Hi, Speckled!! Congratulations on sticking through two whole years of sporadic writer's blocks, dramatic moments of inspiration, and for writing a whole novel worth of words ✨ If I may...
“I've always wanted to ask, my dearest white boy, do you think men deserve to live?“ - to Phainon of Aedes Elysiae :D
You swear you can hear cracks and pops as Phainon cranes his neck toward you—like unoiled gears, crudely grinding against each other.
As a soldier, Phainon was no stranger to adversity or surprise; to survive the ever evolving black tide, one would have to evolve in turn. Strength, perseverance, and fortitude—he wouldn’t have survived so long without them. Aedes Elysiae’s name wouldn’t have survived.
That is to say: the dumbstruck look on his face was an achievement. If you had quicker reflexes, you’d have your teleslate out and it’d be framed on your wall in golden laurel.
“…White boy,” he says, tongue a lump.
“That is what I said,” you nod. "Is that wrong?"
As per his white hair, predominantly white apparel, and pale skin---
"No," he shakes his head, "But it's a bit..."
"What? Flippant?" Demeaning?
He raises his brow, "No; general. Can't 'white boy' be said for a lot of people?"
You frown; this wasn't what you were expecting when you dropped that moniker. “So ‘white boy’ is what’s confused you and not my deep philosockfickal—philsoch—philosophical question?”
"Confusion is generous," he laughs, "Just...surprised." His smile is warm and bright like always, but you make out a tightness at the corner of his lips, and a thought suddenly occurs to you,
"Are you disappointed it wasn't the usual...Pumpkin?"
Pumpkin. Innocent, silly, something grandmothers say and smile while doting on their young and rowdy grandchildren. It came initially from your first meeting, a harrowing incident involving soup from a vendor more skilled at hawking than cooking and a bump and towels and water that only made the orange pulp spread out through the Goldweaver's craft---to now something of a haunt, something of a reminder the whispers that escape a soldier's past days spent as farm boy.
Those whispers have made the pet name solidify on your tongue. You wonder if he'll ever know why you stuck to it so much, but if his disposition now is anything to go by, he's grown as attached to it as you have.
Relief is the only thing you can see on his face, "So I haven't lost the moniker?"
A soldier, it is more than a little surprising at first to see how much he's wrapped himself around your finger like this. Butterflies tingle in your stomach and your heart beats a giddy tune.
You laugh, "A slight shake up every once in awhile isn't so bad; but if it makes you feel that bad, I guess it'll be Pumpkin forever~"
He lights up brighter than the sun. The opposite face from moonlight, which sunlight doesn't follow so much as cling to it.
...Not that that musing has much place in Okhema, its dawn eternal and hogging all the reverence and hope. What darkness is there for the sun to face itself? The moon is little more than a ball, sadly sinking to the sea far from the shore, nothing but a toy kicked far for a child's amusement. There has never been time for it in the Holy City, numerous denizens dying of age without even glimpsing twilight. You think about your own home in contrast, where generations passed without the dawn for more than a fleeting moment; where water ran still and nothing as wonderful as a wheat field or a single pumpkin could flower. You're scared that when his hand covers your wrist that it will clasp on skin withered to bone.
So you snake your hand to his palm. Your fingers slither up, feeling calluses and corns of his palm and fingers. And because looks at you like you can will the sun, like you are the world and everything he lives for, he says nothing when you dig your fingers into the appendage, snaring it like a desperately placed bear trap.
...You blink, and only then realize how dry your eyes felt. Glancing at Phainon, you don't see a speck of judgment. For what it's worth, he never says a thing about the storms that take your mind at times. You used to humor the idea that he perhaps didn't see them, but that would be wishful thinking at best. Phainon did not graduate a heretic's most exceptional study imperceptive and naive.
Your smile grows. "You're so pretty," the words stumble clumsy, your tongue nearly as loose as a drunk's, "Do you know that?"
"Charmed" manifests in a puffed chest, a calloused thumb pressing and rubbing your skin with gentle ardor, "I only ever need to be beautiful to you," he murmurs. If you two were sitting, you're sure he'd lower himself and press his cheek against your knee. You make a mental note to get some seating soon.
"Phainon," he perks. You sigh, "Phainon." All else struggles to be as lovely as his name.
"Yes?" He asks, eagerly. Wonderfully. Lovably. You cup that sound in your hands and swallow it and it rests warm in your belly like honeybrew. If only that was enough to keep a barrier of flesh betwixt skin and bone.
"Oh, nothing," you twirl---the taken Phainon along with you---with the lilt of your voice, finishing with a flourish at the last syllable, "I just wanted to say it," you hum, airy and breathy like the warmth in your belly. You feel like your feet wander clouds, floating like a feather. Gently gently, like a feather's sway back and forth to the ground, you slide onto the cushioned kline. Phainon remains standing for a moment, looking at you like a puppy does its master (you resist the urge to squeal and immediately smother him in your embrace---that can come later).
"A pretty name for a pretty man," you continue to mumble, all too happy to do so, so happy to have a hero of dawn willing putty in your hands.
"Yours," he kneels, pressing a kiss to your clothed knee. It twitches. You imagine him brushing your robe aside and worshiping the skin bare. "Only yours." His hand in yours feels so warm.
You swallow, the phil-o-soph-ical question from earlier all but forgotten in your mind, and if it wasn't, at least rendered void for a moment because surely, even if over half of them were barely worth considering, they should be let to live if only so it means the one in front of you can exist in flesh.
You blurt, “Eternally?” Like the city, like the rays of sun that hit it. The kind of world where you hold a hero’s chin and just dare him to defy you.
“If Thanatos didn’t permit it, I’d battle him to be able to spend death by your side, too.” The warmth of his breath is felt through your robe. Your spine tingles at the sensation, like how stalks of wheat sway in the breeze.
"You mean it," you say; not ask. Your hand cups his chin. He leans into the touch, gaze reverent. If you looked up and behind him, you'd see a sword, a rag slung over its cross-guard. From its cross-guard to the fuller of the blade is the emblem of the Holy City, the dawn slightly protruding from the blade. You always wondered if it served any actual function, or if it was some Elder's idea along the lines of "ensuring Okhema's dawn pierces even its enemies." The air smells like oil.
Warmth sprouts from Phainon's hand. It gets under your nails. He gives a reassuring squeeze, slightly straining the skin you've taken your claim to. If you asked him to let you rip apart the skin now, rubbing against you with callouses worn in from years wielding a blade, would he do so in a heartbeat or in a blink?
You add, "In a heartbeat." You lean to touch your forehead to his, uncaring of the strain the awkward position puts on your lower back. "Phainon," you sigh, savoring the strands of his hair that brush against your face. You brush away the cloth covering your knee. "You've been so good." Your lips touch his temple, "I think you deserve a treat."
You linger for a few seconds, before getting the courage to pull away. In such close proximity to it, you've always feared you might blink and suddenly be back to its opposite and have to squeeze yourself out of a gutter.
His eyes have pulled back into pools of ardor, lips shiny and expression melted into thorough bliss. It's the brightest thing you've ever seen.
"Please," he begs. His chin glides from your knee to thigh. His hand feels impossibly hotter. How are you not blind? How have you not burned? You're glad his gulp overshadows your own. He stares intently at what he's been promised; what you've revealed by pulling back the curtain. A chill rakes your bare thighs.
"Well?" There's nothing stopping him from getting up and leaving you behind---
He lunges, and light engulfs your vision.
---The moon shines only what light it gets from the sun.
Hi, Speckled!! Congratulations on sticking through two whole years of sporadic writer's blocks, dramatic moments of inspiration, and for writing a whole novel worth of words ✨ If I may...
“I've always wanted to ask, my dearest white boy, do you think men deserve to live?“ - to Phainon of Aedes Elysiae :D
You swear you can hear cracks and pops as Phainon cranes his neck toward you—like unoiled gears, crudely grinding against each other.
As a soldier, Phainon was no stranger to adversity or surprise; to survive the ever evolving black tide, one would have to evolve in turn. Strength, perseverance, and fortitude—he wouldn’t have survived so long without them. Aedes Elysiae’s name wouldn’t have survived.
That is to say: the dumbstruck look on his face was an achievement. If you had quicker reflexes, you’d have your teleslate out and it’d be framed on your wall in golden laurel.
“…White boy,” he says, tongue a lump.
“That is what I said,” you nod. "Is that wrong?"
As per his white hair, predominantly white apparel, and pale skin---
"No," he shakes his head, "But it's a bit..."
