here there be monsters

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this is a sideblog mostly to post my monster romance stories and ideas! i have a sizeable backlog of works that i'm rewriting, but i'm working on new stuff and i'm always up for more ideas and opinions!

i love all interaction! likes, reblogs, asks, tag games, and whatever else are all welcome here! inbox and anons are usually kept open, but if, for some reason, i have to close either, i'll update the above info. all i ask is for people to be polite - blank blogs, ageless blogs, and anything rude or otherwise will be an immediate block.

Recent

Monster Monday - Mimic x F!Reader | link

Witch x F!Reader x Witch || masterlist・✦・i.

Monster Monday - Necromancer x F!Reader | link

Friday the 13th Special - Serial Killer x GN!Reader | i.・ii.

Monster Zookeeper x Reader || masterlist・✦・i.・ii.・iii.

April Fool's Day Special - The Fool x F!Reader | link

Easter Special - The Rabbit x GN!Reader | link

Monster Monday - Vulture x GN!Reader | link

Monster Monday - Rat King x F!Reader | link

Monster Monday - Bat x GN!Reader | link

Upcoming

Request - Slime!GF part 2

Request - Mermay

Request - The Fool (cont.)

Monster Monday - Ogre x Reader

Monster Monday - Swamp Monster x Reader

Monster Monday - Troll x Reader

Holiday Special

・✦・

The villa sits on a cliff overlooking the Aegean Sea, all white marble with a sparkling infinity pool. He always picks somewhere beautiful, and, more importantly, remote. Somewhere you can watch the moon rise over the water while he frees himself from his human form.

It’s your fifth vacation together—

(your sixth maybe; you’ve lost count by now)

“Tell me about the view.” He floats on his back in the pool, face turned toward the late afternoon sun. His nose—up-turned, and slightly bat-like even when he’s human—twitches as the water laps at his cheeks. The tips of his ears peek through his wet, black hair, already more pointed than usual.

You describe it from your lounge chair, waxing poetic about the endless blue of the sea and the far off islands just a smudge on the horizon. When you run out of scenery, you start telling him about the villa’s terrace where you’ll watch him transform tonight.

He hums, pleased. Then, with a small smirk, adds, “You forgot the olive trees.”

You scoff out a laugh. Of course he’d know; he’s been here before. He brought you here three years ago for your second vacation together.

“The olive trees are still there, gnarled trunks and all.” You roll your eyes, watching him drift through the water.

He stretches an arm out, and snaps his fingers twice as he approaches the edge of the pool. It’s a habit he only indulges in when you’re alone, ears twitching as the clicks help him map the space around him. He kicks his feet, floating through the water until he comes to the edge. He turns gracefully, planting his feet on the pool wall to kick off and drift back into the center of the pool.

You’ve been together for years, since before the money and the fame. You’ve been there for all the sold-out concerts and the Grammy nominations. You’ve helped him navigate dealing with too curious fans who don’t know that his hauntingly alluring voice truly is otherworldly.

It’s been so long—

(years and years, and hopefully more still to come)

—that you have a routine for this.

Every few months, when his body starts preparing—when his hearing sharpens and you catch him clicking his tongue against his teeth in the middle of conversations—he books a trip. Somewhere expensive and scenic, where he can spoil you to his heart’s content and isolated enough no one will hear him scream.

This week it’s been massages and private beaches. At night, you indulge in dinners that cost more than most people’s rent, and sunrise swims where you float beside him in comfortable silence. He’s bought you clothes you don’t need, and jewelry you’ll never wear anywhere but here.

“I want you to have good memories,” he told you the first time, years ago in Scotland. “Before you have to watch me become a monster.”

You’d kissed him, promised that you’d love him in any form, and you’ve kept that promise through a dozen transformations. Maybe even more.

The transformation begins at sunset.

You’re on the terrace, your love standing at the railing in loose linen pants and nothing else. His skin has been sensitive all day, hence the extra time in the pool. You’d learned early on that clothes become unbearable as the change approaches.

“It’s starting.” Already his voice is rougher, harmonics creeping in at the edges.

You move to his side, but don’t touch him. “What do you need?”

“Just…be close. Talk to me, if you want—” he tilts his head, listening for something you can’t hear, “—The moon’s almost up.”

Through him, you can feel it. His breathing goes shallow, fingers gripping the railing as his shoulders hunch and roll. His spine curves first. Bumps of new vertebrae press against skin, his shoulder blades pushing outward. He gasps, head falling forward. You move behind him to help with his pants before the change makes them impossible to remove.

“I’ve got you,” you soothe, and he laughs breathlessly.

“You always do.” There’s an edge of his excitement to his voice, anticipating the coming change.

The skin on his back splits cleanly. Membrane pushes through, folded dark, and wet with fluid that isn’t blood. His wings unfurl slowly, extending wider than the terrace, blotting out the sunset.

You step back to give him room. This part is familiar, but you’re still not quite used to the sounds of his bones cracking and reforming. His face elongates, the lower half squishing in. You’ve seen it enough times that the horror has dulled to mild discomfort and mostly wonder.

(he’s stunning, even like this—nothing can change your mind about that)

When the transformation completes, he turns to you. Seven feet tall, covered in dark fur, wings mantled high. Those milky blind eyes are the same, though, fixed on you even though he can’t see.

“You’re staring,” he speaks, words limited in his true form and layered with high-pitched tones that make your ears ache slightly.

“Sure am.”

A purr escapes him, rippling through the fur of his body. “Going to hunt. Maybe sing. Don’t wait up.”

“Be safe.”

“Always.” He launches himself off the terrace, wings snapping out to catch the wind, and then he’s gone, melting into the dark sky.

For hours, you watch him from the terrace.

Sometimes he disappears, hunting in the mountains behind the villa. Other times he circles overhead, singing with that unearthly voice that make your chest ache and brings tears to your eyes. He flies for hours, testing his wings against the wind, diving and climbing in patterns that you’ve learned are joyful.

(you brought a book—you always bring a book—but you don’t read it, happy to just watch)

Around midnight, he lands on a cliff outcropping across the ravine. You can spot his silhouette against the moon, wings folded and head tilted back. He’s singing properly now, the echo carrying over the distance.

You’re so focused on listening that you don’t notice him take off again. Circling closer, diving until he’s almost on you. You gasp as clawed hands close around your waist, lifting your feet clean off the terrace.

“Trust,” he calls over the wind, and then you’re flying. Actually flying.

He’s never done this before. In a dozen transformations, he’s never grabbed you and taken you with him. Your heart hammers as the villa drops away beneath you, wind rushing past and his wings beating steady and strong.

“Oh my god!” is all you can manage.

His laugh rumbles through his chest into your back. He climbs higher, over the olive trees and the ravine. The moon turns everything silver, and below, the sea stretches in infinite waves of darkness.

“Feel,” he says when he finally plateaus, “What I hear. What it’s like.”

There’s so much of his world that he’s already shared with you, but this… It’s different to experience this way, seeing first-hand what it’s like when he’s unbound by gravity and human limitations.

“It’s beautiful,” you admit, adjusting in his arms to make yourself more comfortable.

His grip tightens, claws lightly digging into your waist. “You’re beautiful.”

He makes that purring sound again, diving low over the water. You shriek—half terror, half delight—and his wings beat, pulling up just before you’d hit the surface so the sea spray kisses your face.

“Show off!” you shriek in laughter.

“You love it.”

(god help you, you do)

He flies you for another hour. Over cliffs and forests, through clouds, and up to where the air grows thin. When he finally glides back to the villa, your legs are shaking and your cheeks are wind-burned. Yet, you’ve never felt more alive.

He lands on the terrace with surprising gentleness, setting you down but not letting go.

“Thank you,” you breathe, trying to steady yourself. “That was… Thank you.”

He nuzzles into your hair, wings folding carefully to cocoon you both. “Wanted to give. Something Good. To remember.”

You lean into his arms, laying a kiss over the rapid drumming of his heart and giggling at the purr you get in reply.

Around three in the morning, he starts changing back.

You’re dozing on the terrace lounge when you hear him land, heavier than before. Your eyes open just in time to catch his wings retracting, and bones shifting back to human proportions.

“Hey,” you call, sitting up. “Come here.”

