#crowfish mc

[seleniadanslalune]

Rafayel creeped an affinity 135 on me to tell me crowfishmc is canon 🤔

Let's go, we helped by taking him in 😼

Or... How to tame a dragon!

[thewitchofelpis]

¹⁴⁾ sun-warmed floorboards

“And just what do the two of you call this?”

Sleepily, she blinks up through rays of golden, late afternoon sunshine into a ruby gaze that takes in the sight of her lounging sprawled before the tall windows on nothing more comfortable than the floorboards themselves with a faint amusement and just a hint of consternation sharpening the corners of Sylus’ eyes.

And then his focus drifts to Rafayel, who lies beside her with one of his hands tangled up with hers, bathing in the warmth of the same light, his shirt half-unbuttoned and a serene contentment playing about his features.

“It’s a discussion about furniture.”

From Rafayel, there is a soft hum of agreement and the beginnings of a smile that betrays a willingness to lean into what is both the truth and the seizing of an opportunity to tease the man they love.

Folding his arms, Sylus responds with a drawled, “I see.”

“We were wondering whether it might be nice to put a couch here to catch the sun, or a table to eat at. So, we had to test what it would be like. It was only sensible.”

“Only… sensible…”

“We were going to get snacks,” Rafayel sighs out, “but now we’re nice and toasty… it seemed silly to move.”

Still half in shadow, Sylus turns to fall back onto the couch that has not yet been settled in the full path of the broad beams of light that the windows allow to spill into the room - windows that she made sure to have swiftly framed with the option of heavy curtains mere days after she received the keys to her new home.

The low huff of what might be laughter that she hears from his direction, she answers by reaching to tug at the cuff of one trouser leg and undo his shoelace while she is at it, her efforts met with a half-hearted twitching of his foot.

“This is no different to you lounging in-front of the fire with that very smug and pleased look about you,” she tells him.

Before he has the opportunity to reply, Rafayel gives a soft, appreciative murmur and remarks, “Oh, that look.”

Perhaps it is that she catches a glimpse of soft pink colouring Sylus’ cheekbones.

For he knows very well that, on the mornings when they are beneath the same roof and their schedules cannot drift into sync, he comes to bed just as they are leaving it, the warmth of the fire still blanketing him, something of its glow about his eyes, and does his best to keep them with him for a lazy sharing of pleasure at the end of his day and the beginning of theirs.

Silence.

And then:

“...If it’s no different…”

An idle, leading, comment.

A leisurely invitation, to do with what they will.

At her side, Rafayel holds her gaze for long enough to give a little twitch of a smile and a slow wink.

Lifting herself up from the floor, she stretches her arms high over her head and knows immediately that she has caught Sylus’ attention, yet he does not reach to capture her.

No, he waits until she casts aside her sundress and lets fabric fall where it may; until she sits herself astride his lap, to then settle a hand in the small of her back, the pad of his thumb soothing over sun-warmed skin.

And then she bows her head to his to offer a ghost of a kiss, only to secure his bottom lip between her teeth in a delicate hold and bite.

The delighted groan that rises from him hums through her, Rafayel’s soft laughter following on its heels as he slides an arm around her middle and leans over her shoulder to press a kiss to Sylus’ cheek and demand, “Are you going to let her provoke you like that?” against the line of his jaw.

Those ruby eyes have taken on the warmth of the sun they have brought to him, all heat and thrall and–

Sylus lifts her, curling a tight grip on Rafayel’s now fully unbuttoned shirt.

Yes.

Yes, he is going to let them provoke him.

Thank you for the prompt! ❤️

[seleniadanslalune]

Hugging a husband

Love that glitch 🥰😍🥰

[thewitchofelpis]

Feeling For Them in the Dark with Sylus Rafayel and MC 🥰

He wakes to darkness and an immediate understanding that he is not in his own bed.

And yet, through the tangled threads of sleep and a heart racing far too quickly (but one of a list of many things he wishes he were less well acquainted with), Rafayel finds that the bed is one that is not unfamiliar.

No, he knows the bed. And the room, with its heavy curtains designed to block out all light, so different to his own, which he is content to let star and moonlight slip through on a whim, inviting sunlight to drift over his bed during the day.

