Dirty Paws Fanart.

the day after the full moon scared coral the most. it was the day after of her turn, last memory the burn and ache of her bones during the transformation. the worrying blank of the following hours until she wakes up, drenched in sweat and tears. usually she was alone afterwards but the man with the chocolate had come by again and coral didn’t know what to say or do. adults had never really cared before. it was hard to accept.

          the question isn’t unexpected, and neither is the look that settles over his face. shilah, with his bright eyes and sharp smiles and all his bravado, is more pessimistic than he’d like people to believe. he’s done very little to surprise her in the time they’ve known each other, and this is no different. he expects the worst, and sometimes, he thinks it’s going to come from her. 

           which –– could happen, she supposes. sometime down the road. she doesn’t want to think that there will ever be a time where they’re anything but good to one another, but nobody’s perfect. they’ve hurt one another before and entirely by accident and the thought of that is enough to make her hesitate, for a moment, and bite back all the things she could say instead. 

          (because, whether she wants to think of it or not, there are warning signs. not terrible ones, or awful ones, but things that should make her shy away from this thing they’ve tripped into. guilt still sits heavy in her stomach more often than she’d ever admit aloud when she thinks of the things shilah has done not because she’s asked him to but because he’s wanted to, needed to. there are plenty of ugly things people do for love. she’s never wanted to be the cause of any of them.)

          instead, she looks at him for a long time from the kitchen doorway before she crosses to him, slotting easily into the space between him and the table until she settles, finally, in his lap. 

THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS

[green eyed] for my muse to talk about the one thing they see other people have that they don’t