He stumbles over, and you guide him to take your seat. The transformation back is usually slower than the first. More painful, you think—though he’s never admitted it—but you help him through it like you always do.

You fetch water, and he drinks with shaking hands that slowly pop back into fingers. You wipe blood from his mouth—he hunted well tonight, it seems—and don’t ask what he caught. You run your hands through the fur that’s receding into skin, and over the knots where his wings shrink back into shoulder blades.

“Hurting?” you ask.

“Some. Worth it.” His voice is losing its echo, becoming “normal” again. “Did you…like flying?”

“I loved it.”

He leans into you, still massive but shrinking with every deep breath. “Good. I’ve been…wanting to take you with me. Finally…felt brave enough.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you not be brave,” you laugh lightly.

“Not with you. With you I’m…terrified.” He’s mostly human now, just traces of fur and the memory of wings. “I…I think I keep waiting for you to realize what I am…and leave.”

“Never.” You punctuate it with a kiss to his forehead, then another to his cheek, and several more to his lips. “Never, never, never.”

By the time the sun rises, he’s fully human. Naked and exhausted, and happily curled in your lap on the lounge chair like a spoiled house cat.

“Let’s go to bed,” you suggest softly, running your hands down his warm sides.

He whines, nuzzling into your lap. “Carry me.”

“I don’t think so,” you laugh, nudging at his shoulders.

“Then I’ll carry you.” He stands with sudden, surprising energy, scooping you up despite his exhaustion. “My turn to spoil you.”

“Isn’t that what you’ve been doing?”

“More, then.” He carries you inside, straight to the massive canopied bed with its ocean view. He lays you down gently and crawls in beside you, pulling you tightly to his chest. His up-turned nose presses to your temple, inhaling deeply.

“Love you,” he murmurs.

“Love you, too.”

He snaps softly, checking exits before he lets himself settle into familiar territory. He waits five extra seconds, ears twitching as he listens for anything his clicks may have missed.

(you don’t know what he waits for when he does this—a part of you hopes you never do)

“Sleep,” he says once he’s satisfied you’re safe and alone. “Tomorrow I’m taking you to that restaurant. The one on the cliff.”

“You’re going to spoil me rotten like this. I hope you know that.”

“Have to make sure you remember why you deal with me.”

You turn in his arms. Those striking white eyes flit toward you, finding you through sound and heat.

“I’m not just here for fancy dinners, you know? I stay because I love you. In every form,” you tell him firmly, sealing it with another, stubborn kiss.

He grins against your lips, nipping lightly with his fangs when you pull away. “Guess we’ll have to keep doing this then.”

“For as long as you’ll have me.”

Outside the sun climbs higher, bathing you in soft golden light. You’re lulled to sleep by the rustling of olive trees in the breeze and the distant crashing of waves and his quiet promise of:

“Forever, then.”

You don’t mean to be found, mostly because you aren’t trying to hide.

After years spent here, you’ve learned to manage your tasks and your time well. The first days back are always the busiest, but once things have settled into your usual routine, you find yourself with a few extra hours of free time in the early afternoons.

The sanctuary makes a path for you, leading you to a spot in the eastern meadow where most of the noise can’t reach you and the lighting is perfect. The creatures rest in their enclosures, the Zookeeper works at his bench with his records and his tinctures, and you are blessed with a few moments alone. 

You’ve been doing this for three visits running without being caught. Though, today seems to be the end of that. 

—

The hexwolves find you first, as they seem to do, Hyacinth, with her coat full of luster, leading the younger ones through the long grass and lullflowers. They’ve been allowed the run of the meadow in the afternoons since Hyacinth discovered your not-so-secret hideaway, and the Zookeeper didn’t have the heart to keep them penned.

You sit against the eastern wall with your sketchbook open in your lap when she pushes her nose into your ear, sniffing loudly. 

“Five minutes, I promise,” you laugh, leaning your head away. 

She sits, waiting patiently as the younger ones settle around you. One drapes himself across your feet, two more flanking you while the smallest sets her head in your lap. The meadow goes quiet again, allowing you to return to the page.

You’re sketching the gloamflies today. They’ve been coming to the meadow since you started appearing there, and you suspect that isn’t a coincidence. They’re small creatures with the wing-span of a large butterfly, bodies like prismatic moths, trailing light threads from their tails that leave fading traces in the air. Normally, they don’t approach people, but they’ve been fluttering around you lately, settling on the grass nearby and folding their wings, watching you with curious attention.

You’ve been struggling to capture the filaments. It’s a technical problem, lines too messy when you try to sketch out how the traces of several gloamflies overlap. You’ve been working on it for three afternoons, not yet satisfied, but getting closer with every pencil stroke.

You hum absently as you draw. A habit from childhood and years of solitary work; your hands busy and mind elsewhere allowing your voice to find whatever melody comes. Sometimes it's something recognizable, but, more often it’s no more than a nonsense tune.

At least the hexwolves seem to appreciate it.

You’re partway through a clumsy trill when the meadow faintly begins to simmer around you, the air growing hazy with pinks and golds. A few gloamflies drift into the air, swirling in lazy patterns, but the hexwolves don’t stir. No sign of danger, and no need to worry.

You finish the line you’re drawing before you look up.

He’s at the gap in the hedges where the path opens onto the meadow, standing quite still. You notice now, that he’s standing in the direction Hyacinth’s ear has been pointed for at least the last few minutes.

“How long have you been standing there?” you ask with a playfully suspicious glare.

“Long enough,” the Zookeeper admits, but he doesn’t move. “Don’t stop.”

“Too late.”

“You don’t have to.”

You look at him across the meadow, past the flowery grass and the roaming gloamflies. His mouth subtly pulls to the side, his top teeth no doubt favoring the backside of his tusks. A nervous habit when he’s stuck too far in his thoughts.

“If you’re going to stand there watching me, you might as well come here,” you call. You pat the grass beside you, head tilted impatiently.

He moves through the meadow without disturbing the gloamflies. You don’t know how he does it; even after all your years here you’ve never managed to sneak through them. They part around him and resettle in his wake like he’s another part of the ever-changing sanctuary. He probably is.

He carefully lowers himself into the grass beside you, mindful of your space. Hyacinth shuffles to accommodate him without fully waking. The youngest hexwolf eyes him from your lap, waiting until he’s sat to curl further into you and return to her nap.

You tilt the sketchbook toward him, holding it out for him to take. He takes it with both hands, attentive to his claws despite how filed down they are.

“The filaments?” he asks without looking up from the page.

“I can’t seem to get them right.”

“You’re close.” He turns the page. The one before is an earlier attempt, less successful. He studies it long enough for you to study him, watching his eyes move over the line with great focus. He dips a claw beneath the corner of the page, preparing to turn back again, before giving you a sideways glance. “May I?”

“Go ahead.”

He turns further back. The sketchbook is filled with the sanctuary. Pages of it, visit after visit, layered over years. Creatures in their enclosures. The view from the cottage. The eggs in their room, each with its own dedicated page sketched out over different visits with small notations beside each one. His workbench. His tools.

He turns to the next page and pauses, seemingly stunned at a sketch of his hands taking up a full set of pages. 

Both hands around one of the eggs, viewed from above, and done in fine lines that had taken you an afternoon and evening to get right. It had also taken you a full night to stop being consumed by the thought of those hands on—

“I, uh, forgot that was in there.” Not entirely true, but it’s not like you ever expected him to rifle through your drawings.

He stares at the page for a long time. “You…drew this from memory?”

You don’t bother to ask how he knows that; he always seems to know everything about you. “Yes.”

“Why from memory?”

“Because I didn’t want to be caught staring at your hands?”

A gloamfly zigzags between you, its filament arc shaped suspiciously like a heart.

“I…I didn’t know you looked at me that way.”

You take the sketchbook back, closing it gently so you can set it aside. “I’ve been careful.”

He goes quiet, teeth worrying at his tusks again. You don’t push, letting him sort through his thoughts for the several, long minutes that it takes him.

“Why?” he asks finally.

“I…” You stop yourself, taking your own minute to choose your words carefully. “I wasn’t sure how you’d take it if I wasn’t.”

You don’t look up at him, but your arm grows warmer as he leans in closer to softly ask, “And now?”

“I’m a little more sure—” You glance up at him, instantly getting caught in the overwhelming affection of his gaze, “—I think I have been since you took watch with Hyacinth.”

