filled with books in various states of wear. Some of the spines are cracked, but others still are pristine. To the right of the bed, there’s a single paned window. Snow is coating the sill outside, thick flurries weighing down the weeds that are growing in the cracked stone.

Despite the magic, despite the voices and his promise, it still hadn’t felt quite so real, wandering through the tundra with him. He’d said the snow would be coming down soon though.

“It’s lovely,” you answer, honestly, even if not everything is to your taste. It almost makes you want to laugh though, because it definitely looks like it’s somewhere removed from the normal world, some kind of strange mish-mash of time periods all pressed into a two story place. You wonder, without Pyre, would anyone ever find this place?

“Parts of it,” Pyre says, strange looking hands pausing in their tying of the curtains. He’s looking at the headboard, you realize. There’s a faint gouge in the dark wood, but it doesn’t look like it was from Pyre. It looks like a very human scratch. Warmth crawls over the back of your neck, though you’re not sure whether it’s embarrassment or eagerness. You’d been feeling a healthy dose of attraction with Pyre before he told you about everything, and it had taken a bit to sort through your feelings on the matter, even with you making the final choice to come here. You still don’t know how things will continue, but for now…

“Let me see what I can do to help make a few more lovely memories then,” you say suddenly. Heat is pulsing through you now, warming your cheeks and the tips of your ears and zinging down along your spine. Pyre’s head snaps to the side to find your hands working slowly at your clothes. He doesn’t move any further, doesn’t even tip back his head, just stares at you over the crest of his shoulder, pupils swallowing down the copper of his irises.

“If—you don’t have to do anything,” he insists, and his tail swishes, slowly, just the once. It doesn’t bristle out as it had when you’d first spotted him.

Your coat drops to the floor, and his eyes follow it. “I know. We were flirting though, before you told me about all of this, and I still…” You glance away, only for your eyes to snap back to Pyre as he drags his patched suit jacket off of his shoulders.

He slows when he realizes you’re watching, but doesn’t stop. A slow grin pulls at the corners of his wide mouth. “You still want to feel magic?” He taunts, and laughs when you roll your eyes. He stops laughing when the rest of your clothes hit the floor, the hint of a whine escaping him when you take a step closer, shivering when you feel the temperature of the stone on your bare feet. “My room,” Pyre says roughly, though you can’t tear your eyes away from him. He’s still a wonderfully strange mix of man and fox. His face is still humanoid, with lips and stubbled cheeks, and so is the shape of his shoulders through his holey t-shirt. There’s soft curls of hair peeking out of the stretched neck of his shirt, but along the backs of his arms it looks more like fur and his feet are still wholly canine. His tails, tails plural, are starting to grow longer too, and you recall the way he’d seemed to coalesce into one person when the fog had rolled back.

Pyre crosses the room, hesitating before he places his hands on your shoulders, thumbnails scratching gently at your bare skin. The chill of the room had been seeping into you, but at his touch, warmth chases it all away. When you slide your hands up his chest, Pyre’s eyes fall closed, gray lashes bright against his skin. “M’ room,” he repeats again, but pulls you into a kiss as he tows you out the door. There’s no more time for examining the hallway or the knick-knacks he might be keeping in his own space. There’s his lips and his stubble scratching at your skin and his hands splayed over the back of your neck and the base of your spine. He coaxes you into his room with deep, slow kisses that leave your head spinning, whispering things that make your pulse speed. “Want, want the smell of you on my sheets,” he says against your neck, dragging sharp teeth carefully over your throat. He growls when your hands dip to undo his trousers, your thumb following the trail of hair that vanishes beneath his underwear. “If this is, if it’s—”

“I agreed to the winter,” you remind him and then he’s turning you and letting you fall back onto his bed. You have a moment to register soft fur, and crocheted blankets, and comforters too, before Pyre is pulling his shirt off and tossing it across the room. He wrestles with the rest of his clothes, leaving you another moment to admire him. The hair on his chest and trailing down his abdomen looks human, much coarser than the fur on his arms and below his knees. Between his legs is a thick cock, hard and beginning to leak, with a small bulge near the base of him, and then your gaze is drawn back up as he crawls onto the bed, moving much slower than he had in the hall. He doesn’t press, doesn’t rush, just leans his body over yours to kiss you again, careful with his teeth. He groans when you reach up and tug at his braid, pulling the rough tie away and tossing it to the side. You comb your fingers through his hair, tangling your fingers in it to keep him kissing you and tense when his cock slides over your thigh, hot and hard and enough to make you buck up, already seeking friction. Pyre kisses you until you’re breathless, leaving you sucking at your own lips and trying to calm yourself as he urges you further up the bed, back to a veritable nest of pillows.

