˚₊‧꒰ა 𝔧𝔲𝔭𝔦𝔱𝔢𝔯 ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

multifandom (hsr, gi, elden ring, vhd, castlevania) i write because its fun not because im good at it fyi i LOVE vampires ´ཀ`

[jup1ter33]

𝕸𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙 ࣪˖ ִֶ♱ ྀིྀ

⊱༺༒︎༻⊰ _________________________________________________________ hiii ! i write for multiple fandoms, so i figured having a masterlist to organize (hopefully) a list of all my works would be nice ! i hope you enjoy ! requests/asks are open... dont be shy...

HSR Honkai Star Rail

╰┈➤ Boothill x Argenti

ཐི ྐ❤︎ ཋྀ Pillow Talk

╰┈➤ Boothill

ཐི ྐ❤︎ ཋྀ I love ya' lots

ཐི ྐ❤︎ ཋྀ Chargin' Port

ཐི ྐ❤︎ ཋྀ Boothill Headcannons

Genshin Impact

╰┈➤ Kyryll Chudomirovich Flins

ཐི ྐ❤︎ ཋྀ Amatory

ཐི ྐ❤︎ ཋྀ The Azure Flame

ཐི ྐ❤︎ ཋྀ The Azure Flame Pt. 2

ཐི ྐ❤︎ ཋྀ Of Fang and Fae

╰┈➤ Malipo Kinich

ཐི ྐ❤︎ ཋྀ The Almighty Dragonlord K'uhul Ajaw!

VHD Bloodlust

╰┈➤ D

ཐི ྐ❤︎ ཋྀ Silence

´ཀ` to be continued...

[romopiod]

NO NEED FOR PRETENSE

SYNOPSIS. You have made it your personal mission to crack Flins' impossible composure. Unfortunately, the first person to break is you.

WORD COUNT. 3.2k

NOTES. All fluff!! No pronouns used for the reader. Please help, I'm head over heels in love with Flins...

Flins was a man of composure. Everything about him suggested careful cultivation—the way he carried himself, the measured cadence of his voice, the deliberate grace of his movements. He was the type to unintentionally fluster any who interacted with him. 

You found it amusing.

More than amusing, if you were being honest. There was something deeply satisfying about watching someone so perfectly put together navigate everyday interactions. You found Flins to be an enigmatic creature, and something inside you just burned to get a rise out of him. Sure, maybe it was simply the thrill of the mischief, but you wanted to test him, push him a little, see how he would react to some casual flirting. 

And if you were particularly enjoying the challenge of trying to get a reaction out of him, well. That was harmless, wasn't it? Just a little teasing. Just a bit of flirtation to see how exactly this man—the one who managed to charm literally everyone around him with effortless grace—would handle being on the receiving end for once.

The fact that you were attracted to him was beside the point. 

It didn't matter that whenever you caught even a glimpse of his purplish-blue hair, your heart did something stupid. It meant nothing when he leaned down to hear you better, his voice dropping into that velvety register that made you feel like some fundamental part of you had just ceased existing. None of it mattered. Certainly not.

And hey, if nothing at all, what harm could some light flirting cause?

Your first opportunity for mischief, you were sitting together near the lighthouse. The evening light cast everything in soft amber. Conversation had drifted from topic to topic; nothing particularly important, just the easy back-and-forth of people comfortable in each other's presence. You'd been leaning against his side, playing with the cuff of his sleeve. He'd let you, the way he always did.

At some point, you'd mentioned something about having to leave soon. Return to your duties. The usual obligations that kept pulling you away.

"I'll be gone for a few days," you'd said.

Flins had simply nodded, listening.

And that's when the impulse struck.

"I bet you'll miss me," you said, your tone light but deliberately aimed. You tilted your head to look at him, watching for a reaction.

He turned to face you. His shoulder brushed against yours when he did, and you caught the faint scent of something cool and unfamiliar. Flins’ smile seemed to stretch just a little, his eyes narrowing. He reminded you of the Fae. 

"Of course," he said.

You'd expected a deflection. A joke. Instead, he'd just said it, and the weight of his attention suggested he meant it. That he understood exactly what you were doing and was letting you do it anyway.

So you pushed.

"Like, really miss me," you continued, letting your fingers trail down his sleeve. "You'll probably think about me the whole time I'm gone."

He watched you for a moment. "Likely."

"I'll be devastated without you," you added, testing how far you could take this.

"Will you?" he asked softly. And his gaze was fixed squarely upon yours. You seemed to pick up on the slightest lilt of teasing towards the end of that question. But still, the manner in which he faced you—the utter unabashed composure—seemed genuine. 

“That's interesting," he continued. 

Your heart was doing something ridiculous. "What's interesting about that?"

"That you're telling me you'll be devastated rather than simply asking," he said. There was no mockery in it. His tone was almost contemplative, like he was turning over a puzzle piece in his mind. "Though I suppose indirect approaches are more entertaining."

Heat crept up your neck. He'd just called you out. Gently, without any edge to it, but he'd absolutely just pointed out exactly what you were doing.

"I'm not being indirect," you said, but your voice had gone softer.

"No?" He tilted his head slightly, and in the amber light, you noticed the precise line of his jaw, the way his hair caught the glow. When he looked at you like that, with complete attention, it made you feel like you were the only thing worth looking at. "That is up for debate, then, I suppose.”

Well. There would be other opportunities. Plenty of them, actually. This whole one-sided “game” had yet commenced, and you were only just beginning. It didn't matter that you were getting quite the pleasant rise from being able to flirt so brazenly with a man you'd been quietly obsessed with for the past couple of months. It was harmless. Just teasing. 

Over the next few days, you made it your mission.

Make him crack. That was the goal now. Get something—a blush, a stumble, a clever comeback. Anything that suggested the composed exterior had a weakness.

You started with compliments, delivered casually while you were walking through the cemetery together. "You have nice hands, you know," you said, watching as he adjusted something on one of the graves. He simply thanked you, like you'd complimented the weather.

Then came the flirtation. You'd lean closer than necessary when you were standing beside him. Play with his sleeve. Find excuses to touch his arm. Every gesture was wrapped in humor, safely deniable if he called you out on it. And every single time, he met it with the same patient calm.

A brow raised here. A small smile there. An acknowledgment that he noticed what you were doing—because he absolutely did—but no matching energy. He didn’t stumble over his words, his pale skin didn’t darkened with the hue of red blush, and he most certainly did not tease you back. Intentionally, that is. Flins’ very existence seemed to upset your carefully curated balance. 

On the third day, you tried jokes. Teasing comments about how he was probably the type to be good at everything. How his composure must be exhausting to maintain. How it was unfair that he managed to make even mundane tasks look graceful.

He listened to all of it with that infuriatingly gentle expression, like you were providing him with observations rather than attempting to dismantle him.

The frustrating part was that he clearly knew. There was awareness in the tilt of his head, in the way his eyes tracked your movements. He understood exactly what you were attempting. He just wasn't playing along. And that made it worse. Better. You weren't entirely sure which.

By the fourth day, you were running out of ammunition.

The previous few days had been a study in futility. You'd tried everything you could think of. Compliments delivered with a knowing smile. Flirtation wrapped in humor. Little jokes designed to catch him off guard. Nothing had worked. He'd simply absorbed each attempt with that same unflappable grace, and somewhere along the way, it had stopped feeling like a game you were winning and started feeling like a game only you were playing.

The worst part was that he clearly knew what you were doing. You could see it in the way his eyes tracked your movements, in the slight tilt of his head when you said something particularly bold. He understood exactly what you were attempting. He just wasn't giving you the reaction you wanted. No flustering. No stumbling. No moment where his composure cracked and revealed something underneath. 

In fact, your attempts had been so famously (infamously) fruitless that even Illuga had made it a point of note. "You know, perhaps Mr. Flins simply enjoys the attention," he'd said when he'd caught you trying to get a rise out of Flins during a supply run. "Some people are harder to rattle than others."

You had huffed then, indignantly, “Sure, but it’s absurd how he treats every comment I make as though it is the most obvious thing in the world!”

Illuga smiled then. Conflict avoidant as always, and a tad bit skeptical of Flins, he kept his opinions to himself. But you could have easily guessed what he was going to say: this is pointless. Shouldn’t you be focusing on your patrols?

It was starting to make you wonder if there was anything underneath at all, or if he was simply always like this. Infuriatingly calm.

But then, there was Nefer. You didn’t even know why you bothered to hide anything from her at all. She always found out about your little schemes; even the tiny, playful ones. 

“Persistent, aren’t you?” She commented. “Are you quite sure your crush on Flins hasn’t driven you up a wall?”

“I do not—” You began, but then stopped abruptly as you came to the (very obvious) realisation that your face went hot the moment his name and “crush” were in the same sentence. “—fine whatever. Still! It’s so… strange, how he never reacts.”

“Aw, poor you,” Nefer purred. You shot her a look.

She tilted her head, considering you. "Actions speak louder than words sometimes, you know. Especially with someone like him." She paused, adjusting the items in her arms. “Besides… the Fae are rather adept at words, so…”

You spent the last day turning both conversations over in your mind. 

Towards the end of a particularly gruelling patrol is when your next, hopefully successful opportunity for teasing presented itself. You were sitting on a bench near the lighthouse, close enough that your shoulders were almost touching. The afternoon was quiet. The snow twirled in the sky, a transient, glacial staircase coiling into the wind. Nod-Krai’s frost always seemed to have a mind of its own. Conversation flowed the same way the snow did. Gently, with easy flow and expected lulls. Sort of the perfect moment for a detour, really. 

"You know," you said, your tone deliberately playful, "if you asked nicely, I'd hold your hand."

You were grinning. Already prepared for the laugh, the deflection, the way he'd turn it into something clever. You had your exit strategy ready. In all honesty, you expected Flins to look at you kindly. Make a small comment about “how that would be ideal, considering the cold” but then simply pocket his hands into his jacket. Or something that would reduce the simmer of the conversation into a still pool, like every other time.

Instead, Flins simply glanced down at his own hand. Then, without a word, he turned his palm upward and offered it to you.

Waiting.

Your grin froze.

"...What are you doing?" you managed.

"Asking nicely," he said, smiling at you, elfishly.

Oh. Oh no.

You stared at his hand like it had personally betrayed you. Because this wasn't supposed to happen. He was supposed to laugh it off. Instead, he'd somehow turned your own joke into something sincere, and now you were sitting there unable to do anything but take his hand because the alternative was admitting that you completely miscalculated this entire interaction.

So you did. 

Your fingers found his, and his grip was warm and certain. His thumb brushed gently across your knuckles in a gesture that felt far too intentional for someone who was supposed to be unaffected.

You spent the next twenty minutes very carefully not combusting, acutely aware of every point of contact, every small movement of his hand against yours, every time his thumb made that gentle pass across your skin.

This was fine. Completely fine. You'd simply bitten off more than you could chew, that was all.

You thought you were recovering. You were not recovering.

The problem was that you'd learned absolutely nothing from the hand-holding incident. If anything, it had made you more confident. More reckless. You'd convinced yourself that you could still win this game, that one successful moment of sincerity didn't change the overall trajectory of your campaign to crack his composure.

So when you'd finally extracted your hand from his (after what felt like an eternity of trying to act unaffected), you pushed just a bit more. Surely, it could not get worse from now, could it?

"You know..." you started, already smirking.

"Hm?" He turned to look at you, waiting.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd think you actually liked me."

You grinned. You were expecting a smile. A laugh. Maybe something playful that would let you both pretend this had all been harmless banter.

Instead, Flins went quiet. An awful kind of silence. The kind of silence that realistically only lasts a couple of seconds, a minute at max, but in your head rang for an hour. It seemed to consume you, settle the snow around you. What was most awful though was the fact that Flins was actually considering it. You could see the cogs turning in his head. The way he was turning over your comment, looking at every square inch of it.

Then he turned fully toward you, giving you his complete attention in a way that somehow felt worse than any response could have been.

"You needn't be so indirect," he said.

Your heart stopped. Actually stopped. "...What?"

"If you're asking whether I have feelings for you, you may simply ask."

If you thought the previous silence was bad, this was worse. Your brain had essentially ceased functioning. Flins simply waited, patient and composed, like this was a perfectly reasonable conversation to be having.

Then he tilted his head slightly. "Go on," he said, and his voice was gentle. Encouraging, even.

You'd walked directly into this. Deliberately constructed your own trap and then stepped into it with both feet while grinning the entire time.

The frustrating thing was that Flins didn't seem remotely aware that he was holding your entire nervous system hostage. Or perhaps he was aware. That possibility was somehow worse. While your thoughts scattered in every conceivable direction, he remained exactly as he'd always been—patient, attentive, and entirely willing to wait for an answer. There was no pressure in his expression, no trace of triumph at having finally cornered you. If anything, he looked faintly curious, as though he'd simply presented you with an obvious solution and couldn't quite understand why you were struggling to take it.

You swallowed. And then: "Do you?"

The question came out embarrassingly quiet.

For a moment, he simply looked at you. Then something softened in his expression, subtle enough that you almost missed it. "I've been quite fond of you for some time."

The words settled between you with alarming ease. That was it. He spoke as though he were commenting on the weather, or confirming some small detail you'd already known. As though admitting he liked you was not, in fact, causing every coherent thought in your head to immediately abandon ship.

You stared at him. Flins stared back. The snow continued drifting lazily through the air. Somewhere in the distance, waves crashed against the shoreline.

"You can't just say that,” you said, heat flooding your cheeks.

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "You asked."

"That doesn't mean you were supposed to answer so easily."

"I wasn't aware there was a correct amount of difficulty involved."

The laugh that escaped you sounded slightly hysterical. Of course that was his response. Of course.

The realization struck all at once then, arriving with the force of a physical blow. Every conversation from the past week rearranged itself inside your mind. Every compliment. Every flirtatious remark. Every ridiculous thing you'd said in the hope of getting a reaction. Not once had he denied any of it. Not once had he brushed you off. The problem was that you'd spent so long trying to make him flustered that you'd never stopped to consider the possibility that he simply wasn't interested in pretending otherwise.

"Oh my god."

His smile widened.

"Oh my god."

"You seem distressed."

"You like me."

"I do."

The immediate confirmation nearly killed you.

Your hands flew to your face. Some distant part of your brain registered that you were behaving like a complete fool. Unfortunately, that same distant part of your brain had become vastly outnumbered by the much louder part that was currently screaming.

When you finally lowered your hands, Flins was still watching you with that infuriating calm.

Suspicion immediately took root. Narrowing your eyes, you pointed accusingly at him. "What if you're teasing me?"

That earned a quiet laugh. "And what would lead you to that conclusion?"

"Because this feels suspiciously convenient."

"I see."

"You've spent days letting me embarrass myself."

"I never asked you to."

"That is not a denial."

The amusement in his eyes deepened. For a moment he simply regarded you, and then, to your immense frustration, his gaze dropped briefly to your mouth before returning to your eyes.

"Would this convince you?"

You opened your mouth, fully intending to answer. To say something clever, preferably. Something capable of restoring at least a fraction of the dignity you'd lost over the past ten minutes.

Unfortunately, you never got the chance.

Flins leaned in and kissed you.

His lips were warm against yours, soft in a way that felt unfair after all the time you'd spent trying not to think about them. For one dizzying moment, all you could focus on was the sensation of him—the brush of his mouth against yours, the faint pressure of his thumb where it rested against your knuckles, the cool air gathering at your cheeks while everything else felt impossibly warm. It wasn't a long kiss. It wasn't demanding. If anything, it felt terribly, devastatingly fond. Like a question he'd already known the answer to. 

And the worst part—the absolute worst part—was that you could feel him smiling. The faint curve of his lips brushing yours, as though he found your complete inability to function endearing. By the time he pulled away, your heart had lodged itself somewhere in your throat, and you were left staring at him with the distinct sensation that something irreversible had just occurred.

You stared at him, owlishly.

And, for the first time in days, you caught something in his expression that hadn't been there before. Or perhaps it had always been there, hidden beneath the effortless composure you'd spent so much time trying to unravel. The fondness in his gaze was almost unbearably soft now, no longer filtered through amusement or polite patience. It was simply there, warm and open and directed entirely at you.

And then there was the faint dusting of pink at the tips of his ears.

You blinked.

Flins, apparently realizing exactly what had captured your attention, looked away for the briefest of moments.

But you saw it.

After days of teasing him, days of trying to make him crack, days of wondering whether anything could possibly ruffle that impossible composure, there it was. Not embarrassment, exactly. The discovery hit you harder than the kiss had.

"Oh my god," you whispered, for the third time that day.

His gaze flicked back to yours. The corners of his mouth curved upward.

"What?"

You pointed at him immediately. "You are blushing!"

"Am I?"

The smile threatening at his lips made the response entirely unconvincing.

"You are."

"A little, perhaps."

It occurred to you then that perhaps Flins had been right all along. You needn't have been so indirect. The realization should have been embarrassing. Instead, it only made you smile.

thank you for reading :)) check out my other fics if you'd like !!

dividers by: @cafekitsune

[romopiod]

♥ 𝓕𝓐𝓔 𝓐𝓛𝓦𝓐𝓨𝓢 𝓕𝓘𝓛𝓛 𝓣𝓗𝓔𝓘𝓡 𝓓𝓔𝓑𝓣𝓢

𝓢𝓨𝓝𝓞𝓟𝓢𝓘𝓢:

You are walking home through a snowstorm when you find a dying flame trapped in an iron lantern, and against every warning your grandmother ever gave you about the Fae, you breathe it back to life. It vanishes. So, it seems, does the ordinary shape of your life.  Now the wind goes soft when you're cold. The wood never runs low. Someone is watching from the treeline, and it keeps showing up right when you need saving most. You're starting to think all he's ever wanted is you. And what you offer him in return is the one thing you have always had plenty of: yourself.

Featuring. Kyryll Chudomirovich Flins Word Count. 20k (please, I promise it's worth it) Trigger Warning(s). SMUT (18+) ♦ fucking in the woods ♦ slightly horror-adjacent? but extremely tame, dw Notes. I have tried to incorporate accurate Russian culture into this work, but keep in mind that I'm not Russian, so beware of any inaccuracies, esp in terminology! Feminine terms/pronouns used for reader throughout the work.

By the time you were ten, you had buried your mother in the ground so hard the priest cracked two shovels trying to dig her a grave deep enough for God to find her.

You remember thinking, even then, that this was the trouble with Nod-Krai. The dead were always closer to the surface than they ought to be. Frost kept them honest. It pushed coffins up through the soil come the spring thaw, the way a sin pushes its way up through a confession, and the men would go out with their hooks and their crosses and put the bodies back where they belonged, muttering prayers with the particular tiredness of men who did not quite believe them anymore.

You think of this now, several winters later, because you are walking through a storm that wants very badly to make you one of the dead it puts back.

The wind does not blow so much as it arrives, all at once, from every direction, as if the forest itself has exhaled. It finds the seam where your shawl meets your collar and works its fingers in. Snow has filled the road past your knees, and the birches on either side have become something else entirely in this light, white bones standing sentry, their black eyes watching you pass with the patient indifference your Babulya always warned you trees like that could feel. They remember who walks past them in the dark, she used to say, crossing herself, then crossing you, two fingers pressed hard to your collarbone like she could pin the blessing into your skin so it would not slip off. And they tell.

You are walking to her now. Babulya Marfa, who has not left her izba on the far side of the wood in nine years, who sends word twice a season to whoever is fool enough to make the crossing. Who is, as of three days ago, very possibly dying. Your uncle wrote it in a hand so unsteady you had to read the letter twice to be certain the words were asking for you and not something crueler. You left before the ink on your reply had dried. You did not think, until you were already an hour into the trees, to ask why a storm like this had chosen tonight, of all nights, to come down off the mountains and bury the only road that led to her door.

Your father would call this foolishness. He would say a woman with sense waits out the weather in town, drinks her tea, says her prayers to the Tsaritsa by the stove, where the only thing she has to fear is whether the samovar needs more coals. But your father is three days behind you, and you are not, despite what people say about you, entirely without sense. You are simply the kind of fool who has always believed that love is owed in person, paid in full, while there is still time to pay it.

So you walk. Your valenki are soaked through to felt that no longer remembers what dry feels like. The lantern you carried from town gave up its flame an hour ago, smothered by wind that seemed almost deliberate in the way it found the glass, and you have not had the courage to stop and relight it, certain that if you stood still even a moment, the cold would decide you had made its decision easier and simply keep you.

.

It is in this dark, this particular shade of black that swallows the difference between shut eyes and open ones, that you see it.

A flame. 

Blue, and so small you mistake it at first for the storm playing tricks on your sight.. It hangs low among the birches, perhaps thirty paces off the road, no taller than a candle's flame and twice as faint, guttering as though some unseen hand keeps pinching it nearly to death and then, at the last possible moment, relenting.

Your whole body goes still with the particular stillness of a hare that has just understood the shape in the grass is not grass.