"What? Flippant?" Demeaning?
He raises his brow, "No; general. Can't 'white boy' be said for a lot of people?"
You frown; this wasn't what you were expecting when you dropped that moniker. “So ‘white boy’ is what’s confused you and not my deep philosockfickal—philsoch—philosophical question?”
"Confusion is generous," he laughs, "Just...surprised." His smile is warm and bright like always, but you make out a tightness at the corner of his lips, and a thought suddenly occurs to you,
"Are you disappointed it wasn't the usual...Pumpkin?"
Pumpkin. Innocent, silly, something grandmothers say and smile while doting on their young and rowdy grandchildren. It came initially from your first meeting, a harrowing incident involving soup from a vendor more skilled at hawking than cooking and a bump and towels and water that only made the orange pulp spread out through the Goldweaver's craft---to now something of a haunt, something of a reminder the whispers that escape a soldier's past days spent as farm boy.
Those whispers have made the pet name solidify on your tongue. You wonder if he'll ever know why you stuck to it so much, but if his disposition now is anything to go by, he's grown as attached to it as you have.
Relief is the only thing you can see on his face, "So I haven't lost the moniker?"
A soldier, it is more than a little surprising at first to see how much he's wrapped himself around your finger like this. Butterflies tingle in your stomach and your heart beats a giddy tune.
You laugh, "A slight shake up every once in awhile isn't so bad; but if it makes you feel that bad, I guess it'll be Pumpkin forever~"
He lights up brighter than the sun. The opposite face from moonlight, which sunlight doesn't follow so much as cling to it.
...Not that that musing has much place in Okhema, its dawn eternal and hogging all the reverence and hope. What darkness is there for the sun to face itself? The moon is little more than a ball, sadly sinking to the sea far from the shore, nothing but a toy kicked far for a child's amusement. There has never been time for it in the Holy City, numerous denizens dying of age without even glimpsing twilight. You think about your own home in contrast, where generations passed without the dawn for more than a fleeting moment; where water ran still and nothing as wonderful as a wheat field or a single pumpkin could flower. You're scared that when his hand covers your wrist that it will clasp on skin withered to bone.
So you snake your hand to his palm. Your fingers slither up, feeling calluses and corns of his palm and fingers. And because looks at you like you can will the sun, like you are the world and everything he lives for, he says nothing when you dig your fingers into the appendage, snaring it like a desperately placed bear trap.
...You blink, and only then realize how dry your eyes felt. Glancing at Phainon, you don't see a speck of judgment. For what it's worth, he never says a thing about the storms that take your mind at times. You used to humor the idea that he perhaps didn't see them, but that would be wishful thinking at best. Phainon did not graduate a heretic's most exceptional study imperceptive and naive.
Your smile grows. "You're so pretty," the words stumble clumsy, your tongue nearly as loose as a drunk's, "Do you know that?"
"Charmed" manifests in a puffed chest, a calloused thumb pressing and rubbing your skin with gentle ardor, "I only ever need to be beautiful to you," he murmurs. If you two were sitting, you're sure he'd lower himself and press his cheek against your knee. You make a mental note to get some seating soon.
"Phainon," he perks. You sigh, "Phainon." All else struggles to be as lovely as his name.
"Yes?" He asks, eagerly. Wonderfully. Lovably. You cup that sound in your hands and swallow it and it rests warm in your belly like honeybrew. If only that was enough to keep a barrier of flesh betwixt skin and bone.
"Oh, nothing," you twirl---the taken Phainon along with you---with the lilt of your voice, finishing with a flourish at the last syllable, "I just wanted to say it," you hum, airy and breathy like the warmth in your belly. You feel like your feet wander clouds, floating like a feather. Gently gently, like a feather's sway back and forth to the ground, you slide onto the cushioned kline. Phainon remains standing for a moment, looking at you like a puppy does its master (you resist the urge to squeal and immediately smother him in your embrace---that can come later).
"A pretty name for a pretty man," you continue to mumble, all too happy to do so, so happy to have a hero of dawn willing putty in your hands.
"Yours," he kneels, pressing a kiss to your clothed knee. It twitches. You imagine him brushing your robe aside and worshiping the skin bare. "Only yours." His hand in yours feels so warm.
You swallow, the phil-o-soph-ical question from earlier all but forgotten in your mind, and if it wasn't, at least rendered void for a moment because surely, even if over half of them were barely worth considering, they should be let to live if only so it means the one in front of you can exist in flesh.
You blurt, “Eternally?” Like the city, like the rays of sun that hit it. The kind of world where you hold a hero’s chin and just dare him to defy you.
“If Thanatos didn’t permit it, I’d battle him to be able to spend death by your side, too.” The warmth of his breath is felt through your robe. Your spine tingles at the sensation, like how stalks of wheat sway in the breeze.
"You mean it," you say; not ask. Your hand cups his chin. He leans into the touch, gaze reverent. If you looked up and behind him, you'd see a sword, a rag slung over its cross-guard. From its cross-guard to the fuller of the blade is the emblem of the Holy City, the dawn slightly protruding from the blade. You always wondered if it served any actual function, or if it was some Elder's idea along the lines of "ensuring Okhema's dawn pierces even its enemies." The air smells like oil.
Warmth sprouts from Phainon's hand. It gets under your nails. He gives a reassuring squeeze, slightly straining the skin you've taken your claim to. If you asked him to let you rip apart the skin now, rubbing against you with callouses worn in from years wielding a blade, would he do so in a heartbeat or in a blink?
You add, "In a heartbeat." You lean to touch your forehead to his, uncaring of the strain the awkward position puts on your lower back. "Phainon," you sigh, savoring the strands of his hair that brush against your face. You brush away the cloth covering your knee. "You've been so good." Your lips touch his temple, "I think you deserve a treat."
You linger for a few seconds, before getting the courage to pull away. In such close proximity to it, you've always feared you might blink and suddenly be back to its opposite and have to squeeze yourself out of a gutter.
His eyes have pulled back into pools of ardor, lips shiny and expression melted into thorough bliss. It's the brightest thing you've ever seen.
"Please," he begs. His chin glides from your knee to thigh. His hand feels impossibly hotter. How are you not blind? How have you not burned? You're glad his gulp overshadows your own. He stares intently at what he's been promised; what you've revealed by pulling back the curtain. A chill rakes your bare thighs.
"Well?" There's nothing stopping him from getting up and leaving you behind---
He lunges, and light engulfs your vision.
---The moon shines only what light it gets from the sun.
Hi, Speckled!! Congratulations on sticking through two whole years of sporadic writer's blocks, dramatic moments of inspiration, and for writing a whole novel worth of words ✨ If I may...
“I've always wanted to ask, my dearest white boy, do you think men deserve to live?“ - to Phainon of Aedes Elysiae :D
You swear you can hear cracks and pops as Phainon cranes his neck toward you—like unoiled gears, crudely grinding against each other.
As a soldier, Phainon was no stranger to adversity or surprise; to survive the ever evolving black tide, one would have to evolve in turn. Strength, perseverance, and fortitude—he wouldn’t have survived so long without them. Aedes Elysiae’s name wouldn’t have survived.
That is to say: the dumbstruck look on his face was an achievement. If you had quicker reflexes, you’d have your teleslate out and it’d be framed on your wall in golden laurel.
“…White boy,” he says, tongue a lump.
“That is what I said,” you nod. "Is that wrong?"
As per his white hair, predominantly white apparel, and pale skin---
"No," he shakes his head, "But it's a bit..."
"What? Flippant?" Demeaning?
He raises his brow, "No; general. Can't 'white boy' be said for a lot of people?"
You frown; this wasn't what you were expecting when you dropped that moniker. “So ‘white boy’ is what’s confused you and not my deep philosockfickal—philsoch—philosophical question?”
"Confusion is generous," he laughs, "Just...surprised." His smile is warm and bright like always, but you make out a tightness at the corner of his lips, and a thought suddenly occurs to you,
"Are you disappointed it wasn't the usual...Pumpkin?"
Pumpkin. Innocent, silly, something grandmothers say and smile while doting on their young and rowdy grandchildren. It came initially from your first meeting, a harrowing incident involving soup from a vendor more skilled at hawking than cooking and a bump and towels and water that only made the orange pulp spread out through the Goldweaver's craft---to now something of a haunt, something of a reminder the whispers that escape a soldier's past days spent as farm boy.
Those whispers have made the pet name solidify on your tongue. You wonder if he'll ever know why you stuck to it so much, but if his disposition now is anything to go by, he's grown as attached to it as you have.