He gasps lightly, his fur bristling against your arm. You put your hand on his arm without thought, running your finger through his fur, feeling out his edges. His eyes drop to your hand, then flick back to your face. Then, he covers your hand with his own.

More paw than hand, it’s enormous over yours, but he holds your hand with a tenderness that belies his size.

“I’ve been…” he sighs. “I’ve been waiting for you to be sure for a very long time.”

“I know. I’m sorry it took me—”

“Don’t.” He doesn’t snap, voice firm but soft. “I would wait longer—as long as it took.”

You allow yourself to take in the full sight of him, admiring his broad, familiar face, gazing deep into the pools of his eyes.

“That’s,” you start, voice catching unexpectedly. You clear your throat, glancing away for a brief second. “That’s a lot.”

“You’re worth far more.”

The gloamflies drift through the grass. Hyacinth breathes steadily against your side as the youngest hexwolf shifts in your lap. The sanctuary continues on around you, unconcerned with the fact that your world is turning itself upside down. Or, rather, the right side up.

You lean up and press your lips to his. Not a shy kiss to the cheek, but a true, proper kiss. His hand tightens over yours, and he kisses you back with a purr that shudders through his entire body.

Sweet, and a little awkward around his tusks, but brief, and, when you pull back, he stays close. His forehead against yours, eyes closed as he exhales deeply.

“I’m going to draw that, later. From memory.” You don’t know why you say it, but it makes him laugh, so you’ll forgive yourself for your rambling nature.

“Draw whatever you like,” he teases. “You can look as much as you want.”

“I might’ve been doing that already.”

“I know,” he says with another peck to your lips. His eyes slide open, mischief sparkling in their depths. “I’ve been looking back.”

The rats come first.

Skittering in the walls, scratching beneath the floorboards, their eyes little dots in the darkness. You’ve grown accustomed to their presence; the entire village has, living so close to the river and the grain stores.

But these rats are different. These rats wait, and these rats watch.

You can feel their stares everywhere you go. In the market, where dozens of them line the rooftops. In church, when they gather in the rafters during Mass. At night, especially, as they congregate outside your window and stare in with an intelligence behind those beady eyes that makes your skin crawl.

“They’re following you,” old Marya hisses when she passes you in the street. She signs a cross over her heart, “You’ve been marked.”

“I haven’t done anything,” you protest, but even you can hear the uncertainty in your voice.

It’s true. The rats do follow you. They’ve been following you for weeks now, since the first person died.

(since the plague came)

The sickness spreads like wildfire.

First the baker’s wife, covered in black buboes, screaming until her throat bled. Then the smith’s children, all three in one night. Then the priest, an exceptionally cruel death, dying while administering last rites, collapsing into the very grave he was blessing.

The village empties. Some flee to other towns, carrying the contagion with them. Others barricade themselves in their homes and wait for death or deliverance, whichever comes first.

You stay.

(where would you go—the rats would only follow)

And follow, they do. More and more each day. Hundreds of them now, forming a layer of furry bodies wherever you walk. The few remaining villagers cross themselves and hurry past, muttering prayers against corruption.

You return home one afternoon to find W I T C H scrawled across your door.

Devil’s daughter, another message reads, dripping what you hope is paint but suspect is blood.

You scrub them away and try to ignore the rats gathering in your garden and on your roof. You try and try to ignore the way they watch, and the way they wait. For something or someone, you don’t want to know.

The summons comes on the seventh day of the plague’s reign.

A pull, in the pit of your chest, drawing you toward the river and the old tunnels beneath the city where no one goes anymore. Ancient Roman sewers run dark down there, deeper than you can fathom.

You shouldn’t go.

(—you shouldn’t —should —must —the rats are w a i t i n g)

Three steps from your door, and the torches appear. Twenty of them, the survivors and the desperate, led by the mayor.

“There she is!” Old Marya points with a gnarled finger. “The witch who brought this curse upon us!”

“I’m not—”

“The rats follow you,” the mayor snaps. His face is gaunt, followed by grief. His wife died yesterday, his son the day before. “The sickness spreads where you walk. You consort with vermin, and you shall burn for what you’ve done.”

“I haven’t done anything!”

But they don’t listen, and the torches move closer. You can smell the pitch, the oil-soaked rags they’ve prepared.

(for burning—for cleansing)

You scramble back into your house, slamming the door and throwing the bolt. It won’t hold—you know it won’t—but maybe you can escape through the back? If you go through the gardens, into the woods—

Glass shatters. A torch flies through your window, landing on the curtains. The fire catches instantly, smoke filling the room. You cough, stumbling as you try to find the back door through the thickening haze. The air shimmers, the walls beginning to glow with heat-haze.

(you’re going to die—burn alive like a witch in a fairytale)

You collapse near what you think is the back door, lungs heaving as darkness closes in on your vision. Through the smoke, you can see flames dancing, consuming the life you’ve built.

The rats come.

Hundreds of them—thousands—pouring from the gaps in the burning walls, through the shattered window, up from the floorboards. They swarm over you, and you should be terrified, but their small bodies shield you from the heat and the smoke.

They’re…protecting you?

The door—you hadn’t seen it open—and then you’re being moved, carried by a tide of wriggling fur and tails. Through the back garden, into the streets, past the mob that’s too busy watching your house burn to notice the rats spiriting you away.

down,

down,

always down.

Into the sewers, the tunnels, the deep places beneath the village where light cannot reach. You should fight or struggle, refuse to let yourself be carried by vermin into the bowels of the earth, but…the rats are gentle, and you’re so tired.

(and somewhere ahead, something is waiting)

—

The throne room—because there’s nothing else it could be—is lit by phosphorescent fungi and the eyes of ten thousand rats.

They cover every surface, a breathing coat of fur and whiskers and tails, all watching as their brothers carry you forward, through their midst, toward the figure seated at the far end.

The Rat King.

You’ve heard the stories. Legends of rats whose tails become knotted together, fused by disease or filth or malice into a single squirming mass. Creatures of ill omen. Harbingers of plague.

The stories didn’t prepare you for how beautiful he is.

Terrible, yes. Wrong, absolutely. But beautiful, drawing you in with his strangeness like a poisonous plant.

He’s tall, limbs stretched to funhouse lengths, joints bending at angles that make your own ache. His fingers end in claws broken off at the tips to form jagged edges curling in on themselves. His face, though. His face is almost human. Pointed features, a wiggling nose, and a mouth pulled into a toothy smile. His eyes, beady and burning, fixate on you from the moment you enter the throne room.

Behind him, you can see them. The rats. Extensions of him, their tails knotted together into a writhing crown of flesh and fur that pulses like a beating heart.

The Rat King rises, and his voice echoes through the throats of ten thousand rats.

“Finally,” he says—they say—ten thousand whispers and cries all in harmony. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

“I don’t…” You cough, throat raw from the smoke. “I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you?” He descends from his throne, the rats parting before him. “The plague, the deaths, the persecution. All of it designed to drive you here, to us. To where you belong.”

“You…you caused the plague?”

His smile curls viciously. Proudly. “We are the plague. We are pestilence and disease. All the vile deaths that you humans fear.”

He’s close enough that you can see the texture of his skin—smooth in some places, furred in others.

“Why me?” you ask.

“Because you’re like us. Overlooked, despised. And when we watched you, you watched back.”

You remember noticing them first, when no one else did. You left out scraps, broke traps, treated them like more than vermin. You hadn’t meant to, but you saw them.

“The villagers blamed you for our work, and punished you for our choices. Do you know what we did to them?” he asks, thumb brushing your cheek.

You shake your head, unsure if you want to know.

“We showed them what real plague looks like. Every hand that held a torch, every mouth that chanted for your death. We rats do not forget, and we do not forgive.”

You should be horrified, scream and run and return to your village to mourn the people you’ve known since you were a child, but…

(but they tried to kill you—punish you for crimes you didn’t commit)

“What do you want from me?” you ask softly, lips brushing over his thumb.

The Rat King laughs, and it echoes through the chamber, picked up and repeated by ten thousand throats. “Nothing from you. We want to give you everything.”

He releases your face, stepping back. The rats surge forward, clambering over each other, and, before you can protest, they’re covering you. Noses against your skin, whiskers brushing your arms, small bodies pressing close in a thousand little hugs.

