Wow wow congratulations on 300! Your writings are always a pleasure to read, thank you for sharing them!! I kept putting off sending in a letter because I couldn’t think of what to include in it but I’ll do my best to give some fun trinkets!
Firstly, I have a lovely dark grey feather! …any resemblance to one *Sunday* is purely coincidental okay! No halovians were harmed in the acquisition of this. As for my second item I present to you a book on how to befriend mythical creatures! It’s filled with notes on the behaviors of fae, dragons, and a multitude of other beings as well as little trinkets they might enjoy! Well. Actually it’s mostly little paper cutouts of little trinkets they might enjoy but it’s quite cute nonetheless! I hope you enjoy all this *fantasy* encyclopedia has to offer, faux jewels and all. ^^ And lastly, I have this neat little watch! It… doesn’t actually work but it’s quite pretty don’t you think! It’s such a shame the hour hand is stuck… even though the minutes pass by it always loops back to where it started. I imagine it’d make someone feel a tad *restless* the way it just won’t change.
And those are all the trinkets I have to share! Congratulations again on 300 followers~
From,
Clever
Cryptophilia [Yan!Sunday x GN!Reader]
Sunday drowns in the ink filling the pages of a book. Inevitably, he wants more than just ink and paper.
(Letter of Three Request, open from 11/13/25 ~ 1/12/26)
Dear Clever...
Thank you for your letter! I'm always extremely happy to hear that someone's enjoyed my little writings...and, even more so, aren't these trinkets just a delight? I'm struck by the amount of care you've packaged them in, keeping them safe and pristine; they couldn't have come in a better condition that this.
Though a plucked feather is nothing more than a dead, pretty thing, I am struck by how...orderly, it is. Prim, to a point of obsessiveness...though, upon a closer look, it's a bit frazzled, isn't it? Maybe from having to take all these notes of such fantastical creatures? I'd imagine such a task isn't for the faint of heart. Though...if this is someone orderly we're talking of, then I surmise the faulty clock, the way it refuses to progress to where he wants---needs---it to be, is the true source of this frazzled layer. What tale does this tell, do you wonder? Well...
What say you that I pen it for you?
- Speckled
(A very interesting prompt! Decided to be a lil experimental with the piece here…Hope you enjoy! Merry Christmas too, lol)
If there is one thing Sunday regrets, it is that he did not wear gloves until he was older. Ink has left a permanent stain on his hand, forever marring it in faint ebony.
Since he was young, Sunday held a deep obsession for all things pen and paper. He took a shine to the writing lessons given by Lord Gopher Wood, eager to indulge in what his little village could never afford him. He preferred ink to charcoal, for use of the latter tended to have his mind drift to what his home had been reduced to.
He would pen all manner of things; clumsy drawings, half-baked words and letters, soon evolving into detailed sketches and beautiful stories. He even took to the records and sheets of the household's financials, ordering them all with glee. Sunday was nothing if not captive to ink's luster.
Now, years later, after that little dove had fallen into their yard, Sunday's love of ink made way for a love of another kind. In his search for knowledge of the dove so it might be cared for, he stumbled upon a strange book. It was full of knowledge in befriending strange, fantastical creatures---and so did he come to love this too, consulting the book into the wee hours of the night.
He is a man, now, of course. He has responsibilities to assist Lord Gopher Wood in governance, ensuring everything is in stock and in check and that no resentment can bubble up in the people. But still, when it is night and he lays rest to documents, he will take up that old book, leaf through it for a mite, and reach for a journal of his own. Full of drawings and descriptions for what he could glean and see in what little free time he could manage.
But time doesn't stop when he is a young man who governs by day and studies cryptids by night. It marches, rattling against the earth with weight. His sister leaves the nest. He becomes Duke. Lord Gopher Wood lays silent and withered. The butler grows old, the head maid stumbles into a freak accident. Few are home.
Yet, frustratingly, Duke Sunday is not subject to the ravages of time. He peruses the same logs, analyzes the same papers, spends day after day in the same rooms, same courtyard, same streets. Sunday has what most would kill for, everything arranged by his hand.
But never has he done more with his book of cryptids than sit at the same desk, using the same inks, caressing the pages gently.
If he didn’t, the book might crumple in his desire to seize.
Ink is something that spreads and flows. It bleeds into delicate things, and stains everything else. It is inherently free.
