Zenryuuu - Bokkioki - Tumblr Blog

sylus always answers your calls. always. no exceptions.

he could be in the middle of a gun fight or a messy interrogation but when he hears the inside joke of a ringtone he set for you, he uses his evol to shackle everyone in place while he answers, calm and collected as can be.

“kitten, it’s late in linkon — you should be sleeping. no, i’m not busy at the moment.” a cold glare is the only warning his enemies get to stay quiet. “what do you need?”

some of the world’s most powerful and feared men have had their final agonizing moments prolonged by listening to the leader of onychinus sweet-talk you.

I love these photos sm 💗

sylus // fic recommendations

note: remember to read the tags! + i do not own any of these works

resonance

caller id

tag, you're it

stupid

all is fair in lust and robbery

strictly (un)professional

baby how do i look;

too close for comfort

take a breather

the unlikely refuge

i have you, you're alright

playing fair

you make one out of two

fly to you like birds do

the murmurs of crows

touch red

you are my favorite mistake

slow dance

crow in the bedroom

would you still love me if i was a worm? (and other thought provoking questions)

seeking light

a lust for love

shameless

the dance of the black feather

Her Highness And Her Gem [NSFW]

characters: rafayel x reader

warnings: 18+, smut, spoilers for Rafayel's "wander in wonder" card, fingering, oral (f! receiving), reverse cowgirl, doggy style, prone bone, praising (m! receiving), no protection (piv), cocky princess reader, dominant reader, Lemurian Rafayel, porn with P L O T

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"What's going on? Why is everyone gathered in her Highness's throne room?"

"Didn't you hear? Messengers from every corner of the land brought these so-called "gifts" for her highness"

"Gifts?"

"It's to alleviate her boredom, apparently..."

You continued to listen to the unnecessary chattering of the maids surrounding the room, holding back from rolling your eyes at how ridiculous the entire situation was.

This wouldn't have happened if you hadn't escaped the palace for the 10th time this month.

It can't be helped. Your boredom was going to kill you before your age did, what's so wrong with wanting to see the outside world once in a while?

You were getting tired of every offer given by other Kingdoms and Empires through men. It was starting to get old by how they all carried good looks but no talent in bed, even a few aphrodisiacs couldn't satisfy you.

You weren't the best princess out there. Rebellious, cruel and salacious. Those were the words often used by others to describe you, most people expect a princess to be on their best behaviour, kind-hearted and pure, but you couldn't care less about such unimportant things.

"Bring them in, quickly" You wasted no time in telling the female messenger, and she nodded before clapping twice as a signal.

As of right now, while your eyes stared into the men walking in the room with attires of different erotic styles, your brain was stuck on finding another way to escape, and where you would visit once you had succeeded.

"Your Highness, have a look. These men are all pleasing to the eye"

Without realizing it, you let out a disappointed and stress-filled sigh. Make the female messenger take it as you are feeling unsatisfied with the line of men in front of you.

You didn't bother clearing up the misunderstanding as you would have preferred them all gone anyway, but then you watched as the female messenger winked at the group. They all suddenly made way for a certain individual.

"Would your highness be open to a handsome Lemurian to stroke the flames of your curiousity?" She said with a proud smile.

Your eyes immediately found a place on the violet-haired man, wearing a gold-adorned outfit that barely did anything to cover his erotic body. The sight was quite a surprise as you never expected to hear the words "Lemurian" along with it.

Without realization, you had a mischievous grin plastered on your face.

Watching how the Lemurian man looked uninterested while maintaining eye contact with you, his hands were tied with thick cuffs to prevent him from trying to escape. Maybe that's why he didn't look too happy.

"Very well, the rest can leave" You waved off the female messenger and her group of men away, signalling the maids to escort them out as you got up from your seat.

You walked down from your throne and stood in front of the Lemurian man, eyeing him closely. His eyes were in a mixed hue of blue, purple and pink, beautiful and unique like how they said Lemurians would be.

Every mole on his face and body was being observed from your lenses, you could tell how nervous he became from having your lecherous gaze on him, you could feel his breath against the top of your head as he avoided making eye contact with you.

Feeling impatient, you used your finger to hook onto the jewellery on his neck, giving him a small tug as you walked him towards your bedroom like you would with a dog on a leash. Surprising him but knowing that following you instead of struggling would do him less trouble.

The entire walk down the corridor towards your room was silent, all you could hear was his bare feet making tiny pitter-patter noises as your heels clicked in a rush, your mind was bent on one thing only this evening.

To tame this Lemurian as your own.

Before you could notice the smirk on your face, you threw the male onto your bed, watching him gasp in shock from the sudden impact, his eyes immediately locking into yours as you had both your hands on the sides of his head, pinning him with nowhere else to look but you.

"I've been waiting for a Lemurian to fall onto my hand for a while now..." You spoke in a hushed voice, laced with a hint of arousal. Whoever put him in this outfit was going to be rewarded handsomely.

"I heard the creatures of the sea possess beautiful voices, won't you entertain me?"

As you asked him the question, you could see him frown before turning his head away from your gaze in an attempt to protest your request. It seems that he was playing hard to get.

