i d i a s h r o u d

loathe he is to admit to having such a cringe death-flag worthy flaw, even idia can’t deny just how prone to jealousy he gets whenever he catches wind of you getting particularly close to another guy. especially if that guy is more conventionally appealing than he is as idia is, for most of the early stages of your relationship and every so often even as he fully settles into it, perpetually swinging between the two mental extremes of joy (for managing to bag an ssr level partner despite being a shut-in) and paranoia (because you could do so much better and he’s waiting for you to realise that and leave)… which… isn’t really great for his mental health as you can imagine

the amount of shame he has about his jealousy also means that he’s incredibly unlikely to go and talk to you about it unless he’s literally dragged to you kicking and screaming and forced to confess under extreme levels of duress. so a solid ninety nine perfect of the time he will end up spiralling on his own in his room, or to a very sympathetic ortho, while mentally simulating every possible bad ending that could arise from either his jealousy or from you getting too close to whoever he’s jealous of. oh and his spiralling extends well beyond just mentally torturing himself as he starts to try and figure them out and brainstorm ways to try and get you to stop paying so much attention to them. and this includes things along the lines of:

stalking all of their online accounts, as well as any accounts of people they are at all linked to, as a means of creating a more thorough profile on them. and he spends hours at a time obsessively deep diving into them and mapping out their complete digital footprint to such an extent that even the most dedicated of obsessive fans would be stunned… though it came at the cost of absolutely wrecking his already atrocious sleeping schedule, much to his younger brother’s very vocal chagrin

utilising the open access he has to all of the cameras on campus, and the access he grants himself to various cameras all over sage island, to stalk their every movement to get a better feel for their personality and schedule. including all of their interactions with you, which only serves to make him feel even worse about the situation… but still he can’t bring himself to stop

and sending ortho to do reconnaissance in person to fill in any remaining gaps in idia’s understanding of the other person. also maybe to threaten them into backing off from you in ways that idia simply cannot pull off (he doesn’t exactly have laser cannons at his disposal unless you count ortho’s) unless the other person also happens to be chronically online and, thus, idia has the chance to rip them to shreds with the full strength of his untapped gamer rage in all the ways he’d probably struggle to do in an in-person confrontation unless severely provoked

oh and you can bet every thaumark and sorcent in your account that he spent every moment of his endless stalking and ‘research’ verbally ripping this person to shreds — both to himself and to ortho — for every teeny tiny flaw he could find. and his shit talking can get mean as hell when he’s motivated enough… so… perhaps it’s for the best that the things he said never left his room because sevens know he’d be getting an earful for both the vulgarity and the threats… one of the many perks of being a chronic shut-in

and sevens forbid the other guy has qualities that, to idia, make him objectively more appealing as a love interest — or that are otherwise highly reminiscent of the typical protagonist figures from the media he and his brother grew up on — because that will make his spiral even worse as he becomes almost dead sure that this is his death flag event and you’re sure to pick this new person over him, because who wouldn’t?

all of that being said, though, if you don’t get clued in by ortho or figure it out on your own first, idia will inevitably end up cracking under the pressure and snap at you with some snarky remark that will immediately let you know just how much your interactions with a certain person have been bugging him. and while he will initially panic and backtrack out of a fear of pushing you away or being judged, with enough pushing from you he will relent and say outright what his problem is so you can work to fix it

and then after being reassured of his place in your life and the fact that you’re not going anywhere all of his insecurities and fears become replaced by an intese flare up of his ego. and a lot of bragging about how he’s clearly the better choice and even more shit talking about the other person to just about everyone he can speak openly to in a way that manages to be as endearing as it is obnoxious

