Neria♡

A servant, dignified and aloof, came. They, with their white hair stained with crimson, took one look at you before making a silent decision. 

Carried by goblin-looking creatures inside the mountain, which parted as though unhinging its jaw, you could do nothing but accept that you were going to be eaten up by the very monsters that children were warned about.

Navigating the carved out hallways of the mountain, they threw you in the throne room. Jagged stone walls surrounded you. Glowing red rocks were embedded in the rocks and lit torches illuminated the grand space. You were laying on the rolled out red carpet, staring up at a giant of a being. 

There he was.

Sukuna Ryomen.

He was resting his head on one of his four arms, legs crossed, with all four eyes gazing down at you. He looked bored. 

“What is this?” he drawled.

The same servant you first met stepped up, head bowed humbly. They said, “Entertainment, my Lord.”

“Entertainment?” the king repeated, tasting the word. “Not a snack? Interesting. How, pray tell, will this woman entertain me, if not with the taste of her flesh, Uraume?”

It was an absurd situation — they were discussing you as if you weren’t there, as if you didn’t have ears, as if you were a pet the servant had picked up as a gift. Although, it was at least a small blessing that you hadn’t been killed on the spot, you supposed. The thought, however, didn’t permit much relief when unimaginable torture could have awaited you.

‘Uraume’ answered, “The humans intended for her to be your wife, my Lord. Perhaps you could humour them with brief belief that they have been spared from their inevitable fate.”

At that, Sukuna hummed.

His eyes met your own then. They inspected you through your very soul. You felt their branding touch rifling through your essence. Something passed in them, something to which you could not put words. 

Finally, he waved a lazy hand, and said, “Very well.”

The servants rushed to take you away, afraid to waste a single second. 

You’ve been living in a room somewhere in the heart of the mountain since. 

It’s been about a week. 

Meals on a tray are served to you three times a day. Porridge, fruits, bread, the sorts. You do your best not to eat much; they might have poisoned it. 

Every day, every hour, is spent anticipating the wooden doors being kicked down, waiting for the Curse King to forgo delaying your fate and slicing your head off your shoulders with one, clean cut. So far, nothing yet. 

In fact, you have not seen another soul since. 

The first night, you couldn’t sleep, afraid that he would take the villagers up on the offer to make you his real bride, by plunging his cock into you and stealing your maidenhead. It didn’t, and hasn’t, happened. But ‘yet’ looms over you perpetually. 

Your one consolation is that sleep comes to you easily now.

It’s all you can do — the room is barren of books, of people, of art. Only a bed, a table, and a chamber pot with a bucket of water decorate it. There are no windows with which you can view the outside world, can tell what time of day it is, can escape through, or jump off. Only your body’s natural instincts inform you when morning and time to slumber has arrived. 

Though…

With the days blurring, and perpetual and dim light of the glowing rocks remaining unchanged, it’s beginning to grow more and more difficult to tell left from right. 

The doors are unlocked. 

That was the first thing you tested when you were placed here. 

Of course you’ve considered walking out of the room, if only to have a change of scenery. You’ve also considered escaping. But your thoughts would always end up at ‘escaping to where?’

You’ve been abandoned by your village, by your family. They would not accept you. They would see your return as a sign that the Curse King had rejected their sacrifice and would be coming to collect the debt. In other words, you’d be seen as a bad omen. 

It was your destiny to die, whether by the hands of your family or by the hands of the beast they were afraid of.

So if death is a certainty, why would you fear it?

That’s the final thought that pushes you out of bed and to the door. Your hand hesitated for a second. Then it was sure. You opened it, body tense. 

No one’s outside. No guard, no goblins, no king.

You pad out, feet bare and wearing only a nightgown. How deep inside the mountain are you, you wonder. There’s a draught blowing past, but no sound of the forest to fill the space. No voices. No footsteps. No life.

“Where is everyone?” you mutter, padding forward.

Who can say how long you wander through the tunnels? 

It feels like it’s been hours, though with the way time seems to pass differently, it could also have only been mere minutes. 

Eventually, you spot light coming from a hollow in the walls. Carefully and with bated breath, you peer inside.

Steam wafts over your face.

It’s warm — startlingly so against the chill that seems to cling to every corridor of the mountain. You hesitate again, also only a moment before stepping inside. 

The ceiling arches high above, rough stone glistening with condensation, droplets forming and falling in slow, steady rhythms that echo softly in the space. The air is thick, humid, curling around your skin. It tickles.

At the centre of the chamber lies a pool.

It’s set into a wide, uneven basin in the ground. The water glows faintly from beneath, lit by the same red-veined stones embedded along the walls, but here their light is softened, diffused through the steam until it casts everything in a hazy, molten glow.

The surface of the water ripples lazily, disturbed by unseen currents, by the quiet bubbling from somewhere deep below. Heat rises from it in waves, beckoning, almost inviting.

Who knew something like this existed inside a mountain?

Carefully, you approach the edge of the pool, crouching slightly as you extend a hand. Your fingers hover for a second before dipping into the water.

Hot.

But not scalding.

“A bath,” you mumble, smiling.

Here, of all places.

The servants had given you a bed to sleep on, a table to eat at, and a pot to do your business in that seemed to be cleaned out magically without you ever seeing anyone. What they hadn’t granted, however, is the luxury of a bath. Only a bucket to and a rag to clean yourself with. 

You glance back toward the tunnel, as if half-expecting someone, something, to be watching. But there’s nothing and no one. Only the distant drip of water and the low hum of the mountain breathing around you.

Your reflection stares back at you from the shifting surface, blurred by steam and movement. The quiet stretches.

If you’ll be killed for stepping outside your room, at least you’ll die clean and fresh. 

Shrugging off your nightgown, you dip your toe in the water, then your leg and the other, and soon you’re fully emerged. 

“Oh, that’s wonderful,” you moan, letting the water soothe the aches in your bones. You sink deeper. The heat swallows you whole, up to your shoulders, then your chin. Your eyes flutter shut as you tilt your head back, strands of your hair clinging damply to your skin.

For a moment, just a moment, you forget. Forget the mountain, the monsters, the fate waiting patiently for you somewhere in its depths. The tension bleeds out of your limbs, your breathing slowing, evening out as the warmth seeps into you.

You drift, arms floating lazily at your sides.

A soft sigh escapes you. This is just like swimming in the lake near the village, except it’s warm and lovely and soothing. 

It’s…peaceful.

Too peaceful.

Your eyes open.

Something feels…off suddenly. The water, once gently lapping, stills in a way that isn’t natural. The faint bubbling from below seems to deepen, shift. Like something moving far beneath the surface.

Your body goes rigid.

Slowly, you glance down. The water is dark there. Deeper than it should be. The glow from the stones doesn’t quite reach the bottom — it falls away into shadow, into something that looks less like a pool and more like a pit.

A pit that could swallow you whole.

Your breath catches. 

“…Hello?” you call softly, though you don’t know why.

The surface trembles.

Something moves.

Your heart lurches into your throat. Instinct kicks in before thought does. You turn sharply, water sloshing as you begin to move, arms cutting through the surface, making for the edge.

Too slow.

Something clasps your ankle.

A gasp tears right through you, kicking hard, panic surging white-hot through your veins. “No!”

It coils.

Grabs.

Your leg is yanked downward with terrifying force.

The world flips. Water crashes over your head as you’re dragged under, your scream swallowed instantly. You thrash, clawing at nothing, lungs burning whilst bubbles tear from your mouth. Your hands grasp blindly, trying to find purchase, to find anything.

A shape.

A body.

You strike it. Push against it. Kick, struggle, fight with everything in you, nails scraping against something solid, unyielding. 

Then it lets go.

You don’t wait.

You surge upward, breaking through the surface with a ragged gasp, coughing, choking on water as you scramble for the edge. Your hands slap against the stone, slipping once before catching, dragging yourself up just enough to cling to it. Your whole body trembles violently.

Air. You need air. 

You suck it in greedily, chest heaving, water dripping from your lashes as your eyes dart wildly across the pool. “W-what…” you choke out, voice shaking. 

A sound answers you. A low, amused exhale.

Your blood runs cold. Slowly, hesitantly, you turn your head.

He’s here.

The King of Curses.

Sukuna lounges against the inner ledge of the pool as though he’s always been there. One arm is slung lazily over the stone behind him, another resting loosely at his side, droplets sliding down the planes of his skin. And the remaining two are folded under the water.

He’s watching you. 

No, observing you. 

That smirk curls at his lips, sharp and satisfied, eyes glinting with something dark and entertained. “Well,” he drawls, voice echoing low against the stone walls, “your floundering was amusing.”

“W-why,” you begin, gulping air and frantically shoving the wet hair clinging away from your face, “why did you do that?”

A hum floats through the air, carried by the steam. It sweeps your skin. Sukuna says, “Because I could.” Then he barks a laugh. “When I came here to wash the stink of my latest massacre, I did not expect to find a human bathing in my onsen. How brazen of you.”

When he snaps his fingers together, you flinch. 

Uraume appears. 

Their head is downcast. They don’t look at your body, which you suddenly remember is bare and visible through the clear water. You throw your arms over your private parts. 

“Who is this woman and why have you not killed her upon her first step of trespass?” he asks his servant. Sukuna doesn’t sound mad. Only curious. 

“Because she is your bride, my Lord.”

You flinch at the term. 

Sukuna barks a laugh again. “My bride? My bride! How comical that I would forget I have one.” He turns to you, eyes narrowing in with interest. “Why have you only now appeared before me?”

Gulping, you tentatively answer, “I did not think you would want to see me. And I’m sorry I intruded—”

“Wise,” he says, one of his massive arms running through his wet hair. “I am not usually fond of seeing humans; you are all so hideous and constantly quivering in my presence.”

There’s no possible way to reply to that, not without getting your blood spilled for insolence. 

He stands upon the ledge and exits the pool. 

He’s completely naked, as you are. His broad back, the impressive muscles that make it up, the perfectly symmetrical tattoos. He turns. His cocks swings with the movement. You quickly avert your eyes, cheeks warm. 

If Sukuna notices that you noticed, he doesn’t say. Only, “Try not to drown — my pet swims beneath but he has already had his fill. Do not fatten him with your flesh.”

When you hurriedly climb out, squealing, his laughter echoes, filling the space even once his body, and his servant’s, have left. 

You kneel on the smooth ground, panting, soaked and dripping, and thinking one thing:

The Curse King has a sense of humour.

And two giant cocks.

.

.

.

The next day, you find yourself back at the pool. 

You tell yourself it’s simply because you want to bathe, but perhaps if you were more honest with yourself, you’d accept that maybe you were curious to see if he’d be there. 

And he is.

Sukuna leans against the very same ledge he had been yesterday. He watches your every move, from when you first step in, to when you shyly shrug off your nightgown, and when you submerge yourself in the warm water.

Something has brought you here. 

A pull you could not deny.

Thinking too much about it gives you a headache, so you let your body move on its own, unhindered by logic, by your mind’s concerns. You want to bathe, to be clean. He hadn’t killed you yesterday, and that counts for something. 

Of course, you know the smart thing to do would be to not push it, to understand that two run-ins with him that didn’t lead to immediate death doesn’t mean a third would end the same, to count your blessings. 

But…

Bath.

He says nothing, only runs a finger across the seam of his lips as his eyes drink up every shift of your body.

Boldly, albeit shakily, you ask, “Why haven’t you killed me yet?”

Sukuna’s eyes glint. 

“I wonder the same thing myself.”

That’s not an answer, you note. But you don’t poke, scared if you do, if you push your limits more than you already have, he’ll snap your head as easily as he had snapped his fingers. 

The way his eyes pin you down on the ledge opposite him has you squirming in your seat. It’s too intense. Too strong. Too dizzying. So you try to pretend it’s not cascading down the skin visible to him; you push forward, wading in the water. You stare at the ceiling, at the distance, at the darkness of the depths, at anything but him. 

“My village offered me as sacrifice,” you remind him. “Will you spare them?”

Somewhere, he lazily replies, “I have yet to decide.”

Humming, as though you thought as much, you wonder aloud, “What will you do with me? I cannot imagine that the King of Curses would find much use in a human wife.”

“No, neither can I,” Sukuna drawls.

On and on, you swim. Arms cut through the water in slow, steady strokes, legs kicking behind you in a rhythm that’s begun to feel automatic. There’s no sense of direction, no shore to aim for, just the endless stretch of water surrounding you, thick and quiet, swallowing any sound you might make. Time slips, dissolves, until all that remains is movement for the sake of movement.

Then, as you turn, your hand meets something solid. 

The impact is soft but jarring, your palm flattening instinctively against it. A wall. Smooth, unmoving, impossibly present where there had only ever been open water.

You gasp. 

Sukuna stands behind you. 

The bottom of the pool had risen. You still cannot reach it, but you’re aware that if you tried to, the water’s surface would be just above your head. The pool is under his command, bending to his will. How incredible.

Bare, wet skin meets bare, wet skin. 

The heat of his body is hotter than that of the water. 

He doesn’t step away despite how the water seems to be pushing you to him. 

How did he get to you so fast? Last you saw, he was still sitting on the ledge. No, perhaps the better question is, why had he moved closer to you at all?

Hands grab your ribs. You gasp. They’re firm, callused. Burning.

“Wife?” he repeats, wide smirk revealing rows of flesh-tearing teeth. “You are not my wife. You are my bride. I am sure even a puny, little thing like you understand that there is a process to be followed, yes?”

A nail flicks your nipple under the water. 

You let out a shuddery breath. 

The other two hands grip the back of your thighs, lifting them till they’re wrapping around his hips. The top half of your body has emerged from the water, water dripping down. You throw your arms around his neck, a reflex to grab onto something before you fall. 

Breasts presses to his chest. He must feel how hard your nipples are. You’re flushed with embarrassment, and an acute awareness of how much bigger his own body is to yours — if he wanted to, he could crush you with his bare hands.

Sukuna’s sharp fangs glint at the very peaks as he runs his tongue over them. “For you to be my wife, we would have to observe tradition. Do you understand what I refer to, little human?”

Breathless, you answer with your own question: “Do you refer to the wedding night, my Lord?”

One of his cocks pokes your entrance. You tense up. 

You’ve seen their size; they are inhumanly big. They could not fit inside you, not without the preparation that the women in your village had giggled about, perhaps not even with.

But he doesn’t shove it inside you all in one go. 

He doesn’t shove it inside at all.

The king merely slides you down his body, just a little, until that cock is sandwiched between your bodies. 

It bumps a good spot on your cunt. You gasp.

“I do,” Sukuna says, huffing in amusement at your reaction. “I admit I have not been married before myself, but it is one aspect I am curious about.”

His strong hands are moving you up and down, testing every little sound that leaves your lips. And you’re letting him.

Is there something in the water? Some elixir that’s making you susceptible to his whims? An aphrodisiac stimulating wetness out of your pussy?

He must feel it, must feel how it drips down his length. Just like how you can feel the prominent veins of a cock that’s grown fully erect without you noticing. How long has he been like this? Since you walked in? Before?

Your nipples are scraping his chest. The sensation has you arching closer to him, grip around his body tightening. “M-my Lord!”

Sukuna tuts, moving you up and down like you’re a mere toy for his pleasure. He scolds, “That is not my name.”

“Sukuna?” you experimentally mutter the words. His cock throbs. You both groan. “S-something’s happening.”

Hips moving on their own, you feel as though you’ve been possessed. Your body is no longer your own — some invisible thing is urging you to grind down on his cock, on that burning heat between you, rubbing your clit on his flushed cockhead, on the veins that run up and down his length.

Humming, he says, quite distracted, “Yes. Something is. Allow it to happen. Do not fight it.”

This is pleasure you’ve never felt before. Pleasure you didn’t know truly existed. The women in your village always spoke of sexual pleasure as something only for men, joy a girl would be lucky to experience even once, if their partner was generous and not selfish, which was apparently rare. 

Yet, here is, grinding your clit on the veins of his cock.

He licks his lips. “Go on, little human. Give it to me.”

With a loud moan, you throw your head back. Spasms wrack your body. A heady explosion warms your belly. Spurts of something even warmer paint your chest and stomach. 

Sukuna grunts, fingers digging into the plush of your ass. 

“Fuck.”

Your head falls back on his chest, slumping with sudden languishness. You pant. His chest rises with his own heavier breaths. 

Coming back into your own senses, you tense. Then push away. He lets you. 

“I’m so sorry,” you say, in near tears from shame. “Please forgive me, my Lord.”

You wade back, further and further away from him. Blood has pooled in your cheeks. What have you done? If he wasn’t going to kill you before, he certainly will now that you’ve defiled his body.

He pays you no mind. The water around his still body ripples. Sukuna grunts. Sucks in a harsh breath. Water laps at his contracting abdomen. Furious. Violent. You cannot tear your eyes away from the sight. 

Oh god…he’s tugging furiously at his other cock whilst the other floats. His own spend is drying on his chest. 

Mouth watering, you almost step forward to offer a hand.

But you don’t.

Instead, you turn around and make a run back to your room.

.

.

.

You haven’t returned to the pool. Not once in the week that passed.

He might not have killed you but one thing’s certain: you do not want to run into him again. 

Especially now that you’ve caught his attention. Reminded him of your existence. Which is as one would expect: worse than being forgotten. So, so, so much worse. 

For, every day since the meeting at the pool, he’s taken to dropping off severed limbs at your door. Still warm. Still bleeding. Often twitching. First it was a big toe. Then a whole foot. A finger. A hand. An arm. 

And today, a head.

A scream shook the walls once your eyes landed on the thing.

Your scream.

Perhaps it’s adrenaline that urges every stomp your feet make. Perhaps anger or indignation. Whatever it is, it has you near-running through the halls, searching in every hollow for him. 

An almost full circle has been carved at the very end of one tunnel you stumble down. Vines creep out of it. You step inside, heaving, and with fists balled at your side. 

A garden.

It stretches farther than your eyes can follow, lush and sprawling, like the earth itself had been coaxed open and persuaded to bloom in defiance of everything you thought you knew about this place. The ceiling arches high above, fractured in places where thin shafts of pale light filter through, catching on drifting pollen and casting the entire space in a soft, dreamlike haze.

The air is warm here. Heavy with scent.

Sweet. Overripe. Almost intoxicating.

It’s not a human garden, you can tell immediately; the grass is black, as is the soil, and the roots which emerge from the ground are red. Things that couldn’t exist in the same place do, cohabiting quite well. 

Flowers you’ve never seen before crowd the ground in wild abundance — petals like silk and flame, some translucent, others so dark they seem to drink in the light. Vines coil and twist up natural pillars of stone, heavy with blossoms. Leaves skim against your legs as you step forward, wide and waxy, or delicate as lace, each one foreign.

“How…?” you whisper, though there is no answer. It shouldn’t have been possible to have a whole forest inside a mountain. But then again, a great many things shouldn’t have been possible, yet they are.

The path, if it can even be called that, winds forward through the growth, barely visible beneath the encroaching green. It feels endless. Like you could spend your entire life sprinting down the path and never make it to the end.

There, some distance ahead, partially obscured by the curtain of hanging vines, a figure moves.

You freeze.

Bare feet press against the dark soil, soundless. A loose robe hangs from his shoulders, open just enough to reveal the breadth of his chest and the markings etched into his skin stark against the softness of the garden around him. One hand drags idly along the leaves as he walks.

“Hello, little bride.”

It still surprises you that he can utter the word so casually. You don’t flinch this time however. You only glower and maintain the distance. “Why have you been giving me body parts?” you interrogate, grateful that your voice is as firm as when you had rehearsed.

Sukuna lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “Why have you not stepped foot outside your room since?”

He resumes walking.

Toward you.

Each step is unhurried, deliberate, crushing petals beneath his feet without a second thought. The garden seems to part for him, bending subtly to his presence, vines shifting, leaves snaking aside in quiet submission.

You don’t move.

You tell yourself you won’t.

Your pulse stutters anyway.

“You fear me,” Sukuna observes, like he’s stating something obvious. His eyes drag over you, taking in every inch, every subtle shift in your breathing, the way your fingers curl tighter at your sides. “And yet you came looking.”

“Because I want to know why you’ve been giving me body parts,” you snap.

“Mm.”

He’s closer now.

Close enough that you can feel the heat of him, even in the thick, perfumed air of the garden. Close enough that you can see the faint sheen of moisture still clinging to his skin, the slow rise and fall of his chest beneath the loose fall of his robe.

Another step.

Instinct finally kicks in; you shift back, just one pace.

The corner of his mouth lifts. “I was curious.”

Your brows knit. “About what?”

“How long it would take,” he says lightly, “for you to stop hiding.” A finger traces the curve of your cheek. You hold your breath, staring up at him, waiting for his next move. Sukuna mutters, “How odd that your scent would be so much sweeter than the flowers that grow here. It makes me wonder.”

Why is heat travelling down your body? Why aren’t you running away, revolted by his touch or the gravel in his voice? Were you still thinking about the feel of his body against yours, both naked, in the pool? Of the cocks whose soft lengths had been engrained in your mind?

His nostrils flare. 

A flash in his eyes.

“There it is,” he rasps. “A scent I could not escape, so much more potent now.”

In a blink of an eye, you’re flipped over, dangling in the air. He has you by the ankle, lifted high up. 

You grab onto his robe, which has parted. Right in front of you is his cock. Both of them. Neither soft now. Definitely not soft. One smacks you right against the face. It leaves a wet mark. 

The musk of a refined monster hits you. It’s…it’s addictive. Your mouth waters again, stronger this time than the time at the pool now that they’re so much closer to you. Irresistible. 

Sukuna presses a nose to the apex of your thighs. Skin on skin. You jolt.

Your dress had fallen down your body, ballooning around your face. You hold the material away — he can see everything. That fact has you aware that you can see him too. The thickness of his cocks, the lengths rivalling your forearm, the weight of the balls beneath. Everything about him is massive. Intended to subjugate. Designed to dominate. 

“You are already wet. Soaked,” he muses, thoroughly humoured. He rubs his nose on your clit, nuzzling the little bud. You dig your nails into his thighs. “Filthy, little human.”

That’s all he says before he licks a stripe through your slit.

“Sukuna!”

“Mm. Dessert. Just in time.”

The beast licks and laps and sucks. It isn’t anything like the women at the village described — men are supposed to be reluctant, they’re supposed to be frightened. Sukuna isn’t. He’s consuming your juices as though starved, needing nourishment. 

In front of you, something emerges from his skin.

A wolfish grin.

There’s a mouth on his stomach, lips curled up and teeth gleaming. You scream, fighting to get out of his tight hold.

SMACK!

Sukuna slapped your ass. A dull heat blossoms on the flesh. He commands, “Stay still. I cannot dine when you worm like so.”

SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!

Cruelly, he lays short slaps right on your clit, sending juices splashing onto your skin. The way his palm sticks, the sloppy noises, it's all so degrading. He’s doing it on purpose. He’s revelling in your clear desire for him.

You’re almost too distracted by the sight of a second, bigger mouth. Almost. But nothing can truly, wholly tear your attention away from the sucking of your clit and the way a fire is being lit in your very core. Soon, a thick tongue finds your entrance and buries itself inside. Your eyes roll back.

A hot, wet thing slides up the valley of your breasts. Slithering. Testing. Tasting.

The mouth, you realise. It’s sticking its fat tongue out, licking your breasts the way Sukuna’s face mouth is licking the inside of your cunt, stretching your walls, teasing the pleats there. 

“Delicious,” one of them says. You can’t tell which. So much is happening at once. Too many to process. 

At your lips, one of his cockheads smears its seed. You lick your lips. It’s salty. Eyes fixed on the frighteningly red thing, you open your mouth to suckle at it. That familiar possession has returned. You’re being controlled by an invisible force — your jaw has to widen to take the bulbous head. Your tongue runs over the tip, where there’s a slit. 

