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puddle-nerd · 1 year ago

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We Feast

Summary: As Ronal’s most dedicated student in the ways of healing, a soft spot had formed specifically for you, deeper than you might have guessed until your first heat hits you unexpectedly.

(Tonowari/Reader/Ronal)

Prompt 31 (A/B/O) for my final submission for LunasKinktober2023

Story Tags: No use of y/n, Female Reader, everyone is legal, A/B/O, M/F/F, Teacher/Student Relationship, Crushing on the Teacher, Overbearing Parents, Angst, Metkayina | Reef People Clan (Avatar), Na’vi Culture (Avatar – Cameron), Na’vi Language (Avatar – Cameron), First Heat, Maybe Dub-Con due to Heat Delerium, Threesome if you squint, Open Marriage-ish/Polyamory, Eating out, Face Sitting, Mention of inexperienced main female character, Voyeurism, Creampie Na’vi Translation: ‘Eve — girl (colloquial) Ma’ — my, mine, a way of showing possession of something Mawey — calm Muntxatan — husband Numeyu — student Oel ngati tse’a – “I see you” (physically) Olo’eyktan — Clan Leader Olo’zeykoyu — Clan Healer Paska’sngap — (NON-CANON) exact translation would be ‘honey sting’, a type of large bee that makes very sweet honeycomb Paskalin — honey (term of endearment) Sa’nu — mum/mom/mommy Sa’nok — mother (respectful) Tewng – loincloth Tìyawn — love Tsaheylu — a connection between two Pandoran beings (i.e. a Na’vi and a direhorse/ikran/ilu or between two Na’vi) with the tendrils of their neural queues enabling a mental communication between them and the sharing of information, including memories, emotions, and sensory input Tsahìk – a spiritual leader of a Na’vi clan, and the most important member next to the clan leader. The job of the Tsahìk is to interpret the will of Eywa, guide the clan spiritually, and perform important ceremonies Zeykoyu — healer Male OC: Ìtxän Te Atxzìtx Kxawun’iyan (a male Na’vi) and Ìstaw (your preferred male ilu) Author’s Note: Set around a year and a half before the events of Avatar: The Way of Water, before Ronal got pregnant and before the Recombinants arrived. This turned out a quite bit longer than I originally anticipated because I just couldn’t stop writing so if you’d prefer to skip straight to the smut, skip down to the break in text. And hey, so just in case you didn’t read the tags or the warning labels, this is a polyamorous relationship so this one will have Ronal and Reader going to town on each other in this chapter. If you don’t like descriptive scenes depicting woman on woman sexual action, then please don’t read this.

“Good, yes, Ma’numeyu,” Ronal praised you with a soft brush of her fingers along your bare shoulder as you ground the herbs into a fine powder for future use as an anti-inflammatory paste when introduced to a few drops of fresh water. It needed to be as fine as silk-sand to the touch or else it would not do its job as needed and would be, in turn, useless. And you refused to have anything of yours be considered useless or not even good enough. Being the youngest of three daughters of your family, your older sisters set the precedence by being a fantastic warrior and a fantastic fisherman/cook so you had to be just as good as them, if not better or else your parents would pay you less attention or compare you to your sisters. So, you had to be the best zeykoyu as your talents lay with healing. And who better to learn from than the current Tsahìk?

You bowed your head with a slight smile. “Thank you, Ma’tsahìk,” you acknowledged the compliment with a light blush and grabbed the last of the herb to add to her mortar.

“Your dedication could lead you down the path to Olo’zeykoyu… one day.” You froze at those words hanging so tantalizingly in the air between the two of you and slowly, you glanced upwards slowly while the rest of your body remained paused in time, hunched over, hands gripping the pestle above the bowl of half ground herbs. Ronal raised a brow, a challenging smirk curling upon the corner of her turquoise lips. “Do you doubt your Tsahìk, Ma’numeyu?”

Immediately, you shook your head, breathing out, “No, never, Ma’tsahìk. I…” You licked your lips and whispered, “I just… that would be so… wonderful.”

And if you became the clan healer… that would mean you would get to have even more time side-by-side with the beautiful female you looked up to and adored so earnestly. Oh, yes, you wanted it – all of it, the position, the respect, the time with your Tsahìk.

Blue eyes softened as they took you in, seeing more than you perhaps wanted her to see of you, seeing the need for acknowledgement, the need to feel appreciated for your talents, the need to not be compared to someone else and found lacking. She shifted closer on her knees and lifted a hand and cupped your jaw so tenderly, the look in her eyes so warm and welcoming, so unlike your parents’ or your sisters’. “You will have earned it, Ma’numeyu,” Ronal whispered softly, earnestly, shuffling even closer to you. “Your dedication… and your talent… and your work ethic… is beyond par to any of my other students. One day… paskalin. Until then, finish grinding.” She shot you a smile, her hand cupping your cheek just a little bit firmer before it dropped.

The sound of the mauri pod front flap lifting had both female Na’vi’s looking up to see the fearsome Olo’eyktan stepping into the woven hut. His eyes immediately sought out his wife and a smile spread upon his lips.

“Hello, tìyawn,” he greeted the older woman, crossing the expanse between them and pressing his tattooed forehead to hers, their noses brushing tenderly.

You immediately dropped your gaze, face flushing as you bore witness to such a tender and intimate moment between the mated pair. Because your gaze was dropped, you missed the way the two of them glanced at you, a silent smile shared between them as they then met the other’s gaze, a conversation happening between them with only a few facial twitches and smiles.

The massive male cautiously turned and greeted you warmly. “Good afternoon, ‘eve.”

You looked up, smiling warmly and bowing your head respectfully towards your clan leader. “Good afternoon, Olo’eyktan,” you replied back.

“Just Tonowari is fine, paskalin,” he reminded you with a warm smile. It was contagious and you returned it with one of your own, blushing while bowing your head in respect once more for this man, not able to hide the shiver that ran down your spine at the nickname he had used for you. He was always just as kind and as warm as his wife was to you (in private; she couldn’t play favorites in public) and the two of them together like this… these two beautiful, wonderful people who were so genial and kind to you, it made your heart beat just a little bit faster with longing.

You… wanted…

“Unfortunately, your sa’nok is looking for you,” Tonowari’s voice made you focus back on the present and you flushed once again, this time in embarrassment at having drifted off on a mental tide. “She… seemed insistent.” There was a curiosity in his tone but all you could feel was dread at those words.

Because that was not good news.

Your mother never sought you ought on purpose.

Glancing at Ronal, she nodded, releasing you from your duties. “My apologies, Ma’tsahìk,” you murmured, setting aside your mortar and pestle and pushing yourself to your feet. “I will make it up to you tomorrow.” She laughed in enjoyment of your continued commitment to prove yourself and waved you away. You left the mauri pod with one, last respectful bow of your head to both of them before departing and stepping out into the bright sun. Shielding your eyes, you blinked a few times as your eyes adjusted to the light and turned towards the pod where your family lived, smiling at those you considered acquaintances and friends. Tsireya, Ronal and Tonowari’s eleven-year-old daughter, approached you with a bounce in her step and you grinned at her.

“Done for the day? Already?” she asked, grabbing your wrist gently, pulling you into dancing with her, much to a passing Na’vi’s amusement. “Sa’nu must be feeling kindly today.”

You laughed, spinning the pre-teen under your arm. “Your sa’nok had no choice, unfortunately,” you tell her. “My own requested the pleasure of my company.” The little girl’s smile faded somewhat, having an idea what that meant because she was getting to the age where she had started to observe the behaviors of those around her and had seen the way your own parents diminished you in comparison to your older sisters. “I’ll be fine,” you assured her, pretty sure you were lying to Tsireya’s face, pushing a curl of her hair back from her eyes like you wished your older sisters would do for you. “I’ll see you tomorrow, ‘eve.” You moved past her and kept on walking, straightening your spine, smile fading away and your face becoming a blank mask as you prepared for whatever your parents had prepared for you, interrupting your time of learning with Ronal, which you coveted greatly. You took your fear for whatever was about to happen and you shoved it down into the pit of your stomach, trying to ignore the feel of it settling like a stone in your belly. You were strong, you were dedicated, you were talented, and maybe one day you could become Olo’zeykoyu, just as Ronal had hinted. She believed in you. She thought highly of you. Whatever was about to happen… you’d make her proud. Her and her mate both.

Stepping into your family mauri pod, you found your mother kneeling at the cook table, serving a drink to your father and another male Na’vi whose scarred back was facing you. You paused, instantly recognizing Ìtxän Te Atxzìtx Kxawun’iyan from his stylish topknot bun, the set of his broad shoulders, the marred webbing of skin on the left side of his ribs, and his shortened tail.

“You’re home ma’ite. Wonderful,” your mother greeted with uncharacteristic warmness and a smile that read false, false, false! “You have a visitor. Come say hello.”

There it was.

The commanding edge to your mother’s tone that promised emotional anguish if you disobeyed.

Ìtxän turned and smiled at you, giving you the formal greeting, hand sweeping from his forehead. “ Oel ngati tse’a,” his voice was warm.

Kind.

The way he smiled at you held hope and promise…

And you felt nothing for him.

You dutifully greeted him formally back, forcing a small smile upon your lips though you really didn’t feel like smiling. You crossed the mauri pod on legs that felt like they had something heavy weighing them down to sit across the round table from your mother, between your father and your visitor and that’s when you saw it.

The traditional Metkayinan courting gift.

You were old enough to start thinking about courting, having turned eighteen a couple of moon cycles prior to this moment and finished with most of your rites. You just had never really thought about courting, before.

Ìtxän had woven together thick fronds that he had gathered himself into a basket large enough to fill with food to feed at least three or four Na’vi. Once finished, he had had to catch, kill, gather, and prepare a meal for his intended mate, their parents and himself as a means of proving he would make an excellent provider. Once everything was ready, he had had to present it to his intended’s parents for inspection and if they approved, it would be presented to you for approval. The more elaborate the meal, the more serious the proposal to court. Usually. The fact that Ìtxän was trying to present one to you… left you feeling unbalanced. You didn’t have anything against him but you didn’t really know him. You’d barely spoken to him other than greeting him in passing or when he needed wounds looked after. Yes, you had been right by Ronal’s side when he had had a chunk taken out of him and some of his tail removed by an akula, assisting in keeping him alive and making sure he healed properly a year or so before. But other than that, neither of you had ever sought the other out. You hadn’t even realized he was interested in you.

Your father began to unpack the basket.

It wasn’t lost on you that the main dish was akula steaks and your father chuckled at that. It was prepared very elaborately, marinated with a thick dark sauce and many spices, garnished with small leafy greens. There was also a large bowl of fruit, a bowl of stalk-like vegetables more commonly known as Fire Tails due to their spicy flavor all by themselves and also happened to be a favorite of yours. To finish it off, there were small bread rolls and, last but not least, a jar of honey the size of your fist.

You and your parents both froze, seeing that innocent little jar of amber. Not because it meant something bad. Oh, no. It meant Ìtxän was pushing forward the ultimate symbol of intending to make you his mate one day.

Honey from a Paska’sngap hive was difficult to come by as the bees — which were half the size of an adult Na’vi’s skull — were harmless by themselves and usually didn’t attack unless it felt threatened. An individual bee could sting up to three times before it died and each sting would release a bit of toxin which would take about a day or two to recover from after their stingers were removed from your skin. And typically, a Na’vi could survive a handful of stings but multiple stings from a dozen or more Paska’sngap’s could result in enough toxin in their bloodstream to act as a paralytic so that bigger creatures could be able to eat the helpless Na’vi. Even more stings than that – say, if the whole hive stung you – that much toxin could stop your heart. Foraging for honeycombs was usually a test of endurance, skill and speed as the bees could swarm in defense of their home and easily overpower any being. The fact that Ìtxän had accumulated so much of the sweetest honeycombs anyone in the clan had ever tasted…

You looked up at Ìtxän who was smiling at you so brightly and hopefully… and still felt nothing.