… please let him have this. yes it’s a bit cringey but he’s been struggling with his jealousy for so long that all of this bragging is kind of needed for him to get back to normal. he’ll be over himself and back to his usual self soon enough, don’t worry

m a l l e u s d r a c o n i a

dragons, and thus dragon fae like the draconia family, are deeply possessive and territorial by their very nature — the type that stake their claim on objects and places and people and defend that claim with everything they have at their disposal. and in your dear boyfriend malleus that particular trait manifests in a very prominent jealous streak (though if you were to ask lilia about it he’d amusedly claim that malleus’ shows of jealousy are hilariously subtle when compared to his late mother… who was known to regularly call down lightening or sink her claws into whoever she perceived as getting in the way of her courtship with raverne…)

and unfortunately for the general population of wherever malleus happens to be at the time, his jealousy always ends up impacting the local weather — to the point of manifesting severe thunderstorms and resulting in monumental levels of flash flooding if it isn’t caught and addressed quickly enough. of course malleus doesn’t want this to happen, he’s not cruel, but he can’t exactly control his emotions as much as one may expect him to given his very neutral resting expression and, as such, that means he is in no position to stop any oncoming storms on his own. not until his horn his broken and his direct link to the weather is dulled enough for him to not risk bringing forth torrential rain at random, anyway

of course despite the literal environmental consequences of his emotions, malleus will still deny being jealous of anyone if you ask him outright. because he’s the heir to the throne of briar valley, malleus draconia, and thus obviously above such petty emotions like that. and to his credit he does have a pretty decent poker face and excels at acting unaffected to the point where if you didn’t know him as well as you do, and if you couldn’t see the impending storm brewing overhead, you may have actually believed him

but, again, despite his protests and claims of complete ambivalence, there are still plenty of signs there to clue you in as to precisely what your beloved dragon prince is feeling. as long as you know what you’re looking out for, of course

such as his habit of glaring holes into the heads of whoever is ‘stealing’ your attention away from him — though his resting face can come across as intimidating enough on its own so there’s every chance that the person he’s jealous of may not actually realise the source of his ire and just assume that he hates them in particular for some odd fae-specific reason. but if you know him well enough chances are that you — like lilia, who knows that boy better than he knows himself — are able to pick up on the subtle differences in his expression (the shrinking of his irises, the furrow of his brow, the displeased downward tilt of the corner of his mouth, etc.) enough to tell that he’s clearly bothered by something this person is doing and he’s clearly holding himself back from acting on that displeasure

or his — admittedly rather unsettling to those who don’t know him quite so well as you and his family — habit of hovering awkwardly around you whenever someone approaches you to talk and treats you far too casually and lightly for his liking. though this only really occurs when your time with him is interrupted by another person that he happens to be jealous of, and as there are blessedly few people in the world that want to risk invoking malleus’ temper this is a very rare occurance. but that doesn’t make it any less easy to make note of when it happens (for you, anyway)

and then there’s the ways he leverages his heavy reputation and naturally intimidating presence to try and silently ‘encourage’ the person he’s envious of to back off of their own accord. including casual shows of his magical prowess (e.g. casually summoning fire from his fingertips, or a collection of briars if he’s feeling especially threatened), behaviour that intentionally highlights his draconic heritage (e.g. flashing his eyes, sneering in a way that shows off his fangs, flexing his hands so his claws catch on the light, growling even if he feels pushed into a corner at all), and other such terribly childish attempts to get the other party to back away from his mate

and sevens forbid you deny him the pleasure of your attention and affection for too long because then he will start inventing reasons to get you to leave with him instead of staying to entertain the other party. reasons which range from reasonably plausible (e.g. he’s found a new ruin and he simply must show it to you immediately), to the more absurd and unlikely, bordering on desperate and only kept from being as such by his stoic delivery (not that anyone but you, and lilia, would ever dare accuse him of being dishonest, of course)

that’s not even to mention his behaviour towards you the second you finally acquiesce and follow him away from the other person because he just gets so pouty and clingy (and prone to showing off far more than usual, like he’s trying to prove to you why you chose him as a mate) that you’d have to be actively trying to remain ignorant to not notice his jealousy

so… um… yeah. for the sake of the island maybe go and hug your dragon and assure him you prefer him over the other students before he causes a severe flash flooding incident… for the second time this week…

