A SF blog for the ages

When the empty lot was cleared and the facades of Pennie Farms were put up all those years ago, Quintus couldn't have gotten luckier. A kitschy amusement park that recolored itself for the Halloween season every year was the perfect hunting ground for Quintus. For two whole months, he could feed freely, disguised amongst the humans acting as monsters. For the past fifty years, he could always count on Pennie Farms Amusement Park.

He followed a pair of guests, their arms full of cheaply made merchandise. They were distracted by the sights and sounds of the night. Late summer, the air is still hot, compelling them to stay out later at night than usual. Quintus kept a steady pace behind them, waiting and hoping for them to turn a corner and head for the bathroom stalls. A zing of adrenaline shot through his undead spine as they did just as he predicted. The hair on the back of his neck stood up, salivating as he drew closer. 

Breathing in, Quintus could smell the iron in their veins, the sweat on their skin, the perfume. His lips curled over his fangs, grown sharp and ready. His senses heightened, eyes glowing in the dark like a wild animal. Just a few more steps and he'd sink his teeth in. 

And then… that fucking tickle. The little, nagging sensation that he'd grown to dread since that worthless excuse for a vampire, Nathaniel, was dropped on his proverbial doorstep. Somewhere close by, that idiot was sniffling in a wad of tissues. It made his own nose drip, sharing the irritation. 

Just ignore it.

He gritted his sharp teeth and continued to stalk his prey. The pair of humans stopped briefly, talking boring mortal nonsense. Frustratingly, they were just in view of an open alley. He'd have to wait for them to move out of the sight of others. Quintus was an impatient hunter, but even he knew when to wait. 

If only Nathaniel would stop with the cold. The tickle in his sinuses grew impossible to ignore, as if Nate himself was dragging the tip of a feather along its soft insides, tripping up his carefully controlled breathing. Worse still, his eyes began to flutter, making it hard to keep focus on the pair of humans. And he needed to keep them in his sight, he couldn't lose track for a moment. 

They moved, and he moved. He gave his nose a brutal rub with the back of his hand as he crept behind, doing everything he could to keep incessant feathering in his sinuses to stop before it turned into…

Oh no. 

"Hh." 

The tickle turned into a burn, the kind that made his nostrils pulse, hungry for a good, loud sneeze. The one damn thing he didn't need. Fighting to keep his eyes open, he followed the mortals as they walked agonizingly slowly down the alleyway. He almost had them! He just needed to keep his damn nose under control. 

"—hhh—" 

A distant memory of a vaudeville act. An old stage play in front of a wagon, he remembered it. A comedy. A character doused in pepper, they held up a finger under their nose to stop a sneeze.

Would that work? 

Quintus's chest rose a shaky inhale, and he quickly pressed his index finger against his upper lip. His ears burned red-hot with embarrassment at resorting to something that looked so stupid. Funny, since being burdened with Nathaniel, he'd found out he could still blush, too. The idiot seemed to revel in humiliating him. 

"—Ah—Hiph—Ahpt—" 

He looked ridiculous, and he sounded ridiculous. Try as he might, he could barely keep his eyes open. His prey was moving out of his line of view, and he couldn't think of anything except trying to keep his hitching quiet. The sneeze was just at the back of his throat, trying to huff its way out with every little "Ahh". Desperate to keep it away, he saw-sawed his finger against his upper lip, the pressure nearly, but not quite enough…

"Ahhh—" 

No. No, no, no. He didn't have to fucking sneeze. He was in control. He—

"APhb—"

He was in control. He was—

"AH-AHTCH'CHHOOH!!!" 

Quintus snapped forward violently, head going dizzy with the angry release. The mortals instantly turned around, at first genuinely scared by the loud noise and then smiling delightedly at what they assumed to be a fun amusement park actor choosing a very silly way to frighten them. There were many costumed scare-actors that surprised them that night, this was just another encounter. 

"Ha ha! Bless you!" One of them said. They laughed. They walked away. They got away. 

Fucking Nathaniel. 

Quintus growled and ran his finger under his nose with a rousing sniffle, trying to wrangle some dignity back as he turned back into the fray of the crowd. No one noticed his glowing eyes or teeth still sharp and dripping for a meal that didn't happen. He pushed through some costumed scary clowns to find that bastard Nathaniel right where he left him, sitting by the carousel looking forlorn as usual. 

"You did that on purpose." 

Nathaniel sniffed and looked away, playing innocent. 

"I have no idea what you mean?" 

"I nearly had them! If it wasn't for your stupid cold." 

"Sounds like that's your problem. You're the one who can't stop yourself from sneezing." 

"It's an us problem! It's been months, and all you can eat is chicken blood. You can't get over this cold unless you have a real meal! And I can't have a real meal with you constantly sn—hh—" 

Nathaniel's eyes mist over as he cups a bundle of tissues over his mouth and nose, eyebrows furrowed. 

"St—hhh—Stop—Hhhh-S'deezing'IGH—" Quintus pinched his flaring nose shut and batted a hand at Nathaniel. "—H'ASHHOOOH!!" 

"HFFH'shiew!—I can'd help it Quintus—snff—and I'mb not going to murder. It's bad enough I'm damned. I'd rather suffer this cold for an eternity than murder someone."  

Nathaniel sounded tired, voice cracking. He looked beyond ill, as undead as a person could look. Dark bags under his eyes, cheeks sallow, posture hunched. Permanent streaks of red on his lip. 

"Look at you, Nate. You're going to wither away!" 

"How do you know?" 

"I just—I just know, okay?" 

Quintus couldn't answer properly. It drove him crazy that he couldn't answer. He didn't know what would happen if a vampire refused to eat. Could Nathaniel starve? Would he starve alongside him? All of his years of power and survival drained because the selfish asshole couldn't get off his sanctimonious high-horse and feed?

He snarled. Oh, how he hated Nathaniel. With his brown puppy-dog eyes always sighing and sniffling. A sad excuse for a vampire, still holding onto his mortal life with mortal rules. And worst of all, he had to sleep with him. 

Not in that way. 

Their temporary resting place was a coffin, a piece of decoration Quintus borrowed. Tucked away safely at the back of the park, with very few passersby. Long ago, he learned about the pains of having to dig oneself out of a grave, and only resorted to staying in the real thing if nothing else was available. Better for an unlucky guest to occasionally open up the lid to their downfall than to get a mouthful of dirt. He'd used this method for years, and he suspected someone on staff at the park knew a real vampire snoozed there. An unspoken truce that remained upheld for decades. 

It used to be a fairly comfortable situation. Until Nathaniel. 

Two coffins would be pushing it. Quintus knew not to live beyond his means and take more than he needed. Two coffins meant scrutiny. One was a simple misplacement. So there was just one coffin. It rested behind the phony graveyard, just beyond the wooden facades of a town from a time gone by. He remembered what the real buildings looked like, he was there hundreds of years ago. They didn't look like the facades at all. 

The sun had yet to rise, but the pair still climbed into the coffin all the same. They were tired, and Nathaniel was too weak to last a full night. The coffin was slightly bigger than normal, but not big enough to make sleeping together comfortable. For one thing, Nathaniel was a restless sleeper. He was always tossing and turning. Sometimes Quintus would get an elbow in the face. Other times, he'd hear Nathaniel softly crying. Pathetic. He surely never carried on after he turned. 

Though he can't remember when he turned. It was so long ago. 

"Hey, Scooch over, please." Nathaniel wiggled next to Quintus, back to back. The man was lanky and took up precious space. And he used words like "Scooch" and "Please". So cloyingly polite.

He stewed in his anger as Nathaniel sniffled himself to sleep. His nose buzzing with the spawn's. The man was just so annoying, as annoying as an itch you couldn't scratch. 

Speaking of. 

The scar on his back, leftover from his first encounter with Nathaniel, had a tendency to itch from time to time. Usually at the most inopportune moments. Such as now, when he's squeezed into a cramped coffin, his arms folded against his chest. His heightened sense of touch made things like an itch worse than they should be. As the miserable hours wore on, the slight prickle spread red-hot over the skin of his back. 

"For fuck's sake.." He murmured. He tried to wriggle the itch away, but quickly stopped when he remembered Nathaniel's back was pressed right up against his. His claws dug into his arms, and he bit his lip as the itch seemed to travel from the middle of his back to the horrible space between his shoulder blades and back again. It was impossible to sleep, but he'd be loath to wake Nathaniel up.

Carefully, he rolled onto his back and tried to shimmy it against the bottom of the coffin. It was almost relieving, but the material of his tank top softened the friction, making it so agonizingly close to relief without giving it. He hissed and attempted to reach a hand behind his back. He just couldn't stand it. 

A thud. His elbow hit the lid of the coffin, loud enough to stir Nathaniel. Sleepily, the spawn rolled on his side, his nose runny and full of cold. 

"snrff—what'r you doing?" Nathaniel murmured. 

"S'nothing. Just go back to sleep." 

Nathaniel opened an eye, catching sight of Quintus squirming. 

"How can I sleep with you wiggling around? What's wrong?" 

"I'm—" Quintus huffed. "I just- my back is kind of itchy. That's all." 

"Oh, is it the scar? The one the crucifix left behind?" 

The spawn looked genuinely concerned, his brows tented compassionately. Quintus growled and rolled his eyes. 

"Yes. The scar that you gave me. Itches like crazy."  He rolled his shoulders, trying to seem as desperate for relief as he was. 

"Tsk. I'm still sorry about that one." Nathaniel touched the scar around his throat where he used to wear his priest collar. "This one itches too sometimes..at least I can get at it easily." 

"Yeah, yeah. Lucky you." 

Nathaniel cleared his throat. 

"I can uh, help you out."

Quintus metaphorical hackles raised, and he stopped squirming. He protectively wrapped his arms around his chest and froze. 

"Don't need help." 