He isn’t slow when he settles himself between your legs, hands curling around your thighs and pushing them carefully back towards your chest. He isn’t slow when he drags his tongue over you, hot and slick and slightly rough. He’s careful as he can be with his teeth, but there are a few pinches that make you gasp and tremble. He laves his tongue over them, soothing the sting, but his nails are pressing hard into your skin and you’re fairly certain you’re going to bruise, simply from the continued pressure. Pyre is noisy too, whining and groaning as he tastes you, as you do your best to rock yourself against his tongue, hand tugging at his hair while he sucks and eats. The ache of orgasm, painful-but-sweet, is starting to build, starting to make you tense everytime he opens his jaw, teeth dragging over tender skin, leaving you wet and shuddering. He huffs when you whimper, and pulls away before you can come, copper eyes as bright as flame when he moves to sit back against his headboard. The loss of him feels sudden, and the cold is sharp without his warmth against you.

“That was on purpose,” you murmur. Pyre arches a brow, trying to keep from smiling when you scowl at his crooking finger. You still get up, on shaking knees and gasp when he tugs you over and onto his lap, your back against his chest, cock slick and sticky against your ass.

“I want to feel everything when you shake apart,” he murmurs, hand splaying over your sternum as he helps you arrange your legs. By the time you’re straddling his thighs, his fingertips are dipping into the hollow of your throat and his cock is rutting against your thigh and every part of you is on edge, desperate for more. You’d been so close. Pyre licks at the side of your throat, pressing his hand harder against your chest to keep your back still. “Lift your hips,” he urges, and takes his cock in hand, dragging the head over you as you do your best to listen. Like fitting a key into a lock, Pyre finds the correct angle, breathing raggedly as you press yourself down. As soon as you’ve taken enough of him, he lets go of himself and then presses on the top of your thighs, making you gasp out his name as you take him in deeper. He eases off after a moment, letting you adjust, letting you wriggle and groans out your name roughly as you do your best to ride him.

You think for a moment about saying something, about teasing him or trying to rile him up, but it’s all you can do to keep up what rhythm you have, heart beating terribly fast against the hand he has on your chest. He lets you move, lets you reach back and clutch at the messy locks of his hair, his breath warm against your throat and the top of your shoulder and then Pyre pushes roughly against your thigh again, thrusting up until his knot is grinding against you. “Fuck, fuck, Pyre, that—”

“Too much?” He asks, waiting while you shake, trying to steady your breath. You’re probably going to ache later, probably won’t want to do much but doze or take a bath in that massive stone tub, but right now? Right now you want to be greedy.

“More,” you get out and Pyre laughs, that eerie, fox-like noise echoing in your ear as he teases you with the knot, pressing you down and then pulling back his hips. Pillows cascade off the edges of the bed, spilling over the floor. You start squeezing, doing your best to drive him over the edge, so sensitive it almost hurts. “Please,” you whisper and then you’re too busy for speech. His knot stretches you and his hand dips between your thighs, stroking and his fingers press into the base of your throat. He’s not choking you, but he’s starting to squeeze and then you’re coming. Pleasure washes over you in a fierce, pulsing ache that shoots down to your toes and fountains back up your body. You shout out his name and shake in his arms, eyes falling closed as his knot expands, locking you in place. Your eyes flutter open and closed and drift to a steamed up window, much like the one in your own room. Weeds are still poking up through the cracks, but now it’s not snowing outside, it’s raining.

Pyre turns his nose to the space behind your ear, breathing deep, his own limbs growing loose. “The winter might well be softer this year,” Pyre mumbles, voice raspy, his hand smoothing down your sternum and over your hips. “And I have you to thank for that.”

“We still have the rest of the winter ahead of us,” you remind him, but you’re too sleepy to argue with him any further. Whether you end up enjoying the rest of your time here, you do know one thing: Passion will definitely be a huge part of fulfilling your bargain for the winter.

————-　🦊　————-

[themurphyzone]

PatB/BatB AU: Imprisoned

Summary: Pinky tries to rescue his father from a spooky, mysterious castle, only to wind up the prisoner of a terrifying monster. Also the terrifying monster has no fucking idea what he's doing, but Pinky doesn't know that.

AN: Because I desperately want to write a BatB/PatB fic but I don’t want to tackle the entire movie cause this movie is more slow burn than most other Disney Princess stories. I decided to try the scene where Belle first meets the Beast just for curiosity’s sake.  

AO3 Link

Pharfignewton’s hooves nervously stirred up dead leaves and twigs as she halted in front of an eerie black gate, its bars crisscrossing over each other as if to prevent anyone from entering…or leaving.

An unfamiliar sense of dread swept over Pinky. The enormous castle beyond the gate loomed, the highest towers piercing the thick, gray clouds above. Still, Pharfignewton’s instincts were never wrong. If she said Papa was somewhere in that large, gloomy castle, then he was going to be in that large, gloomy castle.

Pinky gently flicked the reins, but Pharfignewton didn’t move. A tremble ran down her back.

“It’s okay, Fig,” Pinky whispered. He stroked her mane, and Pharfignewton whinnied softly. “Just think of your favorite things. Like apples, carrots, grassy meadows…”

A gust of wind blew the gate open. It crashed against the unforgiving stone wall.