“You are alone,” the Rat King says. “Unwanted. Cast out. So are we, as we have always been, but here, in the dark, in the deep places? Here, you will be adored.”

The rats weave around your head. You feel their tails braiding together, forming a crown of squirming flesh.

“Here—” he kneels before you, “—you will rule.”

The crown settles on your head, pulsing with warmth and so perfectly wrong. Ten thousand rats bow, and the Rat King smiles. He rises, taking your hand in his careful claws.

“My beautiful, vengeful queen,” he murmurs.

Were you of sound mind, you’d refuse, tear off the crown and run back to the surface. Return to the world of humans and daylight, but…that world tried to kill you.

Here, in the dark, you are wanted. —powerful. —seen.

“Yes,” you tell him.

The Rat King’s kiss tastes of copper and rot. His arms wrap around you—arms too long with too many joints—and you kiss him back with everything you have.

Six months later, the village is empty. Has been for months. Abandoned after the plague, and the deaths. The rats made it clear that humans were no longer welcome.

You walk through it sometimes, your crown of tails gleaming in the moonlight. The Rat King at your side, his hand in yours, Ten thousand subjects following in a writhing parade of devotion.

(this is your kingdom, now)

The Rat King pulls you closer, nuzzling into your hair. The rats chitter and squeak, his delight singing through them.

“Happy?” he asks.

You think about your old life, you crown twisting uncomfortably at the memories of loneliness and persecution. Empathy ripples through your subjects; they, too, know what it is to be unwanted, too strange for the human world.

“Yes, I’m happy.” And you mean it.

He kisses you again. You smile, squeaks of laughter bubbling from your throat, and the rats swarm closer, celebrating their queen’s joy.

In the distance, you hear the bells of another village. A funeral toll; the first of many, many more. More humans, more people who might learn what happens when they forget that the rats are always watching, and they are always waiting.

The hexwolves greet you a few days later, just as the Zookeeper predicted.

It’s early, the gravelwyrms are already rumbling their morning complaints, and the color-shifting creature pulsing a rapid amber that you’ve begun to think means hurry up. You’re on your way to the eastern feeding run when the enclosure gate opens, by neither your hand nor the Zookeeper’s, and the hexwolves file out one by one onto the path in front of you. Six of them, ranging in size from large dog to small pony, their oil-slick coats catching the morning light in shifting blues and greens, and, occasionally, a startling violet.

They don’t rush. They stop a few feet away and regard you with golden eyes, and you give them a polite nod, holding your hand out, palm up. The eldest—the pony-sized one—steps forward and presses her warm nose to your outstretched hand.

“Hello,” you coo.

Her tail flicks once, slowly. The others follow her lead, approaching in twos and threes, and within minutes you’re standing in the middle of six hexwolves conducting a thorough investigation of your pockets, your bootlaces, and the cuffs of your jacket. You laugh helplessly, drawing the Zookeeper out onto the path.

“They like you,” he laughs.

“They’re eating my jacket.”

“They like your jacket, then,” he amends. “High praise. They ignored the last volunteer the whole time he was here.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Four years.”

You glance at him, and he looks back with a tender smile. The eldest hexwolf sits on your foot, tail swishing across the back of your leg.

You name her Hycanith, and she barks, bumping her head against your thigh before the name has finished leaving your lips.

—

Six days later, Hyacinth falls ill.

You notice it before the Zookeeper, which surprises you. He notices everything, and misses nothing; you’re not sure how it works, but you know he has some connection to the sanctuary allowing it to become an extension of his attention.

Maybe it’s because you’ve been spending your afternoons in the hexwolf enclosure, sitting in the grass while they play around you. You know enough to catch the difference between Hyacinth’s normal midday nap and when she’s keeping purposely still during her playful prowling.

This isn’t either of those. She’s lying apart from the pack, all six legs tucked in with the oily colors of her coats muted to near black. She doesn’t perk up, even when you offer her favorite treats.

You find the Zookeeper in the main building, at the long workbench that runs the length of the ground floor, working with his odd mix of alchemical veterinary equipment. He looks up as soon as you step through the door, smile stopping halfway when he notices your face. You don’t get a word out before he’s setting down his tools and reaching for his coat.

“Which one,” he says.

“Hyacinth.”

The deep ridge of his brow furrows. “How long?”

“I don’t know. She ate a little around lunch, but she’s been sluggish all day.”

He nods once, coat on, and heads for the door. You follow silently, neither of you wasting time on reassurances.

—

Hyacinth lets him examine her with no fuss, a sure sign that something is definitely wrong.

She knows him—they all know him, some of them for their whole lives—but she always nips at his fingers when he tries to pet her. This time she lays with her head in his lap, eyes half-closed, while he examines her. Careful hands move over her in odd patterns as he mutters words to himself in a language you don’t know.

You sit at her other side with a hand on her neck, feeling the rise and fall of her slowed breaths.

“Her secondary hearts,” the Zookeeper speaks up. “Hexwolves have three, and it seems her third is running slow.”

“Is that—”

“It happens, especially during the colder months. Something about the sanctuary passing through the northern planes,” he sighs. He keeps his hands on her, a steady pressure where her second and third hearts must be. “She’ll need a few days' rest and a specific tincture.”

“So…she’ll be alright?”

“Yes.” He gives a comforting smile, running a soothing hand up Hyacinth’s side. He stops just shy of yours, his filed claws skimming over your fingertips. “She’ll be alright.”

“Thank goodness,” you exhale in relief, letting your hand inch forward to slip your fingers between his. “What do you need me to do?”

—

The tincture takes two hours to prepare.

You follow his instructions—half-spoken, half-demonstrated—at his workbench. The Zookeeper is a better teacher than he believes himself to be, clear in his direction and willing to repeat anything you need. You grind the dried herbs and scales he passes you, and maintain the phoenix ashes in the burner.

You always forget how easy the work is during your off months. It isn’t just the work, either. Everything seems to become easier around him. You talk freely between instructions, telling him about the months between your visits, your life, your neighbor’s cat that sneaks onto your porch in the afternoons. He listens fully, never once interrupting, and offering little comments in the empty spaces.

“I kept thinking about the eggs,” you tell him. “Whether anything had changed with them.”

“I thought the same,” he says, playfully nudging your arm with his elbow. “I’ve found myself thinking of them more than I used to.”

“Do you think this visit is different?”

“I think…” He takes a moment to consider, claws tapping over the wooden workbench. “I think the sanctuary thinks so.”

“The fourth enclosure?”

“Still being built.”

You glance at him, taking in the broad, fluffy lines of his profile. “What do you think it’s for?”

He gives you a one-sided smirk, shrugging half-heartedly. “I have a theory, but I’m not ready to share it yet.”

“Mm, how convenient.” You roll your eyes, turning back to spark another phoenix feather in the burner.

“I know,” he winks.

“I could just wait you out, y’know?”

“Yes, you’re very patient when you want to be.”

“Only with you,” you laugh. It’s true, and you’re almost surprised at how easily the confession slips out.

“I know,” he says, softer this time, smile fonder when he looks over at you.

When the tincture is finished you carry it back to the hexwolf enclosure, and Hyacinth will only drink it from your hands. You’re not sure what that means, but the Zookeeper watches you with a fondness that makes your heart stutter in your chest.

—

He’s the one to suggest watching her through the night, offering carefully to take the first shift. “You don’t have to stay,” he says, “I don’t need as much sleep, so I can watch—”

“I’m staying,” you tell him firmly, leaving no room for argument.

“I figured,” he huffs. “At least let me take first watch.”

You sleep in the chair beside Hyacinth’s nest. It’s not comfortable, but two of the younger hexwolves press themselves against your legs to keep you warm. Through the enclosure’s high window you can see the lantern foxes drifting in slow patterns. Distantly, you can hear the gravelwyrms nightly rumbling. At some point in the night, you’re vaguely aware of the Zookeeper draping a blanket over you, tucking it around your shoulders to keep it from falling.

You wake sometime later to find him sitting across the enclosure, Hyacinth curled beside him. Her breathing seems steady, her coat already a little brighter, even in the dark.

You watch him for a while without him knowing—or without him acknowledging it—letting yourself fully wake before you sit up and stretch.

“Go sleep,” you yawn quietly, “I have her.”

