zephyr

es/en ok. dark, self-indulgent content. 18↑

[hugsohugs]

one genre of fanfiction that seems to have mostly disappeared since i became an adult is shenanigans-type fics. like not exactly crack but just "the gang goes to 7-11" type, extremely low-stakes plot stories. the beach episodes of fanfiction. i just feel like i don't see those around so much anymore. whered they go. i miss them :(

[bamsara]

"youve already written that trope" yesss. i like it a lots. i will be writing it again. 1000 stories of the same trope over and over again for ten million years

[z-zeph]

As his claws stroked your spine and the minutes melted into each other, you were no longer sure where your resistance ended and Pierrot's persistence began.

You were no longer sure if it mattered.

CW: fem!reader, dubious consent → non-consensual kissing, emotional manipulation, bodily fluids, imprisonment, implied stalking.

A sequel to this post.

Warmth. Comfort. A vague, sleepy confusion.

You surfaced from sleep slowly, your consciousness returning in fragments. Something solid cradled your cheek, something that rose and fell with a steady rhythm. The blanket was heavy, and for a brief, disoriented moment you thought you were back in your apartment, that the clanking heater had finally lulled you into a deep sleep. But no. Your apartment had never smelled like this. Your pillow had never been so large, so firm yet yielding, so warm.

It was not a pillow. It was his arm.

You were in Pierrot’s bed. In his tent. Curled against his chest, one of his arms wrapped securely around your waist, the other pillowing your head. His legs were tangled with yours, long and solid, and his breath stirred the top of your hair in soft waves. The oil lamp had long since burned out. The darkness was absolute, the kind of darkness that existed only in windowless places, in the bellies of tents, in the spaces between midnight and dawn. You could not see him. You could only feel him, all around you, large and warm and unnervingly still.

At some point during the night, the careful distance he had maintained had dissolved. Perhaps you had moved first, seeking warmth in your sleep, and he had responded with that desperate, instinctive need to hold. Or perhaps he had waited until your breathing had steadied into deep slumber and then, unable to resist any longer, had gathered you into his embrace; heedful, reverent and terrified of losing you.

Either way, you did not pull away.

Sleep had worn away the edge of your resentment, leaving only a dull tiredness. You simply lay there, breathing slowly, listening to the distant clink of chains somewhere across the circus grounds. The tent walls breathed with the wind, but inside the cocoon of blankets and his body heat, you were warm.

"You're awake, my lady."

His voice was barely a whisper, a low rumble that vibrated through his chest and into your ear. There was no surprise in it, only gentle observation. He had likely been aware of your every shift in breathing, every flutter of your lashes against his sleeve.

"Mm." You did not trust your voice yet. Your throat was dry, your tongue thick with sleep.

One of his hands began to move. The one at your waist. Black-clawed fingers spread over the small of your back, tracing idle circles through the wool of the blanket, then through the thinner fabric of your clothes beneath.

"What time is it?" you mumbled.

"I don't know. The lamp burned out some hours ago. It's very late. Or very early." He paused, and you felt his chin tilt down, the edge of his porcelain mask brushing your forehead. "But my lady need not worry. I will watch over her until morning ♪"

You blinked into the darkness. His eyes were glowing faintly. They always did, just enough to be visible when all other light had fled. The golden irises shifting shape, contracting into slits, expanding into rings, soft and luminous and utterly focused on you.

"Are you cold? I can fetch another blanket."

"No." The word came out more softly than you intended. "This is enough."

A gentle hum of acknowledgement. His hand continued its slow, hypnotic circles on your back. "My lady slept deeply. I'm glad. You were so very… tired, earlier."

Earlier.

The word called back the memory. You remembered the weight of his grief behind you, the soft whimper he had tried to swallow, the way he had lain down without touching you and simply waited. He was good at waiting. He had waited weeks outside your library, your coffee shop, your apartment, learning your habits, cataloging your smiles. One evening of silence was nothing to him.

You should have held onto your indignation.

Instead, you felt only a muted acceptance, a tired willingness to let the hurt settle into the past.

"I'm not cross anymore," you said, before you could think better of it.

His hand stilled. The bells on his cap, which had been perfectly motionless, gave a tiny, involuntary jingle as he turned his head slightly.

"My lady is not cross?" He sounded almost breathless with relief. "Ah, I'm very happy to hear that! I couldn't bear your displeasure… It was like— like a blade in my chest, my lady, to see you turn away from me…"

You swallowed. "You surprised me, that's all."

"I know. I know I did." His voice grew softer, laced with a careful, self-recriminating sadness. "I was too eager. I saw you sad, and… and I wished only to comfort you, to show my affection in the way I know best! But I was… clumsy. I caused you displeasure, and for that, I'm deeply sorry."

He was sorry for your displeasure. Not for the kiss itself.

The distinction was clear.

"I didn't mean to make you recoil from me," he continued, his claws resuming their gentle tracing. "Your touch is all I crave, my lady. Your presence is the sun to my endless night… If I could find a way to express my love without ever causing you to pull away, I would do so in a heartbeat. But I'm still learning. You're the first to make me feel such things." A pause. The tent breathed. "I want so badly to be gentle. To be what you need."

You could have argued.

You could have pointed out that what you needed was your freedom, your exams, your tiny drafty apartment. But the words felt heavy in your mouth, too heavy to lift. So you said nothing.

"If only," he murmured, as if speaking to himself, "my lady could grow accustomed to them. To my affections. Then she would never have to suffer my foolish mistakes again..."

His overwhelming, suffocating, all-consuming love. He wished you could grow accustomed, as if acclimation were the natural solution, as if your body could learn to accept him the way skin learned to accept a new climate. You did not want to. Deep down, in the part of you that still belonged to yourself, you did not want to.

But you did not say that either.

He shifted, propping himself up on one elbow. The blanket slipped, and a sliver of cold air kissed your shoulder before he caught it and tucked it back into place with solicitous care. Through the dark, you could almost make out the silhouette of his jester’s cap. He loomed over you, large and formless in the blackness, and you felt very small beneath him.

"My lady," he said, his voice taking on a new note, something hesitant and hopeful all at once. "May I ask you something? A… small request. A favour."

Your heart gave a slow, heavy thud. "What?"

He took your hand. His long fingers wrapped around yours, gentle as ever, and lifted your palm to his masked face. You felt the cool porcelain of his smile, the smooth ridge of the black tear beneath one eyehole. He pressed your hand there, holding it against the mask as if in supplication.

"If I'm to learn how to love you properly... if I'm to shape myself to fit the image you hold of me, as I once promised... then I must understand what pleases you." His thumb stroked the back of your hand. "Would you allow me to practice, my lady? Let me learn the way you like to be kissed. Let me discover what makes you sigh with contentment rather than stiffen with displeasure. So that I may never cause you to turn away from me again."

Every rational synapse in your brain, that mini medical student who still existed somewhere beneath the furs and the captivity and the creeping Stockholm fog, screamed that this was manipulation, that he was weaving a net of soft words and sad eyes and gentle hands. But his voice was so earnest. So humble. So full of a desperate, aching love that it made your chest tighten with something that felt dangerously like pity.

"I will stop the moment my lady says," he added, as if sensing your hesitation. "I swear! I swear it on my love for you. I would rather cut out my own tongue than cause you true distress."