Sukuna groans, pleased. Then he growls, “Do not neglect the other.”

Slightly afraid, you do as he says. The other cock is just as hard, just as big and long as the one you’re sucking on. It throbs approvingly when you tug on it. 

“Good,” he groans out. “Very good, little bride.”

Obscene squelches are coming from above. It’s a reminder of how wet you are for him. Of how delirious the pleasure is. Of how you aren’t disgusted by the magical tongue flicking your tits, playing with the mounds, running the tip of it over your nipples. You’re not disgusted by the salty taste of him, of how he seems to be constantly leaking.

He’s lapping up at your pussy so furiously that he makes frustrated, wrathful sounds; he’s mad that you’re not producing enough wetness to match the pace in which he’s drinking it up.

“More,” he commands. “Give me more. Now.”

Sukuna pushes his face closer, uncaring of the fact that you’re making a mess all over his cheeks. He only has one thing on his mind. 

“I’m gonna cum,” you warn him, mouth full and words garbled. The unfamiliar word leaves your lips so naturally you think you’d been warning him all your life of your impending orgasm.

Unfortunately, the warning is wasted. You don’t think he even hears the words with your thighs muffling his ears.

“Sukuna!”

The very same feeling, the same sensations, as the time in the pool rushes through you. Bolts of lightning thrum beneath the surface of your skin. You shudder, moaning lewdly. 

He doesn’t stop. If anything, he’s only emboldened by the juices overflowing out of you. Slurrrrrping! so animatedly. So viciously. So animalistically. 

A feral beast sucking your sensitive clit into another orgasm only minutes later. 

It’s too much. It almost hurts. You slap at his meaty thigh. That seems to snap him out of his mania.

In a flash, you’re flipped back upright. Blood descends down your body. Lightheaded, your knees weaken. He catches you, lifting you up in his arms all while he’s collecting as much of your juices off his skin he can reach with his tongue.

Thud…thud…thud…

Sukuna strolls through the garden and back out into the rocky halls, robe discarded. Your dress is soaked with a mix of your juices, sweat, and his saliva. You’re filthy. He doesn’t complain.

Thankfully, there’s no one in the hallways to witness the remnants, of the proof, of your mutual debauchery.

“I have never considered myself as having a sweet tooth,” Sukuna begins, musing to himself, “but now I believe I would very much like to have dessert after every meal. What do you say, little human?”

“Hmm,” you sleepily hum.

“Then we are in agreement,” Sukuna concludes, pleased.

Your eyes flutter shut, too tired to keep them open. Before you fall into slumber, you feel a bed much softer than you remember cushion your body. 

A hardness flanks you.

You dream of many hands brushing your hair, patting your hip, rubbing your belly, and tracing your cheek.

.

.

.

Since you’ve come to accept your odd relationship with the King of Curses, you’ve been spending an awful amount of time with him lately. 

It started off with him keeping you in his room. 

It’s a much nicer room than yours. Infinitely so. Almost triple the size and more lavishly decorated — a huge bed with silk sheets and a canopy with deep velvet curtains, a plush rug, dark red orchids in intricate and complex positions upon a table, paintings of different moments in time of human suffering that concerningly do not bother you.

You always find yourself back in here. 

Whenever you wander through the halls, the walls seem to shift. They lead you back to his room. At first you were hesitant to enter, and you’d try to go a different way, but the caves insisted.

He isn’t here ever. 

So you’ve started to think of it as your own. 

During meal times, that’s when you’d see Sukuna. 

Uraume would often escort you out of the room and into the dining hall. Another enormous space. You’d dine with him, and only him. There’d be curses posted inside, but they always step out, to give you privacy you assume. Naturally, these mealtimes were awkward for you in the beginning. 

Sukuna didn’t speak. Not at first. He would just watch you eat, which only made you feel more awkward. 

You were the one who broke the silence. “Are you… are you not going to eat, my Lord?” you asked tentatively.

A devious grin came upon his face. Happy he won a competition you didn’t know you signed up for. He replied, “I will. I am simply fattening up my pig before I devour her.”

Heat flushed through you. Cutlery clinking against the fine china, you gulped. There was a dangerous awareness of the darkness of his eyes feasting upon your flesh — you felt its weight sliding down the plumpness of your cheeks, the length of your neck, your collarbones, and your breasts which threatened to spill out from the confines of your dress. 

Perhaps fear should have overtaken you at that moment.

Only relief and desire did. 

What set you on edge most was not knowing what he wanted from you, why he had Uraume collect you, why he was wasting his time here when he could be doing kingly duties. 

Now that he had made clear what he was seeking, you could allow yourself to rest easy and actually taste the food you were shovelling into your mouth. 

“I am the pig in question?” 

“Yes,” he replied immediately. A hand shoved a plate of pancakes towards you, encouraging. “You certainly squeal like one.”

Frowning, and pushing the plate away because you have too much to eat already, you argued, “I do not.”

“Do too,” he said, pushing the plate back towards you.

“Do not!”

An arm wrapped around your waist faster than you could see. Another swiped the food off the table. Everything fell with cacophonous clangs and bangs and splats! 

Sukuna placed you on the table, which was now bereft of food. Your back met the hard wood. Your legs were thrown over his shoulders. Dress hiked up your waist. You were bared to him. Two of his callused hands yanked you closer to his face. Those four eyes, all scarlet and glinting up at you, didn’t look away. 

He wanted you to watch him take a long whiff of your cunt.

His grip tightened on you once your scent hit him with full force. His eyes rolled back. Sukuna snarled, “Let’s see which of us is right.”

There were no soft kisses upon your sensitive skin, no caresses. Only unrestrained feasting. He immediately latched onto your clit, sucking on the thing with a fury. You cried out. 

The king was frightening in his aggression. 

He was gulping down every drop your pussy produced to please him, and it wasn’t nearly enough. Terrifying growls shook the table. 

Sukuna seemed addicted to making your cunt let out vulgar squelchessss!

They came in quick succession. One after the other. Loud and clear. Displaying how well he was playing with your clit. 

“Look at how your cunt flutters, searching for my cocks,” he mused, thumbing the entrance but not pushing in. “And look how your petals have grown swollen with blood. Oh, I bet your blood tastes as good as your pussy. We’ll test that too, another day.”

Stammering, you pleaded, “Don’t look!” 

He stared too intently. Saw too much. It was more intimate than being tasted. 

“Nonsense,” Sukuna said, waving you off. “I will look as I please, and I very much do.”

In response to his renewed lapping of your juices, you could only writhe and run your nails down the wood for anything to ground you.

“Do not waste your claws on the table,” he spat, spare hands snatching your ups and offering his wrists for you to dig into. You hesitated, chest heaving and vision swimming. Then he asked, “You do not find my flesh good enough to mark? You wish to offend your groom when he is at the altar of your legs?”

You didn’t want to know what he was like when he was offended so you clung to his thick wrists. You made a mental note not to actually scratch him — that seemed a more criminal act than offending him – but the pleasure born from his ravishing of your pussy bordered on pain and you could not help yourself.

The very moment your nails caught on his skin and broke through, one of the hands that was keeping your shaking legs apart darted out. It landed on your chest. With brutish finesse, it ripped your bodice. Cool air grazed over your breasts. That hand latched onto a tit. 

“W-what– Oh God!” you screamed. 

Something…

Something on his palm was suckling your nipple, like a babe. 

Sukuna’s amused huff vibrated through your pussy, sending shivers up your spine. “No, not God, little bride. It is me. My mouth is making you feel good. But,” he adds after a little thought, “I do not mind being worshipped as a deity, heh.”

How could he be so nonchalant when two sets of mouths were eating you up, when your eyes were at risk of being permanently lodged at the back of your head? How could he make conversation so easily when his tongue, which felt so impossibly long, was wriggling through your walls and teasing the entrance to your womb? When the mouth at his palm was suctioning your nipple into that impossible space?

“Delicious,” he snarled, positively starved of your taste. “So fucking sweet. How can a human be so…so…divine? It defies nature.”

He wasn’t talking to you anymore. He was manically muttering to himself, reasoning with his own understanding of the balance of life. It baffled him. Bewildered him. Excited him. Sukuna could not get enough of you.

Whining, you called out his name, “S-Sukuna! It’s too -hngh!- much. I can’t.”

“Cum,” he said. 

Your head shook, thrashed. “No, I -hah- can’t!”

“Cum,” he repeated. No, commanded. Ordered. Demanded. 

And you could not deny a king. 

You fell apart on the dining table with a scream. Wetness rushed out of you as though a dam had broken. He drank it all up. Slurrrrrpeddd! every single drop until you were writhing again. And when he growled, “More,” and, “Again,” you could not deny him then either.

It might have been hours later before he decided he’d had his fill.

Aside from meal times, you don’t see him during the day. He’s always gone. No one will tell you why, and you don’t feel brave enough to ask. You merely assume he’s doing kingly duties — keeping the curses of the Underworld and of the forests in line, maintaining balance between humans and monsters, and protecting his people. 

In the meantime, you read in his room, which is now your room. There are plenty of books here. More than you could ever read in a lifetime, and certainly more than there ever were in your village. It’s hard to imagine he read any of the books in the collection but there are signs of use: folded pages, cracked spines, yellowing. 

He read each one you had opened. 

Poems. 

Novellas. 

Journals of travels beyond. 

You don’t mind the hours spent on your own; the goblins walking along still scare you so you avoid running into them. Of course, there’s always the option to ask during your mealtimes, in between him eating you out and actually consuming food, if you could visit the village (for you know returning was too much). Not that you especially wanted to go home. 

The villagers had sold you. 

Abandoned you.

They would not welcome you home. 

So you must consider the heart of the mountain your new home.

It’s simply about asking, about knowing the answer, about having the option.

But each time you considered bringing up your village to him, you backed out at the last second. He was not your husband. Not really. Not yet. He’s not even really your groom. That just seems like an excuse to do the salacious things you’ve been doing. At most, he’s your friend, and you cannot burden your friend more than you already have. 

Truthfully, it hardly matters what exactly he is to you. He’s nice. Attentive. Generous. He hasn’t killed you, he hasn’t hurt you, hasn’t massacred your village and your family, and hasn’t thrown back in your face any of those facts. 

That’s why every morning, when you know Uraume will escort you, you make sure never to be late.

You obediently, possibly excitedly, wait in front of the door for the knock. 

You slide a hand down your new dress; it appeared in the closet, and is your size. It certainly isn’t Sukuna’s. Red lace, soft silk, dainty bows, easy to move in and breathe — it’s a beautiful dress. Far more expensive and luxurious than anything you’d ever owned. The chest area’s a little tight; it pushes your breasts up more than you’re used to, and somehow you’re sure that was on purpose. 

When the door opens, Uraume’s patient self leads you out. They’re quiet. Respectful. They have been since the very first night. 

“Thank you.”

Cold eyes flit to you. “What ever for, my lady?”

“For saving me,” you say, fiddling with the lace on your dress. “If you hadn’t suggested that he humour me, Sukuna would have—”

“The king,” Uraume cuts in, spine straight and gaze fixed ahead now, “does only as he pleases. It is his right. He grows bored of his new toys very quickly, and it is my duty to keep him entertained. I saw an opportunity to fulfil my responsibility. That is all.”

You have no response to that. You only blink, surprised and berating yourself for being so. Sukuna may be your friend, in your eyes at least, but Uraume is not. Sukuna may not mind the fact that you are human, but others may not share the same sentiment. Maybe Uraume thinks you are a plague. A rat. That’s often the story humans spread about curses and their philosophies.

Soon, you reach the double doors leading to the garden. Before the doors are opened, they add, “It is also my duty to throw old toys away.”

When you turn to look at them, they’re already gone.

“Finally,” Sukuna says, exasperated. “I resent being kept waiting. Walk here with haste, little bride.”

Uraume’s words linger in your mind; Sukuna’s sharp rows of teeth flash washes them away. 

He’s in his loose robes, bottom set of arms tucked into the wide sleeves. A hand beckons you over, and the moment you are within reach, he snatches you up. You’re carried up in his arms, high enough to come face to face with him and see all four of his eyes watching you. 

Sukuna nuzzles the crook of your neck. He starts walking down the path. Branches tickle the top of your head. “Did you sleep well?” he wonders. His voice vibrates against your skin. It tickles.

Gripping his hair for purchase, you murmur, “Yes.” Then, shuddering once his lips explores the length of your neck, you ask, “Did you?”

“I do not sleep,” he casually replies. 

Within minutes, he’s managed to walk so deep into the garden that the surroundings have changed from exotic flowers full of vibrant colours and shapes to a forest of cherry blossoms. Petals whirl around you, swirling with the gentle wind. 

Above you, the cave walls have shifted into the blue and vast open sky. 

You gasp. “Are we…are we outside?”

The brightness almost sting your eyes; you have to narrow them with a wince to avoid being blinded. The smell of fresh air too nearly burns your nostrils. The chatter of live animals and insects are near deafening at first. Everything’s so different, so new, yet so familiar, so ordinary that it becomes magical to your senses. 

He parts from your neck to eye your reaction. The smile on your face makes his grip on you tighten. Sukuna says, “Yes. Your complexion looked rather dull without sunlight, and my bride must be at her very best at all times. So here we are.”

That doesn’t sound quite true upon his lips but you don’t question him on it. 

Instead, you beam at him and gush, “Thank you! Oh, it’s wonderful out.”

It’s easy to forget what the world above is like when you’ve spent countless nights under the mountain with rocks for company. 

Sukuna sets you down. You waste no time running around, laughing at the green grass that tickles your bare feet. 

The grass inside the mountain’s garden is black, with roots being red, for reasons you could not fathom. It’s coarser too. The softness of this green, human grass, in comparison, sets your heart racing.

There’s no wind inside the mountain, only a draught. This calm air is fresher, warmer, soothing on the body and doesn’t settle. 

And the warmth of the sun…

Beams of distant fire soaks into your skin. You sigh, a small smile on your lips. 

When you turn back, he’s sitting under a tree, all arms crossed and watching you. Always watching. Always aware of your every move, every position, every shift. 

Somewhat shy with the realisation that he’d seen the entire display, you stroll back to his side. 

“It is a lovely day out, yes?” he says. 

You nod, grinning. “It’s perfect. Just perfect.”

About to sit beside him, you let out a squeal when he snatches you up again and sits you down on his lap. All of his arms cage you. Sukuna rests his chin on the top of your head. 

“Now it is,” he mumbles, chest rumbling against your back. 

You smile again, more coy this time, and grateful he can’t see it.

The grass is untouched. No footprints mar it. No broken twigs, no distant rustling of hidden creatures. It is a forest, yes, but stripped of all the unease that forests usually carry.

It is only you and him. 

Your fingers curl into the fabric of his sleeve as another petal lands on your lap. You pick it up, studying it like it might vanish if you blink too long. Glancing back at him, you tilt your head slightly. “Did you…make this place like this?”

His chin presses a little more firmly into your hair, a quiet, possessive weight. “It exists on its own,” he says. “I allow it to remain.”

Another petal skims your lips. Without thinking, you laugh — light, bright, unguarded — as you try to catch it, only for it to slip away again, carried by a breeze that barely stirs the trees.

“You’re noisy,” he mutters.

Yet he does not tell you to stop.

You lean back into him instead, comfortable now, warm from the sun and from him both. One of his hands idly flicks a petal from your shoulder, the motion almost absent-minded, as though he doesn’t realise he’s doing it. Or perhaps he does. And simply doesn’t care.

Your gaze drifts across the clearing again, softer this time. Slower. Relaxed, you ask, “You said you don’t sleep. What do you do at night?”

Sukuna hums, fingers drumming on your stomach. “I take care of my business.”

That’s vague, you think, but you don’t push. Instead, you ask another question: “Why do you not return to the chambers?”

He chuckles, teasing. “How forward of you, little bride. We have not yet been wed and you’re already asking to share the marital bed. Is this how you humans do it in this day and age?”

Heat flushes your cheeks. You smack one of his wandering hands, which has crept up to cradle a breast, and huff, “No, that’s not what I’m saying. I just mean, everyone needs sleep. Surely even you, the King of Curses. I wonder how you rest is all.”

A moment of contemplation passes.

Did you say something wrong? Did you go too far?

Did he hate that you smacked him? 

“You are right,” he eventually says, head coming down to nudge you. His lips gently touches your cheek. “I do need rest. So allow me.”

His strong hands easily lift you off his lap, placing you down on the grass. Sukuna unfolds his large body and comes to lie perpendicular to you. His head weighs your thighs down. 

With a wave of his hand, a book appears in your left hand at the same time he takes your right and cradles it to his chest. “Read,” he instructs. “Read to me. And after my nap, I will eat your little cunt and slap your clit thrice to punish you for smacking my hand even just once.”

A flutter at your core has his eyes peering up at you, glinting. He must have sensed it. Somehow. Whether by feeling or by smell. How mortifying. 

“Or,” he starts, “I can eat you out now. I am fine with whatever order you prefer.”

“No, I’ll read,” you hurriedly say. You flick to the first page, reading the words out loud and only sighing in relief when his eyes flutter shut at the sound of your voice. 

Sukuna’s lips curl up in the corner.

And so a new tradition is born.

.

.

.

“My Lord,” Uraume repeats outside the door, “they wait for you.”

Sukuna growls out, “Let them. I am preoccupied.”

You’re pressed to the door, the cold wood warming up to the flush of your cheek. Bottom lip bitten in a desperate attempt to keep quiet, you can do nothing else but let him rut his scalding length between your thighs. 

This evening, he’d woken you up with his tongue buried inside your cunt. It seems after another whole day out in the garden, reading and strolling with him and tasting each other beneath trees before or after his naps, you fell asleep and were carried back into your chambers. 

Has it been days or weeks since you’ve built up this routine of spending the days together and spending evenings apart?

Time seems to pass so quickly and yet so slowly. It’s begun to lose all meaning to you. It’s not a fact you lament.

You jolted with a shriek at the hulking figure under your covers. “About time,” he said, throwing the heavy thing off and baring how his skin glistened with your spend to you. “I thought I might have to fuck you with both my cocks at once to wake you.”

He was joking, you were sure. Or hoped…

“Wake me?” you repeated, back arching. “W-why?”

Sukuna replied, a fang rubbing your clit and being especially careful not to cut you, “Because I must leave again, but I did not want to without hearing my name upon your lips.”

A whine tore through you. “Why couldn’t you just wake me up the normal way?”

Red eyes flashed mischievously from below. He licked a strike up your inner thigh all while not breaking eye contact. “Because normal does not taste as good.”

Uraume’s voice called out soon after, reminding him of the evening meeting. You stiffened. Could they hear you? Do they know what he was doing with you on the bed? 

Feeling embarrassed, you kicked Sukuna off and tried to push him to the door. You hissed, “You need to go. They need you.”

A hand slid inside your dress and groped your breast, cursed mouth appearing to nurse on your nipple. Another lifted your skirt up so that a third can coat its fingers in your cunt’s essence with the intention of easing the entry inside. 

“So does your cunt,” he said. “And I know which I would rather attend to first.”

Oh, he was filthy. So, so filthy.

And so persuasive. 

With you continuing, and struggling, to shake him off — legs quivering from the number his mouths had done to you today — you eventually made it to the door and was about to open it when something hot and heavy rested upon the curve of your ass and a second parted your puffy pussy lips. 

It was almost like he planned this. 

“Do not make a noise,” Sukuna rakishly rasped to your ear. Two rough hands gripped your bare hips, dressed hiked up over your ass. “Lest you’d like for Uraume to know what we’re doing.”

You definitely did not — they don’t like you very much. This wouldn’t help your case. 

But…

His cocks are rubbing you up and down and back and forth. His fat cockhead keeps catching on your pulsing clit, bumping the thing over and over again until your cunt’s drooling on his veiny length. 

“Press your thighs together. Tighter,” he commands, and groaning once you do. “Every part of you feels so good. It’s maddening.”

The pleasure building up in your core from a few thrusts is maddening. Truly. Irrevocably. You can’t tell him that, however. You can’t speak; if you do, a loud moan might slip out. 

Sukuna’s grunting in your ear. The sounds are driving you wild. As is the fact that your tits are out and are being squeezed relentlessly by two hands. Mouths take over his palms. They don’t hesitate to latch onto your nipples. You gasp, head thrown back into his chest. “Sukuna!”

“Mm, I know,” he huskily says. “Me too. Be good, pretty human. Just allow me to use your thighs for now.”

He’s so tall your hips have to be lifted up to reach his cocks. Your toes dangle over the ground. You hang precariously but you never worry for a second that he might drop you. 

Shlick! Shlickkk! 

The sounds are obscene and they’re all you can hear. Uraume must hear them too. Yet, they’re still out there, saying, “My Lord, please. The council grows restless.”

Sukuna’s livid growl shakes the door. “They. Will. Wait. Do not interrupt me again.”

His rutting speeds up. The sucking of his cursed mouths intensifies. The tip of the cock behind you is smearing pre-cum on your back, and the sensation has you clenching around nothing. 

“I’m cumming,” you whisper, eyes shut tight. “Nghhh!”

“Good,” he breathes out. “Good girl.”

You bring a hand down to your cunt, cupping the cockhead appearing and disappearing with every shallow thrust through your lips. It nudges your palm, squelching! and leaving wet sploodges of his cum and yours. Sukuna snarls.

And just like that, he cums too. His hot cum explodes into your hand, spilling through the cracks of your fingers and splatting onto the floor. More cum bursts on your back, dirtying your dress.

It’s so hot. Scalding. 

He keeps ploughing between your soft thighs, wringing out every last drop until he shudders with a growl and you slump completely in his grasp. 

When he pivots you around to check on you, specifically the cheek that had been pressed up against the door, you see his loose robe had fallen open. Some of his cum has ended up dripping down his skin. He’s tattooed and chiselled and hard everywhere. A true killing machine. You run your fingers down his chest, smearing his cum around, all the way to his stomach where a massive mouth manifests in time to clamp onto your wrist with a grin. 

His teeth don’t break skin. They don’t even hurt. They merely keep your hand inside, huge tongue slithering to lick every finger and every inch. Curiously, you grip the appendage. It really does feel like a real tongue. You stroke it.

Sukuna grips the back of your neck. He glares down at you. “You are trying to bring me to my knees, aren’t you?”

You blink. “No! Forgive me.” You try to pull your hand out on your own but his sudden grasp on your wrist stops you. 

“I did not say I did not like it.” He steps closer, licking his lips. 

“My Lord…” Uraume grits out through the door. 

Sukuna groans. “Yes! Alright!”

The door opens with a wave of his hand. 

“I should massacre the whole council, then I will have all the time in the world to bury my tongue inside your cunt. One day…” he mutters under his breath, seemingly actually considering the idea. You swat his back, cheeks flushed from embarrassment. 

Your dress falls back into place just in time for you to shield yourself from anyone else’s eyes but Sukuna’s. Not that it’s enough. 

Uraume’s chilling eyes see all — the sweat on your skin, the mess of your hair, the quivering of your legs, and the droplets of cum on the floor. They do not look disgusted by it. They look disgusted by you. 

“Be good for me, little bride,” Sukuna says, already stomping away. “I will look for you as soon as I am done with these fools.”

You take a step forward to Uraume, an apology on your tongue. 

They step back, straightening up. “These meetings are important,” they begin. “They ensure the other lords feel seen and heard. It maintains peace in our domain, and in yours. You mustn’t keep him from doing his duties. Not only is it impolite, it is also dangerous.”

“I’m sorr—”

“Do not apologise to me. Apologise to the king for wounding him,” they snap. You frown, confused. “The marks you left on his wrists that he refuses to heal himself? He leaves them open and bleeding. He openly plays with the cuts in front of the council, in front of his audience, smiling. Whispers are making echoes of a weakness in our king. If you do not care about your safety, then you must care about his.”