Bolotnik fires, Babulya's voice says, clear as if she stood beside you, clearer than she has sounded in any letter these nine years. You were seven the first time she told you, the two of you wrapped under the same wool blanket while the stove ticked and settled, her hands smelling of tallow and dried dill as she traced the story into your palm like she was teaching you to read by touch alone. 

The wisps. The Fae's own lanterns, lit from a coal they stole out of the first fire that ever burned, before God made the sun to make fires honest. They do not burn for warmth, devushka. They burn for hunger. You see one in the marsh, in the wood, anywhere the dark pools like water, and you do not go to it. You let it call you sweetheart in your mother's voice if it likes. You let it weep. You keep walking, and you do not look back, because the moment you go to comfort it, it has already won.

You know this. You have known it since before you knew the shape of your own name in your own handwriting.

And still, fool you are, your feet have already turned off the road.

You tell yourself it is only that the flame is so weak, so clearly wretched in the way it strains and dims and strains again like something genuinely about to gutter out, that some animal part of you, the same part that once spent a whole spring nursing a crow with a broken wing back into the sky, simply cannot leave it to die. You tell yourself a great many things, in fact, in the time it takes you to cross those thirty paces, snow past your knees, breath turned to frost-lace at your lips, and every one of those things is a lie you are telling so that the truer, stupider reason, it looked so alone out there, the way you feel most nights, and you have never once in your life been able to leave a lonely thing alone, does not have to be looked at directly.

You should know better. Babulya spent half your childhood making certain that you did.

But you have never been able to walk past a thing that is suffering, not a crow, not a dog, not the old beggar woman outside the church whom the other girls crossed the street to avoid, and some buried, stubborn part of you has already decided, before your mind has caught up to agree, that whatever this flame is, it is hurting, and that this, more than any warning whispered over a childhood blanket, is the only fact that matters.

The snow grows strange beneath your feet as you near it, packed too smooth, untouched by wind in a perfect ring no wider than a grave, and the flame does not flicker the way fire flickers when it is fed by wind. It flickers the way breath does when it is being held back on purpose.

You stop within arm's reach and understand, all at once, two things.

The first is that there is no marsh-light hovering free in the air the way Babulya's stories always told it. It is caught, contained, burning low and blue and dying inside the soot-fogged glass of a small iron lantern, the kind a traveler might once have carried. Its handle hangs from nothing, from no hand, from no branch, suspended at the exact height a person would hold it if a person were standing there. It turns, very slightly, on its nothing-chain, as if it has only just noticed you, too.

The second is that you have already reached out your hand.

You have seen weirder things than a dying lantern with no one to hold it. You were twelve the night the Wild Hunt cornered you to a cliff, and whatever you carry from that night you have never spoken of to anyone, not even Babulya, who you suspect already knows because she never once asked. Set against that, a flame guttering in its little iron cage seems almost a kindness of a haunting, the sort a girl could reasonably survive.

Still, fear comes, and it settles less on the lantern itself than on the air pressing close around it, the way the cold here seems to bend slightly inward, the way the silence holds itself with a kind of attention. A shiver moves through you that has nothing to do with the wind. You know its name. You have felt it before, kneeling too close to the iconostasis with its rows of painted eyes, in the breath before a held secret decides whether it wants to stay held. It is the body's oldest language for something here is watching you back.

You ought to turn around now. Babulya told you this part too, the part that comes after the warning has already failed, where you are meant to drop your hand, walk back to the road, and let the wind keep whatever pity you were about to spend on a thing built to spend you in return.

But the flame dips low again, nearly to nothing, a wick about to surrender its last claim on burning, and something in your chest answers it before your senses can intervene. You think of the crow. You think, absurdly, that nothing this weak could possibly still be dangerous, the same lie every soft-hearted fool has told herself walking up to every wounded thing that ever bit her for the trouble.

You pull it from the air. It is lighter than it has any right to be, the iron cold enough to ache through your mitten, and you tuck it inside your coat against your ribs the way you'd carry a half-frozen kitten, your other hand coming up to shield the little glass door from the worst of the wind.

The clasp is iron too, plain and old, sized for fingers larger than your own, and it takes three tries with numb hands before it finally gives. The moment the door swings open, the flame leaps, rising thin and furious, bending away from your fingers like something startled out of sleep that wants nothing to do with being seen this close, this raw. You nearly snap the door shut again on instinct, certain you have woken something better left to die in peace.

But it does not strike you. It cannot, you understand a breath later. It has not the strength left to do anything but flinch, and the flinch costs it; it dips lower than before, and something in your own chest twists with a tenderness that makes no earthly sense, pointed as it is at a marsh-light, a Fae's stolen coal, a thing your own grandmother spent half your childhood teaching you to fear.

You cup your hands around it anyway. You bring your face close, the way you would to coax a coal back to life in a dying stove, and you breathe.

Not hard. Not the way you'd feed a fire that wanted feeding. Soft, the way you'd breathe warm air over fingers gone white, willing the blood back into them before it could be lost for good. The wind itself seems, for one strange suspended moment, to hold off from you, as though even it is waiting to see what you'll do.

The flame catches your breath the way a starving thing catches the smell of bread.

It does not simply grow. It answers. The blue of it deepens to something nearer violet at the root, then climbs to gold at the crown, and the little glass casing fills with light so sudden and so warm against your numbed face that you gasp and nearly drop the whole lantern into the snow. Heat rolls off it, real heat, more than a flame that size has any business giving off, and for one heartbeat you feel something unmistakably like relief, though whether it belongs to you or to the flame you could not say.

Then the air around the lantern draws tight, the way air draws tight before lightning finds its mark, and a crackle of something that is neither quite fire nor quite frost races up the iron in a bright thread, snapping hard against your fingertips. You cry out and let go.

The lantern does not fall.

It is simply gone. No smoke trails where it hung, no sound marks where it might have struck the snow, only the smell of scorched air left behind and the ghost-shape of the flame still printed on the inside of your eyes, the way a candle leaves its light behind even after you've shut them.

You stand there with your scorched hand cradled to your chest, the wind rushing back into the silence all at once as though it, too, had been holding its breath, and for a long moment your mind refuses to agree with what your eyes have just told it.

It is only when you finally look down, half expecting to find iron and broken glass scattered somewhere in the drifts, that you see them.

Two prints, pressed deep into the snow before you, where a moment ago there had been no prints, no one standing at all. Not a hare's tracks. Not a wolf's. Boot prints, large, larger than any foot you have ever stood across from, sunk into the snow with the full weight of someone who had been standing there, close enough to have reached out and touched you himself, for who knows how long before you ever noticed him at all.

The wind is already filling them in, patient, the way it fills in everything in Nod-Krai eventually. By the time you find the nerve to step back toward the road, there is almost nothing left to prove they were ever there.

Almost.

. . .

The izba is a smear of gold across a field gone the colour of spilled milk, and the sight of its one lit window does something to your knees that the whole night of walking had not managed. Smoke threads up from the chimney in a thin grey rope, bent sideways by the wind, and the gate hangs in its drift with a crust of ice fused so thick along the latch that you have to work your fingers under it to lift the bar at all, your scorched hand screaming where the cold metal finds the rawest part of it.

You do not let yourself think about why that part is raw. Not yet. There will be time for that later, in the dark, when no one is asking you to be brave in front of them.

Babulya does not wait for the knock. The door opens before your knuckles ever reach it, spilling stove-light and the smell of tallow candles and dried dill out into the storm, and there she is, smaller than you remembered, wrapped in three shawls against a cold that lives in her bones now more than it ever lived in the air, one hand braced on the frame as though the doorway itself might decide to abandon her if she let go.

"Devochka moya." Her voice cracks on the second word, half scold and half prayer. "What kind of fool walks Nod-Krai in a storm like this one?"

"The kind whose grandmother is dying," you say, and step into her arms, and you hear her sardonic chuckle at your humor, the particularly dark kind you have only been comfortable enough to use with your grandmother.

She is thinner than the letter let on. You feel it through the shawls, through your own numbed hands, the way her shoulder blades sit too close beneath the wool, like a bird's, like something built for leaving. She smells the same as ever, woodsmoke and beeswax and the particular bitterness of the herbs she keeps strung along the rafters, and for one long moment neither of you says anything at all, because some reunions are better held in silence than spoiled with words.

It is she who pulls back first. It is she who takes your face in both her hands the way she always has, thumbs pressed to your cheekbones, eyes narrowed in the candlelight like she is reading something written beneath your skin.

Then her gaze drops to your hand, and whatever she finds there stops her cold.

"Show me."

"It's nothing, Babulya."

"Show me, or I will know you for a liar before you've even taken off your coat."

You hold it out. In the stove-light the burn looks worse than it felt, an angry welt curled across two fingers and into your palm, the skin gone tight and shining where the crackle caught you. Babulya's mouth presses into a line you know from a hundred childhood scrapes, the line that means she is deciding how much of her fear to let you see.

"A frozen latch," you say, before she can ask. "On the gate, two farms back. I grabbed it without my mitten, stupid of me, and it stuck like a tongue to iron in January. I had to pull it free."

It is not, strictly, a lie. There was iron. There was cold enough to take skin. You have simply rearranged the order of things, set the lantern's clasp where a gate latch ought to be, and you tell yourself this is mercy and not cowardice, that a woman with a chest like a creaking floorboard does not need to hear about lights that should not exist hovering in Nod-Krai at midnight.

Babulya studies you the way she studies bread to know if it has risen properly, with the whole of her attention and none of her trust.

"Mm," she says, which from her has always meant I do not believe you and I am choosing, for now, to let it be.

She makes you sit by the stove anyway. She fetches the little clay pot of goose fat and honey from the shelf where it has lived since before you were born, the same salve she has smeared on every burn and chilblain and skinned knee of your whole life, and her hands, though they shake now in a way they did not used to, are still steady enough for this. She works in silence, mostly, her lips moving now and then in something too quiet to be speech and too rhythmic to be anything else, a prayer worn smooth from decades of use, the kind that does not need the saint's name spoken aloud anymore to still reach him.

"You were always like this," she says at last, winding clean cloth around your fingers with a practiced, gentle pressure. "Even as a small thing. Found a wounded sparrow once, hid it under your bed in a shoebox, fed it bread soaked in milk for a week before your mother found the smell." She ties off the bandage and holds your hand a moment longer than the task requires. "Soft hearts make for hard living, in a place like this one, devochka. The wood does not reward you for your kindness."

"Then it is fortunate," you say, "that I did not do this out of kindness. I did it out of carelessness."

She looks at you the way she has looked at you your entire life, the look that has always meant I see straight through to the lie and I love you regardless, and says nothing further on the matter. She only crosses herself once, quickly, before she rises to bank the stove for the night, the gesture so old and so automatic it might be aimed at God or at you, and you are not certain, even now, that there is much difference between the two as far as Babulya is concerned.

That night you lie awake on the bench by the stove long after her breathing in the next room has gone slow and even, listening to the wind worry at the shutters, your bandaged hand cradled against your chest. The pain has dulled to something distant, banked the way Babulya banked the coals, and you are nearly asleep, the line between waking and not gone thin and porous, when the warmth finds you.

It comes first as a hum beneath the bandage, faint, almost ticklish, the way a struck glass keeps singing long after the spoon has stopped touching it. Then heat blooms beneath the cloth, gentle and total, spreading up through your wrist and into your arm like sunlight remembered rather than felt, and for one disoriented moment you think you must be dreaming of summer, of the river before it freezes, of your mother's kitchen with bread in the oven.

You do not open your eyes. Some animal instinct keeps them shut, the same instinct that once told you not to look directly at the flame in the wood, and you lie there in the dark and let whatever this is finish what it has come to do, half terror and half something perilously close to gratitude, until sleep takes you before you can decide which one ought to win.

In the morning your hand does not hurt.

You notice it before you are even fully awake, the absence of pain so total it takes you a moment to understand what is missing, the way a sudden silence can wake a person faster than any sound. You unwind the bandage by the grey light coming through the shutters and find skin beneath it unmarked, no welt, no shine of new scar tissue, nothing at all to say that iron and lightning had ever touched you there.

Babulya finds you staring at your own palm like it belongs to someone else.

She takes your hand without asking, the way she always has, turning it toward the window, running her thumb once across the place where the burn should be. Her face does something complicated, disbelief and suspicion and something older than either, something that might once have had a saint's name attached to it before the church got hold of the old fears and dressed them up as sin.

"This was not nothing two days ago," she says.

"It must not have been as bad as it looked, Babulya. The cold makes everything look worse than it is."

"Mm," she says again, and this time the sound carries more weight than before, a whole unspoken sermon folded into one syllable, but she lets your hand go and does not press further, the way a woman learns not to press a wound that has decided to close on its own.

You spend the rest of the day telling yourself the same thing in a dozen different ways, peeling potatoes at her table, feeding the stove, listening to her cough in the next room with a sound like wind through a cracked window. You tell yourself the cold does strange things to the body, that burns from frozen metal heal faster than burns from fire, that you imagined the hum beneath the bandage the way exhausted travelers imagine all manner of things in the dark.

But some quieter, more honest part of you keeps circling back to the lantern.

You think of the way it had answered your breath like a starving thing answers bread, the violet at its root, the gold at its crown. You think, before you can stop yourself, that perhaps this is its doing somehow, some strange debt repaid across whatever distance separates you now, a kindness returned for a kindness given.

Silly, you tell yourself, almost fiercely, the way you might scold a child caught believing too easily in things that want to be believed. Why would a Fae's stolen flame trouble itself over the burned hand of a girl who'd only meant to save it? You are not even certain it was Fae at all, not truly, only that it matched every word of every warning Babulya ever gave you. And warnings, you have learned, are not always honest about what they are warning against.

It is only later, scrubbing the supper pot in water gone cold, that the other thought finds you, the one you had managed, until now, not to look at directly.

The footprints.

Someone had been standing in that ring of undisturbed snow. Someone large enough to leave a mark like that, close enough to have watched you take the lantern from the air, to have watched you breathe life back into a thing that should not have had breath left to take. A lantern does not simply float along a forest road for no reason at all. A lantern belongs to a hand, even one that does not show itself.

You wonder, scrubbing harder than the pot requires, whose hand that might once have been.

The dead, perhaps, lost and wandering as the dead in this country are said to do when the ground freezes too hard to properly hold them.

Or something else. Something that does not die in any way the priests would recognise, that only loses its light for a while and waits, patient as the wind filling in footprints, for someone soft-hearted enough to give it back.

. . .

The days that follow settle into a rhythm so ordinary it almost convinces you to forget the forest entirely. You boil oats and feed them to Babulya by the spoonful when her hands shake too badly to manage the bowl herself. You mend the hole in the second shutter where the wind has been getting through and complaining about it all winter. You sit by her bed in the evenings while she tells you, again, the story of how she met your grandfather at a spring fair, embellishing some new and entirely impossible detail each time she tells it. And you let her, because a story told a hundred times is still a gift the hundred-and-first time it is given. The cough in her chest does not improve, but it does not worsen either, and you decide to count that as something close enough to mercy.

It is on the fourth morning that you notice the woodpile under the eaves has shrunk to almost nothing, and you rise before the sky has so much as considered turning grey to do something about it.

The hour before dawn in Nod-Krai has always had a particular quality of dark to it, a dark that seems to have weight, that presses against the lantern glass and the backs of your eyes both, and you have walked it before with your heart in your throat and your axe held tighter than was strictly useful against a forest that does not, as a rule, care how tightly you hold anything. You bundle yourself into your tulup, wrap the strap of the hand-sled twice around your palm, and step out into a cold so total it feels less like weather and more like a held breath, the stars still hard and bright overhead, Orion's belt hanging just where Babulya taught you to find it as a child, a line of three lights she always called, with no apparent irony, God's own measuring rope.

The walk to the deadfall stand should take the better part of an hour in this dark, picking your way around drifts and roots buried under the snow with nothing but memory and starlight to guide you. Tonight it does not.

You notice it first as an absence rather than a presence, the way you notice a missing tooth with your tongue before you understand what is gone. The drifts that usually swallow you to the knee along this stretch of path have firmed beneath your feet into something almost like a road, packed and even, as though some patient hand swept it clear before you arrived. You tell yourself it is only the wind, that drifts shift and settle on their own logic, and you keep walking, and the feeling does not leave you even as the explanation does its best to.

Then there is the light. Not moonlight, which has none to spare behind tonight's thin cloud, and not starlight either, which has never in your life been bright enough to throw a shadow. This is something low and blue, hanging at the edges of your sight the way a held thought hangs just behind the eyes, never quite where you look but always present in the place you've just stopped looking. Each time you turn your head to find its source it slides away into the black between the birches, patient, unbothered, content to let you doubt it rather than be caught.

The sled grows lighter as you fill it. This, more than anything else, is the detail you cannot make peace with later, turning it over in your mind the way you'd turn over a coin to check it wasn't counterfeit. By the time you have stacked it with as much deadfall as you can reasonably drag, the weight across your shoulder where the rope bites should be considerable, should ache the way it has ached every winter of your life doing this same chore. Instead the sled seems to glide, its runners finding the smoothest line through the snow as though the ground itself has tilted very slightly in your favour, as though some unseen hand has taken up the back end of it and is bearing the worst of the weight without once asking to be thanked.

A raven watches you from a low branch the entire time you work, untroubled by your nearness in a way no wild bird ought to be, its head tilting with what you could swear, if you allowed yourself to swear to such things, looked very much like curiosity. When you straighten and meet its eye directly it does not startle into the dark the way it should. It simply watches you a moment longer, as if deciding something, and then lifts off without a sound, not so much as a single wingbeat disturbing the snow it leaves behind.

There are other small wrongnesses too, the kind you would not think twice about alone but that begin, stacked one atop the other, to take on the shape of something deliberate. Frost ferns bloom across a fallen log in a pattern too symmetrical to be weather's careless hand, fanned out like fingers pressed flat against the bark. 

The cold that should be biting at your scorched fingers, the ones that healed too fast and too clean to ever properly explain, seems instead to skirt around them, leaving every other part of you numb while that one hand stays strangely, impossibly warm. 

Once, you are certain you hear footsteps falling in time with your own, just beyond the treeline, matching your pace exactly, and when you stop dead to listen, they stop too, a half-beat too late to be only an echo of your own boots.

You do not run. You tell yourself this later as though it were a point of pride rather than the simple fact that your legs, full of wood and cold and four days of grief held carefully at bay, would not have carried you far even if you'd asked them to.

It is on the walk back, the sled heavier with cargo and somehow no harder to pull, that the ice on the little creek crossing gives way beneath you.

You have crossed it a hundred times in your life, this narrow vein of water that cuts the path near the old stone marker, frozen solid every winter you can remember, safe enough that Babulya never once warned you off it the way she warned you off the deeper water further south. You do not know, would not know, until much later from a neighbour's offhand mention of overflow ice swelling beneath the surface this year, that the crossing has turned treacherous, the visible ice no more than a skin stretched thin over a slow black current still moving underneath, waiting for exactly this kind of trust to be placed in it.

The crack beneath your boot sounds almost gentle, a small dry note like a knuckle popping, and then the world tilts and the cold reaches up through the broken ice to close around your shin before your mind has finished understanding what your body already knows.

You do not fall further than that. An arm comes around you from behind, solid and sudden, an entire wall of warmth pressed flush against your back where a moment before there had been only forest and falling, and you are hauled bodily off the cracking ice and onto solid ground with a strength that does not strain, that lifts you the way you might lift something you were never in any danger of dropping.

For a long moment you do not move at all, and could not if you tried. The cold has not finished delivering its verdict on your soaked boot, the creek still hissing behind you where the ice gave way, and your whole body seems to be arguing with itself over which sensation deserves your attention first, the water working its slow way through wool toward bare skin, or the warmth at your back, vast and improbable, radiating clean through your coat the way the stone bench beside Babulya's stove holds its heat on the rare nights the fire has been fed too generously. Your heart has not slowed since the ice cracked. If anything it climbs higher now, hammering against your ribs with a fear that has only just caught up to the danger that provoked it, several breaths too late to be of any use to you.

He has not let go. One arm remains banded firm across your middle, his hand spread wide against your stomach through the layers of your coat, and you understand, distantly, almost academically, that you ought to fear that more than you fear the water. You are not a fool. Babulya did not raise you to mistake a stranger's hand for safety only because it happens to be warm. And yet some unguarded, traitorous part of you leans back into that warmth before you can stop it, the way a half-frozen thing will press itself gratefully into the very palm that may, in the end, decide to do it harm.

You try, on instinct, to turn and see him properly, and find you cannot. Not because his hold has tightened, though it has, slightly, but because some older instinct, the one Babulya spent your whole childhood sharpening in you, insists that turning would be the worse mistake of the two. Still you catch fragments at the edge of your sight: a sleeve of something dark and heavier than wool, rimed white at the cuff the way iron rimes over in a hard freeze; a hand broader than your own and entirely bare despite air that numbed your own fingers through two layers of mitten; breath fogging out over your shoulder in a plume gone faintly, impossibly blue at its edges, like woodsmoke caught the instant before it remembers how to be flame.

