Listen, as a proud member of The House of Halsin Honkers, I appreciate his glorious pecks. But if I had to choose, I'm a Halsin sculpted back girlie... and so is Ceridwen
Written as a gift fic for the lovely @tsukimefuku for her birthday. Here's a little something from me!
Dividers by: @/saradika-graphics
"I crave you mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me,
all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.
I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the colour of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond."
~ Love Sonnet XI (Pablo Neruda)
In Faerûn, the winds are changeable. The shift of seasons is as delicate as the colour spreading from the bruised flesh of a summer fruit, marring beneath scrutiny that delves too deep, beneath fingers that probe too hard.
You had always been one who preferred to let nature bloom along its natural course.
You'll always have one hand on the wheel of your destiny, but you'll also let the land take you where it needs you most.
You supposed that this was what drew you to him in the first place.
He was the first of your companions who didn't look directly at you to set the path, to plot the lines that would lead to the emancipation of the vale that had fallen beneath Ketheric's shadow.
In the denouement, he'd leaned on you in the way only he could, leaving you with the task of watching his broad back fade into a realm where you could not follow. He had gone to fetch Thaniel, and you had believed faithfully in his return, holding off your enemies until the dawn.
Afterwards, there had been signs.
Like the faint embroidery of green in winter-brown branches, he'd looked to you with greater frequency, and certainty. You no longer felt that your paths had merely coincided, more as if there was a great guardian that stalked the woods and hedges beside you, partaking of your kill.
Silverbough was his name, and you grew to fancy that his tongue was molded from a similar vein, because you could listen to him speak endlessly.
On days when journeying consumed the largest part of your time, he would stride along at your side, or just slightly ahead, nose raised to the wind. You'd find yourself watching the way the soft, brown braids would stir in the breeze, the way the faint crows' feet at the corners of his eyes would deepen in direct sunlight, the way shadow played across the bulge and dip of his bicep when he raised an arm to shield you from the worst of the midday heat.
You could brush off Shadowheart's knowing smile, or the way Gale's eyes seemed to follow you with greater intensity, even Astarion's snide quips about 'receiving the many gifts of nature.'
That was not your way, and, you were coming to learn, it was not Halsin's way either.
He was attractive as all Hells, that was for certain, but there was a different kind of dance that played out between you two that went beyond the call of man to woman, and vice versa.
He was a zephyr who led you gaily from one reckless spar on a cliff edge to another. He was a stone sentinel that stood bare-faced to each scoring wind of challenge. He was tooth and claw and sinew, encased in the rare flesh of the changeling. You could follow, and you could also lead, and the destination was never marked down on any map known to you or him.
To know Halsin was to let go of yourself, as you came to learn, soon enough.
"What are you looking for?"
Your curiosity leads you to the banks of the river you have camped beside, one summer evening.
Halsin is standing before you, feet braced on the riverbed, the water lapping midway up his thighs. He must have been submerged a short while before, and you pause to take in the sight of water dripping from the ends of his braids, across the scarred flesh of his brow, darkening the coarse hair that fans across his chest. Your hand comes up to your throat and you lower it again, hastily.
He regards you over his shoulder, eyes lambent in the dark, and you watch the slow curve of his mouth.
"These. Have you seen them before?"
He holds out one hand. Within the large cupping surface of his palm, you make out what seems to be an aquatic plant, the roots still clumped together with dark alluviual mud.
Hands braced on knees, you shake your head.
"Some kind of healing herb?"
"Something like that."
You catch his eye and cannot help the small twitch of your lips.
"Should I be concerned?"
"Don't you trust me?"
"Humour me. What does it do?"
He clambers up the bank with that easy, powerful stride, shaking off his body as he approaches you. Small flecks of damp speckle your jerkin and you straighten as he places the herbs carefully on a rack that he'd set up nearby.
"These will dry in the sun, but they need to be harvested at low light. The compounds within them are quite volatile."
"So once they're dry, I can put them in a pipe and smoke them?"
He pauses, shoulders shaking silently, before turning to you.
"A pipe isn't required, but that's the idea, yes. This is Fidoram, a herb we druids are fond of using when we want to ... gain greater affinity with our wild shapes."
Halsin picks up a pouch from beside the drying rack containing what you presume to be the same herb which he'd harvested and dried earlier. He crushes the roots slightly between his fingers, holding them out for you to sniff. Leaning forward, you close your eyes, inhaling deeply.
Some barrier has broken down, between his skin and the torn flesh of the root. What was herbal before now seems muddied in essence, a warm animal musk, the sweetness of new sweat on skin, the mingling of smoke and breath from between parted lips on an evening beneath the trees.
Your eyes slide open and he is watching you, a gleam of clouded grey beneath lowered lids.
Halsin's gaze is always a contradiction to you; on the one hand, clear and piercing, parting the veil between worlds, and on the other, misted over at times with a strange quality, as if human nature were optional, a skin he wore to pass time amongst beings such as yourself.
It intrigued you to no end. It made you wish to part that curtain with tentative fingers, to drink from that forbidden lake yourself.
"It smells ... "
"Intense?"
You nod, throat suddenly feeling a trifle tight, saliva thicker as you swallow. Halsin places the herb carefully back in the bag, and you feel his attention wander over you, from your bare feet on the grass, to your slightly bruised knees from the scuffle you'd had with bandits a few days prior, to the front of your jerkin, slightly unlaced.
He breathes out heavily and the air suddenly feels warmer, as if he's savouring your unique scent, the feather-light fingers of restraint dancing over his large form.
"Would you like to join me?"
You tilt your head, questioning.
"Join you?"
"I'm partaking of this joining ceremony. These Fidoram herbs are to replace the dried ones I'll be using presently. Would you like to be part of it?"
Your eager nodding causes him some evident amusement before you hesitate.
"You called it a joining ceremony?"
"When we druids transform our bodies, a deeper connection with the wild shape ensures a smoother transition."
"So you ... join your conscience with that of the beast?"
He stirs and straightens, holding out his hand.
"Here."
You place your hand within his, trying not to dwell too much on how the size of his palm dwarfs your own. His grasp is warm, roughened across the knuckles and the pads just below the fingers.
"Close your eyes again," he commands gently, and you comply, shifting a little closer to get comfortable.
"Now, follow the sensations on your arm."
Keeping your arm outstretched, he begins a slow exploration, digits tracing over skin. It begins with the feel of his touch radiating up, from the center of your palm to the soft area at the inside of your wrist. Halsin's voice rolls across your senses like muted thunder, close, humid, heated.
"You can feel me here. Now, you sense man, and now... "
Something shifts, and there is a charge in the air that causes the hair on your arms to stand upright. Halsin's tracing now feels ... different. There is a heaviness there that wasn't present before, coarse hair brushing over the inside of your arm, large, cushioned pads passing over you ... as if he'd switched to his bear form, which you'd witnessed many times before.
And then, another change, the heaviness giving way to something sharper; a living dagger being drawn down the centre of your arm ... not one, but two, three, four. The claws of a larger beast.
Hot breath blasts across your face, that scent of wet pelt in the rain stronger than ever. You keep your eyes firmly shut.
And as the raking reaches your wrist once more, there is another shift, much lighter, no less bestial. The swift shake and fluff of feathers, the click of a beak, sharp and staccato in the growing darkness.
A series of sharp prods, never breaking the skin, and suddenly Halsin's fingers are back, stroking to firm completion the motion he had started.
You still kept your eyes closed tight, a sharp exhale escaping you as you felt him raise your hand and place his lips against the juncture of thumb and finger. His mouth was hot, wide, lips slightly chapped and softer beneath in a way that defied all the sensations he'd just given you.
"Look at me."
It is no longer a command, yet you still obey. Maybe it was that you trusted him so completely, that you allowed him these ventures where no other had dared before.
He is smiling at you, soft and knowing, and the angle of the light through the trees plants a verdancy in that penetrating gaze that some part of your mind recognizes as both familiar and not.
His mouth doesn't leave your palm, and now he speaks against it.
"I've never changed my form, in all the time we were sitting here."
"But - "
You take the initiative, leaning forward and crawling toward him, inching by on your knees. He watches as the laces on your front fall further open, as you keep your eyes on him in a way that exposes your throat a little more, hair coming loose across your forehead.
" ... but, I felt it. I felt ... the bear, and the displacer beast, and a crow, and - "
"And I've never changed my form. You felt ... what I wanted you to feel. A great portion of our transformations are sensory, and the rest rely on our own awareness of our bodies. I can become a bear more easily because I spent the most time in that form. My body remembers it."
You're seated much closer to him now, where he seems to want you. Some physical boundary has been crossed, your space overlapping easily with his.
"So what would I experience in all this? Would I also contact some inner beast?"
He leans back on his palms, body stretching out to its full length, almost an invitation. Chin tilting, his glance passes from you to the stars that are now revealing themselves from behind pastel-painted clouds, dimming to the greater darkness of nightfall.
"Perhaps. Or possibly ... you'll just become better acquainted with mine."
Your laughter echoes between the trees, and somehow, this reminds you of the distance between your current position and the main camp. Beyond here, your companions may be milling around the fire, helping themselves to the pot roast Gale had prepared for supper.
It was your arrow that had stilled that boar's heart.
Emboldened, you nod, sitting upright.
"Is there anything you'd like me to do to prepare?"
Halsin is silent, and for a moment, you think he might deny you, that he might ask you in that warm, firm manner of his not to join him after all.
He doesn't do anything of the kind. It seems that he is aware of some willingness on your part, some desire to tear down the shifting, rustling wall between you two even further.
When he speaks, his voice is lower, but no less clear, the last thread of restraint stretching against the swell of long-present desire.
"Take off your clothes."
"And?"
"Allow me to perform a small cleansing ceremony. In the river."
"All right."
It isn't that you're more compliant. You're testing the limits of his control, in the way you feel you must.
Standing, you catch his gaze and hold it as you finally and fully unfasten the laces that are, at present, barely holding the leather garment together over your shirt. You peel it away from your body, arms stretching outward, a shadow like the wings of a larger bird spreading over his reclining form for a moment.
You take one step back, then another.
The hem of your shirt is lifted slightly, a teasing glimpse of the skin of your stomach visible. You turn away, keeping your profile facing over one shoulder, and lift the garment fully, chest and shoulders exposed to the mellow chill of the evening air.
You hands drop to your belt and you unfasten the buckle with a quick motion, tossing it aside. You're not quite bothered about finding it later.
Still facing away from him, your fingers hook into the top of your trousers, sliding them down to your ankles. You lift one leg, the sleek material still entangled and pull it free of your foot.
Underwear follows next, removed and discarded with swift movements.
Halsin has been watching patiently from somewhere behind you. You're fully aware that nakedness means little to him, that he is as comfortable in his own skin as he is with witnessing the reveal of yours.
Something about the act of standing nude before him now feels ... different, though. As if you've shed one skin for another, as if you're taking one step further into a closeness that breathes an stealthy, sensual vitality into your form.
When he stands and joins you, and you realise that he has also shed all of his clothes, it becomes even more evident.
Every hair on your body seems attuned to his, lifting, sensing, prickling with intent. A beast moves in the shadows of faint outer consciousness, one in the shadows you have yet to breach.
Halsin is looking at you as if you are a distant light on the water, focused, intent, the gleam of his eyes parting the gloom. He takes your hand, touch light and steady, and leads you to the river bank.
The temperature of the water is a slight shock at first. You didn't expect it to be quite so cold, but your body grows accustomed within minutes. Gooseflesh spreads from your extremities, across your upper chest, but you refrain from shivering outright.
Halsin wades into a position opposite you, before reaching down with cupped hands to collect water within. He steps forward and a light cascade runs down one shoulder, then the other. He takes his time, placing two fingers under your chin and tilting your head back.
River water dampens your hair, running in rivulets down your back and neck, tracing soft, cool lines down your breasts, the curve of your ribcage and down, down, to the slight dip above your buttocks.
"Prepare yourself."
You nod, the slick gravel beneath and between your toes digging into your flesh.
Halsin places a finger on your brow, tracing lightly down over the bridge of your nose, and suddenly the world shifts around you.
Inhaling sharply, you grasp his wrist.
"Easy. Easy. It's a sense enhancement. It will help you perceive ... everything a little better."
That was something of an understatement, perhaps because, unlike him, this was the first time you'd experienced such a phenomenon. It took a few minutes before you processed everything in a meaningful fashion again, his grip steady and warm at your waist, supporting you.
You realised now why he'd taken you into the water.
The cool pressure of the river against your thighs, the dampness on your skin, all grounded you, held your consciousness prisoner by a shifting tether. It was almost overwhelming, and then it wasn't.
Now, the world flitted against your senses in the way he'd intended, each sensation vibrant, fleeting, processed by the heightened awareness of your mind before another took its place.
There was a tug on your hand as Halsin indicated the grassy bank ahead. Nodding slowly, gearing your body for movement, you accompanied him as he led you back to the sheltered space between the trees.
He had you sit on a rolled out hide, covering you with a cloth that felt shockingly warm against your skin. You shivered as he dried the water off your arms, then your shoulders and back. He draped the rest of the fabric over your legs and squatted, opening up his pack.
"You don't have to take this journey with me, you know. I can always help you back to camp."
His voice is as gentle as the rustle of the leaves overhead. You shake your head and smile as your hair seems to sway around your ears with a similar sound, restless, tired of playing a soft cradle.
You want more.
Jerking your chin at the small brazier he'd produced from within the pack, you sniff and drop the blanket slightly. It pools around your shoulders, settling softly under your breasts.
Somehow, in Halsin's presence, nothing about the human form seemed shameful, or required concealment.
"Is that what you'll use to burn it?"
"Not directly on the flames, no."
Another small earthenware pot, blackened and singed, is pulled from the depths of the pack and Halsin is now packing the dried herb tightly within, until all the space within the vessel seems occupied.
"This is reinforced clay. Whatever's in here will heat up very slowly. That's what we're after."
He builds a small blaze, placing the brazier over and on top of that, the pot carefully balanced over a few well-placed river stones. He'd evidently had long practice with this.
You bring your knees down, sitting cross-legged. Before long, pale tendrils of smoke begin to emerge from the clay vessel, threading through the evening air. Halsin makes no move to direct the fumes, simply keeping his warm, watchful gaze fixed on you.
Tilting your head back, you inhale deeply. The scent is heady, fragrant, tinged with a low-lying heaviness that steals gradually across the back of the tongue.
Pleasant.
The world shifts around you again, but this time, your awareness holds firm. Something stirs within you, deep and primal, powerful. You can scent it on the wind, and now you can even discern Halsin's soft exhalation from across the small blaze.
Unconsciously, your breathing syncs with his. A tingling warmth spreads through your limbs, the kind that signals the start of a fever. You straighten, alert, eyelids fluttering open.
Halsin seems to have been waiting for this.
He stands, and you inhale softly as you take him in, the coil and release of muscle under tawny skin, the stretch and lift of old scars, the dark hair that spreads across his chest, tapers, then spreads again to form a dense thatch over the apex of his thighs.
He lets you look, arms spreading out slightly as he rolls one shoulder, then the other.
The air around him changes, as it does when he transforms. The transition is one you have seen many times now, so it comes as no surprise when you're confronted with the hulking form of the bear, towering over you, the flickering of the small fire still in between.
You rise slowly, the blanket falling away, and pace in a slow circle until you come to his side. Even on all fours, he is substantial, shoulder almost reaching yours.