He is quite unaware of what time it might be. Perhaps he has slept for an hour, or for considerably more. The last five days have been something of a blur in terms of night and day and anything like proper timekeeping.

Contrary to the desire that seizes him, his heart aching with half-remembrances of an already distant nightmare, he makes himself lie very still. Oh, it would not be the first time that one or other of his bedmates found themselves abruptly hauled close, seemingly without a care for their own rest, and it is even likely to be something that they are well used to expecting, and yet...

There is ever a moment before he might let himself seek out one or both of them that involves a battle. A turning this way and that of logic and reason in an effort to convince his suddenly fearful heart and soul that...

They will be there.

More than once, he has slipped from bed without a word, rather than insistently twine himself about whomever he should find closest. Most recently, he had only twenty minutes alone in the kitchen with a cup of coffee he had not concentrated enough on making for it to actually be palatable, occupying himself with sketching across back of an abandoned delivery order, before Sylus had roamed from bed to find him.

(And said not a thing, but nosed against his neck and wrapped him up in the snug hold he had not been steady enough to demand or ask for, until he was anchored and fully back in a present where he could let himself believe that his lovers were very real and very his.)

Rafayel drags in a slow breath.

Tonight, she sleeps on his left. He knows this. There can be hardly anything of distance between them, and—

She makes a soft sound that he convinces himself must mean she is awake, or close to it, and so fumbles for the shape of her in the dark, internally flinching away from the thought that his grasping for her - nails momentarily scrabbling against skin - is no kind and gentle thing.

There is no fight in her (is she so accustomed to this routine by now that she has trained herself to yield?) as he gathers her close to envelop in a tight embrace, a shudder running through him as the extent of his need to be near her demands his full attention and attempts to embarrass him for it.

She says nothing. Only lets him hold her for moments or minutes, before she moves in tiny fractions to make herself more comfortable, slipping an arm around his middle as she tips back her head to nudge a kiss against the underside of his jaw.

“I’m here,” she promises in little more than a whisper.

Before he can think of what he might say (he never has managed to utter a single word during such moments), he feels a kiss to echo hers tucked against the curve of his shoulder as Sylus murmurs a sleep-roughened, “We’re here.”

An arm drapes over the both of them as Sylus insistently hauls them into an embrace of his own and settles down, pressing close in such a manner as to make it impossible for him to be anything other than completely aware of their presence with every breath he takes.

...Exactly what he needs.

Wants.

Has.

Thank you for the prompt! 🩷

[thewitchofelpis]

I just had an idea that could be cute ! The LaDS trio secretly getting presents for each other (and maybe gifting them '?) for the holidays 🎄 🎁

i.

They have watched him prowl about the studio for an hour or more now, on this, one of the darkest evenings of the year soon to be over, pretending that they have not noticed his quiet agitation.

Trusting that Rafayel will come to them when he is good and ready; that he knows well enough now that they will not crowd and cage him – that he can roam and they will be waiting when he feels steady enough to share what he will.

It is a sudden rush that brings him to the couch and coffee table. An abrupt halt reached, before he more slowly – more carefully and delicately – sets atop the table a bundle of paper loosely tied with a warm pink ribbon.

“Here.”

She puts aside her games console, glancing back at Sylus, who swings his feet from the couch to the floor as Rafayel folds himself down next to her, not quite touching.

For which of them he means the gift to be, she is not entirely certain, and while no explanation seems forthcoming, she reaches to slowly draw free the ribbon and lets Sylus lift away the top sheet of blank sketching paper to reveal...

The features are not so different to her own. The cheekbones not quite so high. Lips a touch thinner. Gaze more severe.

And there are the...

Sweeping back and rising from her head, the horns, heavy with charcoal, sharp and fierce and...

Fragile.

Behind her, she is all but certain that Sylus has stopped breathing. For the span of moments, at least, until he hauls in an unsteady breath and looks to the next page.

It is undeniably him. Sylus. Those same draconic features more prominent; horns more twisted, as though they have been hacked at and...

Her heart is racing too fast for her to think. To breathe. To be.

Another page: the two of them, her tucked in his arms, the glimmer of unmistakably Lemurian scales adorning her cheekbones, the sharp point of one of her horns snapped off.