"Quintus… I can't sleep if you keep going on like that." A glint of something close to humor flashed in Nathaniels' eyes, and he knuckled theatrically at his nose, "and you know, if I'm awake I may sneeze…I think I feel one now." 

Oh, how he hated Nathaniel. Lips rising in a snarl, Quintus rolled on his side and curled inward slightly. 

"Fine. Have at it." 

He felt Nathaniel's fingers hesitate at the edge of his undershirt. 

"May I?" 

Quintus shrugged. 

And then he moaned. 

Sharp claws dragged down the prickling skin of his back, a sensation so delicious and surprising all at once, Quintus completely forgot himself for a minute. Nathaniel's fingers sharpened, but with a pressure so light it made the hair on Quintus's arms stand on end. His body arched into the sensation, skin tingling hungrily. It felt good, it felt so fucking good, and worst of all, Nathaniel knew it felt good. 

"How's that?" 

"It'sfine" Quintus just managed to spit out, his voice hitching as a claw grazed over the scar, the talon following the line of it. What was wrong with this guy? What the hell was wrong—

"Oh fuck—" 

The spawn scratched harder, occasionally clawing at the sides of Quintus's ribcage, it tickled and set his nerve endings on fire. It'd been years, ages even, since he'd been touched like this. And by Nathaniel of all people.

And still the itch danced. Its origin point fled to a space under his right shoulder blade, a neglected spot skipped over by the raking claws. Quintus breathed hard, trying to move his shoulder into the line of fire without having to ask. But of course, Nathaniel noticed. 

"Mm? You alright? Want me to stop?" 

"No! I mean..I just—" 

Quintus peeked over his shoulder at Nathaniel.

"Could you go—higher?" 

"What?" 

"Just a little higher…" Quintus ground his teeth and wished the earth would swallow him up. 

Nathaniel smiled at him. Smug. 

"Say please." 

Growling, Quintus turned away and muttered a low, bitter "please." 

The claws set to work. A single nail dragged up Quintus's back and found the prickling spot under the shoulder blade. It scratched against it, hard and near-painful. 

Quintus had to bite into his lip to stop whatever mortifying noises he almost let out. 

The worst part of it all was the fact that Nathaniel was so damn gentle. After giving his back a final pass of scratches, he smoothed his hands over the skin, calming the nerve endings and blowing cool air on some of the hot spots. Quintus could feel Nathaniels' stuffy nose snuffle throughout. 

"Look, Quintus. I know you don't think much of me. I know this whole thing was unplanned, and we may clash on some things. But we have to work together. We're in this now. " 

It was hard to gather his thoughts, most of them scattered to the wind after whatever the hell that was. Quintus blinked owlishly into the dark and pulled his undershirt down again. He needed to put up his defensive shell once more. It was dangerously low. 

"You really think there's a way? You really think you can fix this?" Quintus coughed and tried to regain his composure. He had to get the upper hand again, he needed to. He turned over, facing Nathaniel. The spawn was back to his weepy self, eyes shining in the dark.

"There's always a way. We don't have to be friends, but can we at least help each other?" 

"Hmph. You scratch my back, I scratch yours?" Quintus grumbled, wryly. He sniffled and twitched his nose from side to side. He could tell Nathaniel was getting sneezy again. 

"Exactly! Not so hard, is it?" The slope of Nathaniel's soft nose wrinkled at the bridge, and he fished for the tissues in his pocket. "Oh, heads up—think I'm gonna" 

"Yeah, I know. I know." 

Quintus didn't fight it. His nostrils arched open, and he let his toothy jaw swing wide open. The sneeze was fast to build, Nathaniel barely two airy hitches in when Quintus erupted. 

"AH-APHTSHHH!!!—hhh—oh damn…sorry." 

He hadn't thought about covering. Not something he'd gotten used to yet, especially when a sneeze crept up on him so fast. It sprayed wet, right into Nathaniel's face just as the spawn cringed into the ball of tissues with a sneeze of his own.

"Hihg'DNKT!!—hhh—s'alright." Nathaniel sighed, resigned to being sneezed on. "I really need to learn how to stifle them. For hunting at least." 

Quintus squirmed his nose, still stewing over the fact that Nathaniel, as much as he hated to admit it, was right. They did need to work on cohabitating, even if a chance at finding a way to sever the link between them was less than zero. The hope of finally being rid of this dripping, soggy, sorry-faced spawn and regaining his dignity would be enough to keep him going. 

He turned over, facing away from Nathaniel once more, unwilling to talk further. He was starved and tired. 

“Looks like bad weather at the lighthouse.”

Ruby, polishing glasses behind the bar, rolled her eyes as a fisherman, dripping wet from the rain outside, approached her Aunt Hortense with this grim warning. Two weeks working at the Dropped Anchor, banished to the tiny fishing town of White Water for “unbecoming behaviour” with the attractive son of a prominent cleric in the city, had done little to curb her impatience, or tendency towards sarcasm.

“It’s bad weather everywhere. Look outside!”

The fisherman looked to Ruby with disbelief, shaking his head disapprovingly.

“Aye… But it’s bad weather at the lighthouse.”

Aunt Hortense gave a disapproving tut, looking up from polishing the bar and meeting the fisherman’s eyes.

“Ignore Ruth. She…”

“Ruby!”

“Ignore Ruth. She doesn’t know, doesn’t care, and won’t be staying. Does it look bad? Poor Mister Seaver, out there all alone…”

Ruby snorted.

“Does he expect a social life, living in a lighthouse?”

Her elders ignored her completely, with the fisherman going on in grim tones.

“We’ll see how bad soon enough. His supply run day, isn’t it? And if he’s got what half the town’s had…”

Aunt Hortense’s brow creased with worry.

“If he’s got what half the town’s had, he’ll be sneezing up a storm. I’ll see that there’s something on the stove in case he wants to stop by for a meal, and we’ll just have to hope he has matters under control.”

As Aunt Hortense retreated to the kitchen, Ruby turned to the fisherman with interest, no longer even pretending to polish the glass in her hands, instead leaning in for a chat.

“So, what’s the big deal about this Seaver? Someone important? How come I never see him around town, if that’s the case?”

The fisherman shook his head disapprovingly.

“He’s a wizard, is our Mister Seaver. A weather wizard, and a good one, too! So mind you show him proper respect, and leave him be, he likes his space.”

Ruby rolled her eyes, turning back to her glasses and making a half-hearted effort at polishing one.

“Who ever heard of wizards these days? I thought they all live off in towers somewhere, all high and mighty and above it all. And if he’s so good with weather, can’t he warm things up a little? It’s been miserable for days!”

The fisherman opened his mouth, no doubt to chastise her, only to be cut off by a gust of bitter wind as the door opened, and a stranger entered. A tall figure, clad in an oilskin coat dripping with rainwater, his face largely obscured by a blue woolen scarf, and his hair wild and damp from the weather. Ruby caught a glimpse of hazel eyes over his scarf, looking watery from the chill wind.

A terrier trotted in ahead of the stranger. A scrappy-looking little creature, with one ragged ear, and a tail held proudly in the air like a banner. He looked up at the stranger, all attentiveness, and Ruby heard a soft, hoarse voice from behind the scarf.

“Go and sit, Neptune.”

The terrier, Neptune, plainly familiar with the place, trotted over to an isolated table in the corner, while his master approached the bar, hanging back a little as if unsure if the fisherman sitting there was being attended to first. The fisherman nodded respectfully and gestured for him to approach, and shot Ruby a warning glance, as if silently urging her to show respect as well. Evidently this was Mister Seaver, the local wizard.

Never one to blindly bow to those deemed respectable, Ruby had a quip ready along with an empty glass, when the stranger stepped forward, carefully unwinding his scarf. Ruby’s cheeky remark died in her throat.

The term ‘wizard’ had conjured up a mental image of an old man with long white hair and an equally long white beard, with flowing robes and perhaps a pointed hat. A somewhat ridiculous creature from a storybook. Instead, the man revealed as the scarf peeled away was strong-jawed with a hint of stubble, his age hard to determine. Handsome, in a weathered and weary sort of way. Jaw-length brown hair peppered with grey, gentle, intelligent eyes, and a prominent nose, the bridge of which was a touch irregular, as if broken sometime in the past.

Said nose was absolutely ravaged with a seemingly brutal cold. Rubbed red and raw, decidedly damp about the nostrils, it sounded dreadfully congested as the wizard wrinkled it and gave a marshy snuffle.

Ruby felt her cheeks flush. Something about a handsome man with a cold always made something inside of her squirm. It was no coincidence that the cleric’s son who had been her undoing had constantly been catching the sniffles. She broke into a catlike grin, leaning forward on the bar a little, displaying herself to best advantage.

“You must be Mister Seaver. I’ve heard all about you.”

The wizard only briefly met her eyes, and then lowered his gaze. Not to where Ruby wanted it, annoyingly, but rather looking at a corner of the bar, as if embarrassed to look her in the eye. He sniffled again, his nostrils arching with the effort of it, and he rubbed a knuckle beneath his leaking nose.

“I am. Crawford Seaver. At your service. You… erm… You’re new…”

He turned away slightly to cough into his fist, and Ruby took the opportunity to tug the neckline of her blouse a little further down. The fisherman, watching her disapprovingly, tutted and shook his head.

“I am indeed. Ruby. A pleasure to meet you. What can I do for you? You look as if you need warming up…”

Her attempt at a sultry manner was ruined by Aunt Hortense returning and taking her shoulder, pulling her back and directing her towards the kitchen, scowling all the while.

“If you’re not going to make yourself useful out here, you can go back there and start washing dishes. Now, Mister Seaver. You look wretched, I imagine you’ll want something warm in your belly. We’ve a mutton stew, if that suits?”