"Well, I do like it when they put up a little fight" You let out a wicked laugh, watching his face look nervous once more. Maybe he could tell you were a bit crazy through the look in your eyes.

However, you weren't interested in playing with a toy that wasn't working. So you decided to throw your body down to lie next to the violet-haired male, heaving out a sigh as you stretch your arms. Your actions make the individual beside you flinch and stare at you in confusion.

"If you don't plan on speaking, then you will never be free from this place," You told him, your eyes shut with your arms resting at the back of your head, legs crossed creating a position of an unfeminine and careless manner.

"I was born in this very palace, and I will die here without a single ounce of freedom"

Curious to know if he was listening, you opened your eyes to gaze at him once more, he had already been sat up, facing you with a distrustful look, but still interested in what you had to say.

"If you don't believe me, think about how empty the palace is. How there isn't a single man, and why I need these messengers to find me another man every week" You watched his face soften, and while what you were saying could be true, most of it was to get him to open up to you.

A cruel princess you may be.

You weren't lying when you said you were lonely. But hinting to him that you let the men that came to your chambers off to "save" them was definitely a lie. You just didn't find them entertaining after a week.

"You will be no difference. After a week you can go back to your home, and I will find another man to bring into my chambers"

You switched your position to laying onto your stomach, hand resting under your chin as your other hand went to poke the Lemurian's stomach, tracing his abs.

"...If you agree, speak your name" You didn't bother to look at his face as you had a smile imprinted on your face, finding entertainment in tracing nonexistent patterns on his muscular body.

It took a silence so deep you could hear your own breath, waiting for a reply from the male. But after a few more seconds, you concluded that he just wasn't interested in what you had to offer, so you took your hand off his body, pushing yourself up.

"Rafayel"

You froze, hands resting on the bed as your head snapped to look at the Lemurian's face, you observed the look on his face. He seemed calm and willing this time, seeing him look so obedient had you grinning, your eyes squinting by how big you were smiling as you pushed your face forward to his.

"No takebacks" You pressed your lips into his, feeling him gasp in your mouth, however, he didn't protest, letting you kiss him so rough that you had him lie back down on the bed as your body hovered over his once more.

Right when you were getting into the mood, you pulled away from his lips, clicking your tongue in annoyance while Rafayel panted from how intense your kissing was. Rafayel's hands were right on your belly, the cold hard metal that was holding his hands in place was making you uncomfortable.

"I'll uncuff you. That is if you can promise me you'll be good"

The Lemurian didn't seem responsive, instead, he was just panting restlessly, partly to catch his breath or to regain his composure. Not noticing how lewd his face looked and that the pupils in his eyes turned to slits. You took his silence as an agreement to what you said and brought the cuffs to your face.

It seemed like it didn't need a key to unlock. Instead, it had a switch similar to what bracelets have. You pressed on the poking metal and watched the cuff on his right hand unlock, falling loosely as you did the same with his left.

You carelessly threw the metal cuffs to the ground, not caring what would happen to it. Right when you were going to resume what you've been longing to do for a while, you felt two hands grip your wrists before tossing you onto the bed, switching positions of you and Rafayel.

"Ugh!" You grunted at the impact. Eyes locked in with Rafayel's, which went from an innocent, obedient look to a look that held something similar to that of an untamed dog. Unruly, and incapable of self-control.

Not wanting to back down from simply being pinned down, you smirked at Rafayel. Cocking your head upwards with a scoff, watching the Lemurian's eyes glow in a blue similar to the ocean. Before he could proceed with whatever he was planning on doing, you cut in.

"If you plan to get a strike and run away, it won't end well for you" You warned, making it clear that you weren't phased by him.

"It will start with the entire Empire distraught about what happened to their princess. Then every man and woman alike will go through every end of the world to find the messengers of their respective Empire or Kingdom that sent you to me. War will break out" You felt the grip on your wrists tighten, but you didn't bother to stop.

"And then they will aim for your people. No Lemurian in the sea will be left alive, they will skin your tails, gouge your pretty eyes, rip your scales off, and every bone of yours will be taken care of" Your eyes darkened as you watched Rafayel's face grow angrier.

"Every. Single. One"

You felt him release his grip on one of your hands, lifting up his own to create a ball of fire in an attempt to burn you right on the spot. Your provoking was so intense it had a man of the sea create fire. What a spectacle this man was.

Seeing as how you were in awe, he paused from throwing the fire at you. Waiting to see what else you would do. You happily gave him the expectation he needed.

You slowly sat up to not provoke him any further, before using the hand that was free to touch his right cheek. Thumb brushed over the mole as he stared at you with wide eyes, confused as to what you were doing now.

"Don't worry. Those things can't happen if I'm alive. I'm the princess of the most influential and powerful Empire there is here. Kings and Queens all over the world send me their sons so that they could be on good terms with us" You assured him, caressing his cheek as you would with a lover.

"As long as you're mine, no one will harm you"

Hearing you calmly whisper, Rafayel took a second before extinguishing the fire in his palm, then placing his hand to press against the bed sheets. The blue glow in his eye had also disappeared, which signalled you that he was now approachable.