Your parents laid out the dishes and your mother looked up at you expectantly when you didn’t move. “Well, ma’ite?” She prompted and you swore you could hear her teeth grinding. You looked from the delicious food spread out in front of you and you had to admit, it looked wondrous with all of the hard work he put into it but you couldn’t lie. Not about this. Sitting back on your knees, you lowered your head into a respectful bow towards Ìtxän, eyes lowered, ears twitched back because you knew your parents were about to be furious with you. “I formally apologize Ìtxän Te Atxzìtx Kxawun’iyan but I cannot and do not accept.” Your mother, predictably, hissed loudly as you scrambled to your feet and away from the table, your father looking severely disappointed with you, scowling harshly. “Why not?” she snarled. “I don’t know him!” You shouted right back, tail lashing. You glanced at Ìtxän, voice lowering as you repeated softly, “I don’t know you. I didn’t even know you were interested in me. And then… this…” You waved your hand at the meal on the table and stared at him. You shook your head. “I can’t… I…” You turned away and darted out of your family mauri pod, ignoring your mother’s calls, pumping your legs and running down the bouncy walkway as fast as you could, dodging people just barely enough to not crash into them until you could dive out into the water and swim. An ilu you preferred and called Ìstaw approached you and you quickly grabbed hold, making tsaheylu and bonding with him so you could get away even faster. Together, you and the ilu swam to what you liked to consider your secret cave, breaking the surface of the water and looking around the grotto. “Thank you, Ìstaw,” you smiled gratefully, breaking the bond and hauling yourself up onto the stone lip. Turning back to see him still watching you, you reached and rubbed his head gently with a smile, telling him, “I’ll swim back on my own when I’m ready.” The ilu bowed its head and returned the way it came, disappearing from view. With a sigh, you took in your secret cave and felt yourself relax, being away from your parents and their expectations. The bioluminescent flora growing over the roof of the cavern was beautiful and pink, glowing bright, along with the hole showing you a small circle of the sky and giving you ample light to see. With it being high-tide, the water lapped at the stone lip gently, spilling a little bit of water up and over with every slow wave and hiding the lowered entrance to the grotto. With the lapping water in mind, over the years, you had built yourself a sleeping pad up and off of the ground, padding it with layers of moss and blankets you had woven together to make it quite comfortable. You had trinkets, like a collection of shells, a couple of handmade instruments, and spare ingredients and tools you needed for your craft in healing. You also had some freshwater casks and fishing gear so you could feed yourself if you wanted to stay for a night or two. The perfect little getaway when your family’s overbearing attitudes and expectations got too much. Slumping down onto the sleeping pad which was big enough for you to stretch out and still have some room, you felt your emotions rise up and overwhelm you. How dare your parents spring this courting request upon you?! How dare Ìtxän?! And why had they bothered with him? Why had they been so eager? Your sisters were single and they were “better” in your parents’ eyes so shouldn’t they have wanted someone to come courting them first? Unless they figured if you left the mauri pod, your sisters would have better chances. Or they just wanted you out of the way. And this thought made you cry. Did they really hate you so much? Your emotions poured out of you and you cried and cried until you exhausted yourself, falling asleep upon your sleeping mat, curling in on yourself, tail pulled tightly into the backs of your thighs and you didn’t dream. Thankfully, you didn’t dream. 𖥸 · ─────── · 𖥸 · ─────── · 𖥸

Waking slowly with warmth trickling through your limbs, you felt groggy and disoriented and unable to shake the fuzzy plant fibers from your mind. You were cognizant enough to realize you felt feverish and achy. Sitting up slowly, a wave of dizziness took hold of you and you flopped back down. Your belly, or maybe right below that, was clenching against the emptiness you felt inside of yourself.

Ohhh…

Oh, you felt… need… carnal need.

You had started your first heat?

“Oh no,” you moaned in self-pity.

From the conversations you had overheard your mother have with your sisters, you weren’t supposed to start having your heat cycles until you began to indulge in sexual pleasure with someone – and you hadn’t. You were dedicated to learning how to be the best zeykoyu you could be… and spoil yourself with the delectation of Ronal’s company. If you took care of yourself on occasion in the dead of the night or here in your secret cave, you did it by yourself with no one for company but your thoughts and imagination. “Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no…”

You shook your head, trying to ignore the exacerbating warmth unfurling beneath your belly, that bubbling heat sending out the signal throughout your limbs that you needed a partner to take care of you in the most lascivious of ways possible. A nonexistent partner because you weren’t interested in anyone…

Anyone obtainable, that is.

While Na’vi were inherently sexual beings and it wasn’t entirely unheard of that some mated couples took on a third, you were nothing but her student and while Tonowari – her mate, her partner, the love of her life, the father of her children, you reminded yourself — was very handsome, and kind and wonderful, there was something about Ronal that just called to you even more. Appealed to you more. She was, in a way, even fiercer than her husband, almost frighteningly so. But she was also graceful and beautiful and strong and wise and…

Oh… Eywa, you had it so bad for her.

Not saying there was anything wrong with all of those strong muscles and that filthy smirk you’d seen him shoot Ronal once or twice before they suddenly disappeared for an hour or so, coming back to smell strongly of musk.

Oh… and just the thought of him being able to pick you up easily and manhandle you however he saw fit?

And then your mind’s eye drifted down to his tewng, wondering exactly what he had been endowed with. Probably something very enticing if Ronal shirked her duties for a bit every so often for a moment of pleasure with her mate.

You began to tremble as a wave of lust washed over you like a gentle wave.

Trying to focus on what you had been taught by Ronal and what you had heard about these symptoms from other sexually active women in the clan, you took stock of the heat that was prickling beneath your skin, an itch you couldn’t seem to scratch as you writhed upon your sleeping mat. A near dizzying surge of warmth pulsed from your core and you finally registered the wetness seeping from that place between your legs, preparing you to be taken and pleasured and fucked. You needed your clothing off and struggled with shaking fingers to untie your necklace and your Tewng, succeeded after a few stuttered curses and tears leaking from your blue eyes.

“Ohhh,” you whined, throwing your clothing away and curling up tighter into a ball as your body wracked with desperate need. “This can’t be happening.”

Behind the curve of your naked back while you trembled, with the tide going out, you didn’t notice Ronal appear with the ilu you named Ìstaw at the visible mouth of the grotto, which allowed air into the cave twice a day. You didn’t see her lift her tattooed face and scent the air and understanding wash over her as her pupils dilated. You didn’t hear her thank the ilu, nor when she disconnected her queue, sending him away to find her mate and slowly approaching you through the waves. You did hear the water “sploosh” off of her body as she hauled herself up onto the stone lip and came to sit at your side, the sea water dripping off her and onto your overheated skin not doing much to cool the fire burning within you.

“Oh, Ma’numeyu,” Ronal cooed gently, gently looking over you and brushing away the curls from your turquoise face. “When did this start?”

Tears welled up in your blue eyes and you whimpered, “It shouldn’t have started at all, Ma’tsahìk. I haven’t… I never — not with someone!” A harsher shiver wracked through your body and you trembled visibly like you were wracked with sickness, your muscles tightening and releasing spasmodically. “It hurts… Ronal. Is it supposed to hurt?”

You’ve never used her given name before but the clawing need inside of you, the heat burning your body from the inside out, you absently hoped she could forgive you when all was said and done. The tattooed woman gently forced you onto your back, her hands resting upon your sweat damp brow and the naked curve of your mons, just above where you ached the most. You couldn’t stop the whimper from escaping your throat and screwed your eyes up tightly. You didn’t want to see any pity for your predicament, any disappointment, if she… for whatever reason… maybe thought you were lying.

“Oh, paskalin,” the warmth in her tone made you look hesitantly up at her, “this is a gift from Ewya to put us all on the path together that she wants from us. Ma’muntxatan and I were going to speak with you later today… but Eywa pushed us to this, by giving you this gift and having us show you in a different way that we can take care of you.”

Us?

Together?

She and her husband…

She couldn’t mean… could she?

“May I touch you paskalin?” She asked gently. “Touch will ease the fire within you.”

Oh, Eywa, yes. Please.

Ronal laughed. Oh, had you said that out loud? You flushed, face getting a touch hotter, if that was possible. Then you were distracted by a pretty mouth caressing your own chastely and delicate hands with calloused fingertips gently sliding over your heated flesh. A wanton moan bounced off the grotto walls. “Yes, paskalin, let it out. Tell me your needs and I will fix it.”

“Please,” you begged. “Kiss me some more. Touch me some more. Anything. Everything. Please… just let it be you, Ma’tsahìk.”

The older woman hummed and slid onto the sleeping mat you had created, kneeling between your thighs and reaching up to remove her necklace. Her breasts were large for a Na’vi and her hardened nipples were a darker shade than her beautiful turquoise skin. And it was a sight to behold. You whined and reached for her eagerly, arms trembling. With a predatory look, she swooped in and kissed you hungrily, one arm holding herself up, the other sneakily cupping one of your own breasts, her thumb playing with your nipple, swallowing your moan of approval. She tasted sweet, of fruit and honey, and you could easily see yourself get addicted to her flavor.

Pulling back to breathe, Ronal moved down to your neck, kissing, sucking, nibbling your flesh as she played with you breast, humming in approval as you slid a hand down her back, fingers digging into the swell of her backside and shifting your hips to find you grinding against her knee. You released a whimper.

“Mawey, paskalin,” she teased, raking her fangs against a forming bruise upon your throat. “Trust me to take care of you.”

Her mouth found your neglected breast.

You couldn’t help but let out a whine as the tattooed woman sucked on your sensitive nipple, the pleasure causing your core to clench harder around nothing. Oh, how you needed it. Needed her. But she promised she would take care of you. As if reading your mind, her lips finally descended from your breast down your belly, licking and sucking at your hips, her fingers holding you down to prevent you squirming. Your eagerness for her attentions caused her to hum in glee. Finally, she came to the juncture of your legs. “Fuck,” Ronal breathed, surprising you with her foul language as her eyelids fluttered shut as her nostrils flares. “Oh, paskalin. You are so slick for me. Smell so sweet.”

You can’t help but nod almost frantically, hips faux fighting her strong grip, wanting to rock up against her face. “For you, yes, yes, yes,” you admit with a whining chant. “It’s always been you. Admire you. Adore you. Want you!” She smirked at that.

“Then you shall have me,” the older woman vowed. She finally pressed her face forward.

A tongue surprisingly broad swept up the lips of your vulva before it poked between them and found your clit, lightly stroking and making you nearly scream out a curse, her hands struggling to hold your hips as you arched into the touch that caused lightning to zap through you.

It didn’t register when a second set of hands, much larger than the ones before, suddenly held your hips down much firmer. You were too swept up in the feel of that tongue dipping and dancing between your folds, alternating between licks and gently prodding against your nub. And when two delicate fingers pressed into you, you choked on your moans and gasps, absently clasping onto the thick forearms to help ground yourself just a little. Ronal continued to feast upon you, withdrawing her fingers to slide her tongue into your depths. Where her fingers failed, her tongue found a spot that made you mewl and moan worse than before and that coil inside you wound tight.

“Oh please, oh please, oh please,” you sobbed, screaming out as a gentle pinch to your clit and her tongue pressing on that spongy spot inside you had your first orgasm of the day crash through you like a furious Akula. “RONAL!”

The older woman lapped at you like a hungry kitten, easing you through your afterglow with a smirk adorning her face that you only saw after you opened your eyes.

Tonowari stared down at you with a heated smirk as he left over his wife’s back to hold you down to your sleeping mat. “My turn,” he purred. Ronal slid over one of your thighs and laid down with her back to the cavern wall as her mate scooped you up easily and took your place on the bedding, lying back as you had been doing and dexterously adjusting you into a kneeling position above his chin. “Now sit, paskalin. It’s my turn to feast.”

Glancing at Ronal, she just smirked at you. “You are in for a treat,” she promised with a knowing smirk.

With one of his large, warm hands wrapped around one of our thighs, Tonowari cupped your backside with the other to support your weight and pulled you down onto his hungry mouth. Immediately, his tongue darted out to lick a stripe from your sensitive entrance to your clit, causing a high-pitched squeal to rip itself from your throat which nearly smothered his low moan.

Ronal nearly cackled in glee, questioning her mate, “She is divine, is she not, Muntxatan? She is even sweeter when she cums.” A hum of agreement was the only response before he truly began to feast upon your flesh.

Tonowari ate at your pussy like a man starved, voracious in his appetite, nose massaging at your clit while his tongue worked tirelessly inside of you, his arms preventing you from rocking your hips more than just lightly. You couldn’t help the movement as his experience coiled you tightly quickly, the cries and moans endlessly pouring from you as he quickly dragged you closer to your second orgasm. His tongue was even longer than his wife’s, thicker too and it wasn’t long before he coaxed you through a second orgasm, his name a stuttering scream. “T’no’ri!” It was a garbled mess but the intensity of two orgasms in less than an hour had you slurring and incoherent once more, shaking like a leaf in a storm, muscles twitching and spasming until it plateaued into bliss that left you feeling like boneless jelly.

Luckily, his wife was there to help ease you off of her husband’s face and manipulated your body to straddle his thighs.

“Oh,” you whined, seeing that at some point between you mounting his mouth and now, his tewng had disappeared and he was even more endowed than you had briefly allowed yourself to imagine. You should have realized, though, as the male was massive all-over, he would have a thick, long cock as well, slightly darker turquoise than his skin, almost rivaling Ronal’s nipples in shade and the stripes were raised and bumpy with little ridges and nodules.

Ronal smirked up at you and turned, kissing her husband’s messy face with her own.

“Say you want this paskalin,” Tonowari rumbled out, voice a deep purr that sent shovers down your spine.