Fear and something far less sensible move through you in the very same current, indistinguishable by the time either reaches your throat.

"Who's there?" It comes out smaller than you intend it to, edged with a tremor you cannot quite master, though you make yourself say it regardless, because Babulya also did not raise a girl who goes quiet simply for being afraid.

"Forgive me." His voice meets you low and unhurried, courteous in a way you were entirely unprepared for, the voice of a man who might once have bowed over a lady's hand at some fair now long since swallowed by frost, strange and out of place against the cold breathing out of the dark beyond the treeline. "I startled you. That was never my intention, only to keep you from going under." A pause, faintly rueful. "Though I confess you make it remarkably difficult to be merely a passing rescuer and nothing more."

Some inkling of bravery seeps into you, "Let me see you, then, if your intentions are so honest."

"Not yet." Said so gently it costs the refusal nothing of its firmness. "Forgive me the discourtesy of denying you twice in one night. You have done enough looking at things you oughtn't for one winter, brave as you are foolish."

The hand at your stomach shifts, just slightly, fingers spreading wider as though to better hold you upright, and you feel it then, through the wool, the unmistakable ridge of scarred skin across his palm, a burn healed over rough and old in a shape the too-observant part of your mind recognises at once, because it is the very shape your own hand wore for one single night before it healed too clean to be natural.

You do not have the chance to ask him about it. "Mind the ice on your way home," he says, close enough now that you feel the words against your hair before you hear them, something almost like a smile threaded through the courtesy of it. "I find I would rather not make a habit of fishing you out of it." 

Then the warmth at your back withdraws all at once, the cold rushing in to fill the space he leaves so completely that you sway on your feet from the shock of it alone, and when you finally turn, breath fogging hard in front of you, there is nothing left but a scatter of frost already creeping back across the broken ice and a low blue light receding fast between the birches, swallowed by the dark before you can take a single step after it.

You stand there a long while with your soaked boot going numb and your heart going the opposite of numb entirely. It is only the thought of Babulya waiting on you, of smoke needed for the stove and oats needed for the pot, that finally turns you back toward the road at all.

The rest of the day passes you by the way a current passes a stone too heavy to be carried along with it.

You are aware of moving through it, of sweeping the floor and feeding the chickens and changing your soaked boot for a dry one before Babulya can ask why your stocking is wet halfway up your shin. But none of it quite reaches the part of you that is still standing at the edge of a cracked creek with a stranger's hand spread warm against your stomach.

By evening you have not managed to put it down. You feel it still as you set the pot to simmer, the cabbage and the last of the autumn carrots going soft in water, gone the colour of weak tea, a phantom warmth pressed flat against your middle that no amount of cold air or honest work seems able to chase off. Twice you catch yourself with the ladle hovering forgotten over the pot, your mind thirty paces into Nod-Krai instead of in the kitchen where it belongs, and twice you have to scold yourself back into your own body before the soup scorches.

"You'll put a hole clean through that pot, staring at it so hard," Babulya says from her chair by the stove, not unkindly, her knitting needles clicking along at their own steady rhythm. "Or did the soup insult you somehow, that you mean to murder it twice?"

"I’m only tired, Babulya. I was up before the birds."

"Mm. The birds in this house keep later hours than they used to, then, because you've been somewhere else since you walked in that door, and it was not in the henhouse." She does not look up from her needles. "I am old, devochka, not blind."

You busy yourself with the bread instead of answering, and she lets you, for now, the same way she let the lie about the gate latch stand for now, and you understand, even as you're grateful for it, that her patience has never once in your life been the same thing as her forgetting.

The samovar takes longer than usual to come to a boil, or perhaps it only feels that way with your thoughts circling where they keep circling, back to the shape of a scar pressed into your stomach through two layers of wool, the precise, impossible warmth of a hand that should have been as cold as the air around it and was not. You wonder, not for the first time today, whether a thing like that leaves a mark a person cannot see. Whether you are walking around now carrying some invisible brand the way livestock carry the burn of their owner's iron, claimed by something that never once gave you its name, only the warmth of its hand and the courtesy of refusing to let you see its face.

You do not know if you should be afraid of that thought. You find, uncomfortably, that you are not nearly as afraid of it as you ought to be.

Outside the window, far off toward the mountains, light flickers once through the clouds, a soundless, violet-white flash that has no business existing in a sky this cold. Lightning in a Snezhnayan winter is rare enough that the old wives count it an omen, one way or another depending on which old wife you ask, and you stand very still at the window with the kettle forgotten in your hand and watch the dark for a second flash that does not come, and think, with a certainty that has no reasonable foundation at all, that it was watching you back.

Dinner is quiet in the comfortable way, the bread torn instead of cut, the soup eaten straight from the same pot it was cooked in because Babulya has never once seen the sense in dirtying a second dish for two people who already know each other's faces too well to bother with manners. She tells you, between spoonfuls, that the priest's wife caught her husband talking to the goat again, and that she is fairly certain it is the goat doing most of the talking these days, and you laugh harder than the joke perhaps deserves, grateful for anything loud enough to crowd out the violet flash still printed behind your eyes.

After, you kneel at her feet with the little jar of warmed juniper oil and unwrap the wool from her legs, and she hisses through her teeth at the first touch the way she always does, more out of habit now than real pain.

"Careful, devochka, I am not yet so far gone that you may simply knead me like dough."

"You complain every winter, and every winter you ask me to do it again the very next evening."

"A woman is allowed her contradictions. It is one of the few luxuries left to me." She watches you work for a while in silence, her swollen ankles giving slightly under your thumbs, and then, in the same mild tone she might use to remark on the weather, she says, "You have the look of a girl who has met something in the wood."

Your hands do not still, though it costs you something to keep them moving.

"I met a cracked creek and a wet boot, Babulya. Nothing more interesting than that."

"Mm." The sound carries the whole weight of a sermon again, the way it always does. "I have lived a long time in this house, devochka, longer than is strictly polite for a woman to admit to. I know the smell that clings to a person after the strange has had its hands on them. Ozone and woodsmoke and something underneath both that has no right name in any tongue I was ever taught." Her eyes, when you finally look up, are not angry. They are only tired, and old, and afraid in a way she is trying very hard not to let show. "You have carried that smell into my house twice now."

You say nothing, which is, between the two of you, its own kind of confession.

She sighs, long and rattling, and reaches down to touch your face the way she has since before you could properly remember being touched at all. "Even as a babe you reached for the spider before the flower," she says, almost fond despite herself. "Strange things have always known a soft heart when they find one, dear. They collect hearts like that the way magpies collect anything that shines, not always out of cruelty. Sometimes only because shine is rare, and they are hungry for it in a way you and I will never properly understand."

"Is that a warning?"

"It is an observation. The warning is older and you have heard it from me a hundred times already and ignored it on the hundred-and-first." She lets her hand drop back into her lap. "So I will give you something more useful instead. If it comes to you again, and I think we both know it will, do not give it your name. Not your true one, not even in jest, not even to be polite. A name is a door, devochka, and you do not hand a stranger the key to your own house no matter how warm his hand felt on the threshold."

You think of the creek, of a voice low and unhurried against your hair, of how easily a name might have slipped free of you in that moment if he had only thought to ask for it.

"And if I lose my way," you say, half a question, "out there. In the dark."

"Turn your coat inside out and put it back on," Babulya says, as plainly as if she were telling you how much salt the soup wanted. "It will not save you from everything. But it confuses the kind of thing that leads by tricking the eye, and confusion, in my experience, has saved more fools than courage ever has."

You finish the oil in silence after that, and she lets you, watching the fire instead of you for once, and when you finally rise to bank the stove for the night her hand catches your wrist, briefly, only long enough to say, without words, that whatever else she is, she is not finished being afraid for you yet.

Sleep does not come easily. You lie on the bench with the blanket pulled to your chin and your thoughts will not stop circling the same low orbit, danger and warmth tangled so closely together you cannot any longer find the seam between them, the way you never could as a child either, always the first to climb toward the high branch instead of away from it, always the one who followed the strange sound into the trees instead of running from it. You have always been like this. Babulya is right to fear it in you. You are not entirely certain you would change it even if she asked.

You rise once, near midnight, drawn by nothing you could properly name, and go to the window.

The yard is empty. The snow lies smooth and undisturbed all the way to the treeline, lit faintly violet by clouds that have not yet decided whether to give up their lightning again, and you stand there with your palm pressed flat to the cold glass and your heart doing something unsteady in your chest, half hope and half dread, both feelings so similar in your body that you cannot say with any honesty which one you are hoping will win.

For one heartbeat, just at the treeline, a shape resolves out of the dark. Tall, still, edged faintly in the same violet-white as the lightning, the suggestion of a man standing exactly where the birches grow thickest, watching the house, watching, you understand with a certainty that settles into your bones like cold water, you.

You blink, and the shape is gone, swallowed back into the trees as completely as if it had never stood there at all.

You stay at the window a long while after, your breath fogging the glass in slow, even clouds, waiting for it to come back.

It does not. But you find, lying back down in the dark with your pulse still unsettled and your skin still remembering the precise shape of a hand it will not soon forget, that some part of you is already certain this is not the last you will see of him. . . .

You are not, at first, certain anything has changed at all. The morning after the lightning, you wake expecting the world to have settled back into its ordinary shape, the way a held breath settles once the danger that provoked it has passed, and for the length of breakfast it seems to have done exactly that. It is only later, hauling water from the well, that you notice the rope has come up without its usual stiff fight against the ice, sliding through your palms smooth as something freshly oiled though you know for a fact no one has touched it since autumn. You stand there a moment with the bucket dripping at your feet and tell yourself it is only a milder morning than most.

The bread proves you wrong by midday, rising fuller and faster than the same dough has any right to in a kitchen this cold, the crust coming out of the oven a deep, even gold instead of the patchy brown you have made your peace with every winter of your life. The hens, who by this point in the season usually offer you one egg between the four of them if you are fortunate, give you four whole eggs that morning and four again the next, and you carry them inside cradled against your chest like something stolen, glancing back over your shoulder at the coop as though it might explain itself if you looked at it hard enough.

You do not mention any of it to Babulya at first. You tell yourself this is only because none of it seems worth mentioning on its own, a softer rope, a better loaf, a generous hen, the small unremarkable mercies that any winter might occasionally offer a person without there needing to be a reason behind them at all. You know, even as you tell yourself this, that you do not entirely believe it.

By the third night you have stopped pretending not to notice.

The wind that has been needling its way through every gap in the shutters since the first snow falls strangely quiet around you on your way back from the woodpile, the bite gone out of it so completely that for a few startled paces you could swear something has wrapped itself bodily around you, warm and close as a held breath, before retreating back into ordinary cold the moment you cross the threshold. 

Your lantern, when you light it that same evening to check on the chickens one last time before bed, catches on the first strike of flint instead of the usual three or four, and burns brighter than the wick should allow, its flame threaded through at the very root with the faintest, most fleeting hint of blue, gone again before you can be entirely certain you saw it at all.

You stand in the yard with that lantern held up before your face for far longer than the chickens require, watching the flame for some sign of itself, your breath fogging white and even in the cold, and you do not know, even now, whether what you feel watching it is fear or something far less easy to name honestly.

Babulya notices before you find the courage to bring any of it to her.

"The wood from that last cord is lasting longer than it ought," she says one evening, not looking up from the sock she is darning, her needles moving with the same steady rhythm they have kept your whole life. "I split that cord myself, in better years, and I know its measure. We should have burned through half of it by now."

"Perhaps you split it more generously than you remember."

"Perhaps." She does not sound convinced, and does not pretend to be. "Or perhaps God has finally taken an interest in this house after forty years of looking elsewhere, which I confess would surprise me less than the alternative, which is that you have struck some manner of bargain with someone considerably less patient than He is, and considerably less inclined to wait for a proper prayer before deciding to help." She glances up at you then, sharp despite the candlelight softening every other line of her face. "Tell me, at least, that it was a charming devil, devochka, if you've gone and doomed the both of us. I should like to know I died for good company."

"I haven't doomed anyone, Babulya."

"Mm." The sound again, that whole unspoken sermon folded into one syllable, and she goes back to her darning without pressing further, though you can feel her attention on you for a long while after, the way you can feel the cold radiating off a window even with your back turned to it.

It is Babulya herself, in the end, who gives you the clearest proof that something has indeed turned in your favour, however little you understand the shape of it.

Her cough, which has rattled through this house every night since the letter that first called you home, begins, gradually and then all at once, to ease. The colour comes back into her face in a way you had stopped letting yourself hope for, a faint warmth returning to cheeks that have been the colour of tallow for weeks, and one morning you wake to find her already up and dressed and humming something tuneless over the porridge pot, her hands steadier on the spoon than they have been since before the snow came. You stand in the doorway and watch her for a long moment, your chest aching with a gratitude too large and too frightened to hold comfortably, because you cannot account for it, cannot point to any medicine or prayer or change in the weather that would explain a recovery this swift, and the not knowing sits in you alongside the relief like two animals forced to share the same small cage.

"Don't look so pleased with yourself," Babulya says, catching you staring, a wicked little glint surfacing in her eyes for the first time in longer than you can remember. "A woman my age improving this fast smells less of mercy than of mischief. Though I'll say this much, devochka. I'd rather die of mischief, in the end, than of that cough. At least mischief has the decency to be interesting."

You laugh, because the alternative is to weep, and she lets you, watching you with an expression that holds both her old wit and a  far more careful underneath it, the look of a woman who has lived long enough to know that gifts given without a clear giver are rarely given for free.

The hearth proves the strangest mercy of all. Some nights now you wake near dawn to find the stove still glowing warm and low though you banked it hours before with barely enough wood to last until midnight, the coals at its heart burning that same faint, impossible blue you have started to recognise the way you'd recognise a voice in a crowded room, low and constant and entirely too familiar for something you have only properly heard once in your life. You lie there in the dark on those mornings with your blanket warm around you and your heart going much too fast for sleep, and think, with a certainty that frightens you more than any cold ever has, that the very fire keeping you alive through this winter has decided, for reasons of its own, to keep you.

You should be more afraid of this than you are. You know this the way you know the catechism, by rote, without it changing anything about how your chest tightens each evening as the light fails and you find yourself listening for footsteps that do not come, watching the treeline from the window with an attention that has nothing to do with wolves.

It is the nights, more than anything, that betray you.

You tell yourself, the first few times, that it is only natural to think of him. He saved your life. He has, perhaps, gone on saving it in a hundred small ways you cannot prove and cannot quite bring yourself to refuse. It would be strange, you reason, not to think of a man like that, however briefly you knew him, however little of him you actually saw.

But the thinking does not stay brief, and it does not stay innocent for long.

You lie awake long after Babulya's breathing has gone slow and even in the next room, and you feel again, with a clarity that should by rights have faded by now, the exact warmth of his hand spread wide across your stomach through two layers of wool, the way it had not felt like a stranger's hand at all but like something that had always meant to rest there, patient, certain of its welcome. You feel it settle low in your belly each time you let yourself remember it, a warmth that does not stay politely where it started, that creeps, slow and unhurried as melt water finding the path of least resistance, further down than any decent thought has business travelling, and you lie very still in the dark and let it, because some traitorous part of you has stopped pretending it wants to stop.

You imagine his voice some nights, low and unhurried, frost caught somewhere in its register the way it had been at the creek, murmuring things you cannot quite construct into full sentences even in the privacy of your own skull, only the shape of his breath against your ear, warm where everything else in this house is cold, his chest a solid wall at your back the way it had been for that one suspended moment before he let you go. You wonder, in the dark, what those hands might feel like elsewhere, hands broad enough to span your whole stomach, scarred in a shape that matches your own, gentle in a way that does not feel remotely safe.

You try, more than once, to quiet the wanting with your own hands, alone beneath the blanket with your jaw set against the sound of your own breath. You chase the memory of him down through your own skin in the dark, palm pressed flat where his had been before letting it wander lower, into the ache that has pooled there for days now, slick and insistent and entirely unmoved by reason. For a moment, sometimes, it is almost enough. Your back arches off the bench, your breath catches high and helpless in your throat, your thighs tense around the hand that is trying so hard to be his and so plainly failing to be anyone but your own.

It is never enough. You come back to yourself each time a little emptier than before, your fingers slack and your chest still tight with a frustration that has very little to do with your body and everything to do with the fact that the only hand you actually want is one that does not belong to you, has perhaps never belonged to anyone, and chose, for reasons you cannot fathom, to belong for one single moment to you instead. You lie there afterward in the dark, spent and unsatisfied in the same breath, and feel, underneath the shame of it, something far more dangerous: the dawning, helpless certainty that no hand but his will do.

There is a darkness coiled inside the wanting that you do not examine too closely, not at first. You know what he is, or near enough. You know what Babulya's stories say about things that wear kindness the way a wolf wears sheep's wool, patient, generous, building a debt in small mercies until the debt comes due all at once. You know you ought to fear a creature that mends your grandmother's lungs and warms your hearth and never once asks what it wants in return, because nothing in this world, mortal or otherwise, gives so freely without eventually wanting something back.

And still you find, lying awake with your blood still unsettled and your own hand gone still and useless atop the blanket, that you do not only fear it.

Some small, dark, unguarded part of you wants to be wanted that badly. Wants to be worth the trouble of a wood that lasts longer, a cough that eases, a fire that burns blue through the coldest hours of the night. There is something in being chosen, even by something monstrous, even by something that may yet prove to want you only the way a magpie wants anything that shines, that you cannot make yourself entirely wish away.

You go to confession in your own head most nights, the old habit too deep to fully shed even now, and find you cannot make yourself properly sorry for any of it.

It builds like this for the better part of two weeks, favour and longing rising together in the same slow tide, until one night you simply cannot lie still in it any longer.

You do not plan it, not really, not in any way you could explain afterward to Babulya or to yourself. You wait until her breathing has gone deep and even, until the stove has burned down to its low blue coals and the house has settled into the particular silence that only comes once every living thing in it has finally stopped fighting sleep, and then you rise, and dress, and take down your cloak and your lantern from beside the door, and nothing else.

You do not know, stepping out into a cold gone strangely gentle around you, what exactly you mean to do if you find him. Demand to know why he has been so generous with a stranger's house. Ask him what the lantern was to him, what it cost him, what it meant that you were the one foolish enough to breathe life back into it. Or something else entirely, something you do not let yourself name even now, something carnal and reckless that lives lower in your body than any decent question ever has.

You walk without any clear destination, only the pull of something you cannot properly describe, the same instinct that once sent you reaching for a wounded sparrow before anyone could tell you it was foolish to. Your thoughts wander as your feet do, back to the creek, to the crack of ice and the arm that caught you before you'd finished falling, and a new and uncomfortable thought surfaces in you, unbidden, sharp enough to stop you mid-step in the snow.

What if the ice had never been an accident at all.

What if a creature patient enough to warm a hearth for weeks without once showing his face was also patient enough to know, long before you ever set foot on it, exactly which crossing had gone treacherous this year, and exactly when you would cross it.

A strange new heat moves through you at the thought, equal parts fury and something far darker and more thrilling than fury has any right to be tangled alongside it, a feeling you do not have a clean name for and would not say aloud even if you did. You do not know whether you want to scream at him for it or thank him, and the not knowing frightens you more than either answer would on its own.

It is full dark by the time you notice you are no longer alone.

The wind parts strangely around a stand of birch ahead of you, the falling snow bending visibly to either side of some shape you cannot quite see, the way mist parts for a body moving through it even when the body itself stays hidden. A pale light flickers at the very edge of your vision, the same low impossible blue as your lantern's flame, gone the instant you turn to look at it directly. Somewhere behind you, soft and unhurried, footsteps fall in a rhythm too deliberate to be the wind, matching your own pace exactly, the way they had once before, only this time you do not stop to test them. This time you keep walking, your heart loud in your own throat, something fierce and unwise blooming behind your ribs.

Fool I may be, you think, but who is being imprudent now, following a fool like me out into his own woods at midnight.

You catch yourself smiling at the thought, alone in the dark, and the smile frightens you more than the cold does.

It is only then, with the trees pressing close on either side and that light still flickering at the very edge of what you can see, that Babulya's voice surfaces in you, clear and sharp as it had been by the fire. Do not give it your name. Not your true one, not even in jest. You hold that one close, easy enough to keep, a door you have no intention of handing anyone the key to, however warm his hand had felt on its threshold.

Turn your cloak inside out, if you lose your way. It will not save you from everything. But confusion has saved more fools than courage ever has.

Your hands rise to the clasp at your throat almost on their own, the old obedience deep enough in you to move.

And then you stop.

You stand very still in the snow with your fingers resting against the cold metal of the clasp, your breath fogging slow in front of you, the light still flickering somewhere just out of reach, patient, waiting, and you think of warm hearths and healed lungs and a hand spread wide and certain against your stomach, and some small, dark, long-buried part of you, the same part that has always reached for the spider before the flower, decides, quite calmly, that it does not want to be found its way out of this at all.

You let your hands fall back to your sides, the cloak left exactly as it is.

If you are going to be led astray tonight, then astray is precisely where you mean to go.