Thoroughly scolded, you stay rooted in place, watching Uraume follow after Sukuna. 

.

.

.

You take a walk through the garden this evening to clear your head. 

What Uraume said forced you to contemplate your relationship with the king. With Sukuna. They reminded you why you were spared in the first place — you’re a toy. A thing for entertainment. 

He is entertained by you now, by the pleasures your body provides. That, however, is not something unique to you; any woman can spread their legs, which is a crass thing to say, you know. But it’s true. To save their village, their people, to earn another day of life, or to even have the honour of serving a king, many women would offer their body up. 

And you are no special woman. You are quite average, all things considered. Never the most beautiful woman in the room, the most intelligent, or most pure of heart. 

The fact of the matter is, Sukuna will soon grow bored of you. 

What is left to be considered now is, will he spare you once he finds a new toy or will you be ‘gotten rid’ of by Uraume?

Will you be sad? 

The pang in your chest at the thought seems to suggest so.

Without realising it, you end up back in the cherry blossom grove. 

It looks different at night. Just as beautiful as during the day, of course, but different. Fireflies light up the air, mingling with the stars above you. If not for them, you wouldn’t know where you are, wouldn’t know that the tree whose bark you’re grazing with your fingertips now is the very same tree you sit under with Sukuna.

You were always under the impression that being a king meant you could do whatever you wanted. Uraume’s warning proved otherwise — Sukuna had people to please. And you’re who pleases him. 

For how long will you be enough?

With a sigh, you wonder if Sukuna really will come to find you after his meeting. He’s always busy in the evenings, and though you spent the hours of the night sleeping anyway, it’d still be nice to talk to him. His thoughts on books you’ve read are quite funny. 

He hates silly heroines who make bad decisions and always fall for the gloomy, morally grey men, yet hates the morally grey men more for their cheesy lines. “‘I control shadows and I have wings,’” he’d mimic, lowering his voice to a deeper rumble than his own. Then he’d say in his own voice, “Yes, so do about a thousand other fictional men. You are not special.”

Sukuna’s brows would furrow and he’d scoff whenever you’d get flustered by the erotic passages you’d be forced to read aloud to him as you sit in his lap, but he never suggests changing books. You theorise he really just likes complaining. 

“Pretty girl?”

You jolt. 

That voice…

“Suguru?”

Behind a tree, a silhouette hobbles over to you. “You’re alive! Oh, thank the heavens!”

The man falls into your arms. He’s really here. Your bestest friend. But he isn’t how you remember him — long raven hair have turned matted and dull, clothes torn and dirtied, and skin scratched up. You can hardly recognise him.

He grips your face, dirt rubbing into your skin. Scanning for any harm that might have befallen you, he smiles with relief upon seeing you’re perfectly well. “I’ve spent so many weeks wondering what had happened to you. I’m so sorry. God, I’m so sorry.”

His words are going in one ear and out the other; you can only question, with terror and trepidation, why his hands tremble, why he’s jumping at every little sound, and pulling you away inch by inch. 

“What happened?” 

Suguru’s eyes harden. His grip falls on your shoulder. Tight. Insistent. You wince. He says, “Listen to me carefully. We need to leave. We need to leave now. We’re too deep in the Curse King’s territory. There are beasts about. We must run now. Come!”

Bewildered, you’re yanked forward, stumbling over your feet. 

“Wait, no, I have to stay!” 

He’s not listening. 

Deeper into the forest, you’re pulled. The cherry blossoms morph into scraggly trees, leafless and with jagged branches like teeth reaching for you. The fireflies are gone now. You have to force your eyes to adjust as you trip over rocks and logs, and as your bare feet are caked in mud and moss. 

Looking back towards the light, you start to heave. “Sukuna…Sukuna’ll be mad. I have to go back.” You try to tear his hand off your wrist, digging your nails, but he can hardly feel it. “Suguru!” you yell, in near tears.

The man whirls on you, eyes wide and red. The bags under his eyes are darker than even the dark. They startle you. “What’re you doing? Why’re you fighting me? I’m trying to save you, like I should have done when your family decided to sacrifice you to the mountain.”

You shake your head. “It’s okay. I’m okay. I’m not mad at you, so if you’re doing this out of guilt, then you don’t need to. Just go, alright? Go before someone notices you’re here. I don’t know what the goblins, Uraume, o-or Sukuna will do if they find you here.”

Suguru recoils. “Sukuna? You call the monster of the mountain by his first name?” 

He doesn’t wait for you to answer. Something seems to dawn on him. His eyes properly take you in from head to toe — your clean skin, fresh hair, the plump in your cheeks, the expensive dress you wear, the lace, the silk, the jewels. 

He releases you, like you’d burnt him. 

“The king spared you…” he whispers in horror. “He spared you. And you’ve been living a life of luxury, as our village burned to the ground. You call him by his first name when his name was the last thing my family had screamed in their final moments. You wish to go back, to that thing, when I’m here and I’m taking you away…”

“What do you mean?” you ask, brows knitting together. “What happened to our village?”

It’s an impossible thing to imagine. Yet it shouldn’t have been. Many villages have suffered the same fate, or worse, over the many years since the rise of the curses. But your village was spared because of you, because of their offering, right?

A scathing laugh slaps you on the cheek. “You don’t know? You’ve been cozying up to that monster and you don’t know he wiped our village out from the map? That he massacred our people in one night? Are you just stupid or did he poison your mind?”

You fall back, shaking your head. “No, no, he wouldn’t.”

“He’s a killer!” Suguru roars. “He’s killed so many. Every single night. The very few of us that had survived have fled from village to village, trying to fight against him and his army of curses, but they always win. I’ve watched my friends, my allies, fall again and again. And yet, I thought of you every day. I fought for you, so I can return and save you from his torture.”

He scoffs. 

“But he hasn’t been torturing you, has he?” Suguru grips your face suddenly, bruising your cheeks as he spits out, “No, he hasn’t had to use force to get you to spread your legs!”

Tears stream down your face. “Stop it,” you cry out. “Stop it!”

Suguru presses his forehead to yours, lips trembling. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he repeats. “Let’s just go, alright? We need to go. You’re not safe even if you’ve earned his favour for now. He’s proven he isn’t a man of his word, and it’s only a matter of time before he tears you limb from limb like he had done to your mother and to your father, and to mine.”

Images of your home ablaze, of the night sky filling with the screams of the dying, of blood turning the ground crimson flash in your eyes. 

You’re a fool. You’d actually convinced yourself that he isn’t the King of Curses, that creatures from the Underworld don’t bow to him, that he hasn’t been keeping you to laugh behind your back. 

You’d allow yourself to believe you’re Sukuna’s bride. 

That you’re something special to him, even momentarily, even just for now. 

He’s looking at you impatiently, bouncing on his feet and listening out for any signs of hostile life in the forest. 

Taking a deep breath, you steel yourself. “Yes, yes. Let’s go. He’s in a meeting right now, he’ll be busy.”

And off you two go, running in the dark, hand in hand. 

Branches whip at your arms as you run.

The forest is different at night.

Where it had been soft, warm, almost dreamlike beneath drifting blossoms, it’s now a maze of shadows and silver light, the moon caught in the petals overhead. Your breath comes sharp and uneven, lungs burning, feet barely finding the ground as you stumble over roots and fallen bark.

Beside you, Suguru’s grip is firm. Unyielding.

“Don’t stop,” he says, low, urgent, pulling you forward when your pace falters. “We’re almost past the boundary—”

A roar splits the night.

It shakes the air. Rips through the trees. Sends petals scattering like frightened birds. The ground trembles beneath your feet, a deep, violent pulse that travels straight up your spine. It rattles your bones, grips your very soul and squeezes. It’s in equal parts wrathful and tortured. 

You freeze.

Suguru doesn’t.

“Move,” he snaps, tightening his hold on your hand, dragging you forward again. “He knows.”

Of course he knows.

This is his domain.

Every inch of it.

You run faster.

Faster than you ever have before, lungs screaming, vision blurring, your hand clutched in Suguru’s like it’s the only thing anchoring you to reality. The trees thin for a moment, moonlight spilling across a clearing—

THUD!

The earth cracks beneath the impact. You both skid to a halt.

He stands there, between you and whatever hope you thought you had.

Sukuna.

Tall. Unmoving. Waiting.

That deranged smile curls slowly across his lips, too wide, too pleased, too knowing. His eyes gleam in the dark, sharp and bright and utterly unhinged, drinking in the sight of you: your dishevelled state, your trembling form, your hand still clasped in another’s.

For a moment, he says nothing. Then, “You are leaving me?” His voice is almost light. Almost amused. “For some pathetic human?”

The words hit harder than the roar. Your chest tightens, a hot and jagged thing rising up your throat, drowning out the fear, the instinct to shrink, to hide, to obey. “No,” you snap, breath shaking. “I’m leaving because you slaughtered my village. You killed my family. You lied to me.”

He laughs. Low. Disbelieving. Growing. Sukuna tilts his head, as though genuinely intrigued by your accusation, by the audacity of it. “You mean the village,” he begins, voice slow, deliberate, “that threw you, bound and gagged, at the foot of my domain to be sacrificed?”

Each word lands like a blade, cutting deeper and deeper, and twisting to remind you of your lowest moment, of the humiliation, of the powerlessness you felt.

“The family that readily offered you up? That never looked back even once?”

Your grip on Suguru tightens.

Sukuna’s smile widens. 

“Yes,” he hums, almost fondly. Inspecting his hands, as though he can see the blood that still stains his unmarred skin. “Yes, I did. And very gladly.”

Something in your chest cracks.

“But I never lied to you,” he continues, eyes narrowing just slightly, the air around him growing heavier, sharper. “You just assumed that I would negotiate with lesser creatures. A fault that I have overlooked.”

Suguru steps forward, just enough to place himself between you and him. “You’re done,” he says, voice steady, though there’s tension coiled tight beneath it. “Whatever hold you think you have over her—”

Sukuna’s gaze flicks to him.

The shift is instant.

The amusement drains, not completely, but enough to reveal something colder beneath. Something ancient. Something violent.

“Careful,” Sukuna murmurs. “I do not take kindly to interruptions in my conversations with my bride.”

The air distorts.

Pressure builds, thick and suffocating, pressing against your skin, your lungs, your bones. Suguru doesn’t move, but you feel the way his hand tightens around yours, grounding you even as the world threatens to tilt. 

Why hasn’t Sukuna killed you both? Why hasn’t he tore you two apart? Why is he standing under the moonlight, humoured and talking so leisurely? 

Even till now, he’s not staring down at you with deadly intent. He’s conversing with you as if he’s asking how your breakfast is or what book you’d picked up to read to him today. It’s impossible to know what he’s thinking, and that’s more dangerous than if you knew he was going to rip you into pieces.

“She’s not your bride,” he spits, tugging you behind him.

Sukuna laughs again. Four eyes settle back on you. “Not mine?” he repeats, almost thoughtfully. “After everything I have given you?”

A step forward.

“After I took you in,” he continues, voice dropping, curling around the words, “fed you, dressed you, kept you alive when the rest of your kind would have happily watched you die?”

Another step.

Trying to steel your resolve, you retort, “You must feel betrayed, right? Imagine how I feel, Sukuna!”

“You think I feel betrayed?” he asks, head tilting again, that awful smile returning, sharper now. “No, little bride.” His gaze flicks briefly to your joined hands. Then back to your face. “This is not betrayal,” he says. “This is ingratitude. It seems I have spoiled you. Given you too much, too fast. I did not train insolence out of you. You have insulted me. And you will be punished.”

Suguru pulls you back a fraction.

“Run,” Suguru whispers.

His last words, before Sukuna flicks his wrist and his body is cut into thin ribbons of flesh, blood, muscle and bone. They fall into a neat pile by your feet, soaking the ground you stand on until your soles are caked in the remains of your only friend.

It happens so quickly, so suddenly, you couldn’t blink fast enough to protect your mind from the grotesque display. You saw it all. A man, a whole life, memories, a future, diminished to mush. 

Sukuna smiles wider.

“Yes,” he says, almost eagerly. “Run, little bride.”

You do. 

Feet slam against the forest floor. Bare soles strike damp earth. Sharp pebbles and stray twigs that snap beneath your weight. It hurts. 

God, it hurts. 

But you don’t stop. You can’t. The pain barely registers past the ringing in your ears, past the image burned into your mind, replaying over and over again. 

Suguru’s gone. Your village. Your family. Everything familiar. 

Your stomach twists violently, bile clawing up your throat, but there’s no time to be sick, no time to grieve, no time for anything except run.

Branches lash at you as you tear through the undergrowth, snagging against your dress, catching in the fabric and ripping it in jagged lines. The hem tears first, then higher, threads snapping with every desperate step until the once-soft material hangs in shredded strips around your legs. Chilling air kisses the exposed skin, quickly replaced by the sting of scratches, of thin lines of blood blooming where thorns and bark have caught you.

“So panicked. So scared.”

His voice.

Right there.

Warm. 

Amused.

Mocking.

You choke on a gasp, nearly tripping over your own feet as you lurch forward, heart slamming so hard it feels like it might crack your ribs open. He’s not behind you, or in front of you, and yet it sounded as though he was. 

“I have not even begun,” Sukuna murmurs somewhere, almost thoughtful. “And already you look like this. Adorable.”

The forest stretches endlessly before you, trees blurring together, shadows twisting into shapes that don’t exist. The petals that once felt soft now cling to your damp skin, sticking to the sweat, to the blood, to the places where your dress has torn open. Your lungs burn, each inhale sharp and shallow, your chest tightening with every second that passes. 

You trip.

A root catches your foot, sending you pitching forward. Your hands barely catch you before your face meets the ground, palms scraping harshly against rough earth. Dirt grinds into your skin, mixing with the blood already there.

“Oh dear,” he muses. “Such a clumsy thing, you are. That’s why I keep you locked up with all the pretty things in my domain. Do you see now, why you must stay with me?”

Getting back to your feet, you stumble forward. “I’m never going back with you!”

You ignore the way your hands tremble, the way your legs and your unused muscles scream in protest as you force them to move again.

Run.

Run.

Run.

“You know,” Sukuna continues, his voice drifting lazily through the air, “I expected more from you.”

There’s a rustle above.

A shadow moving faster than you can track.

Where is he? Why isn’t he snatching you up? Why is he drawing this out? 

He’s like a cat toying with a mouse, playing with his food, heightening your fear so you’ll taste even better. 

“I gave you everything,” he says, less conversational now, more accusing. “And this is how you repay me? Running off into the woods like a frightened little animal, with some other man, a man I should have slaughtered along with the other rats?”

Your breath hitches.

“Have I not been good to you? Have I not been enough? Enough to stay for. For even a goodbye.” 

A tear slips down your cheek, cutting through the grime. Devastatingly, a part of you notices the subtle crack of vulnerability. He masks it with amusement, with the undercurrent of anger, but you hear it all the same.

Still running, you yell, “You’re going to kill me, like you killed everyone. I’m just a toy to you!”

“And a very bad one at that,” he retorts without missing a beat. “Fear not — I will fix you once I catch you.”

“You’re not going to catch me,” you choke out, though it sounds weak, even to your own ears. 

Sukuna tuts and it sounds like it’s right by your ear. “Ah, but I already have.”

Wind flips your hair around, making it hard to see, so when you whip your head side to side, looking for hope, you don’t see the barrier ahead until it’s too late. 

Your body meets a hard wall. Two arms cage you in, unyielding. 

A scream pierces through the forest. It’s so far removed from you, you think for a second that someone else is facing the same fate you are, and your heart breaks for her. When reality sets in, you cease to stop feeling sorry at all. You just weren’t fast enough. No one could be against the Curse King. 

“Got you, little bride.”

In a blink of an eye, he has you carried up by your hips. 

“Mark my words,” he says, “you will never leave me again.”

His lips slam onto yours. 

Sukuna wastes no time shoving his tongue inside your mouth. A shocked moan escapes you. This is your first kiss, and with him. It’s not romantic like the stories described kisses to be. It’s not soft, tentative, gentle. It’s a kiss full of anger, of a need for vengeance, to dominate. 

Sukuna’s channeling every ounce of his feeling of betrayal, try as he might to deny it, down your throat. With the nipping of his teeth hard enough to draw blood, the suckling of his lips to taste the iron on his tongue, and said tongue exploring the crevices. 

“Just as delicious as your cunt,” he snarls, pleased.

You should fight him off, you know. But you can’t. He’s too strong, too all-consuming, too engrained in your body. It recognises his heat, his scent, his voice, and it wants more. So you don’t part from him; you clamp your teeth down on his bottom lip too, tasting his blood. 

It’s sweet. 

Sickly sweet in a way that rushes straight to your head.

He barks a laugh, a hand yanking your head back by your hair. “A biter…adorable.” He runs his tongue up the length of your neck before biting the curve. You moan. It doesn’t break skin, but the threat is there, and it has you clenching around nothing.

Sukuna takes a deep inhale of the air. 

His eyes flash red. 

“I killed your friend, decimated your village, and your cunt is still craving pleasure from me?” he asks, though it doesn’t sound very much like a question at all. “Your soul calls for me, do you realise it, little wife?”

“I’m not your wife,” you spit out. 

“Not yet, but in just a moment, you will be,” he promises. At whatever expression you wear on your face, another laugh cuts through you. “You do not realise the trap you have run into, do you?”

Blinking, you finally look around, processing your surroundings. 

They glisten with something under the moonlight — too thick, too dark to be dew. 

Blood?

Behind you, a litter of scarlet petals trails right up to where you stand, as though marking every step that led you here, every foolish attempt at escape laid out like a procession. Rows of benches stretch out on either side, carved from twisted wood and bone, thorns curling along their edges, skulls embedded into the structure.

The forest has gone still.

No insects. No birds. No wind.

Only him.

Only you.

And this…

This altar.

“A fitting setting, no?” Sukuna murmurs against your skin, his voice lower now, richer, laced with something disturbingly joyful. His grip on your hips tightens, grounding you in place even as your mind threatens to spiral. “For a union long overdue.”

Dress hiked up around your waist, a long, slithering thing worms up your thighs. You writhe, trying to run away from it, but he won’t let you. Teeth hook into your underwear. It riiiiiiiiiips it off.

His curse tongue licks your cunt with a vengeance, as though punishing you for withholding your pussy and its juices from it. Shlick! Shlick! So vulgar. So indecent. So unrestrained. 

Your pulse spikes. “This isn’t—”

“It is,” he cuts in smoothly.

The word lands like a final verdict.

Back arching, you’re powerless against the tongue prodding your entrance. He doesn’t mention it. Neither do you. You don’t mention how it’s far too big to enter you and yet it does, stretching your walls out with ancient powers you will never understand. 

Inside, it licks every inch, every pleat. Maybe your hips work down, trying to suck it deeper inside. Maybe it doesn’t. 

You’re far too focused on the fact that you’re finally at your wedding. A wedding you never wanted in the first place. A wedding he didn’t want either. He was just amused by the gall of the humans.

The domain itself is bearing witness.

There’s no need for friends, for family, for a priest. 

He only needs himself and you.

Sukuna turns you with absolute certainty, positioning you to face the altar. It’s carved from dark marble, veined with something that glows faintly beneath the surface, like embers trapped beneath ash. Symbols you don’t understand are etched into it, curling and jagged. 

“I chased you,” he muses, almost idly, though his hands never leave you, never loosen.  They feel your body. Squeezing. Groping. Grip pulsing. Drawing out gasps and moans. “I let you run. Let you tear yourself apart on branches and roots like a frightened little thing.”

His fingers drag over one of the scratches on your arm, smearing the thin line of blood.

“And still,” he continues, voice dropping, “you came exactly where I wanted you.”

Your throat tightens.

“I didn’t—”

“You did,” he says, almost gently now, and that softness is far more terrifying than anything else. “Every path you chose. Every step you took. It all led here.”

The petals shift under your feet as he guides you forward.

One step.

And another.

“To me.”

Your thighs are soaked with his saliva. The entrance to your womb is being tickled. Clit rubbed by a wide, flat tongue. You’re face to face with him, panting, eyes unable to tear away with the undeniable allure of his. He’s tasting you, consuming you, devouring. He just can’t help himself. Even when he should be rough, when he should punish you, should teach you a lesson you’ll never forget, he cannot. 

“Ngh! S-Sukuna,” you cry out as an orgasm tears through you. “Too much!”

For a moment, his gaze softens. “I know, I know. But you need to be stretched to take both of my cocks. Be patient.”

Blood drains from your face. 

That’s when you start thrashing in his hold, fear taking over you. “No, no! I can’t take both of them.” They’re too big. You’ve seen them up close; no one could take them. No human. One would already be asking too much. 

Both? 

It’d be a death sentence.

Sukuna slowly lays you down on top of the altar. 

Immediately, dark powers curl around your body. Wisps of shadow and smoke threading around your limbs, twirling your hair, brushing your cheek, unravelling your dress and slipping it off your body. They keep you in place.

You feel his energy touching you everywhere — stroking your lips, entering through your nose, sliding down your throat and filling your belly, flicking your nipples before wrapping around the hard bud and tugging, creeping down your stomach to stroke your throbbing clit. 

They distract you, shushing the cries of protest. 

“Beautiful,” he whispers as his eyes consume you whole. “So beautiful. And all mine.”

He touches your cunt, coating his fingers with your essence. Sukuna brings it up in the light between you. It’s red. 

Automatically, your legs move to close. The shadows stop you. They yank your legs further apart so he can slot himself between them. His robes have fallen off. A cockhead pokes your clit, smearing its pre-cum onto the pulsing thing. You gasp. 

When he licks your monthly blood off his fingers, you groan. “Stop! It’s filthy.”

“No, little bride. Nothing about you is filthy. Not in a way I don’t cherish, at least.”

Sukuna brings his wrist up to your lips. 

“Bite me. Hard. Hard enough to bleed. Take your anger out on me. All your hate. Your melancholy. Your grief. Let it all out,” he demands, growling. “I want it. All of it. Every part of you. Give it to me!”

The shadows pry your jaw open. That’s it. It’s them that makes your teeth take hold of his thick wrist and bite down with every force you have in you. It’s them that make your teeth sink in through all layers. 

Iron soaks into your tongue, trickling down your throat and warming your chest, like alcohol. 

He throws his head back, chest heaving. 

The forest rustles, cheering, trembling with pleasure. Meanwhile, the shadows are vibrating. Thrumming as it plays with your clit incessantly. As it pushes in the little holes of your nipples, pleasuring the fats from inside. You whine. 

“Fuck!” he bellows

Sukuna snatches his wrist from you. His hands grip the marble, veins popping and threatening to burst. He’s gulping down air and rolling tension off his shoulders. 

“You almost came, didn’t you?” you ask, smiling in victory. 

Those red eyes dart up to you. He licks his lips. “Yes. Yes, I did.” Sukuna tilts his head, hand wandering up your torso before groping your breast. Like you already know to expect, his curse mouth disappears from his stomach and appears on his palm. It suckles on your nipple, obsessed with trying to find milk where there is none. 

You moan, back arching. 

Two hands hold your hips. They tug you down, closer to his hips. 

“You expected me to be ashamed of your effect on me?” he wonders aloud, huffing in amusement. “I want you. I crave you. I own you. In the same way you want me, crave me, own me. The only difference is, I embrace it.”

He’s stroking his top cock leisurely, wringing out droplets you can’t tear your eyes from. Lips parting, your mouth begins to long to be filled. Your hips chase after the fat thing. His shadows keep you still. 