Pharfignewton leapt back, the sudden move nearly pitching Pinky to the ground, but he clung to several strands of her mane and quickly scrambled into his usual position at the base of her neck.

She trotted across the stone bridge, ears swiveling in every direction.

“P-poit. They oughta change the lock on that thing,” Pinky murmured as the gate slammed shut.

Pharfignewton stumbled against a crack in the stone pathway leading up to the castle’s front door. She couldn’t go any further. The stone would damage her hooves, and they’d need to be in tip-top shape for the ride home.

“Fig, you’ll have to wait here.” Pinky climbed up her mane and onto her long muzzle, petting the soft fur between her eyes. Her head rose indignantly, stamping a hoof against the stone. “You shouldn’t go onto the stone without horseshoes. It’ll ruin your lovely hooves. And don’t worry, Papa and I will be back before you can say sugarcube!”

They couldn’t afford horseshoes for Pharfignewton, which prevented Pinky from riding her as often as he would’ve liked. Pinky’s chest ached from the reminder. Pharfignewton deserved pretty shoes.

She let out a gentle puff of air as she lowered him to the ground, giving him an encouraging nudge.

Pinky slowly approached the heavy doors, a brass gargoyle with bulging eyes serving as a doorknob. But the knob was at human height, not mouse height, so even with a running start and flying leap, he couldn’t reach it.

Then he remembered his manners. Breaking into a haunted, abandoned castle was awfully rude. What if he disturbed some ghosts in whatever ghostly things they did?

“Hello?” Pinky called, pressing an ear to the door as he knocked. “Anyone home?”

Nobody answered, but the door creaked slightly, allowing Pinky enough room to squeeze inside. Pinky bundled Mama’s well-worn traveling cloak around himself, trying not to think of the scolding he might’ve received as a young mouse about breaking and entering into strange places.

But he wasn’t stealing anything. He was just going to find Papa and bring him home. If Mama were alive, she’d understand.  

Somehow the castle interior was even colder and draftier than outside. Gargoyles lined the walls, crouching with their wings outstretched, and each one seemed to have their eyes trained on him. The inside was mostly stone, with a wine-red carpet leading from the doorway and splitting into two paths along an enormous staircase.

Torches and lanterns hung along the walls, but they were dim and barely provided light to see by.

Whoever built the castle must’ve had a great love for the Gothic style. Pinky could appreciate dedication to the theme, but he shied away from an eagle-like gargoyle all the same. There were eyes boring into him. He just knew it.

“Hello?” Pinky shouted.

“Hello!”

Pinky grinned. The echo made up for the dreary décor.

“Narf!”

“Narf!”

This time, he cupped his hands to his mouth, took a deep breath, and yelled from the top of his lungs.

“FJORD!”

“FJORD!”

Feeling slightly bolder, Pinky played a quick game of eenie-meenie-miney-mo for the path he’d take, since there were so many of them and he couldn’t choose just one. There were so many rooms. It would take a while to go through them all, so he’d have to chance it.

On the last count of ‘mo’, Pinky’s finger pointed at the rightmost staircase, so he climbed the long flight, his bare feet sinking into the carpet. He hoped the ghosts would forgive him for tracking dirt inside.

Clink clink clink.

Funny. Feet didn’t usually make that kind of noise on carpet.

Probably just the creaking of old metal. This castle had definitely seen better days, judging from the cobwebs that spanned entire corners far above his head.

He reached the top of the staircase. More doors and rooms awaited him down the dark hallway.

Pinky knocked on the nearest door. He heard a splash of water and the sweep of a mop coming from within. A maid, maybe?

They could point him in the right direction!

“Hello? Are you a castle maid? I’m sorry for interrupting your work, but I’m looking for my Papa!” Pinky shouted, pressing an ear against the door. Someone whispered urgently, the exact words too muffled to make out, and the splashing and sweeping noises stopped. “His name is Jack, he’s a little shorter than me, and…oh, he has a big bushy mustache too! He tends to get vegetable bits stuck in it when he eats. Have you seen him?”

No reply.

Pinky’s tail twitched nervously. Maybe the maids really didn’t like having their work interrupted.

“I’m sorry, I’ll…I’ll let you get back to work,” Pinky said. He backed away from the door, the hood of his cloak falling into his eyes.

Clink clink clink.

That noise again. Pinky lifted the hood away from his eyes, and he came face-to-face with a teacup, and he was pretty sure he hadn’t seen any teacups yet. Mostly gargoyles and spooky stuff, really.

The teacup was about his height, with a polished white surface and golden trim around its rim and base. Its handle was a shining red, and its pink base looked almost skirt-like, with a single yellow flower painted on the front.

“Aww, what a cute teacup!” Pinky exclaimed. He’d never seen any teacup like this before. Not even Snowball had something this ornate and pretty. “Wonder who painted you? Whoever it was, they’ve really got a great eye for color!”