"...We could even create a treaty between humans and Lemurians" You initiated, gently grabbing his hand and using it to trace it towards your stomach.

"Right...here..."

Pregnancy. You were insisting on having a child with a Lemurian man. You could see the utter shock on Rafayel's face. He looked at you as if you were crazy, but your people don't call you a tyrant for nothing. Because the look on your eyes showed that you had not a drop of humanity in you.

Without noticing it, Rafayel looked at you with pity.

"If I give you what I want, you will set me free" Your ears perked at the voice of the Lemurian man. How nice would his moans be if you had him inside you at this instant.

But he was a whole other species. A race with animalistic features. So you had to play it slow and steady. Luring in the snake before cutting off its fangs.

"Of course"

Now the one who was pushing their lips onto the other was Rafayel. You gladly let him take the initiative, since usually you would have to do all the work, so it would be nice to have a change of pace in things.

His style of kissing was similar to that of a lover. He didn't let his nervousness or hesitance show in his actions. Instead, he was determined, hungry even. Yet so gentle and experienced. Perhaps he's done it before with other women.

If that's the case, then it saves you the trouble of having to teach another man from scratch.

You guided his hand that was on your stomach lower to where your expensively embroidered pants were. Using his big, veiny hand to rub onto your lower region. Making him open his eyes and look down when he felt how warm and wet you were.

Without asking, he slipped his hand into your pants, feeling your pussy bare, covered completely in your juices making it easier for him to play with it.

You felt his fingers tease around your hole, rubbing up and down to gather your slick lubricant for his fingers before sticking them inside easily. Making you let out a moan that released you off your starvation to be touched, you removed your lips from his to give yourself better access to moan.

"A-Ah yes! Just like that" You gripped his wrist harder, guiding him to press all the right spots. Suddenly feeling the need to make a joke at the same time.

"Mmph! How lucky the other ladies are to have a piece of you before me, huh?" You let out a messy laugh, letting out another moan when you felt him press a particular spot harder.

"Stop talking" He warned, however seeing him frown at you made you want to coo at how innocent he looked, like a child that had his candy stolen from him.

"Then make me" You wrapped your hand around his neck and pressed his lips against yours for the third time.

You relish in the taste of his soft lips on yours, part of you wishes he would use those lips and work on your body instead of his hands, but you don't want to rush art in its process.

While you had your hole thrust in and out by Rafayel's fingers, you used your free hands to brush onto his body, feeling every bump of his perfectly sculpted abs on your fingers, if you weren't so preoccupied with his fingers inside, you would have smirked at how you could feel him lose composure from a simple touch.

Soon enough you felt like his fingers weren't enough for you. So you decided to take back the initiative and grab him by his arms, promptly pushing him onto the bed and crawling up to move your hips forward, your pants lowering down in the process.

Now his eyes were facing your soaking wet pussy, slightly throbbing from the loss of his slender fingers inside you. Rafayel stared at the leaking hole for a few seconds before averting his eyes to look up at you. To which you greeted his lost look with a large grin, nothing but pure arousal in your face.

"Go on"

You egged the Lemurian man on, he didn't seem to hesitate when his eyes went back to looking down at your pussy, and then he opened his mouth and stuck his tongue out, licking up the juices that were spilling out of you, neglecting your swollen clit so far.

A satisfied moan escapes your lips. The same lips that you had praised for being so soft and lewd were now suckling and licking up all your pussy had to offer, like he was cleaning up all the marks left by the other men you had slept with.

"Y-Yes...Good boy..." You bit your lower lip, running your fingers through his violet-coloured hair to guide his lips further to the perfect spots of your pussy. His nose slightly brushed against your clit.

It seemed that the tiny praise you gave to the Lemurian made him more excited than you thought because right when you praised him, you felt two large hands grope your asscheeks, pulling you forward to Rafayel's mouth, his lips latching onto your neglected clit at the same time.

You couldn't help but let out a noise of shock and pleasure, the sudden warmth and aggression in his tongue caught you off guard as all you could do was hold onto the headboard of the bed and have your legs twitch from every continuous lick he was giving to your pussy.

With the pace he had, it didn't take long before you felt yourself slowly inching closer to your orgasm. You couldn't even let out a noise to indicate that you were close because of how needy you were, it was like finally having a gulp of water after spending days in a desert.

"A-Argh- Fuck!" You groaned.

Like an instinct, you pushed his face closer to your pussy as if it weren't already close enough. Probably having his teeth touch your skin but you couldn't tell, you were too busy using Rafayel's face like how you would use a pillow at night.

You were so busy riding out your own release that you didn't even notice how the Lemurian man's eyes rolled back from the sudden pressure of his face being used for your own satisfaction, the arousing smell of your juices wouldn't go wasted as he would attempt to gulp down every single drop. Seriously, where did he learn to do all this?

Without care, you threw his head back onto the pillow before cupping his face and bombarding it with kisses, aiming from his cheek to his neck, planting kiss marks from your lipstick and leaving a few hickeys behind. Tarnishing his clean body with your bite marks.