Sukuna continues, rubbing the wrist you’d bitten on your stomach, “I am offering everything I have, everything I am, was and will be. You need only take it. Take me. Use me.” He draws a symbol, a sigil, you don’t recognise. With his other hand, he collects the blood between your legs. The bloodied fingers hovers above the mark. “Claim me.”

There’s sincerity in his eyes, which seem to plead with you. 

Inside, a pull reaches for him. Desperate. Intent. Hysterical. It calls for him, pained. He calls back, even more so. 

You can tell, whatever you feel for him, he feels it tenfold. No, infinitely more intense. It must drive him mad. The fraction of what you feel has you wanting to keel over, to rip your skin off and wear his. How he can function, can keep his head on straight, baffles you.

He’s commendable. A true leader. An unholy king.

That’s why, when he utters a final syllable, you cannot resist the pull any longer:

“Please.”

“Yes!” you wail. “I do! I do! I claim you. All of you.”

Arms flailing, you scramble towards him. Like a leech, you attach yourself to him, to his lips. You sloppily kiss him, smearing the blood and dirt on your body all over his. Fire burns beneath your skin. You’re set ablaze. Your soul. Your heart. Your skin. Every part is touched by him. Caressed. Treasured.

Sukuna releases a relieved breath, as though he’d been put out of his misery. 

He holds you to him. He won’t drop you. You know it. You know it so deeply, it is like knowing your name. 

The forest roars. Branches thrash. Leaves fall in spirals around you, a wall shielding you from the rest of the world. There’s no going back anymore. You’ve given in. You’ve surrendered. 

Two hot things begin pushing inside. 

For a moment, you tense, anticipating pain. None come. Only delirious bliss. Drool drips down your chin. Your eyes roll back. 

The shadows haven’t stopped stimulating you outside and inside. You’ve been cumming over and over again. Little orgasms that make your limbs shaky. But the orgasm that hits you the moment both of his cock stretch your gummy walls?

World ending. 

Tantalizing.

Immense. 

Boundless.

The most glorious gift.

You scream. 

“Yes, that’s it,” he coaxes. “Perfect. So perfect. My wife. Mine now and forevermore.”

Soon, he bottoms out. Hips flushed. Torsos pressed together tightly. Not a single thing could get in between you. You feel every inch of him. Every ridge. Every vein. Every nudge of his fat cockheads competing to draw out your pleasure most. 

You thought it’d feel overwhelming. Too much too soon. Now, you can’t get enough. You think, if only one cock had entered you, you would have mewled and whined for the other to join.  

“See?” Sukuna whispers into your ear, teeth scraping the shell. “You took me so well. Such a well-behaved girl. You were -hah- made for me.”

In spite of his teasing words, his whole body is trembling with the fight not to cum too soon. Your constant clenching, fluttering around both of his cocks, the way you choke him right to the base, has him at the very edge of sanity, which you doubt he had to begin with. 

He’s ploughing his cocks inside you. 

Thrusting with vigour that you feel at your fingertips. Your toes curl, back arching and head thrown back. Sukuna sucks at your neck, obsessed with the intensity of your scent there. 

He’s like an animal let loose. He’s rutting into you so fiercely you fear he’d break your bones. But your king would never hurt you. Not in a way you wouldn’t like.

A crazed laugh echoes in the night. 

You rake your fingers through his hair. Then you yank his head back, as he had done to you. “More, Sukuna. Fuck me more. I want to cum on your cocks over and over again. I command it, husband.”

Both lengths throb inside you. 

Sukuna’s eyes cross. They’re glazed over. “Yes,” he mumbles without even realising it, thoroughly enthralled in your very being, “whatever you want, my beautiful, precious wife.”

Hours must pass. 

Hours of fucking you in the air, on the altar, on the ground, against a tree. 

His hands explore your body till he’s memorised the curves and the planes. You do the same. 

The squelching of your cunt, the slapping of skin, the mingling of blood with cum, the reverberating of groans and moans envelopes you in a hellish cocoon. The bullying of his cocks through your sore, sensitive walls, the sucking of his curse mouth on your tits, the devouring of his mouth to yours, the fwop fwop fwop! of his balls on your poor clit — all of it sends you over the edge again and again and again and again, even once you think you will never feel better than the last.

You cannot get enough of him.

And he cannot get enough of you. 

Sukuna whimpers your name out before and after every peak he reaches. He fills your belly up with his cum. It perpetually drips out of you. You can taste the salt on your tongue. It coats you from head to toe. 

“My wife,” he exhales, like announcing to the world. “My life…my love.”

Where he ends and you begin blur.

Time ceases to exist. The rest of the world vanishes. 

In this moment, in his arms, bouncing on his cock as he gazes upon every flicker of pain and pleasure on your face, only you two matter. 

.

.

.

The sun has started to rise. 

You watch it climbing over the hill, head laid out on Sukuna’s chest. He plays with your hair, twirling it absentmindedly. You’re both naked. Limbs thrown over each other. Tangled.

Juices and blood have dried over your skin. Some of it your own. Some of it his. 

A deep satisfaction courses through your veins. 

Sukuna’s chest rises and falls beneath your cheek.

There is something almost surreal about it — this stillness, this calm. The same body that had hunted you through the dark now lies beneath you like an anchor, solid and unyielding in a different way. The heat of him seeps into your skin, bleeding into your bones.

His fingers continue their idle path through your hair.

A strand slips loose, caught and wound around his clawed fingertips before being released again. 

Your body bears the marks of the night: faint bruises bloom beneath your skin, teeth marks darkening where they had once stung, thin scratches tracing your limbs from your flight through the forest. Sukuna’s hands soothe any marks he left on you, not regretful at all. His actions can be likened to basking proudly in the art he made. 

All the while, you’re tracing the marks you left on him too — the scratches, the bite marks, the bruises he allowed you to give him. You run your fingers down his tattoos, avoiding the mouth on his tongue, which keeps licking you or trying to capture your hand. A very naughty thing indeed.

“Sukuna,” you murmur. He grunts. “I’m hungry. Let’s go back home.”

“How you have any room left in your small belly after drinking so much of my cum, I cannot fathom,” he voices out, curious and concerned. You smack his chest. “Yes, dear. I hear you. Let us take a bath in the pool and I will have a servant bring us food. Perhaps a goblin.”

As he stands up, you frown. “A goblin? Why not Uraume?”

Uraume’s his favourite. His right hand. His shadow. The goblins, on the other hand, he barely tolerates. You’ve seen him kick the poor things out of the way too often. Once or twice, you’ve reflexively tried to help them up, but they growl at you. You think they quite like being kicked about. It seems to be an honour to them.  

Under his breath, as Sukuna stretches his body with a lazy yawn, he says, “Uraume is on time out.”

Using his outstretched hand to bring you to your feet, you ask, “Why? What happened?”

Petulantly, he grumbles, “The insolent brat took it upon themself to lead that waste of space human I tore to shreds to you. It seems they thought you were a bad influence on me.”

To punctuate his last sentence and emphasise the absurdity of the idea, he grins wolfishly down at you, more specifically at his cum dripping down your thighs. Cheeks heated, you press them together. 

It’s hard to believe this evening had been orchestrated by Uraume, but also it’s not a huge leap in logic. They’ve made their point of view abundantly clear — you just didn’t think they would have tried to have you face imminent death crossing through the forest where creatures of the Underworld lurked. 

“Are you…are you going to hurt them?”

Sukuna cocks a brow. “Would you like me too?”

“No,” you say immediately and sincerely. “Blood’s already been spilled tonight. I don’t want to be the reason someone gets hurt again.”

“Very well. Let me know if you change your mind. They sure do get upset if I let someone else cook my meals.”

You giggle.

Then, all the humour dies out of you. 

Exhaustion has set in your limbs. 

Whatever energy had overtaken you earlier is gone now. 

His breath grazes your cheeks, warm against the cold air. One of his thumbs collects a tear right from your lashes. You didn’t even know you’re tearing up. He brings the droplet to his lips and licks it away. You hold your breath as he mutters, “Watching you run from me, hand in hand with some other man, hurts less than seeing you cry for him. It makes me wish I had made him suffer more before his end.”

“I’m not crying for him.”

Sukuna’s crimson eyes flit to you. 

“Oh?”

Sudden sobs escape your lips. Your knees give out beneath you. He catches you, lifting you up in his arms. He always does. You bury your face in his neck. Sukuna rubs soothing circles on your back, cooing. “My ferocious, little wife…what is wrong? Did I hurt you too much? Do you…do you regret marrying me?”

The insecurity in his voice, the hesitation to ask, to hear a truth he would be distraught to hear, make you cry harder. 

“Please don’t ever throw me away. I know I shouldn’t have left last night, but I really thought you were going to kill me. And maybe you will later. But please don’t,” you plead through your tears. “I want to be with you forever and ever.”

Silence passes. 

A pregnant pause.

He laughs. 

He actually laughs. 

It’s full bodied. His stomach mouth joins in. “Hilarious! You never fail to entertain me with your constant overthinking. Always so afraid. So on guard. Too precious! You are just too adorable. You will rot my teeth.”

Weakly, you lay a barrage of punches on his chest. “Don’t laugh at me, you brute. I’m your wife. Respect me.”

Sukuna nods patronisingly, but he does shift his laughter into light chuckles, “Alright, alright. Forgive me, little wife. You are simply so delightful, so naive, and pitiful, I cannot help myself.” 

“Put me down.”

“Never.” Sukuna presses a kiss to your cheek. He nudges your face away from his neck so you will meet his gaze. Seriously now, voice with his sacred vow, “I have no intention of throwing you away. Not since I laid eyes on you and felt a thing I did not know existed beat in my chest.”

Holding your breath, you listen to his confession. 

“There is no world,” he continues, quieter now, though the weight of it presses heavier, “in which I allow you to slip from my grasp. Not heaven, not earth, not whatever fragile afterlife your kind clings to. If you are taken from me, I will unmake it. If you are hidden, I will find you. If you are reborn, I will recognise you.”

Shyly, you ask, “Even if I have a different face?”

Sukuna nods. “In whatever form, whatever shape, whatever state, you are. Wherever, whenever, you find yourself in. I will recognise you by your soul. For yours make up my own.”

He leaves a kiss to your forehead, to each of your eyes, to the tip of your nose. You giggle.

Then, huffing in amusement, he adds, “It certainly helps that we are bound by curse marriage. Not by your flimsy, human paper. But by blood. We curses take blood bonds very seriously. If we are to part, for whatever reason, we would both die, so it is in your best interest not to throw me away.”

That should startle you. Should scare you beyond belief. Instead, you think it’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever heard. 

“I’m holding you to that,” you mutter against his lips.

Sukuna nuzzles your nose with his, a smile mirroring yours. 

“Yes, please do.”

Before the sun kissed the horizon, Sukuna’s attendants got him ready for the day like routine. Bringing in a fresh set of clothes to your shared chambers, strips of human flesh awaiting him in the dining area for breakfast. The same before you got here, and after the matrimony. And in these very chambers do they leave a sloppy mess for you to deal with, along with a sideways glance to a brazier they’ll abandon. Clothes strewn across the floor, chests popped open and spilling with silks, partition still propped open.

All for you to deal with. The wife of the King of Curses.

“Impudent, bare-faced aides,” you mutter, expression caving inwards. And oh, do you realize how much you’re starting to sound like your husband.

It was only your first season here, and you’d been made a pushover. Initially, you hadn’t thought too much on it. They’d been contemptuous when you were simply the lowly courtesan that Ryomen Sukuna brought to his shrine to fuck on occasion.

Not a soul in these walls had reckoned that Ryomen Sukuna would ever take on a wife, much less you, so you welcomed the transition with grace.

You’d dressed yourself, bathed yourself, on occasion offering a hand in the kitchen to the faint servants even when your husband sneered at your docility. You had taken their adverseness as unfamiliarity, hoping that with time the tensions would ease up as they’d gotten to know you and slowly come around. But it hadn’t, they hadn’t welcomed you. If anything, the mistreatment only mounted.

And their abuse can only go so far, a woman pushed to her wits end.

Propping your chest open, you dress yourself in your kimono and paint your lips red. A fierce look contrasting the serenity coloring your face than you are used to.

Your husband is out hunting. His mount galloping through the mountains as he crosses either dwellers or game, bringing back whatever he can by mid-afternoon. This winter has been rather harsh, so it isn’t uncommon for him to unleash his blaze across an unsuspecting village and bring home treasures.

That gives you enough time to set things right, and if all else fails, you’ll at least avoid your husbands taunts while he basks in your humiliation. It seems you’ve married a cruel bastard. He’d lounge on his chair and guffaw at the thought of you standing up for yourself and failing.

Additionally, he’s resided with these people long before he’d come to know you, so who knows if he’ll take their side in such an accusation.

No, this is something you want to fix yourself.

—

“I have come to fetch you, My Lady. Is there assistance you require?”

With your posture ramrod straight, you pace the length of the serving room in the east wing of the shrine. Ages ago, it was built for guests, though Sukuna hosts nothing of the sort. It is simply ornamentation now, left to collect dust and wither.

“These zabutons. They have been eaten away by moths,” you express, tone level. “Replace them at once.”

Tsumigi, one of Sukuna’s attendants, dips her head, arms slipped into the sleeves of her kimono. “I see, My Lady. But it seems that Master Sukuna asked to keep this room untouched.”

Your gaze meets hers over your shoulder, lips thinned. You can hear the smirk playing in her tone. “And I am ordering you to find replacements. Do you dare to defy me?”

By now, you would have expected her to give in. Toss aside the harsh theatrics, and obey her lady. But instead, she meets your gaze with a grin.

“If it is to satisfy Master Sukuna, then yes.”

She excuses herself as you seethe, your eye twitching in disdain.

This is going to be harder than you thought. But you musn’t give up. This is as much your home as it is there’s, and you tend to see this through.

—

You arrive in the dining room for breakfast—the scent of steamed rice and dashi stock broth wafting into your nose and blossoming a hunger deep in your gut. For the most part, your breakfasts are uneventful, though they can be rather lonely.

You drum your fingers across the low table you’re seated at on a cushion, taking a sip of your steeped tea and allowing it to diffuse through your frayed nerves.

A new plan. One that will assert your authority over the attendants…

Or, you can gain their favor.

Both routes are rather humiliating. Attempting to mirror your husbands attitudes, or grovel as what he despises. You can picture his mocking of you crystal clear.

The soft taps of your fingers increase, sounding into the mahogany finish, cogs and wheels churning in your mind.

The vapor from your untouched and lively miso soup curls upwards, soft tendrils billowing up before dissipating.

Your gaze thins on a partition across the room, mindlessly studying the decorative flora.

Appeasement or authority.

You turn it over a countless number of times, chalking up half-witted plans, mentally cursing yourself out. It shouldn’t be this hard, seeing as you’d scavenged around half of your life for scraps before joining a brothel once you’d come of age.

Though you find yourself at a standstill with the people who call this place home.

And it is unbelievably infuriating.

Snap!

Suddenly, your chopsticks break in half in your hand, small fractures of splintered wood flinging across the table and littering the clean surface.

You mutter curses as a small girl finds her way to your side, deeply bowing her head and attempting to atone.

“I apologize, My Lady. Is the food not up to your standards?”

You find yourself stilling at her soft tone. Huh. Her sincerity is refreshing.

“Uh, no. It seems I am lacking an appetite this morning, but I can assure you that the food is plenty flavorful every other morning.”

You give her a half hearted smile as she wipes the table with a rag that was tucked into her apron. It seems she is part of the kitchen staff.

A groove hooks between your eyebrows. “I’m sorry, it seems that I do not recognize you. What is your name?” you offer her a tilt of your head, the corners of your lips twitching upwards when she nearly topples over her feet and straightens beside you.

“Furi, My Lady.”

You chuckle, soft, your eyes forming crows feet from how fitting her name is.

振り. A shake. A tremble.

A fall.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Furi. Now, tell me. Why is it that I have yet to come across you? After all, we share these walls,” you express, a genuine yet perplexed smile creasing your cheeks.

She lifts her gaze from the hem of her kimono, reddened ears and hazel eyes locking with yours. “It is a long story, but I am the chef, My Lady.”

Your eyebrows lift in intrigue. “So you say? A girl this young with such a knack for cuisine,” you smirk, lifting a spoon to dip it into the miso soup. You bring it back to your mouth and feel yourself slacken, your tensed up muscles unkinking. A sigh of relief puffs from your lips, lashes nearly dusting shut.

“You are too kind, My Lady.”

There is a beat of silence where she retreats to her previous spot, off in the corner. She makes herself undetectable, like how you didn’t notice her while your breakfast was served. The new sets of chopsticks find their way to your hands, before you begin working away at your steamed rice.

“If I may,” Furi starts again, and you find yourself glancing over your shoulder see her. “Is everything alright, My Lady?”

“Why wouldn’t they be?” you lie through a bite, globs of chewed rice sliding down your throat.

She hesitates, swaying where she stands. “The last thing I would want to do is overstep and upset you… but you seem quite… untuned as of late. Are you sure nothing is out of the sort?”

This young girl is quite attentive, though the intention of her actions escape you. Does she really seek to console you? Are you questioning her sincerity as it’s been so long since you felt something of that likeness?

You place your chopsticks down, turning to face her. You’ve met young girls like her during your time at the brothel—innocent yet capturing a word of compassion. Naturally, you would beckon her to come sit beside you, however you do not want to offend not scare her. So you speak to her from where you sit.

“How long have you been living her, Furi?”

“Just over two years now, My Lady.”

You nod, inwardly noting this information. She’s been here quite some time, and you’re wondering if she’s pissed someone off for being secluded to the kitchen but out of your sight.

“And what can you tell me of this shrine?”

She sways again, her feet doing a sort of dance beneath the flounce of her skirt. She’s nervous.

“There is no one here to punish you. You may speak freely,” you offer, eyeing as she smooths out the creases of outfit.

She is still reluctant, so you hope the silence will prompt her to speak. Swiftly, it does.

“Though I am confined to the kitchen, I am not without notice,” she begins, swallowing thickly and avoiding eye contact while she twists her hands between each other. “I see the way the attendants treat you.”

Her directness makes you falter, your mouth parting to say something but words fail you. What exactly are you supposed to say? Defend your tormentors? Complain about their aggression?

“I see,” you resort to acknowledgment, biting the inside of your cheek. “For a moment, I believed it was all in my head.” The chuckle that leaves you is dry, coating the inside of your throat like raw honey. Thick, uncomfortable.

“I apologize for it. On their behalf, you have done nothing to deserve such treatment,” she hastens her words, eyes widening as she watches you carefully. “However, a bit of context might prove beneficial.”

Context?

You cock your head to the side at her cryptic words, watching as she takes a tentative step forward.

“Well, then. Do tell,” you say, clearing your throat ad adjusting your posture. “It seems I am always outside of some long running, cruel joke.”

Furi glances past her shoulder, eyes squinting when she sees a shadow pass the parchment of the sliding doors. “Not here. Not now. I will tell you everything I know in due time,” she affirms, biting the inside of her cheek.

There are far too many attendants lurking nearby, and not enough time as the allotted duration for breakfast is already coming to an end.

“Very well. I hope to speak to you soon,” you reckon, returning to your cold rice and stale tea.

Furi bows and dismisses herself, and another attendant steps into the room to replace her.

It is Tsumigi yet again, a frequent contender to your misery. Her cheeks are flushed as if she’d been outside in the relentless cold tending to something, the hem of her skirt riding up and tucked into her sock awkwardly.

Bowing, she greets you and offers to clean the table, a snarl playing at her face. Most likely, the attendants are aware of your humiliation that unfolded in the serving room just an hour ago.

Gathering your bearings, you get to your feet, smothering a huff, and step past Tsumigi.

Wordlessly, you dismiss yourself before you offer her any more gossip for tea time.

—

The next few days, you find yourself in a bleak routine. Each morning grows colder, Sukuna’s place beside you empty every morning as he tends to foreign affairs. Scorching villages or plaguing the capital. Doing whatever he does to satisfy his insatiable hungers as the lands grow fallow.

It doesn’t help that you have to tend to the brazier on your own through the night as winter harshens, but you’ve endured worse.

Furi doesn’t serves you breakfast personally, that day she spoke to you serving as a fluke. The attendants seemed to be understaffed and placed the catering on the chef. But it comes to your attention that Tsumigi was busy with her stableboy that clarifying morning, the whispers of gossip curling through the shrine walls easier to pick up on as you attempt to make yourself as imperceptible as Furi.

Tsumigi is making a ridicule of you, and for why? You cannot come to fathom. The two of you barely exchange words aside from repulsing pleasantries.

It is late one night when Sukuna is bathing after coming home soaked in sweat and caked in dirt when you linger towards the kitchen.

You discover Furi hunched over a large pot, dipping her finger in to taste a broth that makes your stomach growl despite having dinner a mere few hours before.

“It smells wonderful,” you offer, tugging your obi loosely over your yukata after quickly throwing it on.

She nearly jumps out of her skin, setting her ladle down and bowing her head. “M-My Lady… I wasn’t expecting you at this hour,” she mutters, folding her hands into her kimono.

You close the proximity, leaning over to get a whiff of tomorrow’s lunch. “It seems you weren’t expecting me at all,” you press, lifting an eyebrow giving her a slow appraisal. “Is something of the matter? I have been waiting to speak with you.”

It wouldn’t be far-fetched for this young girl to avoid you after telling you such secrets, regretting every letting you in or offering clarification.

Furi cringes, her brunette bangs falling over her forehead. “I believe that one of the attendants might have been privy to our conversation.”

Your careless grin drops. “Is that so?”

She nods, again with her swaying.

You sigh, tongue darting out to wet your lips. “Are you safe? Have the attendants been mistreating you in anyway?”

Weakly, she shrugs. “Not any more than they already have.”

You deflate at her words. Her situation doesn’t seem much better than yours, except she doesn’t have a title to protect her. You endure passivity, while she very well may endure aggression. “I sincerely apologize, Furi. It was not my intention to get you tangled up in my troubles, but it seems that we have a lot to discuss.”

The attendants, besides the ones tending to Sukuna in the bath, have retired to their quarters, leaving the kitchen open for the two of you. Nabbing a stool, you rest beside her while she makes you a cup of tea and tends to her broth.

“There was a woman before you,” she starts, a look painting her face as if she wants to bite her tone off, “just three change of the seasons ago. With bushy eyebrows and hair as long as a yōkai and believed her nudity to be a pastime.”

An ache blooms behind your ribs, but you bite it down. It’d be foolish to think that you were Sukuna’s first anything, seeing as your occupation before this marriage had been as a courtesan.

Still, it hurts.

You smother a sigh but it escapes you.

A pang to dwell upon for another time.

You nod for her to continue.

“She was incredibly beautiful, a sorcerer just the same. A daughter of the Fugiwara clan with a technique to their standard. But…” she cocks her head to the side, as if reliving her memories in real time. “Master Sukuna spared no interest in her. He simply tolerated her. Her slaughter meant a headache in the capital that he had no patience to deal with.”

The broth simmers on a low kindled heat, the sound of ash sparking and wood shifting.

“She was wildly obsessed with Master Sukuna, clinging to his side and attempting to seduce him at every corner. He pried off her pawing hands when they grew too grabby, and, unsuccessfully, I tried to warn her. Her attitudes were dangerous, and she believed she formed a friendship with me when I wanted to avoid the spilling of blood across these tatami mats.”

Ah. Benevolence had been her fall from grace.

“The attendants here had quickly grown tired of her, irritated that her mood swings affected the Master’s, which in turn made their livelihoods all the more difficult.”

You drop your head, a sigh wound of stress tricking from your lips. “And they took their grievances out on you…”

Furi nods carefully, tending to the flickering flames beneath the pot.

“… and what they’re doing now is all the same. I am just another disposable woman they’ve come to reject.”