He could’ve sworn the teacup’s handle lifted out of pride, but maybe the dim lighting was just playing tricks on him.

“Well, I don’t know how you got here, but I can’t just leave you alone either. What if somebody stepped on you?” Pinky lifted the teacup by the handle and carried it further down the hall. The teacup’s base seemed to twitch every few seconds.

He didn’t know where the kitchen was, but surely there had to be a cabinet or cupboard somewhere around here. He turned left when the path split again, and counted his lucky stars once he spotted a small table up ahead. The higher surface was several feet above his head, but the lower platform was at his shoulder level.  

Odd. There was a candelabra and a mantle clock here too. Strange place to store one’s knickknacks, but then again, Pinky kept his rock collection in a tea kettle, so he couldn’t be too judgy.  

Pinky set the teacup on the lower platform, sliding it over until it touched the candelabra and clock. The two objects were oddly painted, with black and white markings running throughout their brass bodies. The candelabra’s lower half was painted brown, and the clock’s topmost carvings looked almost like a cap.

Though none of them were similar objects, Pinky thought they fit together quite well.

Curiously, Pinky ran his finger over the decorative carvings on the legs. “Egad, this must be real mahogany!” he said. His fingertips were covered in a thick layer of dust when he pulled away, and he shook it off, sneezing at the small cloud that formed. “Whew, really dusty though.”

“Gesundheit!” a Scouse-accented voice said.

“Narf! Thanks a bunch!” Pinky wiped the remaining dust against the inside lining of his apron. It was going in the wash later, so it didn’t bother him too much.

Only as he climbed another flight of stairs did he realize he hadn’t seen any living being yet. Maybe the castle was just full of polite ghosts.

The carpet beneath his feet was ragged with little holes revealing cold stone underneath, the ceiling arching far above him. The pillars had rough seals over their creeping, winding cracks. There were no gargoyles, no furniture, no rooms at all.

Nothing but dust, cracks, and cobwebs.

It seemed that not even the ghosts used this area much.

“Papa?” Pinky shouted. His echoes answered back, yet there was no sign of Papa.

Wind battered the stone walls, and Pinky’s heart leapt from his chest. He wrapped his cloak around himself, willing his heart to stay where it belonged. For goodness sake, he’d grown up in Paris. If streets full of reeking garbage didn’t scare him, then this shouldn’t either.

Pinky reached a dead end, the path blocked by a barren mass of stone. With a sigh, he turned around. There wasn’t anything here. Maybe he should try the second floor again? There were a lot of rooms he hadn’t checked.

A light flickered around the corner, a bright circle of hope illuminating the unfeeling stone. Pinky hadn’t gone in that direction yet. He hadn’t planned to, but the light skipped and waved, beckoning him closer. And if there was light, that meant somebody was in the castle after all!

“Narf! Excuse me!” Pinky cried, rushing over to the ray of light. “I don’t mean to interrupt your work, but if you could please tell me-“

The light vanished. Pinky pressed his hand to the wall. It was dark and scary in here. That light had been the first sign of life he’d seen in this castle.

A shrill creak startled a ‘troz’ out of him. But it meant someone was moving around, so he followed it until he came to a doorway in the middle of the corridor.

The door was open, so Pinky peered inside.

A winding, narrow staircase led upwards. There was no carpet, only coarse and rough stone. Then the light returned, a shining beacon in the dark.

“There you are,” Pinky whispered, hauling himself onto the first step. These stairs weren’t as smooth as the rest of the castle’s, but years of routine chores had given him enough upper body strength to manage just fine.

Cold seeped into his fur. His teeth chattered, but he pushed forward. Papa needed him.

A candelabra rested on a nearby platform, its three candles burning brightly. It had the same brown base and markings as the candelabra he’d seen downstairs. Funny. He never knew candelabras came in matching sets. But once again, he was alone.

Not even a ghost in sight.

“I could’ve sworn I heard someone…” Pinky sighed. The room in front of him only contained a dimly lit torch and a row of heavy, barred doors. Fire provided the only colors, and it wasn’t enough to chase the cold, damp shadows away. Neither was the thin, colorless light that peeked from the cracks of the foundation above. “Is anyone here?”  

A hacking cough came from behind the door nearest to the torch.

“Pinky?” a weak voice murmured.

Pinky’s ears perked as he rushed over to the door. There was a barred window close to the ground, Papa’s face peeking out from between the thick steel pieces. His fur was dirty and wet, eyes wide open with fright. He stared straight through Pinky, gripping the hood of Pinky’s cloak with desperate, clammy hands.

Papa was in a cell.

Pinky bit his lip. How? Papa wasn’t a criminal. Sure, his machines blew up a lot, but that was hardly cause for jail!  