Relief is the only thing you can see on his face, "So I haven't lost the moniker?"
A soldier, it is more than a little surprising at first to see how much he's wrapped himself around your finger like this. Butterflies tingle in your stomach and your heart beats a giddy tune.
You laugh, "A slight shake up every once in awhile isn't so bad; but if it makes you feel that bad, I guess it'll be Pumpkin forever~"
He lights up brighter than the sun. The opposite face from moonlight, which sunlight doesn't follow so much as cling to it.
...Not that that musing has much place in Okhema, its dawn eternal and hogging all the reverence and hope. What darkness is there for the sun to face itself? The moon is little more than a ball, sadly sinking to the sea far from the shore, nothing but a toy kicked far for a child's amusement. There has never been time for it in the Holy City, numerous denizens dying of age without even glimpsing twilight. You think about your own home in contrast, where generations passed without the dawn for more than a fleeting moment; where water ran still and nothing as wonderful as a wheat field or a single pumpkin could flower. You're scared that when his hand covers your wrist that it will clasp on skin withered to bone.
So you snake your hand to his palm. Your fingers slither up, feeling calluses and corns of his palm and fingers. And because looks at you like you can will the sun, like you are the world and everything he lives for, he says nothing when you dig your fingers into the appendage, snaring it like a desperately placed bear trap.
...You blink, and only then realize how dry your eyes felt. Glancing at Phainon, you don't see a speck of judgment. For what it's worth, he never says a thing about the storms that take your mind at times. You used to humor the idea that he perhaps didn't see them, but that would be wishful thinking at best. Phainon did not graduate a heretic's most exceptional study imperceptive and naive.
Your smile grows. "You're so pretty," the words stumble clumsy, your tongue nearly as loose as a drunk's, "Do you know that?"
"Charmed" manifests in a puffed chest, a calloused thumb pressing and rubbing your skin with gentle ardor, "I only ever need to be beautiful to you," he murmurs. If you two were sitting, you're sure he'd lower himself and press his cheek against your knee. You make a mental note to get some seating soon.
"Phainon," he perks. You sigh, "Phainon." All else struggles to be as lovely as his name.
"Yes?" He asks, eagerly. Wonderfully. Lovably. You cup that sound in your hands and swallow it and it rests warm in your belly like honeybrew. If only that was enough to keep a barrier of flesh betwixt skin and bone.
"Oh, nothing," you twirl---the taken Phainon along with you---with the lilt of your voice, finishing with a flourish at the last syllable, "I just wanted to say it," you hum, airy and breathy like the warmth in your belly. You feel like your feet wander clouds, floating like a feather. Gently gently, like a feather's sway back and forth to the ground, you slide onto the cushioned kline. Phainon remains standing for a moment, looking at you like a puppy does its master (you resist the urge to squeal and immediately smother him in your embrace---that can come later).
"A pretty name for a pretty man," you continue to mumble, all too happy to do so, so happy to have a hero of dawn willing putty in your hands.
"Yours," he kneels, pressing a kiss to your clothed knee. It twitches. You imagine him brushing your robe aside and worshiping the skin bare. "Only yours." His hand in yours feels so warm.
You swallow, the phil-o-soph-ical question from earlier all but forgotten in your mind, and if it wasn't, at least rendered void for a moment because surely, even if over half of them were barely worth considering, they should be let to live if only so it means the one in front of you can exist in flesh.
You blurt, “Eternally?” Like the city, like the rays of sun that hit it. The kind of world where you hold a hero’s chin and just dare him to defy you.
“If Thanatos didn’t permit it, I’d battle him to be able to spend death by your side, too.” The warmth of his breath is felt through your robe. Your spine tingles at the sensation, like how stalks of wheat sway in the breeze.
"You mean it," you say; not ask. Your hand cups his chin. He leans into the touch, gaze reverent. If you looked up and behind him, you'd see a sword, a rag slung over its cross-guard. From its cross-guard to the fuller of the blade is the emblem of the Holy City, the dawn slightly protruding from the blade. You always wondered if it served any actual function, or if it was some Elder's idea along the lines of "ensuring Okhema's dawn pierces even its enemies." The air smells like oil.
Warmth sprouts from Phainon's hand. It gets under your nails. He gives a reassuring squeeze, slightly straining the skin you've taken your claim to. If you asked him to let you rip apart the skin now, rubbing against you with callouses worn in from years wielding a blade, would he do so in a heartbeat or in a blink?
You add, "In a heartbeat." You lean to touch your forehead to his, uncaring of the strain the awkward position puts on your lower back. "Phainon," you sigh, savoring the strands of his hair that brush against your face. You brush away the cloth covering your knee. "You've been so good." Your lips touch his temple, "I think you deserve a treat."
You linger for a few seconds, before getting the courage to pull away. In such close proximity to it, you've always feared you might blink and suddenly be back to its opposite and have to squeeze yourself out of a gutter.
His eyes have pulled back into pools of ardor, lips shiny and expression melted into thorough bliss. It's the brightest thing you've ever seen.
"Please," he begs. His chin glides from your knee to thigh. His hand feels impossibly hotter. How are you not blind? How have you not burned? You're glad his gulp overshadows your own. He stares intently at what he's been promised; what you've revealed by pulling back the curtain. A chill rakes your bare thighs.
"Well?" There's nothing stopping him from getting up and leaving you behind---
He lunges, and light engulfs your vision.
---The moon shines only what light it gets from the sun.
Hi, Speckled!! Congratulations on sticking through two whole years of sporadic writer's blocks, dramatic moments of inspiration, and for writing a whole novel worth of words ✨ If I may...
“I've always wanted to ask, my dearest white boy, do you think men deserve to live?“ - to Phainon of Aedes Elysiae :D
You swear you can hear cracks and pops as Phainon cranes his neck toward you—like unoiled gears, crudely grinding against each other.
As a soldier, Phainon was no stranger to adversity or surprise; to survive the ever evolving black tide, one would have to evolve in turn. Strength, perseverance, and fortitude—he wouldn’t have survived so long without them. Aedes Elysiae’s name wouldn’t have survived.
That is to say: the dumbstruck look on his face was an achievement. If you had quicker reflexes, you’d have your teleslate out and it’d be framed on your wall in golden laurel.
“…White boy,” he says, tongue a lump.
“That is what I said,” you nod. "Is that wrong?"
As per his white hair, predominantly white apparel, and pale skin---
"No," he shakes his head, "But it's a bit..."
"What? Flippant?" Demeaning?
He raises his brow, "No; general. Can't 'white boy' be said for a lot of people?"
You frown; this wasn't what you were expecting when you dropped that moniker. “So ‘white boy’ is what’s confused you and not my deep philosockfickal—philsoch—philosophical question?”
"Confusion is generous," he laughs, "Just...surprised." His smile is warm and bright like always, but you make out a tightness at the corner of his lips, and a thought suddenly occurs to you,
"Are you disappointed it wasn't the usual...Pumpkin?"
Pumpkin. Innocent, silly, something grandmothers say and smile while doting on their young and rowdy grandchildren. It came initially from your first meeting, a harrowing incident involving soup from a vendor more skilled at hawking than cooking and a bump and towels and water that only made the orange pulp spread out through the Goldweaver's craft---to now something of a haunt, something of a reminder the whispers that escape a soldier's past days spent as farm boy.
Those whispers have made the pet name solidify on your tongue. You wonder if he'll ever know why you stuck to it so much, but if his disposition now is anything to go by, he's grown as attached to it as you have.
Relief is the only thing you can see on his face, "So I haven't lost the moniker?"
A soldier, it is more than a little surprising at first to see how much he's wrapped himself around your finger like this. Butterflies tingle in your stomach and your heart beats a giddy tune.
You laugh, "A slight shake up every once in awhile isn't so bad; but if it makes you feel that bad, I guess it'll be Pumpkin forever~"
He lights up brighter than the sun. The opposite face from moonlight, which sunlight doesn't follow so much as cling to it.
...Not that that musing has much place in Okhema, its dawn eternal and hogging all the reverence and hope. What darkness is there for the sun to face itself? The moon is little more than a ball, sadly sinking to the sea far from the shore, nothing but a toy kicked far for a child's amusement. There has never been time for it in the Holy City, numerous denizens dying of age without even glimpsing twilight. You think about your own home in contrast, where generations passed without the dawn for more than a fleeting moment; where water ran still and nothing as wonderful as a wheat field or a single pumpkin could flower. You're scared that when his hand covers your wrist that it will clasp on skin withered to bone.