She doesn’t confirm your words, but her silence says enough. “There is more, My Lady.”

You find yourself tapping your bare foot against the cold flooring.

“One morning, she had challenged him to a fight, expressing her undying love and desire to be the individual to take his last breath.”

Her words, thick with distress, slam into you.

It is very clear how the result of the fight came out, seeing as Sukuna still breathes and she is nowhere to be found.

Your blood roars in your ears, your foot now at a bouncing cadence on the floor. You drown out her next words, but catch bits and pieces of it. It seems that following the slaughter of his past admirer, the capital had unleashed an outcry. Sukuna had no interest in hazing the capital as it brought him a plethora of benefits, but it was inevitable. The result of the achingly long war had been catastrophic—hundreds and thousands of men slaughtered by his hand before he stalked into the capital with the head of their general. The shrine itself reaped the consequences, attendants beheaded for a single misstep and food running scarce as hunting had been replaced with frequent battles.

It is a possibility that a battle near the capital had been when he’d first spotted you in your pleasure house.

“Furi, I must thank you,” you confess, running your fingers through your hair and getting to your feet. Move, you need to move. “There is plenty that I must do now, so I will dismiss myself. But make it known, I will not let this insubordination and blustery ravage on.”

You lean forward, placing a hand on her shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze. Your heart clenches at the thought of this young girl enduring such harassment without a single shoulder to lean on.

“Leave it to me. I shall mend the divide that splinters the shrine.”

Furi’s tense expression melts away into something of relief, and you want to commit this image to memory to ensure you see this through.

“However, before I go, I have one last thing to ask of you.”

“Anything, My Lady.”

You release a strained breath.

“The name of this woman. What was it?”

—

You leave Furi in the kitchen, your bare feet slapping against the narrow corridors. The sconces adorning the walls flicker, flames licking at each other and casting your shadow long and obtuse across the ground.

Once you realize you’ve reached your husbands chambers, you realize how much time has passed between dinner and the present.

He will be curious as to where you’d gone off to. Often times, he grows restless in your absence.

You sigh. In all of the time you’d known Sukuna, he’d been vexingly talented at reading you and picking up on your mannerisms. You only pray that he is exhausted from his eventful day to spend his time analyzing you.

Though it seems you are woefully ignorant of just how energetic your husband tends to be, the sight you open his chambers to jarring.

He’s in nothing but his pale sirwal, his lower pair of arms crossed behind his back while he presses himself to the floor, and back up. His upper pair of arms flex, palms splayed on the ground, hands massive enough to curl around your throat and then some.

Push-ups.

Realistically, there has to be a way to maintain such a massive physique, so it isn’t outlandish that he works out. But still, you find yourself caught off guard. Innocent as ever, but heat still manages to fist low in your loins. Your gaze trails the length of his corded forearms, veins bulging across his biceps, deltoids rippling through effort.

Not the first instance to cross your mind, but you’d find immense pleasure in biting his arms.

You are well aware that he has sensed your presence ever since you found yourself in the kitchen up until you were standing outside his chamber doors, so he doesn’t flinch when you gawk at him from just a few feet away.

“Where did you run off to?” he presses through a grunt, lowering himself where his chin nearly brushes the straw mat.

Straight to the point.

“I was hungry, there were some fruits left in the kitchen,” you lie, steeling your nerves and praying you don’t betray yourself.

He continues his repetition, though he finally slides his attention upwards towards you. Deep pools of blood red assess you, his brow line furrowing in thought. “We had dinner merely an hour ago. Do not tell me you are with child and stuffing yourself for two.”

You splutter, shaking your hands, a nervous chuckle leaving you. “N-no, My Lord. Nothing of the sort.”

He finishes his workout, before standing to his feet and rolling his shoulders back, looking everything but convinced. “That title from your lips disgusts me and you know it. Do not address me as such again,” he mutters in mild irritation, padding over to the door and peeling his socks off.

You deflate, wanting to slap yourself for how easily you squirm under his scrutinizing attention. But, you cannot tell Sukuna of your current situation. There are a number of ways it could go once it is in his orbit, and you want to avoid majority of them.

Untying your obi, you toss it on the top of your chest before making your way towards the bed when a pair of heavy arms snake around your waist, pulling your back flush against his chest.

“It seems that my efforts have gone to waste,” Sukuna mutters, the lower pair of his hands settling on your waist while the others work their way towards your breasts. Melting, you toss your head back against his torso, lashes dusting shut. He leans forward, sniffing the plush of your cheeks, of your lips. He has a thing for your scent, an admission you were privy to when he had you squirming beneath him. “This womb isn’t swollen with my heir.”

Weakly, you giggle through the butterflies, scrunching your nose. “We have yet to discuss such matters,” you deflect, reaching a hand up to grab a fistful of his silky, salmon-colored hair. “Take this up with me another time.”

Sukuna cocks his head thoughtfully, then spins you around and tosses you over his shoulder with terrifying ease. “Foolish woman. You think I do not see how you gawk at the stable hands son, how you beam with such idiocy at the thought of carrying your own?” He lands a harsh slap against your ass, punching a squeal out of your throat, before tossing you onto the bed.

“Speaking in circles. Tch. We might as well practice tonight,” he prompts, fingers curling around the waistband of his sirwal before dropping it, leaving only his loincloth.

Two heavy cocks straining against the too-small fabric. Two cocks you’ve felt slipping down your tongue, dragging inside your cunt, stretching your ass—.

You shake away the dizzy feeling mounting you, all splayed out with your parted yukata, your bare form his to feast his gaze upon. And he does so unabashedly, canines clicking as four crimson slits rest heavy on your lips, your breasts, dancing down your navel, to your spread legs pooling with arousal.

You wonder if he’s looked at her this way.

Inwardly, you cringe. You shouldn’t be thinking of her when you’re about to be taken by him.

The mouth rending his stomach grins with earnest, drool coating its lips in a sheer shine. The tongue hangs out limply, desperate for a taste of your sex.

“Come,” he mutters, two arms folded across his chest with the other two propped at his hips. His voice, impossibly deep and raspy, sends heat prickling over your skin, coupled with a flush that suits you.

You crawl to him, slowly and allowing your hips to sway freely beneath your yukata, not once tearing your gaze from his hardened stare. His pectoral muscles shift, a muscle in his jaw pulsing like he’s holding back from pouncing at you.

You come to a slow before him, lifting off of your haunches and kneeling. Your eyeline barely meets his chest, allowing you to bask in the immense size difference between the both of you.

Sukuna chuckles low, running his tattooed tongue over his teeth. “You have always been a bad liar.”

You feel your heart dip behind your ribs.

“Excuse me?”

His lower pair of hands come down to grab your wrists, holding them up beside your head. He leans forward, face mere inches from yours, his warm and iron-laced breath fanning over your lips. “Your breath smells the same as it did during dinner. I didn’t take my wife for a cheat,” he grunts, upper lip peeling back in disgust to bare his teeth. It’s true, there are no remnants of citrus or sweetness hanging from your lips. “Now tell me. What affairs were you tending to between dinner and now?”

Unbearably, your pulse quickens.

You twist in his grip, but his fingers only tighten, nearly bruising your skin. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you grit out.

The seams of his mouth curl upwards, before he’s closing the distance between his cheek and yours, rubbing them against each other. His facial crest, the texture like roughened and cracked tree bark, digs into your flesh and you bite back a curse. “My wife, stubborn and obstinate as always,” he grumbles into your ear before catching your lobe with his teeth. You hiss, casting a cheek away from his cruelty, before one of his hands fly towards your chin and connects your lips.

Betraying yourself, you hum into the kiss, your spine arching backwards as he folds you impossibly. His tongue, heavy and slick, presses down on your own and strokes it reverently. Hands—everywhere—begin to tug your yukata off and discard it, before something wet laps at your pebbled nipples.

You pull away, sliding your gaze down to your wet areola, Sukuna’s stomach mouth desperate for a taste of you. You peer back up to your husband, something perverse and frantic coiling between your silky folds. “W-we’ve never…”

Never used the stomach mouth in bed, is what you were going to say. Though you won’t lie and say you haven’t thought of it.

Sukuna’s nostrils flare, lower pair of eyes focused on your saliva-slick lips while the upper pair glower at you, releasing the unrelenting grip from your wrists. “Afraid? The brat wants to take it slow and easy, huh?” he taunts, head cocked to an angle.

You scoff, arms falling by your side. “Nothing of the sort.” Your coital acts through the last couple of seasons have been raw, and debauched—Sukuna lapping the blood of his freshest kill from your navel before devouring your sex, to taking you with both cocks, your obscene noises loud enough for the entire shrine to bear witness to.

So, no. Slow and easy wouldn’t make much sense seeing how he handles you with those four hands of his.

“Then quiet that fucking mouth of yours,” he scowls, before he’s on you again.

Teeth crashing, saliva swapping, noses bumping.

Hungry. So fucking hungry.

And angry. What Sukuna does not tolerate, especially from his betrothed, is deceit.

The tongue mouth laps at your tits, occasionally tweaking an erect bud between it’s teeth and tugging just to earn a whimper from you, your maw parting open for Sukuna to gag you on his tongue. Writhing and squirming in his grasp, you attempt to tamp down the pleasure darting down your spine, nearly leaking your essence onto the sheets, but it is inevitable. You surrender to his touch like a sinner seeking repentance.

Two hands cradle your face while the other two knead the flesh of your ass like dough, squeezing and groping. His stomach tongue slathers spit across your chest, and you mewl through the sensitivity, hips rocking and thighs rubbing together for friction.

“That desperate, huh?” your husband mutters against your lips, and in your urgency, you nod quickly. The two hands cradling your head shift—one to grip the back of your neck and face your gaze upwards to meet his, and the other drags down between the valley of your breasts, down your navel, until he’s sliding the meaty digit across your swollen clit.

You jolt at the contact, but much movement isn’t possible as he keeps you place at the nape and the waist.

“Is this amusing?” he quizzes, unfurling to his full height and staring at your nude form down the bridge of his crooked nose. “Running circles around your husband like some charlatan.”

Cruel bastard.

“I-I am not—.”

“I can feel your pulse jumping under my thumb,” he snaps, leaning into your face with a snarl. “Have these walls kept you bored in my absence?”

You frown, a muscle in your jaw ticking. “Something like that.”

He clicks his tongue at your vague reply, clearly unimpressed. “Tch. Still as cryptic as ever.”

Quickly, his open palm slaps sharply against your clit, before two fingers push past the ring of resistance in your cunt and stretch you open. A mouth forms on his palm, a drooling mess, lapping at your hood and prying apart your silky folds.

“Looks like I’ll just have to coax it out of you.”

As if the brazier has been finally warmed, coals tended to and sifted, the heat in the room mounts as he splits you on his hand. Calloused digits from decades of labor and torment drag down your gummy walls, all while the open maw on his palm collects your juices and nibbles at your clit.

He doesn’t stop open-mouth kissing you. He barely allows you to come up for air, tamping down your noises with his mouth. Your breasts are aching and wet, the nubs perky and sensitive from the continuous stimulation.

His towering form pushes you down onto the sheets, slotting his massive body between your legs. The stretch is painful, but you curl your legs around his waist and dig your ankles into the divots on the small of his back.

“You’re a pretty little thing, bird,” he mutters against your lips, his wrist picking up a brutal cadence as his fingers reach places that make you whine and tense. “It’s a shame you’re a fool.”

His words carry a heat behind them, adamant on undoing you to figure out what you're keeping from him. He knows you may be anserine, but you're not an utter idiot, so the sin you’d committed and are keeping from him cannot be too great.

Still, he will have his fun breaking you.

It’d been a bit of time since he’d had his hands on you—sorely exhausted from the long days and even longer nights, reserved to his chambers once he returns from the bathing house over the last couple of weeks—so the stimulation has you huffing and puffing. Clit woefully sensitive, mounds on your chest sore, and a heat fisted low in your gut that only Sukuna has managed to unspool compared to the men you’ve been with back at the brothel. Pathetically, you claw at his chest, pushing to slow his brutal pace, scissoring motions inside your cunt and stretching your walls wide. After all, you’ll need to accommodate his girth in time.

“Oi. Paws off,” he complains disgruntled, lower pair of eyes widening. One hand finds both of yours, pinning them down above your head while he laughs sardonically.

And oh, how he enjoys such a debauched sight. Your bare form, flushed and wet and squirming beneath him while he taunts you. Whittles you down to some hapless mutt.

He works you through your first orgasm, finger pads repeatedly swiping over that tender spot and feeling the plush muscle jump. A strangled moan is punched out of you, legs trembling over his thighs and stomach caving inwards. Your cunt squeezes his two digits like a snare, sucking him in as you buck your hips into his palm.

But the King of Curses does not stop there, no. Giving your cunt a few slaps, he works his two fingers back in while his other hand finds your puckering hole. You freeze up, muscles spasming as you lock eyes with him, slick finger coated in your arousal rubbing over the entrance.

“B-both?”

“The idiocy of you,” he scoffs, one of his upper hands gripping your cheeks to squish them together. You pout, lower lip jutting out, before you feel the burning stretch. A finger, pushing into your ass. “I’ve no patience for stupid questions.”

He peers down, a glob of spit trickling from his lips pelting your cunt. It sloshes with your juices, before you feel the slick wetness cascade down to your asshole.

“M-my god!” you squeal, back arching up off of the mattress, now being speared from both holes. The curl and flex of his fingers as he finds all those sensitive spots is hypnotizing, drool leaking from the seam of your lips, eyes rolling back into your skull until all you see is black.

“Not my name,” he sneers, pressing another inch deeper while you wriggle.

Another orgasm. And another. And another.

You’ve made a wet, sloppy mess across his sheets, completely unaware of how many blissful peaks he’s worked you over and through, each more mind-numbing than the last. Your ears ring dully, eyes glossing over with a thing gossamer of wet luster. When you meet his pumps, he praises you, kissing the bevel of your jaw. When you sob and squirm against him, he clicks his tongue and gazes at you with blown pupils and a look of pity.

Your form is perspired, covered in a thick coat of sweat and cum, nearly breathless as you huff and puff. Nothing coherent leaves your lips, arousal stuffing the ridges of your brain like cotton.

Fucked dumb by his fingers.

“N-no more, ‘Kuna,” you mumble out, your holes aching and still stretched open. How he has not cramped in his fingers is beyond you.

The raspy chuckle from your husband is enough evidence that he’s nearly at his wits end—hefty cocks hard against the fabric of his loincloth, brushing against the inside of your quivering thigh. But one thing about Ryomen Sukuna is that he will never yield first, even if it’s dragging him up a wall. “The dove is spent, hm?” he cooes, the side of his lip curling upwards. “I can stop anytime. Just tell me the truth and I can release you from this exertion.”

You muffle a whine into his pillow, wrists aching from where he keeps them pinned above your head. “It is n-nothing, Sukuna.”

His eye twitches, before his wrists starts to pick up a speed and you squeal. “Okay, okay! …I visited the c-chef in the kitchen.”

His eyebrows dart inwards. “The scrawny girl? What for?”

“Release me first.” you mumble, Sukuna’s fingers nearly brushing against your womb.

Your scowl has mirth swirling in those thinned crimson irises. “Do not think that you are in the position to make demands.”

A beat passes before you puff air from your nose. The sooner you tell him, the sooner he’ll release you and you can figure out a plan for Tsumigi and the other attendants. “Fine. Why didn’t you tell me about Yorozu?”

His smile falters for a moment, nearly imperceptible, before he releases your hold and peels away from you. Fingers slip from your holes and you collapse in exhaustion, keeping your eyes trained on your husbands rolling shoulders. He’s silent for a few moments, while he finds his discarded kimono and slides his arms through them. “It is insignificant. Besides you.” He waves a dismissive hand, bare feet padding over to a chest propped open.

That does nothing to soothe the ache unfurling around your heart and squeezing the organ. “If it is so “besides me,” then I do not understand why I had to be kept in the dark.”

He chuckles, searching for his pipe. Two of his fingers rub together, kindling a flame he uses to smoke the pipe. “Former lovers are trivial. You are my wife while she was just some,” he inhales, smoke billowing in his lungs. “Whore I kept around for my affairs.”

“She was in love with you and you murdered her. This wasn’t some fucking concubine.”

He stirs, folding his lower pair of arms over his chest. The silence has you feeling filthy, the cum between your lungs a sticky mess.

Sukuna pads over to the low table, a bowl of nuts awaiting him. He sits down, legs folded beneath him, mildly entertained while he stares bleakly at you. He pops a nut into his mouth, then smokes his pipe. Casual, insouciant.

You attempt to smother a groan but it escapes you, lifting from the bed to get dressed. You slip your yukata on, then tie your obi across your waist. “If nothing but silence is what you offer me, then I shall retire to my chambers.”

The silence is deafening while you adorn yourself.

“Name.” Sukuna suddenly grumbles from the dark corner, moonlight filtering through the drapes distorting him in the shadows. He looks menacing, like the beast he is.

“What?” you blurt out, fixing your hair and attempting to look semi-normal before you enter the halls. Who knows what’s waiting out there, if your disheveled image will be even more fuel to gossip?

“I want a fucking name. Who told you of Yorozu? Was it that chef girl?”

You roll your eyes, before you parrot his words right back to him with a pinched smirk over your shoulder. “It is insignificant. Besides you.”

You don’t know how, but in the blink of an eye, Sukuna closes the proximity between the two of you. One hand curls around your throat before he’s pushing you against a wall, his face contorting in utter disdain and disgust. He regards you like a slab of meat to be devoured come morning.

“What I tell you, and what I keep from you is up to my discretion. Mine,” he snarls, fingers tightening around your throat. Not choking, just firm. Keeping you in place. “What I won’t tolerate are attendants that poke and prod into my history then blab to my wife. Now…” the corner of his lip twitches upwards, as if he is enjoying this. “Name.”

Your husband is a sadist.

You hold his gaze, inexorable, unwilling to yield to his cruelty. “She told me you didn’t love her.”

“She’s got something right,” Sukuna jeers, another hand coming to tilt your chin up. Yet, something in his gaze almost… softens. The sharp edges of his russet eyes melting away, curled and mocking smirk sliding into something else. “The only time I’d felt anything for her was when I’d slashed her in the chest, and then ate her for dinner.”

You freeze, feeling your heart cinch.

“And what reason do I have to lie?” he adds on, head tilting when his lower pair of eyes slide down to your lips, then to the door. “There is a shrine I have to look after. Her presence threatened it.”

Your fingers twitch at your side, not quite sure what to do with his seemingly genuine confession.

He clears his throat, returning his gaze to you. Now, he regards you like something delicate. “If she had meant anything to me, wouldn’t you think she’d still be with us, bird?”

Ryomen Sukuna truly has no reason to lie to you.

He can bed anyone he wants. Yet, instead of keeping you as some concubine, he chose to seal this relationship with matrimony. With titles. With an unspoken promise.

He chose to be with you.

You don’t address the suffocating tension between the two of you. You heart slamming against your ribcage and a lump nestling into your throat, dropping your gaze. “Furi, the chef. She is not at fault, Ryomen.”

Your husband eyes you, waiting for you to continue.

Coughing the lump in your throat away, you fidget with your kimono, chin still held up. “The attendants have been… undutiful,” you settle on that word, not quite sure how to tread upon the unfamiliar territory.

You wait for his reaction, but he just continues to watch you. Like a predator studying its prey.

“Clothing left a mess, glares across the halls, insubordination,” you emphasize the last word in disdain. “I have been left to deal with their ostracization in your absence, Sukuna. Furi only told me why they may feel this disdain towards me.”

You bite the inside of your cheek.

“She’s been the only friend I have.”

Sukuna’s grip loosens on your chin and throat, his expression settling into something you’ve seen when his advisors approach him. Before he mounts his horse and heads into battle.

Something hungry for war, for a need to unleash his fiery wrath.

“I need names. Or shall I just turn this fucking shrine upside down and start anew?” he chuckles maniacally in sheer rage, padding towards the door.

Fuck.

Leaping forward, you grab his wrist and halt him, eyes staring up at him and practically pleading. “Sukuna! Wait, before you do something rash—.”

“When they insult you, they insult me,” he growls, shoulders rippling with effort and you know that all he sees is red.

It seems you misjudged him. Ryomen Sukuna would go to the ends of the earths for you. To hell and back.

“Sukuna, just— give me a moment,” you emphasize, nearly begging him back inside the chambers. Fire radiates off of him in shudders, like he’s prepared to set this shrine ablaze for you.

Scorned, he stares at you for a few moments before stepping back inside, arms folded over his chest. “So this is what you were so fucking adamant on keeping from me? What, was your pride threatened?” It almost seems laughable to him, you of all people worried about humiliation.

You married a beast at the end of the day.

Dejectedly, you sigh, orbs darting between Sukuna’s left and right ones. “I… I didn’t think,” you nibble on your lip. “I was worried you would take their side.”

Ryomen Sukuna practically gawks at you now, before a huff of humored air jumps from his chest. “What?”

You toss your head back, running your hands through your hair. “Tsumigi, she’s one of your oldest servants. How am I supposed to complain to you about her when I’ve barely been here half the year?”

Another laugh tumbles from him. “You must be the asinine person I’ve come across.”

“Enough of the jokes, Sukuna, I—.”

You freeze.

Sukuna’s lips are on yours, his hands cupping your cheeks. His tongue swiping against your lower lip and tugging on the plump skin.

Not soft, but rough. Possessive.

You don’t know how long it takes for him to pull back. Slightly breathless, pupils that were pinpricks a moment ago now saucer wide.

“You. I chose you, brat,” he huffs, large palms splayed on the side of your head and digging into your scalp. “That Tsuragi servant means absolutely nothing to me.”

“Tsumigi,” you correct, but he ignores you.

“When I had decided that marriage was the best option for this… relationship, I was also ready to call this place your home. And being the wife of the King of Curses…” he snarls, hooking a thumb into your mouth and pressing down on your tongue. You can’t bite down the whimper that resonates from you. “… means your word matters just as much as mine here.”

Despite yourself, your lip trembles, warmth unfurling over your skin.

Hearing the rare affection in his words makes you wonder why you ever doubted him in the first place.

He tugs his thumb out from between your lips, swiping your cheek, head cocked to the side while his four eyes appraise you in the moonlight.

“This… I must mend myself, Sukuna,” you whisper, form leaning in towards him, into his heat.

He chuckles, all raspy and taunting. “It is not yours to fix, you foolish bird. A disobedient, mouthy whore is not someone I will allow to reside within the shrine walls.” A beat. “Unless it’s you.”

You giggle, a hand coming down to smack his chest, but he catches it with a sly grin. “No, really. I have to make an impression on them. Make them remember who they respond to.”

His four eyes search for dubiety, before he retires. “My, my. It seems that my influence here is rubbing off on you,” he points out, a hand finding the small of your back and pulling you flush against him.

You feel his two hardened cocks, needy and begging for your attention, press into your abdomen.

He leans down, his coppery and nutty breath fanning over the crown of your ear.

“And I must say… jealousy does not suit you, sweetheart.”

—

The days that follow, you keep your head held up high.

Sukuna returns to his daily retreats, but ensures that he will cleave whoever missteps dare you speak up. If he hears of it, whether or not you like it, he’ll be feasting on an attendant for dinner.

But you, you find your cadence.

You accompany Furi in the mornings, legs dangling off of a large stool while she chats your ear off, broth and meat lilting in the air, all tantalizing. She’s been promoted to head of the kitchen, meaning all servants must answer to her.

Most do not reject it, heads bowed in genuine reverence and tones amicable.

Tsumigi has been demoted from kitchen staff to the stables—where her stable hand lover can see her scooping up horse excrement's. It isn’t long that you here that he has moved returned to his wife at home, and she has grown cold and bitter.