“Papa! Are you okay? Did you see any ghosts?” Pinky gently took Papa’s hands in his own, quickly rubbing the pale pink skin to bring some warmth back. “Poit. I guess they weren’t as polite as I thought…”

Papa stammered as Pinky drew him close. The bars were wide enough that Papa could slip through them easily, but as much as Pinky tugged on his arm, Papa refused to budge, heels digging into the cracks underfoot. “He’s…he’s no g-g-ghost, Pinky. Y-you have to go. Save yourself.”

“He? You mean whoever put you in here?” Pinky repeated. Papa’s bushy mustache quivered, the tiny hairs unkempt and matted. He couldn’t speak, his hands freezing in Pinky’s own. They had to get out of here. The sooner Papa warmed up in front of the cottage’s fireplace, the better.

“Food pellets. There are no food pellets here…” Papa murmured. “Your mother made the best food pellets in the world.”

Pinky’s heart clenched at the reminder. “I know. She made the best. We should go now. Please, Papa?”

Later, when they got back to the cottage, he was going to ask exactly why Papa wasn’t at the fair. Why Pharfignewton was unhitched from the wagon and terrified out of her mind. How he’d gotten locked up in the first place.

Papa’s shivers were fiercer than before.

“It’s safe and warm at home. Let��s go…” Pinky whimpered, but Papa’s arms remained glued to the cold, unfeeling bars.

Papa’s mouth opened…

“Run, Pinky!”

A thundering roar shook the entire prison. The floor, walls, and ceiling trembled with a frightened rattle. Pinky clamped his hands against his ears, and Papa tried to do the same, though he was shaking too violently to do it right.

The only light came from above now.

A massive clawed hand clamped painfully around Pinky’s shoulder and yanked him around, the prison briefly becoming nothing more than a dark blur with a swirl of purple.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

Pinky blinked the stars out of his vision, pressing his back against Papa, wordlessly urging him to dart to the back corner of the cell for his safety. But Papa tightly gripped Pinky’s shoulders, and Pinky winced as Papa’s fingers dug into a sore spot.

An enormous shadow loomed above them, its shape melting into the darkness. The only features Pinky could see were a pair of sharp, white fangs and the trailing end of a purple cape.

Pinky’s ears flattened, his heart pounding out of his chest. “Who are you?” he called out, trying to keep his voice steady. He had to be brave for Papa.

“The master of this castle.”

Every word was accompanied by a low, animalistic snarl. Pinky caught the gleam of long, twisted horns atop the shadow’s head.

“Please, let Papa out,” Pinky begged. Another growl cut him off, and Pinky’s throat tightened in panic, but he continued to plead his case. His words were useless. He was use-no, not now. He couldn’t afford self-doubt. “It’s cold here. Can’t you see he’s sick?”

“THEN HE SHOULDN’T HAVE TRESPASSED ON MY PROPERTY!”

More cruel white fangs were exposed.

“But he could die!” Pinky pleaded. “Please, I’ll do anything!”

“There’s nothing you can do. He’s my prisoner.”

The shadow moved again, always skirting the edge of the light.  

“There must be something…” Pinky murmured. But he had no money or valuables to offer, and trading Pharfignewton when she was a valued member of the family was out of the question. He looked down at his hands…and he had his answer. “Wait!”

Pinky reached for the shadow’s cape, but a bloodshot glare made him stop and think better of it.  

Pinky closed his eyes. And he sealed his fate.

“Take me instead.”

The shadow turned away with a scoff.

“YOU!”

Pinky tried not to flinch. He didn’t have much value. He could keep house, but that was hardly a unique skill in the village. But he had no other material besides his clothes and fur.  

“You would…take his place?” The harsh tone and growl vanished. The shadow’s deep, guttural voice sounded more confused than furious, as if he hadn’t expected such a trade.

And why should he?

Even so, Pinky had to push forward. There was no turning back now. “If I did,” Pinky said, just wanting to make sure before he agreed to anything. “Would you let him go?”

“Pinky, you don’t know what you’re doing!” Papa hissed.

I’m saving you. That’s what I’m doing.

Complete silence. Pinky bit his lip. Finally, the shadow spoke. “Yes,” the shadow drawled the word softly. “But…you must promise to remain here for the rest of your life.”  

Pinky gripped the folds of his dress.

Rest of my life?

Would he ever see Papa again? Pharfignewton? The little cottage in the countryside?

Trade everything to be trapped with this shadow?

A shadow had to belong to somebody…

“I’d like to know who I’m speaking with,” Pinky said. “Would you come into the light, please?”

For a moment, there was nothing but an anxious growl. Then a pink, hairless foot slid into the colorless light.

A human?

Couldn’t be. The feet were tipped with sharp claws, and the heels lifted off the ground. Nor did they look like they belonged to any sort of rodent Pinky had ever met.

A pair of ragged black trousers. A long, crooked tail with many sharp bends. Grayish-brown fur over a large chest and pudgy stomach halfway covered by the purple cape. Arms that were far too thick, long, and coarse for even the largest rat.

The shadow slowly raised his head, curved black horns adding to his already intimidating height. Large, rounded ears. A broad, wide face with sagging cheeks and thick, furrowed brows.