His fur is thick, slightly coarse and you're suddenly struck with a desire to take handfuls of it, carding it in between your fingers. His flank is hot, pressed against your bare stomach, and he feels indescribably powerful, vital, present in a manner that you'd never quite understood the weight of before.
This is the bear, and this is Halsin.
Before you can think it over further, he turns, body lowering slightly and with a sharp gasp, you're being gently maneuvered onto his back.
You let out an incredulous laugh, echoed by a soft snort from his muzzle as it passes, breath hot and wet against your calf. The prickle of his fur sets off a dangerous dance of pain and pleasure along your sensitized breasts, your stomach and inner thighs.
And here you are, beneath the stars, your breath now steaming out of your lungs into the summer night, the shift of ancient strength beneath your body.
Halsin carries you through the woods on a throne of bone, flesh and fur, heading deeper into the embrace of the trees.
Above your head, the night fires wheel and the silent swooping shadow of an owl passes, cutting through the night sky with a deeper darkness. Something inside you purrs in answer, preens at the thought of seeing all.
Nothing escapes you, not even the flick of a here's ears as it traces your passage with wide, cold eyes.
Halsin takes you through the fruit trees, and you arch your back, ready to drink the sweet riot of their nectar, the rot of their fallen flesh trampled further into the soil as you pass. You can reach up and pluck them, rubies that echo with distant heat, and bite hard as their juice runs down your chin.
You feast, naked, on a bear's back, half queen, half animal.
When he reaches the larger clearing, the standing stones forming a ring in the grass-covered dip in the land, you slide from his back, wiping off your lips.
You have realized that the enchantment and, perhaps, some effect of the herb has made your vision in the dark clearer, less muddied around the edges. Shadows don't blend into each other as they do, a hard, jewel-like quality to stone, soil and the earth beneath, transposed over the softness of the living.
Turning in a slow circle, arms outstretched, you spin in exultation. The bear follows you, bellowing softly as his large head presses against your hip; an invitation.
Indeed, you feel like joining Halsin in a different form, as carefree as if you were on stage at the theater, discarding one costume for another.
Some part of your spine stretches, then contracts violently, your face elongating. Your shoulder blades are suddenly pressing outwards, against the skin of your back, two bulges writhing beneath the surface before breaking free in long, spear-tipped appendages. Your drop to all fours, the pain keen and exquisite, nails drawing scores across the ground, body wracked with the convulsions of sudden, shocking change, until ...
Sleek and black, your fur gleams in the darkness. Halsin is still beside you, and you see yourself, reflected in the large, placid eyes, amusement stealing into their depths.
Displacer beast it is then. Who knew that this would be your natural inclination?
The dark tendrils that sprout from your shoulders join your elongated tail in a soft, experimental movement, tracing along the bear's back, shifting between his legs, along his snout. You span the shape of him, as he snorts and nudges you.
You think you have some level of command of the whip-like extremities, and you test it now, tickling across his ribs and binding his jaws together playfully.
He gives a loud, indignant cough, twisting to free himself. You slap him across the backside with your tail and leap out of the reach of his paw, claws out, skittering across the ground.
Let it never be said that dignity had a part to play in this shift.
The bear's eyes narrow. He sways lightly from side to side, as if to deceive your eye as to which direction he'll approach from next. Your tail flicks in anticipation.
Halsin feints left and comes in from the right, aiming to push you over. Your innate ability comes to the fore, almost by instinct. Dodging away from him, you leave afterimages on the air, blue-black and humming with faint energy, taunting.
He lunges for you, head-on, and he's too slow and ... ah!
Mid-stride, his form changes to match your own, brown streaking away to sleek darkness. His momentum carries him forward, bounding off the pillar of stone that partially conceals your form, and he lands heavily on top of you, dragging you snarling into the dirt.
So he plays dirty, too.
The twin tendrils that snake from his shoulders twine with your own, tugging you closer. You squirm in his grasp, using your smaller size to slip beneath his body and tip him over. He lands on his back, tail lashing through the air to wrap around your hind leg, but now that you've had a taste of change, it coils around empty air, because you are -
A raven, darting and fleet of wing, claws curving to talons, fur extending to feathers, nose hardening to a snapping beak. Flesh warps in on itself, defying space, and your form shrinks rapidly as you streak between the trees.
Halsin is an old hand at this though, and he is always close behind. His transition between forms is far more seamless than yours, giving him more time to catch up.
Greater wings sweep close to yours, encroaching, feet tucked up close to his body to give him more speed.
You weave between tree trunks, branches and out of the occasional path of another nocturnal creature, leaves whipping past you with stinging exhilaration.
Where every shift for you is pure instinct, Halsin's grace is unmatched, each movement measured, powerful, weighted with intention. He knows each of his forms as well as he seems to know yours.
But you're not out of tricks yet.
In a final burst of speed, you break through the trees, each flap of your wings taking you further. You're about to turn sharply in mid-air, to dive for the low lying brush, when his talons slot between yours and you find yourself drawn into a dizzying spiral.
You change direction, pull at his grip, but you realise that you'd only destabilize the formation he has wrapped you in.
Giving in to his relentless, teasing pull, you allow yourself to be dragged down, down, as if a whirlpool of air is forcing you down its centre.
In this moment, you are weightless, free, abandonment of your human sensibilities dangerously close. You know only the stars that form streaks across the night sky, the warmth of Halsin's feathers, the slow blink of your inky eyes as you prepare for another shift.
Infiltrating all of these sensations is the overwhelming feeling of trust, that you can place yourself so easily in his hands (paws, talons, the minutiae don't really matter) and he'll always land, feet to the ground, bearing you with him.
And indeed, he does.
Right before the grass of the clearing comes rushing up to meet your falling forms, his wings expand to many times their regular size, dwarfing your body. The sudden air resistance gusts upward, catching in the feathers, and as he slows your landing, you realise that your temporary flight through the forest had not taken you as far as you'd thought.
You are back to being ... yourself, you suppose, although that was now a transient term. Arms wrapping tight around Halsin, you feel when he returns to himself as well.
His torso elongates within your grasp, the coarse brush of hair against your chest, the bunch and slide of hard muscle pressing into your back as he holds you against him.
You both land in the grass with a heavy thump, Halsin cushioning your fall, and something inside you is not quite ready to relinquish victory rights for this unofficial battle. You roll, end over end, warm body over his, a breathless, endless laugh rising in your throat as Halsin seems equally determined to win.
You come to a stop, him on top of you, skin covered in grass and earth, lips still stained with overripe fruit and dark feathers tangled in your hair. He is looking at you as if the Oak Father himself had just spawned you from the wild, lightning-hewn trunk of an ancient tree, reverence, desire, an all-encompassing tenderness that seems to pervade all of his interactions with you.
When his lips come down on yours, it is as natural as leaves falling to earth, the weight of his body on yours as welcome as soft summer rain. His arms hold him slightly aloft, caging you in as his head angles first this way, then that, each wet press and slide of his mouth more hungry than the last.
You body comes apart for him, arms rising past his into the grass above your head, back curving, the angle between your legs widening as he dips down, the entirety of his skin on yours almost too much to bear in your current sensitized state.
You are aware of your hair sliding through the grass with every movement of your head, of scrape of short, coarse hair across your nipples, the shift of his tightening abdominal muscles against your stomach, the way those muscular thighs stretch your legs further apart. He is already at half mast, the tip of him stroking a slow, wet trail of fire upwards, along your inner thigh.
You gasp, arching a little further off the ground, evening dew moistening the skin of your buttocks as you raise your leg slightly, stroking against him. All this time, you've witnessed him in the nude and it was not until now that the urgency of your want became vital, a lust-filled haze that only grew as you took in the size and weight of him against you.
Halsin seems to have decided that he is not simply satisfied with winning the tussle of changing forms.
He pauses above you, eyes drinking in your damp, parted lips before he descends again, lower, lower, and lower still. Hot breath eases over your extended throat, followed by tongue, the heated promise of that single lapping stroke sending you into delirium.
Your head is tilted almost all the way back, the ripe curve of your breasts presented to him with as much generosity as the fruit trees that had lowered their harvest to you earlier.
An explosive moan exits you as he lavishes your nipple with soft, hot licks, suckling the flesh slowly to the left and then to the right, drawing it in with the tightening suction of his cheeks. He takes his time, only coming back to the white hot centre of your areola when he is satisfied that the entirety of the rounded expanse has been tasted.
You jerk under him, fingers scrabbling at his immovable arm as he applies the same attention to the other neglected breast, tugging you gently between his teeth until you're crying out at the gentle but thorough stimulation.
A soft, ticklish sensation alerts you to his next move, as the ends of the beaded braids fall forward over the pointed ends of his ears, painting your ribcage with the swirling ripples of an unseen image of growing lust.
You raise your head slightly, hooded eyes watching him, his breath passing over your mound like a hot wind that comes sailing down from the mountains to collect in the humid harbour of your widening thighs.
Your knees bend, anticipation drawing your abdomen taut as he bites down into the softness of one thigh, then the other. Halsin preserves symmetry, in all that he does.
When he tastes you, a hummingbird pushing slowly, exquisitely, into the sweet burst of a flower's trembling centre, you cannot help the low, desperate keening that escapes you. One hand slams into the grass beside you, fingers threading through and grasping at the cool foliage, trying to anchor your mind that seems to want to abandon all rational thought.
Halsin takes you, with surety, confidence, peeling you apart with large, roughened fingers, plundering your soft heat with the same assiduous attention he'd shown the rest of your body. He grows more intense, his own lust taking the reigns, thrusting his tongue as deep as it will go, pushing the edges apart, suckling the tiny, glistening pearl at the apex of your folds as if it is the finest delicacy he's ever feasted upon.
The slickness that coats his mouth, cheeks, hands and your thighs is a ceaseless font. You writhe beneath him, begging, gasping, shrinking away from and then surrendering to every blissful feeling he bestows.
Just when the taut string of heat that stretches all the way from down there to the base of your throat threatens to snap, he lifts off you, smiling at your outraged gasp, one hand holding down your hip as you furiously buck upward at the loss of sensation.
You slap at his arm, scowling as he laughs, soothing strokes sliding down your stomach and legs as he brings you reluctantly down from the peak you have been teetering on seconds before.
Oh, but he isn't done with you, not yet.
He has been saving the true banquet for this time, when your body has recovered some measure of equilibrium, but not quite. Now, when your sensitized skin burns with unquenched flame, when you moan so wantonly and reach for him, scratching lightly down his chest, when he raises himself once more, looming over you and crawls forward, every move lithe and sinuous as the displacer beast who's form he had borrowed a short while before, now you prepare yourself for what he truly has in store.
Your arms extend, almost looping around his neck, when he grasps your hip firmly and turns you over onto your front.
Oh.
So this was what he intended.
Not that you didn't adjust to the circumstances almost instantly. You were not without your wiles.
Stretching in a distinctly feline manner, you raise your hips, back curving in a perfect, quivering arc, letting out small sounds of encouragement as you feel the supple flesh of your buttocks brush the waving length of his erection. He hisses, but makes no move to stop you, allowing you to have your way with him, albeit, briefly.
And my, do you take advantage of the temporary freedom he's granted you.
Your spine undulates, the folds between your legs long since slicked and wet with his preparation. You enfold him from the sides, dragging your sweet nectar along his length, the heavy tip catching slightly and making you dig your fingers deeper into the soil.
There is some connection here, more expansive than just the two of you. The earth beneath your hands and knees hums with latent energy, the kind that remains undetected when you are not here, with him, in this sacred space that flowers between the sky, the trees, the stones and your body beneath his.
You open your mind to it, kindling some deep spark within that Halsin detects. He hums with approval, leaning further forward.
Like a dull clap of thunder, an electric hum on the air, he rolls his hips forward, taking the initiative. The rounded head breaches you, forcing a full-throated cry as you're rapidly reminded of the sheer size of him.
It's not just the silky iron length that presses forward, inch by inch, displacing the dewy arousal that coats him. It's the feel of his weight sinking further down into your back, an echo of stigma and stamen, the slow spread of your fingers as his lodge between them, the resumed stroke of his braids at the nape of your neck.
Your mouth opens in a silent continuation of your ecstasy, tendons standing out in your neck with the supreme effort of acceptance. The invasive stretch eases as he rocks back and forth, whispering soft praises, obeisances, worshipping the way you engulf him whole.
Lightning now follows the deepening roar in your veins, sweat coating your skin in a luminous sheen as you slowly back onto him, feeling the probe at the edges of your ability to take, jerking away with a hiss, moving back again with intent.
Halsin allows you to set the pace, low grunts of effort sounding against the shell of your ear, hot breath mingling with yours.
You drag your awareness away from the pleasure that builds steadily as you tilt forward, until only the tip remains, then repeat the slow reversal that impales you. You want this to take forever, to last until the final frayed threads of your control slip between your fingers and you surrender to the storm that threatens to crash over your senses with each fluid movement.
When you feel that you're ready, you raise your hips slightly, and he almost slips from your tight heat. His fingers sink into the flesh just above your hip, followed by a low exhale of agreement, a sign to ready yourself.
His forward thrust knocks the breath from your lungs, and you cry out and sink down to your elbows almost immediately. The new angle allows him to penetrate even deeper, tearing hoarse cries of pleasure from your throat.
Halsin sets a steady, powerful rhythm, the impact of each slam of his hips rippling the flesh of your buttocks, the folds of your waist deepening as you drop further down. The blades of grass beneath you graze your nipples, snapping past with increasing intensity as he picks up his pace.
Hands fisting once again, you tear up clods of earth, howling, moaning, begging as the slaps of his body against yours matches the pace of his breathing, quickening like the blood in your veins, the heady sap that seeps into your mouth as you press your face into the grass and take it between your teeth.
Tears of pleasure gather at the corners of your eyes, roll down to your entwined fingers and he presses down on you further, lapping at them as they stream down the side of your face.
He is a veritable force of nature, sweeping you up into a maelstrom of unmatched, terrifying sensation. You turn your head to him slightly, sobbing breaths spelling out that you are close, so close, almost, to keep fucking you, to go harder, to -
The staccato encouragement only serves to slow his pace, and now, in spite of the protesting smack of your hand against his abdomen, your nails dragging on his flank, your cursing, he starts a new rhythm, one even more devastating in its undoing of you.
Two deep strokes, followed by a tender, shallower thrust that lodges somewhere different, somewhere that sparks a renewed series of deep, throaty moans, pitched higher and higher as a crescendo builds.
He fills you, stretches you, paints your inner thighs with the soaked traces of your joining, merciless in his assault on the tight ring of muscle at your entrance.
You're no longer aware of where the connection between your bodies ends, so immersed are you in each collision of your hips.
Halsin places a hand firmly in the small of your back, and you're now aware that he has also grown louder in his appreciation of you, almost incoherent in his litany of praises.
Under other circumstances (perhaps later, when you find the time to indulge in each other at a more leisurely pace) you would have taken the time to sling your leg over his, to twist until you managed to lever his body beneath yours, to ride him until that tell-tale ache in your lower back and thighs made itself known.
For now, you can only think of your immediate pleasure, the magnificent sweep of a cyclone that comes crashing across the coastline and catches you when you least expect it.
When it does eventually find you, when your back arches, your muscles convulsing, your body shuddering with an intensity that near rattles your teeth, you allow it to carry you away, hardly aware of your reactions in that moment.