The wizard, Crawford, nodded, fishing a frayed old bandana from his pocket and roughly pinching at his nose. For a moment, his eyes took on a distinctly absent look, and his breath caught. Ruby, lingering in the kitchen door, watched unashamedly, and tried not to feel too disappointed when the vaguely sneezy expression faded, and Crawford breathed a sigh of relief.

As did the fisherman, who, Ruby noted, had been watching Crawford nervously.

Odd.

Crawford spoke up again, his quiet voice muddled with congestion.

“Thank you, Mrs. Platt. And if I might have some tea? My throat…”

“Sounds like you’ve gargled gravel, and no doubt you could use some steam to clear you up. Go and sit down, the girl and I will take care of it. Ruth, kettle. Now!”

Ruby shot a sulky look at her aunt, and, before retreating into the kitchen, looked back over her shoulder at the ailing wizard. As she watched, he took his bandana again and mopped at his streaming nose, before rubbing it none too gently. His breath caught, his eyelids fluttering. For a moment, Ruby noted both Aunt Hortense and the fisherman tensing up, the fisherman edging away a little. Both only relaxed when Crawford let out the breath as a soft moan, rubbing his nose once more.

Aunt Hortense spoke up.

“You have those sneezes under control?”

Crawford’s cheeks coloured a touch, and he nodded, avoiding her eyes. Stranger and stranger, Ruby mused, before retreating into the kitchen as Aunt Hortense turned and glared. Grumbling under her breath, she set about filling the kettle and hanging it over the fire, while Aunt Hortense came to fill a bowl with steaming mutton stew, and slicing bread to go with it.

“Why’s everyone so nervous of him sneezing? It’s just a cold, and we’ve had half the town hacking and spluttering all over the bar these last couple of weeks. No more risk of catching it from him than any of them.”

Aunt Hortense shot her an irritable scowl, placing the bowl and bread on a tray and passing it to her.

“Don’t you go meddling in our Mister Seaver’s business. It’s none of your concern. Now, take that out, and then leave him be. The poor man’s ill, he doesn’t need any of your nonsense!”

“Oh, I don’t know. He looks rather miserable. A little nonsense might cheer him up!”

“Ruth, I swear to whatever god happens to be listening, if you keep talking back…”

“Alright, alright, I’m going!”

Tray balanced on one hand, Ruby made her way back out to the bar, spotting Crawford now seated at the corner table, his dripping oilskin removed to reveal the same sort of cable-knit woolen jumper the local fishermen wore. He rested his head on one hand, and with the other, kept his bandana pressed to his nose, alternately pinching and rubbing. Evidently the swollen appendage was troubling him immensely.

The little dog, Neptune, sat obediently at his feet, and alerted him to Ruby’s arrival with a sudden “Wuff!”. Crawford sat up a little straighter, and lowered his bandana, avoiding her eyes once more. Up close, she could hear him giving soft little sniffles with every other breath. Offering her most charming smile, Ruby set down his food, and lingered, holding onto the tray.

“That ought to put some colour back in your cheeks.”

“Thank you. Very much appreciated.”

Crawford hesitated, seemingly unsure whether to begin eating in her company. No doubt unused to the charms of city girls, Ruby mused, toying flirtatiously with her braid. She offered a teasing smile.

“Everyone says you’re a wizard. You don’t look like one.”

Crawford blinked up at her. There was a hint of feverish haze to his eyes that melted something inside of her, and when he replied, soft and hesitant, his voice was so heavy with congestion, he struggled to make himself understood.

“Erm… Then I must resort to the old cliché, Miss Ruby, regarding appearances being deceptive.”

“I suppose they must be. Your appearance says you should be in bed. Yet here you are, up and about!”

Crawford flushed a little deeper, and looked down at his bowl as if it might hold the answer to escaping this conversation. Unwilling to let him get away just yet, Ruby grinned, leaning her hip on the table.

“So, if you’re really a weather wizard, can you conjure us up a ray of sunshine? Gods know we could use it around here!”

Crawford continued to stare down into his food, stirring it idly and addressing the bowl.

“That would be inadvisable for a number of reasons. Natural conditions shouldn’t be… Hehhh… Shouldn’t be tampered with. Too much… Huhhh…. Uhh… Sndfff!... potential for… for unforeseen… consequences… I’m so sorry, I beg your pardon, I…”

Shaking his head as if he might somehow deny the inevitable, Crawford lurched forward into his much-abused bandana, though, having struggled to talk his way through the build-up to his sneeze, he buried his nose in the damp folds too late, failing to entirely cover an impressive plume of spray.

“HhhhHHRUFFFSSSHOO!”

It was as if someone had suddenly pulled out a weapon. The various tavern patrons, who had been shooting Crawford the occasional worried glance, suddenly pulled abruptly away. One or two leapt to their feet. One dived under his table.

Silence hung in the air for a moment, broken only by Crawford’s unsteady breathing and pitifully damp snuffling. At length, cheeks and ears flushed red, looking as if he wished to disappear, Crawford emerged from behind his bandana at last, and chanced a brief look around the tavern, raising a hand apologetically.

“… Sorry… Under control…”

The patrons returned to their drinks, though wary glances continued to be sent in Crawford’s direction.

Ruby, mouth dry, face warm, struggled to find her words. Gods, the man sneezed like a thunderstorm. Loud, and wet. She swallowed hard, and struggled not to giggle as she spoke.

“Well, I’ll bless you, even if no one else here has manners. It’s alright. No need to be shy. Sneeze as much as you like.”

Crawford shrank into himself a little more, and dabbed at his long-suffering nose.

“I’d very much prefer not to. Apologies. I… You ought to keep your distance.”

Almost as if he meant to chase her off, Crawford buried his nose in his bandana once more, and, thin chest expanding with a slightly wheezy inhale, let loose with a blow that rivaled a foghorn, giving his nostrils a vigorous rub afterwards. Three times, he repeated this process, and at last tucked his bandana away once more, drooping over the table, somehow still looking heavy with congestion.

Far from being deterred, Ruby clucked her tongue sympathetically, and tried not to squirm. If ever a man needed to be held…

“Oh, you needn’t worry about me. I never catch anything. Except when I decide to chase something.”

Once again, her flirtation fell on deaf ears. Crawford merely shrank in on himself further, and shivered. Ruby fought back a sigh.

“Alright. I’ll leave you to eat, and get that tea ready for you.”

As she passed the bar, the fisherman, now being poured a glass of ale by Aunt Hortense, let out a low chuckle.

“You’re barking up the wrong wizard there, my girl!”

Ruby’s cheeks flushed with annoyance as she stormed back into the kitchen, and poured hot water into the teapot to prepare it for the leaves.

“Honestly, does anyone in this washed-up wreck of a town have taste?”

Waiting for the pot to warm, Ruby went to listen by the door, and struggled not to squirm as she heard another sneeze from Crawford’s table. Once again, it sounded loud, soaking, laden with cold… And was once again it was accompanied by the scraping of chairs and sound of movement as patrons drew away, followed by a hoarse, miserable apology, and assurance that all was under control.

“Honestly, they can sail through a storm but can’t handle a man with the sniffles…”

As Ruby emerged from the kitchen with a large, steaming mug of tea, her attraction to the ailing wizard merged with sympathy. Looking to his table, she saw him shivering hopelessly, having pulled his oilskin back over his narrow shoulders, poking miserably at his food. And, as if to further compound his misery, all those who had been anywhere remotely near his table had relocated to the other side of the tavern.

“Honestly, it’s just a cold…”

Ruby glanced at Aunt Hortense, and found her at a table at the other side of the room, laying down the law regarding a patron’s unpaid tab. Taking her chance, Ruby ducked beneath the bar, seizing a bottle of whiskey and adding a generous shot to the mug of tea. That ought to chase away the chills!

Crawford, feeding Neptune a piece of mutton from his stew, looked up at Ruby with bleary eyes as she approached his table, setting down the mug with a smile.

“There. That’ll have you nice and warmed up in no time.”

Worn and weary and wretchedly full of cold as he looked, this time, Crawford managed a slight, shy smile in return.

“Thank you. Very much appreciated.”

Crawford wrapped his hands around the mug, sighing in relief at the warmth, and raised it to his lips, attempting to inhale some of the steam through his stuffy nose. Failing this, he took a deep sip instead.

His eyes, closed in relief at the warmth, suddenly opened in horror.

“Is… Huhh… Is there… Snff-SNF! Huhhh… HaAHhh… whiskey in this?”

“Just a nip! I thought it might warm you up?”

Crawford gave a flustered snort, setting the mug down and pushing it away, and grabbing urgently for his bandana. His reddened nostrils flared wide, and he shook his head, as if he might somehow refuse the oncoming sneeze, even as his eyelids fluttered closed and his chest and shoulders jerked with violent hitches.

“I… I can’t… Ihh… I’m sorry… I… Ehh… HehEHhh… HhhHRFFFSHHHOO!”

Crawford did his best to smother the explosion in his bandana, but to no avail. It was torn from him, throat-scraping and violent, and already he was gasping in air for another. Neptune gave a sharp yap, and retreated under the table between Crawford’s feet. The patrons at the other side of the table rose to their feet, and Ruby heard one of them cry out.

“Best clear out, here he goes!”

“HhiieeffsssSSHOO!”

The second sneeze left Crawford panting and teary-eyed, bracing himself against the table, coughing weakly, but already drawing in air for a third effort. Several patrons hurried out the door. Others ducked under their tables. Aunt Hortense, spying Ruby, came storming over and seized her by the arm.

“Get away, you silly girl, before…”

“HhhHHRAAASSSSHOO!”

The sound of the sneeze itself was nearly drowned out by a crack of thunder, and a blinding brightness as lightning flashed just outside the window. Wind shrieked through the tavern, blowing an abandoned newspaper about the room. Ruby gave a shriek of alarm, clutching Aunt Hortense as the sudden violent gust tore at her hair.

Crawford, rubbing furiously at his swollen, leaking nose, attempted to stammer out an apology.