You nodded with a whine, “Yes, please. Eywa, oh please.”

He guided you down slowly onto his shaft, the slick from your previous orgasms aiding his insertion, the achiness of your heat finally subsiding despite the pleasure he and Ronal had coaxed out of you.

You whined, feeling yourself stretch around his girth as you sank him in deeper and deeper inside of your body. Beside you, Ronal had made tsaheylu with her mat so she could share in on the pleasure. And then Tonowari began to move, guiding your hips over his fat cock and beginning to fuck up into your greedy cunt, causing you to cry out in pleasure. Shifting his legs into a bent position, it shifted the angle inside of you, allowing him even deeper penetration. His hands lifted you up and then he thrust up into you as you slid back down upon his cock, the head of his shaft bullying close to your cervix and causing stars to burst behind your eyelids.

“Oh, ‘Wari, yes, please,” you begged, grinding down on him, chasing your pleasure as it built higher and higher up inside of you. His thrusts became harder, sloppier, causing your whole body to shake as that coil in your belly tightened once more. “Oh, Eywa, don’t stop,” you sobbed, reaching out to ground yourself and intertwined your fingers with Ronal’s. “Please don’t stop! Knot me! Please!”

“Do it, muntxatan,” Ronal encouraged, her hand working steadily at her own center as she watched hungrily.

“Mine!” Tonowari snarled, gripping your hips tightly and slamming you down onto his cock. You came with a scream, your gummy walls camping down upon your Olo’eyktan’s length like a vice. His knot had begun to swell and he forced you down onto him one final time with a roar, locking you in place as he came, shooting ropes upon ropes of seed deep into your depths while your greedy depths milked his dry and filled your womb with potent seed.

The pleasure was overwhelming.

“I think we wore her out,” Tonowari chuckled as you lay there, half conscious a moment or two or five later.

You were only partially aware of when his wife smacked his arm. “It’s her first heat, brought on by the will of Eywa,” she reminded him, kissing your shoulder. “You will be kind to our ‘eve. She was untouched before me.” He must have rumbled something in response because the last thing you heard before drifting off for a short nap was, “Give her a moment then we may feast upon her honey again.”

𖥸 · ─────── · 𖥸 · ─────── · 𖥸

Originally Posted: 31 October 2023 Word Count: 5,357

AO3

@pandoraslxna, @eyweveng @teyamsatan @lovefrommeelise

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losergendered · 6 months ago

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Honey/Miss Hailey from Ribbon Rabbit Daycare is an autistic, verbal, transneu, demigirl, girlflux, canon lesbian, demisexual, hyperromantic, beegender, honeycoric, honeyjamgender, apigender, genderbumble, honeyan, mushroomgender, biogender, naturecoric, naturecollector, flowergender woman with OCD, canon depression and arthritis who uses she/it/they/ve/ae/bee/honey/pollen/bumble/ buzz/sting/flower/honeycomb/hive/api/🐝/🍯/🌸/💐/🌼 pronouns!

💐s girlfriend Tonn/Tahlia is an autistic, semiverbal, bigender, bigender woman, canon lesbian, asexual, caedromantic, femme, medigender, nursething, medipuppic, medicattic, medibunnic, nursecoric, nursewinged, nursyricgender, cloudcoric, foggender woman with DPD, amnesia and muscular dystrophy who uses she/they/it/ve/ae/nurse/med/hospi/bandaid/ pill/doc/iv/cloud/rain/haze/fog/☁️/🌧️/🌫️/💊/💉/🩹 pronouns!

Trixi is a canon autistic, hyperverbal, canon transfem, demigirl, canon panromantic, pan lesbian, canon asexual, demiromantic, femme, autigender, traumacoric, traumafem, cutecoric, cutegender, catgender, bungender, kitgender, bunnygender, eepygender, catbungender, rainbowbunian, marshybungender, bunnytix, cutecollector girl with ADHD, GAD, depression and obsessive dream disorder who uses she/they/it/xe/bun/bunny/rabbit/hop/soft/ fuzzy/cute/kit/cat/kitty/mew/purr/paw/flop/fluff/hugz/🐰/🐇/🥕/🌸/🐾/🧃/🌈 pronouns!

Flops boyfriend Momo is an autistic, semiverbal, transmasc, demiboy, polypan, gay, asexual, canon demiromantic, queerplatonic, peachigender, fruitgender, berrygender, citrusgender, fruitcoric, strawbgender, cherrygender, blueberrygender, plumgender, peargender, sourcandygender, orangegender, naturecoric boy with GAD, PTSD, PPD, dyslexia and depression who uses he/they/it/ae/vir/peach/cherry/plum/lych/mango/nectar/apri/🍑/🍓/🍒/🍉/🍊/🍬 pronouns!

Trixis friend Sky is an autistic, verbal, transmasc, genderfluid, canon panromantic, canon asexual, canon aromantic, autigender, scenecoric, scenegender, webcoric, memegender, memecoric, skillissuephrasic, memecollector, kandiravermeane, nyancatgender, kandigender, nyancatic, noobgender, robloxgender, cringecoric, tacnaynic, catnipgender furry with ADHD, BPD, NPD and asthma who uses he/she/it/they/xe/zey/zhe/sh3/h3/th3y/1t/meme/cringe/roblo/noob/nya/nyan/cat/kit/ k1tty/k1ttenz/zoom/stim/🌈/😈/any pronouns!

Trixis adoptive mom Susie is an autistic, verbal, canon biromantic, canon asexual, demiromantic, bakerygender, bakerycoric, cakegender, dessertic, cookiegender, muffingender, beysgender, pastromic, bakephoric, croissantgender, lovebakean woman with PTSD and depression who uses she/love/bake/heart/cake/pie/sweetie/🍰/🥮 pronouns!

Unknown/Amélie Finch is an autistic, nonverbal, canon transfem, transfemmasc, biromantic, canon asexual, canon aromantic, intersex, butch, uncannyvalleyic, neurogender, hoodiegender, borderix, bordergender, creepgender, losergirl, gendercreep girl with BPD, NPD, PTSD, dejected narcissism, depression and muscular dystrophy who uses she/they/xe pronouns!

Axel is an autistic, semiverbal, transneumasc, transfem questioning, bi gay, canon gay, demisexual, canon akioromantic, polymonoflux, intersex, sciencegender, sciencecoric, chemgender, chemistrygender, simulthing, madscien, doggender, pupgender, alienpupgender, slimepupgender man with OCD, canon germaphobia, tourettes, and epilepsy who uses he/it/xe/they/sci/pup/dog/woof/doggy/puppy/bark/arf/chem/chemical/test/experi/🧪/🐾/🦴/💉 pronouns!

🧪 has a crush on Spector, an autistic, hyperverbal, transneu, nonbinary, agender, canon biromantic, turigirl, aegosexual, aromantic, polyamorous, futch, sciencegender, sciencecoric, genderscientist, virusgender, gooplexic, fouscitze, madscien, madscientistgender, madvialic, toxiccoric, experithing, vilegender, frankengender, acidgender, slimeweirdo, scithing, sevenhundredmillionratsgender, biohazardlexic, pronounhoarding woman with ADHD, OCD, BPD, SzPD and chronic pain who uses it/he/xe/they/she/sh3/th3y/sci/bio/chem/ chemical/hazard/acid/slime/goo/chaos/vile/ experiment/toxic/mad/psych/scien/virus/ electric/lab/test/goggle/mayhem/rainbow/bright/neon/🧪/💉/🌈/💊/🧬/🔭/⚡️/X3 pronouns!

Patty is an autistic, verbal, transfem, girlflux, canon unlabled, sapphic, acespec, butch, burgercatgender, burgerbungender, burgerpupgender, burgerratgender, cowgender, meatgirl, beefgender woman with ADHD and POTS who uses she/he/🥩/🍖/🐮/🍔 pronouns!

🐮s girlfriend Kettle is an autistic, semiverbal, transmasc, nonbinary, canon biromantic, asexual, hyperromantic, femme, muttongender, ewegender, sheepgender, fleecygender, lambgender, popcorngender, genderpopcorn, caramelcornic, circusgender, cottoncandyic, carnimelodic, sillygender girl with ADHD and echolalia with she/it/they/he/pop/lamb/ewe/ram/sheep/baa/horn/fleece/fuzz/treat/circus/🍿/🎪/🎠/🐑/🐏 pronouns!

Ink/Iris is an autistic, nonverbal, canon nonbinary, bi gaybian, apothisexual, canon requiesromantic, GNC, autigender, hoodiegender, ichthyogender, koigender, fishskeletic, ghotigender, fishgender, narwhalgender, oceanic, sharkgender, achegender, cavusgender, depressifem, depressimasc boy with OCD, GAD, SAD, depression, body dysmorphia and bulimia who uses they/it/xe/thing/shark/ocean/sea/wave/kelp/coral/fish/fin/squid/octo/jelly/🌊/🐟/🐠/🐡/🦑/🪼/🪸/🐋 pronouns!

🐟 has a (mutual) crush on Marlon, an autistic, semiverbal, nonbinary, genderfluid, canon unlabled, aegosexual, jesterdesic, jestergender, circusgender, pinkgender, cutecoric, cutegoric, cutehoarder, pastelpinkgender, gendercute, dollcute, pastelgender, pastelpurplegender, delusogender, pinklita, sweetcute, cottoncandyic, kawaiicoric, pinkoric, cutebeing boy with ADHD, schizoaffective disorder, chronic vocal tic disorder and delusions who uses he/it/she/cyute/💕/🌸/🌷/🎀/🍭/🍬/🧸/🐾/🍡/🍮/🍰 pronouns!

Cyute works with Pip, an autistic, hyperverbal, agender, apangender, canon pansexual, apothisexual, apothiromantic, clowngender, clowncoric, circusgender, circuscandyic, clowndollgender, evilclownic, jesterdesic, sillyheehoogender, clownmeatic, gendervillain, evilgender, prankgender thing with ADHD, BPD, NPD, PTSD, manic episodes and anger issues who uses he/xe/zey/xae/zhe/clown/circus/jester/honk/prank/pop/bop/pitter/laugh/rainbow/fool/color/juggle/balloon/trick/🤡/🎪/🎡/🎠/🎈/🌈/🎉/:o)/:o( pronouns!

🌈 used to work with Taffy, an autistic, verbal, girlflux, canon unlabled, sapphic, asexual, demiromantic, kidcoric, rainbowgender, kiddiekitty, neonrainbowgender, neongender, bouncygender, glittergender, nosaebire, kiddieduckic, kiddiepuppic, kiddiebearic, kiddiehamstic, kiddiebunnic, kiddierattic, kiddiesnailic, 🌈emojic girl with ADHD, SPD and ehler danlos syndrome who uses she/it/zhe/🌈/🍭/🍬 pronouns!

Hanani is an autistic, hyperverbal, genderfluid, pangender, canon bisexual, arofluid, canon polyamorous, eccentrigender, schizic, ghostgender, skhizeingender, ghostcoric, chaoscoric, ghostfem, ghostneu, ghostmasc, phasmaeic, sillygender, tbhgender girl with ADHD, BPD, HPD, schizophrenia, manic episodes, muscular dystrophy and catatonia who uses she/xe/they/ve/silly/stim/weird/chao/ghost/spirit/boo/haunt/spookie/phantom/scary/para/🌈/♾️/👻/💥 pronouns!

Their brother Lazarus is an autistic, verbal, canon bisexual, aromantic, intersex, witchic, witchgender, eyegender, goldoculuminic, scopogender, thirdeyegender, eldritchboy, lovecraftic, lovecrafthing, eldritchthing, unholything man with NPD, ASPD, PTSD, depression, anger issues and muscular dystrophy who uses he/xe/occult/eye/scopo/symbol/rune/mon/eldri/? pronouns!

Symbols adopted daughter Luna is an autistic, semiverbal, agender, unlabled, canon asexual, canon aromantic, queerplatonic, intersex, autigender, witchgender, witchish, covenwitch, stargender, wildwitch, witchgirl, zombiegender, kittengender, zombzgender, wizardic, wizorbic, fantasygender, magicgender, circgender, faegender, magicia, magicoric girl with OCD, dysgraphia and fibromyalgia who uses she/it/they/he/ve/shx/thxy/ae/fae/ae/witch/wiz/sparkle/dazzle/glitter/magic/wand/mage/mana/spell/potion/cast/conjure/charm/hex/zombie/rot/🪄/🧪/🪻/✨/⭐️/🌟/💫/🔮 pronouns!

Tobi is an autistic, semiverbal, canon transmasc, demiboy, canon bisexual, no lesboy, veldihet, hyperverbal, demiromantic, darklovecoric, romanticreepthing, eatyourheartoutphrasic, romantigorecoric, dissecaregender, hauntmour, needyloverboy, passionconceptic, lovegoreic, lovebodiment, rosegore man with BPD, MasoPD, OLD and SAD who uses he/ve/love/obsess/lover/romance/❤️/🥀/🔪/🩸 pronouns!