You walk a while longer with that decision settled warm in your chest, the light still flickering somewhere ahead of you through the birches, patient as a held breath, and you let yourself believe, for a few more minutes, that the prickling at the back of your neck is only anticipation. It would be like him, you tell yourself, to make you work for it. To let you walk a little further into his woods before he finally let himself be found.

It takes you longer than it should to notice that the feeling crawling up your spine has stopped resembling anticipation at all.

The wind is the first thing to turn honest with you. It has been strangely gentle since you stepped outside, the bite gone soft around you the way it has been most nights this fortnight, and you do not register the moment it changes back, only the moment you realise it already has, cold enough now to needle straight through your cloak the way winter always has, the way it always should have, and something in your stomach goes very still and very cold in a manner that has nothing to do with the temperature.

It is, you tell yourself, only the ordinary cold reasserting itself. Even kindness must have its limits. Even a fire banked all winter eventually burns down to ash.

You do not entirely believe yourself, and the forest, in its own way, seems determined to prove you right not to.

The quiet comes next, and it is the wrong kind of quiet. The Chernyles at night is never truly silent, not even in the deepest cold, always some small business of owls or settling snow or wind worrying at branches to fill the dark with ordinary sound. Tonight that ordinary sound simply stops, all at once, the way a held breath stops, and you become aware of your own heartbeat with an intimacy that feels almost obscene in a silence this complete.

Then the smell reaches you. Not woodsmoke, not the clean mineral bite of frost you have grown almost fond of these past two weeks, but something underneath both of those, faint at first and then suddenly, sickeningly present, the smell of meat left too long past its honest use, of earth turned over somewhere it was never meant to be disturbed.

You stop walking.

The light ahead of you flickers once, low and frantic, and for the first time since you left your own door you understand, with a certainty that drops through you like a stone through black water, that it is trying to warn you rather than lead you.

The dark that comes pulses before it arrives, the way thunder sometimes announces itself in your chest before the sound of it ever reaches your ears, a pressure against your sternum that has no business being felt rather than heard. When it finally breaks across the treeline it does not come as light at all, but as its absence, a bruised, hungry black that swallows the snow's pale glow wherever it touches, and within that black, shapes.

You know the shapes from a hundred half-remembered stories before your mind even finishes assembling them into something whole, riders sat too straight in saddles built for bodies with proper weight to them, horses whose legs bend in places no living horse's legs were ever meant to bend, the whole procession dragging that swallowing dark along behind it like a hem too heavy to lift clear of the ground. The riders themselves are worse for being almost familiar, the shape of men and women both, faces collapsed in on themselves around hollows where eyes should be, mouths hung open on hinges too loose to be holding anything resembling breath. You understand, distantly, sickly, that these were people once. That something has worn them the way a hand wears a glove long after the glove has stopped fitting properly, and gone on wearing them regardless.

You were twelve the last time you stood this close to something wearing the dead. You have spent nine years building a wall around that night thick enough that you rarely have to look at it directly, and the wall comes down now in pieces too fast for you to stop it, the cold of a hollow tree trunk pressed against your back, the smell of rot passing close enough to taste, the particular, specific silence of a child too frightened even to weep. You remember thinking, at twelve, that you would surely die there. You remember surviving anyway, and never once feeling, since, that survival and luck were properly different things.

You do not have a hollow tree to press yourself into tonight. You have only open snow, and a lantern with no flame, and a cloak you deliberately, foolishly, left exactly as it was.

The Hunt sees you the way a storm sees a single standing tree, not with malice exactly, only with the simple, terrible inevitability of a thing that has never once had to ask permission to take what stands in its path. The lead rider turns its ruined face toward you, and whatever sound comes out of that hinge-loose mouth is not a word, has perhaps not been a word in longer than you have been alive, but you understand its meaning regardless, the way you understand a wolf's bared teeth, the way your whole body understands, all at once, that it is about to run out of road.

You do not get the chance to run. The lead rider's hand closes around your wrist before your single backward step has even finished, more claw now than hand, cold enough that it burns, and the wound it leaves does not wait politely for the rest of the world to catch up. Something rakes hard across your cheekbone in the same instant, parting skin, the pain arriving a full breath behind the shock of it, hot where everything else has gone numb, and you are being dragged forward into the reek of old earth before you've even managed to scream.

The world breaks open before the scream finishes leaving you.

There is no warning to it, none of the patient, gathering dread that announced itself before. One heartbeat the claw is closing tighter around your wrist, dragging you into the dark whole, and the next the night simply splits down its middle with a crack of violet light so total it scours every shadow from the clearing at once, the sound of it less heard than felt, a blow against your chest that drives the breath from your lungs before the cold ever could. The claw is gone from your wrist in the same instant, torn away by something too fast for your eyes to properly follow, and you go down hard into churned, blackened snow with your ears ringing and your cheek still bleeding and no clear memory of the half second between captivity and freedom.

He is already among them by the time your knees find the ground, as though he had never once been anywhere else, as though the Hunt itself had simply made the grave error of existing in the same dark he already occupied. There is no warming up to the violence in him, no measured beginning. Chains uncoil from somewhere beneath his coat and find their marks before you can track the movement that threw them, and where they strike, riders that should not still be moving simply stop, the bruised black light bleeding out of them into the snow like ink swallowed by water. The lantern at his hip flares violet with each turn he makes, throwing his shadow huge and shifting across the trampled ground, and within a handful of heartbeats far too few to properly count, the clearing belongs to no one but the two of you and the wreckage left behind.

He crosses to you before the last of it has finished settling, kneeling in the bloodied snow with a quickness that has nothing courtly left in it at all, and his hand finds your jaw before you can flinch away from it, tilting your face toward what little light remains.

"Hold still," he says, low, and you do, though whether from obedience or simple shock you could not honestly say.

His thumb finds the cut along your cheekbone and the pain there does not so much fade as forget itself entirely, warmth blooming beneath his touch and spreading outward in slow, deliberate waves, the same impossible heat you have spent two weeks chasing through your own hands in the dark and never once managing to properly recall. You feel the skin knit itself closed beneath his thumb, feel it with a clarity that makes your breath catch high in your throat, and he does not hurry the work, his palm cupping the whole curve of your jaw afterward as though reluctant to relinquish a thing he has only just finished claiming back from harm. His other hand finds your wrist next, the bruise already purpling there fading to nothing under the same slow, deliberate warmth, his thumb tracing once, lightly, over skin that remembers, beneath the new healing, exactly how his hand had felt the first time it held you.

"There," he says finally, and does not move away as quickly as the word suggests he might. His face is close enough now that you can feel the cold coming off him in waves even through the lingering warmth of his touch, close enough that you understand, with a lurch low in your stomach that has nothing to do with fear, that he is in no particular hurry to put any distance back between you. "The debt's settled, then. Though I doubt that will stop you coming to find me again regardless."

"You sound very certain of that."

"I am." Something almost fond moves behind the exhaustion in his eyes. "You have a particular look about you, little fool. The one that has never once in its life known how to leave a wounded thing well alone, even when the wounded thing in question is considerably more dangerous than it looks."

You hold his gaze, breath unsteady, and find some reckless scrap of courage still left in you despite everything the night has already spent. "Then tell me your name, and I'll know exactly how dangerous to be afraid of."

He laughs at that, properly, the sound of it melodic and surprised and entirely too warm for something that came out of a face built like winter, and the laugh does something complicated and unwise low in your chest.

"Bold," he says, "for someone who was warned, I expect, never to give away her own. Did your grandmother not also tell you what a name is worth, before you go demanding mine so plainly?" His thumb moves once more along your jaw, absent, proprietary. "Names are not handed over for the asking. Not by anything like me."

"Then how am I meant to find you again?"

"There is a stone marker by the creek that already owes you a debt of its own," he says, the amusement settling into something quieter, more deliberate. "Leave something there that was truly yours, given freely and not by accident, on a night the moon hides her face completely. Choose carefully what you part with. I am not always so generous with what I take in return as I have been tonight."

His gaze sharpens then, holding yours with an attention that feels almost like being read rather than looked at. "But you already know that, don't you? You knew it walking out here tonight with your cloak left exactly as it was." A pause, soft and certain. "You know precisely what you're doing."

He leans closer before you can answer him, close enough that his breath, when it comes, is warm against your skin in a way nothing about him should by rights be, his fingers ghosting once down the line of your throat with a touch too light to be anything but deliberate.

"Perhaps," he murmurs, "you will come to find out in time."

One final step closes the last of the distance between you, his breath heating the air at your temple, and then he is smoke before he is anything else, the whole solid weight of him unraveling into a low coil of violet-blue flame that gathers, impossibly, back into the small lantern at what had been his hip, and the lantern disappears with a single soft crackle, leaving nothing behind but scorched air and your own ragged breathing in the dark.

You kneel there a long while in the ruined snow, your skin still humming everywhere he touched it, heat pooling low in your belly with a persistence that has nothing left to do with fear at all. Some small, dark, unguarded part of you, the part you will not yet admit to even lying alone in the dark tonight, has already begun turning over what you might leave at that stone marker, what among your few poor possessions could possibly be valuable enough to be called truly yours.

You are, you understand with a thrill you cannot entirely call unwelcome, already looking forward to the choosing.

. . .

Whatever guides your feet back through Nod-Krai that night does so with a generosity that borders on tenderness, the drifts parting ahead of you the way a crowd might part for someone it had decided, for reasons of its own, to let pass unharmed. You reach the izba in half the time the walk out had cost you, your wound healed clean beneath cold-stiffened skin, and you let yourself entertain, somewhere between the gate and the door, a thought too dangerous to examine closely in daylight. Perhaps he is not the only one waiting on this. Perhaps, wherever he goes when he is not chains and violet flame and a voice low enough to live somewhere beneath your ribs, some part of him is also turning over what you might bring him, the way you cannot stop turning over what there is in your whole poor life worth giving.

It takes you the better part of two days to understand exactly how poor that life is.

You go through what little you own with the methodical, increasingly desperate attention of a woman searching for something she is no longer certain exists. Your mother's handkerchief, edged in thread gone soft and grey with age, feels too easily lost to trust to a roadside stone. The single coin you've kept since the spring fair, pressed flat and smooth from years in your pocket, has value only to a moneylender, and you doubt very much that a creature who heals wounds with a thought and unmakes the dead with a glance has any particular use for coins. A wooden comb, a chipped clay bead from a necklace long since scattered, a ribbon worn thin from braiding and rebraiding the same hair through a dozen winters, each in its turn seems too small, too cheap, too easily mistaken for an accident rather than an offering, and each in its turn you set back down with the same hollow, mounting frustration.

You are not, you are forced to admit somewhere in the long second afternoon of searching, a woman who has ever owned very much. You have only ever had people, and people, you suspect, are not the sort of thing a stone marker is built to hold.

Babulya notices long before you find the nerve to tell her anything at all.

"You smell of him again," she says on the second evening, not looking up from the stocking she is mending, her voice gone careful in a way that frightens you more than any sharpness might have. "Worse than before. Like something has gotten its hands properly on you this time, rather than only its kindness."

You set down the basket you've been pretending to sort and find you cannot, this time, manage another easy lie. "He saved my life, Babulya. The Hunt found me in the wood."

The needle stills entirely in her hands. When she finally looks up, the fear in her face is not the gentle, half-affectionate worry she has worn through every other strange thing this winter has brought you. It is older than that, and far less willing to be teased into something softer.

"The Hunt," she repeats, and crosses herself, quick and instinctive, the gesture of a woman who has spent a lifetime not quite believing and never once daring to stop hedging her bets regardless. "Bozhe moy. And you went looking for him anyway, after that. I can see it on you, devochka, you needn't lie to spare me the trouble of guessing."

You kneel at her feet then, the way you have a hundred times before for the oil and the wool, only this time it is your own hands that are unsteady. "I have to tell you something, and I think you already suspect most of it." You tell her about the lantern, finally, the whole of it, the blue flame guttering in the snow that first night, the warmth of it answering your breath, the crackle that took it from your hands and left only frost and footprints behind. You tell her about the burn that healed itself in a single night, about the wood that lasts and the hens that lay and the hearth that burns blue and unaided through the coldest hours, every small mercy you have spent weeks quietly refusing to question aloud.

She listens to all of it in a silence that does not soften, her hands folded too tightly in her lap, and when you finally finish she does not scold you, which somehow frightens you more than scolding would have.

"You did not save a lantern," she says at last, quiet. "Whatever you saved that night, devochka, it was never only a lantern. You understand that now. I think you understood it before you ever told me."

"I think I have, for some time."

"And still you went looking for him in the dark, with your cloak left exactly as it was." It is not quite a question. She studies you for a long moment, something complicated moving behind her tired eyes, equal parts grief and a reluctant, painful tenderness. "Do you remember what I told you, the spider and the flower, when you were small enough to still believe me about everything?"

"I remember." You hold her gaze, surprising yourself with how steady your own voice comes out. "You said strange things have always known a soft heart when they find one. That they collect hearts the way magpies collect anything that shines." You pause, something turning over in your chest that has been waiting, you realise now, a very long time to be said aloud. 

"But you never finished the thought, Babulya. A flower only ever gives sweetness back to the hand that reaches for it, and nothing more, no matter how long you hold it. A spider, if you let it close enough, might actually look at you while it decides what to do with you. I think some part of me has always wanted that more than I wanted to be safe. To be looked at. Properly. Even by something that might, in the end, choose to ruin me for it."

Babulya says nothing for a long moment, her hand coming to rest, light and trembling, against the side of your face. "Then God help you, devochka," she says finally, "because I do not think I can anymore. I can only hope whatever you've gone and let yourself love has at least the decency to be careful with you."

She does not forbid you from going back. You understand, watching her turn back to her mending with hands that have not quite stopped shaking, that this is its own kind of permission, the only kind she has left to give a girl who was never, by either of your own admissions, built to be talked out of a thing once her heart had already decided it.

You go on searching after that with no greater success, the third day bleeding into a fourth without anything in your possession rising to meet whatever standard he meant by truly yours, until you find yourself, on a still, solemn afternoon with the light already failing early the way it does this deep into winter, sitting before the small cracked mirror in your room with no particular purpose beyond simply being tired of looking everywhere except at yourself.

You have not looked properly in some time. The face that meets you in the silvered glass is not unfamiliar, only tired in a way you had not let yourself notice until this exact moment, the eyes a little hollowed by weeks of broken sleep, though something else lives in them too now, something restless and faintly bright that was not there before the night a lantern first answered your breath, a spark that survives, stubbornly, beneath all that weariness. Your chest rises and falls in the glass with each unsteady breath, the simple, ordinary motion of any living body keeping itself alive, and it is that motion, that small private rhythm of your own breathing, that finally drags the memory up whole and entire, the way it has been waiting, patient as frost, to be properly let in.

You tucked him there. Against your ribs, beneath your coat, pressed close to the very same body breathing in the mirror now, on the first night you ever saw him, when he was nothing more to you than a dying blue flame too pitiful to leave to the cold. You carried him against your own skin like something small and helpless, warmed him with nothing but the heat your own body had left to spare, and you understand now, sitting here with your own reflection watching you understand it, that he had been that close to you from the very beginning. Closer, perhaps, than he has been at any single moment since, closer than the creek, closer than tonight's ruined snow, his whole guttering self held against the place where your heart keeps its most honest rhythm, and you had not even known enough to be afraid of how intimate a thing that was.

Heat floods through you at the thought, slow and total, and you let it, alone in your room with the light failing and no one left to see your face but the mirror.

You wonder, for the first time, whether an ancient thing's patience is built the same way a mortal one's is, with a thread that frays a little more each time it is asked to hold, until eventually, inevitably, it simply does not. He has watched you for weeks now, mended your hearth and your grandmother's lungs and the small soft wounds the world keeps handing you, has come to your aid twice now with a violence that cost him nothing visible and a tenderness afterward that cost him, you suspect, considerably more. You think of his hand at the creek, of his thumb against your jaw healing skin that had only just finished tearing, of the particular unhurried way he had let his palm linger at your wrist long after the bruise beneath it had already gone. You do not think a creature moves that slowly, that deliberately, over a debt it considers fully settled.

You let yourself imagine it properly for the first time, sitting alone in the dying light, what it might mean if the patience fraying in him is not so different from the ache that has been fraying in you. What it might look like, the moment that thread finally gives. Whether he has lain awake, in whatever cold and ancient place things like him go to rest, turning over the memory of your breath against his dying flame the same restless way you turn over the memory of his hand against your stomach. Whether wanting, for something built of frost and old violet fire, feels anything at all like the slow, low-bellied ache that has kept you from sleeping properly more nights than you have admitted even to yourself, or whether it is something colder, hungrier, a wanting with teeth in it, patient only because patience has always been the surest way for a predator to make certain of its meal.

You think you would let him have you either way. The thought arrives calm and entire and frightens you with how little fight you have left in you to argue against it.

You imagine, because you cannot any longer stop yourself from imagining, what it might be to be wanted by something that old, that careful, that has spent weeks proving itself willing to set a wood untouched and a grandmother's lungs whole simply to keep a single mortal girl comfortable through her own ordinary winter. You imagine his hands again, broad and scarred and entirely too gentle for what you know they are capable of doing to anything that crosses him, moving the way they moved at your jaw, only slower, only further, learning every cold and ordinary inch of you the unhurried way a man learns a prayer he intends to keep saying for a very long time. You imagine his mouth finding the same places his thumb has already mapped, his breath the only warm thing left in a world gone entirely to frost around the two of you, and the ache low in your belly answers the thought so immediately, so thoroughly, that you have to press your own hand flat against your stomach simply to feel something solid beneath all that wanting.

Your hand does not stay at your stomach. It rises, slow and unthinking, to the soft underside of your breast, to the exact place a small iron lantern once rested against your own racing heart on a night you still cannot properly account for, and you hold it there a long moment, feeling your own pulse beat hard and unhidden beneath your palm, and understand, with a clarity that settles through you like the first true thaw of spring, exactly what it is you have been searching your whole poor life for these past two days without ever once finding.

It was never going to be a thing. Not a coin, not a ribbon, not anything you could set down on cold stone and walk away from with both hands still empty.

You have already decided, you realise, sitting there with your hand still pressed warm against your own chest and the last of the daylight finally giving out around you. You decided it, perhaps, the very moment you chose not to turn your cloak.

You know exactly what you mean to give him.

You dress, on the appointed night, the way a much younger version of yourself might have dressed for a spring fair she had no business attending, and you catch yourself at it halfway through lacing the bodice of the one good dress folded at the bottom of your chest, sky-blue thread worked into the collar by your mother's own hand, kept for Easter liturgy and your own nameday and almost nothing else in between.

What are you thinking, you ask yourself, hands stilling over the laces, he will not even see it under the cloak.

You finish lacing it anyway.

The goodbye you give Babulya is shorter than either of you pretends not to notice. She does not ask where you are going, though you suspect she has guessed well enough by now, and only takes your face in both her hands the way she has since before you could properly remember being touched at all, her thumb tracing once over your cheekbone as though memorising the shape of it against the possibility that this might be the last time she is given the chance to.

"Come home," she says, which is not quite the blessing it sounds like, and not quite a prayer either, though it carries the weight of both.

"I mean to."

"Mm." She crosses you, quick and certain, two fingers pressed to your collarbone the way she has done since you were small enough to need carrying. She does not say be careful. You think, perhaps, she has finally understood that careful was never going to be a road open to you.

The night holds no moon at all, the sky scoured down to bare, hard stars, and heat crawls over you the entire walk to the creek despite the cold, a current that will not lie still no matter how the frost outside tries to claim it, settling low in you the way water settles beneath ice and goes on moving long after the surface above it has stopped looking like anything alive.

You wait at the stone marker a long while once you arrive, your pulse keeping time the way the rosary beads by Babulya's icon keep time, fast and overworked, counted out one bead at a time against a silence that gives nothing back. You do not know what to call him, have never once been given anything to call him by, and so when you finally find your voice it comes out smaller and stranger than you intend.

"I've come," you say, to the dark, to the birches, to whoever or whatever might be listening. "As you asked."

For a moment nothing answers you at all, the night holding its breath the way it had before the Hunt found you, and your heart climbs into your throat with a fear that has, this time, almost nothing to do with danger.

Then he is simply there, the way a held breath becomes, all at once, the air you finally let go.

You have seen pieces of him before, his back in violence, his hand at your jaw, his eyes catching low firelight, but nothing has prepared you for the whole of him standing before you now beneath bare winter stars, and the sight of him knocks the breath clean out of your lungs the way the ice once had, sharper, colder, and far more dangerous to your continued survival. He is beautiful in the particular, merciless way a blizzard is beautiful, all sharp pale elegance and midnight-blue hair bleeding to ice at its tips, his mouth made for something caught exactly between a smile and a threat, his gold eyes holding yours with an attention so total you feel it land somewhere beneath your sternum.

He smiles, slow, and it does something unforgivable to your knees.

"What have you brought?"