“I’m so sorry… The whiskey… I… Iihhhh… AhhHAAaahh… AHHhhHASHOO!”

Aunt Hortense swore, shoving Ruby aside and taking Crawford by the arm, trying to haul him to his feet.

“What whiskey? Who… Alright, time for you to step outside!”

“I… Hhhehhh…”

“Oh, no you don’t! You keep that nose of yours under control!”

Crawford struggled to get to his feet, but, seemingly clumsy from illness, stumbled back into his seat with the sheer force of the next sneeze.

“HhhhHHYAAASSSSHH!”

Aunt Hortense took Crawford by the arm once more, snapping at Ruby as she did so.

“Help me get him out, girl! Before…”

“EhhhHESSSHOO!”

Another violent wind ripped through the tavern, and this time, fat, heavy raindrops began to fall, slowly at first, then thick and fast. Ruby gasped as they splashed against her skin, rapidly cooling her flushed cheeks. Seeing the urgency of the situation now, she took Crawford’s other arm, and between them, the two women helped him to the door, the poor wizard already shuddering with urgent hitches, fueling the next sneeze.

“I… I’m really so… Huh! UhhHuhh… sorry, I… HhHRUFFFFSSSHOO!”

The force of it nearly sent Crawford stumbling, and Ruby put an arm around him to steady him as they stepped out into the street, where wild winds tore at their hair and clothes, and sleet stung their skin. The chill, Ruby noted, made the feverish heat radiating from Crawford all the more pronounced. With her arm around him, she could feel his chest heaving, readying for the next effort. The little dog, Neptune, yapped urgently, getting underfoot in his attempts to herd them onwards.

“HhhHRASSCHOO!”

Ruby felt the spray of that one on her cheek, and the shiver that ran through her wasn’t entirely from the cold.

As Crawford, teary-eyed, nose streaming, looking exhausted, stumbled to a halt as the next sneeze began to overwhelm him, Aunt Hortense took Ruby by the arm and tugged her back, looking grim. Still reeling from all that had unfolded, Ruby watched with wide eyes as Crawford leaned back in readiness, and was flung forward by the force of one final, exhausting sneeze.

“Ehh… Hehh… Huhhh... HhhhHHUUURUSSSSHOOO!”

 One last burst of howling wind swirled outwards from the unfortunate wizard, followed by an eerie silence, broken only by his soft moaning and snuffling, as the pattering rain turned to a thick, heavy fall of snow.

Crawford, shivering as snowflakes settled over his hair and clothes, raised his now all but useless bandana to his nose and gave an exhausted, careful blow, and looked to Aunt Hortense with rheumy eyes, looking thoroughly miserable.

“I… I’m really so terribly sorry. I could have sworn I had it under control, only…”

Aunt Hortense folded her arms across her chest, shooting Ruby a look that promised dire consequences to come.

“Only this one slipped you a shot of whiskey, it seems. That’ll be coming out of your pay, girl! And as for the mess…”

Crawford held up a hand apologetically, wrinkling his nose and snuffling terribly.

“You mustn’t blame her, she didn’t know. And if you’ll let me catch my breath, I can clear all this up…”

“She knows better than to slip people drinks they haven’t asked for! And by the time you’ve collected yourself enough for that, you’ll have sneezed us up a proper storm!”

Unable to argue with that, Crawford visibly slumped, hanging his head, mopping at his nose once more. Aunt Hortense strode briskly back inside the tavern, and returned with Crawford’s scarf, which she briskly wrapped around his neck, before pulling his oilskin coat around him tighter.

“Go home, Mister Seaver. I’ll speak to the grocer and have your supplies sent to the lighthouse.”

“I… You mustn’t go to any trouble…”

“Did it sound like I was asking?”

“… Thank you. Good day, Mrs Platt.”

The wizard and his little dog turned to walk away, Neptune with his tail still carried high, Crawford with his metaphorical tail between his legs, sniffling and coughing all the while. Ruby watched them go, vaguely aware of Aunt Hortense scolding her.

“And you, my girl, can spend the rest of the day with a mop for company!”

They were five weeks into the heat of the desert when Mad Marn realized they were headed in the wrong direction. 

Because of course they were. 

She crouched over a map, the tent oppressively hot despite the sun having finally set over the horizon. Despite her line of work as a dubious go-getter for rich losers, she always hated camping out. Roughing it. Terrible.

Taking a sip of coffee, she re-read her geographical notes. Despite her best efforts to bargain for the best map, they still managed to overshoot the supposed location of the supposed damned tomb. 

There were plenty of times when she'd accidentally led her men to the wrong location. Bum maps, bad hearsay. Nothing was guaranteed in her line of work. It's why rich idiots hired her crew in the first place. No matter how badly some aristocrat wanted some supposedly magical ruby, they were loath to actually break out a tent and get it themselves. Of course, she'd be out of work if they did. 

She sat, nursing the butt-end of a cigarette, trying to make her limited supply of smokes last for who knows how long. She turned the map upside down, cursing, and turned it right side up. Nothing made sense. 

"Ma'am? The crew is waiting…" 

Dynamite expert Pierce stood at attention, her shaved head having grown out to a teddy-bear length after weeks in the desert. She looked washed out and sweaty. Granted, everyone was sweaty. 

"I got nothing to tell 'em." Marnie killed the cigarette, crushing it against the table. 

Pierce coughed. It was a wrenching, painful one. 

"—You gotta tell 'em something, Ma'am. Word is going around that we're lost." Pierce's voice was strangled and stuffy. Whatever wretched illness that'd been hopping from one mercenary to the next had finally found her. 

Mad Marn sighed. Pierce was right. When the crew started having enough time on their hands to wonder about being lost, that's when they got out of line. That's when she had to put the fear of the gods into them. It was a pain in the ass, really. But it had to be done. 

The desert winds raged against the rickety walls of the hangar. Her men stood at attention as she slowly walked down their ranks. They were dirty and banged up from survival. Some are sick and feverish. A flurry of irritating coughs and sniffles echoes through the hangar, a symphony of illness. 

She lit a fresh cigarette. 

"You all look like shit," Marnie announced, her hands clasped behind her back. "Sad, pathetic. If I had half a mind, I'd leave the lot of you for the buzzards." 

She gave one particularly woozy-looking mercenary a sharp look.

"But, I am, as always, merciful. And I do believe I've found the right path to—" 

"HIh-FSHHHIEW!!" 

A sneeze exploded from somewhere in the crowd. It was wolfish and itchy. It was also instantly recognizable. The perpetrator's voice lived in it. 

"Terry!" She yelled.

The crowd parted instantly, revealing the sniffling culprit. Upon discovery, he straightened his posture and put his arms behind his back, standing at stiff attention. 

"Tinfoil Terry…you look as fresh as a carcass." 

The mercenary was the shortest in her crew, a chewed-up coyote of a man. One ear with a chunk bitten off from a match in some godforsaken fighting ring, a wild desperation in his eyes. He held his dubious nickname for being the one member in her crew who always ended up in the worst predicaments. Terry was as crumpled as a piece of tinfoil. 

Terry was the weakest of her crew, and yet the one man she could never quite get rid of. 

"You feeling alright?" She asked, eyeing him. 

He nodded curtly. 

"Yes, Ma'am." 

"You know. There's been a bit of a plague going around the crew recently. Even Pierce caught it. Plagues are spread by rats, you know." 

Terry's brows furrowed, confused.

"Tell me, Terry. Are you the plague rat who gave everyone the sniffles?" 

"-No? No Ma'am!" Terry's steely demeanor broke into panic. "I'm not even sick, I swear!" 

Mad Marn knew toying with Terry was cruel. But she knew the others needed to know their place. Terry was just a casualty. As usual. 

She grabbed his chin in a rough pinch, tipping his head upwards, examining him. He was ugly on the best of days, but the fever made him worse. 

"Mm. Not sick, huh? You sound really congested to me. Are you my rat?" 

His eyes watered. Marnie could tell he was ready to explode again at any moment. His nose was a dead giveaway. Nostrils dilated open, tickled by the cold he no doubt carried and passed on. 

"N-no Ma'am—snff—I'mb-snff" His chest swelled. His words warbled at the edge of a sneeze. "—feeligfin'ed-" 

"Sorry, didn't catch that. Speak up." Keeping his chin tight in her grasp, she dragged a thumb across his raw septum, wiping at a dribble of mess leaking from his nose. He stretched his upper lip at the light touch. He seemed desperate for the contact, anything to scratch at his nose. She was merciful to oblige him. 

"I'm-I'm.. feelig—hhhheeh—" 

A sharp intake of breath hissed between his clenched teeth, and he quickly curled his lips together. Trying to bottle up the inevitable. Eyes squeezed shut, he held his breath for a moment, then breathed out a shaky "—euuhh.." 

He looked relieved not to give in to the reflex. Despite the wants and needs of his body, he obeyed orders. Sniffling fitfully, he seemed almost proud of the accomplishment.

"You're Feelig Fide?" She mocked his stuffy voice. "You don't look Fide to me."

Taking a drag from her cig, she exhaled directly at Terry's face. The acrid smoke stung him, he scrunched up his face, nose flaring, angry and red as his sinuses tickled at the irritating smoke. His chest hitched up, up, up…

Marn quickly pinched the round bulb of his nose between her fingertips, just as the sneeze crested. 

"HIHP-BBHHPTTT!!!" 

It was a terribly loud, spraying excuse of a stifle. Spittle trailed down his lips as she released his burning nose from her fingers, wiping the mess against the front of his jacket.

"Look at you. Can barely hold a damn sneeze in. How you're still alive I'll never know." 

"S-sorry..ma'amb.." Terry flushed, humiliated, and bleary-eyed. 

She put her hands on either one of his shoulders and spun him around, facing the rest of the crew. 

"Plague rat here got you all sick. Plague rat stays quarantined in the shed out back for the rest of our cursed tenure here. Got that?" 