Halsin's reaches beneath you, hand caressing your stomach with soft, grounding fervour, even as you become aware that he has not allowed himself the same abandonment of release. He is harder than ever inside you, the twitch that makes itself known now that he has stilled his pace causing you to gasp and stiffen.
There is still a certain tension coiled there, one that makes itself known as he slowly eases himself in and out, building to steady rocking against you. He throws back his head and growls, body now fully spread across yours, and you raise your legs, tucking your feet behind his knees to pull him further towards the newly set line of completion.
Your second orgasm is less intense, but reverberates through you in a manner that makes him pause again. The wringing contractions around his length seem to finally push him over the edge, and he lets out a gutteral roar as a searing warmth floods within you, the irregular spasmodic slide of him coming to a gradual stop.
You reach back, hand placed flat on his abdomen for some modicum of control as he eases out, the cool night air a shocking contrast to the overwhelming heat of him. Consciousness of your own breathing returns, ragged, your pulse pounding in your ears.
Something slips down your leg, pools on the ground behind you. You keep your rear raised, glancing back over your shoulder, a dazed smile spreading as you note the glazed, shattered stare that Halsin directs at you, at the banner of your union that drapes in a pearlescent string between your once-joined parts.
He sits back on his haunches and runs those large hands through his hair, attempting to bring himself back under control.
Under the circumstances, your expression should not be so self-satisfied, considering that he has all but taken you in the most base, animalistic manner possible. You are aware of how you must look, with your hair draped in sweaty tangles over your forehead, the gleam of perspiration that now covers you from head to toe, the marks of earth on your buttocks, knees and elbows.
Halsin catches your eye and strokes down your back before raising you with that delightfully easy strength, bringing you closer to him.
You seat yourself on his lap, legs parted as if you've assumed your natural throne once again. The soft shake of his shoulders builds to a laugh that you feel all the way down to your bones.
"I take it you've made the acquaintance of your inner beast?"
"And a fine one at that."
"I wasn't expecting such a chase."
"Was it worth it?"
His fingers find their way beneath your chin, tilt your head until he is able to gaze upon your face once again.
There it is, that infinite tenderness, the kind he always reserves just for you. When he speaks, you shudder slightly at the weight of passionate promise there, the rumble that begins somewhere deep in his chest, that let's you lean against him in the lassitude of well-earned submission.
"Well worth it. I'd even go so far as to ask for a re-match."
"Oh? And which form will you choose for our next bout?"
His voice is muffled slightly, from where he presses his mouth to your shoulder, but you hear him nonetheless, and your teeth gleam in the faint light of the clearing.
Warnings: 18+ MDNI, overstimulation, fingering, HUGE praise kink, implied size difference, p in v, oral (F receiving), so full of feelings, no pronouns used.
Word count: 9.7k
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It starts with a subtle pull, almost unnoticeable amongst the frantic pace of your heart and the heat beginning to crawl its way up your skin. His fingertips play with the edge of your shirt, a silent request that is lost on you the moment his lips meet yours again, locking you in mindless bliss. Every new feeling a dream you hoped to never wake from. The way he’s pressed against you as you straddle him, the wetness of his roaming tongue. You don’t even think to consider the entirety of what he’s quietly asking, already hazed by even just the smallest of comforts he offers. Gods, how long has it been since you’d known such affection? Too long, it seems, given how even his most subtle movements pull on forgotten needs. Though it is the feel of a hand slipping under cloth that finally brings you back to reality – a sharp gasp catching, breaking the kiss as your once melted muscles grow suddenly tight.
His movements stop, lips hovering just that little bit away. Hesitation is noticeable in how he waits just out of reach, almost afraid he’d hurt you. A conflict rises in your chest when you come to meet his gaze, his eyes holding a half-lidded want that you could feel yourself wishing to melt helplessly into. But even now, with your soul laid out so plainly, naked in every way but physically, you still feel that nervous tug. It truly had been some time, after all. Every touch against you was electric, his kiss alone already all-consuming. You wished for more, yet your skittishness held you captive.
And then he tries to pull away, and once more panic beats your worry.
“Don’t-” the word comes out quicker than you can even think it, hands gripping fistfuls of the front of his shirt. Hesitation falls to something much kinder on him. An easy smile takes his lips, his head leaning against yours.
“You needn’t worry, I have no plans to leave you anytime soon,” he assures you. Your hands loosen their grip, a deep breath steadying your lungs. You find only softness in his eyes, patience still there even when you falter. He holds there for a moment, fondness almost hiding the worry still hidden in the corners of his expression.
“Perhaps I am pushing too far. We do not need to do anything more tonight if you do not wish to. This is already more than enough,” he speaks the words you didn’t have the will to form on your own. A final opportunity to pull away laid out in front of you. You consider it, the hummingbird rhythm of your heart threatening immolation if you choose anything else.
And yet you can’t find it in you to entertain the idea for long. Not when the warmth of him was soothing that neglected part of your soul, not when you were just starting to remember what it felt like to be held – truly held. A war fought itself inside you between what you believed you could handle and what you knew you so desperately wanted. Between that familiar need to protect your vulnerable heart and that unending wish to surrender it entirely.
“I want you more than anything,” the admission leaves you as if the breath was stolen by the wind, the air borrowed for only the moment it took to speak it into existence. You feel the way his hands tighten ever so slightly around your waist, a heavy breath softening every one of his features. But healthy caution tempers it, your words not quite finished.
“But this,” you continue, your hands trailing slowly upward, a small comfort as you bring them to cradle his face.
“This is the closest I’ve been to anyone in longer than I can remember. I have wanted for so, so long. Craved, even. To have it now is so entirely overwhelming I can hardly remember to breathe,” the words spill from you, unbitten and from the soul.
As he looks at you now he doesn’t think you’ve ever looked more stunning. So open with him, honesty written in your every syllable, expressing your desire like the finest poetry he’d ever heard. And while holding him, no less, so gentle he might have believed you were trying to ruin him. Though you hardly needed to attempt, the soft whisper of your voice did that well enough. He has to catch himself then, as he had wished for nothing more than to take your lips again and taste every last word left on them. But he knows better than that. You were far too fragile in that moment for him to dare.
So he considers your words, turning them in his mind and soaking in their every meaning. In truth you hadn’t needed to admit such a thing to him, he could tell just by how your body reacted to him. Curling away and delving deeper all at once, squirming under his palm like he was the most foreign thing to meet your skin in a century, yet so curious as to have your hands trail almost absently along him. He knew the signs well, perhaps even a bit too intimately given how easily he melted into you. He could feel his pulse quicken at the thought of just how sensitive you must be, absent from touch for so long. If the gasp from earlier was anything to go by he knew you’d have him ruined on just the sound of you-
He quickly pushed those thoughts aside, blinking back to the moment as swiftly as he’d strayed from it. But just that small wander of his thoughts was enough to draw something deep within him to the surface. It was hard to focus with you so close, your presence burning so deeply into him. His desires have plagued him since that first day he’d met you, but never had he felt them so deeply, never had he needed you as he did now.
“Then I would teach you to breathe again,” the words are a murmur on his lips as he leans closer. The way you hold him is a trance he hopes to never wake from.
“Allow me to remind you of what your body has forgotten. Allow me to teach it more than it’s known,” he continues as if he whispers a prayer. His eyes show his want plainly, a slow, breathy sigh passed between his words. Yet still he remains that same breath away, waiting to be chosen, waiting for you.
“Allow me to be gentle with you,” he speaks almost against your lips, a honeyed promise. Having him so close crumbles whatever resolve you still had standing, but his words destroy it entirely. Desperation rises in its stead, a frantic need to hold on, to never let this fragile bond shatter.
You had never wanted someone more.
“Please,” you whisper, voice breaking slightly.
“Please have me,” you finally relent and his lips meet yours not a moment after. The kiss he gives you then is the sweetest you’d ever tasted, as gentle as he promised, soft with his every movement. You fall into the infinity of his comfort.
His hand returns, the subtle tug now holding very clear meaning. He is slow with the request, being sure you understand him. You answer with hands that slip around his neck, allowing yourself to fall deeper still. You prepare for the touch, knowing it’s coming, yet still when the warmth of him meets the bare skin of your torso you can’t help the way each muscle flexes under it, nor the way your breath catches and your hands tighten. But this time he doesn’t pull away, remaining there, tracing soft circles with his thumb against the twitching skin. You maintain enough of your composure to stay on his lips this time, soothing yourself in the rhythm. He moves further, intentional in each graze, so sure of himself that you hardly think to be cautious. It felt as if he did that for you.
Eventually he’s pulling the cloth upward, inch by agonizing inch, slowing just before breaking the kiss, as if it pains him to let go for even that moment. But soon enough the shirt is over your head and discarded on the grass beside you. Your eyes follow it, skin bristling at the cool night air just as much as it does at the feeling of being so bare in someone's arms. His hands return quickly, warmth radiating off him in waves. When you dare to look back at him you are met with an expression so entirely consumed by fondness you might have wondered if he was staring at something else entirely. A soft half-smile lazy on his face, a hooded gaze hardly hiding the gleam in his eyes. He looked so at peace here, like he had always belonged in this space with you. There was no worry; nervousness was left to the wind in favor of admiring what sat before him. Even now he somehow found ways to dull your fears, to soothe them. It was hard to feel so nervous when he hadn’t a worry in the world.
Almost in instinct you lean back into his touch, hoping to find refuge from the breeze that sends a shiver down your spine. You fall against his chest and he takes you into his hold just as quickly. Wrapping his arms around you, sheltering you as your shirt once had. You feel yourself relax again, lost in him as pine invades your senses. One slow breath releases some of the tension in your muscles and you feel his hands wander in response. Across the plane of your back where old scars left landmarks to memorize and trace, then back to your sides which once more twitched in recognition of him, then finding your arm, your shoulders, before pulling you far enough from his chest to cradle your face like you had once done with him. You don’t think you’ve ever been so relaxed- so undone by someone. It was as if he wove spells with the trace of his hands, blurring worry and doubt into puddles that melted right out of you, replaced instead by the hazy need for more. Your eyes must have said as much, given how pleased he seemed by what he’d done to you.
He leans closer again and your lips part expectantly, embracing his return. But he stops just short, breath mixing with yours in the pause of a moment that seems to last forever. When his lips do eventually fall it isn’t against your own, but instead the skin just beside. Your cheek, then the line of your jaw, then lower still. His hands follow, falling again down the side of you, returning to your waist just as his lips pause briefly on the pulse of your neck, the oh so slight tease of teeth catching your breath for the shortest moment. Each fall of his lips is just a little deeper than the last, innocent feather-light kisses bleeding into something more. He lays them until he comes to the shell of your ear, a huff of breath setting every nerve alight.
“To touch you like this is a blessing, to feel your skin against mine a dream,” he mumbles the words into your ear, voice buried in a rasp from low in his throat. Your hands grip tightly onto the loose cloth of his shirt as he does, falling apart at the new sensations. A sound escapes unwillingly from you, something between a whimper and a huff, and you tense at the strangeness of it. He returns the sound with a graveled hum, burying his face into the crook of your neck in response. The hands on your waist grip just that bit tighter, teeth baring just that little bit more against your skin.
“Again,” he speaks against your skin, a slight bite behind his words, a glimpse into what he’s holding back.
“Sing for me again, little bird,” he makes the seemingly small request. You thought the tightness of your throat would have made an answer impossible until he pulled you closer, hands resting on your thighs as his tongue meets the sweet spot on your neck you only now realize he’d been searching for. The sound that floods out of you then is much clearer, lips parting into a gasping whine. His tongue drags lewdly across your skin, setting alight your every nerve, unabashed in its desire to taste you.
And oh does the taste of you cloud his mind, flooding his senses. He was searching for every bit of you he could take, every piece you’d allow him. He almost broke when you leaned further, allowing more room to explore, giving into him in just the smallest way. His mind flooded with images of you, of how you’d feel entirely bare against him, how those hands would travel, curious as always, how he’d finally drag sound free from your chest and bless the world with your magnificent song. But he catches himself again, steadying on your tight hands and sweet uneven breath. He refrains from teeth, being as gentle as he’d promised, as agonizing as the slow pace is. Though perhaps it was for the best, perhaps he needed it just as much as you. He could already feel that flicker in his veins, that fire in his heart that threatened to ruin this most perfect moment. And he found the only thing that soothed it was the careful way he dragged his tongue against you, sating the burning beast just enough to calm it rather than provoke it.
That is until the drag of a particularly sensitive spot makes you rut against him, delicious friction pausing him, eyes shut tight, groans torn deep from his throat. In a moment he’s returned to meet your lips, seeking something sweeter in the hells you’ve raised beneath his skin. And he finds it, a reminder of your caution in how you hesitate for just a moment before returning it.
Holding your hips he coaxes the two of you to the ground, soft grass tickling the senses. He feels you smile against him, a sensation that nearly makes his heart explode in his chest as he’s quick to lick to the taste of it on your lips. Your hands wrap around his neck to keep him close, and he almost considers staying there for the rest of the night. Just you and him, laying happily under the stars, tasting passion on each other’s tongues. A picture of paradise.
But he can’t ignore the pull of something more. Skin so hot that a sheen of sweat begins to form, hands needy with every handful of you they can get. You certainly don’t help matters when your hands meet his hair again, gentle for one moment, then lightly pulling the next. Like you had done earlier, and it conjures pictures all the same now as it did then.
So he breaks that perfect kiss, pulling away from hands that seem entirely unwilling to let go, even if they do in the end. In a moment he’s removed his shirt, thankful for the brief reprieve the night air gives his heated skin. He had planned to return just as quickly, to fall back into the ocean of you like a helpless tide. But he finds himself pausing. It’s not hesitation that stops him, nor any return of worry. No, it’s in reverence at the sight before him. Laid among the earth, half bare, wide eyes capturing his form with little desire left to hide. He hardly believes the sight, as perfect as a painting captured by ethereal means, for no mere man could ever hope to paint the entire majesty of you to canvas. Such a thing would be a hopeless endeavor.
When your eyes finally meet in this brief time he is surprised to see that awe doesn’t melt from your gaze. Instead your hand reaches forward, an action he returns by leaning in. You place your palm against the heart of his chest, fingertips mixing with coarse hair. He relaxes into the sensation, eyes heavy with the peace your simple gesture brings.
“You’re…beautiful,” the words slip your tongue from some place even you aren’t sure the origins of. They stun him, pausing every thought and action, his eyes widening in surprise. He watches panic meet you at his reaction, the small mercy of your hand against him torn away, like you’d touched fire. In pure instinct he steals your hand from the air, capturing it before you could pull too far away before placing it back where you held it- where it belongs. You blink in recognition of the moment, drawn between panic and peace. He smiles then, soft as rain, hoping to soothe the burn.
“Beautiful…” he tastes the word as he speaks it, an adjective stolen from him. He had meant to say such a thing of you, though hardly expected you would think the same of him. He savors the way it sounds, how you had spoken it so truly. A word that’s fallen off his tongue a thousand times, though not one he’s ever received.
“I do not believe anyone has ever called me that before,” but it was how you saw him, it was the word that captured your mind and fell so genuinely off your tongue. Beautiful.
“Say it again,” he asks oh so innocently. Your eyebrows knit, nose twitching at the request. Confused perhaps? Or maybe just caught off guard. But either way you soften, your hand splaying against his skin in a silent return.