"So gorgeous.." Another praise left your mouth.

Once you were proud of the work you left on his body, you pulled off your pants completely. Making sure Rafayel's eyes never left yours as you did so, throwing them away somewhere at the corner of the room before you pulled down the navy blue embroidered pants he had on as well, before turning your back on him and rubbing your wet cunt all over his rock hard cock.

"Little Lemuria's quite excited, huh?" You teased, watching his dazed expression never change. He was definitely out of it.

You made sure all the saliva and juices on your pussy coated his dick completely, you could tell he was getting impatient from how his leg would hold itself back from hiking up each time you rubbed your soft cunt onto his shaft, but you weren't looking forward in rushing such a valuable moment.

When you felt like you got his cock wet enough, you held his dick with your palm, feeling your own cum slipping through your fingers as you slowly pushed it inside of you, letting out a large sigh of relief when you finally got to feel something large and veiny as his cock.

Without wasting another second you moved your hips back and forth, letting his cock hit you from every spot you had inside, and also giving him a good view of your ass as you continued to tease him with the way you rocked your hips.

Right when you made him believe you were just going to rock on his dick, you lifted your hips up and slammed yourself down, earning a loud moan from both you and him. The sudden action shocked Rafayel to the point his hands reached up to grab your waist while you continued to ram his dick deep inside you.

"Mmph! Yes! Right there!"

The pace you created from simply hopping up and down his dick became too intense that Rafayel couldn't keep up anymore. His eyes would fail to gain focus once you brought him closer to his release through the teasing you did earlier. Not hiding the moans that followed the closer you got to your orgasm.

"U-Ugh! A-Almost!"

You clenched your pussy while letting out a loud moan, the impact he had on your hole was far stronger than your impact on his dick since you clearly cared about reaching your own orgasm first. To which you did a few seconds before Rafayel could cum as well.

While you were trying to keep yourself up after completely raw dogging yourself onto his cock, you let out a gasp when you felt your body being pushed forward, your arms being held behind your back as you felt a harsh thrust snap to hips and a deep press inside your cervix.

A loud guttural moan left your mouth as you were forced into a position where the Lemurian man had his way with you, you couldn't see his face, but you could tell by the way he was holding back his growls that he was chasing after the orgasm you denied him from achieving.

You wanted to tell him to slow down, but you couldn't as all your energy was lost from the first two orgasms you had, all you could do was moan desperately while you continued to feel Rafayel's cock gushing in and out of your hole that twitched uncontrollably.

Thanks to you being sensitive, the clamps your pussy made on Rafayel's dick made him reach his high quicker than anticipated. He gives his few final thrusts by pushing your hips so far that your stomach and face are now pressing onto the sheets, you are about to reach your third orgasm.

You hear Rafayel moan in relief as he completely filled your hole up with his cum. Feeling the warm substance gush out of your hole and run down your legs as you came on his dick once more. Eyes roll to the back of your head, leading to nothing but pitch blackness on your sight.

When you two were finally satisfied, all you could hear was the heavy breathing that came out from both your mouths. You couldn't move your body anymore, all you could do was lie on the bed with your ass facing Rafayel, you might as well sleep at that moment.

And sleep you did.

The last thing you felt was the warm embrace of the Lemurian man, you didn't expect him to be so gentlemanly, taking care of you while you were unconscious. He would make it harder for you to let him go.

But to your surprise, he was already gone the moment you woke up.

At first, you were frantic. Threatening to kill everyone in the palace if they didn't tell you his whereabouts, but it seemed that the little fish was quite sneaky, as everyone reported to have never seen him.

Eventually, you gave up. The only one time you finally found something interesting and exhilarating in your mundane life sat right at your palm, and you let it get away.

Moving on was easy, but your body no longer wanted to feel the touch of another man. Every day the maids and messengers would present you with a line of gorgeous men, but you barely even spared a glance, the only thing imprinted in your brain was that god darned Lemurian.

A week would have already passed since then. And you would find yourself laying on the same bed he was on with you, bored out of your mind.

"Stupid Lemurian. Bewitching me" You cursed, tossing a grape at the wall, watching it bounce off and fall onto the floor.

You were bent on revenge. If you ever see him again, you are going to turn him into your slave, that is for sure.

"I hope I won't be turned into seafood if I let your highness come with me"

Immediately, you sat up in shock. Not noticing you had almost crushed the grape in your hand when you heard a familiar voice. Your head snapped to look at your bedroom window, and there stood a familiar man with violent-coloured hair and purple-hued eyes.

"You..." You muttered. Eyes frantically observing his new look. He had a gorgeous attire of blues, and his skin was covered in these symbolic marks.

You watched him have a serious look on his face, arms crossed as he eyed the grape you had in your hand. Curious about what you were so determined to throw at your walls.

"That's wasting food, princess" Compared to the man he was before, he sounded more cocky and mighty. Almost like a king.

You tried to find the words to retort at him. But all you could do was gaze at him in awe, the beauty he held must have increased tenfold from this past week, so this was what he would truly look like in Lemuria.