Sunday writes with ink. Sunday places ink into quaint little bottles, perfectly labeled, categorized neatly. All honed in the years since he was a little child.
People are volatile. Logic is something to extract, obfuscated by the whims of emotion and ego. People are inherently free beings.
Sunday deals with people day in and out, through meetings and paper. They are given numbers, attributes, falling into various structures and groups. As a whole, as Sunday has been taught since he was young, people are easily dealt with.
He has others go in his place. Has them bring him all sorts of things. Gifts he can give, or tokens of those creatures. He can trust in the former, but the latter…well, Sunday is well studied enough to recognize decoys.
But there are times he struggles to put a name to something. Furs and feathers unlike anything he has seen before, substances wholly foreign…
His door sees less and less knocks. He amasses a small pile of papers, and sees them off with a bag of coin and a carriage. The only knocks are from those who do not have the will to go into the world that might trample them. Sunday doesn’t mind either way.
But soon enough, routine falls abound. He hands over coin, he receives samples false and extraordinary, and wakes to pen and read and manage. A letter or visit from his sister might break the routine, but even that falls prey to monotony. Predictability is not an issue, but it is not rife with the desire gnawing at him from within. It will not cease until he is able to file it away with the interest of ink and people.
More.
When he finds a picture, his patience shatters. The remaining servants are in a frenzy, but Sunday must sought for himself a glimpse, no matter what. His blood wriggles and writhes, his heart aching and searing and screaming and needing to be quelled with only a seize.
A glimpse he gets. Shimmering hair, skin, feathers, scales—it dips and glistens like the flowing lake, transient as the wisps of clouds in the sky drawn along the orange of the setting sun.
The leaves adopt this color, falling to the ground, but still does Sunday stay, even with the thin cloth demanded by summer. A glimpse he has been given, but that means it acts out with that which is inherent. As he bides time, his knuckles turn snow white clutching a bottle of ink.
He weaves a net, brings out delicious fare, laying it down.
And then he is given euphoria.
You, creature you, emerge from the waters. You are not completely inhuman, but not human enough to call as such. Feathers fall down your shoulders as his locks do; scales shimmer along your arms and legs; in fact, your legs seem to be slithering appendages like snakes more than anything else; he isn’t sure whether skin or some short haired fur covers your body; perhaps the latter, given the tones your body fades in and out of do not resemble any fleshy tones. Your tongue, forked, slender, moves like it has a mind of its own. It stretches down to the ground, lapping away at the bait.
Most wouldn’t exactly think of you as a beautiful creature. But in the autumn sun, glistening with the waters you emerged from, Sunday bears witness to the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.
Even with a hand clutching a bottle of ink, it’s easy enough to pull at rope. You thrash, and, fascinatingly, use your tongue as a prime instrument to break out. The rope starts to tear under its fury.
You fall to the ground, a dart jutting from your skin. You look up to him with big, wide eyes. They are as curious as they are vengeful.
Things change.
You can do little but stir, eyes cloudy with all the sedatives forced into your system. You're in chains, but this is only a temporary arrangement. Silence is bought easily enough. Stubborn loyalty, even in the face of abandonment, keeps things running. Only a select few are allowed near you, on account of your nature, but they are more than happy to. The Lord is back, he is content, and that is all they can really ask for. They do all they can to keep their Lord's beloved pet cared for.
There’s so much to learn about you. What is your physiology like? What sustains you?
How does the process of domestication differ?
It’s hard, at first. For you. You are confused, and he doesn’t need to understand your cries to see your sheer terror.
But you warm up. Darkness and a cage will do that. Starvation for misbehavior is quick to cow you to submission. That he’s your only source of food and contact certainly doesn’t hurt, either. He learns that any food will do to become your friend, particularly raw, fatty meats. You like all manner of shiny things, but glittering, purple hues enrapture you the most. Traits like some of those cryptids in his book spoke of, but in a combination wholly unique…
He grows fascinated with your feathers. You make him pet them, nuzzling your head to the walls of the cage, bading him to reach through the gaps. Fascination exemplifies with the sheen of your eyes. Dull, cloudy, more absorbent of light than reflective. Your slit pupils seem to round and soften with it.
There is just so much to ask—so much to see and learn, yet, like with a bottle of ink, he has it all in the palm of his hand.
Duke Sunday governs the people by day, sequesters himself to his study by night, and in the gaps between, he visits you.
Finally, he’s found for himself a lovely little cage.