It isn’t perfect, but your actions against Tsumigi have other attendants treating you kinder. In turn, they learn what kind of person you are.

Cordial, organized, timely.

A friend to most.

You simply have to wait for everyone to fall into step.

Sukuna grows irritated easier than before, more and more missteps he’d scowl at resulting in a severed limb he could gnaw on.

You do what you can to placate him, but he’s kept an ear open for who has mistreated you. The so-called gossip he rejects keeps him well-informed as to who he needs to split open.

And not long after, you come back from the forest to find Tsumigi’s decapitated head held up by your husband like some trophy.

A ghastly sight.

Your husband— the cruel, detestable bastard.

One that would kill and haze the entire world for you.

One that ensures your safety, and your comfort in the place you can now safely call home.

He may not be a picture perfect companion seeing as he refers to himself as a king and finds pleasure in your soreness, but one thing he won’t allow is some measly human being to cross you.

Free food, a fresh kill, and a happy wife he gets to come home to at night.

you try to protest, but it comes out as a moan when his hand slides lower, palm pressing against you through the thin fabric of your shorts. he hums, satisfied.

"that's what i thought."

he lifts you easily, turning you to face him, settling you astride his lap. his hands find your hips, gripping firmly. his eyes are dark, half-lidded, boring into yours.

"lie back for me," he says, voice soft but commanding.

you obey, letting him guide you down until you're stretched out on the couch cushions. he follows, settling between your legs, his weight a comforting pressure. he pushes your shirt up slowly, reverently, exposing your stomach. he leans down and presses a kiss just below your navel, then another, trailing lower.

"ken…" you breathe.

"shh," he says, hooking his fingers into the waistband of your shorts. "let me."

he tugs them down, along with your panties, pressing open-mouthed kisses to your inner thighs as he goes. his stubble scratches, sends shivers up your spine. he looks up at you, eyes half-lidded, lips glistening.

"so pretty," he murmurs, more to himself than to you. "always so pretty for me."

he lowers his head and licks into you like he's savoring every second. your back arches, a broken moan falling from your lips. he groans against you, the vibration sending sparks through your entire body.

"that's it," he says, pulling back just enough to speak. his voice is wrecked, lower than usual. "let me hear you. wanna know how good i'm making you feel."

his tongue finds your clit, circles it lazily, and your hips buck. he pins them down with a firm hand on your lower belly.

"ah-ah," he chides softly, lips brushing your slick flesh. "let me work. you just lie there and take it, sweetheart."

he alternates between broad, flat strokes and focused, pointed flicks, watching your reactions like he's studying a map. when you gasp, he repeats the motion. when you moan, he lingers. he learns your body all over again, every night, like it's his favorite ritual.

"kento—please—i'm c-close—"

"i know," he says, and there's a smile in his voice. he speeds up, just a little, his tongue flickering faster, his nose pressing against you. "come for me. i've got you."

you do, with a strangled cry, your hands fisting in his hair. he works you through it, gentling his motions, lapping at you softly until you're trembling and oversensitive. only then does he lift his head, chin slick, eyes burning.

he crawls up your body, kissing a trail over your stomach, your chest, your neck. his weight settles over you, his hardness pressing against your thigh.

"want more?" he asks, voice rough, forehead resting against yours.

you can barely nod. "yes. please."

he reaches down and guides himself to your entrance, and pushes in with one slow, steady thrust. you both groan, the sound mingling in the space between your lips. he stays there for a moment, buried deep, letting you adjust, letting you feel every inch of him.

"look at me," he whispers. you do. his eyes are dark, intense, full of a tenderness that makes your heart ache. "you're doing so well. taking all of me. my perfect girl."

he begins to move, slow and deep, each stroke measured and purposefu. he talks you through it, his voice a low, constant rumble against your ear.

"feel that? feel how good we fit together? god, you're tight. squeezing me so perfectly."

you whimper, nails digging into his shoulders. he groans, his pace quickening just slightly.

"thaaat's it. take it. take all of it. you can handle it, can't you? my good girl. always so eager for me, aren't you?"

the tension builds, coiling hot and tight in your belly. he senses it, adjusts his angle, hits that spot inside you that makes stars burst behind your eyes.

"there," he breathes. "right there. come on, sweetheart. come with me."

you shatter, clenching around him, and he follows with a choked groan, burying his face in your neck as he spills inside you. his hips stutter, his whole body shuddering, and he holds you tight through every pulse.

afterward, he stays inside you for a long moment, catching his breath. then he pulls out, gentle, and gathers you into his arms, pulling the throw blanket over both of you. he kisses your forehead, your nose, your lips.

"you okay?" he asks softly.

you nod, snuggling into his chest. "more than okay."

he hums, satisfied, and reaches for the remote to turn off the tv. the rain continues outside, soft and steady. his hand finds yours, intertwining your fingers.

"love you," he murmurs, already half-asleep.

"love you too, old man," you tease.

he pinches your side lightly, making you squeak. "watch it."

@dihtaifung girl u got too many accs which one do i tag

tags = perm - @sadisticslut666 @whorishminds @besidesjustmyamour @throatgoatgeto @go-go-gadget-autism @thecrazyfangirlthings@grignardsreagent @strawberryshortcakkitty @naammiii @liasacountgothacked @annicishana @my-starlights@error-racoon-404 @afreakforyautja @cupidstrace @iam-souless @sindulgent666 @chewiebee @tojisballhair@ex1acy @palanggaaa @yourlocalcatscammer @ehcilhc @gravecyte @restingoasis @satorupi @laburantesdoll@sxpernova @thethyri @lostgeto @lilytrn @sweethearticism @mikaari0 @chososballhair @nanamissilkytie @iwasabs @tojis-juicymantitys @laitifly @farylfordaryl @bl1ndv3lvet @booboobear-12 @6arcxm @sleeplessdancer @chloeee20 @deartoru @neptunezxx @ash273819 @sketchbonked @vanillakirstein @valberryboos @itimisu @livviaaaaa @kebablover @babyluvlol @audreytoru @xqce

You were nine when your father took the joy out of the sea for you.

Perhaps you should start this off differently. You should remember the way it was a perfect summer’s day, and you had just finished your very first day of tutelage under the shrine maiden in Whalefall City. Your mother, whose rejection of that idea had been whittled down like a wooden arrow for the entire spring, had finally relented and allowed you to pursue a shrine maiden’s education. One day, it would be her daughter calling her to prayer and not the sneer-faced woman who currently held the title of ‘seasinger’. It wasn’t because your household was necessarily non-religious, or averse to the faith practiced in the city.

It’s just that your father spits on the holy city’s faith by partaking in the hunt of mermaids, just for sport, just for fun, just because he can.

Before that magical summer, you had never once been able to affix a picture to that. You knew your father was a talented fisher who was able to draw out even the most difficult of oceanic bounties, and he always made sure your family was fed. But you were a daughter, you see, a fact your father always had secretly mourned no matter how much it hurt your mother (“How I have groveled and suffered to deliver you to this earth!”), and thus you had never been taken with on the boat to hunt the mermaids littering the shores of Whalefall City.

You’ve seen them. It’s impossible not to. They dive in elegant curves, as whorling as the waves, a star-speckled shadow across the water before they disappear in its depth. The colors of the rainbow, the shimmer of the night-sky in their tails. More myth than real life. More dream than reality. Yet still here, sharing these waters with the citizens of the city. Lurking. Hiding. Surviving.

As per your own tradition, you bend down at the curve of the cliffpath you always took towards the sea and scoop up the wild-growing oceanvales. This was something you never once had told anyone about, and it was a daily routine you never neglected, feeling as though the day would remain incomplete if you didn't. This was not part of the religious teachings one received in the halls of the Dolphin's Hall, but it was a part of you, just as the ocean was. In the end, everything returns to salt. You throw the oceansvale into the waves and watch as the petals dissolve above the water's surface, as if sending a paper lantern off to carry your wishes.

In that moment, on the edge of you casting one last look at the horizon and in the turn of your heel to begin the climb back home, a blue-haired, child-like head bobs above the waves. You almost miss it, absentminded as you are, but you do see it: the small hand, barely differing to your own human one, furling around the petals and taking them with it as both hand and mermaid disappear. It makes you smile, almost making it worth it; as if this routine had finally been acknowledged for what it was. You wondered if mermaids and humans could be friends.

You couldn't have known how decisively crushing your father's answer would be.

The door is already open when you come home. An ominous sign, a warning for yet to come. The door was never left open, especially not on days where your father is supposed to take to the sea so he can partake in his favorite illegal dealing. There's no specific law condemning the prizing of roe out of a mermaid's womb, but it isn't looked upon with favor, either. The scriptures had always foretold of a deep unity between earth and sea, between moving plates and shaking waves, between mineral and salt. To turn your back on the ocean's creatures was to turn your back on the seasinger's preachings. That does not erase the hunger for their caviar, though, and the black market flourishes. And as long as the black market for caviar flourishes, your father refuses to cut into his own pockets, especially now, when the taxes in the city become more unforgiving and unforgiving with the preparations for the festival that is to be celebrated in just a moon's turn.

Your father is standing just beyond the door, in the dimly-lit hallway leading to the comfort of your mother's kitchen. His face is suffused with blood, red with anger, a fact that makes you duck your head in alarm, but is in vain. As soon as he sees you, your father's hand grips your frail shoulder and turns you toward him, his face the shadowed grimace of a man annoyed. "Did I not tell you to not go near that cliff time and time again?" he chastizes. For the moment, he holds himself back; your mother has drawn herself up in preparation of your defense, and her face mirrors the storm clouds you perceived in your father's grimace. But you can feel the need for him to shout rise steadily, like a tsunami beginning to swallow you whole. You lower your gaze to the ground, not knowing what to say. When you don't answer, your father finally shakes you and barks out, "Speak, girl! If it hadn't been for old Luthen pointing you out to me, I would have never found out about this, and then we'd be fishing out your bones out of that damned cove instead of a good piece of salmon for dinner!"

"Oh, leave it!" Your mother's hands shake off your father's threatening grip, and you allow yourself to breathe again. At your mother's chest, the world is safe. There are no scary men or scary bed-time stories about the unruly ocean. Instead, the scent of cinnamon and warm wood wraps you in its’ embrace, and you hide your face in the crook of your mother’s arm as she glares at your father. “She’s gonna be a seasinger, this girl is, and I won’t have you interfering with it. We all agreed to listen to her wishes. She’s not gonna be a fisher like you, Galen!”

“Well, I sure hope she won’t, because she does not heed a single warning I’ve ever taught her about it! Those mermaids don’t exactly gallop into my nets of their own free will, they’re dangerous!”

“You’ve made your point, now shove off.” Your mother glides her hand over the curve of your head. Protective, caring. Her presence is the calming lighthouse in the stormy seas, guiding you home, and although your father is still enraged, you believe the worst to be over. You are wrapped up in a childhood kingdom that is still entranced with the unknown, the beckoning of the deep, the ocean’s call. No one has taught you how to drown yet.

Not yet. But someone will, now.

Your father, your only father. You remember him tying knots in all ur robes, the way he made you laugh when swinging you up into the skies, up, up, and beyond. His fingers digging into the sides of your tummy to tickle the giggles out of you, claiming the sound was so joyous that all on earth and in the sea should rejoice in it. But you also remember the way his fingers dug into the soft of your flesh, yelling at your fingers bitten down to the quick, belittling you for your fear. The sneer on his face when he couldn’t fathom where your stupidity came from. The stormy eyes. This was the man who had never been taught better on how to love his family, and he won’t change for you, not for your mother or anyone else.

So when he encircles your wrist with his manacle-like fingers, you already know you’d been hoping for a reprieve and now the guillotine came swinging down to behead you. Your mother’s startled voice speaks up, but you cannot even begin to decipher the words, because your father is already shouting, “I don’t want to hear it, not from you, not when it’s your fault she’s turned out this soft and naive! If she wants to be a seasinger so badly, I’ll teach her what it means to sing into the sea!”

Her panicked voice is swallowed by the wind as your father begins to tug you down the pebbled path winding down from your house into the city, but you quickly turn off-path as your father begins to steer you towards the ocean. The salt is in your eyes and in your mouth, and you cannot be sure if the sharpness on your tongue is the rain, your tears or the taste of pure fear. As you angle up your head to look at the house one last time, your mother stands in the door, looking incredibly forlorn. You understand that look very well: that although your father is an incredibly hotheaded, temperamental man, the fact still remains that his little sport paints a target on the fishers’ backs.

It is time to stop romanticizing the mermaids now.

It’s the only thing you can think of as they claw the mermaid to ship. The words repeat over and over in your head, like the sharp stones thrown against the waves as the soft water makes them yield. They become round and pliant, your thoughts, running together in a string as you stare at the sight and try not to look. You don’t want to see. You don’t want to see. But they make you: Old Luthen (you’d spit on the name if you could) has his hands settled on your shoulders, keeping you turned towards the sight of your father and his shipmates heaving the gods’ dearest creation on deck. You try to see through the face, make yourself not acknowledge it, as if it could help if you pretend not to take note of her face. But she looks back at you, straight on. Her pearlescent eyes zero in on the way old Luthen has his fingers carved into your shoulders, the way he could crush and grind you down like brittle bones if you resist. And she understands: you are as trapped as she is. It is a terrible thing, this understanding that passes between the two of you, and you wish it hadn’t happened, wish she would have growled and screamed at you as she did at her captors.

The understanding flees her eyes pretty quickly when they begin to carve her out like a pig on a spit.

It’s terrible. The fear on your tongue turns into bile, and then you find yourself swallowing back vomit, not trusting yourself to throw up when your father was still intent on punishing you. The knife glides into the soft-scaled tail way too easily, giving way to a glittering, human-like nightmare. You’ve seen the way clams guard their precious pearls, the almost pretty membrane surrounding them to keep them safe. The translucency of it made it a beautiful wonder to behold, but there’s nothing beautiful about this, not when they’re clawing at the mermaid’s insides as if they were the bothersome strings of a spider’s web. The mermaid thrashes and screams, and then the bloodcurdling noise coming out of her mouth is unrecognizable, because they begin to serrate at the edges of her wound to drive into the hard scales surrounding her womb. To get everything, y’know, there’s people paying a pretty penny for their organs. S’pposed to have miracle healing properties. You swallow and swallow and swallow, but when they begin to tear at the flesh that was supposed to keep her roe safe, and the guts begin to speckle your feet, you find your way out of Luthen’s prison-hold and throw up right over the side of the ship. You can still hear her sobs, despite the sound of Luthen’s laughter - can’t stomach the fisher’s life, can she, your daughter? - and more deafeningly so, you can hear how loud the silence is in your ears when she finally quietens down, when she returns to the sea, the only burial the men give her. One last time, you’re looking at her as she bobs in the waves, her helpless arms streaked with wounds she suffered as she strained against the nets and knives. You think of those arms, and her ocean eyes, the way they had looked like a nightmare come true and yet the gaze they contained had been softer than any look your father had ever given you. Maternal, almost.

You close your eyes and think of your own mother. You guard that image of her, imprint it on the back of your eyes as your father settles his hand on the top of your head. Wanting to slip back into the role of the nurturing, caring father. Your fists clench and unclench at your sides. “It’s not a pretty thing, girl,” he says, and it’s supposed to sound soothing. Instead, it feels like he’s stabbing your ears with the same knife he used to gut her womb with. “They know what we’re capable of. They like us just as little as we like them. Your songs will help you nothing. It changes nothing.”

But something had changed. Irrevocably, unrepairingly, it had changed. As they paddle you back to the shore, all you can think about is the fact that this mermaid, this stranger, had viewed you more kindly than your own father had. And you carry that look with you as you grow into a woman, as unacknowledged and resented as the young daughter you had been.

From his hidden viewpoint, Rafayel can only glimpse the edges of your skirt. It’s a silver, diaphanous material, hugging the back of your legs like a seastar clings to the rocks. Expensive. Noteworthy. The garb the students of the shrine’s faith don as they perform their traditions, as if they don’t smile at the sea’s creations with one corner of their mouth and spit with the other. Disrespectful, your faith is, as disrespectful as your father’s nets and his arrogance as he takes to the sea. Rafayel’s sea. “Father, you forgot to take your hooks with you again,” your voice then rings out, freeing him from his hateful looks. It sounds too melodious. It should be as scratchy, as bothersome, as vile as humanity’s existence. But he is Lemurian at heart, and he cannot help himself from appreciating your lovely voice. A true seasinger, he begrudgingly thinks, but then he hastily corrects himself. A seasinger with the talent for it, but a liar nonetheless. Humanity can only deceive. “You should at least maintain the illusion that you’re hunting for something … legal. They’ve been cracking down on the black market’s dealings for a while now.”

“Only makes my prizes more precious, girl,” comes your father’s dry retort. He’s never once called you by your name in the entire time that Rafayel has begun to trail you, following your traces around town. He hears the gentle splash of your feet hitting the water, feels his senses prickle as he becomes aware of the way your body braves the spitting sea. “Just means I’ll get a better fetch for this stuff because of how rare it is. Alright, hand it over, before you catch a cold. Stupid attire you’ve got on there barely even protects you from the wind.”

“The sea warms me, father.”

“Pah!” The mockery comes easy to your father, he, whose entire business relies on his mockery of the Lemurian species. He can’t tell whether you’ve handed the bucket to your father, but he can tell when you retreat, the way your toes send up sandstorms all along the beach as you wade back to shore. “Spare me. If I wanted a sermon, I’d be sitting next to your mother in that overstuffed hall of yours. And I’ve told you countless times to avoid this cove!”

You ignore the latter part of his sentence. “The Dolphin’s Hall would have to be hit with a meteorite to ever move you to its sanctuary, father.”

“Ha! Haha!” His laughter seems biting, then becomes less striking as your father begins to paddle away. It creaks, heavy with his gear; the little rowing boat is just a distraction from the heavy vessel way out in the ocean his friends are waiting for him on. “It hasn’t taken your humor, at least. Alright, get back now. Go on!” He has to shout as the distance grows. “Gonna catch a cold, you will! And kiss your mother from me!”

The murmured answer you give him is lost on both your father and Rafayel, but it doesn’t sound very assenting. What isn’t lost on Rafayel is the realization that your father is the worst person in the world, but you are his favorite daughter, and that knowledge drags you down like an anchor rapidly descending. Keeping you in one places, weighing you down. Your footsteps become heavy as you walk up the beach, not as graceful as the way you had carried yourself in the sea. As he begins to follow you upstream, following the ocean’s arms deeper into the woods which border your village, he can still hear you angrily muttering to yourself.

He doesn’t know what to make of that. When he had suggested to his court that he’d revenge himself on the fisher and his entourage, his advisors had only given him a pained smile. Most of the elders still cling to the memory where their devotees on land would outstretch their hands in a blessed union, where their friendship made the moon wax and wane with happiness. They shake their heads in sadness with every murdered mermaid, as if that would fix anything. And yet, there are also those with a mind as murderous as his, still cautioning him, she’s not her father. If we take what is precious to them just because we can, what makes us better than them?

Morality. Rafayel scoffs to himself, sounding as resigned as you did in your trudge upward. As if that could help with anything. Had your father thought of morality when he had killed sweet Lyra right before her wedding night? Had he thought of morality when he desecrated her corpse for a handful of eggs, which could have been Rafayel’s nieces and nephews to dote on?

The ocean merges into a river he refuses to swim in, so Rafayel halts at the edge of the water to watch your slight frame disappear into the city. He doesn’t like to leave behind his tail in favor of awkward, human legs, but if he wants to keep an eye on you, he will need to. He’s getting pretty good at this, actually: Looking at you. Memorizing the way your lips curve into a smile, the shark teeth glint inside the grin you sport for when something makes you laugh. The way your light and deft fingers can tie the most powerful of sailor knots. The way your gentle hands hold a knife in the most reverent manner, as if this was an honor entrusted to you, not in the uncouth way your father points it at precious life.

You are not like him, uncomfortably so. It rankles Rafayel to see how much you are trying to escape your father’s taint.

The more he watches, the more he sees that taint poisoning you. You are a river current, slowing, slowing under the poison the human world dumps into you. It eats away at you, the way the rust claims the metal it swallows before it destroys the metal whole. The way you lower your head like a supplicant, shameful of the tales your fellow shrine maidens carry when your father sports another ‘treasure’ on the market. The way you paint on a smile when necessary, because you do not have the strength to face the naked truth. Your careful fingers, always touching in devotion. Moving to prayer. Guiding along to the sea’s chants. Hands of peace, not of war.

Of course, that only makes you an even more delicious offering. Even the gods know an innocent life is more precious than the forced sacrifice of a man already doomed for punishment.

As the sun sets on Whalefall City, people begin to flood the Dolphin’s Hall with eager chatter. Rafayel melts back into the shadows of the impressive dome, becomes one with the many murals depicting the ocean’s history. The hall itself is decorated in such an ornate manner that it makes Rafayel question whose devotion had turned into flesh here, bearing fruit to a worship so true that even Rafayel doesn’t dare think of blasphemy. Perhaps there was a time where humanity hadn’t been an accursed thing for him to ponder over. A long time ago, when words and actions still had meaning.

But then is not now. And now, everything has changed.

He watches as that change warps you, the shadow that passes over your face taking on the shape of his long lost Lyra. When you look up again to lead the group into prayer, your eyes have steeled over - as if through the entire room full of people, his thoughts have reached you. They hang above you like the clouds gathering before a storm as you begin the sermon, your voice crystal-clear, never wavering. Whatever doubts your father has stirred in your heart, they do not find their way here.

The last bell of prayer rings out at the same time as you bow to the masses. In acknowledgement, they murmur back their only line in the script - may the moon guide you through the storm - and then turn, flooding the exit like over-eager sardines squirming inside a can. Rafayel joins the stream of people, casting one last look back at you, but you’ve already risen again and turned your back on him. Your connection is broken now, a fact that Rafayel is secretly relieved, then aggrieved about.

Why does that matter to him, anyways?

On a full-moon night, Rafayel decides to cut you loose before you can confuse him further.

He’s been anticipating this for days now, anxiously looking up into the sky every time his head broke through the waves. As a seasinger, you are required to take part in monthly ablutions under the light of the full moon, returning to her domain of power before the wax and wane pulls at the seas. You’re supposed to take the maiden in training with you, but over the past few months, you’ve rejected her every time, gently but sternly relegating her to other tasks to be completed inside the Dolphin’s Hall. You want to be alone with your shame, alone with the fact that you seem to speak to the moon like she’s your only friend.

You’re not aware of the fact that Rafayel has been quietly listening on, every full moon night. As a Lemurian, he does not partake in a faith that revels in the worship of the sea. And yet, here he sat come every full moon, hiding himself in the rivers converging into the shallow pool in which you submerge yourself. He cannot keep hanging on to your every word. If he wants to revenge himself on the old fisherman, he has to do it now, before his too-humanoid-heart foils his plans and spares you. He thinks of Lyra and her kindly face, knowing she’d disapprove, but he makes himself go through the motions anyways.

He hadn’t been prepared for your reaction.

You don’t divest yourself of your clothes when you enter the pool, but Rafayel doesn’t have to imagine much to paint a picture of what is beneath, anyways. The satin hugs the shape of your body like a fervent lover, beginning to pool around you as you accept the water’s embrace. Lower and lower you sink, before you dive into the water to be fully submerged and rise again. He comes to a halt just a few feet away from you, on the periphery of your gaze. You do not see him yet. But he sees you. He sees the way the water falls in rivulets from your luminous lashes as they frame your clear eyes, sees the way the moonlight drinks in your irises. There’s a jealousy he cannot pinpoint inside his chest as the water begins to tear down your cheeks, framing your face so gently. You shudder slightly when the cold begins to settle in your bones, and your hands come to cover your exposed arms. As Rafayel realizes that he should not feel so enticed by the sight of a mere mortal being and his heart begins to tighten, you finally turn your face and realize that you aren’t alone here.