Snapping yourself out of the daze you were in, you stood up and ran towards him, finger-pointing at his chest as you furrowed your eyebrows and faced him.

"You bewitched me! And to add on, you had the gall to leave me after bedding me! You sly fish!" You yelled, finger poking a hole into his chest as he let out a chuckle.

"Oh! Funny is it?" You spat, watching his eyes trace itself to grab your arm that was poking him, you still had the grape in your hand.

Rafayel slowly kissed your arm, then brought his face to your hand. Where he took the grape in his lips and ate it whole, chewing the fruit inside his mouth and gulping it in front of you, then planting a kiss onto your hand.

The entire gesture left you speechless. Now you were definitely convinced that this man was trying to bewitch you. Your mind circled in thoughts on how dare he touch you so casually that you didn't notice how red your face was.

"Come with me, princess" He offered, eyes staring into yours.

"..." You didn't question him. Because you knew fully well that you would do wonders to leave the place. But you knew you couldn't, especially when you've done so countless of times.

"I can't. They'll find me and kill you. It's not worth the risk" You reasoned, eyes darkening with disappointment in your own words.

"I'd like to see them try and kill the God of Tides" He laughed at your words, to which you frowned in confusion.

"What does the God of Tides have anything to do with you?" Not realizing how stupid your question sounded, you watched as Rafayel looked at you with an arched eyebrow and a tiny smirk.

"...No way" Your eyes widened before moving your head up and down to take a good look at his attire once more.

Rafayel wasn't just some Lemurian lost on land. He was a Sea God.

"Goodness," You blurted out, watching Rafayel laugh at your reaction, to which you responded by blushing in embarrassment.

"Does this change things for us now?" He asked in between his laughs, to which you rolled your eyes.

"Well, I suppose"

You felt his arm wrap around your waist, bringing you close to him as you gasped, surprised by his bold gesture. When you looked up at him he had a fulfilling smile on his face.

Next thing you knew waves of water surrounded the two of you, maybe this time you could truly escape this boring place for good.

"Hey, Rafayel. Why did you come back for me?"

"Well, a lonely princess asked me to let her conceive my child. The kinder option would be to show her where I grew up, wouldn't it?"

"...Yeah..."

-

"Did you hear? The princess has escaped the palace once more"

"That's nothing new, is it?"

"Oh, but it is. I heard this time she escaped with a lover!"

"A lover?! That tyrant?!"

"Whoever that gentleman is, he must be crazy to elope with her"

"You said it"

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A/N: so like... clearly a lot of themes were running through my mind. maybe this isn't concubine! rafayel as promised BUT THE THEME IS THERE SO EAT YOUR FOOD LIKE THE GOOD CHILDREN YOU ARE (picky eaters are not welcomed, says the picky eater herself)

anyways incubus! rafayel is next, probably in a week or two who knows. after this, I will work on some zayne or xavier oneshots as well :)

OH AND CAN I SAY I WANNA OPEN COMMISSIONS SO BAD???? like maybe not for my art, but definitely for my writing. only when i hit 1k followers will I do that though so stay tuned!

here are the outfits mentioned in the oneshot for better imagination 💪✨️

INFOLD I will never forget what you stole from us

I drew his lips so kissable lmaoooo, sorry y'all I've been gone for too long😞

A Bond Everlasting (LaDS Rafayel - NSFW)

Rated: NSFW/18+ Pairing: Rafayel/Reader Words: ~17k

Tags: soulmate AU (the red string of fate, with a twist), college setting (and they were roommates), angst with a happy ending, mutual pining, minor violence and action, scent kink, blow job, oral and vaginal sex, facial, multiple orgasms, vaginal fingering, overstimulation, merman knotting, sexual rut/Lemurian sexual cycle

Summary: Rafayel tries — and miserably fails —  to forget the one his red thread weaved against once upon a time, even a decade after its break. Finding her, once more, years later, and residing within the same place as her doesn’t help his cause. 

A/N: A happy very belated birthday gift to you, @chibamari. With all of my love and all of our favorite heartbreak, I hope you enjoy this, darling friend.

I. EBB 

The red string of fate. Rafayel found he truly loathed the concept.  

What was it, truly, if not just the Fates contemptuous scorn upon them?  

Forcing kinship and eternity in between a pair that did not mould against the other. That would, if time given, drift apart as mere bottled wishes left traversing, lonely, across the seas.  

And yet, the manacles remain celebrated, since time immemorial. As legends of the rare, and lucky few, destined to be bonded in harmony.  

Rafayel used to be — once upon a time — part of the same foolery brigade as the rest of them, the day his red thread spun and found itself interweaved against his first, and last, love. To her, he promised a Lemurian’s vow of faithful eternity. 

Until the day that blood-red thread quivered and ruptured apart, weakened by her absence.  

Leaving to Rafayel only the hollow remains of a heart rejected. The brand of its mockery left behind as indelible remains of the severed — useless — string wound against his finger.  