“You sure?” he yawns, rubbing the exhaustion from his eyes.

“I’m sure. Go.”

He rises, careful to not disturb Hyacinth, and crosses the enclosure. He stops beside your chair, and rests a hand on your cheek when you crane your neck to look up at him.

“Thank you,” he murmurs with a tired smile. He catches himself quickly, clearing his throat to clumsily add, “For staying.”

“She’s my girl,” you shrug, leaning your cheek into his palm. “Obviously I’m staying.”

He nods once, letting his hand linger for a few moments longer before he goes.

You sit with Hyacinth for the early morning hours, keeping a tender hand on her side to feel the strengthening of her breaths.

—

Hyacinth is eating again just a few days later.

The rest of the sanctuary is already up and awake—the bog pups keen for the Zookeeper to appear at their fence, glints of morning light from the mirror moths’ wings bouncing through the sanctuary. You’re in the hexwolf enclosure with their morning feed when Hyacinth takes a deep stretch and stands on all six legs. She trots over to her bowl and eats with a more than healthy appetite.

Your shoulders drop, body sagging in relief as you catch another exhale behind you.

“There she is,” the Zookeeper says.

You turn, finding him leaning against the gate post with his arms folded, watching Hyacinth. “You were so worried.”

“I’ve known her since she was born. I’m allowed to worry,” he scoffs, keeping his eyes on Hyacinth.

“How long ago was that?” you tease, making your way over to him.

His shoulders tense slightly before relaxing, casting you a sidelong glance. “What if I said it a hundred and twelve years ago?”

Hyacinth digs into her food without a care, tail wagging happily.

“She looks good for her age,” you laugh.

“Hexwolves are long-lived… Most of the sanctuary’s residents are.”

“Including you?”

“Longer,” he shrugs. This isn’t new to you, nothing about this place really is anymore. “It matters less than it used to.”

“Oh?”

“Time passes differently when you have something to look forward to returning to.” He says it so simply, not shying away when you turn to him.

Minutes pass in easy silence, both of you leaning against the gate as you watch Hyacinth finish eating her food. She noses at one of the other bowls, taking a sneaky bite of her siblings’ food before trotting away.

The Zookeeper’s eyes follow her, and you take your chance, leaning over to place a kiss on his cheek.

“Thanks for letting me watch her,” you say softly, “and for staying with me.”

“You don’t have to thank me for that,” he sighs, inclining his head to rest atop yours. Parts of his mane tickle your cheek, but you don’t move an inch.

“I know,” you say. “I wanted to.”

Hyacinth makes her way back over, dropping her full hundred and twelve year old weight against your legs with a tired huff. You let her settle before resting a hand over her head, stroking through her silky fur. The morning light seeps into the enclosure, and neither you nor the Zookeeper nor Hyacinth move, pressed comfortably against each other for longer than you should allow yourselves, and not long enough, still.

—

That evening, the Zookeeper makes dinner. You sit across from him at the kitchen table, the conversation moving through everything and nothing. At some point, he refills your glass without being asked, and you catch his hand as he sets the bottle down. You don’t quite hold his hand, more rest your fingers along the back of it.

He looks at your hand, then at you.

You let go, but you don’t look away, and neither does he. The kitchen is warm, the sanctuary buzzing around you, and, somewhere outside, Hyacinth barks three times. The corner of the Zookeeper’s mouth slides up into a knowing smile, one of his ears flicking against his head.

“She’s bossing the younger ones around,” he chuckles.

“As she should.”

You hold his gaze for a beat longer, and his half-smile turns into something far more genuine.

Then you both look away, and the evening continues.

The village has a name for the creature that travels the roads between settlements, trailing its retinue of dark wings.

Carrion Merchant, they whisper behind curtains. It peddles in things best left buried—bone-trinkets and relics that smell of grave-earth and places where the sun curls away. Its cart moves behind something that might have once been a horse, before the skin peeled away and the lungs went wrong. Look too long at what it offers on its cloth, they warn, and you’ll discover hungers in yourself not thought possible.

Do not trade with it. Do not linger.

You’ve never been one to heed their warnings.

—

It comes through your village in the thin part of autumn, when the leaves have gone past gold into brown and the mud on the road has hardened into ridges.

You’re at your window when the cart rounds the bend. You see the birds first. A dark cloud of them, circling and settling and circling again, their cries filling the air.

Then the cart, then the figure walking beside it.

It’s taller than the door frames of this village, moving with an odd lean to its too-long neck. Feathers run from its shoulders down its arms, dark, oiled and overlapping like armor. Its head is covered with a wide-brimmed hat, pulled low over its face. Its feet on the muddy road are talons left bare. It doesn’t turn toward you, but the crook of its head sends a chill down your spine.

(it knows you’re there)

The villagers press back from their windows. A child is pulled inside by a firm hand. Old Marya across the square makes a sign with her fingers that’s older than the village itself.

(older, possibly, than the word for what she’s signing against)

You watch the creature spread its cloth in the square, wares appearing on it as soon as it’s settled. You feel the pull, the growing need to explore the Carrion Merchant and its odd wares.

You go inside, resisting the urge to venture into the square. Instead, you stand in your kitchen, and listen to the crows.

—

The first gift appears on your doorstep two days after the cart has gone.

A little bundle wrapped in oiled cloth, tied with a cord of plaited sinew. You unwrap it with cold fingers and find a bird’s skull inside, stripped clean, its eye sockets packed with violets dried to a bruise-like color. There’s no note with it, no boot prints or talon holes in the mud.

All there is is the faint smells of road dust and tallow, and the distant cawing of a crow.

You keep the skull. Place it on your windowsill where the light shines prettiest. Try not to notice how the dried violets cast shadows like grasping fingers across your floor, or how they seem to reach for you in the thin hours before true morning.

—

The second gift comes in spring. Another bundle, this one heavier.

A glass jar sealed with black wax, full of amber fluid that preserved…a fetal thing curled into itself, no larger than your thumb with too many fingers and the nubs of ungrown wings. You turn it in the light for some time, watching the amber catch on the monstrous thing.

Beautiful, you think.

That night, you leave a gift of your own on the doorstep. You’ve been preparing it for a week: a length of ribbon woven through crow feathers gathered from the field. You tie it around a jar of your own preserves, and leave it out in the dark.

In the morning, it’s gone. The jar, too.

—

Autumn again. Crows linger on your fence, now, watching you when you go out in the mornings.

A tooth this time. Long, slightly curved, pulled from the maw of a creature you don’t know. It’s been carved—carefully, by a skilled hand—into the shape of a bird in flight. The craftsmanship is extraordinary, far better than anything you can find in the village stalls.

You hold it, feeling the residual warmth of the hands that made it.

In return, you leave: a small tin of salve you made for cracked skin, good for long winters and longer roads; a packet of the tea you drink when you can’t sleep; a pressed flower from your garden, plain but tended with care.

You’re not naive. You understand there’s something happening here. A negotiation, or a conversation of some kind.

(—or a courtship, whispers something in the back of your mind)

You leave your gifts anyway. They’re always gone by morning.

—

The garland is hung at spring’s thaw. Crows line your fence posts, their feathers still damp with melted snow, watching you in silence.

(watching—watching—never eating, never flying—always watching)

This time, no bundle awaits on your step. Instead, the garland hangs from the hook where you hang your coat each evening. A creation draped across your door, anchored by a yellowed talon driven deep into the wood of your wall.

A grotesque wreath of sun-bleached finger bones and nightshade blossoms threaded onto braided sinew, hung with care. It’s hideous and oddly festive.

You know what this means. A garland in the first days of spring is what lovers leave at doors in your village. Though, those are made with sweet herbs and ribbons.

(a mockery or unintentional perversion, learned by watching from a distance, and, somehow, that makes it all the more sweet)

One of the crows squawks, drawing your attention to your gate and the latch that still sits on the inside.

There are no scrape marks, and the hinges are undamaged. The gate wasn’t forced, and your fence, which sits solid and at shoulder-height, shows no sign of anything having gone over or through it.

You look at the crows on the fence, who look back with their empty eyes and say nothing.

Then, you unhook the garland and bring it inside. You hang it over your kitchen window where the light shines best, and your gift can be seen from outside. Your heart hammers wildly, as you stand, transfixed. Your tea goes cold, steam disappearing into the early morning chill.