Terry hung his head as the rest of the crew nodded, unable to look Terry in the eye. Pierce escorted Terry away, coughing and sniffling as she went. Mad Marn was satisfied, her ever-disloyal crew of mercenaries properly threatened.

Still lost in the damn desert though. With nothing but the moon to guide them. 

———

The moon was still out when Merle awoke. It was a gloriously clear summer night. She had to commend herself (as she usually did) for picking the best time to go for a bit of camping with her lovely friends. As nice a stay as a hotel was, the majesty of a good night roughing it was needed. She sleepily undid her curlers, 

and her hair net, 

and her face mask, 

and her nose strip and…

Okay, okay. Just because she was roughing it didn't mean she'd abandon her nightly routine. She scaled mountains in the past while still maintaining a healthy skincare routine. It's more than possible to do both. She was fabulous and enjoyed the great outdoors.

There was a brief stirring from Clive, who was dead-asleep. He was still naked, legs tangled in the sheets. She smiled warmly at him, tucking one of his wavy curls behind an ear. The darling had quite a night. She didn't expect him to be up any time soon. 

"Hehff'SHHHHIEW!!" 

Merle jumped, startled by Terry sneezing outside. Pulling a thin silk robe over her shoulders, she left the tent. 

Her dear Terry was sitting at the edge of the river, washing his face in the cool water. His auburn hair was wet and slightly wild-looking. 

"Bless you, darling." Merle sat next to him, dipping her feet in the river. Bliss. "Still a bit tickly from last night?" 

Terry looked sheepish at the observation. He shrugged and gave his nose a quick swipe. Despite having known Terry for nearly half a year now, he was still so shy around her. Like a stray dog just learning to trust again. 

Clive had told Merle that Terry had a rough past, though the details to her were still unknown. She never pressed Terry about it, but whatever life he lived before was slowly being corroded. He grew softer each day, less hunched and less jumpy. 

They sat together in silence for a bit. Still dreamy from the night of passion. Merle knew when Terry was in a wistful mood, and she respected his quiet. Leaning her head against his, they listened to the frogs singing. 

Eventually, Terry spoke. 

"Hey, Merle.." 

"Yes, dear?" 

"…Nothing.." His voice sounded heady and nasal. Soft. "—I just feel lucky right now. That's all." 

There was a weight to what he said. A melancholia. Merle furrowed her brow and gently cupped his face in her hand. He leaned into the warm contact before taking her hand in his. He held her between his rough palms, reverently. 

"A guy like me doesn't get lucky often. Ever." 

"A guy like you? Terrance. You are an absolute catch! You're kind to animals, great around a garden, an absolute wildcat in bed-" 

"Merle!" Terry flushed bright red, unused to the compliments. 

"Don't you dare stop me now Mr. Penton! You're thoughtful, sweet, beautiful—" 

"Okay, now you're fucking with me." He frowned, "I don't know a lot, but I do know I'm not handsome.." 

"I didn't say you were handsome. I said you are beautiful." Merle pressed a kiss to his scarred knuckles. "Anyone can be handsome. Not everyone is beautiful." 

Terry sniffled. He looked away from Merle, eyes getting misty. 

"And. Confidentially." Merle leaned in, close. "I've had to kiss a lot of actors in my day. Occupational hazard. And trust me, you outshine them all." 

"Fuck Off." 

"I won't fuck off! I'm deadly serious. I'm always serious, as you know." 

She could see his light eyes drift to her lips, he swallowed thickly. 

She didn't wait for him to ask. Merle leaned in for a kiss, one that started slow and gentle, then heated as he pulled her close. 

Merle, despite making a career out of pretending (what is acting but well-done lies?), was always truthful when it came to matters of the heart. She was not flattering Terry. He really did kiss well. There was a naive desperation to them, as if a part of him knew he might never get the chance to kiss again. He flushed easily, face hot against hers as she straddled him. 

Traditional sex was never something she could fully enjoy. All the main bits were boring at best. But everything surrounding it was great fun.

"W-wait a minute.." Terry gasped. Merle leaned back, pushing the hair out of her eyes. 

"What is it, dear? Getting a bit excited? We can rouse Clive to jump in if you need him. Or I could just—" 

"No, I just—hhh-feelig a sneeze coming on—" His voice caught on a hitch. 

Oh. Ah. 

Merle smiled, overwhelmingly fond. Terry's nose always gave him away. Nostrils ticking open, he made to pinch them shut. But Merle grabbed his hands and pinned them to the ground. 

"Now now. You know that's terrible for your ears." She cooed. 

Terry sniveled and hitched between her legs, eyes bleary in concentration. 

"Come on then, give us a nice big one." 

"Hhh—heeeh.." 

"There we are. Ahh! Ahh!!" She coached, gently. Merle loved how flustered he got from teasing. His breath stuttered, and he nearly lost it before another sharp gasp pushed him over the precipice. 

"HHss'SHHIEW!!" 

It rushed out of him, dizzying with relief. She felt his body seize with it. Curiously, her stomach flutter at the sound, and she wondered if Clive's own proclivities were starting to rub off on her. He did have exquisite tastes in things. 

"Good boy. Marvelous." She purred. 

Terry looked up at her, eyes wide and face flushed from the praise. He practically glowed with it, and she felt his body respond to it. Perhaps he, too, discovered something new about himself tonight. 

And that's what camping is about, after all. 

Bad, because it meant they'd been waiting for her. A theory proven by a faint tremor rumbling up through her ice caked boots, only just enough to clock if one were already on the alert.

That the servants door opened on her second knock was both good and bad news for Luise: good, because it meant she was quickly able to escape the bitter morning freeze that bit at her face and fingers, ushered quickly into a kitchen large enough to feed several hundred, and already warmed from hearth fires preparing to do just that.

The kitchen boy who'd opened the door for her was a new one, his face twisted in worry as he helped her untangle the bundles of her scarf, shawl, and thick coat. Luise's skin puckered with gooseflesh with the loss of trapped heat, but it did nothing to quell the warm smile she sent his way. "He's been in a bad way today, eh?"

The boy nodded, dark hair flopping over his eyes. Her friendliness loosened his tongue a mite. "...mam says it'll knock the whole castle in, way it carries on."

Gossiping cooks. Luise blew a dismissive raspberry with her tongue, the boy's head lifting in surprise at such an unexpected sound. "Bunk. He may act the grump, but he's nothing but a big pussycat, never mind your mum." She hung her winter clothes over a broad, bare shoulder, offering the boy a conspiratorial wink. "But I'll have a word with him, yeah? The castle won't come down this day if I have any say in it."

Luise snagged a steaming roll off a nearby platter before weaving her way through a throng of frantic cooks fretting over the day's first meal as though the worry were part of the routine. She offered waves of greeting to those she was friendly with, noting with humour the naked relief in their eyes. A level of composure settled over the kitchen at her presence, something she found flattering and ridiculous in equal parts; cooks were a fussy, superstitious lot, and their proximity to her coworker made them antsy. She wasnt even certain the way they conspicuously avoided coming within arms reach of the iron door between the massive stone fireplaces was intentional, or just within their nature. People tended to avoid predators, after all.

Luise rolled her eyes fondly at them as she pushed through the iron door and descended the narrow stone staircase beyond.

The descent was long, lit only by the occasional sconce, and she took the stairs two at a time, eagerly seeking the wafts of warm air brushing her bare arms. The temperature rose, beating back the winter with every step until she'd gone from chilled, to cozy, to glistening with a thin layer of sweat.

The bottom of the staircase widened, then opened into a massive stone room big enough for the entire village to hold a fete if King Doran had any inclination to let them. The ceiling stretched to blackness before Luise could begin to make out details, sounds echoing eerily as they bounced off stone and the elaborate weave of giant metal pipes that burst from seemingly every surface, twisting and rolling in their organized tangle to converge near the back of the room.

Once, her predecessor had told her, this room had been a dungeon demanded by a wicked king forgotten by history, built large enough to hold his many foes. Later, another king with far fewer foes ordered a famous architect and inventor to fit the space with an enormous boiler and giant pipes to bring heat to every corner of the sprawling castle during the cold seasons. As much as Luise figured, the theory had been sound, but the project was abandoned after calculating how many resources it would require to stoke a boiler so large, the cost of fuel to burn and the manpower to burn it too excessive for a king who had already spent much of the royal treasury on piping. For a long time the project sat useless and abandoned, until King Doran's grandfather struck a bargain with their current boiler.

At the back of the room, the stonework had been dismantled to create an opening larger than a house, a series of natural caves visible beyond. The idea had been to install the boiler in the gap between the two, using the cave passage to recieve fuel deliveries and vent dangerous pressure in case of emergency. As such, all the pipes hung close to this area, waiting patiently to be attached to a machine that would never exist, and in the midst of these pipes lay a massive red dragon.

He was an elegant thing, beautiful in his awesome power, with sinuous muscles that rolled at the base of his wings as he shifted position, and beneath his long neck when he shook his head like a dog. Water arced off like crystals with the movement, more making languid trails down his spiral horns and scarlet scales to pool on the stone beneath him. Claws long as swords scored new marks along countless others in the floor, throwing up sparks in his restlessness. Thin tendrils of black smoke curled up from nostrils nearly as tall as Luise herself, jaw slightly parted to reveal enough teeth to rend a village into paste without so much as a blink of his yellow everflame eyes.

Those eyes locked on Luise in an instant, a low growling sound beginning in his deep chest and rising until it filled the room with his displeasure. 

She grinned. "Bad today, huh Snuff?"

The growl gradually grew more vocal, and by the time Luise reached her workstation it had morphed into a long, tortured groan. "I fear, dear Luise, that I am not long for this world. What a cruel twist of fate that a creature so magnificent as I should bravely battle the elements, risking life and wing against blizzard and blaze alike, only to die here underground, as if he were a common lizard."