II. FLOW 

Deft, practiced digits streak a brush across canvas; the truculent quality to his paint lines reflecting the agitated knot of Rafayel’s brow and the hand he scrubs through his hair in chagrin at constant-wheeling thoughts. Bold strokes; an amalgamation of bright colors — gentle turquoise and oceanic azure — setting into paper to shape unconscious form to his muse, for his current class.  

It is only when he hears the ripple of applauding gasps behind — “You’re amazing, Senior Rafayel!” — is he knocked back into his senses, angling a stupefied gaze up at what he’s made of his project: originally an interpretation of the depths of the sea, the topic he’d presented his class for the day.  

He notes, in no small proportion of growing aversion, the strokes of his brush having shaped form of a delicate back — hers — against the backdrop of a vast sea, reminiscent of home. His thoughts — he muses in self-derision — having lent unconscious connection in between his place of most comfort to the person who stood as his entire comfort. 

Rafayel’s head throbs with heat, as if knelling the oncoming of a particularly harsh fever. Perhaps his less than perfect health was to blame for his momentary lapse of concentration.  

“Is the lady underwater inspired by anyone in particular, Senior? Your brushwork for her seems particularly passionate.” 

Rafayel’s mouth twitches into an insouciant, cool smile, he directs at his students. “Hmm I’m not sure. Perhaps, she’s inspired by that one mermaid movie they’re currently playing in theatres.”  

“Oh, ‘Aquatic’? I’ve seen it!” 

“Me too! It's really good.”  

“The part where she turns to sea foam—” 

A seamless lie; he lets it steer the focus of conversation away from him and his lapse in concentration. Turning back towards the board to proceed with his lecture.  

Opting to teach a fine arts course to a bunch of junior year students, for extra annual credit, was clearly shaping to be one of the worst decisions he’d ever made.  

Especially so, when the subject in question, he’d offered to teach for, in the first place, remained starkly absent throughout the duration of the lecture.  

III. EBB 

Shouldering open the door to their shared apartment, Rafayel steps inside, staggering under the weight of his stack of the newest arrival of deliveries. The apartment is silent, devoid of the sound of her characteristic pattering footsteps.  

Depositing his packages down against the side of the sofa in the living room, he collapses back into the cushions, tuning a distasteful frown towards the empty kitchen counter. Recounting to mind, the events of this morning, having shepherded him into an entire day of distraction at the University.  

“Ouch.” She hissed, a sound of surprise, wrenching her arm back from the sizzling frying pain at the spits of oil it spewed.  

Rafayel released an exaggerated sigh at the sight, ambling over towards the kitchen. “Let me help.”  

“You know, I’m perfectly capable of fixing breakfast on my own.” She attempted heroic reassurance, even as she easily treaded backwards to let Rafayel replace her at the stove.  

“Yes, yes, I believe you. I'd still like to ensure you don’t burn our apartment to the ground while I’m away at work. My paintings are priceless treasures, you know.” He deftly takes the eggs off the stove and plates them before shoving her share at her. “There you go, Miss All-Capable.” 

“Stop making fun of me.” She smiles in relieved gratitude, moving to set cutlery across the table. “And thank you.” 

Rafayel swivels a puffed smile her way. “Whatever would you do without me?”  

She shakes her head at him, attempting no effort to refute him. “Indeed.” Her fingers brush against his as she moves to pass him his share.  

“Rafayel.” She sweeps a sudden grab at his hand, digits entwining in between his. “You’re a bit warmer than usual. Are you feeling sick?” She smooths a gentle hand across his forehead.  

He feels his face burn darker at the sudden intimacy of their contact. “No, I don’t.” Instinctively jostling away from her touch. “I’m just tired, is all. I was up the entire night, after all.”  

“You really need to fix that terrible habit of yours. A healthy body leads to a healthy mind!” Rafayel can’t tamp back the grin from his face at her chiding. 

“Take better care of yourself. I can’t be here to keep you in check round the clock, you know.” She sighs in resignation.  

“Yes, yes, my noisy Mistress.”  

“Speaking of which,” She begins, just as Rafayel seats himself at the table. "I'll be out late tonight.” 

Rafayel feels his smile frost over; a dreaded, sour feeling immediately spurning at the base of his belly.  

“I have a study date with Caleb.” She does not meet his gaze, forking at her egg.  

Rafayel hears himself speak before he can tuck back his impulsive thoughts. “You sure you should be trusting the man this much? I don’t—” 

“’Like him.’ I know. I don’t know why you’re so biased against him, he’s a good person.”  

The praise dredges bitterness across his tongue; ashy and tepid. His fork nearly stabs at his own food, a disapproving moue he knows is dark upon his face. “Sure,” he intones at last, grappling against his desire to ask her not to go, to spend her day with him instead. “Have fun.” An unfair burden he knows he throws onto her shoulders; he does not possess the right to dictate who she chooses to associate with.  

And yet— 

Rafayel’s gaze deliberately treks the line of red thread adorning his ring finger — treacherously cut off a few centimetres in and dissipating into nothingness. Following the absent line of it; her own finger sits vacant against the wooden table-top. An immeasurable dejection he isn’t able to shuck off, no matter how many times his eyes have witnessed its emptiness.  