The question is not unkind. It is, somehow, worse for being asked so gently, and you feel the heat climb your throat and settle high in your cheeks under the particular focus of his gaze, the same gaze that watched you mend yourself back together from a dying flame, now turned wholly and unbearably toward whatever answer you are about to give him.

He steps closer when you do not immediately speak, tilting his head, one dark brow lifting with the patient, knowing amusement of someone who has already guessed and is only waiting, with some private cruelty, to hear you say it aloud yourself.

"Myself," you say first, and then, quieter, your voice nearly lost beneath your own racing pulse, "my body."

He goes very still.

Whatever courteous mask he has worn for you until now slips, for one bare, unguarded instant, and beneath it you catch something far sharper, hunger and amusement tangled together so closely you cannot tell where one ends and the other begins, his mouth curving into something that is not quite a smile anymore, something closer to a sneer, cruel and delighted both at once.

"How generous." His voice has dropped, gone low and edged in a way that raises the hair along your arms. "Mortal flesh, freely offered, as though I have not had my fill of soft, foolish bodies a hundred times over before your grandmother's grandmother was so much as a thought in her own mother's womb." He circles you slowly, unhurried, the way a wolf circles something it has already decided is not, in fact, any real danger to itself. "You think yourself a gift, little dove. I wonder if you understand yet that you are closer to a sacrifice."

You should feel smaller for it. Some part of you does, heat rising shameful and furious in your chest at the easy, contemptuous certainty in his voice, and yet beneath the shame something else coils tighter still, something that does not want him to stop looking at you like that, like a thing worth picking apart slowly simply to see what it is made of.

He stops in front of you, too close now, close enough that the cold coming off him raises gooseflesh along every inch of skin the cloak fails to cover, and leans down until his face is level with your throat, breathing you in slow and deliberate, the way a man might breathe in bread fresh from the oven, helpless to it despite himself.

"Are you sure, little dove?" His mouth brushes the shell of your ear, and you feel the words more than hear them, frost and heat both at once. His hand finds your waist and draws you the last small distance forward, until there is no cold left between you at all. "I will unmake you."

You do not have the chance to answer him with words. His mouth finds yours instead, slow at first, almost reverent, as though he means to memorise the shape of your hesitation before he takes it from you entirely, and then it is not slow at all, not reverent, only deep and certain and utterly unhurried in its thoroughness, his hand sliding from your waist to cradle the back of your skull as though he means to keep you exactly where he has decided you belong.

You lose the night somewhere in the middle of it. You lose the cold, the stars, the stone marker digging into your hip where he has walked you back against it, lose every coherent thought beyond the slow, devastating drag of his mouth against yours, his other hand finding your jaw, your throat, the fevered pulse beating there, tracing it like something he intends to learn by heart. Your own hands fist in the heavy fabric of his coat, in the cold chains looped beneath it, anchoring yourself to him the only way you have left, and the kiss only deepens for it, lengthens, builds the way a held note builds before it finally breaks, until your knees have gone entirely unreliable beneath you and the only thing keeping you upright at all is the solid, immovable wall of him.

When he finally draws back, just far enough to let you breathe, you are dizzy in a way that has nothing to do with the cold air rushing back between you, your lips swollen, your pulse a wild, unsteady thing beneath his still-resting palm, and the satisfaction low in your belly has not eased so much as sharpened, gone taut and aching and entirely unwilling to be soothed by anything less than more of him.

He watches you come back to yourself with an expression that has finally, fully abandoned anything resembling courtesy, hunger sitting plain and unhidden in those hollow gold eyes now, and his thumb drags once, slow, along your bottom lip, as though tasting the effect of himself on you for his own private satisfaction.

"Well," he says, low, rough at the edges in a way his voice has never once been before tonight. "It seems I have only just begun unmaking you at all."

He has you pressed against the stone marker, but the rigidness of the rock is nothing compared to the absolute pleasure he delivers through you. In seconds, as though it took no thought at all, he hikes the skirt of your frock, and pulls down your underwear. He grins in absolute, dark glee at the shining slick of your core. You gasp as the cold winter air hits your skin. 

“How long have you been dreaming of this, dove?” He asks, slow and deep. He pulls your thighs apart, holding you by the waist as he pins you to the stone. “Those nights spent trying to satisfy yourself, imagining it was I?” 

His tone is mocking and you whine. He is so slow, so unhurried, he has not even touched you yet, and yet the breath of his mouth against your clit, his fingers pressing hard against the plush of your inner thigh has you squirming. You can’t help but move closer to him, like a desperate dying moth fluttering towards the blue lamp, knowing for certain a lick of its tongue would lead to your unfettered death right there. You want that death. You want his fingers in you. His mouth over you. Him. 

And then he inserts his finger into you. You cry out, sharp and furious, the same cry you had let out when the lantern had burned you, left your skin charred. It’s unfair, really, how long his fingers are. They curl just so perfectly against your gummy, wet walls. Your eyes fill with tears, damp little drops decorating your lashes. You swear you see stars dancing over you, little flames. He smiles, and it’s a mocking smile, one that is so egotistical, to be the only one that could undo you like this. 

He leans over you and presses hot, open mouthed kisses against your skin. His lips press against your cheek, your throat, your collarbone. It travels down and down, and soon enough he has your carefully tied bodice undone. The dress gathers at your waist. It leaves you bare underneath, your breasts perfect round mounds of soft flesh. Sweat gathers in the valley between them. And the Fae reaches up and gathers one of your breasts in his hot mouth. You moan out loud, the sound echoing across the forests, the sounds are so lewd you think, for one dizzying second, that it could ward off even the fiercest of creatures. His finger works magic inside of you, curling and pinching, it has you writhing beneath him. The carefully tied knot low in your belly unspooling with each curl of his finger. It’s all so much. His mouth on your chest, his finger bullying its way inside, hitting that sore, aching spot you’ve never been able to reach on your own. 

“P-Please! Ah… mhm, I—” You cry out. You feel, at your entrance, the skin of another long finger, it dancing over your entrance. You shiver in its ghostly hold. And then, for one shocking second, for one nauseous clarifying moment, you think to ask a question that out of all moments, this moment precisely, you ought to ask. You heave in his hold, before you stutter out desperately, “Y-You, haahn…. Your—name?” 

The Fae laughs, the vibrations travelling over your stomach, and then plunges a second of his fingers inside you. He relishes in the lewd moan you let out, the way your legs come up around him, bucking at his digits. And then, all too cruelly, before you can finally come undone, finally have the knot inside you untangled, he pulls out his fingers; they come away glistening and sticky, a thin strand of your arousal liquid connecting his digits to yourself. The sudden cold, the sudden absence of his flesh has you gasping. Tears spill from your face, and you look down dumbly, at his face twisted into a courteous yet mocking expression. 

“You never stop asking, do you, golubka?” He sneers at you. He watches as your hole clenches around nothing. And then almost taking pity on you at the sudden punishment, he breathes against your clit. His voice comes low, “Kyryll Chudomirovich Flins.” And then his tongue darts out, pressing itself flat and hot against your flesh. Your back arches. 

The name, Kyryll, Kyrll, Kyrll, floats around your mind. “Satisfied, are you?” He asks. You don’t get to respond to that as his tongue darks out like a spike into your entrance. Almost subconsciously, you give him your name, too. And it seems to be at that moment that he seems to truly gain a different glean in his eye. He hauls you by your waist, his large hands keeping you elevated against the giant stone, your legs thrown over his shoulder, as he fucks into you relentlessly. You swear you see stars as you feel your folds open and licked clean with his tongue, long and flexible. 

Kyryll presses his mouth between your thighs, and feels the way your body convulses before you even realise it. “Yes, ah…” He murmurs low, keeping the pace. “Come undone for me, dove.” Your body relinquishes in an instant, your body nearly lifts from the stone as your weeks-awaited release washes over you in waves. “Hnah…. Kyryll, ah!” You writhe. 

For one second, as your orgasm comes over you, it’s all euphoria. You pant, your breath laboured and heavy, and you dare to glance at the man, no, Fae, that kneels at your feet. His mouth is covered in your slick and you feel the heat rise to your cheeks when you see his tongue come out to lick at his lips, as though the minutes he spent between your thighs, feasting on your bud and its liquids have not yet quenched his thirst. His eyes, you take note, have turned into slits, snake-like as he pierces into you. He takes a hold of the fabric of your frock and discards it to the side. 

“You’re beautiful like this,” He murmurs. “Bare, your eyes wide, your body squirming, given to me like an offering.”

“Kyryll…” You whisper. His eyes get blown wide. Your mouth is heavy with his name, your tongue tasting the consonant of its writing. You realise, belatedly, that you hold some power over him. He had given you his name, his most sacred possession, and you could dangle it in front of him like you would dangle a wad of feathers in front of a cat. You try again, “Kyryll.” And this time, he pants. His grip on your thigh tightens, so tight in fact that you don’t doubt that red marks have been plastered all over your skin, like you have been branded to be his for eternity.

Kyryll moves before you can properly register it. It is as though the utterance of his name has him completely, absolutely, totally ensnared by you. He has your back pressed against the stone in an instant. His hands come up below your thighs and circles your plush legs around his waist. 

You don’t know if it is simply your imagination or not, but the woods around you blur at the edges of your vision, and it seems for one dizzying moment that you are not in the wild at all, and rather that you are in a synagogue of sorts with your back pressed against a large marble pillar. Certainly, this is the most sacrilegious thing you have done so far. But your surroundings do not matter. It does not matter where you are or what local sacrilege you are committing. All that matters is that Kyryll is looking at you with a stare so penetrating it could cut through you. His clothes have come undone, discarded who knows where, and you dare to glance downward. 

His cock is hard and erect. A long pink thing with precum leaking from its head. It has your mouth salivating. You realise that you need it, that all the magic his hands and mouth could do would pale in comparison to how full he could make you feel. He could press it in you to its hilt, have you see the world in a way you never could before. You can hear the snarl in Kyryll’s voice when he says, “Say it again, baby.” You realise, belatedly, thoughts clouded with lust, that his speech is far less controlled now, far less pompous, it rather takes on a base and vulgar tone. “Say my name.”

And you do. Or, rather, you moan it loud and harsh.

Kyryll whines, bites you hard enough on the throat you whine, hips bucking against him. You shiver when he lets his tip catch your clit a few times until you manage to tilt your pelvis enough for him to slide in. Just a bit, but enough for his breath to catch and a hurried curse in a language you do not recognise, to fall from his lips as your walls eagerly flutter around the intrusion.

“Oh, ah, I—,” you whine softly as he finally presses closer to you. Your hands scrabble for purchase on his back as his body surrounds you. chest brushing against yours and sending pleasure from the pressure against your breasts. You are reminded of his lantern heat, and you nuzzle into him. One hand grips your thigh and holds your legs open as he sinks to the base. He places kisses and marks along your collar. His teeth, sharper than most, graze against your skin. It leaves stinging marks on your supple flesh, marks that you are sure will leave deep purple bruises come daylight. “...Feels good!”

“Ha–Hah… I, dear… God,” Kyryll mutters, but at the utterance of the word ‘God’ his entire body convulses. His length stutters inside your walls breaking the pace he had set. You moan louder. It was almost as though any utterance of ‘God’ sent shocks of pain and repulsion through him. Kyryll snarls and sinks his teeth into your collarbone. You cry out, clawing into his back with marks that are sure to leave half-moon scars on his pale, smooth skin. You like that thought. You like having carved yourself into him, the same as he is doing to you now. 

And then he moans out your name, over and over and over again, a substitute for God. Each brutal thrust is punctuated with a cry of your name. Your vision turns white at the edges. You feel as his cock hits your cervix. Pleasure and pain entangle themselves together, your legs press tighter and tighter. You can feel and see and hear only him. His thrust speeding up, his breath against your ear, you take it all as the creature inside you comes undone. 

All it takes is one final moan, “Kyryll!” And he comes undone. 

Your orgasm floods you yet again, stronger and more potent this time, overtaking all your senses. And you swear that Kyryll loses it. He fucks you through it, hard and fast, and you feel it in the way he chases his own release, rutting into your soaked entrance like he had not had an offering this good before. You could bet, if you were braver, that he truly had not had someone like you at his whim before. Thick white ribbons of cum release and it coats your insides, dripping down your thighs onto the ground below. He stays there for a minute longer, ensuring all of his seed would nest deep inside you.

You pant, sweat gathering at your temples, but he does not seem to mind. Kyryll cups your jaw in hand and smiles, slow. 

.

.

.

.

When you finally surface back into your own body properly, you find the snow beneath you has melted in a wide, perfect circle, bare earth steaming faintly where frost has no business yielding at all. He has kept you warm the entire time, you understand, distantly, the same patient heat that has lived banked in your hearth all winter now spent freely on nothing but you, and the realisation settles through you with a tenderness that aches almost as much as anything else tonight has.

He does not move away from you after. This, more than anything else, is what undoes you completely, the way he stays close, unhurried, his mouth finding your shoulder and pressing there, soft, before moving on to the curve of your collarbone, to the inside of your wrist where your pulse still has not properly settled, to each of your knuckles in turn as though every part of you deserves its own separate, private reverence. You lie still beneath the slow, deliberate attention of it and feel something in your chest crack open even further than your body already has, because this, the gentleness of it, the patience, frightens you in a way his hunger never quite managed to.

You ache everywhere, a soreness that has settled deep and low and entirely pleasurable, the particular satisfied heaviness of muscles finally, properly spent, and you think, with a breathless half-laugh you cannot quite suppress, of every restless night you spent these past weeks chasing this same release with nothing but your own poor, insufficient hands. Nothing in all those long, frustrated hours came anywhere close. You are sated now in a way that reaches all the way to the bone, and some small, smug, satisfied part of you decides, lying there in the steaming snow, that the weeks of wanting were worth it simply for the contrast.

He helps you dress afterward with the same unhurried care, and it is this, more than the kissing, that you will remember longest. He laces your bodice the way you imagine a much gentler world might have taught him to, slow and careful, his fingers brushing your skin with each pull of the cord, pressing a kiss to the join of your shoulder once it is closed, to your collarbone above the sky-blue embroidery your mother once worked there. He kneels to tie your boots himself, an act so absurdly domestic for something built of chains and old violet fire that you have to look away from him for a moment simply to keep your composure, and even that small task he performs as though it were a rite rather than a chore, his thumb tracing once over your ankle before he lets the laces fall closed.

He settles your cloak back over your shoulders last of all, drawing the clasp closed at your throat himself, his knuckles grazing your jaw as he does, and presses one final kiss, soft and lingering, to your temple, as though sealing something shut that he has no intention of letting come undone again so easily.

"Kyryll," you say, quiet, savoring the shape of it now that the urgency that first dragged it out of him has burned down to embers. It sounds different in this voice than it had in the other, softer, almost shy of itself, and you watch something in him answer that softness in kind, his composure slipping for just a moment at hearing his own name spoken so gently after spending however many centuries hearing it, you suspect, mostly in fear or in screaming.

"Do not waste it," he says, though there is no real warning left in the words now, only a kind of fond, weary resignation, his thumb tracing slow over your knuckles. "I am told I am rather difficult to get rid of, once properly summoned."

You laugh, and the sound surprises you both, bright and unguarded in the cold dark.

He walks you to the edge of the treeline and no further, some old instinct in him apparently still unwilling to be seen too near Babulya's gate, and there he stops, drawing you in by the waist one last time, his forehead resting against yours, his breath warm against your mouth.

"This was never going to be a single night's bargain, golubka." His smile, when it comes, is dark and slow and entirely too pleased with itself, and yet underneath the danger of it lives something that looks, unmistakably, almost embarrassingly, like tenderness. "I have spent weeks now learning the shape of you, one small mercy at a time. I find I have no intention whatsoever of stopping simply because the debt's been paid twice over."

He brushes one last kiss against your mouth, lighter than all the others, almost careless, almost a promise.

"You will see me again," he says, already drawing back into the dark between the birches, his eyes holding yours until the very last possible moment. "Sooner, I expect, than either of us has the sense to properly prepare for."

And then he is gone, the way he always is, all at once and without sound, and you stand alone at the edge with your lips still warm and your whole body humming with a satisfaction that finally, finally, feels complete, and find that you are already, helplessly, counting the days until he keeps his word.

𝓟𝓛𝓔𝓐𝓢𝓔 𝓡𝓔𝓑𝓛𝓞𝓖 𝓘𝓕 𝓨𝓞𝓤 𝓔𝓝𝓙𝓞𝓨𝓔𝓓 𝓣𝓗𝓘𝓢, 𝓘𝓣 𝓗𝓔𝓛𝓟𝓢 𝓐 𝓛𝓞𝓣 ❤ gold animated divider by: @cafekitsune

[jup1ter33]

The Almighty Dragon Lord K'uhul Ajaw!

Kinich x gn!reader ⋆˚꩜｡

The crude amazing K'uhul Ajaw takes a liking to one of Kinich's closest friends, which so happens to be someone that makes the words catch in his throat and keep his heart racing... Mualani tells him that hes harboring feelings for said friend; however, any time Kinich tries to engage, his pesky 8-bit dragon chimes in and steals the spotlight.

⤷ ゛wc. 2.3k ˎˊ˗

"ts corny" blahhhhblah blah blah icanthearyou

⋆˚࿔

"Finally! My most favored mortal has arrived!" The blaring voice of none other than Ajaw floods your ears as you spot him and his human companion just up ahead on the path. He tends to be quite rude and loud at times, but you've found that you've taken a liking to the little guy. Sure, he's temperamental and obnoxious at times, but he can be pretty cute!

The sun was blazing today, so finding them under the canopy of a large tree resting against the bark was exactly where you hoped you'd find them. The dragon excitedly bolts over towards you, his little hands thrashing in the air while he starts complaining, interrupting your greeting. "Why do you always leave me here with stupid Kinich all the time?! I declare that you will accompany me when that sorry excuse for a human banishes me to timeout!" You gently push the angry Ajaw out of your face while nodding along and pretending to agree. "Okay, Ajaw, I'm sure that will work out just fine." Then, you turn your attention to your friend, who sighs at the sight of him being so obnoxious. "Hey, Kinich." You wave as you stand in the shade of the tree, finding relief from the scorching sun. He offers a small wave, his typical reserved personality showing rather strongly today.

"Is that Quenepa Berries I see?!" Before you can even sit down with Kinich, Ajaw starts yelling about the small pouch of berries held in your hand. "Oh, yes—there was a patch of some on my way here." Ajaw floats around you, similarly to how cats rub and weave between people's legs. Kinich would've sent him away long ago for being so noisy, but he knows how much you actually like Ajaw and how much he favors you— it's a little ironic.

"Pipe down, Ajaw," Kinich annoyingly grumbles. Before either of them could start bickering with each other like they usually do, you open the pouch and show Ajaw the blue treasures inside. "For you, Allmightly Dragon Lord, K'uhul Ajaw." Playfully, you offer him the berries as he laughs and yells in excitement, digging into the pouch and munching on the berries.

Kinich has always taken notice of your kindness towards Ajaw and himself. You seem to always have something on hand to help 'babysit' the saurian— whether it be his favorite snacks like today, taking him out away from the group to cause some mischief (helping him let off some steam without actually causing any harm), or letting him snuggle in your arms and fall asleep peacefully. At first, he didn't know if you treated Ajaw this way because you pitied Kinich having to deal with him, or if you actually liked the little dragon. Eventually, he realized that you and Ajaw get along surprisingly well. He seems to have taken a liking to you, perhaps because of your gifts, or maybe cause you have a mischievous side...

Kinich watched as you settled onto the ground next to him, a bit closer than he expected. "How'd your commission go earlier?" Right, you were to meet him here after his commission was over, so he could split the costs with you. The commission involved something you're well-versed in, and after coaching him on parts of it and giving him vital information that effectively secured this commission for him, he promised to split part of it with you.

"It went fine, thanks to you." His prismatic eyes flick up to yours, only having enough courage to look in your eyes for a few seconds before he casts his gaze into the evening sky. "Oh, stop— I'm sure you would've handled it fine without me." You smile and laugh, leaning up against the bark.

As that unfamiliar and almost nauseating feeling builds in his chest, he remembers what Mualani had said. 'Looks like someone has a crrrushhhh!' Though embarrassing to think about, perhaps she was right. He can't even bear to look you in the eyes for long, hell, even you sitting with your shoulders almost touching is enough to send his heart thumping in his chest like hes in war. Maybe he should follow her advice and start with compliments; it would show some of his affection for you while also not being direct and blowing his cover...

"...You look—"

"I demand MORE quenepa berries! Where's the rest of them?! My least hated servant, bring me more!" Ajaw interrupted Kinich from even starting his sentence, and part of him was thankful it happened. The two of you turn your heads over to the noise pollution machine, watching how he scurries around and loudly demands more.

"Hey, you should be grateful! I stopped to get those just for you— and now you're complaining?" You scold the little saurian in hopes that maybe he will shut up, but it only seems to piss him off even more. "How dare you assume that measly portion of quenepa berries is enough for I, the Almighty Dragonlord K'uhul Ajaw!!!"