“You’re beautiful,” the words fall stronger this time, with much more intention held behind them. His smile only grows, practically giddy at the sound. Beautiful, you thought him beautiful.
“Again,” he requests, laying a quick kiss against your nose. You smile and he can hardly resist laying another on the bridge between your eyes, your forehead, then cheek, then chin. And suddenly you’re laughing, a sound that rings as awful encouragement and he can’t help but oblige. You try to speak through the giggles, your hand pushing lightly against him, a plea for mercy that he ignores in favor of drawing more of that perfect sound out of you.
“H-Halsin!” You try to plea, though it is a weak one given that it’s spoken through a helpless laugh. It doesn’t stop him.
“You’re- gods, you’re beautiful!” you bargain instead and it seems he finds that sufficient, his kisses slowing until he rests inches away, unbridled joy written in every one of his features.
“And you, little lover, are a sight more enticing than any I’ve known,” he muses through a trickling laugh soon replaced by calm smiles and eyes that hold the world within them. You return just the same look, your hand tracing slowly from his chest and up his neck until your palm rests on his face again. He turns as if it is the most natural thing, laying a kiss against your palm. Then his hand came to grab yours, his kiss trailing to your wrist, following your pulse until coming to your shoulder. Your breath grows unsteady as he continues to your collarbone, still as light as a feather against your skin. One of his hands steady on the ground as the other finds your side again, your body once more shuttering at the touch. His tongue returns with a hunger you hadn’t yet known as he finds the column of your throat, your head tilting up in acquiesce. Tiny love bites nip here and there as he makes it back to your ear, biting the lobe with another release of breath.
“I do wonder how you might react when I finally devour you,” he whispers the filthy words into your ear, already sensitive skin practically alight at his musings. He takes advantage, trailing his hand in ways that make you shutter.
“Can you imagine it? My tongue tasting each piece of you, how you might unravel,” he continues, his hands lowering until his thumb just barely slips under the hem of your pants. You gasp, gripping tighter onto him. This only seems to encourage him.
“How sensitive you must be, neglected for so long. Your body already sings its need for me,” he teases the skin of your lower stomach, so close yet so agonizingly far from where you need him. Your hips move of their own accord, seeking any amount of friction they can find. He pushes you gently back to the ground, your body left with no other recourse than to squirm in the desire his words set fire to.
“Halsin,” you manage his name through a breath, the images he’d conjured nearly too much for your already hammering heart. He hums in recognition of his effect, another kiss against your neck revealing the smile on his face.
“Yes, my heart?” he answers through the kisses, tone thick with something dangerous. You huff, the sound bleeding into a whine as his lips begin to their line back down again.
“I-I…I need you,” you beg, those few words digging dangerous claws into him, grabbing at instinct and tempting it. His mind flashes with how he might pin you below him, how he would take you in every way you desire, how he'd give you everything you need. He moans at the thoughts alone before swallowing them down, trying to find patience again. But gods how you made something once so simple now so difficult to grasp. Every piece of his being wanted nothing more than to envelop itself entirely in you.
“And you will have me,” he answers with in a low sound, still trying to keep hold of control. Now fervent kisses creep lower, finding new territory past your collar and down your chest. The evidence of his effect is most prevalent there where your breaths run shallow and your heart beats against his lips. He’s enamored by the feeling, caught in it. The rise and fall, the fluttering thrum, the honesty you’d once hidden now entirely on display. You couldn’t hide from him now even if you wished to.
As he continues down so too does his hand drag away fabric. Lower and lower, cold air teasing the exposed skin. Your quiet cries get needier, tempting him further until finally he’s able to endure a moment away from your skin, shifting so that he might pull the final pieces of cloth that hide you. With a bit of movement he manages, breath torn entirely out of you as he does. It’s instinct that quickly closes your legs afterward, reality setting in again. His smile remains just as soft as he stares down at you, setting the cloth nearby. He’s careful in his return, prior intensity cooling for a moment. A hand on your calf gently pulling you closer, a kiss on your knee a reminder of his promise. I will be gentle with you.
The slow return calms you, reminds you that you are safe under his hands. And when he trails again it is a ghosting touch, requesting more than it demands, slowly pushing legs apart. You give in rather quickly, once more caught in the feel of him against you. His touch, his kiss, every bit that he allowed was as intoxicating as the last. He soothed you just as much as he ruined you.
His eyes are shameless as they look upon you now, taking in the irresistible sight before him. A love as fickle as flame and as captivating as deep ocean all at once. His most beloved bird offering him this most sacred rite. His hooded gaze shows his admiration plainly, eyes wandering with thoughts poorly hidden behind them. How you might feel, how you might taste.
“Such magnificence,” he mumbles against where he kisses your knee. Slower than ever before he creates a new line that his needy lips follow down your inner thigh, eyes finding yours with unmistakable purpose. You can’t bear to keep his stare, each breath already difficult.
“Kept so preciously hidden,” he continues, an unspoken request to return in his tone that you can’t bring yourself to answer. Not when he’s so close, not when each fan of his breath sends shockwaves through every nerve.
“My flighty love,” he muses anyway, and as if to earn your attention again he lays a small bite just along your inner thigh. The squeaking sound you make is entirely undignified, your eyes returning to his in shock only to find something smug written on the curl of his lips.
“Stay,” the word falls so sweetly as it pins you, daring you to deny him. A part of you wondered what he might do if you did, how he might find a way to claim you again, what lengths he’d go to just to keep your attention on him. But another part couldn’t dare, his undivided stare meeting yours as each kiss brought him closer to the core of you, already slick with desperate anticipation. There is a pause right before he finally gives you what you so crave, lips hovering close enough for you to feel the warmth of his breath, his eyes flickering to take in the sight. So ready for him, fluttering at every twitch of movement, needing him.
“Please,” the sound comes out shaky, unable to stand a second more of this sweet torture. He shivers at the word, almost undone by it. To see you need him, beg for him. It was a sight sure to be burned within his mind for centuries. He almost considers teasing you just that bit more, to see how long it might take before you devolve into nothing but a whining mess of nerves. But one look into your eyes dissolves the idea right there, the smallest pout telling him that he might find something sweeter by giving you what you so wished for.
The first touch of his against you is a precious kiss: soft, kind and not nearly enough. Your body flinches at the contact, breath caught in your throat. The sound that leaves after is as obvious a complaint as any, but he hardly allows it to pass your lips before his tongue licks along your folds, a moan drawn out from that forgotten place again. Your surprise shows, eyes widening as you flutter around his tongue. It alights something within him. Suddenly his mouth is all over you, suckling, licking, devouring. He intends to learn just how many ways he can get you to sing for him.
And sing you do. Each roll of his tongue was like returning to a world of pleasure you had forgotten the existence of. You hardly notice the sounds coming out of your mouth, your mind too fogged to think of anything other than keeping him right there. Eventually the grass between your fingers isn’t enough to grant any relief, your hands soon finding their way into his hair again, pushing him further into you, your tight grip ruining the strands you had once so lovingly placed. The contented moan he lets out when you do vibrates against nearly your entire being, and you roll into the sensation.
His hands find your hips again, holding you in place and pulling you closer, delving deeper. His tongue teasing before it falls inside you, your bucking hips held firmly down. Each new sensation burns you deeper, entirely too sensitive to the expertise of his skilled tongue.
He was right about your taste, sweet and tangy on his tongue, slick and wet and ready. He tastes your desperation, can practically feel the way you unravel at each touch. Like a blooming flower, like warm spring like- gods he can hardly find the words enough to describe it. It is you. Your sounds, your smell. You muddle his mind. He can hardly count how many times he had imagined just this, buried in your sweet cunt and delivering everything you could possibly need. But even he couldn’t have thought of this. How pliable you’d be, how each touch of his was almost too much. It had a dazing effect, it made him want more. To know how you might feel-
His thoughts are pulled immediately back to the task at hand when he feels the dangerous loosening of your hands, his eyes looking up again to find uneven breath, your body entirely too weak under him. The sound you make when he suddenly stops – hoarse and raw and helpless – almost makes him fall right back into you. The feel of your legs squeezing around him is the only grounding force, his hands gripping tighter onto you in response. You loosen with a broken whimper, breath far too quick. He travels up your body with soft quick kisses.
“Breathe. I have you,” he soothes, his hand coming to rest on your side again, coaxing calm with the familiar careful trace. You try, as best you can, but you have never felt so entranced by someone before. His entire presence was overwhelming, the fan of his breath enough to illicit full-body shutters. All of it only made worse by the pleasure he had brought, your body begging for more despite knowing it was too much.
You groan in frustration, having entirely lost the run of yourself, unable to find a way to pull the reins. All images returned to him and how his tongue felt against you, how you needed more. Everything, all of it. It didn’t matter that you had nearly lost yourself in the process, you needed it, you needed him.
You try to find words again, to beg, to plead that he would continue even in your entirely undone state. But you find you don’t have the breath to, each release of air too quick to find enough of it. As if to sense your protest his lips find their way to yours, a kiss the only thing that is able to bring you back to any type of reality. You taste yourself on his tongue, mixing with the unendingly intoxicating taste of him. When he pulls away his head lays against yours, capturing your eyes before they can flee.
“Focus on me,” he speaks and you try to listen, eyes staying with him, focusing on the mix of green, gray and hazel in them. You absorb their every detail, noticing the way the colors bleed into each other, the undertones hiding near his pupils that have blown nearly wide enough to cover them entirely. He breathes, steady and strong, and you mimic him without even realizing.
He stays there a while, ensuring you catch your breath before he even dares to leave again, kissing sweetly against your face, moving to your neck and down to your collar before returning. Slow and soft, no meaning left behind them. Just gentle lulls that help your lungs find oxygen again. Only once the erratic pace soothes does he return to you, laying a more meaningful kiss on your lips. Less to distract this time and more to pull you back in. When he pulls away he rests himself on his forearms so he might stay with you a while, though the feeling of you being entirely pinned under him isn’t lost on either of you.
“You were not exaggerating when you said you would forget to breathe,” he teased lightly, though worry bleeds into it. Embarrassment creeps in as you realize you might have almost passed out, even more so that you had been too caught up to care about that consequence.
“Sorry I uh- I should’ve-”
“Do not apologize,” he cuts off your words before you can finish them, a look both amused and stern passing across his face. He lays another kiss against your lips, quicker this time, a small comfort.
“I have never seen a sight more breathtaking than that of you like this. I do not blame you for feeling the same,” his words drip with affection that his eyes do nothing to hide. Truly the fact he remained breathing at all was both a miracle and a show of will. Lesser men would have lost themselves the moment your skin laid openly beneath their palm – temptation incarnate.
But then you smile again. And for a moment he was no better, stealing another kiss to sate his growing appetite, endlessly searching for more. Anything you’d give him, all of you. He has to pull his own reins to keep the hunger in check.
“You’re too good to me,” you murmur against his lips, your hands reaching again, not as hesitant as they’d once been. He is familiar now, safe. And so you feel no need to hide the care with which you return to his hair, fingers weaving in with the now messy strands. The sensation sends a shiver down his spine, a smile spreading noticeably wide on his lips, shoulders relaxing to calm again.
“I do not believe such a thing possible,” he murmured back. This time it is you who deepens the kiss, pulling him closer. His response is the request of his tongue that you part your lips quickly for. And suddenly the two of you are falling into one another again, gentle and slow, deliberate with each movement. His hand returns, caressing your face for one sweet moment before falling lower. Past collarbone and the crest of your chest, fingertips tracing lightly against the skin of your torso, finding your side again, your hips, then pulling you suddenly closer. You raise your hips in response, grinding against him, friction found in the cloth that still keeps you from one another. The kiss finally breaks as you both moan into each other’s mouths, the fleeting second of pleasure not nearly enough. Slightly panting, he falls to your ear again – his favorite place to whisper, you’re starting to realize.
“Breathe for me this time,” his voice falls deep again, thick with unshaken desire. The trace of his hand falls to your thighs, gripping at the soft flesh, spreading you wider as his tongue begins another lewd drag along your neck. He begins to leave small marks of his presence there, tiny bruises hardly felt, little pieces that he claims. The primal urge to bite emerges at the smallest whimper that leaves when his hand trails closer, teasing sensitive skin with his mere presence. His eyes screw shut, something all too animal clawing its way up his throat. Never had he felt such a profound need to bite before, but gods were you just too sweet. It takes a moment to swallow the feeling.
“My love, my heart, you will be the death of me,” his words fall through something husky, not entirely meant to be heard.
Finally he returns, his fingers tracing against still soaked folds, still so ready. Another of those sweet sounds is drawn out of you as you pull him close. He keeps a close eye on you as his thumb begins to rub agonizingly slow circles, counting your breaths just as much as he allows himself to enjoy the way you crumble. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get over just how eagerly your body responds to him.
The slow circles tighten, slightly faster. Enough to make you buck into the feeling, but remaining too pinned to get any more friction than he gives you. The moan that leaves is almost drowned by your caught breath when he slows. You think for a moment to beg again, to plead for release from this sweet hell. But the roaming of one of his fingers teasing your entrance takes the thought away instead, a gasp stopping any hope of words forming in your throat.
“Shhh, Relax. I have you,” he murmurs into your neck. You inhale deeply when he does, mimicking his calm breaths, warmth spreading through you at each small movement. His lips travel lower, nipping at your collar in a way that’s almost sweet.
“Let me take care of you,” he speaks into your skin with a voice steeped in devotion. Eyes shut lightly, reveling in every taste and sound and feeling, wanting only for your pleasure. He nearly tenses when you loosen your grip again, worried that you were once more carried away, that he might have pushed too far too soon. But the way your fingers move gently through his hair soothes him just as quickly, a silent assurance that you are perfectly calm. He melts into the feeling, indulging in it just before he finally pushes in. Shallow at first, just enough to get a reaction. But then slightly deeper, and then deeper still. There’s hardly any resistance as he does, hells you’re eager to take him. The feel of your walls squeezing around him drives him nearly mad, his mouth watering.
“So good for me,” he encourages you, drowned in every new sound he draws out. Breathy moans and squeaks with every inch he pushes. His favorite is when he started working in a second finger, the surprised sound cut off by a low moan. He picks up the pace when both are deep inside you, his head resting on your chest as he focuses, searching, curling his fingers at different points until-
“H-Hells!” You yell, grip tightening, your entire body jolting at the touch.
“There you are,” he murmured before suddenly he was aiming for that spot in you. Your body falls into unbidden pleasure, sounds more revealing than the last drawn out. When you start to get restless he begins pushing his palm against your clit with each new stroke. The sounds you make then are divine, your hands searching aimlessly for any respite from the feeling. He lays precious kisses on your chest, each a small reminder to breathe. You catch on quickly, steadying yourself as your eyes screw shut, moaning through each caught breath. Until your noises catch too, hands gripping tightly onto his shoulders, legs trapping him in place. Words are a lost cause, falling helplessly from you in incoherent curses. Suddenly he can’t take his tongue off you, licking from chest to throat before he finds the will to speak.