Perhaps she is right and he is sick, an inscrutable tremor setting into his fingers as they continue on with the rest of their meal in silence.  

IV. FLOW 

The oncoming dawn encroaches a gradual shell-pink spill of color across the velvet skies as Rafayel’s feverish gaze drags, listless, to the view past the patio windows, the bone-deep ache from the day past yet to recede.  

The angry scrapes of charcoal rushed across paper, forgotten as the unfinished sketch drifts purposeless down onto the floor to join the rest of its discarded predecessors.   

She has yet to return home — Rafayel had stayed up the entire night and remained planted, firm, within their lounge, to make sure he would be there to greet her on her return. She'd never been away from their apartment overnight.  

Rafayel knows because he had — on more occasions than he could count and didn’t wish to acknowledge — found himself crumpled within cool sheets, self-confined to the privacy of his room, listening in to the comforting sounds of her padded, soft movements around their apartment.  

She'd often slip back through their door, close to midnight — she made it a point, always, to return home, no matter the hour — after slaving away hours at the library for her Hunter exam. She'd try for quietude; he knew, so she wouldn’t disturb his absent sleep.  

A gentle clink of mugs at the kitchen counter as she’d make herself a cup of a coffee in preparation of burning the midnight oil.  

Despite having the physical structure of their apartment — a shelter and comfort in name — his room’s four-walled sanctity, it didn’t truly feel warm as a home until the moment she stepped past the threshold and into their shared space.  

And only when he’d hear the soft crinkle of pages turning steadily as she’d settle herself onto the living room sofa to study, would he find himself beckoned into slumber. As if she too, knew on instinct, how her presence aimed to soothe, choosing to make space for her studies right where he could hear her, in the lounge, instead of the confines of her own room. 

Yet now.  

Midnight had come and gone, dawn scraping indigo for approaching light, and no signs of her return.  

A long day behind him endured in feverish unrest and the toll of another sleepless night, doesn’t help disentangle burgeoning thoughts of her within the embrace of another man at that very moment, one not him. He can’t help but sorely curse himself for his ill-thought decision of staying the night up, waiting for her like some sorry love-struck fool.  

Not that he would’ve been able to sleep, either way; a part of him mocked in muted whispers.  

His thread throbs; a nipping bite of rejection and along with it, his body. Languid gaze absently trekking the severed thread, flickering incandescent against his ring finger. The constricting heat of it, as if traversing up his veins along with the fever within his body. Colluding against his heart, as if it wishes to eventually wither him up instead. A slow, bittersweet poison.  

Rafayel feels nauseous.  

He’s beginning to contemplate on retiring for the meagre, precious hours before his upcoming classes for the day — perhaps that bitterly strong liquor she’d stowed into the fridge earlier would help do the trick — just as the door lock clicks open.  

The sound violently startles Rafayel out of winding, unheeded thoughts enough, he springs off the sofa just as she steps foot over the threshold.  

Opening his mouth to put words to turbulent emotions — a million queries — before his questions wither off the tip of his tongue when he fixates a good, long look at her.   

She appears downright exhausted and an instinctual, foreboding spurts forth in him. The look on her careworn face, light-snuffed gaze meeting his — Rafayel thinks, mirrors the state of his own affairs — before it dissipates into stifled surprise. “Rafayel, what’re you doing up—”  

And before he can tamp himself back into composure, Rafayel’s striding the few paces it takes for him to reach her, dragging her into his embrace.  

She stiffens at the contact on instinctual reflex, it chips away at another piece of his heart. Tightens the strangulating hold of his severed thread against his soul.  

He hedges her tighter into his embrace, regardless. Head pitching down onto her shoulder; a hand he smooths down the line of her quivering back before she relaxes into him, at last.  

“Rafayel—” Arms twitching by her side and up as she circles him within her own comfort, returning his warmth in the cling of desperate digits against the back of his shirt.  

“You’re late. You're so late.” he gripes, half-hearted.  

A beat. Two passes. 

“Yeah, I’m sorry.”  

A peculiar relationship; she calls them friends — close — inappropriately so and he’d agreed to be one, to her, if it were the sole thing that allowed him to be by her side. For her to not abandon him once more. A relationship edging something far gnarled than friendship.  

He doesn’t believe even she has a name for what they share, in moments as these, where Rafayel forgets himself and the boundaries he holds himself to. Turns blind to pretenses and masks he fixates, so delicately crafted, for her benefit and the safety of his own heart. 

He is not, however, a man strong enough to ignore the strain of his beloved’s gaze, tiredness rimming her entire being, she feels so brittle in his arms, and it ruins him to not know the cause of it.  

“...Got something on your mind?” He murmurs into her hair. 

“Perhaps.” Her response is slow, halting.  

“Want to tell me what it is?” He breaks away from her, enough to let his eyes scour her face in stern scrutiny.  

A whispered laugh escapes her at his inspection.  

“...Rafayel, how do you feel about an early morning stroll with me?”  