For a very long, heart-stoppingly awkward moment, no one says anything.

Rafayel stiffens up, waiting for your scream. He has planned this carefully, and he knows there is no way any help will reach you here, not when you’re in his domain. The moon may peer her gaze over these waters, but the water is his dominion, his kingdom. You are trapped inside the palm of his hand, and he is readying himself to swallow you whole.

But you don’t scream.

Your breath comes more shallowly, speeding as your lungs rush to fill air. He idly wonders how that feels like, the way the lungs balloon inside that easily broken chest. Despite all this, despite the circumstances, despite the fact that you are quite aware what the sight of a mermaid might mean to you, your eyes do not fill with fear. So Rafayel doesn’t move, either. He watches you and the way your chest constricts, listens how your breath stutters. And then you finally speak. “Is it you?” you whisper. “Did you hear my prayers?”

The magic of the moment is broken then, and Rafayel audibly breathes out. He almost breaks out into mocking laughter, - me, fulfilling your prayers? - but he stops himself short, not intending to waste the opportunity. If you would come willingly to meet your fate, then that would be even better. “Your prayers?” he repeats, and then, although he couldn’t make his disbelief clearer, he says, “Do you really think a being like me would bother to listen to any of your prayers? After all your kind has done to us?”

You take in his words with an austere expression. “No, I suppose not,” you murmur out, biting down on that full lower lip. No, don’t think about biting that lip for her. Don’t think about it. He chases away his own thoughts and instead begins to wonder why you’re not scared yet. Are you aware that there is nothing you can do to change this fate? “But one can hope. I couldn’t ever call myself a seasinger if I didn’t still have faith that the earth and the salt could reconcile again.”

“And whose fault is it that a reconciliation seems to be so impossible?”

You blink at him, fresh rivulets of water carding through those lashes like tears. You look like you’re crying, even though Rafayel knows you are not. “Do not take me for a hypocrite,” you tell him, sounding entirely too earnest. “I am quite aware of whose fault it is. We humans bear the sins of our fathers, after all.”

You sound bitter.

She’s not her father. If we take what is precious to them just because we can, what makes us better than them?

Rafayel hums at that. It doesn’t matter; it doesn’t change anything. He’ll kill you swiftly if he has to, give you a kind death. It’s better than anything your father’s crewmates have ever given to any mermaid they’ve stumbled upon. You won’t suffer, that he promises you, but he’s not going back on his word, not for anything. So he makes himself move closer. You still don’t scream for help as he approaches you, just muster him warily, like you’ve encountered a familiar face on the street yet cannot remember where that familiarity comes from. “And if I was your friend?” he asks, challenging your logic. “Then what? Would all be forgiven, and we’d dance in a circle throwing flowers?”

“Why don’t you find out?”

You stretch out a hand.

He should spit on it. If anything, he should claw at that hand like a man drowning and pull you into the depths. Your father does not deserve to cradle your corpse and reminisce about the day he’s held you for the first time. He deserves to suffer beyond all measure, and Rafayel intends to see to that. He schools his features into polite neutrality before he readies himself for the killing strike.

Rafayel draws in a shuddering breath. And then, like the liar he is, he takes your hand.

It is as soft as he had imagined. Too human, too weak, too frail. Every bone and sinew feels like it will give with just a squeeze, broken beyond repair. It feels like a betrayal.

He can barely make himself think a proper thought when you use the opportunity to step closer to him. He can smell you now, that distinct scent of myrrh and burnt offerings that clings to your skin. This is the scent he’s been using to track you for months. Below the too-thin garb of your seasinger attire, he can see the way your precious collarbones lift and sink in quick succession, your breath coming entirely too fast now. You’re panicking. You are deathly afraid of him. And yet you ignore that fear to squeeze his hand, as if this was just another interaction in the Dolphin’s Hall to you. In your eyes, he finds that steady faith that holds your spine rigidly straight, the look you can never give your father because of how you defer to him. “You’re much taller than I thought,” you tell him, your voice shaky. Then you give him a tentative smile. The light of your hope is reflected in that expression, and it hurts to realize that he will be responsible for diminishing that forever.

It’s okay, he tells himself. I’ll just grow closer to her so she’ll trust me, and then, when I’ve got her wrapped around my finger, I’ll kill her in front of her father’s eyes. “You look too small for a human, so I’m not certain you’re equipped to be delivering these kinds of judgements on appearances,” is all he says in response.

“Well, that is a valid observation.” You haven’t let go of his hand yet. Rafayel makes no move to free himself, either. You are locked into this situation, moved by something neither of you can understand. You let your gaze roam over the entirety of his face, the way it lingers on the sharp edges of his ears, the scales rippling down his throat. He certainly hopes you don’t see the way he squirms beneath that gaze. “But you’re my friend now, so you’ll forgive me for my deadly honesty. I fear that is just part of who I am, so you’re going to have to live with it.”

“Is that how one becomes a friend? This quickly?”

“Oh, certainly. You’ve been holding my hand for quite some time now. No,” you rush to say as he attempts to disentangle himself, fingers flashing to grip his arm. His first instinct is to strike out, to defend himself from humanity’s danger. He wrestles that instinct down until it becomes nil. He is bending at the edges, unraveling like threat inside your skilled hands. You guide him back towards you and intertwine your fingers. Your seasinger voice lulls him into a sense of security that is going to get him killed someday. She’s already bewitching you far too much for this plan to work, his inner voice cautions. The sound is growing increasingly frantic, every thought stumbling after the other until it turns into a senseless avalanche. Kill her now, before she undoes us all. Kill her now. “Will you let me prove that our friendship can work?”

No, his inner voice shouts. She’s your enemy’s daughter. SHE is your enemy. KILL HER NOW.

The warmth of your hand melts into his every bone. Sinking in like poison. “I suppose I have no choice,” he tells you, sealing his fate.

Rafayel begins to realize how fucked he is.

He was already quite aware of his awful disposition before he ever approached you, the way your mortal face charmed him the way a snake ensnares its victims. Too pretty for a human, a trap laid bare. He feels that very trap biting into his skin every time you smile at him. It draws blood every time your touch brushes him. As ridiculous as it sounded, he feels himself exploding from a second puberty, your every notion setting fire to his blood.

He struggles to maintain his murder fantasies. It’s a little bit difficult to focus on when all his dreams plague him with the image of you.

Today, you’ve asked him to accompany him to the hidden cove that he’s watched you frequent when he was still trailing you. It’s a beautiful location, the sandbank curving to accommodate the ocean’s kisses as it laps at the earth. Almost absentmindedly, your bare feet come to a halt every few meters to gather up a bundle of oceansvale, a flower you’re particularly fond of and have been ridiculed with by him. Idiot human, he had said, as if your obsession with the ocean wasn’t big enough already. You’re a seasinger, for crying out loud. Aren’t you religious enough without an obsession with the only flower that blooms near these waters?

You’d only looked at him with a steady, self-satisfied look. Are you jealous, per chance?

Yes. As if. Like he’d care what you’re obsessed with and what not. Anyways, mermaids don’t fall in love with humans. They kill them. By luring them to the sea, to be exact, so you’re halfway to the gallows already, so who’s the idiot now?

“What’s all this, then?” Rafayel wildly gesticulates around him - at the sweeping cliffs, the sand-carrying wind, the beautiful beach. The atmosphere is way more serene than he is, a calm and quiet getaway. The perfect hiding location for a forlorn daughter. “I hate using my human legs. If you were going to take me to the ocean anyways, why torture me before you do it?”

“I very much appreciate you using your human legs, Rafayel. But I am afraid the hike up to the mountain and down to this place is the point of the trip.” You give him a lopsided smile, the kind that makes him dizzy with emotions. Sickening. He clenches a hand inside the pocket of the jacket you lent him. “You know, I’m a little disappointed you don’t recognize the place. This is where I first met you. I remembered you straight away, yet you were ignorant.”

He waves away the words. “I’m a Lemurian, after all. Time passes much more differently for us than it does for your kind. What does an encounter like this mean in the grand scheme of things? ‘Tis a single star in the universe we traverse.”

The words make you frown. In fact, the frown disfigures your face entirely, your nose scrunching and your lips twitching together in an expression of dejectedness. He almost eats his words, almost hurries to tell you that of course he remembers, that he couldn’t forget the tiny human who bothered to throw the ocean flowers, even though its inhabitants were humanity’s enemies, but then you speak up again and the matter becomes irrelevant. “Then I ought to be thankful this star turned out to be brighter than it was. I’m quite thankful we got to meet again. I’ve always wanted a chance to meet a mermaid, to fight back against this enmity between our species.”

“Quite the conciliator, you are.” Rafayel follows you down unto the beach. Your feet trace a path into the sand which he follows dutifully, making sure to cover your tracks in case your father still admonishes you for coming here. “Is that what you meant when you saw me for the first time? ‘Did you hear my prayers’?”

“Yes. My mother’s always mocked me for that too, you know. She’s the only one who listens to me about this stuff, and even though she loves me a lot, she’s not above teasing me. I guess it’s kind of an inside joke in my family.”

Rafayel takes note of the way your eyes steel over. He knows you long enough now to recognize that stance. If you were a soldier, this would be the position you’d move into if you had to defend yourself against the thoughts about your father. Even when he is not present, he haunts your wellbeing. Even when it’s your mother you think about, his phantom always lurks right behind. “Your father isn’t too fond of the ocean?” he asks. The lie on his tongue tastes vile.

Like the rotting corpse of a gutted mermaid.

You shake your head. “No, he’s fond of the ocean, alright,” you correct. When you sink into the water, clothes and all, Rafayel joins you immediately. Before your eyes, his legs merge back into his trusted tail. It makes you shake with laughter. “You know, I wanted to make a joke about you being like a fish in water, but um. You are one. A fish, I mean. In water.”

“You’re too funny,” Rafayel deadpans. “Truly, I am beside myself with laughter.”

You turn away your face and laugh into the palm of your hand, as if that could hide your mirth. Not like he’s feeling every single vibration in the water that your quiet giggles send out. The sound settles in his chest, taking root there. “Note taken,” you chortle still. “I’ll work on my jokes.”

“Don’t bother. You’ll never be as funny as I am.”

“Oh yeah?” You swivel your head around to him. Whatever smart response Rafayel was cooking up dies inside his mouth, turning dry in the face of your beauty. The dimples in your cheeks make you look younger than you are, your face luminous with real happiness. This is what had been lacking from your expression inside the Dolphin’s Hall. You were living for your faith, for your duty, leaving yourself much too neglected. But you were finally growing comfortable inside your skin. Opening up to him.

Kill her, the voice still whispers. He smothers the spark of that thought before it sets his brain on fire. Rafayel swallows. “Is that all you brought me here for, then?” he sighs. “To bore me with your unfunny jokes and reminisce about the past?”

“You sure do know how to kill the moment.” The sentiment makes you snort. You finally turn your face to the horizon, and Rafayel can breathe comfortably again. Looking at you for too long makes him want to dig into you. With knifes, of course. Not with kisses. Or his fingers. Of course not. Nothing of the sort. None. “I just wanted to free my mind for a little bit. It gets incredibly loud in there, sometimes.” You tap your temples, the guardians of your thoughts. He wants to climb into that brain and see for himself how loud it is. He’d risk turning deaf to hear. “Everyone always looks to me, because I’m a seasinger, but they aren’t looking at me, not really. So I make myself entirely into that role I’ve been given. And I lose sight of who I really am. When I’m here, I don’t have to do that. I can just listen to the ocean. And she listens to me.”

You sound wishful.

In his own silent moments, when Rafayel discards his own roles, he is able to admit to himself that he wants to read your every wish from your lips and make them come true. If possible, he’d crown you in oceansvale and pearls, to show you the beauties of the watery underworld and all it has to offer. But that is something he can never allow himself to desire. So, like you, he makes himself steel over, and then asks instead: “Aren’t I listening to you?”

“Sure, but you’re just required to, aren’t you? You’re my friend.” You nudge him with your shoulder, the touch a brand of fire on his skin. You’re so, so warm. Rafayel chases that sensation as you lean away, and you let him drape himself over you, already used to his clingy behavior. You’re my friend. You’re my enemy. “The ocean doesn’t have to listen, but she does. She’s been a better parent to me than my father has. He’s always thought I wasn’t worth raising because I was of the cursed sex, anyways.”

“Does that matter? Your mother loves you.”

“But he’s my father.” And your voice breaks. As he angles another look at you, he realizes that you’ve been gazing at the sea with tears in your eyes. If you were Lemurian, you wouldn’t need him to crown you: your own pearl-teary eyes are already beginning to fill with treasure. Like tidepools, they spill over, painting your face in salt-burned tear tracks he wants to kiss until his mouth runs dry. Rafayel curls an arm around you, all thoughts of murder forgotten, and all he can think of is how to comfort you properly so you’ll never have to mourn your father again. “He’s my father,” you repeat with a muffled voice against his shoulder, as if he didn’t hear you the first time, “He should have loved me anyways. I would have become the son he wanted if he gave me the chance. But he didn’t want me. He didn’t want me.”

Rafayel doesn’t know if it’s the ocean or his blood he hears rushing in his ears. His mind has already become clouded with rage, swirling into a hurricane that tears your father apart. He rocks you back and forth, and he hopes it feels like the ocean is cradling you, carrying you far away from your sorrow.

It’s already been two full moons since Rafayel has become your ‘friend’.

Your birthday has come and gone, and you’ve scared Rafayel out of his own skin when you burst into tears as you accepted his gift. It’s just a necklace made of a shell, idiot, he had clarified, flustered. It’s not like I spent money on it or anything. It was just something I had laying around and wanted to get rid of.

Rafayel, you had said, voice shaky with teary joy. It’s everything to me.

It’s getting harder and harder to convince himself into doing what he set out to do.

Particularly today he finds himself reaching back for the memory of his bloodlust, watching you guide new devotees to the sea to be baptized, like turtles taking to water for the first time. He’s seen his fair share of baby turtles scrambling to the sea, muddling up the waves as their tiny legs fought to master them. These children are not dissimilar to the freshly born turtles. Traitors, the lot of them, he thinks to himself, but the threat feels hollow. Cursed species, they are. Liars and deceivers all. He tries to ignore the irony of that prejudice considering the nature of your relationship.

When you finally send the kids off and join him in the water, he schools his features into a childish pout he hopes will mask his hatred. “You’ve made me wait all evening,” he complains, the annoyance in his voice real. It has been quite some time since you got to unwind with him. The thought of Rafayel looking forward to seeing you again had made him panic, and he had scrambled to avoid you for a few days before his own longing drew him back to you. “I was freezing to death here.”

“As if!” Your laughter rings as jubilously as the bells inside Dolphin’s Hall call to prayer. There’s a myth as old as humanity which decrees that when the bells ring twelve times, the gates of heaven will open to flood the world entire. Only the true believers will become one with the sea, the earth finally reunited with its one true love. The planet will become a single ocean again, and it will be as if land and sea never had separated, all creatures under the moon united under one banner. “I know exactly well that wherever you live is way colder than whatever temperature these waters are. This must feel like a hot bath for you in contrast.”

Rafayel sniffles, caught in the lie. “It’s the principle that counts.”

Your smile gentles. “Rafayel,” you say. The way that name rolls of your tongue makes him want to roll his eyes back into his head: if all sermons sounded like this, he’d be the most devoted follower of the sea’s faith alive. Your voice is the single most exultant sound any living creature could create. Perhaps you were a siren in your past life. “Don’t tell me you missed me.”

I miss you all the time, he thinks. I miss you even when I fantasize about killing you. I miss you even when I should be grieving all the mermaids my brothers and sisters have lost. I miss you even more when I watch them take brides and grooms and make the kingdom of the depths a happier place in the face of adversity. You would like us, the way we cling to hope like you do. “I bet you’d like that,” he drawls out, feigning normalcy. “Any living being would want to be missed by me. I’m very beautiful, after all, and very desired.”

“Truly? Are they all vying for your attention down there?” You flick his shoulder, intending to be teasing. Even the pain is welcome. He tries to ignore the way his stomach flips. “And yet you’re here for me. What an honor, oh desirable bachelor.”

“You should be honored,” he tells you. It sounds arrogant, but why shouldn’t he be? He is beautiful after all. For once, he’s not lying. Rafayel takes pride in his appearance, and he preens at the chance of receiving a compliment from you.

You cock your head at him. It’s supposed to look threatening, but you hold all the danger of a sweet otter. “Don’t make me laugh,” you tell him, still joking, but your voice is breathy.

Maybe his looks don’t leave you as untouched as you pretend to be. Maybe he’s not the only one feigning.

Rafayel brushes his fingers over the hollow of your arms, following the veins as they reach upward. It makes you shudder. He delights in it. “I adore hearing you laugh, sweetling, but it’s not the intention I have here,” he says. He is in and out of his body at the same time. Most times, he smothers these thoughts before they reach his mouth, yet he continues to speak as if this were just another dream of you. “Go on. Say it. Tell me I’m beautiful.”

Your lips part, speechless. Behind you, the human world goes on, tickering away like a fluid mechanism. With or without you. You look like as if you realize that the ocean is beckoning. He is beckoning. If you’re not careful, he’ll drown you, bones and all. “You’re beautiful,” you whisper then, the sound of it caught up in the rushing of the waves. They cling to the sand, dragging it with the pull of the tide. He yearns to do the same.

His hand comes up to cradle your face. You fit perfectly into it, as if you were made for him. As if he was made to compliment you. Rafayel’s heart stutters in his chest, threatening to burst. “Again,” he says, his voice steady. (He doesn’t know how he does it. He feels like he’s about to explode.) “You can do better than that.”

You draw in another sharp breath, your lungs fluttering. The human body was so very fascinating. He wants to reach inside you and look at everything, feel it all. “You’re truly beautiful, Rafayel,” you try again, and this time, you pitch up your voice. Every word is clearly enunciated. You look at him straight on. “All the wonders in this world pale in comparison to you.”

Oh. Oh.

“You,” Rafayel breathes out. His fingers are shaking on your face, but they hold on. Latching on to you. If he strengthened his grip, will he be able to crush your skull? Will he be able to reach inside? His body feels heavy with desire; as he bends towards you, he finds that you’re already meeting him halfway, and this time, the soaked material of your clothes exposes the sight of your stiff nipples. He yearns to warm them up for you, to take them in his mouth and kiss you until you’re burning from the inside out. He’s always wondered what you would taste like.

You are both torn out of the fantasy at the sound of your voice in a human mouth, carried by the wind from the shore. You draw apart hastily, as if a spell had been broken, and you fumble to rearrange your clothes and fix your hair although nothing had happened. Rafayel tucks his traitorous hands behind his back.

“I,” you manage to say, your voice drowsy with the lingering desire, “I have to get back. I’ll see you?” You phrase the order like a plea, as if Rafayel wouldn’t bend over backwards for you. You miss his assenting, fervent nods as you whirl around and wade back to shore, your own hands drowning in the material of your dress as you lift it up and wring it out. The water trails behind you in his stead, leaving him behind.

He’ll totally be able to carry out his revenge, alright.

It’s getting increasingly difficult to resist you.

The more time passes, the more it feels like the sun rises and sets just for you. Your happiness is his own, your sadness his bitter grief. Every emotion you ever display resonates so deeply in his soul that he grows hazy with responsibility, wants to reshape the world in your image. Every tear you shed is carefully collected like his own well-cared for treasure, every laughter bottled in the memory palace of his mind. His mind traces each and every one in your absence, creating melodies which cannot compare to your voice. He is becoming enraptured. He is coming undone.

Even the distance is beginning to choke him. You feel so close and so far. He wishes to lap at your body like the ocean does when you perform your prayers, wants to smother you in a hug that threatens the ocean’s might when you dive down with him. In the few times where you were able to swim with him - your timetable strict, your parents suspicious - he’s allowed you to trace your hands over the scales of his tail. To you, it’s the satisfaction of a curiosity. To him, it is a so startling intimacy that he wants to weep. There is no room for justice as his heart expands to encompass you, and it grows inside his chest, breaking apart his ribcage so it can guard you from the world. There are no words. You’re in every breath, every steady push of his blood.

Although the active threat of your father’s suspicions has come between the two of you, every meeting rarer, but becoming more precious over time, it cannot erase the wish for his soul to reach for you. You doze away in your place on the stony slopes surrounding the pool you perform your ablutions in, and Rafayel is content to guard your slumber, dipping in and out of the water. He never strays away for too long. He makes sure to count every strand of those stunning lashes that had already enticed him when he first met you here, follows every vein inside your face to see where it branches into. What was hated has become dear to him now, your humanity as endearing as your very existence. He wonders what you dream about. Wonders if you dream about him, as often as he dreams about you. His brain has become very enamored with you, every fold of the thing having been etched over with memories of you.

Your father is already hounding you. Your newfound happiness hasn’t gone unnoticed. It should please Rafayel, how your friendship has changed your life for the better. You are standing up straight, opening up to the world. When you laugh, it finally sounds like your vocal cords are singing in true harmony, never again pushing for the falsity you used to employ to wave away concerns.

If anyone were to discover you were sneaking away with a mermaid, they’d be dumbfounded. Perhaps they’d mock you for it. But if your father were to discover you two, then it wouldn’t take much until Rafayel would find himself face to face with the same knife he used to kill Lyra.

I’ll have to tell her the truth, Rafayel thinks then, stricken. If I really love her, then I have to let her go. He closes his eyes, losing himself to the sharp sting of grief inside his chest. That’s what Lyra would have said, anyways. She was always so enthusiastic about fairy tales and happy endings and true love. He mourns for the way his childhood had been shaped with the loss of her, and the loss of all the mermaids that had ever died an unjust death. But it has taken on a new meaning. He looks into your face and cannot find it himself to justify the means to the end he had intended for you. There was nothing vengeful or freeing about this. If anything, he’d push himself off to his own metaphoric end, because Rafayel has reached the ends of his wits and he’s finally accepted that there is no you without me. He stretches out a hand to card his fingers through your dry hair before it can fall into the water. What a blessing it is to do at least this, to be cherished by you.

He begins to ask himself how he is supposed to leave you.

As Rafayel’s thoughts take a turn for the worse, you open your sleep-drowsy eyes. They are still blurred over with the dreams you’ve been chasing, just slowly becoming clear and taking in your surroundings. “Raf?” you whisper, and he tries not to melt at the nickname. No one’s ever thought up a nickname for him. So many things you’ve given him that he will never be able to repay you with. So much light you’ve brought into his dark, dark life. The bottom of the ocean, despite all its magic, had never been as bright as this. “I’m here,” he tells you, the sentence literal, but he means it with every ounce of his soul.

You blink away the last traces of unconsciousness, your pretty lips stretching open to release a yawn. “I was afraid you’d left,” you tell him. Also so literal. But in the way you look at him and your tone turns up with hope, he finds himself recognizing the underlying meaning, just as you had discerned his.

He’s told you so many lies already. What’s one more? “I’d never leave you,” he tells you, and he tries to mean it. In another universe, he would be able to mean it. Rafayel swims closer so he can throw an arm over your frame as you lie back down, and he angles himself up so he can cage you in-between his hands. As he arranges himself, he abandons the scales and tail in favor of his awkward human legs, caging your delicate waist inbetween his knees. He’s balancing himself on top of you now, not caring if the drops of water pearling off his skin splash on you.

You don’t look like you care, either. You stare at him as if there’s nothing else in the world, just the two of you for all eternity. The thought fills him with happiness.