You had never heard him swear on anything before. The weight of the oath pressed against you, heavy and sweet and laced with a sincerity you could not doubt. He would stop.

He always did, eventually, when you truly insisted.

"All right," you heard yourself say.

The words felt like someone else's.

A soft, musical hum vibrated in his throat. "Thank you, my lady. Thank you. You're so very kind to this foolish clown. I shall endeavor to be a diligent student ♪"

He shifted closer, and you felt him reach up to adjust his mask. There was a faint click, the sound of porcelain being carefully displaced, and then the lower half of his face was exposed to the dark. You still could not see him; the blackness was absolute, a curtain drawn over every detail. But you felt the warmth of his breath, sweet with lingering sugar and something else, something faintly metallic, like old coins or fresh rain on iron, and the brush of his lips against your cheek. They were soft. Too soft. Unnaturally smooth, lacking the faint texture of human skin.

"My lady," he breathed, and then his mouth found yours.

The first kiss was gentle. Almost chaste. A simple press of lips, warm and dry. He held it for a long moment, motionless, as if giving you time to adjust, to remember that this was something you had permitted. Then he pulled back a fraction, his breath still mingling with yours.

"Was that agreeable, my lady?"

You could not find your voice.

"Good. Then we shall continue ♪"

The second kiss was deeper. His lips parted, and the tip of his tongue, warmer and slicker than his lips had been, traced the seam of your mouth. An inquiry. A request. Your jaw loosened without conscious thought, too drowsy, too conditioned by his tenderness to deny him entry. His tongue slipped inside, gentle and curious, tasting faintly of that metallic undertone you could not identify.

Your medical training stirred in the back of your mind, a distant, clinical voice that refused to be entirely silenced. Unhygienic. The thought drifted up, murky and unwelcome. So unhygienic. Oral microbiomes were unique to each individual. Even human-to-human contact transmitted colonies of bacteria.

And Pierrot was not human.

But the thought grew hazy, smeared at the edges, as his tongue curled against your own. He tasted sweet, too. Dangerously sweet. And his hand was so warm on the back of your head, claws threading through your hair, tilting your face to a better angle. A soft, involuntary sound escaped your throat.

"There," he murmured against your lips, and you felt his smile, the curve of his actual mouth beneath the absent mask. "That's a lovely sound. Hah, I shall try to earn it again… and…"

He kissed you a third time. A fourth. A fifth. Each kiss was slightly different, a variation in pressure, in angle, in duration. Gentle, then firmer. Quick, then lingering. His tongue stroked yours, then swept the roof of your mouth, then traced the inner line of your teeth with an obsessive, methodical precision. He was practicing. Truly practicing. Cataloguing your every reaction, the hitch of your breath, the flutter of your pulse against his palm, the way your fingers curled against his chest.

You felt the saliva begin to pool. It was inevitable. A trickle slid down your chin, warm and viscous. You were dimly aware of it soaking into the furs beneath you, wetting the bedding, but the awareness was distant, almost muted.

His thumb brushed your chin, wiping away the excess with a tender, almost reverent stroke. "Don't worry, my lady. I will clean you up. You need not lift a finger."

Then his mouth returned to yours, and this time he sucked gently on your tongue, drawing it further into the warm, alien cavern of his mouth. The sensation was strange, invasive, intimate beyond anything you had ever experienced. Your eyes, which had been half-closed, fluttered fully shut. A film of moisture gathered across your corneas, blurring the already invisible world. You were not crying. But your body was responding in ways you could not control, tears of sensation rather than sorrow, welling up and spilling over.

Unhygienic. The word echoed again, fainter now. You did not know what bacteria inhabited the mouth of this being. You did not know if it was safe for them to be inside you, to coat your teeth and gums, to slide down your esophagus in the thin stream of mixed saliva that you could not help but swallow. You did not know anything anymore, except that his mouth was warm and his claws were gentle and his other arm had wrapped around your waist, pulling you flush against his chest, and you could not escape, could not move, could not think beyond the wet, rhythmic slide of his tongue against yours.

"Shall I try something new?" he asked, breaking the kiss for just long enough to speak. His voice was thick with affection, with a possessive, adoring joy that wrapped around you like another blanket. "I think my lady might enjoy this one."

He did not wait for an answer. His mouth covered yours again, and this time he angled his head differently, deepening the kiss until you felt him everywhere, his tongue filling your mouth, his lips sealed around yours, his breath mingling with your own. The liquid continued to seep from the corners of your lips, down your chin, onto the bed. He lapped at it once, a soft, reverent sound, before resuming the kiss with undiminished devotion.

You realized, somewhere in the thickening fog, that he had not asked if you wanted to continue. He had not stopped. His oath echoed in your memory, I will stop the moment my lady says, but you could not speak. Your mouth was occupied. Your thoughts were scattered, too smeared to form words. He was giving you no opportunity to refuse, and you were not fighting, and you did not know if that was his fault or yours.

His hand roamed your back, your side, your hip, never grasping, never hurting, just touching. Always touching. He could not seem to get enough of the feel of you beneath his claws, the shape of your shoulder blade, the curve of your waist, the flutter of your diaphragm as you struggled to breathe through your nose. He traced the ridge of your spine one vertebra at a time, counting them, memorizing them. His touch was obsessive in its gentleness, a constant, unwavering pressure that reminded you with every passing second that you were his, completely his, held in the arms of a creature who had crushed a steering wheel and could crush you just as easily if he ever forgot to be careful.

"Dear one," he whispered into the corner of your mouth. "My precious heart. How I have longed for this. For you… to permit me so close… I shall practice until it is perfect. Until my lady never wishes to pull away again ♪ Until the very thought of… recoiling from me… feels… impossible…"

His mouth returned. His tongue curled under your tongue, then traced the sensitive inner lining of your cheeks with an intimacy that made your stomach clench again. He was learning. Mapping every ridge and hollow, noting every place. The warm, slick river continued to flow. He did not seem to mind. If anything, he seemed to welcome it, as if the mingling of your fluids were some kind of communion, some tangible proof of your union.

Through the slits of the mask, his golden eyes still glowed faintly, and you saw, with a distant, dreamlike clarity, that the pupils had shifted into the shape of hearts. Two perfect, luminous hearts, glowing in the dark.

He was so happy.

You could feel it radiating from him, a joy so intense it bordered on pain. And you were the cause of it. Your passive acceptance, your open mouth, your silent surrender, these were the gifts you were giving him, and he received them with a fervent, almost reverent gratitude.

Time lost meaning. Minutes, hours, it was all the same. There was only the wet sound of his mouth on yours, the quiet hum of his satisfaction, the occasional whisper of praise that he breathed into the spaces between kisses.

"You're doing so well, my lady. So beautifully well."

"Just a little longer. You taste so sweet ♪"

"I shall learn every way to kiss you. Every way that makes you sigh."

His arms never loosened. His mouth never truly left yours for more than a few heartbeats. He would pull back to nuzzle your cheek, to lap at the saliva that had dripped onto your jaw, to murmur endearments against your temple, and then he would return, his lips sealing over yours with the same gentle, inexorable pressure. You were not being held down. But his grip was absolute, an encircling warmth that left no room for retreat, and you knew, with a certainty that settled deep into your bones, that Pierrot was not going to let you go.