"Cold's no better, eh?"

"It feels as though I have inhaled a cotton field and am attempting to irrigate it with mucus." 

Luise managed to add a sympathetic note to her laughter as she swapped her coat for her soot-blacked apron, giving the row of temperature dials leading from each pipe an initial check. "One of the kitchen boys was convinced you'd bring the walls down."

Snuff gave an irritated huff, jetting out more black smoke. "If this bloody ailment lasts much longer, I just may anyway out of pure rage."

"Of course," she soothed indulgently. Suneffessoat had been the castle's boiler for longer than she'd been alive, and regardless of his physical health he'd never make a move against the castle so long as the royal agreement remained intact: the exchange of heat for food and a salary (and a captive audience for his dramatics) was far too good a deal. "How's the snoot, you coot?"

She nearly felt the air shift with his powerful sniff, which he then released on a wavery sigh. "Primed and reh... r-ready, as always. Never let it be said that I am not a prepahh... prepared professional." He worked the muscles of said snoot, nostrils blowing wide enough in the process that Luise could've fit through without turning her shoulders.

She peered over her shoulder towards a slim tube tucked next to the temperature dials, the end feeding out into a shallow, empty tray.  Having worked this job for so long, she could normally track the incoming delivery of a request slip even through Snuff's insistently vocal sneezes, but the tube remained silent of its telltale hiss. "Judging by how you were shaking the ground, I suppose you're not far off?"

Indeed, his neck was beginning to pull back into a swanlike curve, chuffing breaths losing their rhythm while his flaring nose picked up the beat. "Clohhhhhser e-ehh... every minuhhhhhHH--"

Now she heard the swish of an incoming request, and from the way Snuff bit back on the rising urge she knew he had too. "Ach, you can vent that one. The way you're winding up, the next one will be along before the fire's even out your mouth."

"I resehhhhh... I reseeEHHHHH... HH! HuuhhhHHHHH--" From the base of his throat grew a red-hot glow, and even in the throes of a sneeze he swung his head round to bury his explosive snout into a low-set pipe. "HRUUHHH-X'SHUUUHH!"

Luise retrieved the request from the tray, slipping a tightly rolled scrap of parchment out of the sleeve. She turned back in time to see Snuff give another shake of his head, narrowed eyes unfocused. The next sneeze worked his chest like a bellows and set the smoke from his nose rolling in great black clouds. He didn't have long.

She read neat, looping script written on the slip of parchment. "Next one goes to the guest apartments." The Countess Iris was visiting from the southern kingdoms, and if her frequent requests were any indication, she had some strong feelings about the weather. "Can probably give her the one after, too, she's a delicate sort."

Snuff, in no state to respond, hazily twisted towards the correct pipe just as his sneeze crossed from "urgent" to "immediate". "Hh-HRRUAHHHSHOOO!!" He then settled, sated for the moment, tension bleeding from the lines of his shoulders and the base of his wings.

Luise turned to pin the parchment to her order board, but she caught the deliberately innocent slide of Snuff's attention in her direction. Behind her, he snorted. And then again, louder, just in case she hadn't heard the first.

She rolled her eyes good naturedly. Working together for decades, and still, heaven forbid he ever ask for help directly.

When she didn't instantly turn to acknowledge his discomfort, a chorus of little self-pitying moans joined the sporadic snorts and snuffles. Luise would put a day's wages on the fact that he were flexing his nostrils theatrically all the while, and she'd win that bet. "Is something the matter?"

A heaved sigh, heavy enough to move the hair on the back of her neck. "Nothing to concern yourself with. After all, dragons have proudly and steadfastedly withstood far worse than a maddeningly itchy nose."

He couldn't quite look away fast enough as she turned to prop a hip against her station, angling his head up and away from her. 'No, I wasnt looking at you, of course not, how dare you imply such!' "Truly, a hardship," she played along benevolently. "Is there any way a powerless human such as myself could assist in this travesty?"

Snuff held to his haughty aloofness for an entire second before eagerly snaking his head in her direction, smooth scales nearly skimming the floor. "I don't suppose you could take time out of your busy day to give me the tiniest scratch?"

She laughed, thick wire brush already in hand. "Just don't sneeze on me."

"I would never!"

Despite his affronted claim, Luise knew well the map of his muzzle, taught to her in serious, cautionary detail by her mentor: do not cross the threshold where the sturdy pebbled scales of his face smoothed into the plush pink interior of his nostrils. Use extra force on the septum, lest his body decides to register a tickle instead of a scratch. And above all, never stand directly in front of his nose.

When she described her job to friends, many of them thought she was sick in the head (though most of them rescinded the thought once she hinted at her salary). Admittedly, it had its struggles. But as she leaned her weight into each long stroke of the brush, Snuff's eyes drifting closed and contented hum rumbling where her body pressed against him, she thought again what an honour it was to work with such a magnificent creature so intimately.

She scratched the spots she knew he liked; just behind the hood of his nostrils, along the length nearly to his cheek, standing on tiptoe to rub tight circles on the crest of his snout like she would groom a horse. These were not things taught to her, and sometimes she wondered if her mentor had viewed Snuff as more of a beast of burden  and less of a companion, never bothering to learn his preferences and habits and quirks beyond what was needed to perform the job. Once they'd gotten comfortable around each other, Luise never needed to heed the warning about standing in front of his nose, because she could always tell when he was getting tickly by the way his inner nostril began to shiver and tic, the pink flesh growing steadily flushed until it nearly matched the shade of his scales.

Like now, for example.

He whined as she pulled away, chasing her until his snout bumped against her stomach again. No amount of shoving could move his giant head if he didn't want it to, so her cursory attempt ended in an affectionate pat. "Alright, you baby, nose in the air. You gotta sneeze."

"Do not," he grumbled, purposefully ignorant of how his nose twitched as though it had life of its own. A long tremor agitated the length of both nostrils from tip to depth like a wave.

Luise noted a crease like a snarl form in his scales. "It'll be a double, send them to the baths."

"S-smuhhhhhg bastard." For all his pouting, he followed instructions and unloaded two giant sneezes into the baths pipe. "HhhHHH'XHOOO-!! HAAH-SHOOO!!"

The day continued as such: orders delivered by way of parchment and tube, then executed through Luise's guidance and Snuff's unforgiving cold. His dramatics aside, it truly seemed like a bad one this time. Occasionally on high demand days, Luise would need to dump a wheelbarrow of coal or two into his open mouth to help stoke his inner flame. Today, her arms were already black with coal dust and soot from how many trips she'd made from the coal pile to Snuff, and still as the end of the day drew near, he was tiring.

Not that he'd ever admit it, of course. But she saw it in the hang of his head, the way his internal flame flickered at his throat, too low to properly reach his nose. The sneeze reflex and the flame were intrinsically linked, he'd told her once, and the lower the flame, the harder it would be to reach satisfaction. 

"Hhh-! HUHHT-- rrrgh... hhaH-HAAH-- HADT-!!"

Judging by his stuttering half-sneezes and ticklish false starts, Snuff must've been feeling very low indeed.

At the next sneezes to fizzle away, Snuff let out a frustrated sound between a growl and a roar, thrashing in place. At this point his little tantrum was probably warranted. "Blast this nose, blast this cold, I must sneeze! HEAHHHH--" for a moment it seemed like he would finally get his wish, maw agape and nostrils blown nearly wider than his muzzle. "HEEAAHHHHHH--!!"

And then, tragically, nothing, the elusive sneeze teasing at his nose before darting mischievously away, heedless of its host's desperation.

Enough was enough.

Reaching down her shirt, Luise retrieved a key kept on a leather cord around her neck and knelt beneath her table to unlock a hidden cabinet. It was near empty of contents anyone could have considered valuable, but the two items held within were far more dangerous than the king's entire army.

On the right, a small selection of long, brown primary feathers pilfered from the rookery.

On the left, sealed tightly, a tiny jar of glowing golden powder.

Luise worked from the floor, blocked by the cabinet door. More than once Snuff's sensitive nose had been set off by the mere sight of these implements, and the general rule of thumb in dragonfire and pixie dust both was 'a little goes a long way'.

Careful not to get any on her hands, Luise opened the jar as though she were handling explosives. Using a sturdy feather, she gave the jar's rim a quick swipe. The few grains that caught the light as she twisted the feather in her fingertips would be more than sufficient. On went the lid, back went the jar, locked went the cabinet, hidden went the key. Safe again.

Snuff's wobbly hitches stuck high in his chest, eyes rolled to the ceiling. He didnt look round as she approached, weapon tucked behind the bib of her apron. "Head down please, Snuff."

Even in his all consuming battle with his stuck sneeze, he complied, resting his chin against the stone and snorting against the tickle in his nose. So violently did it twitch and flare and shudder that Luise didnt dare lay a hand on it. Other things, however, were free game.

She adjusted her grip on the feather shaft, coming to stand directly beside his right nostril. "Alright, big guy, give me a nice big sniff."

The feather flicked forward, drawing a long, slow line along the division between tough scale and tortured membrane a split second before Snuff obeyed. The feather and its payload vanished down the dark wind tunnel of his nose, trailing a vibrant red flush in its wake.

Luise took several very large steps backwards.

For a tense second, Snuff went completely still save for the rapid fluttering of his eyelids.

"Hhhhhhhhhhaauhhhhhh..." So great was the urge to sneeze that he couldn't even move his head for his first true, unsteady hitch: while his chin remained solidly on the stone, his volcanic nose tilted towards the ceiling as his jaws creaked open, scaly lips ticking up to flash gleaming teeth.

He sniffed HARD, long neck arcing into the air. His nose danced at the end of his muzzle like a leaf in the breeze, and Luise could almost see the feather's leisurely path down his sinuses based on what sections shivered with sensation. Only a slice of yellow remained visible beneath his hooded eyes. "HhaaaAAAahhhhhh..."