So you snake your hand to his palm. Your fingers slither up, feeling calluses and corns of his palm and fingers. And because looks at you like you can will the sun, like you are the world and everything he lives for, he says nothing when you dig your fingers into the appendage, snaring it like a desperately placed bear trap.
...You blink, and only then realize how dry your eyes felt. Glancing at Phainon, you don't see a speck of judgment. For what it's worth, he never says a thing about the storms that take your mind at times. You used to humor the idea that he perhaps didn't see them, but that would be wishful thinking at best. Phainon did not graduate a heretic's most exceptional study imperceptive and naive.
Your smile grows. "You're so pretty," the words stumble clumsy, your tongue nearly as loose as a drunk's, "Do you know that?"
"Charmed" manifests in a puffed chest, a calloused thumb pressing and rubbing your skin with gentle ardor, "I only ever need to be beautiful to you," he murmurs. If you two were sitting, you're sure he'd lower himself and press his cheek against your knee. You make a mental note to get some seating soon.
"Phainon," he perks. You sigh, "Phainon." All else struggles to be as lovely as his name.
"Yes?" He asks, eagerly. Wonderfully. Lovably. You cup that sound in your hands and swallow it and it rests warm in your belly like honeybrew. If only that was enough to keep a barrier of flesh betwixt skin and bone.
"Oh, nothing," you twirl---the taken Phainon along with you---with the lilt of your voice, finishing with a flourish at the last syllable, "I just wanted to say it," you hum, airy and breathy like the warmth in your belly. You feel like your feet wander clouds, floating like a feather. Gently gently, like a feather's sway back and forth to the ground, you slide onto the cushioned kline. Phainon remains standing for a moment, looking at you like a puppy does its master (you resist the urge to squeal and immediately smother him in your embrace---that can come later).
"A pretty name for a pretty man," you continue to mumble, all too happy to do so, so happy to have a hero of dawn willing putty in your hands.
"Yours," he kneels, pressing a kiss to your clothed knee. It twitches. You imagine him brushing your robe aside and worshiping the skin bare. "Only yours." His hand in yours feels so warm.
You swallow, the phil-o-soph-ical question from earlier all but forgotten in your mind, and if it wasn't, at least rendered void for a moment because surely, even if over half of them were barely worth considering, they should be let to live if only so it means the one in front of you can exist in flesh.
You blurt, “Eternally?” Like the city, like the rays of sun that hit it. The kind of world where you hold a hero’s chin and just dare him to defy you.
“If Thanatos didn’t permit it, I’d battle him to be able to spend death by your side, too.” The warmth of his breath is felt through your robe. Your spine tingles at the sensation, like how stalks of wheat sway in the breeze.
"You mean it," you say; not ask. Your hand cups his chin. He leans into the touch, gaze reverent. If you looked up and behind him, you'd see a sword, a rag slung over its cross-guard. From its cross-guard to the fuller of the blade is the emblem of the Holy City, the dawn slightly protruding from the blade. You always wondered if it served any actual function, or if it was some Elder's idea along the lines of "ensuring Okhema's dawn pierces even its enemies." The air smells like oil.
Warmth sprouts from Phainon's hand. It gets under your nails. He gives a reassuring squeeze, slightly straining the skin you've taken your claim to. If you asked him to let you rip apart the skin now, rubbing against you with callouses worn in from years wielding a blade, would he do so in a heartbeat or in a blink?
You add, "In a heartbeat." You lean to touch your forehead to his, uncaring of the strain the awkward position puts on your lower back. "Phainon," you sigh, savoring the strands of his hair that brush against your face. You brush away the cloth covering your knee. "You've been so good." Your lips touch his temple, "I think you deserve a treat."
You linger for a few seconds, before getting the courage to pull away. In such close proximity to it, you've always feared you might blink and suddenly be back to its opposite and have to squeeze yourself out of a gutter.
His eyes have pulled back into pools of ardor, lips shiny and expression melted into thorough bliss. It's the brightest thing you've ever seen.
"Please," he begs. His chin glides from your knee to thigh. His hand feels impossibly hotter. How are you not blind? How have you not burned? You're glad his gulp overshadows your own. He stares intently at what he's been promised; what you've revealed by pulling back the curtain. A chill rakes your bare thighs.
"Well?" There's nothing stopping him from getting up and leaving you behind---
He lunges, and light engulfs your vision.
---The moon shines only what light it gets from the sun.
Hi, Speckled!! Congratulations on sticking through two whole years of sporadic writer's blocks, dramatic moments of inspiration, and for writing a whole novel worth of words ✨ If I may...
“I've always wanted to ask, my dearest white boy, do you think men deserve to live?“ - to Phainon of Aedes Elysiae :D
You swear you can hear cracks and pops as Phainon cranes his neck toward you—like unoiled gears, crudely grinding against each other.
As a soldier, Phainon was no stranger to adversity or surprise; to survive the ever evolving black tide, one would have to evolve in turn. Strength, perseverance, and fortitude—he wouldn’t have survived so long without them. Aedes Elysiae’s name wouldn’t have survived.
That is to say: the dumbstruck look on his face was an achievement. If you had quicker reflexes, you’d have your teleslate out and it’d be framed on your wall in golden laurel.
“…White boy,” he says, tongue a lump.
“That is what I said,” you nod. "Is that wrong?"
As per his white hair, predominantly white apparel, and pale skin---
"No," he shakes his head, "But it's a bit..."
"What? Flippant?" Demeaning?
He raises his brow, "No; general. Can't 'white boy' be said for a lot of people?"
You frown; this wasn't what you were expecting when you dropped that moniker. “So ‘white boy’ is what’s confused you and not my deep philosockfickal—philsoch—philosophical question?”
"Confusion is generous," he laughs, "Just...surprised." His smile is warm and bright like always, but you make out a tightness at the corner of his lips, and a thought suddenly occurs to you,
"Are you disappointed it wasn't the usual...Pumpkin?"
Pumpkin. Innocent, silly, something grandmothers say and smile while doting on their young and rowdy grandchildren. It came initially from your first meeting, a harrowing incident involving soup from a vendor more skilled at hawking than cooking and a bump and towels and water that only made the orange pulp spread out through the Goldweaver's craft---to now something of a haunt, something of a reminder the whispers that escape a soldier's past days spent as farm boy.
Those whispers have made the pet name solidify on your tongue. You wonder if he'll ever know why you stuck to it so much, but if his disposition now is anything to go by, he's grown as attached to it as you have.
Relief is the only thing you can see on his face, "So I haven't lost the moniker?"
A soldier, it is more than a little surprising at first to see how much he's wrapped himself around your finger like this. Butterflies tingle in your stomach and your heart beats a giddy tune.
You laugh, "A slight shake up every once in awhile isn't so bad; but if it makes you feel that bad, I guess it'll be Pumpkin forever~"
He lights up brighter than the sun. The opposite face from moonlight, which sunlight doesn't follow so much as cling to it.
...Not that that musing has much place in Okhema, its dawn eternal and hogging all the reverence and hope. What darkness is there for the sun to face itself? The moon is little more than a ball, sadly sinking to the sea far from the shore, nothing but a toy kicked far for a child's amusement. There has never been time for it in the Holy City, numerous denizens dying of age without even glimpsing twilight. You think about your own home in contrast, where generations passed without the dawn for more than a fleeting moment; where water ran still and nothing as wonderful as a wheat field or a single pumpkin could flower. You're scared that when his hand covers your wrist that it will clasp on skin withered to bone.
So you snake your hand to his palm. Your fingers slither up, feeling calluses and corns of his palm and fingers. And because looks at you like you can will the sun, like you are the world and everything he lives for, he says nothing when you dig your fingers into the appendage, snaring it like a desperately placed bear trap.
...You blink, and only then realize how dry your eyes felt. Glancing at Phainon, you don't see a speck of judgment. For what it's worth, he never says a thing about the storms that take your mind at times. You used to humor the idea that he perhaps didn't see them, but that would be wishful thinking at best. Phainon did not graduate a heretic's most exceptional study imperceptive and naive.
Your smile grows. "You're so pretty," the words stumble clumsy, your tongue nearly as loose as a drunk's, "Do you know that?"
"Charmed" manifests in a puffed chest, a calloused thumb pressing and rubbing your skin with gentle ardor, "I only ever need to be beautiful to you," he murmurs. If you two were sitting, you're sure he'd lower himself and press his cheek against your knee. You make a mental note to get some seating soon.