Another: Sylus, full of fury and loss and... longing.

She slides the briefest of looks towards Rafayel, her hands trembling.

“...I don’t know,” he says softly, reaching to capture one of her hands with his own. “I just... know.”

Sylus slips down onto the floor, pressing close to keep them both within reach of his embrace as he claims her other hand. Does not seem... surprised, but, just like Rafayel, so very certain and uncertain in the same instant.

She cannot ask. Not yet. Not now. That day is not yet here.

(...Or perhaps has already passed. For what has she always known? Always felt?)

Turning to the next sheet finds them as... themselves. Sylus in a rumpled, half-unbuttoned shirt, her lying draped across his chest, priceless ornaments still in her hair, one strap of her dress falling from her shoulder as they sleep.

Attire they wore only last week.

She does not resist as Sylus gathers her close and into his lap, and in the new quiet between them she watches as he eases the pad of his thumb over Rafayel’s cheek. A question, before he secures a hold on him and brings him into their huddle, so that she might sit cradled between them.

Rafayel anchors an arm around her middle, a hand finding Sylus’ shirt to curl fingers into and hold.

Kisses. She is sure there are kisses.

But what she knows best of all is that she is no longer trembling.

ii.

“You know, I think it’s just as well that you happened to purchase for yourself this vast bed.”

From Sylus, there is low hum of wry amusement as he follows her into the room and, as one, they fix their sights on the half-dishevelled creature currently sprawled across it.

“Yes... Though it does seem smaller and smaller, lately...”

She glances back over one shoulder, lifting her gaze to meet his in a question she knows very well she does not need to ask, and yet cannot help but briefly surrender to the impulse – the need – to...

A hand lifts, fingertips grazing the edge of edge of her jaw in a soft caress.

“I like it,” he declares, closing the door behind them, just as, across the way, their lover drags free his tie and sighs out a most wretched exclamation of the sort that he employs when he is more than a little desirous of attention.

Strolling to the foot of the bed, she stops to survey the sight of Rafayel with his shirt unbuttoned, belt and tie cast aside, doing his very best to make it plain that he has suffered greatly.

“It wasn’t that bad,” she tells him, giving a teasing jostle to one of his feet.

“You two only had to walk around the exhibition. I had to talk to all those people!”

As he joins her, Sylus drapes an arm about her shoulders and draws from the inside pocket of his jacket a rectangle of paper-thin silver that he turns this way and that to lazily catch the low amber light of the room.

Rafayel blinks blearily up at it, asking a still faintly disgruntled, “What is that?”

“Call it an early gift of the season.”

She watches as Sylus proffers the item – no bigger than a credit card – towards Rafayel, who sits up to accept it between thumb and forefinger and study each side.

A flash of deep green betrays tiny little emeralds adorning one side, while fragments of a rich red, brighter than garnet and closer to a ruby to match familiar eyes, look to be embedded in the other.

Perhaps it is in perfect unison that she and Rafayel raise a quizzical brow.

Clearing his throat, Sylus glances away for a moment, before stating, “It’s a signal. For... auctions. Meetings. ...Gatherings of less than noble personages.”

She tilts her head. Surely it can’t be meant to be used for bidding...?

Rafayel flips the card back and forth once more.

(Is there the faintest hint of a blush colouring his cheekbones?)

“If you want to... play...” Sylus utters, all heat and intent that she is sure has been coaxed to life by that flush of pink.

Their beloved shows them the emerald-studded side of the card.

“Or not...”

A turn. The ruby.

Oh, she knows very well what they have a habit of getting up to in the dark at gatherings that are failing to hold their attention, yet demand their presence, or when they are simply interested in riling up one another over the course of the evening.

She bites down on her bottom lip while Rafayel devotes his attention to examination of the detailing of his gift for an unnecessarily long stretch of time.

And then, looking up at the both of them from beneath those utterly unfair eyelashes, he presents to them the emerald.

And who are they to deny him?

iii.

She waits for morning.

Rather, whatever time it is that feels like morning, and might be morning, for them, at least, considering that true night and day seem only in command of her as far as working hours demand.