“That’s it, pretty bird. So sweet under me. You take me so beautifully,” his voice sounds just as desperate as yours, eyes glazed with hunger. You unravel like a symphony, cresting into silence before you fall into unending breathy moans. You squirm under him, bucking into his still steady pace. Teeth graze against your skin, daring but still somehow restrained as he watches you crumble, tightening around him in a way that drives him wild. He dares to pull away enough to look at you, the sight of your focused brow and open mouth enough for him to rut against you, his body acting before he can hope to stop it. He winces at the feeling, surrounded by the sound of you as he realizes just how tight his pants have become, straining almost painfully. His mind keeps returning to being between your legs, looking up at you wrapped around his tongue. And what’s more he can still taste you, reminders held in the corners of his lips that he licked at greedily, never one to waste such a gift from one of nature’s finest creatures.
It’s only once you start to twitch that he slows again, bringing the pleasure to a soft end. Teeth turn to tongue turn to careful gentle kisses working you down from your high, trying not to lose himself to how intensely he wished to feel you. Engulfed by your pleasure, squeezing in ways he could only imagine the pleasure of. How tight you were, how warm. It was a near impossible task to ignore the effect it had on him, his own scattered breath joining yours, chest heavy in the place your pleasure had brought him to. Lost entirely in you, melting into your every touch.
When he finally pulls his fingers away his body tenses at the sound you make, a noise that might just be the most desperate thing he’s ever heard. It almost tempts him to delve back in, seeking another release from you with new fervor, anything to see you fall further apart, anything to bring you closer again, anything to hear that again. It is only the weak grip you have buried in his hair that restrains him there, too much of a warning to ignore. And so instead he pulls away, hoping it would bring him any sense in this lustful fog you’ve buried him under.
He rests his weight on one hand as he pulls away from you, the other still sticky with you. He glances at it, a thought forming, an unmistakable craving. His fingers meet his tongue before he can even think to stop himself, the taste of you returning, somehow sweeter.
When his gaze returns to you he is captured by the sight. Wide eyes staring up at the filthy act, skin sticky and warm, breath still heavy. He smiles, removing his fingers with a hesitation that shows just how much he enjoyed the taste of you. He revels in the way you shiver as he does, squirming just slightly, eyes flickering away as if the sight is too much. With a gentle touch he holds your chin, guiding you back to him, unable to suffer the absence of you. He leans back in just as your gaze reaches his again, a short kiss shared for a moment before he parted just a breath away again, a small reassurance.
“Are you ready for me?” He whispers, the words entirely too soft for what they entail. Your breath hitches for a short second, returning soon after at the careful way he holds you. His mere presence alone soothed your worries – his admiring gaze, his gentle hands, his whispered words. An anchor in the sea of pleasure he was inducing.
Somehow you find the courage to take his lips for your own. He hums into you, something that almost sounds like a purr, a deep breath taking you in as he falls helplessly into your embrace again. But it is another of the short kisses, pulling away while it remained more soft than passionate.
“Yes,” you answer against his lips, almost too quiet in the shuttered breath. The way he looks at you then is half-lidded desire, a shared breath just before he pulls away. You think of stopping him, almost unable to bear the sudden cold the night brings. But you stop yourself when he goes to finally remove his pants. There’s anticipation in the moment it takes him to do so, a slight struggle with his belt that almost makes you laugh, but when they come undone and he is left entirely bare before you…words aren’t even possible then.
He tosses them aside before setting himself on his knees as he returns. Your legs remain open to him this time, the most tempting of invitations. The distance is closed in an instant when he gets hold of your ankle, dragging you suddenly closer. You gasp as he fills your senses again, lips laid on yours, hands holding any piece of you they can. You feel the heavy weight of him resting just against you, and it’s almost enough to distract from the way his kiss grows sloppy, messy, desperate. When the sensations are too much your body seeks relief before you can stop it, rolling up and against him, stuttering his motions to a stop, the messy kiss cut short as he holds back a strangled noise. His brows grow tight and his eyes stay shut, a slight snarl turning his lips upward. When his eyes open the expression quickly fades into another, sharp breath and tightened features softening, a thick swallow of a now heavy tongue.
“Oak father preserve me; I need you,” he mutters, laying lips to skin, voice hardly holding his desire back. More, hells he needs more. No single taste of you is enough, he needs all of you. Yet when your hands move to caress his skin, his muscles rippling in reply, he can’t stand the gentle touch among the sheer wave of pleasure you were already bringing him. It was too much. A comfort he’d forgotten, sensations he couldn’t handle after so long without. He takes both your hands into one of his, pushing them away until he has them pinned above you. An action he soon realized only made you all the more eager under him, every inch of your body begging for him, bucking and squirming just to feel him. And you were succeeding, his already hard cock twitching against your every movement.
His body responded in kind, sliding just against your entrance in a way that caught his breath and left you shivering. Incoherent words whispered themselves against your skin – simple praises, curses too quiet to make out as anything other than vibration against your skin. His hands trail low again, almost reminiscent, before he grabs hold of himself, guiding to find the warmth of you.
He starts the same way he did with his hands, shallow, slow, pushing ever so slightly deeper. Though you feel every inch even more at the stretch he causes, each push spreading you wide to fit him. There are no sounds then but huffed breath and sharp gasps, too captured by the feeling to think of anything else. It is a sweet hell he brings, slow and deliberate, ever so careful with you. Until finally you are entirely filled by him, clenching and relaxing, adjusting to the sheer size of him. He rests there for a long moment, a held breath.
He pulls away from your neck just enough to get a sight of you, hoping it might ground him enough to somehow break from the haze being so deep in you has brought over him. But hope is lost when his gaze meets yours. Your expression is bliss, eyes begging for his return. No longer the skittish little thing he’d seen before, hunger now held heavy in your eyes. When his grip loosens on your hands they reach slowly for him, caressing his shoulders, quiet requests for his embrace, ones he can’t bring himself to stop anymore when they feel so good. It is…entirely overwhelming how you look, how you feel to him in that moment. Like all of the world is you, like nothing else ever mattered. Duty, responsibilities, the call to something more – all of it fell apart here. There wasn’t anything left to think about but you, the oak fathers most prized creation, nature incarnate. His pretty bird.
“Halsin?” You call his name and he swears it comes from the heavens themselves. Yet still it brings him closer to the moment, blinking back into the full presence of you. He sighs as if the weight of the world falls off his shoulders then, his head coming to rest on yours.
“Forgive me, I…” his voice trails in soft breath, distracted, enamored.
“I’m lost in you,” his words hold an unquestionable sincerity just before he takes your lips. The kiss is gentle, grounding. Kind, careful and coaxing, finding relief in the feeling of each other. When he pulls away again your eyes meet. There is a short moment you both spend there, a brief second before he finally moves again. Slow, one deep stroke that draws mutual moans. Your hands grip tighter onto him, encouraging the movement, your head falling back to reveal your neck again, an open invitation. A sound from deep within his chest vibrates, a growling approval as he buries himself back into the haze, forgoing any resistance and reveling in the openness you allow him. His face buries, teeth and tongue mixing with heated breath as he starts a careful pace.
In truth, it is taking every once of his willpower to not take all of you here and now, to pin you exactly where you belong and take your pleasure with a brutal pace. To hear you, taste you, smell you, feel you. To learn just how long it takes before you can’t take it anymore, how your already bumbling words become incoherent, screaming his name into the night. It was a pace he was used to, what most craved from him. But it’s your simple touch that gives him pause. The graze of a hand finding the planes of his back, holding him close; the caught breath against his ear, a sound sweeter than spring rain. This pace you set – careful, slow, exploring – it captivates him, as you so often tend to do. He can’t help but allow himself the weakness of it, to fall against it, to give you the same. A beast rages under his skin, demanding more, demanding you, yet somehow it is also you that soothes it, allowing him the calm of simply feeling. His expression is a snarl, fangs half revealed, laying gentle reminders of his presence with each stroke; it is something more intimate than he’s ever felt, something more to the want he has for you than he’s known before.
“Stay with me,” his lips speak the words, but he hardly thinks them. Lost, so entirely lost in you.
“I couldn’t bear a departure from you; stay, be mine,” breathless, like prayers to a forgotten god. Some half answer forms in your mind, but you aren’t allowed the time to speak before his pace quickens. In a moment of selfish greed he takes your face into his hand, turning you back to him, keeping your eyes on him.
“Stay,” he speaks as he did earlier, though this time far more demanding. You listen, even if every piece of you wished for nothing more than to fall apart. You keep his gaze, watching each twisting expression, the way he shivers as you hold tighter, how he responds to your every flutter with undeniable hunger. His thumb presses against your lip, a request you more than allow, your lips parting, waiting, wanting. You see the spark in his eyes as you do, something igniting as his thumb slips in, pressing on your tongue, mouth held wide, too blissed to care about any prior decency. You simply taste him, moaning against his hand. The look he gives is more than worth it, like it is the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
“Gods,” he speaks through gritted teeth, pulling his thumb away just to take your lips onto his again. There is no rhyme or reason to the motion of his kiss, just movement. Like before he is seeking, searching, looking for that place inside you that washes you in bliss. You can feel the moment he focuses, tongue lazy, lips slowed. Then suddenly he breaks away, his arms hooking under your knees, pressing you forward, his bodyweight entirely against yours. It’s then he finds what he’s looking for.
“Halsin!” You yell his name, unable to think of anything else but him. Him, nothing but him. His pace sets against that sweet spot with determined fervor, trying to draw it all out of you. Every whine, every moan, every echo of his name on your lips. Lost, lost, he is lost.
“H-Hells Halsin- please,” you try to keep his stare, you really do. But when your back arches and you feel that growing pleasure start to burn you can’t help the way you fall back again, sounds torn from you. Another crescendo, another piece stolen so lovingly. You cry out a caught sound, hands gripping onto his shoulders, nails digging like talons. He carries on through it all, whispering sweet praises you hardly hear. How well you take him, how delicious you looked, how sweet you sounded. His pace only slows when your cries start to shatter, broken sounds spilling in exhausted ecstasy. Yet even as he slows he doesn’t stop, heavy strokes still alighting nerves now electric in their sensitivity.
“So good, my heart. You’re doing so well,” his words finally reach you again, though they are the sounds of a man caught in his own pleasure, his heavy weight atop of you unyielding, his breath growing ever shallow. Each of his movements is devastating now – too much, too much.
“Just a little more,” his words break through a growl in his throat as you tighten, so entirely wrecked. He loses the grip under one of your legs, instead bringing his hand to the side of your throat, tilting you to him again, eyes locking in a moment almost too intimate.
“One more. Please,” he begs this time and you crumble against it, bucking back into him, just as lost. He shutters, eyes closing for a brief moment as his pace quickens again. You writhe in blissful agony, so entirely removed from every thought that all that is left is the feel of him. The stretch, the pull and push and weight. You don’t even attempt to control the sounds that fall out of you, instead only burying yourself in his shoulder, muffling them against his skin in some vein hope it would save you. The rope tightens again, burning bliss building, this time sure to ruin whatever’s left. You cry against him, cut between the pleas of his name. You think you couldn’t possibly feel anything more than this, and as if to hear the thought he reaches between the both of you, hands once more rubbing tight circles, drowning you in pleasure, allowing no escape.
He is a man entirely drunk on the feel of you, restraint long since abandoned, feral in his need to see you fall apart. Even as his own pleasure starts to mount, as he knows he can’t possibly hope to hold on for much longer against all that you are, he still seeks it. Every piece of you is as addictive as the last and all he ever wants is more. Even as you break against him he can’t help how deeply he wishes to see you shatter.
Too much, too much, all of it is too much. Both of you deprived of such closeness for so long, filling voids that had grown nearly all-consuming. Wanting for more, even in the face of bodies too eager to make it last. Drawing out a moment for however long you might, but knowing it would always be too short.
Yet again his skilled hands prove too much for you, your voice silenced as the rope snaps. In a haze too devastated to do much else you bury your hands in his hair again, pulling him impossibly closer, teeth burying in the skin of his shoulder. Seeking any sort of comfort, any reprieve from the white hot fever he runs through you. Still trying to remember how to breathe.
It isn’t a moment later that he follows, a strangled moan against you, his grip as tight as yours, his pace a shuttering mess as he unfolds. Each ragged breath drinks in the scent of you, each drawn out pull a taste of more. It is a moment so brief for how endlessly he wished to revel in it. Buried in you, lost in you. Entangled in a warm mess, no definite place where either of you ended or began, only limbs and hearts, bare and revealed, no piece left hidden. But ragged breaths soon calm, bruising grips loosening to gentle holds. Slowing to a stop, daring only a few moments more before the bliss passes into quick exhaustion. A second more stolen, a final moment when he holds you just beneath him. It could never last long enough.
Only when he can no longer hold himself up does he fall to your side, pulling you with him, still unable to bear the distance. Tangled and warm and right. Exactly where he was meant to be. He muffles contented sounds against you, hums as softness returns to his touch. A hand tracing along the skin of your thigh, a kiss laid gently against your temple. Ever closer, never close enough.
Breath is hardly caught before his lips find yours, a short kiss, a calming return. You lock eyes when you part, and you could not have found the words for his expression then. An admiration beyond speech, beyond language itself. Something so foreign. Never before had you loved someone so open with themselves, soul bared in his eyes alone.
Perhaps it was the look you gave, taken aback at his stare and unknowingly mimicking the vastness of it back to him, but he returns again, another brief kiss. Then again, and you can taste something almost desperate on his tongue, the low vibration of a warning as he pulls you closer. You gasp into it, taken aback by the quickness. Breaking again he is quick to bury his head in the crook of your neck this time, resting there with a huff.
“Every kiss is temptation. You would do well to stop me,” he mutters the words like they are already a forgotten thought carried weightlessly into the night. You smile at that, almost amused by how readily he fell back into you. But you relent anyway, knowing better than to stoke the fire more than you could handle. So instead you move to cradle his head against your chest. He steadies himself on the slowing of your heartbeat, taught muscles loosening once more, your hand returning to the strands of his hair like a fallen leaf to the earth below. Slow, hesitating on the breeze before you find where you belong, where you’ve always belonged. He sighs as if just the simple caress is enough to mend any suffering he’d ever faced, as if all burdens fall away with the breath.
The silence is long and peaceful, the sounds of the night slowly returning, a quiet hum the creatures sang. Like a universal lullaby mixed with soft breath, subtle heartbeats, the feeling of warm skin. It is a moment more serene than any you’d felt. It was as if, for one quiet moment in time, the Earth itself cradled you.
Halsin really does bring out my creativity like nothing else and I even have ideas for a third part **huhoo**
Please be aware that I might change some of this in the future to fit the next part and that i wrote most of it while sleep deprived; if i missed any typos or the likes hit me up with a private message or something
So yeah anyways, about the story:
Halsin and Tav (= You/ Reader) wake up the morning after their first night together (see here for details) and go about their days doing hero stuff.
When things turn stressful for you, Halsin comforts you and takes you to Bloomridge park to unwind, not anticipating the effect some simple honey eating has on your desire to suckle ... other things.
-> Genre? Fluff & Smut/ Porn with Plot, some hurt/comfort
-> Tags? Oral + handjob (m!receiving), food play, praise kink (for reader), public (kinda) sex/ outdoor sex, dom!Halsin (but he is still a sweetie pie ofc), uhh yea if i missed anything let me know :)
-> Words? 5.7 k
-> Reblogs & Comments? Greatly appreciated <3
-> Hotel? Trivago
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The warm rays of the sun filtering through the windows greet you when you open your eyes the next morning.