"Phainon," he perks. You sigh, "Phainon." All else struggles to be as lovely as his name.
"Yes?" He asks, eagerly. Wonderfully. Lovably. You cup that sound in your hands and swallow it and it rests warm in your belly like honeybrew. If only that was enough to keep a barrier of flesh betwixt skin and bone.
"Oh, nothing," you twirl---the taken Phainon along with you---with the lilt of your voice, finishing with a flourish at the last syllable, "I just wanted to say it," you hum, airy and breathy like the warmth in your belly. You feel like your feet wander clouds, floating like a feather. Gently gently, like a feather's sway back and forth to the ground, you slide onto the cushioned kline. Phainon remains standing for a moment, looking at you like a puppy does its master (you resist the urge to squeal and immediately smother him in your embrace---that can come later).
"A pretty name for a pretty man," you continue to mumble, all too happy to do so, so happy to have a hero of dawn willing putty in your hands.
"Yours," he kneels, pressing a kiss to your clothed knee. It twitches. You imagine him brushing your robe aside and worshiping the skin bare. "Only yours." His hand in yours feels so warm.
You swallow, the phil-o-soph-ical question from earlier all but forgotten in your mind, and if it wasn't, at least rendered void for a moment because surely, even if over half of them were barely worth considering, they should be let to live if only so it means the one in front of you can exist in flesh.
You blurt, “Eternally?” Like the city, like the rays of sun that hit it. The kind of world where you hold a hero’s chin and just dare him to defy you.
“If Thanatos didn’t permit it, I’d battle him to be able to spend death by your side, too.” The warmth of his breath is felt through your robe. Your spine tingles at the sensation, like how stalks of wheat sway in the breeze.
"You mean it," you say; not ask. Your hand cups his chin. He leans into the touch, gaze reverent. If you looked up and behind him, you'd see a sword, a rag slung over its cross-guard. From its cross-guard to the fuller of the blade is the emblem of the Holy City, the dawn slightly protruding from the blade. You always wondered if it served any actual function, or if it was some Elder's idea along the lines of "ensuring Okhema's dawn pierces even its enemies." The air smells like oil.
Warmth sprouts from Phainon's hand. It gets under your nails. He gives a reassuring squeeze, slightly straining the skin you've taken your claim to. If you asked him to let you rip apart the skin now, rubbing against you with callouses worn in from years wielding a blade, would he do so in a heartbeat or in a blink?
You add, "In a heartbeat." You lean to touch your forehead to his, uncaring of the strain the awkward position puts on your lower back. "Phainon," you sigh, savoring the strands of his hair that brush against your face. You brush away the cloth covering your knee. "You've been so good." Your lips touch his temple, "I think you deserve a treat."
You linger for a few seconds, before getting the courage to pull away. In such close proximity to it, you've always feared you might blink and suddenly be back to its opposite and have to squeeze yourself out of a gutter.
His eyes have pulled back into pools of ardor, lips shiny and expression melted into thorough bliss. It's the brightest thing you've ever seen.
"Please," he begs. His chin glides from your knee to thigh. His hand feels impossibly hotter. How are you not blind? How have you not burned? You're glad his gulp overshadows your own. He stares intently at what he's been promised; what you've revealed by pulling back the curtain. A chill rakes your bare thighs.
"Well?" There's nothing stopping him from getting up and leaving you behind---
He lunges, and light engulfs your vision.
---The moon shines only what light it gets from the sun.
Hi, Speckled!! Congratulations on sticking through two whole years of sporadic writer's blocks, dramatic moments of inspiration, and for writing a whole novel worth of words ✨ If I may...
“I've always wanted to ask, my dearest white boy, do you think men deserve to live?“ - to Phainon of Aedes Elysiae :D
You swear you can hear cracks and pops as Phainon cranes his neck toward you—like unoiled gears, crudely grinding against each other.
As a soldier, Phainon was no stranger to adversity or surprise; to survive the ever evolving black tide, one would have to evolve in turn. Strength, perseverance, and fortitude—he wouldn’t have survived so long without them. Aedes Elysiae’s name wouldn’t have survived.
That is to say: the dumbstruck look on his face was an achievement. If you had quicker reflexes, you’d have your teleslate out and it’d be framed on your wall in golden laurel.
“…White boy,” he says, tongue a lump.
“That is what I said,” you nod. "Is that wrong?"
As per his white hair, predominantly white apparel, and pale skin---
"No," he shakes his head, "But it's a bit..."
"What? Flippant?" Demeaning?
He raises his brow, "No; general. Can't 'white boy' be said for a lot of people?"
You frown; this wasn't what you were expecting when you dropped that moniker. “So ‘white boy’ is what’s confused you and not my deep philosockfickal—philsoch—philosophical question?”
"Confusion is generous," he laughs, "Just...surprised." His smile is warm and bright like always, but you make out a tightness at the corner of his lips, and a thought suddenly occurs to you,
"Are you disappointed it wasn't the usual...Pumpkin?"
Pumpkin. Innocent, silly, something grandmothers say and smile while doting on their young and rowdy grandchildren. It came initially from your first meeting, a harrowing incident involving soup from a vendor more skilled at hawking than cooking and a bump and towels and water that only made the orange pulp spread out through the Goldweaver's craft---to now something of a haunt, something of a reminder the whispers that escape a soldier's past days spent as farm boy.
Those whispers have made the pet name solidify on your tongue. You wonder if he'll ever know why you stuck to it so much, but if his disposition now is anything to go by, he's grown as attached to it as you have.
Relief is the only thing you can see on his face, "So I haven't lost the moniker?"
A soldier, it is more than a little surprising at first to see how much he's wrapped himself around your finger like this. Butterflies tingle in your stomach and your heart beats a giddy tune.
You laugh, "A slight shake up every once in awhile isn't so bad; but if it makes you feel that bad, I guess it'll be Pumpkin forever~"
He lights up brighter than the sun. The opposite face from moonlight, which sunlight doesn't follow so much as cling to it.
...Not that that musing has much place in Okhema, its dawn eternal and hogging all the reverence and hope. What darkness is there for the sun to face itself? The moon is little more than a ball, sadly sinking to the sea far from the shore, nothing but a toy kicked far for a child's amusement. There has never been time for it in the Holy City, numerous denizens dying of age without even glimpsing twilight. You think about your own home in contrast, where generations passed without the dawn for more than a fleeting moment; where water ran still and nothing as wonderful as a wheat field or a single pumpkin could flower. You're scared that when his hand covers your wrist that it will clasp on skin withered to bone.
So you snake your hand to his palm. Your fingers slither up, feeling calluses and corns of his palm and fingers. And because looks at you like you can will the sun, like you are the world and everything he lives for, he says nothing when you dig your fingers into the appendage, snaring it like a desperately placed bear trap.
...You blink, and only then realize how dry your eyes felt. Glancing at Phainon, you don't see a speck of judgment. For what it's worth, he never says a thing about the storms that take your mind at times. You used to humor the idea that he perhaps didn't see them, but that would be wishful thinking at best. Phainon did not graduate a heretic's most exceptional study imperceptive and naive.
Your smile grows. "You're so pretty," the words stumble clumsy, your tongue nearly as loose as a drunk's, "Do you know that?"
"Charmed" manifests in a puffed chest, a calloused thumb pressing and rubbing your skin with gentle ardor, "I only ever need to be beautiful to you," he murmurs. If you two were sitting, you're sure he'd lower himself and press his cheek against your knee. You make a mental note to get some seating soon.
"Phainon," he perks. You sigh, "Phainon." All else struggles to be as lovely as his name.
"Yes?" He asks, eagerly. Wonderfully. Lovably. You cup that sound in your hands and swallow it and it rests warm in your belly like honeybrew. If only that was enough to keep a barrier of flesh betwixt skin and bone.
"Oh, nothing," you twirl---the taken Phainon along with you---with the lilt of your voice, finishing with a flourish at the last syllable, "I just wanted to say it," you hum, airy and breathy like the warmth in your belly. You feel like your feet wander clouds, floating like a feather. Gently gently, like a feather's sway back and forth to the ground, you slide onto the cushioned kline. Phainon remains standing for a moment, looking at you like a puppy does its master (you resist the urge to squeal and immediately smother him in your embrace---that can come later).
"A pretty name for a pretty man," you continue to mumble, all too happy to do so, so happy to have a hero of dawn willing putty in your hands.
"Yours," he kneels, pressing a kiss to your clothed knee. It twitches. You imagine him brushing your robe aside and worshiping the skin bare. "Only yours." His hand in yours feels so warm.