Not yet. Not for a long, long while.

[z-zeph]

Just when you thought you could study in peace, Pierrot would show up and interrupt you. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes not.

CW: fem!reader, non-consensual kissing, imprisonment, implied stalking.

This post has a sequel.

The circus was cold at night. Bitterly cold.

It made you miss your tiny apartment. The radiator that clanked all night, the drafty window you sealed with duct tape, even the neighbor’s noisy dog. Anything would have been better than this frozen tent, than the way the canvas walls breathed with every gust, than the silence that was only broken by the distant clink of chains and the occasional, unnerving laugh from somewhere across the grounds.

You had been studying by the lantern light. Or trying to. Your notebook was open, but your fingers had gone numb ten minutes ago. You kept rubbing them together, blowing warm breath into your cupped palms, but the cold always won. You had been here for… you had lost count of the days. Weeks? A month? Time moved strangely under the big top.

Before all of this, you were a first-year medical student. Only first year, barely more than a freshman, but you had worked so hard for that entrance exam. Hours and hours in a cramped library, highlighters bleeding into your notes, practice tests that made you cry in the bathroom stall. You had passed. You had passed. And then you had made the mistake of telling a certain masked man that you would not see him the next day because you had an early anatomy lab.

He had looked so sad behind that smiling mask. So terribly, heartbreakingly sad.

First year.

Just first year. You had barely started.

And then you had woken up here.

The tent flap rustled. A gust of wind? No. You had learned to tell the difference. The wind made the canvas shudder all at once, a collective shiver. This was different. A single point of movement, deliberate, almost silent.

Then, a weight settled across your shoulders.

A thick blanket, heavy wool, smelling faintly of smoke and something sweet like caramel, was draped around you so suddenly that your heart slammed against your ribs. Your pen clattered to the ground. Your notebook slipped from your lap, pages fluttering open against the dirt floor.

You spun around, already knowing who you would find.

"My lady."

Pierrot stood behind you, still close enough that you could feel the warmth radiating from him. The mask’s smile was radiant tonight. Broad, blocky teeth gleaming faintly in the dim light of the single oil lamp that he kept burning. The black slits over his upturned eyes seemed softer than usual, the right one ending in that familiar black tear.

He was beautiful, in the way a cobra was beautiful. In the way a flame was beautiful right before it burned you.

You briefly considered sewing more bells onto him. Bells that actually made noise when he moved. But you knew, deep down, that even bells wouldn't help. He was too graceful for sound to stick to him.

He bent down with that slow, fluid motion of his, the three liripipes of his cap swaying gently. He picked up your pen first, then your notebook, dusting off the cover with a black-clawed glove before straightening to his full height.

You pulled the blanket tighter around yourself, huddling into its warmth. You were on his bed. No, your bed, he had corrected you once, because everything he owned belonged to you now, he had said. But you still thought of it as his. The furs beneath you, the pillows stacked against the canvas wall, the faint scent of him clinging to every thread.

It was still cold in his tent. But the blanket made it better.

He sat down beside you. Not across from you, not at a polite distance. Beside you, close enough that his coat sleeve brushed your arm. His golden eyes, visible through the slits of his mask, shifted. They had been pinpricks a moment ago, sharp and focused. Now they softened into rings, like tiny eclipses.

“You should not sit in the dark ♪” he said. His voice was soft, warm, slightly melodic. The kind of voice that might have been comforting if you didn't know what lurked beneath the surface. “You will strain your eyes. And then who will tend to you?”

You almost laughed at that. Who indeed? You were the one who was supposed to tend to others. Before.

You didn't say this.

Pierrot had never once raised his voice at you. He had never struck you, never threatened you with anything worse than his absence. Every morning, he brought you breakfast in bed: fresh bread, fruit cut into little stars, a cup of tea at the exact temperature you liked. Every night, he sat beside you while you pretended to sleep, and you felt his gloved fingers brush your hair back from your forehead, so gentle that it made your chest ache.

He treated you too well. That was the problem. That was why you were still talking instead of screaming.

“My exams start in two weeks,” you murmured, extending your hand toward him. A silent request for your notebook. He tilted his head, the mask's smile unchanging, but he made no move to return it. Instead, he held it just slightly out of reach. Innocently. Deliberately.

You wrinkled your nose.

“When will you let me go back?”

You had asked this before. Many times.

Pierrot reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear. The black claws, sharp enough to draw blood, barely grazed your skin.

“You ask such difficult questions, my lady,” he said. The mask’s eye slits seemed to narrow, just slightly, as if he were smiling more genuinely underneath. “You know I don't like to think of you leaving.”

“I have to take my exams.”

“You will!” He said it with absolute certainty, as if he could will it into truth by tone alone. “When the time is right. When the roads are safe. When the world outside is worthy of my lady’s footsteps.”

You bit the inside of your cheek. There was no arguing with him when he spoke like this. When his words wrapped around you like the blanket, soft and suffocating all at once. You had learned, over the weeks, that patience was your only weapon. Patience, and the quiet disappointment that seemed to cut him deeper than any scream.

So you said nothing. You simply pulled your knees higher, tucked the blanket under your chin, and stared at the flickering oil lamp.

He shifted closer.

“Is my lady angry with me?” he asked. The bells on his cap remained still. No nervous jingling. He was calm. He was always calm, except when Harlequin was mentioned, except when someone threatened to take you away.

“I’m not angry,” you said. And it was true. There was only a dull ache, a homesickness that had settled into your bones like the cold. “I’m just… tired.”

Pierrot reached out and took your hand. The one that was clutching the edge of the blanket. He turned it over gently, palm up, and traced the lines there with the soft pad of his thumb. He had learned that after the first time he had drawn a thin line of blood from your wrist. He had apologized for an hour, holding your hand over a basin of warm water, dabbing at the cut with a cloth. You had never seen someone so apologetic for something so small.

“My lady’s hands are cold,” he observed.

“It’s freezing in here.”

“I will bring more blankets ♪”

He said it like a promise. Like an oath.

You let him hold your hand for a moment longer, then pulled it back. Not harshly. Just a gentle retreat, the way you might pull a flower out of reach of a child who didn't know his own strength.

“You have... gentle hands,” he said softly, watching your hand disappear beneath the blanket.

You looked down at your own hands. At the nails you kept short and clean, at the faint calluses from holding pens too tightly during all-night study sessions. These were hands that were supposed to heal. Hands that had earned their place in medical school through sleepless nights.

"My lady?"

Hands that were capable, but were being wasted here.

“I can’t heal anyone if I’m trapped here,” you said.

The mask’s smile didn’t change. It almost never did. Not really. But you had learned to read him in other ways. The way his shoulders went rigid. The way his claws flexed against his own thighs. The way the bells on his cap remained deathly still, as if even they were holding their breath.

“Trapped,” he repeated. The word came out slower than the others, as if he were tasting it. “My lady feels trapped?”

You knew better than to nod.

Instead, you pulled the blanket higher and tilted your head in that way he liked, the way that made you look smaller, softer, more in need of protection.

“I feel… cold,” you said carefully. “And far from home. But the blanket helps.”

The stiffness in his shoulders eased. He reached out again, and this time he didn't stop at your hand. His arm slid around your waist, pulling you against his side.