But what struck Pinky the most was the creature’s unreadable expression. Though he was obviously angry, it was impossible to tell if those narrowed pink eyes were glaring at him with disgust or hatred. Despite the light, the eyes were partially hidden by dark patches of fur. He was silent, but a pair of fangs were still exposed.

Placing the species was impossible. He seemed to be many animals at once.

“Narf,” Pinky whispered.

The monster’s brows lifted in surprise, and if Papa weren’t locked away right now, it might’ve been comical.

Pinky turned away, unable to brave through the staredown, but he felt the monster’s gaze boring into his back.

“I won’t let you do this!” Papa cried out.

But he had to. For Papa’s freedom.

Pinky lifted his head. He stood up, gently sliding Papa’s hand off his shoulder. He let the touch linger for as long as possible and gave his Papa one last smile before turning around.

The monster was hunched over, one clawed hand resting on the ground. It wasn’t a bow of courtesy, but he seemed to have trouble with his balance. He growled in warning, as if challenging Pinky to say something about his position.

Pinky approached slowly, each step echoing in his ear. The monster didn’t move. When their faces were just inches apart, Pinky closed his eyes.

“I promise,” Pinky said. He stuck out his hand to shake on it, because that’s what people did when they wanted to set their deals in stone.

“DONE!”

The monster snarled and shoved past Pinky. Unable to keep standing much longer, Pinky dropped to his knees and wept, unable to hold back his tears anymore.

He wouldn’t see the light of day again. Trapped forever with a monster in this lonely, dark place.

There was a squeak and the sound of frantic scampering behind him, and Pinky opened his eyes to see Papa’s desperate face, pleading with him to reconsider. “Pinky, listen to me! I’m old, but you have so much to-“ Papa’s words cut off as the monster dragged him off Pinky, lumbering towards the stairs on all fours with a hand clenched around Papa’s cloak.

“Wait!” Pinky shouted.

But the monster didn’t care. He and Papa disappeared down the stairs, their pleas for mercy falling on deaf ears.

He never got to say goodbye.

o-o-o-o-o

Papa was thrown into a carriage that moved on spindly, wooden legs and carried across the stone bridge. The carriage disappeared into the forest, Papa’s cries fading away.

Pinky clung to the barred window that was several feet off the ground and several stories high. It didn’t allow him a wide view, and he wasn’t sure where Pharfignewton was. Still looking for grass to eat, he hoped.

He slid to the floor of the cell, huddling underneath the window in a tight ball. His tail was always a source of comfort for him, and he twisted and wrung it in his hands. The sun started to go down, and he imagined how beautiful it would’ve looked from the sweeping grassy hills just outside the cottage.

Beautiful rolling clouds. His cozy bed in the upstairs loft. The sound of Papa tinkering on a machine as a vegetable broth brewed over the stove.

The door slammed against the wall, and the crash startled Pinky out of his fantasies.

It was the monster.

Something inside Pinky snapped. Now he was angry, and angry was a feeling he didn’t like, but this…this cruel excuse of a…whatever he was stole his freedom and his Papa.

“You didn’t let me say goodbye!” Pinky screamed. “Now I’ll never see him…I-I’ll never see him again.”  

He expected the monster to roar in defiance or deny the truth, but he did neither. He only leaned heavily against the doorframe in complete silence. His ears dropped, and something akin to remorse flashed across his face.

But that new emotion quickly disappeared. “Come,” the monster said, dropping to all fours. “I’ll show you to your room.”

New room? It was such a sudden offer that Pinky forgot his anger completely. So he wouldn’t have to live among old chains and damp stone?

“I thought-“

The monster arched an eyebrow, a dangerous edge creeping into his voice. “Unless you’d prefer these accommodations?”

Pinky shook his head.

“Then follow.”

His captor crossed the room without pausing, and Pinky realized he’d never asked for a name. If he was going to live here for the rest of his life, he wanted to at least have a name.

“Hold on,” Pinky said. “I never got your name.”

The monster’s hand hit the floor with a resounding thud. “Call me the Beast,” he growled. Pinky stepped back in surprise, but the mon—the Beast didn’t turn around. “And don’t ever ask again.”

There was a tinge of bitterness in his tone, as if he hated his requested name. But that didn’t make sense. Why call himself a name he hated?

“Poit. Well, my name’s Pinky so-“

The Beast was halfway down the stairs already. Pinky folded his arms. Well, that was very rude. His captor didn’t have manners at all!

Pinky hurried after him. The Beast didn’t turn around. He was a very poor conversationalist.

Another candelabra stood just outside the door to the spooky hallway. It hadn’t been there earlier. “You really shouldn’t put your nice decorations on floors. What if someone stepped on them?” Pinky said.

“So we’ve got an interior designer for a long-term guest?” the candelabra asked. “Now we can finally replace the doom and gloom with something different! Maybe an indoor jungle with monkeys!”