You swallow, the phil-o-soph-ical question from earlier all but forgotten in your mind, and if it wasn't, at least rendered void for a moment because surely, even if over half of them were barely worth considering, they should be let to live if only so it means the one in front of you can exist in flesh.
You blurt, “Eternally?” Like the city, like the rays of sun that hit it. The kind of world where you hold a hero’s chin and just dare him to defy you.
“If Thanatos didn’t permit it, I’d battle him to be able to spend death by your side, too.” The warmth of his breath is felt through your robe. Your spine tingles at the sensation, like how stalks of wheat sway in the breeze.
"You mean it," you say; not ask. Your hand cups his chin. He leans into the touch, gaze reverent. If you looked up and behind him, you'd see a sword, a rag slung over its cross-guard. From its cross-guard to the fuller of the blade is the emblem of the Holy City, the dawn slightly protruding from the blade. You always wondered if it served any actual function, or if it was some Elder's idea along the lines of "ensuring Okhema's dawn pierces even its enemies." The air smells like oil.
Warmth sprouts from Phainon's hand. It gets under your nails. He gives a reassuring squeeze, slightly straining the skin you've taken your claim to. If you asked him to let you rip apart the skin now, rubbing against you with callouses worn in from years wielding a blade, would he do so in a heartbeat or in a blink?
You add, "In a heartbeat." You lean to touch your forehead to his, uncaring of the strain the awkward position puts on your lower back. "Phainon," you sigh, savoring the strands of his hair that brush against your face. You brush away the cloth covering your knee. "You've been so good." Your lips touch his temple, "I think you deserve a treat."
You linger for a few seconds, before getting the courage to pull away. In such close proximity to it, you've always feared you might blink and suddenly be back to its opposite and have to squeeze yourself out of a gutter.
His eyes have pulled back into pools of ardor, lips shiny and expression melted into thorough bliss. It's the brightest thing you've ever seen.
"Please," he begs. His chin glides from your knee to thigh. His hand feels impossibly hotter. How are you not blind? How have you not burned? You're glad his gulp overshadows your own. He stares intently at what he's been promised; what you've revealed by pulling back the curtain. A chill rakes your bare thighs.
"Well?" There's nothing stopping him from getting up and leaving you behind---
He lunges, and light engulfs your vision.
---The moon shines only what light it gets from the sun.
Hi, Speckled!! Congratulations on sticking through two whole years of sporadic writer's blocks, dramatic moments of inspiration, and for writing a whole novel worth of words ✨ If I may...
“I've always wanted to ask, my dearest white boy, do you think men deserve to live?“ - to Phainon of Aedes Elysiae :D
You swear you can hear cracks and pops as Phainon cranes his neck toward you—like unoiled gears, crudely grinding against each other.
As a soldier, Phainon was no stranger to adversity or surprise; to survive the ever evolving black tide, one would have to evolve in turn. Strength, perseverance, and fortitude—he wouldn’t have survived so long without them. Aedes Elysiae’s name wouldn’t have survived.
That is to say: the dumbstruck look on his face was an achievement. If you had quicker reflexes, you’d have your teleslate out and it’d be framed on your wall in golden laurel.
“…White boy,” he says, tongue a lump.
“That is what I said,” you nod. "Is that wrong?"
As per his white hair, predominantly white apparel, and pale skin---
"No," he shakes his head, "But it's a bit..."
"What? Flippant?" Demeaning?
He raises his brow, "No; general. Can't 'white boy' be said for a lot of people?"
You frown; this wasn't what you were expecting when you dropped that moniker. “So ‘white boy’ is what’s confused you and not my deep philosockfickal—philsoch—philosophical question?”
"Confusion is generous," he laughs, "Just...surprised." His smile is warm and bright like always, but you make out a tightness at the corner of his lips, and a thought suddenly occurs to you,
"Are you disappointed it wasn't the usual...Pumpkin?"
Pumpkin. Innocent, silly, something grandmothers say and smile while doting on their young and rowdy grandchildren. It came initially from your first meeting, a harrowing incident involving soup from a vendor more skilled at hawking than cooking and a bump and towels and water that only made the orange pulp spread out through the Goldweaver's craft---to now something of a haunt, something of a reminder the whispers that escape a soldier's past days spent as farm boy.
Those whispers have made the pet name solidify on your tongue. You wonder if he'll ever know why you stuck to it so much, but if his disposition now is anything to go by, he's grown as attached to it as you have.
Relief is the only thing you can see on his face, "So I haven't lost the moniker?"
A soldier, it is more than a little surprising at first to see how much he's wrapped himself around your finger like this. Butterflies tingle in your stomach and your heart beats a giddy tune.
You laugh, "A slight shake up every once in awhile isn't so bad; but if it makes you feel that bad, I guess it'll be Pumpkin forever~"
He lights up brighter than the sun. The opposite face from moonlight, which sunlight doesn't follow so much as cling to it.
...Not that that musing has much place in Okhema, its dawn eternal and hogging all the reverence and hope. What darkness is there for the sun to face itself? The moon is little more than a ball, sadly sinking to the sea far from the shore, nothing but a toy kicked far for a child's amusement. There has never been time for it in the Holy City, numerous denizens dying of age without even glimpsing twilight. You think about your own home in contrast, where generations passed without the dawn for more than a fleeting moment; where water ran still and nothing as wonderful as a wheat field or a single pumpkin could flower. You're scared that when his hand covers your wrist that it will clasp on skin withered to bone.
So you snake your hand to his palm. Your fingers slither up, feeling calluses and corns of his palm and fingers. And because looks at you like you can will the sun, like you are the world and everything he lives for, he says nothing when you dig your fingers into the appendage, snaring it like a desperately placed bear trap.
...You blink, and only then realize how dry your eyes felt. Glancing at Phainon, you don't see a speck of judgment. For what it's worth, he never says a thing about the storms that take your mind at times. You used to humor the idea that he perhaps didn't see them, but that would be wishful thinking at best. Phainon did not graduate a heretic's most exceptional study imperceptive and naive.
Your smile grows. "You're so pretty," the words stumble clumsy, your tongue nearly as loose as a drunk's, "Do you know that?"
"Charmed" manifests in a puffed chest, a calloused thumb pressing and rubbing your skin with gentle ardor, "I only ever need to be beautiful to you," he murmurs. If you two were sitting, you're sure he'd lower himself and press his cheek against your knee. You make a mental note to get some seating soon.
"Phainon," he perks. You sigh, "Phainon." All else struggles to be as lovely as his name.
"Yes?" He asks, eagerly. Wonderfully. Lovably. You cup that sound in your hands and swallow it and it rests warm in your belly like honeybrew. If only that was enough to keep a barrier of flesh betwixt skin and bone.
"Oh, nothing," you twirl---the taken Phainon along with you---with the lilt of your voice, finishing with a flourish at the last syllable, "I just wanted to say it," you hum, airy and breathy like the warmth in your belly. You feel like your feet wander clouds, floating like a feather. Gently gently, like a feather's sway back and forth to the ground, you slide onto the cushioned kline. Phainon remains standing for a moment, looking at you like a puppy does its master (you resist the urge to squeal and immediately smother him in your embrace---that can come later).
"A pretty name for a pretty man," you continue to mumble, all too happy to do so, so happy to have a hero of dawn willing putty in your hands.
"Yours," he kneels, pressing a kiss to your clothed knee. It twitches. You imagine him brushing your robe aside and worshiping the skin bare. "Only yours." His hand in yours feels so warm.
You swallow, the phil-o-soph-ical question from earlier all but forgotten in your mind, and if it wasn't, at least rendered void for a moment because surely, even if over half of them were barely worth considering, they should be let to live if only so it means the one in front of you can exist in flesh.
You blurt, “Eternally?” Like the city, like the rays of sun that hit it. The kind of world where you hold a hero’s chin and just dare him to defy you.
“If Thanatos didn’t permit it, I’d battle him to be able to spend death by your side, too.” The warmth of his breath is felt through your robe. Your spine tingles at the sensation, like how stalks of wheat sway in the breeze.
"You mean it," you say; not ask. Your hand cups his chin. He leans into the touch, gaze reverent. If you looked up and behind him, you'd see a sword, a rag slung over its cross-guard. From its cross-guard to the fuller of the blade is the emblem of the Holy City, the dawn slightly protruding from the blade. You always wondered if it served any actual function, or if it was some Elder's idea along the lines of "ensuring Okhema's dawn pierces even its enemies." The air smells like oil.