“My lady does not need to return to that place,” he murmured against your hair. The mask brushed your temple. “I will keep you warm. I will keep you safe. You will never be cold again.”

You closed your eyes.

You were patient with him because he had never given you a reason to be impatient.

And that, you knew, was exactly how he wanted it.

“Tell me about your studies ♪” he said, breaking the silence. His hand was rubbing slow circles on your back, just below your shoulder blades. “You were looking at your notebook for a long time before I came in..."

You almost smiled. Before I came in. As if he hadn't been standing outside the tent for the last twenty minutes, watching you through a gap in the canvas. As if you hadn't seen the shadow of his cap moving in the lamplight.

“I was reviewing the brachial plexus,” you said. “It's a network of nerves in the shoulder. It controls movement and sensation in the arm.”

“Ah ♪” He sounded genuinely interested, or at least genuinely interested in anything that came out of your mouth. “And do you find it difficult, my lady?"

“It's... complicated. Five roots, three trunks, six divisions, three cords, five branches. It's easy to mix them up.”

“But you will not mix them up,” he said confidently. “My lady, you are very intelligent. You passed the... entrance exam, did you not?”

You stiffened slightly. He knew that. He knew everything about you. Your schedule, your habits, the names of your professors. He had been watching you for weeks before he took you. You had seen him in the shadows outside the library, outside the coffee shop where you worked, outside your apartment building. You had thought you were imagining it.

You hadn't been.

“Yeah,” you said quietly. “Whatever. I passed.”

“Then you will pass your exams as well, my lady. I am certain of it!”

He didn't ask when the exams were. He didn't ask if you needed to study more. He had stopped asking those questions around the second week, when your answers had started sounding like accusations. Now he simply accepted that you studied, just as he accepted that you ate and slept and breathed. It was simply something you did.

You leaned against him, just slightly. His arm tightened around you in response.

“I miss the library,” you whispered.

“I will build my lady a library,” he said immediately. “Here! In the circus. You can have all the books you want.”

“That's not…”

"Shh. I just... I just need to talk to Jester about it first... But I'm sure I can convince him!"

"Just let me go back," you tried one last time. "Just for the exams. I'll come back after. I promise.”

The lie tasted bitter on your tongue, and from the way his head tilted, he tasted it too.

“What a very kind liar you are, my lady." There was no accusation in his voice. Only a sad kind of certainty.

“Pierrot—"

You stopped.

What was the point?

His other hand came up to cup your chin, tilting your face toward his. The mask's eyeholes stared down at you, those golden eyes behind them shifting shape, the pupils contracting into slits, then expanding into wide rings again. He was studying you, cataloging every micro-expression, every flicker of emotion.

“My lady is sad,” he observed. “I do not like it when my lady is sad.”

“I'm not sad. I'm just—”

He kissed you.

It started gently, a soft press of masked lips against yours, the porcelain smooth and cool. But then his hand slid to the back of your head, tangling in your hair, and you felt the edge of the mask lift just enough for his actual mouth to meet yours.

And then his tongue was in your mouth.

It was sudden. It was too much. His tongue was warm and insistent, pushing past your lips before you had time to react, tasting faintly of the brigadeiros he had made that afternoon. You made a small sound, surprise, maybe, or discomfort, but he didn't pull back. His claws tightened in your hair, not enough to hurt, just enough to hold you in place.

When he finally broke the kiss, you were breathless.

You sat there for a moment, staring at him, your mind struggling to catch up with what had just happened. The mask had settled back into place, the smile as radiant as ever. The black tear on the right eyehole seemed to glisten in the lamplight.

“Unhygienic,” you whispered.

Slowly, deliberately, you raised your hand to your mouth. Your fingers came away wet. You wiped the excess saliva from your chin first, then from your lips, your movements mechanical, automatic. Your face was blank.

Pierrot simply watched you.

“My lady,” he began.

You didn't answer.

You turned away from him, pulling the blanket tighter around your shoulders, and lay down on the bed with your back facing him. You curled into a small ball, knees to chest, and stared at the canvas wall.

“My lady?” His voice was softer now. Uncertain. “Are you… are you displeased?”

Nothing.

“I only wanted to show my affection. My lady knows I would never hurt her. I w—would never—”

Silence.

You didn't speak. You didn't move. You simply lay there, breathing slowly, your heart eventually returning to its normal rhythm.

Behind you, you heard him shift. The bed dipped as he moved closer. His hand hovered over your shoulder, hesitated, then withdrew. A soft sound escaped him, something between a sigh and a whimper.

“My lady is punishing me,” he said.

And he was right.

You were punishing him. Not with anger, anger he could handle, anger he could redirect, anger he could soothe with gentle words and warmer blankets. No, you were punishing him with silence. With absence. With the one thing he feared most. Your retreat into a place he could not follow.

The lamp flickered. Outside, the wind picked up, making the canvas walls shiver.

“I... I will wait,” he said finally. His voice was quiet, almost childlike. “My lady, you may take all the time you need. I will be here when you are ready to speak again.”

The bed shifted again as he lay down beside you, not touching, just close enough that you could feel the warmth radiating from his body. The bells on his cap jingled once, softly, as he settled into place.

You closed your eyes.

Behind you, Pierrot lay awake, staring at the back of your head, his golden eyes wide and unblinking in the dark. His claws twitched with the need to touch you, to hold you, to pull you against his chest and never let go.

[iratempestatis]

Doing this to birb Xiao

Oh my gosh the little beak clacks and shut eyes... the way it leans into the hand petting it (╥﹏╥)♡ !!

The thought of patting his cheek as he leans into you, while he's seated on the bed before you. Perhaps he's had a long day, or week, or month — either way, he finds that his eyelids insist on slowly slipping over his vision. His lashes flutter as he tries to focus on keeping them open.

Before he realises, he has tumbled into your lap.

There is no wakefulness to help maintain his mortal form, however. Gone is Xiao's cautious air, and careful control of his divinely amorphous form. In this dazed, hazy state...

You gasp at the bird before you.

He is heavy, and sprawling, all giant wings and firm muscle and sharp beak. You blink at the long, curling claws he has, tucked haphazardly beneath his belly. When you gently press a tentative fingertip to the edge of his beak, it nearly tears through your sensitive skin.

Best not to test it, you decide.

What you can safely test however, you can't help but think, is... this.

Slowly, you raise a hand to his cheek once more. And gently, carefully, you card your fingers through the intricate feathers.

They're beautiful. All downy iridescence that gleams with hidden flashes of gold and copper with every caress, with every angular change of the light. You lips part in awe as you peer closer, fingers getting more used to the rhythm as you pet him.

He's so beautiful.

For once, even peaceful.

You smile. Raising your fingers slightly, you begin to scratch instead, with just the tips of your nails. (Feather-light, you think, biting back a giggle. Sumeru's General Mahamatra would be quite proud of you.)

Not that you can tell him of this. Or, you figure, smile widening — even Xiao himself.

After all, were he to see the embarrassing way he nestles into your cheek, beak clicking softly in keen satisfaction, he would never fall asleep around you again.