v i l s c h o e n h e i t

now vil is naturally a very confident person — he kind of has to be given the amount of scrutiny he comes under on a regular basis given his popularity and his work — and that of course extends to how he acts within and towards his relationship with you. namely in that he implicitly trusts you enough to know that you won’t step out on your relationship, and he’s assured enough in his place as your boyfriend to know that you won’t be able to replace him easily — he is vil schoenheit, after all… forgive him for letting the fame get to his head, but you get the picture

but despite his base level of confidence and his prominent ego, as well as his own regular insistence to the contrary, vil is not above getting jealous. not even remotely, in fact. not in his professional life (sevens, his envy of neige literally fuelled his overblot!) and certainly not in his private life either. he is, however, very good at hiding it (he wouldn’t have made it this far in his career if he didn’t excel at feigning his emotions, after all) and, equally, very difficult to push to the point of getting properly jealous — have you seen the general population of night raven? frankly he’d applaud you if you somehow managed to find a single person who was able to rival his beauty amongst them…

though, again, emotions aren’t rational and there will be moments where vil’s jealousy gets the better of him. and even if he puts on a show of perfect neutrality and poised politeness in public, he will make sure that you know just how much he dislikes the other person — not to say that he’ll confess his jealousy (sevens know his ego is much to inflated to adjust to such a glaring flaw) but his jealousy will show in his behaviour in ways perhaps he may not realise but that you, as his partner, will be able to pick up on with ease (well, you and rook but that’s pretty much a given with anything that involves vil… so…)

it shows in his face: in the way his eyes grow colder and sharper, in the way his smile falls and his lips draw tight and thin and disapproving, in the way his usual expressive features give way to a carefully constructed mask that looks too neutral to be true, and in the way his brows furrow ever so slightly in the middle in such a way that it’s almost like he dislikes the other person so very much that even a lifetime of acting isn’t enough to help him truly hide it from the world. easily missed or easily excused as something more unassuming if you didn’t know him as well as you do, but a dead giveaway to at least the idea of him not liking whoever he’s looking at once you start to know how to read him properly

it shows in the curt way he speaks to them — in his tone (carefully neutral bordering on critical when he sees something he can get away with ‘correcting’ to their face), in his words (clipped, intentional, spoken with the intent of getting the interaction over with as soon as he possibly can), and in the way he dismisses and greets them (passively, disinterestedly, giving the feeling of disdain despite his carefully apathetic facade in ways that you can easily pick up on if you know the signs)

as well as the disparaging way he speaks about them the second you two are alone, or he’s with rook watching you interact with them while being out of earshot — highly and almost obsessively critical about every single aspect of their person, with lots of very personal and poisonous insults thrown in there as well (much to rook’s very open excitement). like if anyone overheard him they may be convinced that whoever he’s talking about committed some heinous crime from how cruel and disrespectful his spiel gets as opposed to them… just being someone he happens to be jealous of. but vil is very careful about where and when he lets his worse habits show so there’s pretty much zero chance of him getting caught during moments like this, hence how much he’s willing to insult the source of his jealousy directly

it shows in his almost obsessive overcorrection of your appearance the second you separate from them — almost like he’s trying to decontaminate you of the other person’s touch, presence, scent, and influence. of course he’s always been the type to correct your hair and clothes and makeup for you when he has the time, but the lengths he goes to in moments like that, despite his excellent acting out of being the unbothered but attentive boyfriend, more than clues you in as to precisely how bothered he actually is

and it definitely shows in how he seems to somehow find new ways to make himself look even more elegant and beautiful and perfect to the eye as you get closer and interact more with the other person. because vil schoenheit doesn’t beg for scraps or simply ask for your attention, he makes his presence so demanding that you have to pay attention to him… and compliment him, and stop paying attention to that hideous little spudling instead of your beautiful, charming, loving boyfriend. yeah he does well at playing this all off in front of the dorm but to you (and rook, and at this point probably epel too) why he’s going to such extremes on such a regular basis