Veir girlfriend Vanessa is an autistic, verbal, transfem, canon bisexual, arospec, intersex, polyamorous, rosegender, rosegore, bloodcoric, rosebloodaxean, darklovecoric, lovesickgender, obsesscoric, obsessilovic, deadlovegender, lovegoric, gasperichornic, romancegoric woman with ADHD, BPD, NPD, SadoPD and arthritis who uses she/they/ve/vae/rose/blood/red/kiss/wine/🥀/❤️/🩸/🍷 pronouns!

Riuki is an autistic, semiverbal, transmasc, nonbinary, canon biromantic, canon asexual, grayromantic, transmascject, emocoric, emocatgender, vampbatbloodkissic, emothing, emoboyish, loserboy, emox, emolovecatgender, vampcatgender, killercattic, gorrorslashxic, gothcattic, gothcoric, metallian, sketchgender, lovegoric, genderhoarder boy with ADHD, PTSD, depression and canon insomnia who uses xe/he/they/h3/th3y/ix/hx/thxy/xt/it/emo/spike/meow/purr/maow/loser/blood/vamp/fang/bite/gore/slash/bat/rot/bone/🩸/🥀/🔪/🐾/🦴/💔/🦷/📼 pronouns!

Meows boyfriend Sakira is an autistic, semiverbal, canon transgender, transfem, demiboy, canon biromantic, bi gay, turigirl, asexual, hyperromantic, queerplatonic, intersex, kitsunegender, joygender, foxgender, foxboygender, softfoxgender, vulpisilly, foxberrix, kitsunic, kitsuneboyic, 8-bit_kitsunic, vulamovillian, fuchsgender, konpeitocoric, pandabam therian with ADHD, DPD and dyslexia who uses he/it/she/they/ve/fox/kit/kitsune/vix/viy/fluff/red/silly/ioy/paw/tail/🎍/🎋/🦊/✨/💫/🐲/:D/:P/:)/:} pronouns!

Riukis friend Soda/Sam is an autistic, verbal, transneufem, agender, canon pansexual, pan lesbian, aromantic, polyamorous, femme, autigender, scenecoric, scenegender, catgender, scenecatgender, sodagender, colagender, sodayic, fizzydrinkic, cherrysodagender, popsodagender, snackgender, rainbowgender, caliadorcakic, cucomlovia, gleepcatgender, creepercatgender, iracodethmic, spacecolagender, musicgender girl with ADHD, BPD, dysgraphia and hyperempathy who uses she/it/he/they/xe/zy/shx/hx/thxy/scene/rainbow/color/bright/music/rock/star/cat/kit/ kitten/kitty/owo/rawr/nya/mew/meow/meorr/ purrr/paw/tail/whisker/game/glep/soda/pop/fizzy/🐱/🐈/🐈‍⬛/🌈/🎸/🎶/🎵/🎧/✨/⭐️/💫/:P/:3 pronouns!

Purrr and 🔪 are also friends with Crawler, an autistic, semiverbal, transneumasc, canon lesbian, queer, canon asexual, canon aromantic, soft butch, intersex, dyke, facecovercomfin, crackedmaskic, maskgender, scenecoric, scemogender, scenegender, cringecoric, musicgender, scenevampiric, metalgoric, metalvamp, vampgender, musicstar, ravegender, grungical, musijoyic, metalfem, metalmasc, musictix, scenezombix enby with ADHD, BPD, OSDD, depression and body dysmorphia who uses she/they/he/xe/zyx/shx/sh#/hx/h#/thxy/th#y/scemo/scene/loud/crash/bam/forensic/bash/bang/music/rock/metal/nightcore/night/kandi/raccoon/💀/🌈/🎵/🎶/🎸/🌙/🦝/🎹/🌌/🌃 pronouns!

🦝s qpp K9 is an autistic, nonverbal, canon transmasc, genderfluid, bxy, canon gay, asexual, apothisexual, aromantic, queerplatonic, faggot, emocoric, scenecoric, scenegender, musicgender, ametalmasc, scenevampiric, vampgender, headphojoyic, musictix, metallian, vamptix, scenix, emox, scemocoric, cartoonspinnic, oldcartoonvampic, puptoongender, hallotoongender boy with inattentive ADHD, SAD, dyslexia, muscular dystrophy and extreme facial scarring who uses he/it/xe/scene/scemo/rawr/vamp/bite/fang/blood/nya/cartoon/animate/silly/hyper/music/metal/toons/monster/plur/XD/X3/🦷/🌈/🎸/🎶/🎵/🦝/🎨/:D/:(/>:)/>:(/:P pronouns!

Ophiuchus is an autistic, verbal, trans woman, canon pansexual, aromantic, polyamorous, intersex, snakedeity, sotosnakeian, snakegender, snakeboy, snakegirl, gorgongender, rosegender, roseboy, rosegirl, victoriangender, rosuerte, gendernoies, roseblood creature with GAD and DID who uses he/it/they/xe/vae/ey/snake/slither/venom/fang/hiss/poison/scale/python/viper/serpent/cobra/rose/blossom/petal/flower/🐍/🌹/🥀 pronouns!

Vipers adoptive daughter Junk is an autistic, nonverbal, gxrl, lesbian, canon asexual, canon aromantic, dyke, depressifem, geweldin, affectugender, depreneu, deprefem, achegender, sikgender, cavusgender, depressintensic, neurogender, trashgender girl with GAD, PTSD, depression, bulimia and chronic dizziness who uses she/it/they/he/xe/worthless/trash/ache/sick/puke/guts/🔪 pronouns!

They’re all controlled by Vilorad Craven, an autistic, verbal, boyfluid, canon unlabled, alicoromantic, godgender, genderdeity, soldiety, angelgender, wargod, wardiety, deangelus, kamigender, theosolic, godboy, obsessumix, celestigender, godbodiment, godcomplexic, theoluxic, seraphgender being with NPD, BPD, OCD, OLD, manic episodes, anger issues and a god complex who uses he/xe/thon/hymm/god/diety/divine/heavenly/seraphim/archangel/entity/ae/ve/thae/deus/numen/angelus/divinitas/caelestia/caelum/entitatem/archangelus/☀️/🌅/🖌️/🎨/🪽 pronouns and has a crush on the Player!

For anon!m

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gretchensinister · 8 years ago

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The Apotheosis AU, in order

I think that to do a top five list of the Eldritch Guardians stories wouldn’t present anything I wanted to present, especially since most of the stories in that masterpost are really part of one larger story. So, instead of a list, what I have for you under the cut is the current most canonical version of the Apotheosis AU (sometimes known as the Eldritch Abomination Polyamorous Whatever AU).

Note: There are a few inconsistencies, which aren’t fixed here, but would be if I find the motivation to put this AU on Ao3. (Also, somehow tumblr ate the italics in this post. The links might be clearer if you find yourself having trouble interpreting some dialogue.)

The chapter titles are links to the standalone fics.

I truly hope you will enjoy revisiting this AU, or giving it a chance for the first time. It’s one of my favorites.

Summary: On a beautiful blue world full of minds, two ancient, ever-linked spirits of light and darkness allow themselves to become entangled with a group of other extraordinary beings. Though these other extraordinary beings are often afraid of what they could become, they all find each other in the end and after the end.

Prologue: vaster than empires and more slow

vaster than empires and more slow

***

they do not caress with hands, though they might have caressed with something close enough to hands a billion years ago, or two

out of curiosity

but they were not young then either

young? they do not remember being young, they enjoy getting older, they enjoy seeing time as great syrupy drops flowing up and down and sideways that might stick on their notskin for the other which is also the self to lick off with a nottongue, they are glad to be free from the clickclickclick traintrack of time that all the youngthings with their sweat and bark and tectonic movement and hydrogen fusion are caught in like—well they don’t really know what like. there is always a way out from where they notstand and notlook except the youngthings are never patient enough to find it and sometimes they wonder whythem?

and the goldlightsweet one knows and the blackshadowbitter one knows and what they know is the answer to whythem? and the answer is lovelovelove

perhaps longlong ago they cried and bled and sweat and salivated and ejaculated like the youngyoungyoung ones and somehow all their water flowed into a cosmic glass and something even they will never understand tasted it and knew them and said these ones must nevernever die they know something about love they know something about hate and to put it in a way that will not make sense for a very long time even by my measurements:

they are the real jet-fuel.

but perhaps they made themselves the way they are because they could not actually fuck each other to death nor could they make sweet and gentle love to each other to death, oh candy mouths and oh knifish claws and oh stardust hair and oh whipcord arms and oh those ripe and ready hills of flesh and oh the valleys deserve a longlong tongue and oh none of this was ever lethal though perhaps they thought it might be at the time. and since this was the only way they could see themselves dying in the tracks of time (clickclickclick) they leapt from the tracks most spectacularly and dieddidn’tdie oh what is a body and perhaps in those first moments after that is where the confusion between I and you began and perhaps in the second moments I and you were discarded forevermore

but of course this is not how it happened because that sounds all too human does it not?

perhaps they were never anything like any of the youngthings but then, how would light and shadow have learned to make shadow and light gasp like inspiration and come like creation?

only youngthings care how they came to be and they are more concerned with caring that they are and they are perfect opposites oh perfect perfect have you ever seen a more perfect darkness oh perfect perfect have you ever seen a more perfect shine please do not touch the other that perfection is for this one to obliterate thank you very much and perhaps this time it will be cold fire or hot ice or broken plates and sunrises but what matters is the return the return the return

they spread out into the luxurious and fragileopen minds of youngthing sleepers my what a finefine bed so soft and smooth and warm and the feardark feels the joylight grinning already, always greedy that one and the terroreater grins back even while sinking into that patchwork of desires and says softsmoothwarm like beautyglimmer yesyes? and the other laughs (oh slumbering poets here is a gift please do not spend it all in one place you would probably be thought insane) because they love the way each seems to the other on these molassesdark nights inside a billion egglike skulls and yesyesyes each other

and if the youngthings could comprehend they would no longer be troubled by the lack of I and you between them for without I and you is the only way they can be

and they are the death by lightning strike and they are the bloom of roses the size of pinky nails and they are water so cold it makes you drunk and they are the ever-shifting dunes that hide everything today and nothing tomorrow and they are squeaking the springs of brains like blakes and beethovens and little girls who suddenly realize grass is translucent in the setting sun but can’t bother with paper

and in an age or a moment or both they do not care, they have world enough and time, they shuddershudder oh yesyes sometimes it is goodgaspinggood to have an ending like the youngthings have

and a cavewoman thinks of fire and a cypress tree is outlined on a canvas meant to be covered in stars and a gun is aimed toward a mouth and xocolatl is mixed for the first time and Cain is not sorry and a Swiss man takes an unforgettable bicycle ride and the girl watching the grass begins to bother with paper and learns how to create a universe and fill it with pain and she laughs and they lovelovelove all of this and each other

oh it is a lovely world so good for play and as they curl through each other they know they will stay a longlong time as the tracks (clickclickclick) go and it will be eternity and just long enough for them.

Chapter 1: Avalanche

He was going to die. North closed his eyes, preferring the dark created by his eyelids to the dark in the small (all too small) air pocket deep within the tons upon tons of snow and ice that had slid down the face of the mountain just a few minutes before. The last thing he had seen clearly had been the blindingly white snow rushing toward him, the edge of the avalanche blurred so that it looked like it should have been as silent and light as a cloud on a summer’s day. Instead, it had sounded like thunder and had knocked him off Petrov, thrown him up and down and around until, now, when he was still, he didn’t know which way he was facing. He knew what one was supposed to do in this situation. Spit into your hand. Dig in the direction away from where the spit rolls. But the avalanche had buried him too densely. His arms were trapped, his hands were numb. And it was very, very dark. He was probably too far down to dig himself out even if he did know which way to go. And so even though he knew what he was supposed to do, all he could think of was the other thing he knew: he knew that he only had a few breaths left. He began to grow afraid. How large had the avalanche been? There was a village nearby—had the snow buried it too? What had happened to Petrov? And—had it been his fault? Had one too-loud laugh brought the mountain down? Something seemed to shift around him and he opened his eyes, but, if anything, the air pocket was darker than before. still no self? not like others could becomebecome but need to live longlong ordinary first It was a voice. It was not a voice. It was the smell of smoke from a burning house, it was the sting of the cuts ice had made on his face and neck, it was the taste of someone else’s blood in his mouth. He understood it. curiouscurious what will you be have to find out is your mind like your tallstrongbrownbeardbody? goldkindness will laughunderstand but/still told you were one to watch was right right always right smug little but donotmind keep your eyesopen now –and without warning he was standing on top of the snow, Petrov’s bridle in his hand. His heart pounded in his chest, and in the clear air he still felt unable to breathe. His hands shook, and what he knew now was that he was in the grip of physical terror. He had never felt it before. And something, something had never seen him that way before, and liked what it saw now. He made his way to the village feeling as if he was moving as slowly as the glacier in the distance, without uttering a sound. *** He invited both Old Men to become Guardians. Sandy said yes, and Pitch said no, and he wondered if their answers meant anything, and which one should concern him more.