WAAH THANK YOU FOR SENDING ME THIS SIZZLES <333 it's so cute!! i also got a break as i wrote this, so i am extra grateful (ㅅ´ ˘ `)♡ !! thank you thank you <33

[iratempestatis]

I hope he has claws

[the-bitch-mob]

fuck it. be creative even if you never really *make* anything. write out plot synopses of stories and then move on. design OCs you'll never use. make mood boards and concept art and don't do anything with them. life's too short to forget everything that inspired you and creation doesn't have to be "complete" to be worth the time you put into it.

[iratempestatis]

Xiao memorising the sound of mortal!Reader's breathing and knowing when you're well, when you're pretending, when you're sick, when you're drunk, when you're suppressing tears or laughter, when you're sound asleep, when you're about to wake up, when, decades later in the gentle night, you are dying quietly in his arms, and you don't even know

[z-zeph]

read this earlier and it made me choke and i STILL can't get it out of my head. let me just write a one-shot about this

[sourdough-seal]

hyperfixation please stay with me long enough to complete the project. hyperfixation do not fade. hyperfixation finish what you started for the love of god

[z-zeph]

In the place where clouds mingle with earth, the air does not smell of slaughter. Yet whispers warn him, this peace will end with your departure.

You’d convinced Xiao to watch the sunrise at Mt. Aocang, bribing him with a jar of osmanthus wine so ancient its label had fossilized into the glaze—another relic that the Geo Archon had gifted you. He recalled watching, silently in the shadows, as Morax placed it in your hands with a knowing smile. “For when patience outweighs pride,” he’d said, as if foreseeing this exact moment.

Xiao had scoffed at the offer, of course, but followed—always followed, if only to ensure the cloying optimism of mortals didn’t get you killed.

For once, he was still.

No trembling from karmic aftershocks. No spear materializing mid-blink to gut phantoms. Just Xiao, cross-legged on the dew-slick grass, dawn’s first light pooling in the hollow of his throat. The sunrise bled across his face—gilding his lashes, softening the permanent furrow between his brows. You’d never seen him like this, almost human.

He looked… young. Not a bloodstained Yaksha, but a boy who might’ve once chased finches through bamboo groves.

“You’re staring,” he murmured, voice low but stripped of its usual sharpness.

“You’re not scowling,” you countered, grinning as you gestured to the empty air where his polearm typically hovered. “Should I alert the Adepti? The Conqueror of Demons, relaxing?”

He didn’t grace that with a reply, but the corner of his mouth twitched. His lungs filling with air that smelled of freedom, or was it forgiveness? His gloves creaked as he flexed his hands, not in anger, but calculation, fingers splaying like an architect measuring the weight of the world. You recognized that gesture. Cloud Retainer had once sketched Celestia’s shadow the same way, her talons precise as she muttered about ‘structural integrity’ and ‘the hubris of verticality.’

“Xiao?”

“I could build a realm with skies like this.”

You laughed, the sound too bright for the sacred hush of daybreak. “What, to hoard sunrises? You’d need a thousand jars. Maybe two.”

His gaze stayed fixed on the distant peaks on the horizon. “No jars. Just… borders. A sky that doesn’t fade.”

Something in his tone snagged your ribs. His pupils had swallowed the dawn, black as the spaces between stars.

“A realm,” you echoed, teasing half-heartedly. “Would you trap the sun itself, too?”

He turned. The morning painted his face in contradictions. Gilded one cheek, shadowed the other, as if day and night still warred over his skin. When he reached for you, it wasn’t to pull you closer or push you away, but to skim his thumb along the pulse below your ear. You were not a hallucination.

“Not the sun,” he said.

The wind stirred the leaves atop Cloud Retainer’s mountain, her absence hung palpable as a missing tooth. She’d have scolded him for such whimsy, “Foolish bird— Ahem, Conqueror of Demons, domains require foundations, not daydreams!”—but the mountain offered no chastisement today. Only silence. And in that silence, the chill returned, seeping through your robes like groundwater. Or perhaps it was the ice in your veins as you finally understood.

He hadn’t been talking about the sky.

[iratempestatis]

I'm genuinely starstruck so I'm just going to dumbly repeat all the bits that were especially beautiful to me

"For when patience outweighs pride."

The way you portray his karmic debt is so well thought out? I can tell you've probably spent time thinking about how it must be and how it must manifest. And then to contrast it in the same paragraph- "the sunrise bled across his face, gilding his lashes." This is so evocative and it's so prettily worded I'm almost envious. I wish I thought of it. It's so lovely

Their banter- all of it. The detail of his lungs feeling full and his fingers flexing. His gloves making a sound. YOUR MIND.

"No jars, just borders."

"Not the sun." Do you write poetry/gen

"Painted in contradictions... Gilded one cheek and shadowed the other, night and day warring on his skin" (paraphrased) Z-ZEPH. SHAKING YOU BY THE SHOULDERS. I COULD DRINK THIS FIC. IT'S IN A GLASS BOTTLE AND IT GLIMMERS DO YOU UNDERSTAND.

[z-zeph]

omgg... OMG!! I UNDERSTAND

i’m genuinely sitting here blinking at my screen like i’ve just been struck by divine lightning. i can't believe i'm reading this just now. not sure how i missed it?? WA

thank you so, so much for this. not even sure my vocabulary has the right words to thank you enough. your tags + the way you pulled out all the little details that mattered to you made me feel, the hell, so seen as a writer... SOB

that you took a moment to write this means the world to me. this is the first time someone on tumblr has interacted with my writing like this. i had forgotten how nice it felt. honestly, i'm going to keep coming back to your words when my brain tries to convince me that what i write isn't worth sharing here. you've warmed my heart, and reminded me that this is worth it. shaking you back by the shoulders. respectfully. with both hands

[stonelionhearts]

sometimes i wonder if we have forgotten that sharing creative work is, fundamentally, a bid for human connection. like I'm not posting art or fic for 'engagement' i'm posting it looking for other sickos to play with! i'd be making it anyway for my own gratification because there's something wrong with me, i'm sharing it hoping we can have something wrong with us together <3

[yangcherie]

flins thoughts for the brain.... (tw; pseudocest, MASSIVE age gap, sick things — do be guided that this is a dark content blog!)

oh, to be flins’ fae apprentice that he so sweetly picked up from the snow at a young age and took in under his wing... perhaps you were abandoned for being a runt or for other such reasons, but that aside, he takes you in anyway—for he is a lightkeeper, is he not? what are lightkeepers for but to guide and light the way for those who need it? and he’s decided the day he took you in and learnt you were too young and weak to even glamour some magic over yourself and hide your fae features, that you’d be his ward; his to guide, his to raise, his to lull some magic over when the warmth of nod-krai prods at a snowland fae too wrongly.

and, oh... the wrongness he’d feel when you mature into years where growth is most prominent for fae. you’re at your first hundred years (practically a fledgling compared to his lifetime) and he’s... well into his thousands—and if that wasn’t enough to deter his want for you, you consider him a father! to be fair, he did take you in to be both ward and apprentice... he blames it on the grief or loneliness that comes with having lost many comrades over the years for being the reason as to why this odd desire festers in the first place. guiltily does it thrive whenever you call him sir or master, whenever you lean against him hoping he'll provide some icy air to your skin, and whenever you trot after him and naively promise you’ll spend your eternity with his.