Slowly, very slowly, as if asking for permission, you lay your hands on his naked chest. The tips of your fingers are even softer than the palms of your hands, a testament to your nature. Not a toiler, not a warmonger. Something more peaceful and calmful, that brings his own soul rest. “I dreamt about you,” you tell him, honest as a Lemurian. He smiles at the inadvertent way you had answered the question he’d been thinking of while you were sleeping. “What was your dream about?” he asks, anchoring his weight on one hand so he can use the other to curl around the side of your throat. He can feel the pocket inside it traveling as you swallow to gather your bravery.

“A little bit like this situation right now.”

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to elaborate, friend.” Rafayel’s fingers dig into the supple flesh of your shoulder as they move, then gently claw at your skin as he follows the curve of your arm. He’s always been fascinated with your human skin, the way it seems entirely different from Lemurians although they look so similar. The smallest of things could break it. Bruises bloom like flowers with the lightest force. It makes him want to cage you inside his chest, where he can keep you safe from harm and make sure no one will ever hurt you again. It’s irrational, and unnecessary. But he just can’t help himself.

You narrow your eyes at him playfully, blissfully unaware of his thoughts. “Are you enjoying this?”

Now Rafayel begins to smile as well. It is entirely genuine, and only reserved for you. He is yours, heart and soul. “Of course I am,” he confesses, feeling as exposed as a newborn babe. “You always act so unbothered by me, you know. I was beginning to worry whether I was the only one caring about this … friendship.”

Your own hands have begun to wander. You place them directly on his cheeks, directing his gaze at you, as if you weren’t already the single fixed point around which his entire existence was centered around “Rafayel,” you say. “I don’t want to be just your friend.”

His breath catches. He searches your eyes for a joke, for the mockery, but you are serious. And for once, his own mind blanks at the possibility that his feelings might be reciprocated. “Do you… mean it?” he whispers, afraid. Vulnerable. She’s human, she’s a liar, she’ll lie to you, watch. This isn’t possible. This is a trick.

“Shall I prove it to you?”

Rafayel’s heart stops.

(God, he always knew you’d be responsible for his death.)

The answering smile you give at the sight of his eagerness makes his insides melt into the same constitution as a jellyfish. There is a fire at the core of his existence, and you have come to kindle it. He feels the blood rush; in his cheeks, in his body, down his abdomen. He is alight with emotion, bursting at the seams. As you flatten your palm and curve it around the shape of his chest, he chokes out a, “Yes. Please.”

Your touch is hesitant, but your eyes are determined. “I love you, Rafayel,” you finally tell him, the magical words that crack open his chest like a volcanic crater exploding into the water. He collapses against you, crushing his lips against yours, and then he can’t tell where you start and he ends because of how you meld against him. Every inch of his body comes alive with the sensation of you against him, and you fit into every curve inside his body. Your lips carefully trace the shape of his own, moving against his tenderly, carefully. He can’t bring himself to entertain the same restraint as you do: as he digs his hand into the curls of your hair, he angles your head appropriately and then delves inside to finally taste that sinful mouth he’s been dreaming about for so long.

Your answering whimper is smothered almost immediately by his beckoning tongue. Greedily, selfishly, Rafayel kisses you as if his life depends on it; like he might die without ever getting lost on your tongue, dissolving like sugar. He groans into your mouth when you carefully tangle your tongue with his own, not used to this kind of kiss. When he tries to pull back to grant you a reprieve, your heavenly lips wrap around the tip of his tongue, sucking on it in the mock-fashion of a blowjob.

He almost comes then and there, that’s how embarrassingly obsessed he is with you. Only you.

You chase him as he disentangles himself, but Rafayel quickly busies himself with your throat, littering those veins he’d been staring at like a vampire starved with kisses. “You have no idea,” he whimpers into the skin there, speaking directly into your soul, “how you make me feel. No idea. You’re dangerous.”

You don’t mock him for once. Instead, Rafayel is gently pushed to the side. Before he can worry about being rejected, you straddle his lap and sit down like a queen crowned on her throne, and the sight makes him so breathless that Rafayel finds himself falling back against the wet ground without complaint. Your lips are kiss-swollen and smiling, a sight he mentally declares to be his favorite sight in the world. “I’ll find out soon, enough,” you promise, the words as delicious as your kisses. “For example, how does this feel?”

And you grind down, your clothed core sliding over his exposed cock in a perfect glide.

Rafayel throws his head back, cussing in Lemurian. He doesn’t even realize the crack of pain as his head hits the ground, his entire nervous system too caught up with the sensation of you rubbing against the most sensitive spot of his body. There’s a sound he doesn’t immediately recognize, a quiet giggle that shakes your entire body, and then the feeling of the weight on top of him shifting as you bend down to kiss your way down this body. “My Rafayel,” you murmur against his abdomen, lips shaping the words against his hipbones. He almost trills in happiness at the sound of that. Yours. “You’re so, so, so beautiful.”

If it was possible to dissolve in extreme happiness, Rafayel would be seafoam on the water surface right now.

He digs his fingers into the hard stone, unyielding as it is, as your lips seem to vanish off his skin right before reaching his already erect dick. He catches the look of your eyes, the slight surprise at his size - he can’t lie, it makes him want to puff up in pride - but then you begin to sport a scary smile, the kind that makes Rafayel realize that you’re going to suck the life out of him, and he’s already on the brink of death from the possibility of this happening alone. “My love…” he begins to caution, but then he chokes off as each and every one of your fingers wraps itself around the shaft of his cock, and there is no consciousness to form thoughts, no thoughts at all.

You kiss the tip of the head, tongue peaking out to catch the first beads of pre-cum. “Gonna make you feel good, I promise, Raf.”

He wants to answer, he swears he does. There is just no way he can. Rafayel’s entire body arches off the ground as you take him in your mouth, and he’s barely aware of the way you slightly choke on the size of it - his hands go to your head, are you alright, are you okay, love? - yet that doesn’t stop you; the slide of his cock on your tongue continues and continues and continues, and then he feels himself hit the back of your throat and he cries out in pleasure, feeling like a star that’s exploded.

“Fuuuuuuuck.”

You sound like you want to laugh; your mouth shakes and shudders around him, and that makes him tug at your hair, unwillingly, instinctively. He’s about to apologize, but your own tugged out moan makes him hold himself back. He hates hurting you, but you seem to enjoy it, so he tangles his fingers into your hair and gently begins to guide you up and down, up and down. He hisses at the sensation, of the clenching around his dick, the gentle swipes your tongue makes when you get to. “You’re so good to me,” he tells you, watches the way your eyes light up with the praise. He’s never even thought about how lovely and romantic sex could be. Love-making. “So good.”

You hum, and Rafayel hisses; it’s a delicious kind of vibration, both torturous and pleasing. “Please,” he pleads with you, his fingers shaking. Not aware of what he’s asking. But you seem to understand, you speak the language of his soul; you hollow your checks and suck, and then his eyes do roll back so far into his own head that he thinks he can finally see his brain and all the images of you he imprinted on it. As your fingers begin to stroke in time with your tongue, he begins to feel like he’s shaking out of existence, both here and not. Both bound and untied. The coil in his abdomen begins to tighten, his toes curling at the way you drag your tongue around the tip, suckling, teasing. Your lips pop as you remove your mouth, pumping him quicker and quicker, watching him. A predator devouring its prey. “Beautiful,” you say again. “The prettiest, my Rafayel. Look at you taking it so well.”

He keens at that, hands sliding down to claw at your arms, not sure if he wants you to stop or keep going. He’a never experienced an orgasm building up like this, a literal supernova beginning to build at the edges of his perception. “I,” he gasps out, looking for words, finding none, but you help him out of his predicament by kissing him messily, the taste of his own pre-cum lacing his tongue. Your hand, every caress growing in pressure, continues to pump his cock even when he cries out against your mouth, even as his teeth find your shoulder and latch onto it to bite it. You don’t push him away, not even when he explodes into your hand, his release beginning to pearl over your hand as you continue to fuck him through the orgasm. When he begins to sob against your collarbone, pushing at your dangerous hands, he finally understands how deadly a single human being can be.

You’ve ruined him, and he couldn’t be happier about it.

The second you remove your hand, Rafayel flips you onto your back and begins to lick your fingers clean, pleased at the way your mouth drops into that cute little shocked ‘o’. Intertwining your fingers, he drags his tongue over every inch of your palm, taking note of the way your eyes zero in on the length of it. His chest rumbles, pleased; he wants to be as desirable, as perfect to you as you are to him. You are an absolute miracle, a wonder to behold. “Your turn,” he tells you, and your eyes darken.

But you shake your head. “Raf,” you say. Your voice is deadly serious. “If you don’t fuck me right now, I’m going to explode into a thousand pieces and you’ll never see me again.”

Despite the sensuality of the situation, Rafayel finds himself bursting into laughter. Your own obscene, reddened lips curl into a matching grin, and for the moment, you are both innocent again, youthfully in love. Love-making, he thinks again. I want to make love to you for the rest of my life, for all eternity. “I love you,” he says out loud. “And I don’t want you to explode. But I want to show you how much I love you, as well. I want to worship you from head to toe.”

Your eyes widen in the most adorable way. As someone who’s always lowered herself as a supplicant, you find yourself entranced by the idea of being an object of worship. “You do?” you ask, unsure.

Rafayel raises your still sticky hand to his face, not caring about the mess. He wants to be messy with you. He wants to be part of you. “There’s nothing else in this world,” he begins, kissing the inside of your wrist, nuzzling the skin there. “I adore as much as you. I already worship you. Your hands, your face, your waist, your entire body. All of it is holy to me, holier than any faith I’ve ever believed in my entire life. And if that is a sin, then I will die the happiest sinner to have ever graced this earth.”

The way you blush at his words make him want to eat you whole. He’s never once considered partaking in human flesh, and although he isn’t too fond of what could possibly be considered cannibalism, his desire borders on the urge of devouring you entire. You are just too sweet.

“I’m going to eat you,” he actually tells you. Your answering laughter only makes his chest constrict in pure, unbridled joy.

He backs the words up with another gentle nip to your fingers, his sharp teeth only stopping short of breaking the skin; he finds himself back at your throat, lapping up the thin stream of blood and listening in to the way your laughter turns into a strangled moan. “Oh,” you yelp. “I thought that was a joke.” That makes Rafayel grin; with the taste of your salt on his tongue, he begins to kiss the space inbetween your chest, his fingers gently rolling your nipples through the thin dress you’re wearing. You sigh in please, your back arching just so slightly at the feeling of his fingers on you. “Adore this chest,” he tells you, trying to stay true to his word, but he’s already getting lost in the delicious sight of you surrendering to your pleasure. Following an urge that’s been haunting him ever since that almost-kiss on the beach, he wraps his lips around the rose-bud like nub and suckles it into his mouth, the sound of your sharp outcry like music in his ears. He groans against your chest and hopes you can hear the sound inside your heart; he wants to crawl inside and live there, reside under your skin. As he kisses the nipple with the same fervor he did your mouth, his other hand gently fondles the neglected nipple until you begin to whine for him to stop, the gentle torture not enough for you.

He abandons your chest in favor of your soft, soft stomach - he smushes his cheek against it like a cat, reveling in the way it feels. “God, I love you,” he says, hands cupping your waist. You don’t answer him, too lost in the sensation of his knees beginning to grind against your exposed core for some friction: your dress has ridden up, revealing the lack of underwear. His mouth runs dry, sparing only a moment of pondering where he asks himself whether the seasinger’s attire just doesn’t include underwear; you don’t leave him any more time to think as your fingers claw their way down his back, the pain as erotic as your lewd moans. “Please,” you beg him, grinding up your hips against his. He’s rock-hard again, straining to be inside you. “Please, I need you so bad. Fuck me, Raf.”

“You’ve got a filthy mouth,” he grits out. It’s not a reprimand, more an articulation of how crazy you drive him. Rafayel’s hands glide to the small of your back, lifting you up to receive him, readying you. You’re staring straight into his eyes, panting heavily, and he wonders whether you’re actually seeing him or staring into his soul. “I love you,” you say in response, clinging to the words like a lifeline. His heart jumps and jumps and jumps in chest, struggling to break out of its cage to join hands with yours. The head of his cock nudges against your labia, opening you up, and you fold open like a pond lily, more beautiful than even the oceansvale you adore. “I love you so much.”

“But I,” he tells you, voice strained, “love you more.”

And he pushes inside.

For a second, it feels like all kingdom come. It’s blasphemous and religious all at once; Rafayel feels whole, feels like you’ve become one person as he stretches you open. You feel so perfect around him, so, so perfect. “Oh, gods,” you whisper, the only time you take the name of your articles of faith in vain, a fact that he’s arrogantly proud of, and then Rafayel draws back and curls back inside again, the head of his dick nuzzling against something spongy that makes you wail like a woman stabbed. He almost pulls out, if not for the way you kiss him like this is the last time you ever will, your tongue inside his mouth before he can register, and then the hunger you illicit in him is too much to tolerate and Rafayel begins to fuck into you.

“Full,” you whimper, the words drawling together on your tongue as if you don’t even have the peace of mind to formulate the thoughts properly. Rafayel drags his cock back, pulling out almost entirely before he snaps it back inside; you bare your teeth at him in the same manner as he had done before he had bitten you, which would have made him smile at the way his behavior’s rubbing off on you. But there’s no space to do anything, no controls inside his mind. He’s become prisoner to your gummy walls, the way your warmth swallows his whole, every clench of your pussy around him like a shooting star frying his nervous system alive. “So perfect,” he whines, letting his instincts take over, and your fingers shakily hold on to his shoulder as he begins to piston in out of you. The slapping of flesh meeting skin is so loud it makes you screw your eyes shut in embarrassment, yet you offer up your body all the same. Your legs interlock behind his back as he continues to grind into you, in and out, in and out, in and out. “God, you take me like you were made for me. You’re a dream come true. You are. You are.”

“Rafayel,” comes your pitiful answer, but he’s not paying attention to you right now, not when his body is so hyperfixated on the way you make him feel and the way your own pleasure becomes the forefront of his mind. “S’too much. Slow down.” Your pussy flutters around him, dragging him back in every time he tries to pull out, and his solution is to pump into you quicker, harder, deeper. There is no sound, none that could be described when his cockhead begins to kiss your cervix, and now Rafayel’s chasing after your climax, desperate to get you there before he comes again. There are tears pooling at the edges of your eyes, tears which he licks up with the same delicacy he would use to gorge on you, lose himself in the taste of your cunt. His own tears blur his sight, dripping onto your face, searing into the skin there. “I can’t,” he bawls, sounding entirely too heartbroken for the way he fucks you, the way he folds your body into position to take him better, take him deeper. The bloody trails your nails leave on him don’t even make an impression on him anymore. He sobs into the curve of your throat, chasing, chasing. He ruts into you like a man possessed.

Even in your fucked out state, your shaky hands brush away the tears from his face. He hisses into the palm of your hand, swallowing his sobs, ignoring the hiccups. His own hand finds its way down your body until he’s sure he’s found your clitoris, finding the confirmation in your stuttered out “Fu-u-uck,”, and the hasty circles he draws have your thighs shaking in time with the constant snapping of his own hips, meeting him halfway as he chases your climax, pounding you into the ground. “Gonna come, gonna come, gonnacomegonnacomecomeRaf.” The last of your sentence becomes unintelligible as your orgasm hits you like a tidal wave, and he holds you close to his chest and continues to fuck you through it as his own begins to spill inside you, no stop to it seemingly in sight, up until the heartbreaking sob that falls out of your mouth breaks him out his trance and snaps him awake. His hips come to a stuttering halt, the picture of a stumbling drunk, then stop completely, and Rafayel slumps, still inside you. He can feel his semen dripping outside, running down his thighs, pooling on the ground. He’s dimly fascinated by the fact that he even has this much cum, but the majority of his consciousness focusses on the way you kiss his forehead, his head, everything you can reach.

“Don’t expect me to move anytime soon,” he mumbles from where his face is smushed against your boobs, and your laughter makes his head shake like the oceanvale bobs in the wind. “Well, darling. You’ve certainly showed me how much you love me.”

“Oh, I haven’t even gotten started, Raf.”

This time, it’s he who laughs. He hides his face in your chest and laughs, loud and free, in a way that he’s never been able to ever since he’s been a child. He feels your fingers comb through his blue-pink hair and feels like he’s finally home.

When you wake up from another nightmare in the night, crying for Rafayel like he’s abandoned you, he kisses every tear away until he’s positively certain you’ll never remember the way that dream felt again. You are safe in his arms, joined to his hip, bonded to his soul.

Caught up in so much luck, Rafayel forgot the looming threat.

He forgot how perfectly capable your father was of stealing away Rafayel’s happiness

The memory of Lyra drifted away from him as steadily as his craving for revenge did. She had raised him like her own in his dead mother’s stead: they’d been best friends once, and she became his only connection the mother that had labored and labored to give birth to him. Lyra had always warned him to take good care of his long hair, as it looked exactly the same as his mother’s, and she’d spent all her free time brushing the tangles out. It wasn’t Rafayel she was seeing, not really. But if she was chasing the after-image of her best friend in her son, then there really wasn’t anything he was going to do about it, not when he looked into her face and could only see his mother. They had been united in their loss, and then loss had divided them again.

It’s mother’s long hair, and Lyra’s plea for him to maintain it, that ends up being weaponized against him. Someone is tearing at his hair like a leash, pulling him from the safety of the pool. “Father, no!” You shout. You’ve never raised your voice in anger, not once. “Let go of him!”

“I’ve told you countless times!” Your father’s voice overpowers your own easily, as loud as the thunder before the lightning, as loud as the bells inside Dolphin’s Hall. Rafayel had always guessed you’d been trying to drown out the sound of your father’s shouting, the way he’d done your entire life. “They’re not to be trusted! Ask him! Ask the bastard why he’s entertaining you in the first place!”

You draw back from the accusation, the word ‘entertaining’ like a slap to the face. “He loves me,” you defend him, but your voice has become meek, small. As Rafayel thrashes in your father’s and a second man’s hold, he catches sight of your pale face, the way it’s stained with fear. For his life? Or because of an anticipated betrayal?

“Bullshit.” The unknown man spits at the ground.

“I love her,” Rafayel manages to stay. There’s a punch thrown at him that bites the taste of blood back into his mouth, foreign, not as welcome the way your blood had been. His teeth have cut into the insides of his cheek. “Which I can say with more certainty than you can, you bastard. Yes, I’ve entered her life under a guise. You murdered the woman who raised me. You’ve killed countless of my siblings. But I saw the way you starved your daughter of love and affection, and I vowed I’d never do that to her.”

“Do not play hero with me,” your father says, the hatred in his voice like the lash of a whip. Your own small hand spins out, and for a moment, Rafayel scared he’s lost you, that it’s him you’re going to strike. But your fingers wrap around your father’s wrist, as i you can do anything, as if this wasn’t the hand controlling your entire life. “Let him go, or I swear I’ll tell everyone,” you vow. The threat inside your voice is as venomous as the enmity your father’s had contained. “I’ll tell them where that caviar you so adore comes from, I swear it. Let him go or kill us both. Or maybe I’ll kill you.”

Your father halts in his shock. Rafayel can’t tell what is happening, his head still lowered to the ground by the hand pinning him there, tearing at his hair. It loosens then, and he’s kicked aside, like some stray dog that was a bother and is then forgotten. When he looks up, he sees you locked in a stare-off with your father - your father, whose looking at you as if he’s never once seen you in his entire life.

Perhaps he hasn’t.

“Walk,” is the only thing your father says then. “Walk before I forget myself.”

Rafayel struggles to sit up, to defend you as you had defended him, but you shake your head at him, the dismissal clear enough.

He watches as you leave him behind. How ironic, for you to have feared abandonment, when here he sits being abandoned now. Lost and alone.

In the following days, you don’t turn up. When Rafayel comes to search your human house, despite the fact that your father had threatened to kill him, the building is empty, stripped of all its belongings. None of the vendors in the city know about what has happened, giving only absentminded shrugs and I-do-not-cares. You’ve turned into an actual dream, a fantasy conjured by his love-sick brain, a haunting nightmare. He finds himself clenching his chest as if the heart contained inside was going to give out, broken apart like an empty shell by a mere mortal’s love.

He fears he’s going to die like this.

Alone, and unmourned, and forgotten.

When his desperation mounts in impulsiveness, he either decides to flee Whalefall City or look for you one last time. He can’t remain here, not when he looks everywhere for you, in the strange faces of this place or the gentle tosses of the waves in the harbor, in the sound of a melodious seasinger calling to prayer. It’s driving him insane. He turns up on the steps of Dolphin’s Hall, half-crazed from the loss of you.

It’s there where he witnesses the miracle of the Gods.

It’s not you, sadly; but your shrine maiden, freshly appointed as the new seasinger, hurries thorugh the throng of hall-going attendees. “It’s you!” she exclaims, a haunting echo of the very first words you addressed at him.

That makes him wary. “How do you know who I am?”

She blinks as if Rafayel was the one acting suspicious. “Well, because she’s told me, of course. And your description doesn’t really fit to any of the people here. In a city like this, it’s easy to recognize a new face.” The girl - no, woman - unfolds a letter, revealing a penmanship that he’s never seen, but which he recognizes with his heart.

Rafayel, the very first word on the paper shapes, in elegant loops, written in the soft scribbles of love.

He’s gone to meet you before the letter can hit the ground. Your successor, shaking her head, watches him go.

You’re right where you said where you would be, sitting in the surf like a mermaid would, your human legs anchored in the sand as the ocean drinks the earth. Your arms are crossed over your chest, over clothing he’s never seen before: garment from below the sea. His heart pounds inside his chest.

When you turn your head to face him, the smile on your face is entirely real.

Rafayel hurries to meet you, and then you are embracing each other like one soul being knit together; there was a physical pain in being separated from you that had strangled him for every second that you had been gone, drowning on land like a beached fish. He swipes your windswept hair out of your face, behind your ears, holding your head in his hands. You fit there, as always, like a missing puzzle piece. “I thought … you wouldn’t want to see me again,” he chokes out, the words a struggle. His tongue is heavy with sorrow, weighed down by his betrayal. “I mean, I wanted to tell you the truth. Long before I ever wanted to confess my feelings. I was going to do this properly. But I didn’t expect you.”

You snort, as if amused. “I could see that.”

His thumb strokes your cheekbone, as gentle as a clam reaches to embrace its pearl. “No, you don’t understand,” he tells you, and his chest unlocks in the same way it had when he had allowed himself to be vulnerable with you. “From the very beginning, I hadn’t expected you. I came to you with a heart heavy with hatred, blind with pain. I was so sure of myself, so sure of what was going to happen. But you reached inside me and changed everything. I’ve never even realized how painful it was to be me. Not until you administered the cure.” Rafayel leans his forehead against yours, tasting his tears. Crying, for the first time in so long. Only you. Only you. “Say something. Please.”

“Rafayel.” Your voice is wondrous. When Rafayel looks into your eyes, he only sees pure and unadulterated love, the kind of love that had drawn him off the edge of self-destruction and right into your safe arms. “Don’t you realize you’ve done the exact same thing with me? You’ve come into my life and filled it to the brim with a kind of joy I’ve never thought would be possible for me. I had resigned myself to my fate, to always be under the thumb of my father, and then you came, with all your unbridled anger and pompousness and unconditional love. If it hadn’t been for you, I might never have been able to shake off my parents’ expectations and build a life for myself with you.”

“With me?” Rafayel speaks the world gingerly. As if he can’t let himself believe it. As if he can’t let himself believe that the kinds of happy endings Lyra had always lectured him about were possible, after all.

If you witness true love, hold on to it.

Your fingers are reverent on his face, your smile so all-encompassingly loving. “How else are we going to heal this deep rift between mermaids and humans? I promised to show you, after all.”