The candelabra could talk! That was pretty cool!

His waxy face was eye level with Pinky. His grin was a little lopsided, his candleholders folding against his gold and brown body with an easy, light confidence.

“Yakko, this castle can’t possibly tolerate more monkeys, nor does it require the aesthetic of a jungle to be one,” the Beast huffed. He still sounded irritated, but less so. “And while we’re on that topic, Wakko and Dot need a reminder to not engage with outsiders. Where are they?”

“A real spoilsport, isn’t he?” Yakko whispered to Pinky.

Pinky giggled, and Yakko’s grin became wider. Alright, so not everybody in this big scary castle was a mean ol’ grump. It was good to know.  

“Oh, they’re just telling Scratchy the news,” Yakko shrugged. “He’s a real couch potato these days. Anyway, maybe you oughta tie a string around your finger, cause you’re clearly forgetting something.”

He waved a flame like one would wave a finger to scold.

“But I patched the leaking roof,” the Beast said. “My work was thorough.”  

Yakko coughed and pointed a flame at Pinky.

The Beast only stared. Then his pink eyes widened as whatever he’d forgotten finally dawned on him.

“Mouse.”

“Where?” Pinky whirled around.

Oh, right. He was a mouse. Silly him.

The Beast growled, like he didn’t know what to think of Pinky. Well, neither did Pinky know what to think of him. So there.

“You owe Yakko for your new room. Let’s go. We’re wasting time.”

With that, the Beast stalked off.

“So…thanks for the room, I think. Poit. Is he always like this?” Pinky asked. He kicked at a speck of dust.

Yakko gave Pinky an encouraging nudge with his candlestick holders. “The Master of the Castle he may be, the Master of First Impressions he is not. If his rawwwwr-fear-me shtick gets to be too much, say the word and I’ll set his cape on fire for ya.”

“Is that a good idea?” Pinky asked. Despite his worries, he couldn’t help but laugh at Yakko’s attempt at roaring.

Yakko nodded, or as much as one could nod when one’s head was a wax candle. “It’s amazing what you can get away with in this place.”

o-o-o-o-o

Pinky was led down to the second floor, into a corridor with the most frightening gargoyles he’d ever seen. But he had to be a good guest, right? Good guests knew the names of every gargoyle, as Yakko was trying to teach him.

He tried so hard to pay attention, but he wouldn’t be able to remember which one was Hugo or Goliath or Laverne or Brooklyn. Yakko didn’t seem like the type to hold it against him though. He talked a lot and knew a lot of things Pinky didn’t know, explaining things like he was used to explaining things.

He seemed awfully young though.

Ahead of them, the Beast lumbered with a heavy gait. His strides were long and lacked the lightness of a rodent’s steps. Though he’d locked Papa up, he seemed more awkward than scary now.

Papa.

Was he home now? Would he be alright? There were chickens to feed and cows to milk. He hoped Papa wouldn’t put his noisy milking machine on Moo-Moo. She didn’t like that.

A tear ran down his cheek, then another. Pinky clutched his tail, staring down at the floor to avoid all the glaring stone eyes on him.

Yakko’s hopping sped up, the brass sounds muffled by the carpet.

There was the smell of slightly singed fur, followed by an irritated grunt. Pinky realized the Beast was watching him from the corner of his eye. A tiny cloud of smoke trailed from his right elbow.

“You can…make yourself at home,” the Beast said, brushing off the tiny fire. “As your new residence, you have free reign of the castle and the surrounding property. You may go anywhere but the West Wing.”

The West Wing?

“What’s in the-“

“IT’S FORBIDDEN!” the Beast bellowed, his massive hand slamming into the carpet and leaving long clawmarks behind. Pinky flinched.

The Beast kept walking. Yakko filled in the silence with chatter.

To Pinky’s relief, his room wasn’t far.

The Beast opened the enormous door, which led to a bedroom that was twice as large as the cottage.

The cottage was home. Not here.  Yakko meant well, but this would never truly be Pinky’s room.

“My servants will attend to your needs,” the Beast said. There was nothing harsh about his words this time, but servants? Pinky didn’t know if he could get used to that. Nor had he seen any servants around. Was Yakko a servant? He never asked for his job title.

“Don’t worry! The toilet’s not alive. None of them are,” Yakko added.

It was probably meant to be helpful, so Pinky did his best to smile at him, but he could only manage a weak nod.  

Then Pinky noticed the giant bed, with thick comforters and a dozen pillows and velvet curtains around the edges. Though fancy and straight out of a fairy tale, it wasn’t his tiny bed tucked in a cozy corner. Meekly, he stepped inside.

“Psst! Invite him to dinner, Romeo!” Yakko hissed. 

“I order you to…join me for dinner,” the Beast demanded. “THAT’S NOT A REQUEST!”

The door slammed, and Pinky was once again left in darkness.

This wasn’t home. It was dark and cold. Homes were cozy and happy and loving. No walls, no prisons, no locks and keys to be thrown away.  