(for how can you not? he is the old fae who so generously took you in and raised you, taught you all about mortal and immortal society, and keeps you chilled when the warmth of the lighthouse and nod-krai proves to be too much for a young, snowland fae such as yourself. oh, and you just know he spoils you rotten too...)

ah... how it digs at him that he cannot claim you the way he wishes to. it wouldn’t be proper of him to claim his ward as his mate—no, the only thing it’d make proper is a proper bastard out of him, he thinks.

but... if you were ever to have your first heat season in your hundred years... of course, he’d help you—he can’t just leave you alone to cry and wail unsatisfied and in pain—! no, no, it’d burden his fond heart too much. after all, his desires aside (it will never be extinguished unfortunately, try as he might), you’re still his ward and apprentice that he swore to take care of in every way :)

[z-zeph]

Never before had you been bothered by strangers. They were background noise, as insignificant as the wind whistling through the cracks of Nod-Krai.

But this one was different. Unsettling.

A tall, pale silhouette that didn't blend into the crowd, but parted it. You couldn't afford to forget his face, for it seemed to always be present. Nor could you forget his name, for with it you returned his greeting every time he bowed to you.

"Mr. Flins," you acknowledged, crossing your arms without smiling back. You had stopped doing so over time.

The 'friendly' smiles given to those you had no wish to see were a gesture of cordiality you no longer found necessary to entertain—a lack which didn't seem to bother him, for he always returned. Sometimes, in company. On such occasions, no one greeted or smiled, for the companions he brought with him, despite leaning on him, limped as they approached. They grunted in pain when they moved. And when you examined them on the stretcher, the blood from their wounds grimly stained any attempt at trivial conversation Flins might make, since the scene itself was the only argument he needed to justify his presence.

A raw reminder that, whether you wanted it or not, your world and his were soaked in the same scarlet liquid.

His solemn silence was a courtesy presented to the wounded waiting to be mended by your hands, as well as a small mercy for your own lack of predisposition to speak with him. The latter was a truism in essence, although Flins never quite came to understand it completely.

It was... disconcerting. It tickled his curiosity, even.

He could accept it.

Your behavior was an unusual puzzle, and the Lightkeeper had eternities to sit and contemplate its pieces.

He learned, on those nights he stayed to illuminate your nursing tent while you worked, that your compassion wasn't based purely on benevolence. The help you offered to strangers was warm, but, at the same time, it was cold. Were all doctors like that? He wasn't sure. Flins had never needed one, and he could count the few he had met in the past.

"Why do you linger?" you asked once, rubbing a tired shoulder when no one else remained in the tent, save for the two of you. There was no aversion in your features, but he had nonetheless noticed the slight irritation in the shadow of your words. "I understand you feel responsible for your colleagues. That you want to hear the prognosis with your own ears. But, at least today, you didn't bring me anyone. In fact, hardly anyone has come today."

The bluish flame of the lamp Flins held flickered, as if your doubts had stolen its breath. Still, his usual smile remained unfazed.

"It's a simple matter, really. The tea you always brew gives off a pleasant scent." With a pause, his gaze slid toward the teapot. "Although you never offer me any."

It was a half-answer, a sidestep. His cheek was annoying, and equally annoying was his skill at evading the truth with a small, almost childish, complaint. You fixed your tired eyes on him, unblinking, while your fingers tightened a little more firmly on the edge of the worktable.

"The tea," you repeated, with a deliberate flatness in your voice that stripped the word of any familiarity. "Did you really expect that, after bringing a man with his side split open like a fish for gutting, I would sit down to share a cup with you as if we were old friends?"

Your attention also shifted from his face to the porcelain teapot resting in a corner of the table, still warm. The scent of Qingxin floated in the air, a small, foolish luxury you allowed yourself amidst the smell of disinfectant and dried blood.

"The tea is for those who wait inside the tent," you continued, your voice laden with a fatigue that was more mental than physical. "Not for those who plant themselves in the entrance like a cursed pole." Despite the freezing air of the night, you brusquely rolled up the stained cloth of your uniform and grabbed the teapot. Not for him, but for yourself. You poured the liquid into your cup, and the steam rose like an ephemeral spirit between you two. "If you want a cup, you'll have to earn it. How about you start by answering the question truthfully?"

Flins observed the ritual: how your fingers closed around the porcelain, clinging to the warmth that the outskirts of Nasha Town could never provide; how you blew softly on the surface before taking a sip. His smile, for the first time, seemed to crack, acquiring a nuance of genuine curiosity, as if he were studying the coin of an empire whose history had never been recorded.

"‘Earn it’... A fascinating, mundane concept," the Ratnik mused. His head tilted slightly and, consequently, his long, bluish hair spilled from his shoulders like water running between the islands of this land. "You 'earn' your pay by healing the sick, curing the wounded. The wounded 'earn' their relief by enduring the pain, then following your advice. I... what exactly must I earn? Tea, or a moment of your attention free of conditions?"

Your hand stopped with the cup halfway to your lips. Was he being condescending? Or was his way of thinking simply that strange? His words were no longer a complaint, but an observation. An elegant delusion, if you squinted. But a delusion nonetheless.

You lowered the cup slightly, murmuring while avoiding his gaze, "You don't stay for... the tea."

"Don't I?" The flame of his lamp grew, illuminating for a second the void that always surrounded him and, also, the high walls you had built around yourself. He barely noticed the distrust hidden in your eyes before he shook his head briefly. "It is one of the reasons. But no, it is not the main one."

"Why do you do it, then? Why do you even come back?" you inquired again, with a hint of bitterness you couldn't disguise. "Do you come to observe the suffering? It's a macabre pastime..."

"Oh. Please, do not misinterpret the nature of my company. I return here to observe clemency." Flins straightened up, his shadow lengthened until it engulfed you. His smile had vanished, replaced by a seriousness that was, somehow, much more disturbing. "You do not heal out of love for your own, I know that. You do it out of an obstinacy against death. It is a more selfish battle, but no less honorable, Doctor."

Your skin prickled.

He wasn't here for the wounded—or not only for them. He was here for you. He fed on the interaction, even on your rejection. Your refusal to normalize his presence was, ironically, what gave his visits their deepest meaning. To offer him a cup would be like offering him a chair in your own mind. It would be to acknowledge him as something more than a persistent acquaintance. It would be to admit him as a guest.

Flins made a soft sound, not a laugh, but something like the creaking of old wood when one steps on it. "Your reluctance is... singular? Refreshing, perhaps? Most simply grow accustomed to my presence. They accept it. They overlook it, like another piece of furniture, when I'm not playing storyteller. But you do not." He took a step forward, so silent that the whisper of his clothes was more audible than his feet on the bloodied canvas. "You brew your tea, you deny me the cup, and you turn my visit into a reminder of my own... condition. You are the first person, in a long time, who makes me feel so visible."

Your stomach churned, a dull nausea that made you press your lips together. Something seemed to warn you that the conversation was twisting, slipping from your control. Flins was not a colleague, nor a friend, not even a patient. He was a presence, a constant. And constants, in your experience, always hid a variable that sooner or later would show its true face.

"Is there anything I can do to make my company more agreeable?" he continued, and the cool-toned light played with the contours of his face, accentuating the expression that had become amused again. "I would be delighted to know. Anything you wish, it's a trivial price."

"Your words are strange, Mr. Flins," you replied, leaning your hip against the table to disguise how your knees were trembling slightly. "The two of us are nothing more than acquaintances."