Chapter 2: Wood, Breaking, Waking

Talking, talking, talking. Drowned Boy saying the name Pitch. Answering. Easy to keep this going, but Drowned Boy doesn’t seem to know about everything else going on, strange, strange, what did he think had happened three hundred years ago? Pitch watches him with eyes while the rest thinks and reaches out and finds oh how more than strange, there isn’t much of the Drowned Boy anywhere except that remade human body, does he think that’s him? How sad what torture and surely his anger is understandable now a sleepy voice near the core, so warm so good, shiver and uncurl on planes the Drowned Boy really isn’t aware of? Really? really yes really understand know what he thinks? oh now yes sorry sorry must have looked terrible but being so distant so long very unkind and hard to figure out otherways when shining bodyshaped could have asked sunlaughter black scales raising, black scales being patted down Can never think of that without…you? it’s okay it’s okay, no need for that word, didn’t hurt for very long, let it happen, saw understanding trouble (and missed this, feels sort of like inside, inside means a lot after wearing a body for a long time) summer nights as warm as arterial blood and Pitch asks the Drowned Boy to join him, barely remembers to call him Jack instead and maybe doesn’t get the tone quite right. More laughter beyond lengthwidthdepthtime but it hasn’t worked anyway not all bodies so easy shh shh if he thinks there was destruction then how will he agree? And when will he know? And… Pitch and the rest notice that the staff is also the Drowned Boy, is also real wood, too, not just the thought of it like the Drowned Boy’s body is the memory of flesh. Yes that’s the way maybe he’ll see then and what is there to bargain with? What does the Drowned Boy want other than what was offered? Oh yes here it is, a piece of one of the others. A miscalculation, and Pitch throws the piece away instead of putting it back with the others, and the Drowned Boy is talking more, always more talking, but he doesn’t have the staff anymore, or at least he doesn’t think he does. Bizarre. It really is only wood, though the Drowned Boy is in it. Pitch holds it near the ends and starts to bend it and the Drowned Boy groans. It hurts? How can he not understand that his body is only what he thinks it is, then? Pitch pushes and pushes and the wood cracks and splinters, loud in the Antarctic silence for a moment or two only, before Jack’s cries of pain drown it out. He’s doubled over, writhing in the snow, he’s screaming and why is he like this he let it go the ice left it only thing he’s had to hang onto his whole existence other than his name The crackling becomes audible again as the Drowned Boy’s screams turn to keens and whimpers and gasps. he’s not going to get it he’s never realized he died I think you should get it over with “I” the idea is painful and even if the Drowned boy doesn’t understand anything Pitch and the rest does and the staff is at once cracked in two, for Pitch has never been able to fix, this is the best Pitch’s hands can do. The break is usually bad, but never as bad as the process of severing. The two pieces of the staff are left behind and a little warmth returns to all of Pitch. will probably have to leave again before Jack understands couldn’t stand this permanently of course The lie and the disbelief of it are paired particles. just no “I” no more “I” then stop being a “you”, tarhorror *** When next seen, the Drowned Boy has made the broken staff whole again. He knows he’s been dead. when brightvision when?—The question asked from a used body to a new one. just a week just a week comes the thought from the fading dream we’ll have fun waking him up to himself and practice with your body beforehand, dearterror

Chapter 3: carefulcareful

He knows he is awake, for he is looking out his window at the lights and towers that form part of North’s workshop and seeing them with a clarity he would not have in dreams. This knowledge does not comfort him. He thinks he might have woken because he wanted to turn over, but he cannot do that. He cannot flex his toes, he cannot clench his fists. He cannot scream, though he wants to. He cannot make even that small movement. He feels like he is suffocating, but the feeling goes on too long for that to be true. Maybe—maybe he just cannot feel himself breathing. He thinks his heart might be pounding now, but he cannot feel that either. Is this permanent? He wonders, panic growing in his mind. What’s happened to him? Slowly, along with the panic, a chill and oily terror begins to seep into his consciousness. A large, large shadow flows across the window and his fear spikes. He knows, without knowing how, that the shadow is looking at him. Of course! That would explain everything. The Guardians had warned him about Pitch when Jack became one of them. Paralyzing Jack and then feeding off his fear would be something he would do, as much as anyone could predict what Pitch would do. He just needed to figure out how to call for help— His thoughts are interrupted when what feels like a cool and muscular tendril of flesh wraps around his ankle. If Pitch wants his fear, he’s getting all Jack has to give right now. Help! Anyone! Jack screams in his mind, and, almost instantly, he feels another presence enter the room. He spots a glimmer out of the corners of his eyes and feels golden-colored laughter splash into the shadows pooling in his mind. Sandy! He’s not the rescuer Jack would have expected or hoped for, but he’ll take him. carefulcareful The voice is quiet and echoes in his mind, and Jack can tell Sandy is speaking to Pitch, not him. he’s new why else here? replies an even softer voice that soundfeels like spider legs and makes Jack want to shudder, though of course he still can’t. am careful—can’t move Laughter like sunlight reflecting on water. but he’s awake getting clumsy and why that physical foolishness on his leg of course he’s awake that’s how this is done show what clumsy is later oldmanenemyloverotherhalfself and all his terms are physical right now he’s only three hundred babychildsproutnebula Jack is suddenly struck by memories of watching lightning in the distance and the taste of lemony sour-sweetness, and he has the uncomfortable feeling that Sandy has just kissed Pitch. would break him now then no matter what done Sandy’s voice is warm and comforting, but Jack wishes he could yell for North now more than ever. A wave of frustration from Pitch. new things so rare not fair have as much time as wanted Lavender and honey. shh shh will share learningknowingJack understand temptation very well is very strong meet him together soonsoon Pitch pleads. soonsoon Sandy agrees. being carefulcareful remember did not like what happened with Bunny not used to carefulcareful with mind not shinygoldkindpretty Kaleidoscope smile. physical first then but both oh shadowbruteimpatient Taste of licorice and joy of sinking toes into cool mud on a hot day. Jack’s not sure he wants to know what that was. Sandy again. so let him go now And suddenly they are both gone—along with the thing on his leg—and Jack takes a gasping breath and tries to scream, though it comes out as more of a wheeze. He throws off the covers and paces around the room just because he can. Sandy and Pitch are totally, completely gone. Shouldn’t beings like them leave some trace? Jack shakes his head. What the hell just happened? Now, he’s glad his scream didn’t come out. He has no idea how he would explain any of this to North. But he realizes after a few moments that he’s going to have to. It sounded like the other Guardians went through similar…initiations? And he wants to be as prepared as possible. He rests his face in his hands. How on earth was he supposed to start that conversation? “So, I think I’ve been recruited into a threesome with a couple of cosmic horrors—or you know, one cosmic horror and one cosmic joy, but close enough…”

Chapter 4: maybemaybe when you’re older

“Oops,” Jack says, pulling away from the gray-skinned, basically human form Pitch has taken on for this “experiment” and biting his lip nervously as he looks at the whitish spot of frostnip he’s left on the side of his neck. why’dyouwhy’dyou stopstop? Two voices, asking the exact same question, bloom in his mind and echo against each other and Jack sits up, alarmed. “W-will you quit that!” He looks from Pitch to Sandy, who seems to be a small, chubby, golden man sitting at the foot of the bed, with an expression of amused curiosity on his face. “You both have mouths now!” Sandy sticks out his tongue and Pitch laughs aloud, while Jack suddenly tastes durian and raspberries, falls from a great height, is brushed all over with feathers, bites something that was supposed to be soft and turned out to be crunchy, and watches light slowly seep through a prism until it splits into a thousand thousand colors, not in the usual order of the rainbow. In the real room—though how real it is he has absolutely no idea—he sees large shadowy fractal-like forms flowing out from the gray-skinned body flicker in and out of his view, as well as glimpses of the incredibly complex gold and crystalline architecture that surrounds Sandy in far more than four dimensions. He goes even paler than normal and presses his hands to the side of his head. A soft keening escapes from his throat. shh shh Sandy’s voice tells him, and something happens and the sensory onslaught ends, including his visions of the Dreamers as they really are. Sandy smiles and switches from sitting to lying on his belly, resting his face in his hands and kicking his little feet in the air. “hhhhwhyyyy should uzzze mouths when you sssssstopped using yours?” Pitch asks. “I—I got distracted while I was…kissing your neck…” Jack trails off faintly for a moment. Everything about that statement seems improbable when applied to Pitch, from the idea of kissing to the presence of a neck. “And I accidentally gave you frostnip.” Pitch glances at Sandy, who shrugs. “It’s an injury,” Jack explains, talking quickly. “When the skin gets frozen. It causes itching, pain. And it can discolor the skin.” ooooh want to see Sandy crawls up the bed and leans across Pitch’s chest, turning his head so he can look at the place on Pitch’s neck where Jack had been kissing him. Gently, he touches his tongue to it. cold! Pitch wraps his arm around the shoulders of his counterpart’s small avatar and Jack can tell he’s looking at the frostnip as well, though he tries not to think about what’s really going on that makes it possible for Pitch to look at his own neck without a mirror. veryvery interesting Pitch says. why not on goldsmoothdeliciousskin? just as distracted watched veryvery closely grayskin fragile fragile! Sandy nuzzles his shoulder and wiggles in his grip. no practice making body no knowing frost is cold tallterrortoy The sensation Jack gets from Pitch when Sandy calls him that makes him blush, but is also so incredibly inhuman that he starts shaking involuntarily. “Sh-should I go?” he asks, though he doesn’t know how they got to this room or how to leave. nono they both answer, looking at each other for a long moment before turning their eerie gold and silver gazes on Jack. make manymany more frostnips Pitch says, stretching out on the bed. Sandy nods. never that kind of painfeeling before time for more now make new grayskin if too much He possessively runs a slender finger along the line of Jack’s jaw. want you now veryvery curious not fair light have you while shadow did not Jack gulps. “So, uh, Sandy’s not joining us for this part?” Laughter like bubbles formed by an orca’s breaching. togethertogether would kill you if all enjoying Sandy says. maybemaybe when you’re older He pats Jack’s hair as he directs him to the other side of Pitch’s neck, before settling back to take his turn watching.

Chapter 5: All of Summer in an Hour

“Do you ever miss anything about being human?” Tooth asks, trailing her fingers in one of the Warren’s streams of sparkling clear water. More each day, Jack thinks, but doesn’t say. He’d rather not have that conversation with all three of them at once. Then again, it’s not like Tooth’s question wouldn’t have been uncomfortable even if he wasn’t beginning to discover just how far the consequences of his death truly reached. “I…I’ve been able to make up for most of the things I missed since I’ve become a Guardian,” he answers. “Surely there must be something you still want?” North looks up from the small carving he’s been working on. “We will find way to give it to you.” He settles back against the mossy boulder, looking more relaxed than Jack’s ever seen him, without his coat or boots, and with a few braids in his beard courtesy of the mini fairies. In a few moments they’re going to give him a flower crown—a little while ago Jack had caught Bunny whispering to them where the best flowers were. “Well…there is one thing I used to miss, but I think I’m getting over it now that—” a memory threatens to overwhelm him “—I have believers.” “Hugs? We’ll give you those, Frost, no problem.” Bunny grins at him and Jack smiles back. At first he had been surprised how quickly Bunny had warmed up to him after their rocky start when he joined the Guardians, but now, he realizes that everything about those three days had been enough to throw even the most stable being off their normal behavior. Then again, he thinks, maybe Bunny could already sense then the…potential…I seem to have. “I’m not getting over those,” Jack says. “But…okay, it has to do with why I like hanging out in the Warren so much.” He pauses for so long that Tooth has to prompt him to go on. “It’s like this.” He rolls over on his stomach and starts picking at the lush grass, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “Ever since I got my memories back, I’ve missed…summer. I loved the long days, the feeling of the sun on my skin, the bright deep green everywhere, the thick blue of the sky overhead…it was my favorite season. I can’t go where the summer is now, though. It makes me feel sick. Weak.” Though maybe not for long. “So that’s why I like being in the Warren. I know that it’s more glorious than any summer outside, and it’s not too hot. But I still miss…I still miss the real summer sky.” They are all silent for a time, and Jack looks up, trying to gauge how embarrassed he should be. But North simply winks at him. “We will work on that,” he says. Jack smiles and flips onto his back again. If North can manage it, Jack’s sure he’ll do it right. Not like the— doyoulike doyoulike know you want heart’sdesire and this is the blue the gloryglory blue and he was drowning in it, the blue feels just like drowning, though yes it is glorious of course it’s glorious but with the sun in that summer sky surrounding him, speaking to him, touching, of course touching, his skin with a warmth so like his memories but burning like a brand— gift from Sandy. Beautiful and terrible, all of summer in an hour. And still he wishes he could stand the glory. And still he dreads the certainty that one day he will be able to.