How much it must have tickled! Snuff, by his own proclamation, was rather sensitive to the effects of pixie dust (though experience suggested he far undersold how much it affected him). Such a tiny but potent irritant, on such a delicate and wispy vessel, gently brushing and caressing and stroking nasal passages stripped of any defenses by illness. Was it any wonder why his jaw went slack, wings rising slightly as if to brace against the oncoming storm.

Everything picked up speed as the feather continued its journey, spurred on by his rapid reflexive sniffles. "Hh! Huh... huuhh... HH-HUUHHH--" His voice plummeted as his fire rose, throat glowing with the promise of release. Huge, gasping breaths stoked his internal flame, his nostrils and mouth gaping so widely Luise could see soft embers flickering in their depths.

As he didnt seem to be of the mind to take instructions at the moment, she didnt offer a pipe suggestion to put this sneeze through. Honestly, she didnt even know if they'd be able to withstand it.

Finally the feather did its job. The fiery gradient of his neck surged upwards just as Snuff threw his head forward. "HRRRUUUUUAAHHHH-T'CZHOOOOOOOO!!"

Flame shot from his mouth and nostrils in a deadly torrent, spanning the entire length of the room and splitting into starbursting jets upon hitting the far wall. Louise shielded her eyes until his sneeze ran its course, light twisting eerily in every shadowed corner of the room, exposed skin buffeted by waves of intense, rebounding heat.

After the blaze flickered out, she gave a low whistle at the giant scorch mark he left behind, coating the far wall and a twenty foot streak on the floor with black soot. A strange smell filled the room, the subtle scent of burnt rock. "You want to aim for the vent pipe next time, mate?"

Snuff's head hung low, eyes hooded and mouth slightly open as he caught his breath. One final, searching sniff saw his nose to relieved satisfaction. "If you think I was not perfectly in control through that entire ordeal, you would be most sorely mistaken. I'd sooner bite my own leg off than kill you, you're hardly more than a morsel and it would be an inefficient waste of fire."

She heard the apology for what it was and waved it away with a hand. "Feeling any better now?"

His voiced sigh was the clearest it had been all day, repeated nose-clearing sneezes having burnt away the bemoaned morning congestion. "All this dreary awfulness today has served its purpose, I suppose." So, yes, despite the extra throaty growl on the edges of his words. Another huff, and he shifted his great body to curl around himself, pointedly resting his head near his haunches and away from her. Suneffessoat had officially clocked out.

Which meant it was time for her to follow suit. Luise smiled affectionately at the back of his head, trading dirty apron for dirty coat. "See you tomorrow for more dreary awfulness."

He didnt look round. "Your dying in the cold would inconvenience me severely, so do try to be considerate."

Bad, because it meant they'd been waiting for her. A theory proven by a faint tremor rumbling up through her ice caked boots, only just enough to clock if one were already on the alert.

That the servants door opened on her second knock was both good and bad news for Luise: good, because it meant she was quickly able to escape the bitter morning freeze that bit at her face and fingers, ushered quickly into a kitchen large enough to feed several hundred, and already warmed from hearth fires preparing to do just that.

The kitchen boy who'd opened the door for her was a new one, his face twisted in worry as he helped her untangle the bundles of her scarf, shawl, and thick coat. Luise's skin puckered with gooseflesh with the loss of trapped heat, but it did nothing to quell the warm smile she sent his way. "He's been in a bad way today, eh?"

The boy nodded, dark hair flopping over his eyes. Her friendliness loosened his tongue a mite. "...mam says it'll knock the whole castle in, way it carries on."

Gossiping cooks. Luise blew a dismissive raspberry with her tongue, the boy's head lifting in surprise at such an unexpected sound. "Bunk. He may act the grump, but he's nothing but a big pussycat, never mind your mum." She hung her winter clothes over a broad, bare shoulder, offering the boy a conspiratorial wink. "But I'll have a word with him, yeah? The castle won't come down this day if I have any say in it."

Luise snagged a steaming roll off a nearby platter before weaving her way through a throng of frantic cooks fretting over the day's first meal as though the worry were part of the routine. She offered waves of greeting to those she was friendly with, noting with humour the naked relief in their eyes. A level of composure settled over the kitchen at her presence, something she found flattering and ridiculous in equal parts; cooks were a fussy, superstitious lot, and their proximity to her coworker made them antsy. She wasnt even certain the way they conspicuously avoided coming within arms reach of the iron door between the massive stone fireplaces was intentional, or just within their nature. People tended to avoid predators, after all.

Luise rolled her eyes fondly at them as she pushed through the iron door and descended the narrow stone staircase beyond.

The descent was long, lit only by the occasional sconce, and she took the stairs two at a time, eagerly seeking the wafts of warm air brushing her bare arms. The temperature rose, beating back the winter with every step until she'd gone from chilled, to cozy, to glistening with a thin layer of sweat.

The bottom of the staircase widened, then opened into a massive stone room big enough for the entire village to hold a fete if King Doran had any inclination to let them. The ceiling stretched to blackness before Luise could begin to make out details, sounds echoing eerily as they bounced off stone and the elaborate weave of giant metal pipes that burst from seemingly every surface, twisting and rolling in their organized tangle to converge near the back of the room.

Once, her predecessor had told her, this room had been a dungeon demanded by a wicked king forgotten by history, built large enough to hold his many foes. Later, another king with far fewer foes ordered a famous architect and inventor to fit the space with an enormous boiler and giant pipes to bring heat to every corner of the sprawling castle during the cold seasons. As much as Luise figured, the theory had been sound, but the project was abandoned after calculating how many resources it would require to stoke a boiler so large, the cost of fuel to burn and the manpower to burn it too excessive for a king who had already spent much of the royal treasury on piping. For a long time the project sat useless and abandoned, until King Doran's grandfather struck a bargain with their current boiler.

At the back of the room, the stonework had been dismantled to create an opening larger than a house, a series of natural caves visible beyond. The idea had been to install the boiler in the gap between the two, using the cave passage to recieve fuel deliveries and vent dangerous pressure in case of emergency. As such, all the pipes hung close to this area, waiting patiently to be attached to a machine that would never exist, and in the midst of these pipes lay a massive red dragon.

He was an elegant thing, beautiful in his awesome power, with sinuous muscles that rolled at the base of his wings as he shifted position, and beneath his long neck when he shook his head like a dog. Water arced off like crystals with the movement, more making languid trails down his spiral horns and scarlet scales to pool on the stone beneath him. Claws long as swords scored new marks along countless others in the floor, throwing up sparks in his restlessness. Thin tendrils of black smoke curled up from nostrils nearly as tall as Luise herself, jaw slightly parted to reveal enough teeth to rend a village into paste without so much as a blink of his yellow everflame eyes.

Those eyes locked on Luise in an instant, a low growling sound beginning in his deep chest and rising until it filled the room with his displeasure. 

She grinned. "Bad today, huh Snuff?"

The growl gradually grew more vocal, and by the time Luise reached her workstation it had morphed into a long, tortured groan. "I fear, dear Luise, that I am not long for this world. What a cruel twist of fate that a creature so magnificent as I should bravely battle the elements, risking life and wing against blizzard and blaze alike, only to die here underground, as if he were a common lizard."

"Cold's no better, eh?"

"It feels as though I have inhaled a cotton field and am attempting to irrigate it with mucus." 

Luise managed to add a sympathetic note to her laughter as she swapped her coat for her soot-blacked apron, giving the row of temperature dials leading from each pipe an initial check. "One of the kitchen boys was convinced you'd bring the walls down."

Snuff gave an irritated huff, jetting out more black smoke. "If this bloody ailment lasts much longer, I just may anyway out of pure rage."

"Of course," she soothed indulgently. Suneffessoat had been the castle's boiler for longer than she'd been alive, and regardless of his physical health he'd never make a move against the castle so long as the royal agreement remained intact: the exchange of heat for food and a salary (and a captive audience for his dramatics) was far too good a deal. "How's the snoot, you coot?"

She nearly felt the air shift with his powerful sniff, which he then released on a wavery sigh. "Primed and reh... r-ready, as always. Never let it be said that I am not a prepahh... prepared professional." He worked the muscles of said snoot, nostrils blowing wide enough in the process that Luise could've fit through without turning her shoulders.

She peered over her shoulder towards a slim tube tucked next to the temperature dials, the end feeding out into a shallow, empty tray.  Having worked this job for so long, she could normally track the incoming delivery of a request slip even through Snuff's insistently vocal sneezes, but the tube remained silent of its telltale hiss. "Judging by how you were shaking the ground, I suppose you're not far off?"

Indeed, his neck was beginning to pull back into a swanlike curve, chuffing breaths losing their rhythm while his flaring nose picked up the beat. "Clohhhhhser e-ehh... every minuhhhhhHH--"

Now she heard the swish of an incoming request, and from the way Snuff bit back on the rising urge she knew he had too. "Ach, you can vent that one. The way you're winding up, the next one will be along before the fire's even out your mouth."

"I resehhhhh... I reseeEHHHHH... HH! HuuhhhHHHHH--" From the base of his throat grew a red-hot glow, and even in the throes of a sneeze he swung his head round to bury his explosive snout into a low-set pipe. "HRUUHHH-X'SHUUUHH!"

Luise retrieved the request from the tray, slipping a tightly rolled scrap of parchment out of the sleeve. She turned back in time to see Snuff give another shake of his head, narrowed eyes unfocused. The next sneeze worked his chest like a bellows and set the smoke from his nose rolling in great black clouds. He didn't have long.

She read neat, looping script written on the slip of parchment. "Next one goes to the guest apartments." The Countess Iris was visiting from the southern kingdoms, and if her frequent requests were any indication, she had some strong feelings about the weather. "Can probably give her the one after, too, she's a delicate sort."