You hear the soft rustling of your companions getting ready for the day as the delicious smell of fried bacon wafts over from where Gale is undoubtedly preparing breakfast over the fireplace. You feel your stomach grumble, and immediately a hand wraps around from behind you to gently rub your belly.
“Hungry already, my heart?” Halsin whispers playfully. “Did I not sate you last night?”
A sly smile spreads across his face as you turn around to the large elf holding you.
You blush at the thought and slap his hand away in mocked affront.
“Stop teasing me; you know full well how good you are!” He chuckles, his eyebrow raised in a smug expression that makes you want to crawl back under the blanket and hide your face in embarrassment. “You are impossible!” Scrambling to your feet, you turn to leave and get dressed for the day, but Halsin quickly sits up and pulls you back into his lap.
“Last night was wonderful”, Halsin mumbles into your ear as he places a soft kiss on your head. “I agree”, you sigh.
“Silvanus has truly blessed me with you.” You smile as you lean into his embrace. Halsin cups your face to look into your eyes, once again making your heart stumble over itself over the sheer beauty of the man before you. Your breath hitches as you lose yourself in his gaze, the brown flecks in the blue and green of his irises glowing in the sunlight.
“I want you to know that wherever this takes us, you will always have me by your side. I would give whatever it takes to protect you.” Your heart swells in sheer adoration, and at a loss for words, you kiss him deeply, trying to put all of your gratitude into that simple gesture.
He smiles at you before he pulls you both up and gently guides you to where your party has already gathered for breakfast, his hand firmly in yours.
You expected surprised faces —maybe even a disapproving ‘tsk’ from Lae’zel— but when you and Halsin sit down with the others, you are merely greeted with a smirk and a knowing glance from Shadowheart, who occupies the bed next to yours and has probably already spread the word of your union.
“It’s about time you two got your hands on each other”, Gale says as he hands you your plates. “I know what sad, hopeless pining looks like, and frankly, it was getting embarrassing. Even for my standards”, he adds with a sympathetic chuckle.
“Why are we not eating downstairs?” you manage to ask in an attempt to change the topic. Thankfully, it seems to work as Gale starts to complain about the quality of food in the Elfsong and how infinitely better the establishments in Waterdeep are.
The others eagerly join in the discussion, so you and Halsin manage to eat your eggs and bacon in peace without being bothered by any questions.
The day is already warm when you step out of the tavern and head down the main road to explore the city a bit more. The streets are bustling with people going about their business, seemingly unbothered by the imminent threat of the Absolute and the murders in the city. The hours pass as you look for clues on the murders in the city that hopefully lead you to Orin’s hideaway. It is only in the late hours of the afternoon that you stop at Cora Highberry’s wine festival and find a red-clothed dwarf about to attack her that you finally get the clue you’ve been missing.
Although the dwarf escapes before you can kill him, you come across a bloodstained piece of paper between the bodies of the doppelgängers that have been hiding among the festival guests.
Written full of names, some of whom are already crossed out, you realise that this must be a target list of some sort, with the notes on the sides indicating that the victims’ hands are to be brought to a ‘tribunal’ as a bloody offering for Bhaal, proving what you had feared to be true: that Orin, as the chosen of Bhaal, is behind the whole murder plot.
You need to find the source of this all, but for now, you decide to find the next victims and warn them, if possible.
Checking in on Cora and her husband to see whether they were alright, you then make your way to the next target on the list, a tailor with the name of Figaro Pennygood, who calls himself the ‘Facemaker’.
By asking around, you eventually find the ‘Facemaker’s Boutique’, a moderately large house located directly on the right of the road leading up to the gate to the upper city, next to a jeweler, and directly behind Bloomridge Park.
Something feels off the moment you enter; besides the two shop attendants, there are no customers, and the doors leading to what seem to be the clothing rooms are closed.
Hoping the staff doesn’t notice you, you open the doors and take in the scene that unfolds in front of you.
The dwarf—Dolor, as you had found out—paces behind a stool on which another dwarf sits, facing the mirror in front of him, his dark-skinned face empty and still, only the reflection of his eyes able to express the terror that has gripped him.
Dolor has not yet noticed you, as he is occupied with revealing his plans to his victim, and you take the extra time to take in more of the room, with the seemingly lifeless body of the Flaming Fist you had briefly encountered in the Elfsong catching your eye. She too has been paralysed by Dolor, who now raises his dagger to slit the Facemaker’s throat.
You interrupt him before he can strike, but the battle that ensues is bloody. The shop attendants you met in the front room turn out to be doppelgängers too, and with the Fist and Pennygood paralysed, you are outnumbered. But between punches, kicks, healing spells, and fireballs being flung, you eventually manage to turn the fight around. With a disgusting crunch, you bring your fist down on Dolor’s neck, his body finally crumbling beneath you.
You let out an exhausted huff and exchange an assuring glance with Halsin before you search your pack for some remedy against the paralysis that still has its hold on the Fist and the Figaro. Before long, both victims are back on their feet and luckily unharmed, although quite shaken by the unexpected attack.
Thankful for his rescue, the ‘Facemaker’ assures you a very generous discount on all of his wares, and with the help of Devella Fountainhead, the Flaming Fist, you figure out the meaning of the letters in Dolor’s pocket, which finally give you the much-needed information as to where Orin is hiding.
Apparently, the purpose behind all this is to be judged by the Tribunal of Bhaal to become an Unholy Assassin in his name.
Accessed by the local shop “Candulhallow’s Tombstones”, the tribunal resides somewhere under the city, and the door is to be opened by a passphrase scrawled into the corner of one of the papers.
When you stumble into your room in the Elfsong a few exhausting, preparation-filled days later, completely spent and eagerly awaiting your bed, you are greeted with a worrying sight: Yenna, the little red-headed girl whom you have given some coin back in Rivington and who joined your camp a while ago, stands before you with Lae’zel above her, seething, a knife at the girl's throat, and a firm grip on her hair holding her in place.
“What is going on here?” you ask, approaching tentatively.
“I swear I didn't do any-”, the girl starts, but Lae’zel jerks her head back and hisses, “Shut up, abomination!”
She looks at you now, her gaze filled with rage. “She isn’t what she pretends to be! I saw that filthy shapeshifter transform before she snuck back into our camp. She’s trying to infiltrate us and then murder us in our sleep!”
You hesitate, because that does sound like Orin. And no matter how cruel your githyanki companion might be at times, even she wouldn’t hurt a child without good reason. You assess the scene before you, carefully considering who might be lying. The fear in the eyes of the little girl looks genuine; her trembling legs and the tears that threaten to spill from her eyes are honest. As your gaze wanders back to Lae'zel, you notice an excited glimmer in her eyes, buried deep beneath the rage she is showing. She is enjoying this.
With a firm voice, you command her to step away and leave the girl be.
“Oh, you’re such a spoilsport”, she whines with a shrill, unnatural voice, and you watch in horror as her bones crack themselves into painful angles, as her skin seems to melt into white goo before eventually turning back into another form—one you recognise.
“Orin!”, you spit out. “I suppose I should’ve expected this.”
She tilts her head with a wicked smile. “I almost got you”, she giggles in her sickeningly sweet tone. You glance around. “What have you done with Lae’zel? Where is she?”, you demand, worry filling your chest.
“I have assassins all over this wretched city, and word has reached my ear that you have killed a most promising student of mine and have now set your gaze upon the Murder Tribunal itself.” She narrows her eyes. “That is why I’m here. Oh, don’t worry, little hero, your pet is safe—for now. But that might change very soon if you don’t carefully consider what I’m about to propose to you.” You grit your teeth, but gesture for her to continue. “You see, the little tyrant is a thorn in my side, always wagging his tongue about his little plans... Oh, how I want to slice him open and spill his crimson." At that, she clutches her curved dagger to her chest in an almost loving manner, “but I cannot touch him; he made me swear an oath not to harm him.”
Her intense stare fixes yours now, her voice trembling with fervour. “But you can. Go and bring slaughter upon Gortash, and I promise I won’t harm your little pet. But disagree”, she hisses now, “and your pet will be only the first gift to my beloved Father. If you succeed, though, we will fight fairly for the Netherstones, and the loser shall be a most glorious offering to the Dread Lord! I will watch you, little hero.” And with these words, she twists a ring on her finger and vanishes in a cloud of red mist.
“Fuck!”, you exclaim, the only word you feel appropriate to use to express your frustration over the predicament you are in.
“I never knew you could swear, darling”, Astarion teases, although you notice that his usual sassy tone is wavering too.
“Well, I think it's clear what we do now”, Gale says, breaking the ensuing silence. “We have to go find and rescue Lae’zel; we can't just leave her in Orin's clutches!”
You nod slowly, although you dread what that means. “If we confront Orin while Gortash is still alive, we might as well give Lae’zel up entirely. So, our only chance is to kill him and fulfil our part of Orin’s bargain.”
“Our alliance with Gortash was bound to break sooner or later; that's not what worries me”, you continue with a sigh. “I just have no idea how we're supposed to kill him without his Steel Watchers bashing in our skulls.” You pinch the bridge of your nose, a headache starting to build in your forehead.
“Then it's best we quickly find out where these things are built, and then we'll surely discover how to disable them.”
You wish you could share in Halsin’s optimism, but with more surety than you feel, you agree to head out the next day to find the Steel Watcher’s origins. Satisfied, Gale claps his hands together. “Shall I prepare dinner?”
With these words, your little gathering dissolves, with every companion except for Gale and Wyll, who were occupied with cooking, retreating to their beds, and going about their business.
Your shoulders drop, and Halsin wraps his arms around you from behind, planting a kiss on the top of your head before soothingly rubbing your shoulders. You turn around and face him to rest your forehead against his chest, his earthy scent settling over your senses like a soft blanket. He holds your small form closely against him, his hand wandering over your back in gentle strokes.
“It will be alright. We’ll get Lae’zel back in one piece. Whatever we need to do, rest assured that I will be by your side all the time.” Silent tears escape your eyes at his words, giving way to the overwhelming exhaustion that has built up over the past few months on the road and in the city.
“I know. It’s all just so much at once. I don’t know how much longer I can do this.” You sniff a little, and try to steady your voice with a deep breath. “But knowing you are by my side makes it all a lot easier.”
You feel Halsin’s chest vibrate as he hums in approval, before he lifts your chin up and locks eyes with you, his gaze full of warmth and admiration.
“Anything that troubles you, you can share with me. I love you.” Your chest clenches and your heart thumps frantically hearing these words from him, and you can only stare at him in surprise, lost for words. He chuckles and kisses you swiftly before you can even begin to answer.
“Now, let me take care of you”, he whispers as he takes your hand and leads you to his bed. He motions for you to sit down on the mattress before reaching for his pack at the foot of the bed, searching its contents.
When he has what he was looking for, he walks over to the basin near you, filling a bowl with warm water and grabbing a cloth from the table next to the basin. He places both things on his nightstand, dipping a corner of the cloth into the water and beginning to clean you from the blood and dirt that have gathered on your skin over the past day. He takes one of your hands in his and dabs the cloth over your bruised knuckles before he removes the blood from your arms and forehead. You regard him as he works in silence, your body warm from the closeness of you two and the gentleness with which he treats you.
When he is finished with cleaning you up, he takes your right hand in both of his, making it seem all the smaller. He presses his thumbs into your palm firmly and moves them up to your fingers, gently stretching them and massaging all the tension from your hand. When he is satisfied with his work, he repeats these motions on your left hand, eliciting a sigh from you when his ministrations relieve a particularly painful knot in it.
“Tell me, my heart, why do you insist on using your fists to bring on our enemies’ demise when your monastery has trained you in quarterstaffs just as well?”
Halsin looks up at you, the playful smile tugging at his lips only partially hiding the concern for your wellbeing in his eyes. You merely shrug, since you have never given your preference much thought before.
With your hands freshly wrapped in bandages, you join your companions for dinner, used to Gale cooking on the fireplace by now and enjoying the meal well enough. You pass dinner in silence, only occasionally weighing in on the conversation the others are having, your thoughts swirling around the upcoming day and the task that it brings with it.
You still lay awake as the hushed conversations have long died down, listening to the calm breathing of your companions, until you eventually fall asleep to the rhythmic rise and fall of Halsin’s chest against your back.
You sleep an uneasy sleep, memories from shadows and bloody fights mingling with images of Lae’zel’s empty eyes staring at you and of your companions laying in a puddle of blood while Orin stands above them, clutching her blade with a wicked grin.
When she lunges at you, you awake with a start, the room still dark and quiet around you, the silence only broken by the anxious thudding of your heart.
The shape of the large elf beside you stirs before Halsin gently wraps an arm around your waist to pull you closer.
“My heart?” Halsin whispers, his voice still groggy from the trance he has just woken up from.
“I’m sorry for disturbing you”, you sigh. “I just had a nightmare. Go back to your meditation; I will be alright.” You move to cup his face in your hand, planting a little kiss on his lips. You feel his mouth twist into a smile beneath you before you pull away again, and Halsin shakes his head.
“I have a better idea to calm you down. Remember the park we passed yesterday? It’s not the wilderness I am used to, but whenever I need a place to calm down, I feel safest among the Oak Father’s creations. Perhaps a stroll through the park will help you, even if it’s only a small oasis in a city like this.”
Still unsure of what you had done to deserve a man like this, you nod your head in agreement.
“Alright.” You kiss him again. “Thank you, Halsin, that is very kind of you. Let’s bring some food as well - who knows when the next chance to eat breakfast in nature arises in a place like this.”
You both scramble out of bed, taking extra care to be quiet so as not to wake up the rest of the party. Once you have packed a small picnic basket, you walk down the stairs of the Elfsong and step out into the early morning air.
It’s still pleasantly cool, the sun not yet warming the city streets. Halsin takes your hand in his, and together you make your way to Bloomridge Park, the warmth of his presence near you slowly dissipating the uneasiness that had lingered after your dreams.
The sky is starting to light up with soft golden rays when you reach the park, the day already promising to be as warm as the last one. Halsin inhales deeply, and you do the same; the smell of the lilac blossoms is heavy in the air. You let out a relieved sigh, feeling much calmer already, and you wonder whether that is because of the surrounding nature or more because Halsin is by your side.
You wander further through the flowers and trees, the chirping of the resident birds growing ever louder, until you eventually decide to settle down on a small hill in the back of the park.
Halsin has brought a blanket that he now spreads on the ground, careful not to damage the flowers growing nearby.
With a sigh, you fall down on the blanket, relishing in the peace and serenity surrounding you and admiring the beautiful red and golden streaks that the morning light paints across the sky.
After a while, you look back to Halsin and notice that he’s staring at you, his gaze fixed on your features and full of a warmth that rivals that of the rising sun.
You blush, feeling utterly naked under his careful scrutiny.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” you ask him in a small voice, feeling somewhat self-conscious now.
“No reason. Just admiring nature’s most perfect creation. You truly are a feast for my eyes.” He raises his hand to softly stroke a strand of hair away from your eyes before he bends down to you to plant a gentle kiss on your now overheated cheeks.
“If you keep saying things like that, I think I might explode”, you whisper with a smile as you sit up and hide your face in his chest, hiding the tears welling up in your eyes.
You feel him chuckle and stroke your back, before he reaches for the picnic basket you have brought.
Enjoying the still-quiet city and the birdsong around you, you begin to eat in silence, but it isn’t long before Halsin lets out an unsatisfied huff.