Chapter 6: Patience

“Jack!” North calls, surprised and pleased to see the new Guardian standing in the globe room. “How did you get in? Usually the yetis will tell me if anyone is at the main entrance.” “By ‘anyone’, you mean the other Guardians, right?” Jack is more subdued than usual, though to North, something about his manner seems odd, as if he’s fighting to be subdued. He wonders if this visit had anything to do with the Old Men and decides to try to bring up the idea of his talking with them again. Now, though, Jack’s question deserves an answer. “I suppose, yes, that is what I mean,” North says, pulling on his beard as he walks up to Jack so they can have a conversation at a normal level. “But who else would want to visit? After all, when you were first offered Guardianship, you were right when you said we were all hard work and deadlines. The Workshop is wonderful, but it is always busy.” “North,” Jack begins, laughing once without any real mirth, “I wasn’t kidding when I said that I’d been trying to bust in here for years. The yetis—they always kept me out. And—of course I wanted to visit! For a long time, you were the only one, you know, sort of human, that I thought would be able to see me. I needed that. I…” “I’m sorry, Jack,” North says, putting a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “I know the past cannot be undone. Can you forgive me? I may be the most human, as you say, but as an immortal…as a Guardian…my thoughts have changed from what they used to be. Companionship is something I know I do not think about as much as I used to. I should have realized, with you so young… “But you say you needed that. Past tense. Are things better now?” Jack leans on his staff. “I’m not sure. Look, North, the yetis would let you know if someone came in through the main entrance. That’s where they always stopped me before. And they could stop me. But they didn’t tell you I was here today because I didn’t come in through the main entrance. I got in…I got in through one of the walls of ice.” “This is something you couldn’t do before,” North guesses, and Jack nods. “Before, the ice was always something I could use, but now it feels like a part of me. I didn’t know I could do it before today,” he adds quickly. “Is there anything else you want to tell?” North asks, his gaze shrewd. “You know your shoulder felt colder than it has. You also know who are the only others able to show up here uninvited.” “There’s nothing to tell that I understand,” Jack says, looking down at his feet. He thinks he’d like to keep them. He’s used to them. “I saw my body buried. I can’t forget that anymore. I want to be worried about it, but worry has always been difficult for me, and now it’s almost impossible.” He looks up at North and grins. “I think I’m growing up. I think I’m getting old.” “But the children? Your believers?” North refuses to show fear. “I’ll be a Guardian,” Jack concedes, and North can hear the wind in his voice more than ever before. “But when there aren’t any more children, I don’t think I’ll stop being what I’ve become.” He catches North’s eyes with the ones like those he had as a human boy. “And I think I might not be the only one. They like all of us, you know. But they’re patient.”

Chapter 7: Silver Strands

If I don’t do this now, I won’t be able to do it later. Jack paces back and forth on the frozen surface of a small pond far away from any human habitation. Fractal patterns of frost, like idealizations of ferns, spread from where his feet touch and vanish as soon as he takes his next step. He doesn’t look down at them anymore, though. When he had started pacing, he had watched the patterns form and seen that they were perfect down to the atomic level, even when the structure of the water molecules should have prevented that. He didn’t want to see those things, to know he could see those things. Now, he looks out at the evergreen trees and the distant mountains or up at the feathers of clouds tossed in long white plumes over the hard blue sky. He remembers when such a scene seemed infinitely complex, infinitely beautiful, joy in every angle of every needle on the trees. Now, it’s still lovely, but if he wants to see infinity in it again…well. He knows he’d have to open his eyes in a way he’s not quite used to yet. In a way that tends to draw a certain amount of attention. That’s the last thing he wants today. It’s not like they would be jealous—he’s pretty sure they can’t be jealous—but they aren’t him. He’s still separate, damn it all! And he has to go to Bunny alone. It’s the only way he even has a chance of getting him to listen. And that means he has to do it soon. *** “Hi, Bunny,” he says, leaning on his staff. He hopes he’s entered the Warren in some usual way—looking at Bunny, he’s so nervous, he doesn’t actually remember. Bunny turns and greets Jack with a smile, as he’s done more and more often recently. He’s been tending some of the plants in the garden, though, since it is a very old garden, all the work done there is really for pleasure, and not, strictly speaking, necessary. Though he knows he doesn’t have a physical heart, Jack feels his leap and pound. What is he going to say? He had a plan, didn’t he? “What’s up, Frost? Having a good day? Must be getting on Winter up there now, right? “Yes—” Jack has no idea what to say. Bunny is—Bunny is beautiful. Well, he had started to think that a while ago, but now—how had he not noticed? There’s a glow about him, a glow of pure life, and when he breathes everything in the Warren breathes with him, everything on Earth breathes with him. Jack can feel it washing over him, better than summer heat. And more than that, he can see now the silvery billions of strands of hope shining away from Bunny’s head and heart and they shimmer in the glow too and some are passing through him, Jack— “You’re so beautiful,” Jack gulps, because he really is, overwhelmingly so. “May I?” He asks, and reaches out his free hand to touch lightly upon the hopes—does Bunny do this too? He wonders. He must, and he must play the most beautiful music in the world upon them. Bunny frowns in puzzlement as Jack moves his hand through the empty air. “Uh, mate? What was that you were saying?” Jack looks back at him. “I mean it! And I’m not just saying it because—” he focuses entirely on summoning his courage—“I love you. But I do love you.” Bunny’s jaw drops and his eyes widen. Jack hopes that’s a good sign, and he sees the silvery strand wave like a ribbon in a breeze from his chest to Bunny’s. He blushes, and Bunny closes his mouth, his expression turning solemn. “Follow me, Jack,” he says. Still hopeful, so hopeful—can’t Bunny feel it? Jack follows him to a still pool. “Look down, Jack,” he says, and Jack does. He’s gone as clear as crystal, the shadows of his body only stylized marks of frost now. His clothes are gone, and within his living ice he can see slow drifts of snowflakes, like insects in amber, spiraling slowly out from concentrations where his brain and heart were when he was human. His eyes shimmer like the Northern lights, and as he looks into them, for an instant he doesn’t think he looks any different. After that instant, he gasps—though of course he doesn’t need to. Beside him and his light, Bunny barely reflects. “You’re beautiful too,” he says. “But I don’t think it’ll work out between us.” “But—Bunny!” Jack looks at him, eyes wide and frantic. Yes, outside of the reflection, Bunny still looks the way Jack saw him before. “No! You’re—if you could see what I see—” Bunny holds up one broad paw. “Jack. Please. Don’t tell me.” He looks into Jack’s eyes and smiles a little sadly. “I’m a bunny. I’ve worked hard to stay that way.” “I—I don’t have to be like this, Bunny! I just got—distracted.” “Jack. This is who you are now. And I know it wasn’t your idea. But I can’t take your love like this.” Jack hangs his head, the human gestures still most familiar to him now. “I’m sorry.” “It’s not your fault, Frostbite. I’ll still—I’ll still talk with you about it. Not here, though. Winter—you’re managing to freeze parts of even this garden.” Jack bites his lip, looking down, and he swears he can see Bunny’s light shimmer off the movement of the pliant crystal of his face. Why won’t he let himself know? He nods. “See you round, old man,” he hears Bunny say, as he leaves the Warren slowly, physically—courteously. Still, he can’t help but notice that the strand of hope between them narrows, but does not break.

Chapter 8: Valentine’s Day

The liquidblazing light that cannot melt this crystal ice and the darkdrowning shadow that heats it press and seep and shiver and squeeze and tickle and tongue (a word quite ridiculous for all involved at this moment, none have had anything like a tongue for hours and hours now) and nip and caress all around and all through this new crystalthing, crystalboy nomore how limited limited! And feathersoft gold and stolenmolasses blackness are enjoying this as they ever have, even when the crystalthing didn’t even think he was a crystalboy and thought himself just a boy; inspiration and panic flowing in heavinggasping waves over a thousand million minds awake and sleeping, screams of terror and songs of joy all the moans they don’t make, free of mouths and throats as they are (save when necessary, such as to calm the crystalboy frostboy iceboy who when they started still had matter still had a taste and though that is little compared to what they could know of him if he let them it is still veryvery worth knowing and perhaps they were a bit too greedygreedy with him for both abandoning his face shivered his consciousness across the sky and he was so reluctant to let his body go then and they had had to wait sillyboy sillybody) But even in their ecstasy they are so soslow and careful verycareful now and even as light blushesrushes across gladly spangled shadow and even as the inky living night pours startled, startled even after thirteen billion years, give or take, giveandtake, sillyshadow sosweet, over the brighter than sunfire brilliance smirking in their noplace bower, they are bringing up the crystalthing, up and up, higher and higher, getting him to forget boy, forget frostboy, forget iceboy, forget crystalboy, become crystalthing because only crystalthing can withstand, only crystalthing can enjoy and doesn’t he want to take all they can give, give all that they can take? yesyesyes he says in a language they don’t quite know yet and they smile in all the ways they can because this is his language, his crystalthing language, he has forgotten the partial language he had always insisted on before, he has forgotten being anything else other than the crystalthing, prismatic ice full of sharp edges and curling fractals and joyjoyjoy. But they don’t just want him to forget what he was before in being what he is now and will be foreverever with them oh sharpcoollaugher how did they ever get by without him? They want him to accept himself the new way he is, to smile but believe them when they tell him he fills the universe. And so they stop. Everything. Just for a moment. Even the turning Earth stills under them. And suddenly they are swimming in a space like a wide-open blue eye that sees them both and his smile runs allover them and, still Jack, he’ll keep his name thanks, he pulls them to him, ice bolder than before surprising even steadybrightness into a flickergiggle. Impressedjealous midnight stops holding back at all at all; dreaming starshine does the same very same. Their grins are wicked as they reach out nothands to dimensions Jack hasn’t had until now, nevertouched. *** The blizzard that February sets records. The weather forecasters make jokes about it keeping everyone inside on Valentine’s Day and November babies. They’re right, but they wouldn’t have been if the blizzard had been alone, and people hadn’t been falling into the most delicious dreams and waking from the most fascinating nightmares.

Chapter 9: GrowRunGrow

They lie close together, facing each other, a strong but uncertain March breeze blowing over them. Above them, clouds stream past, and only brief moments of sunlight illuminate gray-green grass that hasn’t quite started growing yet–the real world isn’t as comfortable as the Warren, but without discussing it they’d both decided it was best that they should meet on neutral ground. “What’re you thinking about?” Bunny asks. Lately, he’s been feeling like he could find that out without asking, but that’s not something he’s ever done before, so he doesn’t do it. “Kissing you,” says Jack. “Oh really?” Bunny smiles wryly at him, and Jack looks away, making Bunny wish he could re-do his response. Even though Jack was always the one to pull away from their kisses–sometimes violently–that didn’t mean that he necessarily wanted to. “I wish I could explain,” Jack had said. “But I can’t. I just…can’t. "You want to try again?” Bunny asks quietly. “Yes,” Jack says, with a smile small but deep, a smile that looks like The Smile, though what Bunny means by that he isn’t sure, and he doesn’t have time to figure out because then Jack is kissing him. As always, Jack’s kisses start out light, tentative, but there’s something about today, about Jack, about Bunny, that makes him bolder than he’s ever been before. Bunny thinks he might even dare to put his arms around Jack, to touch his cool skin, even though the last time he had tried to do so Jack had stopped everything at once. And then Jack’s tongue is in his mouth and Jack’s fingers are digging through the fur of his chest down to the heated skin, and they forget themselves. *** icesmile and windlaughter and growrungrow so strong and warm this is lifenewing this is what it is melt the ice and drink the water take the worldjoy within hasn’t it been offered it’s in your mouth but no the exultingcold will not be melted the ice will not flow the ice is sending frost over all the sproutthoughts beautiful to perceive but still such delicacy is violence this sharpedged joy is the enemy why cannot it soften to languor to the swift free tongue of new swollen streams with blooming banks oh surely just a little more heat would melt it summer’s edge would cut it but the cold pushes back back back *** Bunny raises his head with what feels like a groan, feeling like one of the stone sentinel eggs has been jumping on him. Some yards away, Jack lies, or at least what Bunny’s going to call Jack to make things simpler. His skin seems to glitter, and Bunny can see the grass right through him, but he’s not sure if that’s Jack’s body or his own eyes. Jack shifts, and so does his body. Bunny calls his name, but only leaves fall from his mouth. He shakes himself, trying to get oriented, and when the wind from his doing so hits the grass, it turns a bright, healthy green, just like that on which he woke. “Jack!” This time it’s a sound, and he approaches Jack slowly, not wanting to shake himself loose. Jack pushes himself to his knees, then to his feet. His staff is somehow with him again, and he leans on it heavily. “So,” he says when Bunny’s about five feet from him, “you’re like me now.” “I…” Bunny looks down to see tiny flowers growing throughout his fur. “Not exactly like you,” he finally says. “I suppose no one could be.” The longer Bunny watches Jack, the more his skin looks like skin, but it never quite gets there, as if Jack can’t be bothered anymore. “I was worried that I would hurt you, before.” “You probably would have. But I think we’re even now.” Jack smiles sadly. “I know this isn’t what you wanted.” “I don’t know if it could have been stopped,” Bunny says. “But I don’t think you did it. You were always so careful. I could almost forget that you were…becoming.” “So what do we do now, as Winter and Spring?” *** “If light and darkness can hold it together, so can we,” Bunny says decisively. He notices his armor is back on his arms and legs, but he doesn’t remember buckling it on. Jack nods slowly. “And…” “And so I’m going to ask. And what’s more, they’re going to answer.” He smiles briefly at Jack. “I think I don’t have to worry about surviving the asking anymore.”

