soft anti's favorite puppet

I wanna hug him and sit underneath him in his tree form and pet bugs.

~~

"How long have I been here?"

The question takes you off guard. You look up from your painting of a nebula and into Simon's eyes. His expression is much like the cosmic scene on your canvas; it may appear calm to the untrained eye, but you can see the chaos within.

"I am not sure how you measure time," you say carefully.

"Days. Weeks. Years. That kind of thing," he replies. "A day's about twenty-four hours, a week is seven days, and years are three hundred sixty-five days. That all probably seems like nothing to you, though."

You hum in response, thinking. How long has he been in your realm? You haven't ever had a reason to keep track of passing time in such precise, arbitrary measurements. Or at all. Simon's right—it does seem like nothing to you. Countless stars have come and gone in your lifetime, cycles that last for millions upon millions of human years. It astounds you, then, how achingly short their lives are in comparison to yours. Ordinarily, Simon would have lived and died many times over in the time it takes you to blink, but here...

"I don't know," you say after a long pause. "I am sorry."

"Do you have a guess?"

"More than a year, certainly. Maybe—" You tap your chin with the handle of your paintbrush, brow furrowed. "Ten? At least."

Simon's eyes widen. Emotions swirl in their depths like gas in a stellar nursery. Though he's staring at you, you don't feel his gaze. You do feel the emotions radiating off him, however. Disbelief, shock...dread? You float over to where he sits on the couch, brow pinched once more. Despite your gentle touch, he startles when your fingertips brush his cheek.

"Little one?" you murmur.

"Sorry," Simon sighs. He leans into your touch and pulls you closer by looping his arm around your waist. A small sigh escapes him as you guide his head to your chest, carding your fingers through his hair in a way that you know soothes him. You purposefully hum your Song a bit louder than usual, determined to rid Simon of the tension tightening his spine. It very slowly lessens, but doesn't vanish completely.

"I'm not aging," Simon says quietly after a long silence. "I don't know how I didn't notice before. I look exactly the same as I did the day you found me."

"You look much healthier," you counter.

He sighs. "That's not what I mean. I mean—I should look middle aged now, if it's really been ten years. Or close to it. But I still look like I'm in my thirties."

"You wanted to live," you say simply. "So I have given you that chance. Maybe that's why you haven't visibly aged."

"You don't know, do you?"

"No," you admit. "You are the first being I've brought here. I know of other concepts that have brought mortals into their own realms, and none of them have aged, to my knowledge. Perhaps time moves differently in a concept's realm."

"What would happen if I left?"

A comet streaks into your core, its icy surface chilling your entire being. Leave? Why would he want to leave? You'd saved him from Her, from losing himself and becoming one of the many lost souls writhing and wailing in Her core. You know he's grateful—he's expressed it over and over again, in words as well as actions. But in saving Simon, had you simply trapped him in a gilded cage? The pitch of your song increases, and you feel the skin of your vessel vibrate.

"I don't know," you say again. Your throat constricts around your next words, your voice coming out strained. "Are you unhappy?"

"No!" Simon says quickly. His eyes are wide again, but with a different sort of panic. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"

"You do not have to apologize." You cup his jaw in both hands and swallow down your own unease. "I want you to be happy, Simon."

"I am happy," he insists. "Of course I'm happy with you. It's just a lot to take in, you know?"

"It must be jarring to have this realization," you say.

He huffs out a weak laugh. "Yeah. It's just—it's weird. Someday, everyone I've ever known is going to be gone, but I'll still be here. Not that many people I knew were uh...great. But it's still—still a lot."

"I will be the last being left, at the end of everything," you say. "Someday even Life and Death themselves will fade, and all that will be left is oblivion."

"Oh. Wow."

"So, I believe I can empathize. Knowing that day will come and accepting it has taken a long time." You brush his cheekbones with your thumbs, smiling to yourself as his eyes slide shut.

"How do you...know that?" Simon asks as you continue to gently stroke his face.

"That's a conversation for another day," you reply. Telling him about the Cycles at this exact moment feels unwise. "Simon?"

"Mm?"

"If you did ever want to leave, you could. I don't know what would happen, but I would watch over you." You press your lips to his forehead, lingering for a moment. "You aren't a prisoner here."

"I've never felt like one," he says. "I don't remember ever feeling so...so safe. And I really am happy, I promise."

Simon pulls you even closer, into his lap on the couch. You curl around him with a content trill in the back of your throat. Your Song has returned to its usual pitch, and new stars have thawed the icy fear in your core. A single crystal of it remains, but you let it drift to your farthest reaches. Mortal things are not made to live forever, not even the one you treasure more than anything else in the cosmos, but you won't spoil your time with him by letting your dread hang over you both. Instead, you bury your nose in the hair atop his head and savor the waves of contentment emanating from him as the last bit of stiffness finally melts away from his posture.

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Blood eel 😳🩸 also simava and my crackship that i like too much 💔

No in character response but

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