“Where are you going?” you ask him in surprise as he gets to his feet.
“Wait and see”, he replies with a smug grin, walking over to a nearby oak. When he steps a little to the side, you see that he has stopped in front of a beehive that clings to the tree. He reaches into his pocket and produces his pipe, enlightening it with a snap of his fingers. You watch as he blows the smoke over the buzzing hive in an attempt to calm the bees down before he confidently reaches for a comb dripping with sweet honey.
But as soon as he gets a good grip on the wax, he jerks his hand back with a hiss, taking only a small part of the honeycomb he had aimed for with him. He regards his meagre harvest before he looks up to you and scratches his head sheepishly, an embarrassed half-grin crossing his features.
“Well, that wasn’t half as impressive as I had planned.”
You cannot help but laugh at the druid’s nearly juvenile attempt at courting you, before you rush over to him to help heal the several red welts that have started forming on his hand and lower arm. He chuckles and thanks you by bending down to kiss your forehead before he takes your hand in his non-sticky one and leads you back to the rest of your breakfast.
He drizzles some of the honey directly onto the fruits you have brought and feeds you piece by piece. Turning back to his catch while you are still occupied with chewing, he notices the honey has started running down his wrist and quickly catches the stray drop with the tip of his tongue, deftly running it over the defined muscles of his forearm.
You almost choke on your piece of apple—the gorgeous sight before you reminding you all too intensely of the first night you had shared with Halsin. Although you do your best to mask the physical reaction that simple movement has caused in you with a coughing fit, Halsin seems to know exactly what you’ve been thinking.
With a malicious grin, he gathers up some more honey with the two fingers of his other hand.
“Open your mouth”, he commands, and his sudden change of tone sends shivers of excitement down your body. You do as he says, and he shoves the fingers into your mouth. Instinctively, you begin to suckle at them, the sweetness of the honey running down your throat and the sensuality of the situation making heat pool in your stomach.
You look at Halsin, his eyes fixed on your mouth around his fingers and dark with desire for you.
He pulls his fingers out again, leaning in and purring into your ear, “That’s a good girl. With you behaving like that, I cannot help but wonder how those pretty lips of yours feel wrapped around my cock~”.
You stifle a gasp at the bold statement, but the heat that is creeping up your neck and into your cheeks betrays the effect his words have on you.
You trail his movements with your gaze, wetting your lips as he scoops up more honey with his fingers and holds them in front of you. Trying to look up at him as innocently as possible, you lick some of it off with the tip of your tongue before you take them back into your mouth completely. Your round eyes looking up at him as sweetly as this make him want to shove his cock down your throat until you’re gagging, but Halsin reminds himself that he has to take it slowly with you—for now.
“That’s it, very good, little flower”, he hums, the sight of you sucking and licking his fingers alone is testing his self-control immensely.
The small moan that leaves you now as he starts thrusting his fingers in and out of your mouth makes him tense up with barely hidden arousal, the bulge in his pants getting more obvious the more you suck his fingers.
You let your hands wander slowly up his thighs towards his crotch, fumbling with the laces of his pants. You are determined to repay Halsin for the care and kindness he has showered you with the previous nights, feeling inadequate in comparison to his skill as a lover.
You are still fumbling with his waistband and simultaneously rubbing his hard cock through the fabric of his britches, when he takes his fingers out of your mouth and pulls you in for a passionate kiss.
He groans as he tastes the remaining honey on your tongue, the sweetness of it and yourself combining into an intoxicating mix.
You feel slightly dizzy when you pull back from him, breathing heavily both because of the intensity of the kiss and from the arousal thrumming through your veins and heating up the entirety of your body.
“Halsin-”, you interrupt him as he tries to move your hand from his pants and instead lower you down onto the blanket, “l-let me take care of you this time. Please, I need this.”
He stops in his tracks, raising an eyebrow in question. “Are you sure that isn’t too much? I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Not that I would mind you trying~“, he adds with a lewd grin that is quickly wiped off his face when you lower yourself onto your belly and free his erection from his britches.
You begin stroking him and are immediately rewarded with a low grunt, Halsin’s eyes now fixed on your flushed face.
With your elbows propped up, you gently nudge his legs further apart to get better access to his crotch and start licking his already swollen tip, eliciting a sharp hiss from your lover.
Splaying your hands across his thighs, you run your tongue along his shaft, slowly stroking from base to tip and back a few times before you wrap your lips around the head of his cock, careful to keep your teeth out of the way. It is a lot. Your mouth already feels full, and you’re not even halfway down. But you try to take more anyway, letting a bit more of his length slide between your lips.
Halsin rewards you with a low moan, the sight of your mouth wrapped around him and your lips darkened with your saliva makes his cock twitch as you continue moving, your head bobbing up and down between his legs.
Halsin snakes his hand into your hair, his firm grip guiding you at a pace that has him growling.
“By Silvanus, you’re incredible- hngh!”
You feel Halsin throb in your mouth, and the muscles in his thighs tense in an attempt to stop himself from bucking into your throat.
“W-where did you learn to use your mouth like that?”
You pull your mouth off his tip with a small pop and look up at him, your lips curling into an embarrassed sort of grin.
“Cucumbers”, you shrug.
“Cucumbers?”
You nod, sure your face must be bright red by now.
Halsin just stares at you, and you begin to feel a little self-conscious as he suddenly lets out a hearty laugh, his whole body vibrating beneath your hands.
“You’re full of surprises, my little flower.” He shakes his head and gently strokes your hair, before his gaze falls back onto your reddened lips.
You see the desire flare up in his eyes again, and feel his hand in your hair tighten its grip.
He bends down towards you, and with his fist guiding you back towards his erection, he whispers into your ear. “Now, be a good girl and keep sucking my cock. I want to see you swallow.”
You gulp, his commanding tone so different from his usual gentle one yet nevertheless sending sparks straight into your core and causing more wetness to gather between your thighs.
Licking your lips, you obey and take Halsin into your mouth again, this time swirling your tongue around to taste the pearl of precum that has gathered on his tip, spreading the salty, unfamiliar taste around.
“Gods, if I’d known your mouth feels so heavenly wrapped around me, I’d have let you try this sooner-”, he growls, his body tensing under your ministrations.
Sliding further down, you press your tongue on the underside of his cock and hollow your cheeks, Halsin groaning in response. With a sigh, he closes his eyes and lets his head fall back, enjoying the wet-hot sensation of your mouth taking him in.
His hand in your hair that has been steadily guiding you begins to increase the pace now, his climax approaching with every move of your tongue against him.
His length fills your mouth completely now, and you try to steady your movements in order to avoid gagging, focusing on your breathing.
You feel Halsin twitch in your mouth, signalling to you that he is close to release, so you raise your head a bit and wrap your hand around the base of his cock, saliva from your previous efforts dribbling down your chin and onto your hand.
He makes a strangled noise as you begin pumping him while your mouth and tongue work on his tip, alternating between sucking and licking, and he cannot help but buck his hips into your mouth, his self-control finally leaving him.
“Silvanus, preserve me—ugh—I'm close!”
You gag as he thrusts into your throat, struggling to accommodate his length while focusing on repressing the uncomfortable feeling that sends tears to your eyes.
But you are determined to make this work, to make Halsin feel as good as he made you feel, so you try to ignore the gagging and let him fuck your mouth, moans and curses falling from his lips as he does so.
You feel him twitching inside you, his release approaching ever faster, and you look up at him, not wanting to miss a second of the pleasure you’re about to grant him.
With his gaze locked onto yours and your hand still firmly wrapped around the base of his shaft, your mouth so willingly accepting his desperate thrusts, it doesn’t take long for him to reach climax, hips and thighs tensing before he jerks, shooting ropes of thick, warm cum into your mouth.
“Swallow”, he commands in a raspy voice before his body goes limp beneath you and he leans back, arms behind him supporting him so he could see how you struggled and failed to swallow his seed, some of it leaking out of your mouth and dripping down your chin.
Your abused throat is protesting as you finally manage to gulp it all down, your face flushing with self-consciousness as you realise that you might, in fact, not have been as ready to take him as you had initially thought.
But these thoughts vanish as Halsin pulls you into his lap and softly strokes your head. He plants a little kiss on your cheek before he murmurs into your ear, his voice still ragged.
“Good girl. You’ve taken me so well.”
You moan at the praise, your so-far neglected pussy twitching as his words send sparks down your spine.
Halsin chuckles and slowly slides a hand under your waistband and into your smallclothes, stroking your slick folds and eliciting moans and sighs from you as he massages your clit, all the while kissing you and murmuring praise for your efforts into your ear.
It doesn’t take long for you to unravel as well, cumming on his hand with a muffled scream, biting down onto the tunic Halsin was still wearing.
Exhausted, you collapse onto the blanket, planting your head on Halsin’s lap and closing your eyes, the now-risen sun warming your face as you smile happily.
Halsin adjusts his hips a bit and readjusts his britches, carefully surveying the park to see if anyone else has entered by now. Luckily, you two were still alone, the only sign of life being the faint sounds of the streets beyond the park slowly filling with people.
He glances back down at you and begins to gently stroke your hair that is spread out over his legs, the sweet smile on your mouth in complete contrast to the earth-shattering orgasm you gave him with that same mouth just moments ago.
“Thank you, my heart; that was amazing. Unexpected, but nevertheless positively breath-taking.” He watches as your smile broadens at his praise and his heart swells with adoration at the cute little dimples in your cheeks.
“I’m glad you liked it”, you try to say, but instead croak out more than anything. Halsin frowns, worry beginning to cloud his eyes.
“Sorry, I think I might have overestimated myself a bit there. Bitten off more than I could chew. Figuratively, of course”, you add with a shy grin.
He smiles, but then his gaze turns solemn again. “You should’ve told me right away. I hurt you”, he grimaces before he grazes his fingers over your throat, his touch featherlight and glowing with a faint blue light. The healing spell soothes your ache, and you sigh contentedly.
“All right, next time I will tell you, should you hurt me accidentally”, you mumble, sleep slowly creeping up at you in the comfortable warmth of your lover's lap.
Halsin hums in approval, satisfied with your answer.
“I shall look forward to next time, then.”
You slowly drift off, the smell of the flowers around you and the chirping birds lulling you into sleep as you both lay there for a while before you have to get back to your companions to begin the day’s work.
WARNING: smut, c*ckwarming, size difference, reader is described as being smaller than him (but lets me real, we all would be.)
Inspired by this post by @bretonalchemist ❤️
>>
Dwarfed by his hulking frame, Halsin had never experienced such a bittersweet concoction of desire and fear when his mind would begin to wander around you.
He was a generous, thoughtful lover and had taken precautions concerning his size many times before— always seeking to accomodate the needs of others. Never, though, had he felt quite the way he does about you.
So what in the past he would’ve considered a challenge of will and patience now looned over him as a biting fear that was beginning to fester into insecurity.
Seated in his broad lap, you clung to his shoulders, feeling yourself begin to rock against the muscle beneath you when be broke away from the heated kiss, panting, and dropped his forehead to your shoulder.
“My heart..” he tried to catch his breath. His large hands grip your thighs, almost covering them entirely.
“I must confess.. I am hesitant to continue. As much as my body screams for it.”
He feels you stiffen a little in his hold as your lips release a small, disappointed sound. Though when he pulled back, your eyes swam with hurt.
“No, no, sweetheart.” He reassured quickly, cupping your face. “I want to.” His eyes bore into yours.
“You have no idea how horribly I want to.” Hands tighten.
“But?” You ask softly.
He sighs, eyes clenching and brows pulling into a pained knot.
“I am so afraid of causing you harm.”
You watch him a moment, melting at his worry and feeling your hands flutter over his chest, up to his jaw. Thumb brushing over the taught muscles in his forehead.
“Halsin..”
“I couldn’t bear it. Even for a moment.” He admits.
“Even if it’s a gateway to more?” You coax. He lets out a shaky sigh.
“You mean so much to me.” He says. “I have loved before but.. it’s never felt like this. So raw and deep.”
You smile sympathetically and continue to caress his face.
“I hate that my form is a danger to you.” He murmurs the admission. Now it is your turn to jump to reassurance.
“My love.” You sound mildly horrified and truthfully, you are. Your path as lovers has lead to multiple intimate encounters. All of which have peaked with the bear of a man worshipping you with his hands and lips alone. And now you know why.
“You do not frighten me.” You say firmly, searching for his eyes until he bashfully meets them.
“You are the most gentle man I’ve ever known. If a little bit of discomfort makes way for everything else you have to offer, I want it.”
He shivers, readying himself to argue.
“My heart..”
“Please?” That breaks him and his face scrunches up painfully once more as he buries his face in your neck, arms tightening around your frame.
“I’m not sure I can stomach your pain.” He whispers his fear once more.
“But can you swallow my pleasure?” You offer. “Can you show me what you feel like?”
He growls. You grind down once again.
“Please?” Once more, your voice low, only for him.
>>
Hours pass and he is still lapping at you. Slowly, meticulously. You are teetering on the edge of overstimulation when you whimper.
“Need you to be ready, my heart.” He grunts, lost in your taste.
“Halsin..”
“I know..” he coos. “I know.”
Finally, he pulls away, manoeuvring himself onto his back with a shaky exhale as warm, nervous hands lift your frame atop of him, seating you on his lower stomach.
He helps guide your body to rock over his. Feeling your heat and slick before you speak up, noticing his halt in momentum.
“You’re stalling.” You tease breathlessly.
“This moment has been coming to me in my sleep for months.” He admits with a twitch of his lip before his eyes retrurn to worry. “Sometimes they are dreams, other times they are nightmares.”
“This time it’s real.” You whisper, pressing a kiss to the corner of his lips. He nods, looking up at you.
You reach back and line him up. He hisses at your touch and you see his chest sink in preparation for what’s to come. He grips your waist.
“Are you sure?” His voice is so low you feel it before you hear it.
You nod.
When you lower yourself, you allow gravity to carry you. His hands guide you tenderly, almost as if ready to catch you if you go too fast.
The moment your heat kisses his you let out a hum and his lips fall open.
You sink lower, brows rising in the middle and hands planting on his chest until you feel the pop of his head making entry and you gasp. He holds you still.
“My love..” he pants, fighting that blend of lust and worry by the skin of his teeth.
“It’s okay..” you pant, not pushing yourself further just yet. “It’s okay.”
When you look down at him, his eyes are studying your every expression.
“You have already pushed yourself enough as is. Perhaps this is the limit for today.” He worries.
“No.” You paw, clutching at his chest stubbornly as you breath deep, allowing yourself to get used to the feeling.
“It’s okay. We’re okay. I’m.. I’m okay.”
“Y/N..” he warns protectively.
You respond by sinking a little lower. Your lips part and he groans, hands tightening around you and feet flexing in self restraint.
It continues like this for some time longer. Deep breaths, knit brows, gentle hands, all until you are fully seated on his lap.
His head is thrown back as he basks in your warmth and when he looks back up your eyes are shut as you breathe shakily. His thumb brushes over your lower stomach, gawking at the fact that he is seated just below the soft flesh there.
“Say you’re okay..” He murmurs, eyes glassy.
You nod and huff through a tired smile.
“Just want to stay here..” you mumble.
He nods, entranced.
You are so full that the clenching of your your abdominal muscles to let out a tired giggle has you both gasping.
“Silvanus..” Halsin grunts, gripping your hips to halt you. “No more. I won’t push you further tonight.”