Chapter 10: Going To Be

“I hope you still like hot chocolate.” Jack wakes to find Bunny holding a mug toward him, his whole posture stiff with embarrassment. Jack smiles up at him from their bed of soft grass. It’s surprisingly still lush and green, especially since Jack had been pressed against it in a rather heightened state several hours before. Usually, even Bunny’s magic couldn’t prevent vegetation from growing at least autumnal in Jack’s presence when they spent the night together. What did it mean that he’d solved that problem? Jack sits up, accepts the cup and wiggles his shoulders. He absolutely does not want to think about that question right now. He wants to peacefully have his chocolate, that’s all. Well, and then maybe, probably, have his Bunny again. “Absolutely nothing could prevent me from liking hot chocolate,” Jack says. “No matter how much—” damn it, he didn’t want to bring this up, why was it so impossible not to? “—no matter how much I change.” “Included that in the terms and conditions before you signed, huh?” Jack laughs in relief. If Bunny could make jokes about the change now, maybe they could actually talk about it, and not in the way they always had before, which was always so sad and serious and vague. “Of course! It couldn’t have gone ahead without a forty-page contract signed by all parties in triplicate,” Jack says. When Bunny laughs this time, it sounds bitter. “Good to know you knew what you were getting into.” “Aw, Bunny, come on, it was just a little joke. I mean, what else can we do? Is it really…is it really so awful for you to think about?” Bunny sighs, smiles at Jack a little, and flops down on the grass. “It scares me and it makes me do things that don’t make sense,” he says. “Like last night. I brought over the hot chocolate as part of my apology. I’m sorry I wasn’t myself when we were together last night. Remember that time we got together, a few months ago? When we were kind of outside ourselves, Winter and Spring instead of Jack and Bunny. That terrified me. I want to press my nose against your neck and smell your sweat, not—I don’t know—be the feeling of the first crocus of the season pushing through lingering snow, or whatever. So I tried to keep things as physical as possible and I pretty much lost it and was just an animal with you. And I’m sorry about that. I won’t do it again, no matter what else I’m worried about.” Jack takes a sip of his drink and smiles at Bunny from under a chocolate mustache. “You’ll notice I certainly didn’t stay awake to complain after we were done,” he says. “You’re very, very welcome to fuck me like that again—as soon as I finish my drink, if you want. But sure, I would like it if you didn’t try to be just an animal—it’ll probably be better for you and you can pay attention to me calling you Aster.” “Ah, there you go, but really, Jack—it was something I shouldn’t have done. I don’t want it to be meaningless when I’m with you, but that’s what I was trying, because meaning affects more than just our brains and hearts these days. And I’m scared. I worked hard to get used to this body and the powers I have. But then again…” he looks away. “The more I try to hold back any changes, the farther we drift apart. The more you lower yourself to be with me. I don’t like it Jack. I don’t like it at all.” His voice grows quieter. “How could Springtime go on if its Guardian isn’t so earthly anymore?” “You know…I’m scared too,” Jack says. “I don’t know how I’m going to be like the Old Men and still myself, either. But still…I know I’m changing. I know I’m changing a lot. Maybe more than you realize, because I haven’t shown you. It’s easier to hide and control than I thought it would be. The Old Men just don’t care, I guess.” He digs his toes into the grass. “Okay, where I was going with that was that even though I’m changing, there’s something about me that I know has stayed the same. Sometimes…when all I am is a miles-wide laugh and the wind is blowing right through me and I can feel every point of every snowflake forming…I feel like I’m only more of myself. If I…if I’m not making you change, somehow, if the potential is in you already…you’re not going to be destroyed.” He moves as if to reach for Bunny’s hand, then hesitates. “You’re going to be amazing.” “C’mere, Jack,” Bunny says, patting the grass in front of him. “You know, if you want to while I’m still just all right.” Jack gulps his hot chocolate and snuggles close to Bunny. “You want me to tell you you’re amazing now? I can do that. And…uh…so you’re pretty sure I’m not making you change?” “If that was the case, I’m sure it would be easier for me to notice,” Bunny says. He wraps an arm around Jack’s shoulders. “And I know it wasn’t you that kept the grass green last night.” Bunny takes a deep breath. “Guess I was even less wise than I thought. I can’t even pretend to be just an animal anymore. And if I was counteracting what you usually do while trying to make it impossible for myself to realize I was doing something like that…I don’t know. Could’ve caught us both off-guard.” He rests his chin on the top of Jack’s head. “I want to make sure you’re safe, Jack, but what if I’m the one most likely to hurt you? You make me so happy, but I don’t know how to be with all of Joy, all of Winter.” “I guess I can only hope you’ll figure it out,” Jack says, nuzzling against Bunny’s chest. “Do you think maybe for now you’ll be able to accept that my laugh might be more like a late frost sparkling in a spring dawn and that my sweat might taste like snowmelt?” “I suppose so,” Bunny says. “Especially because I can tell already that you don’t mind me making you grow.”

Chapter 11: Hopscotch

They call what they do by the name of a child’s game, because there aren’t any words for it, and they haven’t quite let go of such things yet—Jack, because he loves to talk to more people than just the four or five or six (or maybe more, it’s hard to count them and really he is quite young) that could understand him otherwise, Bunny, because he can’t quite believe he’s following Jack on this path, and even sometimes leading. It’s better for a rabbit to lead games of leaping, isn’t it? There are all the neat numbers to follow, numbers of months and years, numbers that say this planet can bloom with a million million kinds of life, numbers that say yes but for part of the year there will be death, death to set off the life that stays like jewels, like the bright red berries that are part of what remains. These are the numbers that Bunny knew about always, but they are not the only numbers. There are numbers that say, this is the way everything can stay together even when it should be flying apart, this is the way that from a different view everything is flying apart. Bunny thinks those numbers have nothing to do with him, and maybe even not Jack; he won’t throw any stones onto them and he begs Jack not to either, he doesn’t want them to bring it all to an end by accident, especially not while waiting on Tooth and North. And Jack says—well, not exactly says, but he asks Bunny in a language clearer but more incomprehensible than words, how does he think he’s going to mess things up when even the Old Men haven’t managed yet. And Bunny grumbles as a thunderstorm and Jack laughs the rain to lashing. But there are more numbers to play with than this and they, amazingly, compromise more often now that they’ve become. There are the numbers that say six petals instead of five, two eyes instead of three, a beak shaped like this and not that. Numbers that say the treetops here won’t touch, but the treetops there will, that have the vine going one one two three five eight thirteen instead of anything else, that an apple will be sweet or sour, white or yellow or green or red or purple. These are the numbers Bunny will play with, though he never knew them as numbers before; if he can see them differently now, well, everything’s different now so what are a few numbers to everything else? And Jack wants to play, Jack wants to throw stones or whatever they’re really throwing onto these numbers, for them to leap and hop around and leave trails that no one sees but everything feels behind them. Bunny will play this game, yes indeed, it’s nothing but growth and change, and if it’s more than what he ever saw before, well, he’ll face that, he’ll laugh and leap through it before or after Jack, he’ll jump over the stones that aren’t stones and let them grow and change like the seeds they aren’t either, let them say seven petals instead of six. Let all the eggs hatch, let all the seeds sprout. It’s what he’s always loved, and if the way he loves is different now, it’s more a gift of Jack’s than the fault of his, isn’t it? And Jack, Jack, Jack the Drowned Boy, Joyful Jack, winterlaugher, this Jack, his Jack—if he’s playing at death now with the stones and seeds he throws into the numbers, he’s only doing so because he knows Bunny’s beside him, playing at life. No wonder he couldn’t stop asking, before. Much wonder that Bunny was so reluctant to join.

Chapter 12: Feather

North lets his eyes drift closed as Toothiana curls closer to him, carefully tracing her fingers over the tattoos on his arms. It’s a relief to feel the press of those delicate fingertips making their way over familiar paths, to have this quiet, calm moment, to know that they’re creating a peaceful space for each other in the midst of the turmoil of the outside world and the strangeness encroaching in upon them from every side. He feels himself floating off when something about Tooth’s hand on his arm makes his eyes snap open again. It doesn’t feel like just her hand anymore—it feels like feathers, other fingers, and other smaller hands all brushing and stroking the lines of ink. He looks at Tooth’s hand, then at Tooth. Her hand looks the same as it always does, and her expression is calm. “This is how we make love,” she says, raising her eyes to North’s. She continues, her voice dreamy: “Just this way, more than the moments before, as we followed such foolish demands as our bodies made of us.” “Tooth…” North isn’t sure what to say. In some ways she’s right, but he’d hoped… “Are we not our bodies, at least in part?” He gently presses her closer to him for a moment, trying to gain some reassurance from the smooth warmth of her feathers. She is still physical. So gloriously physical. So wonderfully present. He feels her sigh against him. “You are. I’m not.” Understanding what she means, he doesn’t speak, feeling a lump forming in his throat. “I didn’t know how to tell you,” she says, resting her cheek against his chest. “I don’t know when it happened. But it was coming on for a long time, you must realize. The fairies—I’ve always been a network, North. Not as human as you. It’s probably why I didn’t notice the change until they were all there with me, welcoming me.” “How poor I must seem to you now,” North whispers. “Mere flesh daring to touch…” Tooth shakes her head and North feels the no ripple through the room. “Flesh isn’t mere and you’re not mere flesh. I know the second now more than I ever did, and the first—if flesh was worthless, would I remember it in such detail?” “You were starting to forget, as you touched my arm.” “No,” Tooth says, no no North feels in his head. “Your tattoos…they’re part of what makes you more than physical. I wanted to touch. I can’t explain it like this, air and tongue. If you’d let me, I could—” “Please, Tooth. Not now,” North says, knowing he couldn’t do anything to stop her if she wanted to. “All right.” Tooth pulls his arm towards her and lightly kisses the tattoos instead. “But I need you to believe, North. That I still love you. We all do, in all our different ways. They’re sort of jealous of me, actually.” He feels her smile against his skin. “We want you to join us. We know you could. And…it’s wonderful, North. It really is. You won’t lose anything.” North thinks of his Russian accent that never goes away, no matter what language he speaks, the calluses on his hands, the care he must take in trimming his beard, the pain he felt millennia ago as he was tattooed with nothing more than a single needle and ink made from burnt bones. “Yes, I would. I am not nearly ready, Tooth. You saw me, just now—I was surely nothing more than physical, thinking you were too.” They are both silent for a long moment. “You think we can’t be together like this anymore,” Tooth says, finally. “I can’t offer you what you should have. You can only offer me what I won’t take.” She looks up at him once more. “I want to stay here tonight, though.” “It’s arctic winter. Long time to dawn.” “I know.” She licks her lips. “And when I do go, will you let me kiss you as I am now? No pretensions?” North hesitates, then nods. *** In the faint light of the sun’s return to the pole, her kiss is every kiss they’ve ever shared—as she remembers them, as he remembers them. He knows she’s trying to make him ask her to stay, but in the sweetness of the memories he feels also their irrecoverability. They can’t create any new memories like the ones she’s showing him. She overwhelms him all too easily now, and he’ll never overwhelm her again. When she leaves (looking back with her eyes once, and more with her mind), North goes to a small reading room in the workshop. In a drawer in the desk there is a small glass case holding one of Tooth’s shed feathers. He checks the preservation spell and holds the box for a while, sitting in an armchair and staring out at the snow. If he opens the case, the feather will begin to age, and eventually crumble into dust. If he never opens the case, he’ll never touch one of Tooth’s feathers again. The corners of the box leave thin red lines on his palm long after he places it back in the drawer.