Kinich sighs, looking a more beat down than usual. You point to Ajaw, and then the ground next to you. "Ajaw! Sit your ass down! You know Kinich will put you in timeout if you keep acting like that!" The 8-bit dragon grumbles, mubbling about the things he would do if he weren't stuck in his tiny form. Finally, you look back over at Kinich. "Sorry, what were you saying?"

"Oh, I was saying we should start counting costs..." He takes the bag of mora he received after finishing the commission, setting it between you two. He hoped you didn't notice his slip-up there....

So, you and Kinich begin to count up and split the mora. There was haggling of prices and rates, debates on how much you actually deserve, and jokes about him being stingy and you being greedy. It was all in good faith with no real argument, just banter between you two. Ajaw went on a mini exploration while you were busy, as he couldn't demand your attention and pester you for more snacks. You weren't entirely sure where he went, but he wouldn't go very far— and, if something were to happen, Kinich would surely notice.

After a lengthy debate about splitting the mora and counting it, your share was agreed on and placed in a separate pouch for safekeeping. Kinich handled the mora, pouring the coins into the scrappy pouch. As hes handing it to you, your fingers brush against the palm of his gloved hand. It's barely enough contact to feel, and Kinich wants to scold himself for getting so tripped up over such a simple touch.

"Thanks! I guess your transactional way of life actually does have some benefits for me." You smile with a laugh, storing the mora away. Kinich gives you the faintest smile, one you cherish deeply for how rare it is. You knew everything that happened to him in his past, and you knew how closed off and shut down he could get at times, though it's never bothered you. You could count the number of times hes opened up to you and smiled on one hand. Ah, you're getting off track... now's not the time to be thinking about how rare his sweet smile is.

"Transactional lifestyle?" He repeats, amused. "I just work as efficiently as I can." Crossing his arms, he leans back against the bark of the tree. "Not sure how familiar you are with efficiency, you're almost always late, even today."

"I was not..." You huff, even though you knew he was right. Time had slipped from you earlier in the day, and you happened to run a bit behind schedule. "Work kept me a bit later than normal today, that's not my fault."

"So you do admit you were late?" Another rare smile fills his features, his lips unturned as his phlogiston colored eyes seek amusement in your rowdy response. You groan, crossing your arms— almost mirroring him. "Y'know, I think Ajaws rubbing off on you. You've had such snarky remarks lately."

He wonders if these "snarky remarks" are a subconscious response to the flurry of feelings he gets when you get just a tad too close to him, or when you bring him up in conversations with mutual friends, even when your eyes catch, he feels like his lungs got punched. He hopes you aren't taking it personally, or is he overthinking it now?

Kinich gives a short hum in response, sneaking looks at you in his peripheral vision. The banter was over, leaving a comfortable but, albeit, too quiet a silence. Perhaps this is his chance to man up and tell you that he thinks you're beautiful, or smart, or maybe he'll say something about how talented you are. He holds his breath before he parts his lips, afraid the air in his lungs will be forced out in jumbles instead of coherent words.

"You, um... you're really—"

Your eyes flick over to Kinich, who fails to hold eye contact. Before you can hear anything else, a loud, screeching yell erupts in the distance. You both divert your attention, becoming alert as you realize that scream came from none other than K'uhul Ajaw. Kinich quickly stands as he hears the yelling getting louder, taking a few steps away from the tree into the small clearing to hopefully get eyes on him. "Ajaw!?" You both question, rather shout, as a somewhat bad feeling settles over you. He could either be screaming over something dumb, which happens more often than you'd think, or over an actual issue. You can't shake the feeling that you and Kinich may need to intervene, but that all subsides as the little dragon soars through the air at record speed and crashes right into your body, all while screaming.

"Ahhh! HELP me! The yumkasaurs— they want to eat me!" Ajaw tries to hide in your arms, thrashing and wriggling about. Relief crashes over both you and Kinich, sighing as you coddle the saurian in your arms. "They can't eat you, Ajaw..." You murmur, feeling a little bad for him. He cuddles into your chest as Kinich staunters over, placing his hands on his hips as he looks down at you sitting against the tree with Ajaw tucked into your arms. "No! No! You HAVE to believe me!" His outburst continues...

Glancing up at Kinich with a mixed expression, he stares at you for a long time. He can tell you pity the saurian, but he can also see the amusement and relief written all over your face. That feeling bubbles in his stomach again. Seeing you cuddle Ajaw and comfort the poor thing makes him feel a twinge of jealousy, along with a heavy dose of affection for how caring you are. He sighs, having to forcibly rip his gaze off you as he sits down where he was before.

"I suggest you behave yourself." His tone carries aggravation. You lift your knees up and wrap your arms around Ajaw, keeping him safely snuggled up. "This is why I didn't run to YOU. 'Cause all you do is scold me! I'm not a little kid!" Ajaw huffs and puffs. So much anger stuck in such a little body. The hunter's eyes narrow at his words, crossing his arms and deciding to not engage.

Things eventually settled down, with Ajaw dozing off and Kinich quietly resting his eyes. You look down at the saurian. He had finally calmed down from his outburst, now resting against you as he started to fall asleep. He was awfully cute, especially in this state. Making an effort to pet his head without waking him proved to be more difficult than you'd like. He shifted a little, mumbling something about an almighty dragon lord. You chuckled to yourself, which caught your companions' attention.

"Ajaw really likes you." He states, his voice low in fear of breaking the calming atmosphere. You glance up again, successfully meeting his gaze this time. He has that smile again— it's so faint you'd only notice if you were looking for it. "Hes pretty cute when hes not demanding things." You glance back down at the sleeping dragon lord, stroking his head akin to how someone would with a cat. Kinich falls silent again, the peaceful air and soft breeze make you a little sleepy yourself.

"Did I ever tell you that you look... really pretty today...?" Kinich's words are strung together with a few awkward hesitations. He's never been outwardly affectionate to others; the words almost didn't form with how unsure he is. With the words hes been trying to say finally out, his shoulders relax as he sighs quietly.

Your eyes widen in surprise. Is this really the Malipo Kinich you're talking to? Malipo Kinich complementing you? Not just a casual praise for good work, but a full-fledged compliment— about how you're pretty? You freeze for a beat too long, and hes already regretting his choice. He should shut down all these addictive feelings he has for you and pretend this never even happened. Hes already convincing himself that he isn't attracted to you in any way, shape, or form.

"Is that what you've been trying to say all day?" You chuckle, giddily smiling at him as he stares back at you with more emotion than you've seen all day. His eyes are wide, and his cheeks have become flushed. He stares for a long moment, taking in the way your cheeks and ears turned warm and pink from his words. With a huff, he turns away, staring at the grassy ground as he hears another warm laugh radiate from you.

"Oh-hoho! I heard that Kinich! You think your feeble attempts at courting my least hated servant would go unheard by me? Oh, I'm ONTO you Kinich... you're SO done..."

[jup1ter33]

The Azure Flame Pt. 2

Per request, part 2 is here!! i hope i did it justice! (so sorry for the long wait...) you can read part one here

After discovering your dear Flins' true identity, you now have to determine the meaning of his confusing and unconventional actions towards you. Perhaps he harbors deeper feelings for you? Or perhaps you're thinking into it too far... Flins x gn!reader, mentions Varka, Diluc, and Rosaria, probably a little ooc, flins is a weirdo and i love it, everybody start writing about werido flins NOW,

w.c ╰┈➤ˎˊ˗ 4.3 k

Lately, everything feels... confusing. A relentless schedule certainly hasn’t helped, but even when things quiet down—if only for a moment—your thoughts inevitably drift. Always, they circle back to Flins. For the past month, he’s occupied your mind, his presence slipping into every thought, persistent and inescapable.

The worst part is that you can't tell if these thoughts are even productive. Sure, it's never productive to get stuck in a daydream when you have more important things to worry about, but maybe these thoughts will be of use if you can get some clarity from them.

You've noticed how strange Flins acts around you— or maybe it's around everyone? It's hard to tell because hes naturally so charming and gentlemanly to others. Is his hand resting on your back while he escorts you away from the danger of the Wild Hunt protocol? Maybe he just wants to ensure your safety, or maybe it's something more like an excuse to keep you close. He often gifts you intricate coins and gems, purchasing you ones that oddly match your personality and preferences. You swear there was something about accepting gifts from fae... You had searched in libraries, but there was nothing to confirm or deny the dangers of it.

Sometimes, his words would slip—he’d lace a conversation with a honeyed “dear” or “darling,” the words leaving as quickly as they came before you could challenge him. But each time, it would send a rush of warmth blooming across your cheeks, your heart thumping in your chest. Did he scatter these tender names like petals at everyone’s feet, or were they reserved just for you?

Yes, Flins has always been kind and generous to you; it's part of his personality, but you can't help but think perhaps this is more than friendly. Your mind always wanders back to the memory of falling asleep in his lighthouse and waking up with him in your lap— granted, he was in his lantern, but no matter if it was ‘human’ Flins or lantern Flins, he still took the opportunity to practically cuddle up in your lap. Why did he choose to do that? Does he even need to sleep, let alone in your lap? You can never find a worthy answer to these winding questions. Perhaps a second opinion could provide some clarity?

That's how you found yourself here at the Flagship, sitting at the bar next to Grand Master Varka. Hes a funny and agreeable person, and lucky for you, he happens to be friends with Flins.

"Mr.Flins? Yeah, what about 'em?" He questions, taking another swig from his oversized jug. Hes rather loud and boisterous, something unaware of his volume, but the music and chatter of every other drunkard in the bar makes you unconcerned about someone overhearing your conversation. Contrastly, you take a sip of your preferred drink, quietly trying to figure out how to best word the question you're about to ask.

"Okay, this is gonna sound weird— bear with me." You start, swirling your drink. "Does Ky— Flins ever say anything about me? I know it's strange, but I have many questions..." Varka's eyebrows raise in surprise as he laughs, hitting his hand on the bar table. "Haha! Oh, man!!" He takes another huge gulp of beer, slamming it on the table. "Flins talkin' about you?! Listen, I'd love to help you out, but a man's gotta follow bro code!"

Bro code? Is Varka serious right now? The literal Grandmaster of Mondstadt is following something as silly as bro code???!?!??!

All you can do is stare at him with your jaw hanging. Is he serious? You're about to pinch yourself to hopefully wake up from this dream when you're interrupted by his laughter. "Haha!!! Your face is priceless!" With a smile, he runs his fingers through his hair. "Now, if you can strike a deal with me, maybeee I'll spill a few secrets. I'm far from as closed-lipped as Nefer is." You rub your temples. Of course hes being difficult about this, but it inherently confirms that Flins does talk about you, and it has to be something of importance for Varka to need a favor to tell you. You laugh dryly, already trying to think about what you could possibly do to hear what mysterious things Flins has said about you.

"Okay, okay, fine. What do you want?" You retort, resting your chin in your palm and waiting for his answer. He hums, tapping his chin as he ponders what could be worth breaking this 'bro code' with Flins.

"Dandelion wine." He smirks, pointing behind the bartender where the wall of bottles sits on display. "All the dandelion wine has been stuck in transit for Archons knows how long; there's not a bottle left in Nod-Krai."

⊱༺༒︎༻⊰

Your brows furrow as you read over the names of people responsible for the exports from Mondstadt. Your most promising person was a man named Diluc Ragnvindr, who was the owner of the Dawn Winery, the sole production site of dandelion wine. You never thought you'd be so invested in Mondstadts wine industry, but curiosity was getting the better of you, and you were determined to get ahold of this wine no matter what. Now, the problem was figuring out how you were gonna get ahold of this Mr. Ragnvindr...

You had asked around for names and companies that were responsible for this screwed-up transit and wrote them down on a notepad, followed by some other to-dos and doodles scattered around. You wandered aimlessly around Nasha Town, the moon hung high in the sky, and illuminated Teyvat. Stuck in a trance of swirling thoughts, you made your way around a corner only to be met with a firm blockage, stumbling back slightly.

"Oh, I apologize, miss."

When you regain your footing, you're met with black and purple clothes, dull metal chains, and belt clasps, along with a flickering blue lantern... It was Flins you just bumped into.

Embarrassment swarms your face as you compose yourself. "Oh! I'm sorry I didn't see you—" He chuckles softly as you wave your hands, you seemed flustered to have bumped into him here. "No need for apologies. What a pleasant surprise seeing you here." You nod in agreement, trying to shake the nervous jitters out. You close your notebook and tuck it under your arm, meeting his pretty eyes. "What brings you to Nasha Town at this hour?" He asks.

Of course, he asks this... There's no way you could tell him why you're here, getting information about dandelion wine production and planning your trip to Mondstadt. A little white lie wouldn't hurt. "Ah, I'm heading out of town tomorrow for some work stuff." You hoped your tone was believable. He nodded and smiled, stepping closer. "I see. Well, I bid you safety and good luck on your travels tomorrow. I presume you're heading home now? Allow me to escort you back." He holds out his gloved hand to you with a handsome smile, leaning down the slightest bit. His courtesy and kindness were something you could never refuse, so you placed your hand atop his. "I suppose, but it's alright, I really don't need to be escorted."

As you both begin walking, he tuts to himself. "Well, that just won't do." He lets go of your hand, letting his find its way onto the small of your back. You tense slightly at his unexpected touch, yet you find that you don't hate it. "I wouldn't be able to sleep if I allowed you to return home alone without protection."

"You don't sleep to begin with..." He only chuckles in response, settling into a comfortable and casual conversation. The whole walk home, you were hyper aware of the feeling of his hand settled on your low back. His touch was gentle on you, holding you just enough to keep you close while keeping things respectful. You wondered what he was thinking about during this. Was this completely casual? Or was he also thinking about this simple contact as much as you were? Whatever the case was, you soon arrived at your front door.

"This unexpected meeting was most enjoyable, dearest." Flins removes his hand from your back and takes your hand in his. You flick your gaze over to him, watching as he gently brings your hand up to his lips, pressing a kiss to your knuckles so soft you barely even feel it. Instantly, you felt a flush of warmth wash over you, eyes blown wide as you watch in flustered shock. You're certain Flins is aware of the emotions hes invoking in you, his lips curl into a cunning smile as he drops your hand back down to your side. "Be safe tomorrow, don't hesitate to call me if you need my assistance." He leaves and bids you farewell before you can even respond, watching his dark coat dissipate into the foggy night. Your mind was clouded with so many emotions, all you could do was admit defeat and go inside.

As you prepare everything needed for tomorrow, your mind is elsewhere... It's like it's impossible to think about anything other than him. Hes strong and capable with plenty of knowledge about the battlefield, yet, in contrast, he can be so gentle and caring. He can take instant control of a dangerous situation and eliminate the threat before it even gets a chance, and he can also take your hand in his so gently and place a fleeting kiss to say goodbye. The parallels of his personality only enhance his charming qualities.

It was difficult to fall asleep, but the day's exhaustion eventually caught up with you and drew you into a blissful slumber. When you awoke, you set off for Mondstadt. Determined and ready to handle whatever situation was thrown your way, that pesky Flins was still stuck in your head as you traveled to the Nation of Freedom.

The scenery was beautiful: verdant leaves and soft grass coat your view, and you can't help but notice how much brighter the sky is here compared to Nod-Krai. There were unique flowers, such as Windwheel Asters and Cecilias that sprang up on the edges of the paths you followed. You waved to a few friendly traveling merchants and watched as the wildlife played and bounced around in the foliage.

It was a rather peaceful journey, thankfully, and you soon found yourself in front of a large bridge. It was a lively town full of people and peace, pigeons fluttered above your head as you entered the city itself. It smells like warm stone and faintly earthy, a hint of cecilas barely noticeable when you don't catch a whiff of alcoholic beverages.

Eventually, you found yourself inside Angels Share— right in front of Mr. Ragnvindr. He was tall and reserved with striking red hair. He seemed somewhat bored while working, wiping a glass and pouring drinks for others. “Excuse me,” You called out, coming up to the bar in between two empty seats. He looked over at you, a somewhat unreadable expression on his face.

“Welcome to Angels Share… You aren't from around here, are you?” He inquires, and his voice is rich. You settle down on the stool, laughing briefly. “No, I'm just here for… business, I suppose.” He turns over to a tall woman, her skin sickly colored with short magenta hair. She looked goth and intimidating, and she didn't say anything except slide her glass over to Diluc. He poured her a drink, still listening to you and giving you occasional glances.

“I need to buy a bottle of Dandelion wine.” You explain, watching him work deftly in front of you. “It's a favor— for Varka.” He perks up at the name, pausing as he turns his full attention to you. “Varka?” You nod, hoping that mentioning the grandmaster somehow didn't cause an issue. Diluc laughs under his breath, murmuring something along the lines of “These damn Favonious Knights”, and giving the gothic woman a look.

“Whatever this favor is, you’ll need more than just one for Varka.” He and the woman chuckle, and he turns and heads into a back room, disappearing and leaving you and this woman at the bar. “I'm guessing that delivery hold up to Nod-Krai is really getting to him.” She jokes, taking a large sip of her drink and musing to herself. Shortly, Diluc returns with 3 bottles in hand, setting them on the counter. “Out of courtesy for Mondstadts Grandmaster,” He wraps them and packages them in a box with an “Angels Share” logo on them, “And for your wallet, I'll discount you for these.” He pushes the box towards you, a gentle smile on his face, though you can tell there's an underlying annoyance — possibly at Varka. He was kinder than you expected; he certainly looked strict and somewhat played the part.

You left Angels Share giddily. The package was sealed, and you were so, so close to finding out what Flins said about you. Was it sweet like a toothache, or was he more serious and down-to-earth with his comments about you? It consumed your thoughts the entire way home to Nod-Krai, and you got back relatively late. The moon was already high in the sky when you walked into the Flagship, a big victory smile on your face as you spotted the blond man sitting down at a booth.

“Varka!!!” You exclaim, slamming the box down on the table and eagerly waiting for him to realize what present you brought back. He looks at you, and then at the box on the table before erupting into a loud laughter, excitement swelling full in his tone. “No way?! Is this the real thing?” He laughs, opening the box and finding bottles of his precious wine inside it. He gazes at it like it's liquid gold, taking a bottle out and popping it open before taking a nice, long swig. He sighs deeply after, leaning back into the booth as he relaxes and slouches. His gaze flicked up to you. “Well, I guess I owe you.”

Settling in the seat across from him, you nod, eagerly waiting for him to tell you. “Took me all day… I made a day trip to Mondstadt.” Varka muses over his drink, nodding along and listening to the details of your journey— it was the least he could do after you spent the whole day trying to get this favor for him.

“Well… Flins.” Varka interjects when there's a break in the conversation. “I'm guessing you wanna hear about what he said?”

You nod eagerly, sitting a little straighter. Everything you were contemplating gets discussed right now, and the truth about the matter will be exposed. You've wondered if there are deeper feelings at play, and this conversation will hopefully confirm or deny them. Varka smiles as he adjusts in his seat, preparing himself.

“Alright, it happened a couple of weeks ago.”

The flagship was loud and bustling, the crowd cheering as patrons participated in the drinking game. It had been going on for hours at this point, countless people joining in and tapping out— or rather physically being unable to drink anymore. Flins and Varka had taken a step away from the chaos, now sitting at the bar closer to the wall.

They shared a simple and casual conversation, both a little too drunk to be completely coherent. They mused on their drink, indulging in the alcohol and the bustling atmosphere. “You ain't bring your lil’ partner here tonight?” Varka bumbles, watching how Flins perks up at your name. The Ratnik adjusts in his seat, catching Varkas' gaze. “Partner?… I hate to break the news to you, Grandmaster, but they are not mine…yet.” He almost sulks out his answer, the last word whispered under his breath as he stares down at his reflection in the glass of his drink.

Varka scoffs, chuckling and taking a swig of his drink. “Whaddya mean?! Jus’ about anyone can tell you gotta crush on ‘em.” He slurs his speech, playfully shoving Flins shoulder. He grumbles from the contact, resting his head in his arms on the table. “Don't… humiliate me.” He sighs in defeat, his gloved finger drawing patterns on the old wood of the bar counter. “I can't bring myself to admit such things…”

The blonde tuts, shaking his head and patting his dear friend on the shoulder, more roughly than he meant. “Hey, now. Don't say that! I‘m sure it’ll be fineeee.” His reassurance only soothed Flins partly. There's no guarantee this will magically work out. You're mortal, and hes Fae. Sure, Flins has developed feelings for humans many times in his long life. He rarely acts on said feelings, though, in this case, he wonders if he should let loose. “I appreciate your concern, Varka.” The Ratnik murmurs, the alcohol making him a little less gentlemanly and now casual. “I just— they have such a beautiful soul. I cannot resist.” Flins tired eyes meet Varkas as he sighs.

“There's a constant flutter in my being when they’re around. I can't help but feel drawn to them…” An image of you flashes in his head, and Varka can tell because he bashfully tucks his face into his arms, hiding the warmth in his face. “I want to spoil them with everything I have. Ah, I wish I had invited them here tonight.” The grandmaster decides to stay quiet and let Flins dig himself into a deeper hole.