so… yeah. of course he’s subtle and careful enough about how he acts as to not risk causing any sort of damage to his public image, but to those closest to him it is clear as day that he very much so does not like this particular person, and to you and rook precisely why he does not like them. which is absolutely mortifying for vil to realise as he’d rather not be caught engaging in such undignified behaviour by anyone, let alone his partner

lilia vanrouge

a complete and utter wind up merchant to his core, a fae that strives to cause mischief wherever he goes, and endearingly softened by his age and his time as a parent, it should almost go without saying that your first kiss with lilia is sure to be about as romantic and memorable as it will be spontaneous and perhaps even startling — as most things tend to be whenever he gets involved these days… oh how far he’s come from his days as a general

there really is no shortage of circumstances under which your first kiss with him could happen, regardless of who initiates, because of just how much lilia likes to live in the moment — and, in return, just how much he gleefully encourages you to do the same

maybe he dropped down from above with every intent to startle you out of your own skin, but found himself enraptured by how the light danced in your eyes or lost himself in the chiming sound of your laughter and instead shifted his focus on the spot — dropping right in front of you and placing a kiss square on your lips, swallowing your startled gasp, stealing your breath, and leaving you buffering in place for a good few minutes while he laughed at both his own childish impulsivity and the charming look on your face

maybe you were in his dorm room, messy though it may be, using his own notes as a reference for an essay you’re writing while he loses himself to the latest shooter game he and gloomurai have gotten into — something something war… the title eludes you, but you’re glad he’s having fun. and maybe he wins that round and cries out in victory, smiling so widely you can see his fangs poking out in the most adorable way, and when he looks at you to make sure you were paying attention you just couldn’t help but gently grasp the side of his face and peck him on the lips. brief and impulsive and yet still enough to pinken his cheeks and leave you scrambling to apologise before he assures you that he had absolutely no objections to what you just did

maybe you two were out on an actual date, to a local theme park perhaps, and after plenty of prompting and teasing from him you two ended up on a rollercoaster that had absolutely no business being created. taller and faster and more looping than anything you’ve ever seen, and while you’re caught between screaming and laughing, watching the sights and burying your face into his shoulder, lilia is just watching you and getting a kick out of both your bravery and your hilarious response. and then you look at him, trusting and terrified and clearly hyped on adrenaline, and he leans over to press his lips against yours without even a second of hesitation — bumping his nose against yours awfully in the process due to his own bad timing

but no matter what prompted your first kiss you can be sure that it will very swiftly be followed by the second, and third, and about as many more as he can get away with giving to you before you two have to pull apart once again — grinning and giddy as children, the taste of mischief and laughter and something red on your lips all the while

malleus draconia

after a lifetime of social isolation, of being feared as a monster or revered practically as a god with almost no one that ever treated him as anything in between, malleus goes into your relationship wholly lacking any sort of meaningful experience but wanting nothing more than to be the boyfriend — husband, ideally, but that can wait until you’re ready — that you deserve. and that unwavering determination, that earnestly given fae promise, to do this right naturally lends itself to a first kiss that happens with intention, a great deal of planning, and absolutely no surprise for you

after all, for as prideful as malleus can be he’s also terrified of scaring you off or offending you due to his lack of experience with social norms and practical courting behaviours, so unlike his father he makes it a point to ask you before he even thinks about taking that next step

he takes great pains to plan out the time and location, ensuring that you won’t be tailed by your nosy friends or interrupted by his retainers by asking for your time well in advance and meticulously tracking the weather to find a night with the clearest sky — no clouds, no rain, not too cold and not too warm… and if the weather turns he can always cast a quick spell to help set the atmosphere he had in mind, it’s not like it would be especially difficult for him after all

it happens during a midnight walk through the forest on campus, of course — a staple of your acquaintanceship, then friendship, and now relationship that has come to be a comforting and oh so very needed part of his routine — where instead of leading you to some ruin he’s stumbled upon and wanted to share, as he usually would, he instead tenderly leads you out to a clearing. somewhere private and quiet, with a clear view of the moon and where the distant chatter of campus, which always manages to continue no matter how hard the housewardens push for a consistent curfew, can’t reach you