(an acceptance, unspoken but unmistakable)

—

The knock comes on a night at autumn’s end when the air’s begun to go frosty and the wind howls through the night.

You’ve been awake for some time. You can’t quite place the feeling, but you’ve been on edge all day. The fire’s burned down to coals. The bird skull gleams on the windowsill, the violets dried to dust but shadows still holding their shape.

Something is coming, you’ve known all day. Now, it’s finally here.

(it was always going to end this way—with a knock—with a choice)

You open the door.

The coat is dark, travel-worn, smells of every road between here and nowhere. The hat’s off now, clutched in one talon-fingered hand, giving you the chance to see the face the village whispers about.

The head of a vulture, naked and red. Its bone-beak sits closed, the eyes, pinpricks of pale yellow, fixed on the middle distance. The eyelids slide closed then open again—flashes reflecting back at you that speak of centuries spent perched above the dying.

(it has been waiting for you, specifically you, for longer than you’ve been alive)

Its beak parts, and what comes out is neither bird nor human—caught between the two, effortful, grating, a rasp that catches in the back of your throat.

“Mate,” it says. The word is almost unrecognizable, flattened and strange, pushed through a throat built for different sounds. “Want. To mate.” A pause, the beak clicking once. Its head twitches, trying to find the right cadence to the syllables. “Bring good things. Will keep bringing.”

The feathers at its throat ripple, the vulture equivalent of a swallow. “Good mate. Will be.”

Your throat closes, knot building so tight you can barely breathe. 

The crows have gathered, watching from the fence all the way to the trees beyond your garden.

(they’ve been waiting for this, too)

The word slips out on your breath, like a secret you’ve been keeping from yourself, finally admitted. “Yes.” Your voice is steadier than you expect. “Alright.”

The wings at its shoulders spread—involuntary, a ripple of muscle and feather that speaks what that bone-beak cannot. The feathers catch the moonlight, absorb it, drink it in. The crows lift from the branches all at once, a dark explosion against the winter sky, their cries raucous and celebratory.

(they knew before you did, that you would say yes)

You step across the threshold.

The creature falls into step beside you, close enough that you can feel the warmth coming off its feathers. Together, you walk into the deep of the wood where the cart waits, peeled horse stamping impatiently against the frost-hardened earth. The crows follow, their wings beating to the rhythm of your heart.

The village behind you grows small, then smaller, then is gone.

You find him early in the morning when you’re dressed in your gardening clothes, hair unwashed, carrying a trowel and thinking only about how the sweet peas need staking.

He’s tucked under the lavender at the garden’s edge, lying still, one hind leg held at an angle that makes your stomach turn. An ordinary brown rabbit, a bit larger than average but fluffy and soft-eared, watching you with one eye as you crouch down to examine him.

“Oh,” you coo, “you poor thing.”

He blinks, nose twitching, but he doesn’t run.

(that tells you everything you need to know about how bad it is)

You go inside for a box and a towel, and carry him in with as much care as you can manage. You set him up in the spare bathroom with water, leafy greens, and a folded blanket, fully intending to take him to a wildlife rescue in the morning.

You don’t take him to a wildlife rescue in the morning.

You tell yourself it’s because he’s too stressed to move, which is true, and because the leg needs another day of stabilizing. Also true. You ignore your third reason, which is that when you check on him in the late hours of that first night to find him watching the door with those dark eyes, your chest aches at the thought of parting with him.

On the third morning, you sit on the bathroom floor with your back against the tub and your tea going cold while you talk to him.

You don’t have a specific topic in mind, just rambling about whatever comes to you. It’s the garden, mostly, and whether the sweet peas have come up yet or what you think might be wrong with the soil in the north bed. He sits in his box on the bath mat and watches you, ears turning at varying angles.

You’ve come to learn their little quirks. Both ears forward means he’s paying attention. One ear sideways means he’s thinking. Both flat means he’s uninterested, which, so far, has only happened when you started mentioning the drainage issue in the lower corner.

(you can’t blame him—you get bored just talking about it)

“I don’t know what you are,” you tell him while checking the splint before bed. “I mean you’re a rabbit, obviously, but…you’re also… You’re too calm. Rabbits aren’t like this with people. They usually run.”

He holds still while you work, both ears forward.

“I’m not complaining.” You don’t know why you hurry to say it. “It’s just something I’ve noticed.”

His nose twitches. You don’t know what that’s supposed to mean yet, but you take it as a good sign.

By the end of the first week, he’s eating from your hand without an ounce of the nervous hesitance you’d expect from a healing rabbit. You bring him a sprig of parsley from the garden, and he takes it from your fingers, happily chewing while you sit on the bathroom floor and watch him.

“You’re welcome,” you tell him.

His left ear tilts.

Toward the end of the second week, when his leg has healed enough that he can move without favoring it, you start leaving the bathroom door open during the day.

He doesn’t venture out immediately, and you decide it’s best not to push him. You go about your mornings in the kitchen and the garden, and, at some point, become aware that there’s a rabbit in the hallway watching you through the kitchen door. You continue on, purposefully not making a big deal of it.

“Tea’s on,” you call to the kitchen.

You wait, and then…careful hops across the floor.

He settles himself in a patch of morning sun near the back door where, you notice, he can see you and the door at the same time. You bring your own tea and sit at the table with an open book, and simply exist in the quiet morning.

You start talking to him the way you talk to yourself when you’re alone. You don’t realize it for several days, accidentally offering a running commentary on whatever you’re doing, and the occasional rhetorical question. He listens. His ears track you around the room. When you sit back down at the table, he moves, gradually, until he’s at your feet. He settles against your ankles with a fluffy flop and a weight that feels…too heavy for his size.

He puts his nose on your knee while you’re reading one afternoon.

You look down at him, and he looks up at you with still ears. You set a hand on his head, and, gently, scratch behind his ears. He closes his eyes, and leans into your palm.

“You’re spoiled,” you tell him, days later, as he settles into your lap for his routine pets and hand feeding of parsley. His ear twitches at your voice, lightly nipping at your fingers before returning to his treat. “Completely spoiled.”

Twenty-one days after rescuing the rabbit, you wake to find the spare bathroom empty and a man in your kitchen.

It wouldn’t be the worst way to start your morning had you been expecting it, but you weren’t, and the scream you let out is shrill enough to startle the birds outside.

He’s tall, taller than the kitchen can accommodate, broad-shouldered, and leaning against your counter with his arms folded and his ankles crossed like he’s been waiting for you to arrive. You’d make a comment about his casual nature if your eyes weren’t stuck on the long ears sprouting from atop his head. They are distinctly, unarguably, rabbit ears.

There’s a faint dusting of fur along his forearms where they emerge from a shirt that fits him well. His eyes, when they find yours across the kitchen, are the same dark brown you’ve spent three weeks looking into across the kitchen.

“Good morning,” he says. You can tell he’s trying to sound calm, but there’s an unmistakable quiver of amusement.

“Who… Where did you get that shirt?” It’s not really what you want to ask, but you can’t think right now, and that’s what comes out of your mouth so you go with it.

“Your spare room.” He tilts his head, his nose—his human nose—twitching familiarly. “I hope that’s alright. I didn’t want to scare you.”

“I think that ship’s sailed.”

He smiles. He is, you notice with mild irritation, extremely good-looking.

He steps aside, giving you space and time to make your morning tea. He keeps quiet, watching while you rely mostly on muscle memory to get you through your morning routine. By the time you have a mug in your hands and four feet of kitchen between you and him, you feel almost human enough to have a conversation.

“So…you’re the rabbit?” you ask, and it feels ridiculous.

“I am,” he nods happily.

“The rabbit I found in my garden?”

“With the broken leg, yes. You set it very well. I’ve broken that leg twice already, and this was by far the easiest recovery.”

“You…” You take a sip of your tea, juggling words around in your head. “You’ve broken your leg three times?”

“I’m not always as careful in the dark as I should be,” he chuckles, reaching up to scratch at the back of his neck. “Or in the daylight, if I’m honest.”

“Right.”

“I’ve been meaning to thank you,” he says, perking up. “Properly, that is. You were kind to take me in, and you were—” he pauses, glancing down as a flush of color warms his cheeks, “—very gentle.”