Chapter 13: Avalanche, Part 2

He is about to die. After all this time, he is the last. Jack went long ago, of course. Bunny had followed, a few thousand years later. Tooth had gone slowly, fairy by fairy, but now she is gone too. Well, not gone. None of them are gone. They’ve just…changed. North misses them, though, perhaps now they are more themselves than ever. They’re going to make him the same way. He doesn’t think about that. He thinks instead about all the wonders he’s seen of Earth over his decades, and then his centuries, and then his millennia. He thinks that there might well be more wonders to come, but he will not see them. Not as he is. The last of the ships left today, leaving in due time to escape the expansion of the sun. There are many places where it might go, both known and unknown. But North is not in any of those places, and now the globe is dark and he is about to die. Darkness uncoils from the silent corners of the room and flows over to where North is sitting in an easy chair he knows he will not rise from. The others do not follow, and he is surprised, even now. longlong time for you since the avalanche it whispers. “Surely it is long time even for you,” North says, trying not to notice the effort it takes to draw breath. The shadow ripples but doesn’t answer in anything like words. been veryvery patient you’ve been readyready for at least thousand years “No, I haven’t,” North says. “I am not ready now. I am…afraid.” that’s why here why only one “I am afraid I will miss myself.” The shadow doesn’t answer, and North knows that it’s never really understood words like ‘myself’. He can’t expect it to be able to reply. “I am afraid it is not right for me to come with you.” but…of course is right needyouneedyou whitebeard wonder tallwalking in redblue jets new new humansnothumans needyouneedyou too…still want to touch your mind the shadow finishes, almost shyly. North sighs, and blinks slowly. He loves Earth so much, the thought of leaving it to be devoured by the sun cuts him more sharply than any sword of his youth. But then, a thought flickers to life like a candle flame. “I could make it again,” he says, his toymaker’s fingers stirring slightly on the armrests of the chair, and the shadow smiles like scales and a smell almost like apples. yesyes you could “It will be wonderful,” North says, and closes his eyes for the last time. When he sees again the shadow is lightly brushing against his edges, still surprisingly well-defined. And since it has been such a long time since the avalanche, wasNorth decides he and the shadow will not go join the others immediately. For now, they have even more time than before.

Chapter 14: Apotheosis

They are finally all together, all six together, if any of them was the counting type, if anyone was around to count them. But they none of them like numbers very much, they do not need to make things with numbers to go places and understand things. When they want to go, there they are, and when they want to understand–well, they never want understanding. In all, they know that some part of them or one of them, if the two are different at that moment, understands, and if they are not on the foldwave of energy to have that understanding to themselves–why, it cannot matter. It is a game to not understand, it is never a matter of life and death. And so in this moment within the orbit of a single moon reflecting a toolarge sun, only one of them maintains an awareness of number, only one who can think of himself as he and one still, the newest one. But the others are patient. They spread his thoughts like giant soap bubbles or miniature nebulae, showing him how to expand into the space not space he’d never understood before. They soothe him, telling him it is all right that he does not understand yet, that it is not a matter of life and death. They use his own understanding of death to explain this, as it is strongest and most present. It feels like hard earth under a dark sky, and makes him sad and afraid. He fears that some sort of light has gone, he feels that he has died and he feels this is important. It is hard for the others to understand. North they whisper. NorthNorthNorthNorth They curl into his thoughts, finally large enough for them all, they’ve missed him so, oh why did he have to stay as he was for so long, touch us North, learn how to touch us without hands oh yes see you do not need your body. The awe that bubbles up around him tastes like salt and these are still tears, he is starting to understand but oh how can he not ache for that world of hard earth, that world with the sun too large now and no more children? Where will there be trees and lights and snow now? Where will anyone feel the rushing warmth inside of bitter cold and waiting hoping happy safe clearstars whitemagic mint and pine and fire on the darkest night anymore? Who is he to give to? What is he to make? And the others stop, long enough for the moon to change its face, but none of them note this. They pass thoughts between them like keys and marbles and origami birds and butterscotch candies and dead leaves until they piece them together into an understanding, and understanding that must come in pieces from all of them because they have been so long away. This understanding is not easy, but it does not fail. And so they know. This is important. The making and the giving. This is not a matter of life and death because such things are not for them anymore, but if they had to use such simple words, it would be a matter equal to this. They condense. They condense and the newest one can feel the brush of feathers, feathers like the edges of a galaxy, feathers like the one he kept in a glass casket for thousands of years to prove that not all feathers were like the edges of a galaxy. He feels a curl of warm fur and his heart lightens, that is how it has always been, his heart leaps to feel this margin between them, that they might oppose each other as equals again, and hope laughs or he laughs with hope. He feels a cool breeze join in that laughter, smoothsharpness of timeless youth, trustme trustme, asks the joy and he does, he does. For the drowned boy loved the world, too, otherwise they could not have stayed a boy as long as they had. And then, ah, then. Bright one and dark one, shifting like sand, always and forever, lovehateoneness, kissing over the knife-edge between inspiration and insanity. The dark one takes his fear and perhaps eats it, perhaps twists it up and wears it as a wedding ring somehow, the dark one would do that, North knows, he’s been terrifyingly loved and favored for a long long time. The bright one nuzzles against him and greets him with a kiss of mulled wine, a kiss that goes straight to his head, a kiss that goes straight through his head and dizzies him with laughter as it fades, as he tries to address them as he always has, The Old Men. The bright one tugs on the long white beard he hasn’t given up yet in his thoughts and they all laugh like a calm and sunlit ocean. What now, he asks. Be ours, says the Lady of Memory. And after that? You always had to be busy, one says, or they all say. His blush tickles them and he does not deny. It is rightnotstrange, the bright one says. Not just us forever, that is sogoodsogoodtoogoodterrible. They fall into a fractal pattern with the dark one, who is forced to agree through a simple sunset wave of embarrassed love. What are we to do, then? North asks again. You know, mostly the bright one says. He blushes again. It is too much, this thought, there is too much pride in it, but he wants to give, and he wants to make, and he misses the world when the sun was smaller and he could, hecouldtheycouldwecould The Lady of Memory knows his thoughts as soon as they pass and places a familiar hand on the arm he thinks he has. I remember everything, every detail, they say. I have the plans. You can fashion. The Drowned Boy’s whoop sets off a supernova ten thousand years early and the bright one and dark one separate enough to smile, to say, this way, and then they are no longer within the orbit of that first moon. The planet below them is only formless rock, but the sun shines on it a proper size and heat. Hope stands at North’s side and you know how to start? North points to the sun and stars and says, we are one day ahead already, we have time to plan, it must be perfect, it must be good. Absolutely not, the dark one says, the objection smelling like rotting fruit. And the bright one holds them closer and whispers like an orchard full of blossoms you always say that.

Epilogue: His Time

My time again! A soundless shout echoed through the world in cold breezes and startled leaves into giving up all their green. The leaves fell and dried and curled and when the people stepped on them their crunching reminded them of laughter. My time, my time, my time! Delicate panes of crystal clear ice swept across puddles and rain barrels and animal troughs and ponds, and every day the sunlight let it glitter longer before melting it for the next night’s work. Filigrees of frost grew on glass and metal and stone and leaves, and shadows lovingly sheltered them all day. Year turn to me, year turn to me! And it was all just as it had been since the beginning, and the people all knew it deep in their bones and felt a comfort in the chill, bringing out their knitted clothes and quilts with smiles, touching the stitches and the patches and remembering the love of making and the happy use of such things. Join me, join me, joy and me, joy and me! And all the work that started in spring came to fruition, the harvest heavy and hearty, the love letters of buds and blossoms and sprouts now answered in swelling fruits of every shade. My time and your time, my time and your time! And before the ice or frost could last all day, before the heavy snows of midwinter, the storms came, the awesome, wondrous storms with thunder like friendly sparring between giants, with lightning zipping and arcing through it all as if it had been waiting for such a chance to play all year. Tell all, tell all, it’s my time, my time! “Yes, it’s his time now,” the people said. “Whose time?” asked the children. And the people did not know, not in the way they knew how to build a house or bake a loaf of bread, but they knew by stories, by all the old and growing stories, by all the shoots of stories nurtured everywhere, in all lands. And they said, in many ways, “Jack Frost.” * The Drowned Boy was the wind and then he was in the wind. With a great whoop he first used his newly-formed lungs, and laughed and laughed and laughed as he spun in the wind to see once again his simple clothes and simple skin, still the same after uncountable ages, after journeys across unfathomable gulfs, after an end and a beginning. He laughed with all the joy that he ever was and would be ever, and called out to the others to join him as the wind carried him swiftly to the Autumn House. The Autumn House stood alone in the woods, a tall and sturdy eye in a brilliant hurricane of fall colors. As the Drowned Boy approached, he saw smoke already rising from the chimney and drew a loop in the air in happiness. That sign could only mean the Craftsman was already there, the Craftsman who had held onto his body until the very end and slipped back into it so easily. He would no doubt be going through the house now, doing the dear, unnecessary work of preparing it for the Drowned Boy and the others, as if he couldn’t say that the linens would be fresh and the rooms warm and aired and they would be. Ah, but he would leave all that aside once the Drowned Boy arrived! And wasn’t he taking just as many unnecessary actions, flying through the air to the house even though he was impatient to see the others as they were at the Autumn House? The cold wind slipped by him and he grinned, thinking of the Craftsman’s tall, strong, broad frame. Oh, the Drowned Boy may have lost his body long, long ago, but it was so, so good to put it back on, to have the chance to embrace the others with a form fragile and limited and bounded, yes, but also warm and solid and so easily, so happily overwhelmed. The Drowned Boy landed lightly before the House, his house, its form a memory of another world, another time. He climbed the front steps and walked onto the broad, wraparound porch. He smiled and paused before the door with its oak-leaf patterned window, savoring the last few moments of anticipation before he took on his second-oldest name, before he called for the Craftsman with the first name he had known him by. He stood there just long enough for three more leaves to fall, then knocked on the door and opened it. “North! I’m here!” * They had hardly broken their first embrace when the Storyteller and the Protector knocked and entered, crossing the threshold as Katherine and Nightlight, hand-in-hand. The Memory Keeper and Hope-of-Spring arrived soon after, and everyone exclaimed in joy to have the chance to touch Tooth’s feathers and Bunny’s fur again. “The season looks beautiful this year,” Tooth said, before leaning forward and giving Jack a lingering kiss. “The harvest is good, too,” Bunny said, as he nuzzled Jack’s neck. “Almost seems like we’re getting along, doesn’t it?” Jack laughed breathlessly, and Tooth went to kiss Katherine. “It always seems that way until we meet on the Spring Fields,” Jack said. Nightlight stepped close, kissed Jack’s cheek, and winked at him and Bunny. “Somehow you always seem to work things out there, too.” “True enough,” Bunny said, slipping his hands under Jack’s shirt and making him squirm. “Ah, before we get carried away,” North said, breaking his kiss with Tooth but still holding her, and Katherine, close, “we know we are still waiting for Pitch and Sandy, and there is a feast for us—” * The Shining One and the Dark One knocked on the door just in time for apple pie and ice cream. arethearethe bodies rightgoodreadyuseful? they asked, and then, slowly, “Are the bodies right?” “They look like they are so far,” Jack said, and embraced Sandy’s short, round form and Pitch’s tall, skeletal one. They gave him sweet, sticky kisses and Jack laughed and held them closer. “Thank you for doing this,” he whispered to ears that still didn’t have ear holes. He knew they’d be able to hear him, anyway. “Love you,” said Pitch, signed Sandy. As if that was all there was to say, all that was needed to get beings that had long forgotten their original physical forms, if they had even had them, to take on familiar humanlike shapes just to indulge Jack. As if those words made it any less astonishing that the beings that had forced Jack to realize his body was gone, told him it was unnecessary, now understood how much corporeality meant to Jack and worked so hard and so long to make good, working bodies when Jack called. Jack felt his eyes well with happiness, not for the first time and not for the last. “We all do,” said Katharine, leaving her seat to join Jack, Sandy, and Pitch’s hug. “Happy Autumn, Jack.” “We’re always so glad to hear your call,” Tooth said. “To know that we’re going to feel time passing with you, to share a table with you, to be near and together with you and everyone, even if we’re in forms that could so easily feel lonely.” “Wouldn’t bear it without you,” Pitch said, and Sandy kissed him, then Jack again. Jack laughed softly, and looked around at everyone else. “Happy Autumn to all of you, too, then,” he said. He grinned wider and gave Pitch and Sandy an extra squeeze. “Now, let’s go upstairs and see what else makes physical bodies worth it.”

#apotheosis AU #rise of the guardians #rotg #ot+ shenanigans #ot+#sanderson mansnoozie #Pitch Black #Jack Frost #nicholas st. north #bunnymund #toothiana #if you like it consider reblogging #I live and breathe for comments #long post #very long post

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