once you’re there, glowing under the faint light of an uncountable number of stars and you can see the moon reflecting in his eyes, he gracefully, regally, lowers himself to your eyeline and asks, with the utmost formality (as he always does) and an unfamiliar undertone of vulnerability, if he could kiss you. more of a plea than a question, really, and for those few moments between his ask and your approval it’s easy to forget that he’s a dragon wearing fae’s skin

and when you kiss, finally and inevitably, it feels warm and final and right. clumsy and inexperienced, still, but slow and loving and passionate enough to make up the difference. and after returning home, you fall asleep with a smile clinging faintly to your lips and dream of his warmed cheeks and dilated eyes and hands trembling with the effort to be gentle in ways he’s never known how to be before you

riddle rosehearts

riddle rosehearts is, despite the leaps and bounds he’s made in bettering himself in the aftermath of his overblot, someone who lives his life with a very specific set of rules in mind. of course there are the rules left behind by the queen of hearts, the 810 golden guidelines by which he governs himself and his dorm, but there are also the unwritten rules of life that he had drilled into him by his parents and the other adults around him when he was growing up — rules about how one ought to go about relationships, how one ought to structure their life, and so on

and while he’d like to say that he’s become more open to spontaneity in recent months, riddle has still found himself falling back on those unspoken expectations when it comes to your relationship. so if left up to him your first kiss would end up occurring in a very specific and, to him, expected way — with some room for surprises as he’s not quite so mad as to presume you’d act precisely how he thinks you should… not anymore, anyway

you’d be on a date, at least your fifth or perhaps later depending on how long you’ve been together at the time (no amount of scheduling can account for all of the maddening situations the school throws at you both, after all), having a wonderful conversation over some tea and baked goods, and while walking you back to your dorm (as any gentleman should!) he’d ask for your permission to kiss you farewell. and it would be chaste and sweet and you’d part ways equally flustered and happy… okay, perhaps he’d be more visibly flustered by the whole thing, but that’s beside the point!

but, of course, real life and your relationship aren’t so easily scheduled and things didn’t go quite as riddle had hoped — though, frankly, he can hardly say he minded

maybe you beat him to the punch and surprised him by asking for a kiss during a study date or while helping him with unbirthday party errands and caught him so off guard that he went bright red (but nodded his permission anyway), maybe you just couldn’t help yourself and pecked him on the lips impulsively while bidding him good night and got to watch your poor boyfriend go red and struggle to regain his composure for a good few minutes afterwards, maybe you two actually made it to the date but he got so in his head that he forgot to ask and you put him out of his misery and kissed him instead

no matter how it happened, though, it surely left you grinning, perhaps a bit amused at your dear riddle’s expense, and left with the faintest taste of strawberry jam and fresh pastries lingering on your lips and tongue for a bit afterwards… maybe you should ask him to have trey bake some more tarts for your next date. to celebrate your first kiss, of course (the first of many, especially if he keeps responding so strongly to them…)

silver vanrouge

silver vanrouge: an infamously oblivious founding member of the ‘facepalm brigade’, a young man who practically embodies the idea of the chivalrous knight, and someone who will not think to initiate your first kiss unless pushed in the right direction by his father, by a particularly pleasant dream, or by a very straightforward request by you — because sevens know that just hinting at it will not get through to him, not unless your particular style of ‘hints’ are the most heavy handed requests on the planet

after all, as you’re his partner he wants to prioritise your comfort and wellbeing as much as he possibly can and, as such, takes a much slower and almost traditional approach to your relationship — letting each milestone come at whatever time felt right rather than rushing towards some arbitrary deadline just because your classmates insisted you two were falling behind. because you come first to him, and silver is honestly just happy that he gets to call you his, so unless you state a desire that’s contrary to what he’s doing he will just continue to go down the chivalrous route