You look at him over the rim of your mug. “I couldn’t just leave you there.”

“Most people would have,” he shrugs. “I’d like to repay you, if you’ll let me. There are…customs among my kind, for debts like this. The traditional repayment would be an offer to mate. So…I’m offering.”

You blink at him, mouth caught open. “To…”

“Mate, yes,” he confirms.

“I—” —might faint —am going to scream —must be hallucinating from drinking too much tea

“—think I’ll need a moment.”

“Of course.”

You take a sip of your tea, staring out the kitchen window. You look back at him at the long ears, and the fur along his forearms, and his annoyingly handsome face.

“I appreciate the…offer. Really, I do, but I think I’m gonna say no for right now.”

His ears dip a fraction, but he peers at you with a hopeful glint in his eyes. “For now?”

“It’s barely eight in the morning, and we’ve only just met. Technically.”

“That’s fair,” he sighs. “I probably should have led with just thanks.”

“Probably.”

“I apologize.”

“It’s alright.” You take another sip. The tea is helping, you think. Or it’s making your hallucinations worse. Though, if all of your tea-induced hallucinations are going to be this good-looking, maybe you won’t mind. “What happens if I say no? Full stop. To the…traditional repayment.”

“Nothing,” he says. “It’s an offer, not an obligation. I’d still like to repay you, though. Some other way.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I’d like to,” he insists. “I can be useful, and…I find I’m not quite ready to leave yet.”

This is, by far, the weirdest thing to have ever happened to you.

“I have a spare room,” you offer before you have a chance to talk yourself out of it.

He smiles, fully and with two adorably buck teeth at the front, and his ears lift slightly.

“I’ll try not to eat all your parsley,” he grins.

The joke pulls a laugh out of you, what remained of the tension easing out of your shoulders. “Please don’t. I need it for soup.”

He is, as advertised, useful.

He fixes the gate latch that’s been sticking since autumn without being asked, appearing one morning with your toolbox and returning it to you an hour later with the gate swinging smoothly and a sly wink. He weeds the back beds with a thoroughness that makes you feel faintly ashamed of your own efforts. He carries things for you, and reaches things from high shelves without the step stool.

(you try not to think about that too hard, or how tall he is when he stands directly behind you in the kitchen)

You discover that his attentiveness has carried over to his hybrid form.

He refills your tea when he’s noticed it’s gone cold. He can tell when you’re growing tired before you do, and kindly suggests that the weeding can wait until tomorrow. He sits with you in the evenings, watching the light go golden from the garden step, close enough that his arms presses against yours. He asks you questions about the garden, and what you’re reading, and so many other things with a genuine curiosity you’ve rarely received.

“Why do you look at me like that?” you finally ask him one evening.

He tilts his head, smile sliding into more of a smirk under his twitching nose. “Like what?” he asks, and you don’t know if his teasing lilt is more frustrating or endearing.

“Like I’m…” You huff, glancing off the side so you don’t have to face him when you admit, “Like I’m something to look at.”

“I can’t help it,” he admits, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You are.”

You feel the heat rise to your cheeks, spreading down your neck all the way to your shoulders. He sees it because he sees everything when it comes to you, and when you glance back at him, he’s grinning from ear to ear.

“You’re insufferable,” you scoff with no malice behind it.

“You keep feeding me parsley,” he laughs, leaning forward until his chin rests on your shoulder. “You have only yourself to blame.”

He kisses you for the first time in the kitchen, where most things seem to happen between you.

You’ve been showing how to make your parsley soup—not that he needs to be shown, but you seem to keep finding excuses to be near him—and he’s an attentive student until he isn’t. His gaze shifts, watching your face instead of your hands, and when you catch him you find a warm affection in his eyes that steals the breath from your lungs.

His hand comes up to cradle your neck, careful as he always is with you.

“Is this alright?” he asks, leaning in until his forehead is pressed to yours.

“Yes,” you breathe, lifting your chin to close the distance.

He kisses you softly, just once, then pulls back just enough to look at you. His eyes search yours, checking, you think. When you smile, he smiles back before kissing you again, not as soft this time, pulling you in as close as he can with both hands on your neck.

The soup burns a little at the edges. You don’t notice until later, nor does he, and neither of you care.

.

.

.

“Is your offer still open?”

He’s sitting in the grass, pulling up the last of the winter weeds while you sit on the step with your tea. It’s a perfectly normal morning in all aspects except…you’ve been thinking about this for four days, and your mouth seems to have run out of patience.

He pauses, ears perking as he looks up at you.

“Which offer?” he asks carefully.

“The one you made when you first—” you gesture vaguely, already feeling the heat in your cheeks, “When you first… You know…”

He sits back on his heels and stares at you. His ears sit upright, the corners of his mouth twitching as he tries—and fails—not to smile.

“I recall making an offer,” he hums playfully, “I guess I should admit it wasn’t totally out of gratitude. It was—” he pauses, tapping his chin thoughtfully, “—It is considerably more selfish than that.”

“I know,” you say. “I’m asking anyway.”

He rises from the grass in one fluid motion, crosses to the step, and crouches in front of you so you’re eye level. He sets his hands on either side of you, looking at you with direct attention.

“I would like to court you properly. Stay, and be…whatever you’ll have me be.” His ears dip, just slightly, before flicking back up again. “If you’ll have me.”

“If I’ll have you,” you laugh. “Like I haven’t doubled my parsley crop since you arrived.”

“I noticed,” he grins.

You set your mug down on the step, bringing your hands up to rest against his soft cheeks. You look him straight in the eyes so there’s no mistaking you, and tell him, “I accept your offer.”

In the middle of your garden, on a perfectly ordinary Sunday with sweet peas swaying in the spring breeze, he captures your lips with a kiss that tastes of parsley and promise.

CREDITS

The gate finds you on its own.

It always does. Never the same gate twice, but you’ve learned to recognize the feeling that precedes its appearance.

(a light at the edge of your vision, the sudden catch in the back of your throat—gone when you finally realize it)

You’re standing in your kitchen in your oldest sweats, the ones with stains that won’t wash out. Your bag is already packed, which you always do in the weeks around your visit. In it: your worn leather gloves, your good, waterproof boots, a change of clothes, and your sketchbook. You’ve added the small jar of honey from your garden this time, and the seeds you dried on your windowsill all autumn.

The gate appears in your back door, perfectly fitted inside the frame.

You pick up your bag, and go through it.

—

The sanctuary smells the same. Green and earthy from things growing in odd soils, and the brisk layer of ozone that comes from traveling between realms. Underneath, there’s always a hint of something electrical, like a storm that’s been building for centuries.

You stand just inside the gate and breathe it in.

Home, the unhelpful part of your brain offers. Not home, the sensible part corrects, but familiar.

You hear him before you see him. He’s quiet, the Zookeeper, words always soft and chosen carefully, but there’s no hiding his weight on the grass. His footfalls are gentle, hurrying down the path that winds from the main enclosures toward the gate.

You turn just before he has the chance to call your name.

He’s larger than you remember. It happens in the longer stretches between visits; your memory grows hazy around the edges, the shapes of him and the sanctuary start to slip through the cracks of your reality. Then the gate appears, and so does he, and you remember all over again.

The full, towering height of him, and the breadth of his shoulders always stooped to make himself smaller and more approachable. He picks at his claws, freshly filed, with hands large enough to wrap around your head. He usually keeps them tucked in the pockets of his worn work coat, but he never seems to know what to do with them around you.

(a lion’s mane on a buffalo’s head, tusks of a boar, but eyes of human, and nothing less than perfect in your mind)

“You’re back,” he breathes, still catching his breath. His voice carries a distant echo that ripples across the grass and lands straight in your heart.

“Miss me?” you laugh.

He pauses, eyes falling to the ground in that familiar, shy gesture that you know means yes, very much. You don’t tease him for it; you missed him, too.

“The gloamflies have been restless,” he says instead, glancing back up at you. “They’ll settle now.”

“Flattering,” you scoff, shrugging your bag from your shoulders as the gate clicks shut behind you.

“It’s true,” he says with a roll of his eyes. He holds out a hand, happily taking your bag for you, and letting you take the lead toward the enclosures.

He shows you around, as he always does when you return.