"Do not feel obligated to call me a friend." He made a dismissive gesture with his free hand. "Friendship is just a name for a chain of favors and debts. We do not need names, for they are like layers of frost on a window. In the end, they only cloud the view. That can be fixed with time."

"I don't— ugh." You sighed, exhausted. "I don't intend to establish any bond with you."

"I insist, for I could be of service to you in the future. One never knows when the world might turn hostile." His voice was silky, persuasive. "I have already started, you know? To serve you. Those monsters that were prowling around the eastern camp... they will no longer be a problem for your patients. A small gesture of good faith. To smooth the path."

You set the cup down on the table with a sharp clack, making the clear tea splash onto the wood. The heat of the porcelain, once comforting, suddenly felt like a burn. "Mr. Flins."

You hadn't heard anything about that. The certainty in his voice was absolute, calm. It wasn't even an offer, but a demonstration. It was his way of saying my influence already touches you, even if you don't see it. His way of beginning to weave that chain of favors and debts from which he so cynically claimed to be free.

"There is no need to say anything. Not today." His smile widened. "Just think on my offer. On the safety I could provide for this little corner of order you have carved out of the chaos." He bowed then, with the same ceremony as always, but this time the gesture did not seem courteous. There was a conquest in it. "I could ensure that nothing and no one ever interrupts your work... or your tea again."

[butteronabun]

Flins is known for being a great storyteller.

He has a charm that can attract all eyes and pique the interest of the people. He can skillfully describe events in full detail — to the point that the audience may feel as if they are in the story itself. During the sessions where he tells anecdotes during the reign of the previous Cryo Archon, you can imagine as if you are the one socializing and exchanging wagers with the nobles.

Questions arise from all Flins’ loyal listeners: were they fiction or non–fiction? Were we seeing through the eyes of our storyteller himself, or were these stories that belonged to other people? Did it really happen or did Flins make it all up?

It depends.

Because even if you ask Flins, he’ll always say, with that teasing lilt of his, “It’s up to your interpretation.” He may even pour you another drink. “You have the right to believe what you want or not to believe at all.”

And yet amidst all of those questions — there is but one that hasn’t been asked yet:

“Sir Flins,” a drunken man calls out, raising his hand. Around him are familiar faces who can be deemed as part of Flins’ loyal listeners. It has been an unspoken rule that they’ll always huddle around whenever Flins opens his mouth for a tale. Most of them are flushed, yet still sober enough to lend their ears for the composed ratnik who’s immune to the effects of Fire-Water. “‘Ya got any romance stories in there? Surely, a refined man such as yourself would have experienced love!”

The crowd around him inside the Flagship oohs. Some giggle among themselves, and Flins can’t help but join in. “You flatter me. Are you really all that interested in such a topic? What if I say that I do not have anything of the sort?”

And there’s a chorus of boos. Flins continue to smile. He motions his flute in a circular manner, the drink inside sloshing around.

“Liaaaar! Surely, you must have!”

“My dear companions, I jest,” Flins takes a sip, before closing his eyes. “Perhaps I do have a tale that may count as a romance story.”

Then there are whoops. Squeals. Support from the east for him to go on—and Flins merely shakes his head in amusement.

“Tell us, Mr. Flins!”

Do you believe in past lovers?

Because this tale began hundreds of years ago.

There was a man who was part of the noble court during Belyi Tsar’s time. Though blessed to mingle around inside lavish balls and exchange pleasantries with other members of the high court, this man was quite the sore thumb.

He preferred to be anywhere else - but as a gentleman and out of respect for the throne, he couldn’t leave.

Yet he managed to even do so, because one person from that ball had taken him away. Or perhaps, this person had swept him off his feet.

“Your hair’s really beautiful,” this person had commented, under the beautiful moonlight. From where they sat—inside a gazebo—one would think how perfect this place was for the beginning of a love story.

And the man, well. He couldn’t agree more. Because that was what he also thought at the time.

He couldn’t help but chuckle. “And I find myself adrift in your eyes—for they seem to outshine the glow of the moon from above.”

It was lovely.

How the man, and that person, who blossomed like beautiful quartzes after his comment, ended up sharing a love that transcended time.

The man was greatly devastated when he lost his beloved in his arms due to a calamity that had befallen his nation.

But who knew that after so many decades, he’d find their face wandering over Nasha Town. Lost, and still so so bashful, just like from back then—asking for directions.

They do not remember him, but that is fine. They do not even know him, but that is fine. He has time to get to know them, and they have time to get to know him.

The man’s heart was still in love—and it ached badly for the person who had returned. It ached badly for the person who was so close, yet so so far. It ached badly for the person who knew how to hold his heart.

And he must not let them go. He simply cannot let them go.

So after a few weeks into their friendship, the man found the perfect time to ask them properly—to ask them properly if he could court them. Just like back then.

He already prepared the meals that he thought they might like, and even tried to make the meals that they like. The flowers that they had cherished from before were ready to be held in their hands.

And yet.

Flins subtly watches as you, who’s also part of the listeners, intertwine your hands with the person you’ve loved in this lifetime. He stomps down the sinking feeling in his chest, and manages to continue his tale. “And yet the world can be so cruel in so many ways, because his previous lover had already found the arms of another.”

His listeners, of course, react in a way he expects. The cacophony of awws and nos aren’t enough to quell the agonizing pinpricks in his heart, as your partner comforts you over Flins’ story.

It is a position he used to find himself in before.

“Is there a happy ending to this?!” The previous drunken man who asked before demands, evidently not liking this outcome at all. Flins shifts his focus to the man. “There must be a happy ending to this, somehow!”

The smile on Flins’ remains. Flins has self-control. He takes pride in his self-control, he really does.

But at that moment—

—he looks at you.

“Is there a happy ending to this, Flins?” You question him, hopeful.

You tell me, a part of him wants to say. But he refrains from doing so. Before he can even get to see your partner holding you in a way he did all those years ago, Flins closes his eyes again, and takes another sip of his drink.

There’s still a smile on his face, and like always, he says:

“It’s up to your interpretation.”

[limeiryll]

❥ー ITCH.IO ❥ー KO-FI

31.10.2025. Happy birthday, Flins!

DOWNLOAD ۶ৎー Windows ♱ Linux ♱ MacOS ♱

Just a little "x reader" (or, well, in this case "x player"? "x you"?) style game created for a certain fae's birthday.

MC (you) is depicted as human mortal (not the Traveler) with no combat abilities or a Vision, and is in an established relationship with Flins. This project may contain some suggestive scenes, but no explicit ones. Minors / ageless do NOT interact.

Word count: 3600+ (not including 'dialogs' on special screens)

⤷ ゛Customizable Parameters ˎˊ˗

Name

Pronouns (she/her, he/him, they/them)

Eye color

Height (compared to Flins)

⤷ ゛Gameplay ˎˊ˗

There is no specific goals or affection meter or anything like that. This game is meant to be played when you're relaxing and just want to have fun. Start the game → pick a location on the map → let things unfold.

⤷ ゛Other tidbits ˎˊ˗

This game is free and will always be free! Donation is fully optional, you can skip it and download for free. Install instructions are on the itch.io page!

There are no ‘wrong’ answers.