But morning it must be: that soft and leisurely time between them on days where there is the opportunity not to hurry from bed, but to lie tangled warmly together in an easy quiet. When nothing that might hurt or harm has had time to hook its claws into them, and the world is yet distant and a little hazy.

When she has not had the time to worry herself into thinking that she is being foolish. For what is one to gift to men who could and can have anything they want; could bring her anything she wished for, were she of a mind to ask?

There are silly, teasing and trifling little tokens that she bestows as reminders of affection, or coax or rile or invite, and there is...

Bringing back to the bedroom a tray bearing three glasses of the strong, black and verging on bitter tea that they have each developed a taste for, she settles it on the nearest bedside table and gathers up from it two USB pens marked with a single musical note each.

And, as she clambers back into bed and the welcoming embrace of those she loves, she offers each of them one of the tiny storage devices, murmuring, “I thought... I hoped you might like this.”

Sylus tilts his head just a fraction, but otherwise does not prompt her, giving her the time to begin to explain as Rafayel squirrels his away in the palm of his hand and noses at the nape of her neck.

“I had some help. Thomas and the twins. Others. Mephie. He was keeping tabs on you both for a while so you wouldn’t miss me...”

“Oh, was he...”

“I needed some contacts – people who know how do to this sort of thing better than me – and—“

“Kitten...”

“I recorded some songs,” she says, all in a hurry. “Sang them, I mean. Some that I know you both like.”

And the truth, the why of it, as her heart hammers away.

“Some that... I don’t know where they came from, but they’re... there. When I’m... with you. Some of them don’t have words, but I had some help with transforming the melodies into proper music.”

Silence.

“You’ve both... asked me to sing for you before, and I thought it...”

She is not skilled at sharing her feelings in the everyday written word. Little love notes are not something she can dash off and not think about the hundred different ways that they might be read. There are days when she cannot be good and sweet and kind and entreat soft affection, but only bite and snarl and provoke into clawings and tusslings until fear and fury have run their course and left bruising and quiet confessions in their wake.

...Just like those who have wrapped her up in their arms and held her close as she has stumbled her way through her explanation.

“...Can we listen now?” Rafayel questions, dropping a kiss against the curve of her shoulder.

She knows very well that she is blushing. That a wriggling of her feet betrays some burst of nervous energy.

Yet still, she answers him with a whispered, “If you like.”

They do.

They do, and they hold her and one another as melodies of centuries and lifetimes fill the room.

She hears who she was. Who she was with them.

And who she is.

Thank you! 🩷

[thewitchofelpis]

a kiss interrupted by tears, hands holding like they’re afraid to let go.

He is missing from their bed.

It is a realisation made in a moment of sleepy awareness – on the edge of slipping back into peaceful slumber – and has her blinking into the near dark as she reaches across the bed to discover the absence of the expected presence.

Truly, she need not have reached at all. Rafayel usually sleeps tucked so close to one or both of them that it is immediately obvious when the pattern of his breathing shifts, let alone that he has slipped from their embrace and to...

Where?

At her back, Sylus sleeps with an arm still draped about her middle, and so she is gentle when she threads her fingers through his, meaning not to startle him, and presses a kiss to the back of his hand.

A low, unintelligible, murmur.

“He’s gone.”

Again hangs unspoken between them, for it is not an uncommon occurrence. Sometimes, it is an idea that he cannot let escape him that drives Rafayel from bed; on other occasions a sudden fit of creative passion that he has to let burn through him and is revealed by morning to be nothing that he can explain or put clear words to.

(Those pieces, she has noted he keeps. Hides them away, permitting a glimpse of them by dawn’s light before condemning or treasuring them.

She has not quite yet worked out which it is.)

And then there are the nights that claw at him and drag him down into depths she cannot traverse. Nights where there is something of a shared understanding that she can see in the glances he shares with Sylus; in the silence between them and tentative, careful touches that evolve into more fierce embraces. An anchoring. Roads that they have travelled, separately and similarly, that she cannot imagine.

Sylus noses at her neck, then reaches to turn on the bedside lamp dimmed to evening’s glow, throwing aside blankets to gather up a robe from the back of a nearby chair, while she retrieves his recently abandoned shirt from the floor and casts it over her head, rolling up its long sleeves.