but whether he’s pushed by a dream (or his father, or you), or you finally take matters into your own hands, your first kiss with silver will still end up being a rather spontaneous affair. not anywhere near to the same extent as, say, his father, but unplanned and earnest all the same

maybe you’re laying together under the shade of a tree after a particularly exhausting day, surrounded by his woodland friends as they scurry and settle around you both, and as he tries to fight sleep he finds himself staring at you and recalling all of lilia’s teasing remarks over the past few weeks — suddenly much more awake than before as he finally puts the pieces together. and then, maybe, he sits up, takes your hands gently in his own and asks you, his voice unbearably soft and sweet and slightly deepened from an earlier nap that he still hasn’t quite fully shaken off, if he can kiss you, face somehow both stoic and softened in a way that gives away just how nervous and yet certain of himself he is as he awaits your response

or maybe you found yourself completely and utterly enamoured with him while watching him spar with sebek, entranced by his strength and precision and the way the sun reflected off of his aural eyes in a way that should definitely be illegal, and couldn’t help but pull him to a semi-private nook close to the training area and press your lips to his. stealing his breath and composure in a single chaste peck, and leaving him pink about the cheeks and speechless in a way that immediately gave away what happened and surely earned him a lot of teasing from his dorm mates — not that he’d ever complain about such a wonderful gesture… he only wishes he’d been able to reciprocate properly in the moment, that’s all

either way though the kiss itself is soft and chaste and sweet, more of a gentle brushing of his lips against yours but still warmed by passion and so rich with adoration you can taste it. and, of course, it’s swiftly followed by the second and third and fourth until you lose count, curled up in each other’s arms and smiling so broadly your cheeks start to ache, and yet neither of you is especially keen to pull away, to end this blissful moment. and silver is left, afterwards, hoping beyond hope that this wasn’t a dream… and if it was that this particular dream could last forever

skully j. graves

skully is someone who prides himself on his chivalrous and gentlemanly nature, who greets others warmly and with a chaste kiss to the back of the hand, who always offers his arm when you go out together, who makes every effort to be polite and earnest in his courtship of you even when he’s nervous beyond belief or at a point in his life where he’s starting to embrace a more whimsical and playful side to his personality. so, then, it’s pretty fifty-fifty whether your first kiss with him will be a spur of the moment thing initiated by one of you, or something that he goes a bit out of his way to plan

if left to him, he’d do whatever he could to ensure that the whole experience — because, naturally, he plans a whole date as a preamble to your first kiss because he is a gentleman — is as memorable and enjoyable for you as possible, catering to you both by planning activities he knows you’ll both enjoy. maybe even theme it around halloween despite it not being the right season, just in a more subtle way, if only as a means of easing his nerves a bit

but chances are one of you will break and initiate something out of the blue before he ever gets around to arranging the romantic evening he had started to plan — not that he’s complaining, of course, but the point still stands

maybe you’re walking back home after running some errands and he’s gushing about all the wonderful plans he has for halloween and how he can’t wait to spread his beloved holiday all over the globe, and you’re so enamoured by his passionate words and the determined glint in his eyes that you can’t stop yourself from pecking him on the lips. unfortunately stopping him in the middle of his sentence as his mind stalls and his whole face flushes a delightful shade of pink, too flustered and flattered and happy to form a proper thought for an embarrassing few moments before he collects himself enough to grin, wide and giddy in a way that shows off that charming tooth gap of his, and thank you properly

or maybe you two were busy decorating his dorm in advance for the halloween season, laughing and joking and being all disgustingly adorable in that way young couples tend to be, and then the lamp light catches you just right and he finds himself struck by how happy you look. how broad your smile is, how your eyes are glittering with glee. and all because you’re with him, because you’re indulging him with his greatest passion in a way no one else ever has. and that realisation has his mouth working before his mind as he asks, reverent and impulsive and lacking all of his usual purple prose, if he can kiss you. and then he does, like you’re the only thing that matters