“Can I stay here?” You ask, exhausted by both the overstimulation and the effort of the stretch.
He nods and guides you down to his chest with a hiss and slow, careful movements. You settle against him. Arms engulf you, lips rest atop your head. More consumed than you’ve ever felt, you prepare yourself to try again in the morning.
Alright. I shamelessly crave dark!Halsin. We love and protect our canon druid by all cost, but I need more. Obsessive Halsin. Possessive Halsin. Halsin who snaps necks easily. Pleasure dom yandere Halsin. But! Still Halsin. Can you imagine this?
He sees you, and his heart is leaking with love. You are his little miracle of nature, and his duty. He will take care about you. Sounds good, right? But, there is the thing.. He doesn't take "no" as an answer. He is here. For you. Always.
You are in search? He smiles gently. He knows he is better than anyone, and he is not shy about showing it. His mind, his spirit, his body. Flexing his biceps with "Choose this branch to sit on, my little bird".
You are taken or married? Wonderful! Now you have an extra husband. You have children? Perfect! Father is here, and he provides.
You are in a bad relationship? Not anymore. One day, they are just gone. "Forest is wild and dangerous", after all.
Helps you whenever you need help. Envelops you in his endless care. You feel his present all the time. "Privacy? Time for yourself? Of course, my dove", he nods, and hides as a little mouse, or a snake in the shadows of your home. He is here. He watches. Always.
At first, it is irritating. You have a life here! But... He is just too good to deny. Perhaps, for the first time in your life, you feel truly safe, and you surrender to this feeling.
His eyes are on you, since start and to the end. Your body is old and weary, but Halsin adores and loves you the same. You didn't know old people could do it. "Old trees bloom, my heart".
He stays with you till your last breath, that he seals with a kiss, and a prayer to Silvanus. Vines and roots take your body in silent, then disappear, revealing a little seed, he plants with a great care.
In a deepest forest Halsin keeps his treasure, perhaps, the most beautiful in all Faerun. The garden of his love. Each plant, flower, tree is his beloved one.
Immortality is no burden, when love is your spring.
Masterpost of cut content, changes, and etc for early game builds of Halsin
I have found a lot of cut things relating to Halsin, some from developer interviews, a lot from the datamine, and some from other sources. I decided to compile those here.
Some disclaimers and clarifications first:
I use the term "early build(s)" to distinguish it from both release and from the Early Access test period. If you don't remember something here, it's because it was removed without ever being implemented in Early Access.
I do not have the energy to link or upload the datamined files, etc, so instead I will state where I found them and you are free to look if you want to.
This list is not exhaustive. There are likely even more things that we will never know about.
The game underwent many, many rewrites; some characters existed in ways you would not recognize today, before being rewritten.
I am not including things that were changed after release, IE the unfinished Halsin vs Minthara ultimatum that started to be worked on from patches 4-6 but was never implemented.
With that said, let's jump in! I will try to organize these roughly in order of how early the game build was, but it's not always possible to know how far back a given change was, so it won't be precise.
If I missed any, please feel free to let me know!
Halsin wasn't always the only Archdruid at the Emerald Grove; there was once a second Archdruid, Denor, who worshipped Eldath. She and Halsin had a fight because she was worried about the Shadow-Cursed Lands, and she went off to investigate a lead and got captured, presumably leading Halsin to try and go save her. Likely to simplify that plot, they instead made the Grove solely consist of Druids of Silvanus, and Halsin and Denor's plots were combined into just Halsin. (This was recovered from datamined files.)
Halsin used to be an elderly man; this has been confirmed by both Kevin (writer of Lae'zel and Wyll) and John (Halsin's writer). Halsin's pipe is an artifact from this time, which they never removed. This caused a lot of confusion for the writers when Halsin got de-aged to what we know today, causing a lot of fans in Early Access to thirst for him, as the last the writers had seen, he was, well, an old man. There were streams at this time with writers explaining they had been baffled at first until they saw Halsin's then-new model.
Listening to old voice files from back when each Tav narrated their own story, Halsin originally had two bear companions, a male and a female, who were mates. It was possible to cause both Halsin and one of the bears to die at the goblin camp, leaving the other bear heartbroken at losing both their mate and their master.
Halsin had a friend, the cut Origin character Helia, and they would have been imprisoned together. (This was recovered from datamined files.) Helia had two recruitment locations, one in the forest and one in the worg pens, and in fact there is still text in the post-release file for the worg pen scene mentioning it could be her or Halsin there. Her recruitment dialogue mentioned that goblins had taken Halsin away (more on that below) and it seems (though not confirmed, but just putting pieces together) that which location Helia was recruited from would influence where you found Halsin; if you found her in the forest, he'd be in the goblin cage, but if you missed Helia there and found her in the pens, he'd be taken to Moonrise. Leading to...
It was possible for Halsin to be imprisoned in Moonrise. There was an audio file recovered where Minthara would mention the Druid the player was looking for was there and she could get them an audience with him, and there are multiple tags referring to Halsin being imprisoned in a pod (such as a dialogue option to leave him in his pod), as well as an eventflag suggesting Halsin could have been tadpoled. More specifically, there was a flag set for saving Halsin before he was tadpoled, which by implication also strongly hints he could have been tadpoled there. There was also a cut dialogue line from an unknown character (possibly, but not certainly, Helia or a Druid) saying, "Halsin! What did they do to you???" which also hints at this. Another line said, "easy, Halsin. We're all friends here," and was removed at the same time that all references to this outcome were, suggesting it was part of that same path. (Possibly tadpoled Halsin would have been disoriented and aggressive, causing the player to need to reassure him they're friendly, though that is sheer speculation on my part.)
As shown in the concept art book, Halsin's scar used to, in fact, be from a battle, instead of being attacked for rejecting a she-bear's advances.
As is very well-known by now, Halsin was responsible for Isobel's death. Rather than being promoted to Archdruid after the battle, he was always in charge, and represented the Druids and Harpers in a negotiation attempt with Ketheric. Instead, some unknown force (believed to be Shar) caused Isobel and other combatants to go temporarily insane and attack each other. She attacked Halsin, and he immediately reacted in self-defense, stabbing her with the glaive Sorrow. He believed it became cursed as a result, because holding it filled him with such sadness, and anyone who used it would take psychic damage as well. Essentially, his trauma and regret from killing her was so great that it gained a physical form in the blade. Further, that was the main reason for his guilt regarding the Shadow-Cursed Lands, leading to...
Halsin's friendship with Thaniel was a later addition. Before, Halsin only mentioned having seen him briefly in his meditations; he wanted to save Thaniel because it would break the curse over the land, not because it was Thaniel himself.
Halsin's mission in act 2 was much bigger, and was trimmed significantly as a result- being far too big for an optional sidequest for a non-Origin character. Instead of waking Art Cullagh to get information on the Shadowfell, you fought the three Thorms to get a bone from each of them, which you would then bring to Isobel, who would grind them up for use in a ritual. Then you would defend Halsin while he tried to open the portal (more on the portal below), instead of defending him while he was inside it. You were then instructed to go to the Shar temple to wait for him, after which the quest would presumably end with Halsin, overjoyed and grateful beyond words for your help, bringing Thaniel to recover in Last Light and promising light would return to the lands soon.
During this quest, Halsin would also give you a dagger called Promise, which would help him find you from the Shadowfell. He also mentioned that a sign of his spirit would manifest itself in the Shar temple when the player had found the right place. That's where the "you are the beacon that will guide me home" line likely originated from.
The portal quest was different, as noted above. Most notably, there are still files in-game for a scenario where, despite being warned repeatedly not to touch the portal, you could wait for him to open it and then attempt to enter, causing it to collapse. Horrified and heartbroken, Halsin would yell at you, and you could give an explanation ranging from "sorry I panicked" to "I worship Shar and didn't want you to succeed, hahaha dumbass." Halsin, heartbroken, would leave to be alone to grieve, and then would leave you forever.
Oliver was likely not a part of this quest originally; he, along with Art's story, were added when the quest got trimmed down from what it had been, but still needed some little quest progressions, so they tweaked the story to give it some meat back without making it such a daunting quest as it was before.
There was once going to be a scene of Halsin and Jaheira having a very heated argument during act 2. What it was about, and how it would have ended, has never been discovered; the only thing we know is the title of the file from an early datamine. It is possible it could have been about Jaheira learning about Halsin's responsibility for Isobel's death, as she is shown in canon to be protective of Isobel, or it could be about their different priorities over whether the cult or the curse should be a priority.
Worth noting here are various changes to characterization (rather than noting every single one individually). Halsin was more openly emotional (particularly after you saved Thaniel), often sassier, and his abilities as a healer were emphasized more strongly back then. He teased you about if the tadpole would share your hangover the day after the party, he would dryly say he can't cut your tadpole out or he'd be removing it from a corpse, etc. It is also possible, though has never been confirmed, that we might have been intended to learn his last name of Silverbough at some point, as John has mentioned an earlier character outline having said that as his last name, in reference to Celtic mythology.
Halsin had voice lines referencing Orpheus; you could mention him to Halsin, and he would mention he wanted to meet anyone who knew about these tadpoles.
Halsin's sex scene with him wildshaping into a bear seems to have once been intended for a different scene where the wildshaping occurred offscreen and was also played for laughs; this was pitched by Baudelaire Welch, and then John Corcoran turned it into a part of the main romance. What that original pitch was, what the context would have been, etc, are not known. Just that the wildshaping was originally an offscreen gag in another scene. (Possibly Sharess' Caress?)
There were going to be scenes, near the end of the game, where the elder brain would torment the group with hallucinations of themselves that would pick at their weaknesses, fears and insecurities; these files still exist in rough draft form in the game. Halsin's particular hallucination would have hinted at his struggles with feelings of meaningless, and his wondering whether he should just give up, etc.
There is also a voice line that still exists for characters who were in your party, but left either due to plot events or their approval dropping, being captured by the Absolute and showing up to fight against you in the courtyard battle. Halsin was included here as well, being an enemy who would yell "For the Absolute!" at the start of his turns.
It is possible, though not certain, that the writers intended for you to be able to bring Halsin back to act 1; he and Minthara both have voice lines for the creche. However, it is possible that this was just added to cover the exploit where casting silence on either of them would leave them unable to initiate their scene where they refuse to return with you.
I hesitate to include this one, as I have yet to find anything even remotely concrete (the closest things being an ambiguous tag and the circumstantial evidence of there being many hanging plot threads), but it is widely believed that there was supposed to be a continuation of the Shadow Druids plot which would center around Halsin, based on Halsin's uncertainty in act 3 of whether they might actually be right, a tag referencing Kagha's act 1 turn from the Shadow Druids if this happened, a line from the Shadow Druids mentioning they were going to Baldur's Gate, and the reveal that Ketheric had the Shadow Druids sent to the Grove to weaken the Drudis there as he knew from experience what a threat they could be.
Hope you enjoyed that deep dive! I don't THINK I forgot anything, but on the off chance I did, do feel free to let me know and I will update this post!
It was supposed to be one post, but because of the audio limit, I had to split it into two. So this part will be mostly about the portal ritual and the next one will be about other details.
Some of the lines below are in the game, the rest are from the early access patch 8.
During the cycle of development, Halsin has gone through many changes. He was originally just another side npc in the camp, but the community adored him so much that he was promoted to a full companion. Previously his story was more related to the main plot and the Thorm family, but later it was retconned. In the full release Halsin's personal quest is to find and rescue his childhood friend, a fey boy, from the Shadowfell. This special child is the only one who can cure the land from the shadow curse. And according to some files, this quest was previously also different from what we see in the game.
Bones of Contention
Before starting the portal ritual, the player had to find three bones of contention. To do this, it was necessary to defeat three bosses - the Hospital boss, the Tollhouse boss and the Distillery boss.
As we know from the game, these are Malus Thorm, Gerringothe Thorm and Thisobald Thorm.
Ketheric's daughter, Isobel also took part in this quest. The player could give her the bones to research. Who else could help us with the secrets of the Thorm family better than one of them.
After that, you had to bring the bones to Halsin and he crushed them as it was necessary for the ritual.
In the release version this part was replaced with a quest Wake up Art Cullagh.
Thorm blood
There is a flag in the game with an interesting name that isn't used anywhere - "SCL_ShadowCurse_Knows_NeedsBloodOfThorm". Unfortunately, there is no detailed description. So I can only guess.
Most of the flags "SCL_ShadowCurse_..." are related to Halsin's quest. I doubt this one is an exception. If the Thorm bones were part of the portal ritual, then maybe the blood was too. And it's not necessary to kill someone for that. Well, depends on how much blood you need. If we needed a volunteer, then only Isobel comes to mind. According to another flag, the player could ask her about the blood. But again, there's no details.
Maybe the Thorm blood was needed to open the portal (reminds me of DMC3) or lift the curse. Maybe it was Ketheric's blood that was needed because he started it all. And he definitely wouldn't have shared it voluntarily, so it would have ended up in a boss fight. The same as it is in the game. Or something else.
The ritual
Unlike the release version, the player didn't defend the portal, but Halsin while he conducted the ritual. This prayer is longer and has different words. During the combat, his voice was louder and more intense.
In the game Halsin repeatedly warns that only he should enter the portal and nobody else.
Now it's important that only I pass through the portal once it opens. The magic is fragile - any mistake, and our one chance will be lost forever.
If there's any interference with the portal, then our one chance is lost forever. And so am I.
Let's begin. Remember what I told you - we won't have a second chance here.
Let's begin. Whatever happens, do not attempt enter the portal, and do not let anything interfere with it.
Even if you want to enter the portal, it won’t work. The scene ends only after Halsin has used the portal himself.
But earlier the player could attempt to enter the portal before Halsin. And it would have collapsed it. Not to mention that this would make Halsin furious and after that he would leave the camp.
Halsin was returning from the Shadowfell through the Shar Temple
The description of one flag says that Halsin explains how to find him after he is entered the Shadowfell. Which means he was returning in a different way than in the game.
And according to some lines it was the Shar Temple.
Once I've entered, go to the Shar Temple and look for a sign of my spirit. I can't say for certain how it'll manifest. But you'll know it when you see it.
Hah. Once I've entered, you must seek the place where Shar is loved the most. Look for a temple dedicated to her. There will be little separating the realms of light and dark in such a place. Once you find it, look for a sign of my spirit. I can't say for certain how it will manifest, but you'll know it when you see it.
I don't know exactly how the player was supposed to find Halsin (Halsin didn't know that either). But it seems he must have seen you or something that he could see with your help. In the game, right before the ritual begins, Halsin says "You are the beacon that will guide me home." I guess we really are.
But now, I can tend to him, and the recovery can begin. Find us at Last Light, and thank you. The sun will soon rise over these lands.
Promise
Another part of the portal ritual was the dagger Promise that Halsin gave to the player. And we could even ask him about this weapon.
I've heard the theory that the dagger could be a beacon for Halsin. But, alas, I couldn't find any more information other than a brief description.
A leafy pattern is carved into the dagger's blade. It glows faintly in the dark.
I wonder if this weapon has its own story as the glaive Sorrow.
The dagger is still in the game, but you can only add it to your inventory via the console.
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Well, this is too much for one side quest (3 bosses + Shar Temple), so I understand why they changed it. I don't think Halsin was a companion in this version yet. Otherwise, he would have joined the party only at the end of Act 2.
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