Snuff, in no state to respond, hazily twisted towards the correct pipe just as his sneeze crossed from "urgent" to "immediate". "Hh-HRRUAHHHSHOOO!!" He then settled, sated for the moment, tension bleeding from the lines of his shoulders and the base of his wings.

Luise turned to pin the parchment to her order board, but she caught the deliberately innocent slide of Snuff's attention in her direction. Behind her, he snorted. And then again, louder, just in case she hadn't heard the first.

She rolled her eyes good naturedly. Working together for decades, and still, heaven forbid he ever ask for help directly.

When she didn't instantly turn to acknowledge his discomfort, a chorus of little self-pitying moans joined the sporadic snorts and snuffles. Luise would put a day's wages on the fact that he were flexing his nostrils theatrically all the while, and she'd win that bet. "Is something the matter?"

A heaved sigh, heavy enough to move the hair on the back of her neck. "Nothing to concern yourself with. After all, dragons have proudly and steadfastedly withstood far worse than a maddeningly itchy nose."

He couldn't quite look away fast enough as she turned to prop a hip against her station, angling his head up and away from her. 'No, I wasnt looking at you, of course not, how dare you imply such!' "Truly, a hardship," she played along benevolently. "Is there any way a powerless human such as myself could assist in this travesty?"

Snuff held to his haughty aloofness for an entire second before eagerly snaking his head in her direction, smooth scales nearly skimming the floor. "I don't suppose you could take time out of your busy day to give me the tiniest scratch?"

She laughed, thick wire brush already in hand. "Just don't sneeze on me."

"I would never!"

Despite his affronted claim, Luise knew well the map of his muzzle, taught to her in serious, cautionary detail by her mentor: do not cross the threshold where the sturdy pebbled scales of his face smoothed into the plush pink interior of his nostrils. Use extra force on the septum, lest his body decides to register a tickle instead of a scratch. And above all, never stand directly in front of his nose.

When she described her job to friends, many of them thought she was sick in the head (though most of them rescinded the thought once she hinted at her salary). Admittedly, it had its struggles. But as she leaned her weight into each long stroke of the brush, Snuff's eyes drifting closed and contented hum rumbling where her body pressed against him, she thought again what an honour it was to work with such a magnificent creature so intimately.

She scratched the spots she knew he liked; just behind the hood of his nostrils, along the length nearly to his cheek, standing on tiptoe to rub tight circles on the crest of his snout like she would groom a horse. These were not things taught to her, and sometimes she wondered if her mentor had viewed Snuff as more of a beast of burden  and less of a companion, never bothering to learn his preferences and habits and quirks beyond what was needed to perform the job. Once they'd gotten comfortable around each other, Luise never needed to heed the warning about standing in front of his nose, because she could always tell when he was getting tickly by the way his inner nostril began to shiver and tic, the pink flesh growing steadily flushed until it nearly matched the shade of his scales.

Like now, for example.

He whined as she pulled away, chasing her until his snout bumped against her stomach again. No amount of shoving could move his giant head if he didn't want it to, so her cursory attempt ended in an affectionate pat. "Alright, you baby, nose in the air. You gotta sneeze."

"Do not," he grumbled, purposefully ignorant of how his nose twitched as though it had life of its own. A long tremor agitated the length of both nostrils from tip to depth like a wave.

Luise noted a crease like a snarl form in his scales. "It'll be a double, send them to the baths."

"S-smuhhhhhg bastard." For all his pouting, he followed instructions and unloaded two giant sneezes into the baths pipe. "HhhHHH'XHOOO-!! HAAH-SHOOO!!"

The day continued as such: orders delivered by way of parchment and tube, then executed through Luise's guidance and Snuff's unforgiving cold. His dramatics aside, it truly seemed like a bad one this time. Occasionally on high demand days, Luise would need to dump a wheelbarrow of coal or two into his open mouth to help stoke his inner flame. Today, her arms were already black with coal dust and soot from how many trips she'd made from the coal pile to Snuff, and still as the end of the day drew near, he was tiring.

Not that he'd ever admit it, of course. But she saw it in the hang of his head, the way his internal flame flickered at his throat, too low to properly reach his nose. The sneeze reflex and the flame were intrinsically linked, he'd told her once, and the lower the flame, the harder it would be to reach satisfaction. 

"Hhh-! HUHHT-- rrrgh... hhaH-HAAH-- HADT-!!"

Judging by his stuttering half-sneezes and ticklish false starts, Snuff must've been feeling very low indeed.

At the next sneezes to fizzle away, Snuff let out a frustrated sound between a growl and a roar, thrashing in place. At this point his little tantrum was probably warranted. "Blast this nose, blast this cold, I must sneeze! HEAHHHH--" for a moment it seemed like he would finally get his wish, maw agape and nostrils blown nearly wider than his muzzle. "HEEAAHHHHHH--!!"

And then, tragically, nothing, the elusive sneeze teasing at his nose before darting mischievously away, heedless of its host's desperation.

Enough was enough.

Reaching down her shirt, Luise retrieved a key kept on a leather cord around her neck and knelt beneath her table to unlock a hidden cabinet. It was near empty of contents anyone could have considered valuable, but the two items held within were far more dangerous than the king's entire army.

On the right, a small selection of long, brown primary feathers pilfered from the rookery.

On the left, sealed tightly, a tiny jar of glowing golden powder.

Luise worked from the floor, blocked by the cabinet door. More than once Snuff's sensitive nose had been set off by the mere sight of these implements, and the general rule of thumb in dragonfire and pixie dust both was 'a little goes a long way'.

Careful not to get any on her hands, Luise opened the jar as though she were handling explosives. Using a sturdy feather, she gave the jar's rim a quick swipe. The few grains that caught the light as she twisted the feather in her fingertips would be more than sufficient. On went the lid, back went the jar, locked went the cabinet, hidden went the key. Safe again.

Snuff's wobbly hitches stuck high in his chest, eyes rolled to the ceiling. He didnt look round as she approached, weapon tucked behind the bib of her apron. "Head down please, Snuff."

Even in his all consuming battle with his stuck sneeze, he complied, resting his chin against the stone and snorting against the tickle in his nose. So violently did it twitch and flare and shudder that Luise didnt dare lay a hand on it. Other things, however, were free game.

She adjusted her grip on the feather shaft, coming to stand directly beside his right nostril. "Alright, big guy, give me a nice big sniff."

The feather flicked forward, drawing a long, slow line along the division between tough scale and tortured membrane a split second before Snuff obeyed. The feather and its payload vanished down the dark wind tunnel of his nose, trailing a vibrant red flush in its wake.

Luise took several very large steps backwards.

For a tense second, Snuff went completely still save for the rapid fluttering of his eyelids.

"Hhhhhhhhhhaauhhhhhh..." So great was the urge to sneeze that he couldn't even move his head for his first true, unsteady hitch: while his chin remained solidly on the stone, his volcanic nose tilted towards the ceiling as his jaws creaked open, scaly lips ticking up to flash gleaming teeth.

He sniffed HARD, long neck arcing into the air. His nose danced at the end of his muzzle like a leaf in the breeze, and Luise could almost see the feather's leisurely path down his sinuses based on what sections shivered with sensation. Only a slice of yellow remained visible beneath his hooded eyes. "HhaaaAAAahhhhhh..."

How much it must have tickled! Snuff, by his own proclamation, was rather sensitive to the effects of pixie dust (though experience suggested he far undersold how much it affected him). Such a tiny but potent irritant, on such a delicate and wispy vessel, gently brushing and caressing and stroking nasal passages stripped of any defenses by illness. Was it any wonder why his jaw went slack, wings rising slightly as if to brace against the oncoming storm.

Everything picked up speed as the feather continued its journey, spurred on by his rapid reflexive sniffles. "Hh! Huh... huuhh... HH-HUUHHH--" His voice plummeted as his fire rose, throat glowing with the promise of release. Huge, gasping breaths stoked his internal flame, his nostrils and mouth gaping so widely Luise could see soft embers flickering in their depths.

As he didnt seem to be of the mind to take instructions at the moment, she didnt offer a pipe suggestion to put this sneeze through. Honestly, she didnt even know if they'd be able to withstand it.

Finally the feather did its job. The fiery gradient of his neck surged upwards just as Snuff threw his head forward. "HRRRUUUUUAAHHHH-T'CZHOOOOOOOO!!"

Flame shot from his mouth and nostrils in a deadly torrent, spanning the entire length of the room and splitting into starbursting jets upon hitting the far wall. Louise shielded her eyes until his sneeze ran its course, light twisting eerily in every shadowed corner of the room, exposed skin buffeted by waves of intense, rebounding heat.

After the blaze flickered out, she gave a low whistle at the giant scorch mark he left behind, coating the far wall and a twenty foot streak on the floor with black soot. A strange smell filled the room, the subtle scent of burnt rock. "You want to aim for the vent pipe next time, mate?"

Snuff's head hung low, eyes hooded and mouth slightly open as he caught his breath. One final, searching sniff saw his nose to relieved satisfaction. "If you think I was not perfectly in control through that entire ordeal, you would be most sorely mistaken. I'd sooner bite my own leg off than kill you, you're hardly more than a morsel and it would be an inefficient waste of fire."

She heard the apology for what it was and waved it away with a hand. "Feeling any better now?"

His voiced sigh was the clearest it had been all day, repeated nose-clearing sneezes having burnt away the bemoaned morning congestion. "All this dreary awfulness today has served its purpose, I suppose." So, yes, despite the extra throaty growl on the edges of his words. Another huff, and he shifted his great body to curl around himself, pointedly resting his head near his haunches and away from her. Suneffessoat had officially clocked out.

Which meant it was time for her to follow suit. Luise smiled affectionately at the back of his head, trading dirty apron for dirty coat. "See you tomorrow for more dreary awfulness."

He didnt look round. "Your dying in the cold would inconvenience me severely, so do try to be considerate."