“Have I told you I've been on the hunt for a gem or a piece of jewelry for them? I've had rotten luck; nothing is quite right. It has to match their preferences perfectly… Perhaps when I find it and gift it, then I should confess how I feel…? Ugh, no— that's too close to marriage…” Flins runs a hand through his tousled hair, still leaning over onto the counter. “O-Okay, Flins, I hear ya’. Y’know— maybe just tell them straight up one day: Pull them aside to somewhere quiet and save everything you're telling me now for their ears!” Varka explains, but the man before him doesn't seem to be finished.

“Sometimes, I can't help but enjoy their scent… some days it's stronger than others, and I can tell when they choose to wear perfume or not. I enjoy it all the same, though. Oh, how I wish they were mine…” He exhales, almost whining and sulking, while keeping his head bundled between his strong arms. Varka pats his back, softer this time. “Oh man… you've got yourself in the mud. Maybe it's time to go back home for the night, you're hammered…”

Varka finishes his story by washing it down with dandelion wine. He had to be lying, there's no way Flins felt that way about you— and admitted all that to Varka!? You want to smile and jump around, squealing at the news just broken to you, but you have to keep it inside and gush about it later. “You're serious!!??!?! Flins said that, about me?!” Varka laughs and nods, not feeling an ounce of guilt for spilling his dear friend's secret. “Yup! Lemme tell you— when he first started going on and on about you I thought he was just being dramatic or just pulling my leg, but no, he was dead serious!”

Well, at least you had plenty to think about on the way home. In fact, it was all you could think about, just like your trip to Mondstadt, except tenfold. Does Flins think about you as much as you think about him? Does he imagine embracing you and holding you close on frigid nights, kissing your temples and covering you both in warm quilts? Does he think about coming home from his Ratnik duties to you in his home? Does he wish to see you excel and pursue all your favorite things, lifting you up and pushing you to become the best you can be?

Before you know it, you're at your front door. The walk home had gone by fast thanks to Varka's little secret. You unlock the door and enter inside; though empty for the majority of the day, it was noticeably warmer inside rather than out, a cozy and homey feeling settling in as the chill from the air no longer bit at your skin.

As you turn away from closing the door, your gaze catches on a vibrant blue lantern hanging in mid-air, eerily awaiting your return. You'd be creeped out if you didn't already know who this is…

“Kyryll!?” You gasp. The last thing you expected was to see the topic of the night literally inside your home. And how did he even get in? The flame flickered as he came out of his lantern, a black and violet cloud forming as his physical body manifested.

He doesn't speak at first, just staring at you with a look that borders on affection. Your skin starts to crawl at the sight. The moonlight from the window behind him illuminates him as he stands in front of you, tall and everlasting. He smiles at your furrowing brows.

“No need to be startled, my light.” His voice is smooth and velvety, and he steps forward just enough to reach out and tuck a stray lock of hair away from your face. “How did your journey treat you? You must be tired.” You laugh almost in disbelief as you rub your face, walking past him to kick your shoes off. “It was fine… and, yes, I am very tired now.”

He steps out of your way, watching you drop your travel bag on the ground. “Also, how did you get in here?? Care to explain?” You almost scold him, watching him raise his hands defensively.

“Hah. Well, you ought to know something.” You two now stand in the entryway; the house is dark, and only the starlight shines in. He gazes at you softly, yet there's something hidden behind his dilated, golden eyes that you can't decipher.

“I know why you went to Mondstadt today.”

Now, everything you've been secretly working for comes crashing down. Was it a setup from Varka? Was it all fake? What's Flins and Varkas's relationship going to look like now that he spilled the secret? You don't dare to move nor look at his face, a semblance of guilt, embarrassment, and curiosity settling in your stomach. You swallow, staring at your feet as the tense silence only continues. What do you even say to him?

At last, you let out a breath that had been trapped in your lungs for far too long. From your peripheries, you can see he hasn't moved an inch… How comforting…

“I… I shouldn't have done that…” Murmuring, you can't bear to face him or even glance at him, your eyes glued to the floor as you fidget with your fingers. Suddenly, Kyryll reaches out and takes hold of your hands, gently clasping them in his. His gloved hands hold no warmth, and his thumb tenderly brushes over your knuckles. Your gaze flicks up to his face, where he adorns a soft smile.

“Oh, you have the wrong idea. It bothers me not to hear that Grandmaster Varka may have spilled the secrets I told him while intoxicated.” Once again, confusion and shock makes you freeze. “But, you really should've come to me. I would've told you everything myself, dear.”

Did Kyryll mean it? Is everything he said to Varka one-hundred percent true? You let out a soft breath, and your shoulders relax, no longer taut with the tension. Flins chuckles softly at the change in your demeanor.

“Did you really mean everything? Like, you're not joking?…” He nods, gently lifting the back of your hand to his lips, just like before, and pressing a fleeting kiss to your knuckles. Your eyes watch him steadily, your heart thumping wildly in your chest at his confession. “I meant every word I said. Though it's unfortunate, the gift I had planned is now spoiled...”

Before your mind even has time to react or process, you throw yourself to him, hugging him tightly and burying your face into his chest. With your arms wrapped firmly around his torso, you can feel how he gasps at your actions. Oh, how he has waited for this moment, to finally have you in his arms. He chuckles at your spontaneous reaction, his arms gently coming around you to hold you against him dearly. He presses his nose to your hair and inhales your scent— the one he talked about with Varka a little too much to be considered normal; however, you both know Flins is not exactly normal.

The embrace satisfies something in both of you. His strong arms surrounding you cause your eyes to shut in relaxation, feeling like you're wrapped up in a cocoon of affection. His large, gloved hand softly rubs up and down your upper arms, something so simple, yet so soothing. As time passes, you relax your tight grip around him into something loose, just enough to hold him without engaging.

Finally, Kyryll releases you from the hug, refusing to take his hands off you. Hes finally got you here with him; there's not a single part of him that wants to let go, so he takes hold of your hands once again. You glance up at him to meet his loving gaze, his pupils blown wide with a small dusting of pink along his cheeks and tips of his pointy ears.

“How did you know what exactly Varka said… were you eavesdropping?” He only chuckles, placing his index finger to his lips. “Shh.” Finally, the two of you laugh in unison, albeit a little awkwardly. He cradles you again, his arms around your shoulders.

“Well… it would be awfully rude of me to keep you up any later. Would you like me to help you get ready for bed? I can cook something for you while you bathe. I noticed you didn't eat anything at the Flagship.” He gives a mischievous and playful smirk, hoping his remark about watching you would earn a feisty reaction from you, just so he can hear that sweet laugh of yours once more.

ཐི ྐ❤︎ ཋྀ

once again im sorry for the long wait !!!! the first part of this did so well and you guys wanted a part 2, and your wish is my command !! i hope you enjoyed ^_^

[jup1ter33]

guys i promise im working on part 2 for that flins fic i wrote abt a month ago ITS COMING I SWEAR VERY SOON..... (and a flins smut too shh)

ive been in a creative block for a while BUT ITS ALMOST DONEEEEE

[kuni-kuun]

Hopelessly devoted to you

[jup1ter33]

hello! do you take dark reqs? if so, may i ask for phantom of the opera!flins x reader? if not then, may i snack on flins receiving shiny stones (but not really the best ones) from reader who thought he'd like it? :3c reader can be any gender -w- thank you!!

omg hiiii !!!

i actually have never read or consumed anything phantom of the opera BUT i lowkey have been interested and this might convince me to pick it up.........

both these ideas sound so cute !!!! flins fits the phantom of the opera vibe so well(imo even tho i know nothing LMAO) and the shiny stones is such a great idea !! ill definetly look into writing about these soon since i already have a few drafts in the making ! thank you for the requests anon!!! <3

[jup1ter33]

Of Fang and Fae

Kyryll Chudomirovich Flins x gn!vampire!reader

When the need to satiate your thirst becomes overpowering, Flins somehow falls into the mix, getting wrapped up in vampiric seduction. suggestive!!!! (not smut) w.c 2.3k ⊱༺༒︎༻⊰

Oh dear, how did things end up like this? You were sure that you'd be alright, that you didn't have to feed anytime soon. You had such great control of yourself— of your thirst, that is.

You had convinced yourself that Flins blood would not satiate you adequately, therefore you would never need to sink your fangs into his neck and drink your fill. But perhaps you were wrong. Temptation is clawing at your rationality, and it aches terribly so. How were you to deny the hunger boiling inside you as he spoke with such sincerity? It felt as if you were being torn apart limb by limb. Yes, not wanting to hurt your dear fae with your carnivorous fangs was certainly your biggest concern, but the thought of sinking your achy teeth into his tender flesh and getting to taste that coppery nectar had started to sound irresistible.

Amidst your mental war, you had climbed atop him; too clumsy and out of it to get comfortable. Your hands gripped his shoulders, clawing at him to hopefully ground yourself to resist your selfish desires. Though he did not seem to mind any of this. Not your hunger, your crazed mind, nor the way you were slowly sinking closer and closer to his neck.

He gently placed a hand at the small of your back, hoping to aid in settling you down. But alas, he did not care whether you bit him or not. "Dear, are you feeling alright?" He knows he didn't need to ask that question; it was written all over your face. You were undoubtedly about to lose yourself.

You never wanted to feed from him; there's no way he would even taste good. Fae blood? Who knows if you could even digest it? But all rationality had been thrown out the window, and you couldn't tear your gaze away from the silken skin of his neck— at least the small sliver you could see hidden from his overcoat's collar.

"... I'm fine." Strained, you murmur. You try to take deep breaths, pushing away the thought of tasting blood. Flins stroked stray hairs from your face; his gloved touch is soft and gentle. He gently takes hold of your chin to force you to meet his gaze. "Are you thirsty?"

Am I thirsty? What a silly question to ask. Instead of becoming irritated with him, who seems to not understand the severity of this, you answered honestly. "Very." Your grip tightens as you have to bear the thought of just how thirsty you are. "Flins— I don't think you understand how bad this is right now." Grimacing, you try to swallow, but to no avail, your throat still burns.

"I believe I understand; however, I can't bear to see you in such a state." He cups your cheek, stroking it softly with his thumb. "If it will relieve the ache, then by all means, please—" You knew how that sentence was going to be finished.

"No— don't say that." Desperately, your hands rake over his chest, nails dragging over the thick material. You grip his shirt, wrinkling the already tight fabric. "I can't." He sighs softly at your defiance, leaning in to pepper kisses on your cheeks.

"This body is but a vessel. Your indulgence will not wound me, just this body I reside in." His voice is low and almost sultry, his hand bracing the back of your neck. "Its quite alright. I've always been curious to know what the bite of a vampire would feel like." He intentionally mentioned being bitten to further persuade you. It matters not to him the state of his body; it's just a bite from his beloved, hes certainly sustained worse injuries while fending off the wild hunt. He whispers into your ear words of affirmation, telling you that it will be alright and that he can handle your desire.

As he convinces you to give in, his hand opens the buckles on his high collar, opening it and exposing more of his neck. Your eyes zero in on the skin, your breath hitching as the overwhelming need for blood takes over your senses. Words fizzle into faint sounds, and all you can do is claw at the lilac dress shirt that covers the most delicious spot of his neck. He aids you, still whispering sweet nothings even though you were too far gone to hear them.

Finally, the pale skin of his neck is exposed. Your breath flutters as you tuck your face under his jaw. He tips his head up for you, his pulse quickening as he can feel your heavy breath against his cool skin. Your lips glide over his skin as the world around you slows. You swear you could smell the blood beneath his skin, or maybe you were losing your mind. It all felt the same; the only thing you could think of was his blood.

Your lips parted, fangs achy and in desperate need to be sucken into flesh. Everything hurt and felt exhilarating. tantalizingly slow, you dragged your dangerous fangs up his neck, feeling the goosebumps flare underneath the sharpness.

Flins had never felt something so passionate, yet terrorizing. Knowing that in an instant, your teeth would devour him and indulge on his succulent blood made him shiver. This exchange ignited something in him, and he wished you had given in to temptation sooner. It roused a desire that's been hidden within him for ages, and he couldn't help but succumb to the pleasure of you on top of him. Laving you tounge against his skin; all the while you subconsciously squirmed in his lap, rubbing up against him in ways where he sighed softly, leaning against the cushions behind him.

It felt immaculate to him; your breath was warm against his cold body, and hes sure the quick pain of the initial bite would fizzle into something pleasurable, something that would wring out sweet sounds from him and hopefully you. But there was no need for him to fantasize about it, not when it was bound to happen within the next minute or so.

You were determining the best place to have your meal, lips skimmering over his skin, before you paused, your heart was beating so fast you were sure Flins could feel it with how close you were pressed together. You dragged your tongue over the chosen spot a few times as if prepping the area. Your arms were wrapped tightly around him, one behind his back and gripping towards his shoulder blade, the other on the opposite side of his neck to brace him. As he tipped his head away for your feasting pleasure, your sharp fangs barely pressed into his skin, feeling the way it gives beneath the sharpness.

The suspense was heavy and overbearing. With your fangs already set on a spot, Flins closed his eyes in anticipation, bracing for the jolt of pain. You swallowed thickly before your jaw abruptly shut, piercing his skin and letting your teeth penetrate into the meat of his neck.

Flins tensed, flinching as the shoot of pain radiated from his neck. He groaned, his hands on your back gripping you to keep him steady. And oh, the pleasure that filled you was immeasurable. The thick, warm blood instantly filled your mouth. The intense iron and bittersweetness made you moan in relief. His blood was rich and silken against your tongue, satisfying that intense desire that had taken over you.

You suck, hands adjusting their hold on him as you tilt his head further away, exposing his neck more. He lets out a pained, subtle sound, only to fall on deaf ears. Quickly, the room smelled metallic; it only filled your senses more, making you fall further into a state of delirium. The taste of him was something you didn't expect; it wasn't as hot and lacked the sharpness that most humans had, but you were too drunk on it to care— and it was blood, Flins' blood, to be exact.

Amazing was an understatement for how good this felt. Finally getting to drink something— especially from the neck. It satiated something deep within you, making your mind settle with a hazy fog from how lost you were becoming in this. He was patient, letting you take as long as you needed.

Soon, the current of blood jutting from the puncture wounds had slowed, and it was laborious to suck it from his skin. The obscene sounds had become too loud for your liking. Gently, you retracted your fangs from his neck, and blood was smeared across the wound sloppily. Your breath came out in shuddered gasps, fanning over his sensitive neck. As you pulled away from his neck, he sighed in relief, his shoulders releasing the tension, and his hands no longer holding you so tightly.

Shakily, you drag your teeth up his neck again, dirtily carrying blood streaks along with them. Flins opened his eyes, gazing at nothing as the intense moment was finally dying down. He felt oddly dizzy; he wasn't sure whether it was from blood loss or from the adrenaline. His hands softly rubbed your back. You must have felt better after drinking so much.

Suddenly, Flins yelped as your teeth sank into him once more. He groaned and jerked; his neck was already sensitive, yet you paid no mind to his reactions, greedily drinking more of his delicious nectar. Your hand on the side of his neck held him too tightly for comfort, and he fought the urge to throw you off of him. You had become barbaric and animalistic, groaning while you devoured him.

He called your name once, twice, then a third time before he grabbed your shoulders tightly. The movement made you jerk, effectively pulling you out of that drunken state. You were dazed, eyes barely opening as you struggled to remember what was happening exactly. All you could think about was blood.

"Mercy, please, dear."

With his quiet and faint voice, everything hits you at once. How many times did you bite him? How long was he trying to get your attention? How much blood did you drink? You gasp and pull back abruptly, taking in the sight of him before you.

He was panting shallowly, his neck littered in angry shades of crimson as the blood had smeared over his skin. His eyes were unfocused, gazing at you with a hint of a smile, somehow. Frozen in terror, you could only stare at him, looking at how you utterly destroyed his neck. His hand slowly and gently reaches up, brushing some of the hair caked in blood away from your face.

You were sure you looked a mess right now. You could feel the sticky blood coating your lips and chin; it was probably dripping down on your chest at the moment. Your lips part to speak, and all that can come out are apologies. He smiles, huffing out a small laugh weakly. "It's quite all right."

"Oh my god— Flins, I'm sorry—" Desperately apologizing, guilt settles in your stomach. You hold his face, watching how his eyes stay lidded and his head wants to fall back. He shushes you, his hand resting on your shoulder. "Don't let a drop go to waste, now." He tilts his head up, exposing his neck again.

"But— I can't take more from you!" You felt terrible; this was never supposed to happen. He shakes his head, his hand on the back of your neck bringing you closer. "Just clean it up, dear. It has already left my body, it's yours."

You grit your teeth. Yes, it was true the blood that is so obscenely smeared over his neck would be wasted if you didn't lap it up, but there had to be more pressing matters, right? He seemed faint; he probably needs nutrition and rest. Instead of going against his wishes and complicating things further, you tucked your face into his neck and gently licked the remaining blood.

You tried to be as gentle as you could, moving slowly and applying minimal pressure. He gently rested his hand on your head, and his breathing had started to even out. With all the remaining blood cleaned up, you pulled back again, guilt knotting your eyebrows as you locked eyes.

"I-I didn't mean to bite you more than once. I'm sorry— I got lost and—" He shushes you once again, your apologies seemed to have no effect on him, as he was not upset at all.

"Don't be sorry, my light. That has brought me things I have never felt before." His voice is low, and he wraps his arms around your waist, pulling you closer into his lap. "This roused something within me; the feeling of you satiating your thirst from me, squirming, and all the while letting out the sweetest sounds has had an effect on me." You start to understand why he pulled you closer...

"Do vampire bites have a sort of, venom...? One that makes the victim ache with desire? Not a want, but a need to be satiated that only you, my dear, could fulfill?" His tone is curious and gentle, yet he holds you firmly. He gazes at you with almost a pleading look, his golden eyes dilated fully, and his brows knotted together beneath his wispy indigo hair.

You could only watch, frozen in a mix of shock and delirium from feeding off him. Shaking your head, you murmur a faint "No." He deflates slightly, his gaze flicking around in thought. "...I see."

His hands snake further around your waist, pulling you flush against his chest. The proximity makes you flush slightly; the tension in the room has changed— it was oddly sensual. "I suppose it was just you."

He takes your hand in his, gently pressing his lips to your knuckles. "Then, please, dear, will you indulge me in your sweetness tonight? Your actions have deeply aroused me... I apologize for the sudden change, but you are simply irresistible— especially in this carnivorous and uncontrollable state— all I ask is for you to please consider my request, love."

Perhaps you should hear him out...

ཐི ྐ❤︎ ཋྀ

[jup1ter33]

The Azure Flame

Kyryll Chudomirovich Flins x gn!reader

When questioning your more-than-friends companion leads to discoveries about him that confirmed your suspicions... Basically finding out Flins is a fae ^_^ ⊱༺༒︎༻⊰ super cute fluff, mutual pinning, mentions of Flins lore (spoilers ig??), Flins is so doting in this, idk what else to say its freaking cute tho

╰┈➤ wc. 3.3k

⊱༺༒︎༻⊰

“This is for you; you may have as many cups as you'd like.” Flins sets a cup of tea on the table for you, a small cloud of steam wafting off the top. The aroma is pleasant, the floral and sweet scent agrees with you. You take the cup gratefully, sipping it slowly as Flins turns to tend to labeling the boxes of his bone jigsaw puzzles. Though the hobby is definitely unusual and peculiar, you can respect the dedication and craftsmanship he devotes to it. They're certainly impressive, though odd. “Thank you.” You murmur, the tea is soothing to your tired body, its warmth and smooth flavor make your shoulders release the tension you didn't even notice was there. “Are you not going to have any? I quite like it.” You ask him, setting the cup on the table as he scribbles some dates on a blank box. “Oh, me? I'll pass. I don't favor tea as much as you do.” His tone is light and relaxed, back still turned to you as he organizes his collection. 

You knew it… Flins is somehow never thirsty, or hungry, or sleepy… It doesn't make any sense! How could someone who dedicated his life to fighting the Wild Hunt never want to eat? Surely he needs energy, right? You grumble, placing your chin in your palm as you glare at him. “How come you never want anything? You decline food, drinks, hell, I don't think I've ever even seen you sleep!” He finally turns to you, a smile on his face that you can't quite read. Was it mischievous? Or secretive? You couldn't tell. 

“Really? Have you ever thought I'm just declining out of politeness? I brewed that for you, not for me.” He humors as he pulls a box off the shelf, opening it and sorting through the contents. “Ugh, no. Flins, it's like you're not even human.” He perks up, his golden eyes flicking over to meet yours. Something in him shifted. “Do you truly believe that claim?” His voice lowers slightly, and it unnerves you. Hes always been unsettling and honestly creepy, but his demeanor now makes your spine crawl. You shift, sitting up a little straighter. It feels like his eyes are boring holes into you. “Yes… You're not human, right?” You admit your thoughts, staring back at him with intensity and anxiousness. “...You're a vampire, aren't you?” 