Warmth sprouts from Phainon's hand. It gets under your nails. He gives a reassuring squeeze, slightly straining the skin you've taken your claim to. If you asked him to let you rip apart the skin now, rubbing against you with callouses worn in from years wielding a blade, would he do so in a heartbeat or in a blink?
You add, "In a heartbeat." You lean to touch your forehead to his, uncaring of the strain the awkward position puts on your lower back. "Phainon," you sigh, savoring the strands of his hair that brush against your face. You brush away the cloth covering your knee. "You've been so good." Your lips touch his temple, "I think you deserve a treat."
You linger for a few seconds, before getting the courage to pull away. In such close proximity to it, you've always feared you might blink and suddenly be back to its opposite and have to squeeze yourself out of a gutter.
His eyes have pulled back into pools of ardor, lips shiny and expression melted into thorough bliss. It's the brightest thing you've ever seen.
"Please," he begs. His chin glides from your knee to thigh. His hand feels impossibly hotter. How are you not blind? How have you not burned? You're glad his gulp overshadows your own. He stares intently at what he's been promised; what you've revealed by pulling back the curtain. A chill rakes your bare thighs.
"Well?" There's nothing stopping him from getting up and leaving you behind---
He lunges, and light engulfs your vision.
---The moon shines only what light it gets from the sun.
Hi, Speckled!! Congratulations on sticking through two whole years of sporadic writer's blocks, dramatic moments of inspiration, and for writing a whole novel worth of words ✨ If I may...
“I've always wanted to ask, my dearest white boy, do you think men deserve to live?“ - to Phainon of Aedes Elysiae :D
You swear you can hear cracks and pops as Phainon cranes his neck toward you—like unoiled gears, crudely grinding against each other.
As a soldier, Phainon was no stranger to adversity or surprise; to survive the ever evolving black tide, one would have to evolve in turn. Strength, perseverance, and fortitude—he wouldn’t have survived so long without them. Aedes Elysiae’s name wouldn’t have survived.
That is to say: the dumbstruck look on his face was an achievement. If you had quicker reflexes, you’d have your teleslate out and it’d be framed on your wall in golden laurel.
“…White boy,” he says, tongue a lump.
“That is what I said,” you nod. "Is that wrong?"
As per his white hair, predominantly white apparel, and pale skin---
"No," he shakes his head, "But it's a bit..."
"What? Flippant?" Demeaning?
He raises his brow, "No; general. Can't 'white boy' be said for a lot of people?"
You frown; this wasn't what you were expecting when you dropped that moniker. “So ‘white boy’ is what’s confused you and not my deep philosockfickal—philsoch—philosophical question?”
"Confusion is generous," he laughs, "Just...surprised." His smile is warm and bright like always, but you make out a tightness at the corner of his lips, and a thought suddenly occurs to you,
"Are you disappointed it wasn't the usual...Pumpkin?"
Pumpkin. Innocent, silly, something grandmothers say and smile while doting on their young and rowdy grandchildren. It came initially from your first meeting, a harrowing incident involving soup from a vendor more skilled at hawking than cooking and a bump and towels and water that only made the orange pulp spread out through the Goldweaver's craft---to now something of a haunt, something of a reminder the whispers that escape a soldier's past days spent as farm boy.
Those whispers have made the pet name solidify on your tongue. You wonder if he'll ever know why you stuck to it so much, but if his disposition now is anything to go by, he's grown as attached to it as you have.
Relief is the only thing you can see on his face, "So I haven't lost the moniker?"
A soldier, it is more than a little surprising at first to see how much he's wrapped himself around your finger like this. Butterflies tingle in your stomach and your heart beats a giddy tune.
You laugh, "A slight shake up every once in awhile isn't so bad; but if it makes you feel that bad, I guess it'll be Pumpkin forever~"
He lights up brighter than the sun. The opposite face from moonlight, which sunlight doesn't follow so much as cling to it.
...Not that that musing has much place in Okhema, its dawn eternal and hogging all the reverence and hope. What darkness is there for the sun to face itself? The moon is little more than a ball, sadly sinking to the sea far from the shore, nothing but a toy kicked far for a child's amusement. There has never been time for it in the Holy City, numerous denizens dying of age without even glimpsing twilight. You think about your own home in contrast, where generations passed without the dawn for more than a fleeting moment; where water ran still and nothing as wonderful as a wheat field or a single pumpkin could flower. You're scared that when his hand covers your wrist that it will clasp on skin withered to bone.
So you snake your hand to his palm. Your fingers slither up, feeling calluses and corns of his palm and fingers. And because looks at you like you can will the sun, like you are the world and everything he lives for, he says nothing when you dig your fingers into the appendage, snaring it like a desperately placed bear trap.
...You blink, and only then realize how dry your eyes felt. Glancing at Phainon, you don't see a speck of judgment. For what it's worth, he never says a thing about the storms that take your mind at times. You used to humor the idea that he perhaps didn't see them, but that would be wishful thinking at best. Phainon did not graduate a heretic's most exceptional study imperceptive and naive.
Your smile grows. "You're so pretty," the words stumble clumsy, your tongue nearly as loose as a drunk's, "Do you know that?"
"Charmed" manifests in a puffed chest, a calloused thumb pressing and rubbing your skin with gentle ardor, "I only ever need to be beautiful to you," he murmurs. If you two were sitting, you're sure he'd lower himself and press his cheek against your knee. You make a mental note to get some seating soon.
"Phainon," he perks. You sigh, "Phainon." All else struggles to be as lovely as his name.
"Yes?" He asks, eagerly. Wonderfully. Lovably. You cup that sound in your hands and swallow it and it rests warm in your belly like honeybrew. If only that was enough to keep a barrier of flesh betwixt skin and bone.
"Oh, nothing," you twirl---the taken Phainon along with you---with the lilt of your voice, finishing with a flourish at the last syllable, "I just wanted to say it," you hum, airy and breathy like the warmth in your belly. You feel like your feet wander clouds, floating like a feather. Gently gently, like a feather's sway back and forth to the ground, you slide onto the cushioned kline. Phainon remains standing for a moment, looking at you like a puppy does its master (you resist the urge to squeal and immediately smother him in your embrace---that can come later).
"A pretty name for a pretty man," you continue to mumble, all too happy to do so, so happy to have a hero of dawn willing putty in your hands.
"Yours," he kneels, pressing a kiss to your clothed knee. It twitches. You imagine him brushing your robe aside and worshiping the skin bare. "Only yours." His hand in yours feels so warm.
You swallow, the phil-o-soph-ical question from earlier all but forgotten in your mind, and if it wasn't, at least rendered void for a moment because surely, even if over half of them were barely worth considering, they should be let to live if only so it means the one in front of you can exist in flesh.
You blurt, “Eternally?” Like the city, like the rays of sun that hit it. The kind of world where you hold a hero’s chin and just dare him to defy you.
“If Thanatos didn’t permit it, I’d battle him to be able to spend death by your side, too.” The warmth of his breath is felt through your robe. Your spine tingles at the sensation, like how stalks of wheat sway in the breeze.
"You mean it," you say; not ask. Your hand cups his chin. He leans into the touch, gaze reverent. If you looked up and behind him, you'd see a sword, a rag slung over its cross-guard. From its cross-guard to the fuller of the blade is the emblem of the Holy City, the dawn slightly protruding from the blade. You always wondered if it served any actual function, or if it was some Elder's idea along the lines of "ensuring Okhema's dawn pierces even its enemies." The air smells like oil.
Warmth sprouts from Phainon's hand. It gets under your nails. He gives a reassuring squeeze, slightly straining the skin you've taken your claim to. If you asked him to let you rip apart the skin now, rubbing against you with callouses worn in from years wielding a blade, would he do so in a heartbeat or in a blink?
You add, "In a heartbeat." You lean to touch your forehead to his, uncaring of the strain the awkward position puts on your lower back. "Phainon," you sigh, savoring the strands of his hair that brush against your face. You brush away the cloth covering your knee. "You've been so good." Your lips touch his temple, "I think you deserve a treat."
You linger for a few seconds, before getting the courage to pull away. In such close proximity to it, you've always feared you might blink and suddenly be back to its opposite and have to squeeze yourself out of a gutter.
His eyes have pulled back into pools of ardor, lips shiny and expression melted into thorough bliss. It's the brightest thing you've ever seen.
"Please," he begs. His chin glides from your knee to thigh. His hand feels impossibly hotter. How are you not blind? How have you not burned? You're glad his gulp overshadows your own. He stares intently at what he's been promised; what you've revealed by pulling back the curtain. A chill rakes your bare thighs.