Home was elsewhere. His heart was elsewhere.

Pinky curled up on an unfamiliar pillow. His heart was broken, his chest ached, and there was a deep longing within him. For Mama’s laughter. For Papa’s joy. For the hills and the meadows and the open blue skies.    

His tears flowed. They were many and endless. He felt they would never stop. He’d cry for the rest of his life, for as long as this exile from the world beyond took.

Outside his window, the first snowflakes began to fall. They marked the start of a very long, very cold winter.

AN: Let it be known that this AU is the only place, besides maybe anything involving Brain Meets Brawn, where Brain’s size can be described as intimidating. I want him to be, you know, like an actual monster and not just a big mouse with horns. Don’t get me wrong, tiny beast!Brain is cute, but that would just be more comical than dramatic if I tried to play it as such a serious moment.

For my personal Beast!Brain, I combined elements from @deez-art and @sleepy-hooves art. Deez for the overall look, and the way he glares at Pinky during the “come into the light” part comes from sleepy-hooves.

In this AU, rather than appearance, Brain fears the loss of control the most. He knows his mind is dwindling away unless he can break the curse. Unlike Disney’s Beast, he’s a bit more proactive with trying to break the curse and tries to keep busy instead of brooding in the West Wing all the time, though some tasks can be very difficult for him.

Yakko is the candelabra, Wakko is the mantle clock, and Dot is the teacup. You’ll have to excuse them for following Pinky around. They’re curious kiddos.

Yakko calling Scratchy a couch potato is literal. Scratchy was turned into a p-sychiatrist’s couch.

No matter what happens, Brain always has a soft spot for the Warners. The Warners aren’t scared of him and will snap back.

Poor Pinky gets put through the wringer. But y’all know the story. Eventually they fall in love and get their happily ever after.

[friesian]

sorry if these have been talked about before, im not the most caught up on Aesymir's lore! does Aesymir have any pets? if not, anything he'd want as a pet, or just any kind of favorite creature in general? Does he write much, and if he does what kind of tools does he prefer (quill, pencil, pen)? how physically active is he? like, on a scale of "enjoys long strolls" to "you'll have to chase me at knife-point to get me to walk", if that makes sense. and finally what's his hair like? Is it thick or thin, soft or wirey? srry if these are weird I just love figuring out obscure details abt characters!

OHHH ANON you strike me with weakness. i LOVE LOVE LOVE this ask especially about tiny little things about aesymir bless your heart.

FIRST: pets!! unless you count his attending dredger (named dingleberry, usually shortened to berry) or his muscle, a stoneborne named gerard. he doesn't have any pets since them running amok in the library would be generally not good for the conditions of his archives and books.

HOWEVER, if he was to have a pet it would certainly be a rodent or mustelid of some sort. i lean towards rat or ferret, maybe even a squirrel. (my gf made the comment of him having a bird once, but he actually REALLY REALLY does not like birds. he doesn't interact well with her arrakoa character lmao) his rat would probably be albinistic (and im not saying that biasedly as someone who owned 15 albinistic rats /s). as for ferrets i feel like he'd have any of the fur varieties. definitely a red squirrel or shadowlands similar variant if he were to have a little squirrel friend.

SECOND: WRITING! OKAY SO he's actually a small time author, usually known for his cheesy romance novels specifically catering to the fantasy of rags to riches and slow burn with any sort of royalty. those are his claim to fame. most of the time, aesymir writes with a quill before, during his editing phase, where he swaps to a typewriter he brought from a broker at a hefty cost. he'll do this multiple times if he feels like he needs to add notes in the margins, strike things out, ect. he's actually very good at historical fiction too, and wrote a small novel about it once or twice, however he finds more enjoyment from writing about kissing royalty.

THIRD: ACTIVITY! you cannot get this man to move an inch out his library. he's incredibly secluded and has really bad agoraphobia. getting him to go for a jog outside of the library is unheard of, and i like to think after everything happens with denathrius-- he gets invited to a lot of parties, but never shows up due to his anxiety despite renathal enjoying conversations with him. he also actually deeply WANTS to attend venthyr parties, but gets VERY freaked out at the notion of actually having to show up and be seen by people. let alone having to dance and communicate.

however his activity in the library is unmatched. if he's not writing up archives, he's sorting books, if he's not sorting books, he's rechecking his shelves, if he's not doing that, he's running around like a chicken with his head cut off trying to keep the place clean despite it all being run down. if you keep aesymir in his library he'll work and even do things with you for ages, but if you try to take him out of his comfort zone, he won't move an inch.

lastly, HAIR! his hair is thick as hell, it's partly why he has it shaved on one side. it used to almost be a like a thick mane, but after he got tired of it getting into his face while he was writing, he chopped a lot of it off. it's still pretty heavy, but he thinks it makes him look nice so he's not going to touch it.

it's also silky smooth, and he probably over conditions the hell out of it if im gonna be honest with you.......