You’ve been coming here long enough to know better than to think you know the sanctuary. It moves, between your visits, sliding itself through the planes and the in-between places, taking on new enclosures, welcoming new residents and sending off others. The bones of it stay the same: the long central path, the gate behind and the main building ahead, and the Zookeeper’s quarters above it, but the enclosures that branch off the path rearrange themselves. They grow and contract as needed, sometimes appearing where there was nothing before.

You recognize some from your last visit. The growls of the gravelwyrms rumble in your teeth before you reach them; the bog pups watch you, tails moving in slow unison as they chomp and drool acidic water all over their fence; the lantern foxes sleep piled in the far corner of their habitat, dimmed to embers.

You press your fingers to the bog pups fence as you pass and one of them—the one with the half-cut ear—presses her nose into the netting to sniff. She barks once, tailing wagging as she begins to bounce on her peat-covered paws.

(she does this every time, and it still makes your chest go tight)

Overall, there’s seventeen enclosures you recognize, and four you don’t.

The first new one is a low structure almost completely submerged in a sparkling lake that’s grown where the old meadow used to be. Through the crystal clear water, a shape moves through the depths. Snake-like and many-finned, but seems to absorb the lake’s shimmer as it swims.

“This is new,” you say, tipping your head back as the Zookeeper catches up to you.

“She came through the northern passage three months ago.” He moves to the fence line, and you follow. The shape in the water stills, then begins to rise. “She was injured, but she’s almost healed now.”

The creature that surfaces is the length of a small boat and the color of deep water. Her eyes are a filmy pale, and fix on the Zookeeper as soon as she breaches the surface.

He makes a noise that, to you, sounds like a purr, and her fins spread in a display of trilling bioluminescence.

“Does she have a name?”

“She named herself, but it…doesn’t translate well.”

You watch her for a while, transfixed by the kaleidoscope colors of her fins. She watches you back with those pale eyes, head tilting curiously. She lets you stare for another minute, then performs an elegant backward dive that sends a gentle wave against the fence posts. The wave recedes, and she is gone.

The second new enclosure is pitch black inside, the entrance sealed with a heavy blackout curtain. You spot a small placard beside it that reads: LIGHT SENSITIVE - DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT CLEARANCE.

“What’s in there?”

“A family of umbra crawlers. They’re shy, but you’ll probably hear them tonight when the dark comes on.”

“What do they sound like?”

He thinks about it with the same seriousness he gives all your questions.

“Rain or something close to it.”

The third new enclosure makes you halt in your steps.

It’s built against the sanctuary’s eastern wall, a structure of dark stone with a high ceiling and wide, arched windows. Inside, visible through the glass, are creatures shaped like large dogs but with six legs each and coats that shine like oil on water. They watch you back with golden eyes, staring with an attentiveness that goes beyond an animal’s understanding.

“Oh.”

“Hexwolves,” the Zookeeper says softly. “A smaller pack. They’ll want to meet you once you’ve gotten settled.”

“They’re beautiful.”

“They think you are, too,” he murmurs. You glance at him sideways, only to find him looking at the hexwolves with great focus. You decide, as you often do with him, to let it be.

The fourth new enclosure is still being built.

At the far end of the eastern path there’s a foundation and three walls surrounded by a lot of silver scaffolding. The Zookeeper stops in front of it with his hands in his pockets.

“What’s this one for?”

“I’m not sure yet,” he shrugs. “The sanctuary started building it two weeks ago.”

“But it hasn’t told you yet?” That’s unusual given his connection to your home away from home.

“I trust it.” He glances at you with a crooked smile. “It has good instincts.”

—

Once the tour is over, the work begins.

This is what you’re here for, technically. The volunteer work, the cleaning and feeding and all the small maintenances that keep the sanctuary running. The Zookeeper has never been good at accepting help from people—you’ve gathered that over the years—but he doesn’t seem to mind you. You tell yourself it’s because you wore him down gradually, coming back year after year until the sanctuary began to seek you out for your exceptional work.

(deep down, you know it’s more than that—it’s been more than that for you for a long time, too)

It’s lighter work today. Cleaning the gryphon enclosure while they’re at their morning exercise, then the feeding run for the eastern residents, and then checking on the eggs.

The feeding run takes you past the gravelwyrms, who put their rocky noses up at the food until you turn away, and past the dreaming-pool where the mirror moths cluster on the surface with their wings folded and undersides reflecting the sky, and past a small enclosure that you don’t have a name for yet. There’s a single creature in it that communicates only in fluctuating colors across its skin, turning red then orange then a deep blue as you pass.

The gryphon enclosure, next. The gryphons are magnificent, but they often leave evidence of that magnificence all over the enclosure, and cleaning up after them requires a set of strong gloves and a stronger will. The Zookeeper works beside you, doing twice the work in the same time with his impressive strength.

Somewhere in the middle, when the work and the smell starts to get to you, he talks. He usually does when you’re working side-by-side, giving quiet comments that grow into longer tales. Today, he tells you about the three months you’ve missed. The umbra crawlers’ arrival, a nest found in the gloamfly enclosure, a creature that passed through the northern passage and chose not to stay, and an unusual migration through the skies above the sanctuary on its coldest night, thousands of them, filling the dark with the jingling of bells.

“I wish I’d seen that,” you sigh wistfully.

“I know,” he says. “I thought of you.”

You pause, turning to look at him. He’s not looking at you, his attention on the task at hand, but the fur along the mane of his neck bristles as if he’s just had a chill.

“Next time you could just text me, you know.”

“The planes don’t always allow it.”

“They allow it more than you use it.”

He stops, sighing in defeat. “Yes. Yes, they do.”

You go back to work. The gryphons return from their exercise and observe you from a distance before returning to their home. The morning moves on, and the sanctuary settles in around you, welcoming you back to where you belong.

—

The eggs sit in the center of the sanctuary.

You’ve remember when the room that holds them was just a room. One of the main building’s lower chambers, stone-floored, with windows that let in only the gentlest of light. The eggs appeared gradually over the years, three of them, each roughly the size of a large watermelon, with shells that shift in color depending on how you look at them. No one knows where they came from or what’s inside them.

(they’ve sat in this room for as long as the Zookeeper has kept records, and the records go back further than you can imagine)

You pull on a clean pair of gloves and crouch beside the nearest one, pressing your hand to it carefully. They’re warm to the touch, even through the thickness of your gloves.

“Any changes lately?” you ask.

“The same.” He kneels beside you, and rests one hand—bare, he rarely bothers with gloves when handling them—against the shell. “Though…maybe a little more…”

“More warm?”

“More…present? The pulse feels stronger.”

He stares at the egg with such tender focus. It must weigh on him, not knowing what kind of creature will hatch from these eggs. He’s always taken great pride in tending to the sanctuary’s residents, often knowing what they need before they do. How can he care for something when he doesn’t even know what they are?

“That’s good,” you offer.

“I think so.” He moves his hand, carefully skimming the egg’s rough texture. “But I’ve been wrong before.”

You move your hand from the egg to his shoulder, giving a soft squeeze of reassurance. He gives a low, appreciative growl deep in his throat, tilting his head just enough to lean against your fingers. You stay there a while, both of you crouched beside the eggs until your legs grow sore, and even for a little while longer.

—

At the end of the day, he walks you back to the gate.

It’s one of his rituals, developed over your years of visits. You walk the long, central path in the early evening, the sanctuary’s creatures going about their routines around you. The gravelwyrms shake off for their nightly dusting; the lantern foxes wake with eager flickering; a shadow, large and slow-moving, passes through the tree line to the north; the bog pups splash as they circle their peat beds.

You talk about what you want to do tomorrow, and which enclosures need attention. At the gate, which has become the door of a small cottage at the path’s end where you stay during your visits, he stops.

“Dinner’s in an hour if you want,” he says lightly.

“I always want,” you tell him.

The corner of his mouth twitches around his tusks. You wish he wouldn’t fight back his smiles so often, but he’s given his feelings on baring his teeth before, and you don’t want to push.

“I know,” he laughs softly.

He turns and heads back up the path. You watch him go, the familiar pull of your chest urging you to follow.

You go inside, instead. You unpack your bag, your gloves and boots and sketchbook and the jar of honey that you’ll set on his workbench in the morning.

Through the window, the sanctuary drapes itself in evening, and, somewhere in the dark, the umbra crawlers begin to sound like rain.