They find Rafayel in the studio, a waiting canvas starkly blank in the moonlight streaming through the glass doors before which he stands staring out into the night.

He must hear their footsteps, bare feet padding over cool flooring, and yet he does not turn.

She stops at his shoulder, deliberately keeping her focus on the night beyond – on the sand and the rhythm of the calm ocean – as she brushes her little finger against his and hooks a hold that is so second nature that he seemingly responds in kind without thinking.

A touch more bold, Sylus rests his forehead against Rafayel’s temple and drops a light kiss against his cheekbone, choosing to remain just as he is, with his head bowed to his.

Rafayel takes a deep, shuddering breath and turns his head ever so slightly to bump his nose against Sylus’, lacing his fingers more securely with hers as he does so.

A shuffling half-step brings her close enough to slide an arm around him as he snags a clawing grip on their lover’s robe and drags in another breath.

“You’re real,” he murmurs into her hair.

“Yes.”

This is not the time for promises and pretty things, or poetry.

Just the truth, as it stands in this moment.

The brush of lips finds the edge of her jaw, before Rafayel seeks out a kiss that is a tremulous thing tasting of salt – something that has him drawing back the instant he must realise.

She catches at one of his tears with the pad of her thumb, then another with the touch of her lips, and feels a measure of tension leave him as she and Sylus nudge him between them to envelop in a firm embrace that holds steady as a tangle of the three of them.

Of home and belonging.

Thank you for the prompt! ❤️

[seleniadanslalune]

Sylus, Rafayel and MC

(Some of the tests I had to pass before managing to make something nice-ish under the cut 😭 )

I hate that you have wing it to match the pixels... can't we have something that would say "each picture is 78% zoomed" and being able to change the placement of the parts in a more scientific way ... 😭

[thewitchofelpis]

Prompt: canvas.

Drifting somewhere around the border of asleep and awake, she hears a weary, “It’s finished,” and the light clatter of something - a paintbrush, she suspects - tumbling to the floor.

Peeking out from beneath the blanket she has spent much of the night curled up beneath in various states of sleep and wakefulness, she takes in the sight of Rafayel sat gazing at the work that has absorbed the hours of darkness, consuming him in fits of fractious temper and absolute focus, until this moment of stillness.

Casting the blanket about her shoulders, she gathers her legs beneath her and pads quietly across the room to stand at his back and study what has taken shape upon the canvas; what has not seemed, to her, to be any one, clear image or discernable pattern. Not anything that she is not accustomed to seeing in his work and its layers upon layers, yet this one in particular has appeared to possess him in a fashion akin to a fever, with flaring struggles and passions both.

He does not look back at her, but continues to drink in this latest piece, a hand reaching back to claim one of hers as she reaches a halt at his shoulder and the sound of a door opening reveals Sylus slipping from outside and the last dregs of moonlight to return to them after prowling about the beach.

Ruby eyes meet hers as he presses his lips to Rafayel’s temple, then loops an arm about her middle to join her in study of the creation that has so burned through their lover and demanded his unrelenting attention.

Perhaps there is silence for a minute. Maybe it is longer, yet she cannot help but notice that it is a swift observation, calmly made, when Sylus murmurs:

“It’s us.”

There are no discernible figures upon the canvas. Nothing that one might even attempt to suggest looks like human features or so much as the subtle shades of familiar eyes.

Yet the colours…

The textures applied to the canvas in nothing less than deliberate sweeps intended to draw the eye from immediate examination of the smaller details that feel almost tender in their application…

It is not some bright and joyous thing. No, it is a swirling tangle of slivers of light and heavy shadow, soft tendrils of feathery fibres aglow with the glimmer of scales, the slash of dark claws and blades rending terrible gouges through heavy layers of oil paint.

It is monstrous.

And beautiful.

A truth gazed upon unflinchingly and revealed without restraint.

“...It’s us,” is a more tremulous affair from Rafayel’s lips, the weight of exhaustion and having let the heart of them sing through him without efforts at concealment plain to be heard.

He has not tempered what he feels.

What they each know.

She rests her head against his as Sylus secures the draping of an arm across his collarbone to draw him ever so slightly back against them, into the safety of a haphazard, yet solid embrace.

Of a promise.