"Well?" There's nothing stopping him from getting up and leaving you behind---
He lunges, and light engulfs your vision.
---The moon shines only what light it gets from the sun.
Hi, Speckled!! Congratulations on sticking through two whole years of sporadic writer's blocks, dramatic moments of inspiration, and for writing a whole novel worth of words ✨ If I may...
“I've always wanted to ask, my dearest white boy, do you think men deserve to live?“ - to Phainon of Aedes Elysiae :D
You swear you can hear cracks and pops as Phainon cranes his neck toward you—like unoiled gears, crudely grinding against each other.
As a soldier, Phainon was no stranger to adversity or surprise; to survive the ever evolving black tide, one would have to evolve in turn. Strength, perseverance, and fortitude—he wouldn’t have survived so long without them. Aedes Elysiae’s name wouldn’t have survived.
That is to say: the dumbstruck look on his face was an achievement. If you had quicker reflexes, you’d have your teleslate out and it’d be framed on your wall in golden laurel.
“…White boy,” he says, tongue a lump.
“That is what I said,” you nod. "Is that wrong?"
As per his white hair, predominantly white apparel, and pale skin---
"No," he shakes his head, "But it's a bit..."
"What? Flippant?" Demeaning?
He raises his brow, "No; general. Can't 'white boy' be said for a lot of people?"
You frown; this wasn't what you were expecting when you dropped that moniker. “So ‘white boy’ is what’s confused you and not my deep philosockfickal—philsoch—philosophical question?”
"Confusion is generous," he laughs, "Just...surprised." His smile is warm and bright like always, but you make out a tightness at the corner of his lips, and a thought suddenly occurs to you,
"Are you disappointed it wasn't the usual...Pumpkin?"
Pumpkin. Innocent, silly, something grandmothers say and smile while doting on their young and rowdy grandchildren. It came initially from your first meeting, a harrowing incident involving soup from a vendor more skilled at hawking than cooking and a bump and towels and water that only made the orange pulp spread out through the Goldweaver's craft---to now something of a haunt, something of a reminder the whispers that escape a soldier's past days spent as farm boy.
Those whispers have made the pet name solidify on your tongue. You wonder if he'll ever know why you stuck to it so much, but if his disposition now is anything to go by, he's grown as attached to it as you have.
Relief is the only thing you can see on his face, "So I haven't lost the moniker?"
A soldier, it is more than a little surprising at first to see how much he's wrapped himself around your finger like this. Butterflies tingle in your stomach and your heart beats a giddy tune.
You laugh, "A slight shake up every once in awhile isn't so bad; but if it makes you feel that bad, I guess it'll be Pumpkin forever~"
He lights up brighter than the sun. The opposite face from moonlight, which sunlight doesn't follow so much as cling to it.
...Not that that musing has much place in Okhema, its dawn eternal and hogging all the reverence and hope. What darkness is there for the sun to face itself? The moon is little more than a ball, sadly sinking to the sea far from the shore, nothing but a toy kicked far for a child's amusement. There has never been time for it in the Holy City, numerous denizens dying of age without even glimpsing twilight. You think about your own home in contrast, where generations passed without the dawn for more than a fleeting moment; where water ran still and nothing as wonderful as a wheat field or a single pumpkin could flower. You're scared that when his hand covers your wrist that it will clasp on skin withered to bone.
So you snake your hand to his palm. Your fingers slither up, feeling calluses and corns of his palm and fingers. And because looks at you like you can will the sun, like you are the world and everything he lives for, he says nothing when you dig your fingers into the appendage, snaring it like a desperately placed bear trap.
...You blink, and only then realize how dry your eyes felt. Glancing at Phainon, you don't see a speck of judgment. For what it's worth, he never says a thing about the storms that take your mind at times. You used to humor the idea that he perhaps didn't see them, but that would be wishful thinking at best. Phainon did not graduate a heretic's most exceptional study imperceptive and naive.
Your smile grows. "You're so pretty," the words stumble clumsy, your tongue nearly as loose as a drunk's, "Do you know that?"
"Charmed" manifests in a puffed chest, a calloused thumb pressing and rubbing your skin with gentle ardor, "I only ever need to be beautiful to you," he murmurs. If you two were sitting, you're sure he'd lower himself and press his cheek against your knee. You make a mental note to get some seating soon.
"Phainon," he perks. You sigh, "Phainon." All else struggles to be as lovely as his name.
"Yes?" He asks, eagerly. Wonderfully. Lovably. You cup that sound in your hands and swallow it and it rests warm in your belly like honeybrew. If only that was enough to keep a barrier of flesh betwixt skin and bone.
"Oh, nothing," you twirl---the taken Phainon along with you---with the lilt of your voice, finishing with a flourish at the last syllable, "I just wanted to say it," you hum, airy and breathy like the warmth in your belly. You feel like your feet wander clouds, floating like a feather. Gently gently, like a feather's sway back and forth to the ground, you slide onto the cushioned kline. Phainon remains standing for a moment, looking at you like a puppy does its master (you resist the urge to squeal and immediately smother him in your embrace---that can come later).
"A pretty name for a pretty man," you continue to mumble, all too happy to do so, so happy to have a hero of dawn willing putty in your hands.
"Yours," he kneels, pressing a kiss to your clothed knee. It twitches. You imagine him brushing your robe aside and worshiping the skin bare. "Only yours." His hand in yours feels so warm.
You swallow, the phil-o-soph-ical question from earlier all but forgotten in your mind, and if it wasn't, at least rendered void for a moment because surely, even if over half of them were barely worth considering, they should be let to live if only so it means the one in front of you can exist in flesh.
You blurt, “Eternally?” Like the city, like the rays of sun that hit it. The kind of world where you hold a hero’s chin and just dare him to defy you.
“If Thanatos didn’t permit it, I’d battle him to be able to spend death by your side, too.” The warmth of his breath is felt through your robe. Your spine tingles at the sensation, like how stalks of wheat sway in the breeze.
"You mean it," you say; not ask. Your hand cups his chin. He leans into the touch, gaze reverent. If you looked up and behind him, you'd see a sword, a rag slung over its cross-guard. From its cross-guard to the fuller of the blade is the emblem of the Holy City, the dawn slightly protruding from the blade. You always wondered if it served any actual function, or if it was some Elder's idea along the lines of "ensuring Okhema's dawn pierces even its enemies." The air smells like oil.
Warmth sprouts from Phainon's hand. It gets under your nails. He gives a reassuring squeeze, slightly straining the skin you've taken your claim to. If you asked him to let you rip apart the skin now, rubbing against you with callouses worn in from years wielding a blade, would he do so in a heartbeat or in a blink?
You add, "In a heartbeat." You lean to touch your forehead to his, uncaring of the strain the awkward position puts on your lower back. "Phainon," you sigh, savoring the strands of his hair that brush against your face. You brush away the cloth covering your knee. "You've been so good." Your lips touch his temple, "I think you deserve a treat."
You linger for a few seconds, before getting the courage to pull away. In such close proximity to it, you've always feared you might blink and suddenly be back to its opposite and have to squeeze yourself out of a gutter.
His eyes have pulled back into pools of ardor, lips shiny and expression melted into thorough bliss. It's the brightest thing you've ever seen.
"Please," he begs. His chin glides from your knee to thigh. His hand feels impossibly hotter. How are you not blind? How have you not burned? You're glad his gulp overshadows your own. He stares intently at what he's been promised; what you've revealed by pulling back the curtain. A chill rakes your bare thighs.
"Well?" There's nothing stopping him from getting up and leaving you behind---
He lunges, and light engulfs your vision.
---The moon shines only what light it gets from the sun.
Specially made for the beloved Samoyed lover @harmonysanreads — Phainon was just finishing something right when he saw you passing by. He, as always, smiled brightly and greeted you. You, as always, saw his sunny vibe as similar to a certain dog breed and were going to greet him back—before you saw his half-naked body.
Stellar Photography | Hero's Delivery Of A Golden Surprise
Elegant box packed with the help of other Chrysos Heirs. It might not be perfect with quality and taste, but it's cooked with pure love straight from Deliverer's heart!
wHY is he LEGIT such a PUPPY lover boy AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH. i cant wait to see him go FERAL. go kevi- I MEAN PHAINON WOOOOO!!!
ok im normal again i promise this time.
((kofi/tips and asks are always appreciated by this broke girlie who cant afford college rn! If you want to commission me to make comics, here's my link ^^))