Teleport loading screens will give you little tips! Or.... something else, if you're lucky *wink*

Yes, certain choices may affect other choices/events.

Most of the scripts are not proofread, sorry.

Dialog-heavy format with minimal narration.

If you find any bugs, please let me know, and I'll try to fix it when I have time!

⤷ ゛Special Thanks ˎˊ˗

Aine, Tabby, Moth, Crys, Dresvi, Risu, and Belial for always hyping me up and making sure my motivation for this project keep burning 🔥 Without you guys, this game would not have been released at all ৻ꪆ

Everyone who replied to that silly post I've now privated (I'm sure you know which one it is if you commented, haha). Hope you played the game and saw your questions answered!

⤷ ゛Credits ˎˊ˗

Coding, writing, Flins' sprite art by me. Please do not repost, claim, translate, or redistribute without permission! Do not feed into AI + any contact with AI is prohibited! Any donations via itch.io or ko-fi are appreciated.

Backgrounds, sounds, music are officially owned by HOYOVERSE

Genshin Impact (c) HOYOVERSE

limeiryll © 2025 ❥ do not repost, plagiarize, translate, or feed into ai.

[z-zeph]

oh. ooooooohhhhhhhhh my FUCKING GOD

[z-zeph]

The Wild Hunt always left you work, mocking you with the lives it failed to take. A stranger would haunt your toil, his lamp setting your sweat agleam.

"You know the sound of death, don't you, Flins?"

The question cut through the hum of the infirmary tent, a place that stank of iron, cheap antiseptic, and sweat. Flins didn't shift, his focus fixed on the steady flame of his lantern.

"I'm afraid I do," he replied, his voice a low grind of stone on stone. "It is an old, unwelcome acquaintance. What prompts this sudden curiosity?"

You didn't answer. Your hands, slick and gleaming, were busy. The body on the stretcher—a Lightkeeper, his name lost to the adrenaline shriek of the moment—jerked as you probed the mess of his ribs. A wet, sucking sound followed your fingers. You pulled them out, dripping warm crimson. You couldn't seem to get it out from under your nails, the half-moons etched in rust-brown testament to the night's work. You wiped them on a rag already stiff with other men's lives.

You posed another question in its place, your voice a hushed thing. "What does it sound like?"

He did not look at you. "It always announces itself differently. Sometimes, it is the scream of a comrade, cut short." He paused, and the lantern flame wavered as if in agreement. "Other times… it is the silence that follows. The kind of quiet that settles in the shelters where the hands of the gods cannot reach. It is not a sound of... peace, as one might expect."

Your suture needle bit into pale flesh. The thread, black and waxy, pulled the split skin together in a ragged line. In, out, pull tight. A butcher's stitch, but it held life in.

"…Do you believe in them?" you asked, your gaze flicking from the wound to your stained hands, then back. Not to his face. Not yet.

"In whom, if I may ask?"

"The gods."

A smile touched Flins' lips, a thin, brittle crack in his composure. It was the ghost of an expression, there and gone. "It is impolite to speak of gods in the presence of a doctor."

Because it is your hands, not theirs, that have stitched my brothers back together. When the heavens turn a blind eye, it is your scalpel that decides fate. Your skill. Not divine will.

"Who taught you that…?" You set aside the spool of thread, the needle. The instruments clinked softly on the metal tray. "It wasn't a trick question. Nor a test of faith. I just… wanted to know what you think. When it's quiet. When it's just you," you gestured with your chin towards his lantern, "and your light."

"You know it, too," Flins said, his gaze finally lifting from the flame to spear you where you stood. His eyes looked eerily... ancient, but you assumed it was weariness. "The sound of death, Doctor. You have been listening to its whisper all night."

As he finished, your weary eyes drifted to the gentle flame of his lantern. Then, with an exhausted shake of your head, you turned back to the table. The Lightkeeper's chest was now a brutal tapestry of black thread and white bandages. A patchwork man, stitched and salvaged from the scrap heap of battle. You placed two fingers against his throat, feeling the thready, stubborn pulse beneath the skin.

A long, slow breath left your lungs. You reached for a cloth, wiping the gore from your hands with a methodical, almost violent finality.

"He will recover." You promised it not to Flins, nor to the room, but to the absent gods of this forgotten, ice-cold land.

[tabicoeur]

@blissies hi (✿◕‿◕)

[tabicoeur]

xiao sits at the edge of the bed, golden eyes flickering toward you with a mix of hesitation and heat. even now, even like this, he looks as though he doesn’t quite know what to do with all this love you lave over him so easily. all your devotion.

“why… why are you looking at me like that?” he mutters, voice coarser than usual, a subtle grit out of habit.

you smile softly, sheepishly. sweep a pigtail over your shoulder as you crawl up the bed and let your hands find the edge of his thighs. “because you deserve to be looked at like this,” your tone is so simple. like it’s the most obvious truth in the world.

(it is, to you.)

the adeptus swallows, throat working against him, and when you ease him back against the headboard, he lets you. he’s tense, shoulders taut as though bracing for battle, but your touch isn’t a weapon—it’s reverent. coaxes him to soften. you trail kisses down the sharp line of his jaw. over the smooth column of his throat. down the green markings of his bicep. he shivers when your lips linger there, your breath warm against skin that rarely knows such gentleness. 

there’s a breathiness to your voice when you glide down to settle at his waist, whisper over his navel that you’re beautiful, xiao, one that makes his own breath stutter, his hips rut up.

disbelief flickers across his face, but you give him no room to argue. instead, you slip lower, sinking between his knees. his sharp intake of breath breaks the silence when your fingers brush over the hardening erection in his slacks, reverent and slow. like you’re handling something sacred.

“wait--” his protest dies on his tongue when your mouth presses a wet kiss to the bulge of his crotch, suckle a little, hum a little, run your index finger along the soft patch of fine teal hair along his abdomen a little. xiao’s hands twitch at his sides, fists curling in the sheets as though holding himself back from pushing you away--or pulling you closer.

“you don’t have to--”

“but i want to,” you whisper, cutting him off with a kiss at the base of him, exposed when you tug at the waistband of his slacks just enough to see the heavy lines of his cock. his hips jolt at the contact, a ragged sound leaving his throat. and you continue to move with tender worship, your lips trailing along him as though mapping constellations across the night sky. one that would spell his name.

every kiss, every brush of your tongue, is unhurried. meant to praise, not consume.

you tug lower, lower, the fabric a restraint, and finally free him, swallow back the saliva that pools beneath your tongue at the sight of him slapping back against his tummy, flushed red and throbbing and aching. you run a finger along the thick vein lining the side of his cock, lifting it up to take his head into your mouth, and you think you’ve never seen xiao where such an expression before. 

head tipping back against the headboard, eyes fluttering shut, lips puffy and pouty and so sinfully parted. a low, strangled sound escapes him--half disbelief, half surrender--and his hand hovers over your head with a trill of uncertainty before tangling lightly in one of your pigtails, not to guide, but to ground himself.

when his breath quickens, xiao whispers your name, reminiscent of all the times before where you too have whispered his name. in dreams, in nightmares, in bed when you miss him in more ways than one. he whispers your name like a prayer, like he doesn’t know how else to hold onto the moment.

and you smile against him, knowing that he’ll understand in time how this is not a debt to repay.