Flin's eyes widen before he snorts out a laugh, bringing his gloved hand to his face to stifle his laughter at your comment. You can feel embarrassment rise in your face, blooming into pink ears and cheeks. “Hey— Don't laugh at me like that!” You can't help but giggle along with him. You also can't remember a time when you saw him laugh like this, so maybe your incorrect guess at his nature wasn't such a bad thing. 

He composed himself; the tension was completely gone with the fit of laughter from you two. The box was disregarded as he turned fully to you. “Well, I guess I should come clean to you, since we have recently grown so close.” His tone is soft, yet genuine, and he takes in the change in your demeanor as you process his words. “Though not a vampire, you were correct. I am not human.” He admits, and the air falls silent. 

“...What? Are you serious?” The shock hits you, even though you already speculated this, it was different to hear the confirmation come from him directly. “Yes, I'm serious.” He speaks as if this is a completely normal topic for you two to talk about. You blink, sighing and slumping into your seat. “I knew it…” 

He huffed a laugh. Your reactions were endearing to him, and he watched you take another sip of the tea he made for you. “You knew it? You were certain I was not human?” He teased, focusing back on the box of bone puzzles before him. “Well… Thats besides the point.” You change the subject. “If not human, then what are you?” You question, your voice was a tad bit softer, as you didn't want to pry— this was clearly something he didn't want everyone knowing— but you couldn't help yourself from at least asking. 

“I'm sure you would be able to figure it out yourself. You are very perceptive, so much im sure you could land a position at the Curatorium of Secrets with Lady Nefer.” You ignore the compliment, though it doesn't go unnoticed. “Youre not gonna tell me!?” You exacerbate, straightening up again. After all this effort you went through putting together the pieces of the little things you've noticed about him, and even gathering the courage to tell him so, he still won't admit his true nature to you. 

“I won't tell you because you are absolutely capable of figuring it out yourself. Think of it like this,” He explains. “As I work on my bone jigsaw puzzles, you can piece together the puzzle of my identity.” Spoken with a smile, he examines a bone, angling it to see how it could connect to the others. Hes so nonchalant about this, it's a wonder to you that he puts so much effort into keeping his identity secret, yet he wants to play a game with you to guess his nature?

“Really?” You sigh. He only nods with a hum; he most likely just wanted to tease and play around with you because he knew your reactions would provide ample entertainment (but also because hes learning that he enjoys your company more than he initially thought). “Where should I start…” You murmur under your breath when you realize he was dead serious about this, and that there was no way you were going to be able to convince him to tell you otherwise. “Well, why not start with those things you said you noticed. You were certain I was not human before I told you, correct? You’ll be able to see all the evidence.” He chuckles softly, piecing together small bones, some carved and some found. 

And so, you began to talk about everything you noticed about him. You weren't sure if he suggested this because he actually thought it would help you, or if it was because he slyly wanted to hear the things youve noticed about him. No matter, because you were already spilling the details about how you've caught his pointed ears through his silvery-ultramarine hair and about all the times he seemed to appear out of thin air. He listened to everything you had to say intently. 

You recalled a story to him when it was the dead of winter, you and Flins were outside during a snowstorm after offering to help out Nefer for an important commission. However, you soon realized this was a mistake, as the cold was bone-chilling and relentless. You had a furs and thick coats to retain your body heat, and the snowfall wasn't as peaceful as you hoped. It was hard to see far in front of you, even with the help of Flins lantern; the bright violet hue could not penetrate the flurry of ice before you. You shivered and tried your best to keep moving so circulation could bring heat to your limbs, but all you wanted was to sit curled up in blankets with hot drinks in front of the fireplace. When glancing over at Flins, you couldn't help but notice his lack of reaction to the bitter cold. He moved as if the cold didn't bite at him; his teeth never chattered, but most of all, there was no cloud of misty breath leaving his lips. You figured maybe the blizzard was to blame, as it was hard to really see anything, but the more you paid attention, the more you realized there was no breath at all. His chest did not inhale with oxygen, and there was no respiration; no puff of foggy breath leaving him. Naturally, this made you both concerned and curious. How is he not breathing? Something had to be wrong… Yet, you never brought it up until now, watching Flins nod along with your story. 

“Yes, I remember that indeed.” He connected a few bones; you guessed they had to have been hind legs or possibly shoulders. With a smooth and velvety voice, he continued. “Another correct observation, I do not need to breathe like you.” His responses feel like hes grading your capabilities like an exam…

“What else…” You murmur to yourself, eyes flicking around while you search your brain for any other anomalies. That's when your gaze catches his, and it sparks your memory. His eyes. They are unlike anything you've seen before, and that's not coming from an affectionate place, but rather an acute observation. You've noticed the yellow is in fact his pupil and not his iris. It dilates like a cat, expanding large and full like a golden saucer when hes in the dark; then shrinking to small beady circles when hes faced with the sun. You can't recall any other being in Teyvat with eyes like these— a closer look is necessary. 

So, you get up from your seat, only needing to take a few steps to get close enough to him. “Look here,” He glances over at you as you approach, setting his puzzle down as your hands reach out to adjust his face to be parallel with yours. You two are awfully close now, but your excuse was that this was necessary in order to figure out his identity. 

His golden pupils were blown wide with barely any of the navy rim left, and you hoped that fae shared the same dilation factors as humans did. His lashes were a dark blue, some more of a pale violet or lilac color, along with dark circles around his eyes, almost looking like eyeshadow. His skin was somber and almost grey-ish, yet it shone with the slightest iridescence when the light hit it just right. Though sharp, his features are unique with carved cheekbones and a subtle bump to his nose bridge. His lips were thin with a mauve undertone, similar to the faint blushing to his cheeks that you pretended not to notice, though your heart jumped when you had caught notice. His hair was soft-looking, with indigo roots and pale tips, similar to his lantern's flame. He was certainly attractive… But now was not the time to gawk and stare at him; you were here to look for clues to his identity! 

“Has curiosity gotten the better of you? What's the meaning behind this?” He questions with a hint of humor in his voice, though he doesn't seem to be complaining or bothered at all. “Your eyes are not human, so what else isn't?” You tilt his face to the side, examining for anything unusual, before your eyes catch his pointed ears. Yes, you've been curious about this before. They're certainly too pointed to be cosmetic, and they seem to be completely natural. He has a few piercings adorned with silver colored jewlery. “Your ears are not human,” You continue, listing off your findings. You adjust his face back to normal positioning, feeling something spark within when you catch eye contact. Your eyes flick down to his lips. Maybe it was subconscious, but you ended up continuing your little ‘investigation’ here. Your thumb pulls at his lip, exposing his teeth. Nothing seems to be different, but to confirm, you gently pry his mouth open. He gruffs slightly, baring his teeth as you coax him to do so. His teeth are a little more pointed than you would've imagined, yet not quite enough to be alarming like your vampire allegation earlier. “Hmm… Your teeth are normal— but your skin is cold.” Your palms lie flat against his face; no warmth spreads from his tinged cheeks. Perhaps he was getting flustered, as his gaze flicked anywhere but at you. 

Reluctantly, you let go of his face after finding all of the details you possibly could. He stands up straight again, his eyes still taking in your form before him. “I must say, you are incredibly observant of me.” He muses with a steely voice, pretending as if that interaction did nothing to him. He looked back at his puzzle, but he was unsure if he wanted to spend the time to finish it, or to allow you to ‘examan’ him some more. Though you settled back in your seat, taking a sip of the tea he brewed for you and contemplating what he could possibly be. “I still don't know… are you sure you don't want to just tell me?” You lament, shoulders sagging as you wonder if you'll ever be able to figure it out. All of these clues point to something inhuman, but what? A Seelie? An Adeptus? A Melusine? Hell, maybe a Saurian?! He chuckles richly, inevitably deciding to finish his puzzle. “Have you ever heard the story of the Azure Flame?” He questions, and for a split second, you wonder if this is him coming clean. You shake your head.

“I see, well then, allow me to tell you a story.” Through your time spent together with Flins, you've learned that he loves to tell stories, and some of them are so ancient that you wonder how he can remember and recite the details so well. Hes calm as he begins to talk, working to piece together the puzzle of bones before him. “The Azure Flame is a tale from Nod-Krai; a Lantern Fae said to have done many good deeds for Nod-Krai during its peak many, many years ago. Some say that if you are lost or in danger at night and you happen to see a flickering blue flame, you should follow it.” His tone is delicate and soft, his eyes never leave his puzzle, though. “However, an Abyssal Calamity had struck, which I'm sure you are familiar with— the Wild Hunt.” You nod along, listening intently. “From the devastation and corruption, the Lantern Fae had snuffed out their light, extinguishing their flame. The Fae chose their resting place at the Final Night Cemetery, resting in a grave for eternity to escape the pain and guilt of the fallen humans it once helped.” His tone shifted to something more somber, and you recongized many words within this story. The Final Night Cemetery? That was here. And the part ‘extinguished their flame’, is that something equivalent to suicide?

His gaze seemingly locked on nothing as he recounts this story. “However, on a fateful night, the Wild Hunt was rampant and relentless, the Ratniki had found a blue lantern, and a fatally injured one used the grave for a brief respite. His blood had seeped into the inscription and stone, miraculously awakening the Lantern Fae that was sunken into a sleep-induced state for seemingly forever.” The more he speaks, the more and more the dots start to connect. Was he perhaps this Lantern Fae?

“And so, the Azure Flame was once again ignited, swearing to protect the people of Nod-Krai from the wild hunt for as long as they may live. Though to tell the full tale, we would be stuck here for hours, but it's a rather heroic and bittersweet story, wouldn't you say?” He turns to you, placing the final bone into his puzzle, the skull. 

This story of his certainly cleared everything up. Now the pieces connected, the pointy ears, the appearing out of thin air, his eyes, the lack of breathing and body heat, and the azure-colored lantern that he seems to take with him everywhere he goes…

“Are you this Lantern Fae? The Azure Flame?” You speak with a hint of a smile, partly because you believe youve solved the case of his identity, but also because Flins seldom speaks about his personal life. He chuckles softly, stepping back from his puzzle and turning to face you. 

“Correct.” He looks at you with an emotion you can't quite put your finger on. Was it admiration? Affection? Perhaps hes simply satisfied you've solved the case. Whatever it was, you enjoyed the way he seemed to take in your presence. “Allow me to reveal my true identity to you,” He bows slightly, his hand straight and placed over his chest. “I am Kyryll Chudomirivich Flins, but you may call me Kyryll. Though please take caution when calling me by my first name, it's a secret.” His tone is teasing and pleased, and he seems to take a great deal of pleasure in revealing this to you.

“Kyryll…” You test his name on your tongue, and he quite likes the sound. “Yes, dear?” The affectionate name makes you falter for a moment, and you try your best to ignore it, but the slight warming of your face betrays you, so you come up with an excuse for saying his name. “...If you're a fae, do you have— wings?” You struggle to imagine the stoic and unsettling Kyryll with cute fairy wings. He hums to himself, amused. 

“I suppose so, yes, though not like those found in children's books and fairytales.” 

“Do you have pixi dust?”

“...No, the source of my ‘power’ is from my lantern.”

“But you aren't small like a fairy?”

“Thats because I'm a Lantern Fae.”

“Though, you like shiny things just like fae, right?”

“...Yes…”

He sighs to himself with a small puff of laughter. Perhaps his story skipped over details that are common knowledge to him, but foreign to humans. So, Kyryll proceeded to tell you tales of Lantern Fae and himself, from sad stories of death and passing, to humorous ones from his long life. The night seemed to never end, and both of you had found your way in front of the warm fireplace, sitting on the couch while you sipped at warm tea and snacked on crusty breads. 

You had lost track of time, and before long, you found yourself dozing off to his lengthy stories. His voice is soothing and velvety with a hint of something monotone beneath it all, perfect for falling asleep to. With your consciousness fading, you tried to fight the sleep overtaking you. However, you could only fight it for so long, eventually falling into a deep slumber.

When your eyes peered open, you weren't sure how much time had passed. It felt like you may have been asleep for years, or maybe only ten minutes? Confusion of your surroundings was the main thing your sleepy brain could focus on. You lifted yourself up groggily, limbs tired as you found a blanket draped over your lap. You couldn't remember there being a blanket here before… As you realize where you are, a sort of frenetic panic sets in.

This is Flins Lighthouse! Wait— Kyryll now. 

You rub your eyes, noticing the faint light coming from the thin windows. Though never was it sunny at the Final Night Cemetery, you could tell it was daytime. The fireplace had fizzled out, and the bread and tea were still on the table; a water pitcher and cup had joined seemingly overnight without your knowledge. 

How could I have fallen asleep here?! I know we were up late, but I shouldn't have allowed myself to pass out like that! Will he think this is rude or unbecoming?

Moving to stand up and trying to remember where you left your coat and shoes when you first arrived, you're stopped by a weight in your lap, not particularly heavy, but somehow warm. You glance down, cautious and curious at the same time.

There lies a blue lantern, one with silver edges and a soft violet hue emanating from it, the Azure Flame. You sigh, relaxing and leaning back into the couch cushions as you look down at him, well, Lantern Kyryll. Was this his way of sleeping? Residing in his lantern and picking a spot to lay? Or maybe float or hang? It confused you, yet you welcomed it. One thing you were certain of was that he picked this spot to ‘sleep’; he chose to place himself in your lap. In no way, shape, or form did you mind; it actually confirmed something else inside you that maybe you would also need to start an ‘investigation’ on— his true feelings towards you.

ཐི ྐ❤︎ ཋྀ

read part 2 here !!

[jup1ter33]

Amatory ࣪ ִֶָ☾.݁ᛪ༙

´ཀ` Flins x gn!afab!reader smut!!!!!! mdni!!!!! sub(ish) flins, dom(ish) reader, dryhumping, flins has a sensitive spot, light begging, no plot straight into the good stuff, possibly ooc, tons of references to his fae nature, only one mention of readers anatomy, not my best work (｡>﹏<) wc. 1.5k ── .✦

Kyryll lets out the quietest sound at your actions, his head tipping back just slightly, your ministrations taking hold of his sensations. His golden eyes lidded, gazing at you full of affection and desire, though there's a hint of something carnal behind them; it was noticeable but insignificant in this moment. Flins usually prefers to take the lead, as he prefers to give, but there's no harm in allowing you to do so tonight...

You were straddled on his lap, arms wrapped loosely around his neck as you lazily rutted your hips into him. Your movements are languid and slow, yet with each grind, you crave more and more despite your sluggish movements. You can feel him beneath you, and you can tell he's getting restless. He twitches occasionally, and he croaks out a moan while his hands on your hips tighten the slightest bit.

"Dearest," Strained, yet with an underlying coordination, as if hes allowing himself to lose control, he tips his head to glance at you. "You are tearing me apart." He almost whines, spreading his thighs more to allow for more friction. Involuntarily, his hips gently press up into yours for more of that addictive pleasure. You shiver at his movements, pressing down harder. Though the thick fabric of his pants proves to be quite annoying. You pause, moving to fumble with the buckles and buttons of his pants. With his help, you push his pants to above his knees as he settles back down. Getting back on top, you resume your previous activities. He shudders deeply, his hands gripping your hips and guiding you further.

"Ah," He shuts his eyes, the pleasure was creeping up into his head and settling as a dense fog. It felt as if he couldn't think straight. His nerves were set ablaze, and his sensitivity seemed to be dangerously high. "Dear, you are mesmerizing... i-its—" A throaty moan cuts his sentence short as he feels your fingers grace the soft spot between his shoulder blades through his thin lilac dress shirt— the sensitive base connected to his wings.(Though his wings are not visible, this spot on his back still experiences the sensitivity as his wings would.) It makes his hips jerk forward, the pleasure flashing through his nerves and, in turn, making his movements involuntary. He whines almost desperately, his back straightening as he chases the feeling he craves so deeply.

His arms snake around your waist, pulling you close as he tucks his face into your neck. He pants softly, shutting his eyes as your hands draw dangerously close to the sensitive spot again. "You're teasing..." He murmurs, kissing your neck. His lips ghost over the sensitive skin; occasionally, his teeth drag, sending shivers up your back. He utters sweet praises to you, all while letting out soft sighs and moans into your ears. It sets you off more, making you turn a bit desperate for him.

He takes quick notice of your nature, starting to gently rut his hips into yours once again. He groans, and it seems like his reserved and gentlemanly nature may be wearing thin. As you drag your fingers down his sensitive spot, he tenses with a deep groan that dissolves into something akin to a whimper. The arms around your waist tighten, and he bites into the curve between your neck and shoulder, overcome with a flash of deep and intense pleasure. Though he didn't sink his teeth in hard, it still sent a tingly sensation down your back and up your neck. "Sorry, sorry..." He mutters, his voice is thick with desire and strained. You're sure if you could see his face, it would be flushed with a fair shade of pink— maybe that's why he was tucked under your chin.

He loosens his hold around your waist, placing a few kisses on your neck before he glances up at you. "Dearest—" He shudders as you continue grinding into him, making him shiver with your perseverance. "Once more, please." He whispers, looking up at you with desperation in his eyes. "Touch me again— please dear," He begs without a lick of shame, as if asking for your touch is the most sacred and honorable thing a man could do. His hand reaches up to your face, stroking your cheek with a slight tremble in his hands. "Please..."

His begging makes you freeze to allow your eyes to capture the sight before you. The intimidating and powerful Flins: a Ratniki and warrior of the Wild Hunt, is reduced to whining and begging you to touch him so prettily. His golden eyes look up at you with ache, and you can't bear to deny him any longer, not when he asks you so sweetly and politely.

Your fingers scratch down his spine slowly, watching him choke up as the pleasure seizes his nerves. He tenses as his eyes shut in bliss; he was forever thankful for your kindness towards him in this moment, offering him the insatiable pleasure that only you can provide. He sharply inhales through his teeth, hands around your back, gripping you as if you might slip away in the throes of his pleasure. Hot flashes wreck him, his skin set ablaze with tingly sparks; it's so good he wants to run from it and embrace it simultaneously.

When you grind into him with palpable pressure, a full-body shiver slams through him as he can no longer suppress the desperate sounds that leave him. He can feel your wetness through the thin undergarments left on you both, and most of all, the addictive and heavenly warmth you provide to his fae body. He's awfully susceptible to your warmth and human qualities— it's foreign to him, yet there's something about it so endearing. Your natural body heat is a weak flame compared to his: the Azure Flame. It's interesting how his body is so cold, despite his true form as a lantern fae.

Multiple sources of stimuli make his head cloud, unable to form any coherent thought as all he can do is accept the pleasure you give him. He rarely allows himself to receive, mostly because he prefers to give, but now that he's experiencing so much ecstasy, he's sure he will become more open to being on the receiving end. In fact, it feels so good he's starting to lose himself.

Flin's mouth is agape as gasps and moans escape him; he can't seem to suppress himself as the overwhelming need for release creeps up in the pit of his stomach. His eyes are tightly shut, and his hips jerk into you; he would have to apologize to you later for being so ungentlemanly...

But it doesn't bother you; in fact, it's stoking the flame within you even more. Watching his polite and reserved demeanor crumble because of your ministrations fills you with a certain warmth and solidarity, and you are set that you absolutely must see him fall apart at your hands. You massage his spine between his shoulder blades, hitting the sweet spot from his wings just perfectly. He pants heavily, growing restless, and you know he's soon to snap. You make sure to press yourself into him at the perfect angle, allowing him to feel just barely between your folds— almost teasing him with the possibility of what he could have.

"Dear—" You're surprised he managed to speak to you, albeit strained and hoarse. He's so caught up in pleasure that he jerks and twitches with every movement. You try to soothe him by running a hand down his shoulder, whispering sweet nothings and praises into his pointed ears. He pants, moaning and gasping on almost every single exhale as his spine straightens and his stomach flexes. "I'm gonna— fuck—"

Before you even have time to process hearing him curse, he squeezes you to him tightly, a deep shudder wracking through him as he finally comes apart, groans dissolving into whines as he comes hard. You can feel the warmth from the bodily fluid beneath you, making a slippery mess of you two as he desperately and honestly fails at rutting his hips into you. His forehead rests on your shoulder as he steadily relaxes from the hot waves of pleasure that just passed him. His movements come to a halt as he calms himself through the aftershocks, his grip no longer bruising as he leans against you.

You're honestly shocked at what just happened; not only has Flins never been that vocal, but never has he came so hard. You gently stroke his hair as he lifts his head. Meeting his lidded and dark golden eyes, you noticed his cute, flushed face, tinged pink, along with the tips of his pointed ears. No words are shared for a moment as he recovers; the intensity of the moment needs a break, yet you find yourself craving him more now than you did previously. However, when Flins finally speaks up, his voice is low and hoarse, yet undeniably attractive.

"Again, please dear. Please..."

[dapizzamanlol]

Anyone else get this deal on the Libra fight

[drag00ni]

the Wylder

[styraxite-deactivated20260405]

Executor

[sunnbnn]

Feel like dancing

[pk4n]

The Night Reigners™️

[oka-ja]