V. EBB 

The shores of Whitesand Bay stretch empty within the wee hours of dawn, quiet, save for the twittering song of birds cutting across the sky and the gentle wash of waves at their bare feet as they amble along the sandy belt. She hasn’t uttered a word since, absent gaze trekking the gradual rise of the sun above the horizon, light flittering its diamonds across the lap of waves.  

The easy access to the sea — and by extension, the remarkable view — was one of the reasons they’d jointly agreed upon renting an apartment this close to Whitesand Bay, two years prior. On any other usual occasion, Rafayel’s fingers would’ve been upon pen and paper, soaking inspiration up and through rough strokes, sketching across paper.  

Now, however, his focus is all but entirely removed from his environment, vision honed in on her by his side.  

“It’s a beautiful view, isn’t it?” She murmurs, gaze still fixated upon the horizon. “I’m not an early riser like you are so I’ve never seen the sunrise here up this close.”  

She's skirting the issue, Rafayel has no mind to force her to spill her heart when she does not wish to. 

For her, he is willing to remain patient.  

Regardless of the consequences to his person.  

He joins in on her flimsy facade.  

“If only I wasn’t a little too aware of the fact.” Tapping a light fist against her temple, he angles a skewed smile down at her. “Despite my very arduous efforts to get you out of bed on multiple occasions, you’ve persisted in your terrible ways, Miss Hunter.” Heaving an exaggerated sigh. “You’re far too stubborn for your own good, I fear.” 

That gets her breaking a smile, the tensed knitted worry within her gaze easing just that tiny bit; Rafayel plucks it up for the small reward it is. “A classic case of the pot calling the kettle black. Like you’re any less bull-headed.” She defends. “Don’t make me recount all the times you nearly gave poor Thomas a heart attack because your paintings weren’t ready even mere hours before the exhibitions they were supposed to be featured in.”  

His mouth pulls into a distasteful moue at that. “Don’t tell me you’re on his side. He refuses to understand the world of difference it causes in between using cherry red or wine on a canvas. If it were up to that simpleton, he’d have me besmirch all my works, just for the sake of those trivial exhibitions.”  

She chuckles. “Now, no need to get so worked-up. You know Thomas cares for you and wishes to have your talent recognized like it deserves to be.” She moves to seat herself by the shore, close to where the waves lick up at the sand. Rafayel follows suit.  

“I know how much passion you pour into your paintings.” Crinkling a gentle smile up at him. “That’s exactly why I love your art so much.” 

Rafayel’s heart catches at his throat at the easy slip of her compliment.  

She's never been sparing with her appreciation of his artworks. 

Ever since she’d chanced upon them a few years back when they’d only shortly been re-united at the time.  

She’d always been generous and open with her admiration.  

His heart, however, wasn’t immune to its traitorous stuttering, every single time at her attentions and praise.  

Perhaps she discerns the look on his face, tapping into his emotions, or realizes the curious intimacy of her statement, she wrenches her gaze away from his. Rafayel swiftly feels the keen loss of it.  

Silence sweeps once more between them, her gaze having drifted back into the seas and with it, the steady droop of her shoulders as she curves in tighter against her huddled knees. “It was a place, similar to this one, where we first met. A lost little human meeting a young Lemurian washed ashore.” Her voice barely hikes above an octave. “I didn’t think Lemurians existed for real before that, and to know I shared a red fate with one...”  

His throat closes against a sharp inhale at her whisper, the first time she’s chosen to address their past severed bond, ever since their reunion.  

Why now. He means to ask. A question that dissipates off the tip of his tongue, un-uttered.  

“We were so young back then and I inadvertently hurt you. Ever since I moved away, and time just passed, regardless...” She pauses. “You must’ve really hated me for that, huh.” She angles a cautious smile at him. 

I did not. Rafayel means to refute and yet his tongue refuses to cooperate.  

She continues on, as if she had long perceived his answer and made peace with his supposed resentment of her, unperturbed by his lack of response. Her reaction vexes him.   

“I’ve hurt someone dear to me again. Caleb—” 

The familiar name spurns bitter within his chest. “Did he do something to you?” His fingers jam against coarse sand, snagging his thread tight against his ring finger. 

“No! No. Caleb’s a good man, he’s been nothing but kind to me.”  

Deep within the recesses of his heart, Rafayel knows it, he knows it only too well; he only wishes he could truly bring himself to hate him.  

“He...” Her fingers tense harsher against her arms. “Last night, he asked me to be his girlfriend.” 

His ring finger throbs; the missing line of its thread seeming to constrict against Rafayel’s neck.  

“I turned him down.” 

A quick, involuntary bite of wicked relief thrums at the back of his breastbone. And yet— 

Why do you look as if your heart is shattering into a million pieces? 

Rafayel’s mouth seems to form words on its own as if he wishes for his own demise. “Do you regret it?” 

Her silence is a dagger that digs pointed, deep in between his ribs, the longer she lets it steep.  

She meets his gaze, a turbulent question within hers, beseeching. “I don’t know… I don’t know if I should.” She looks as if she has more to speak, restive teeth biting into her lip to hold back unsaid thoughts.

Rafayel dares not parse the emotions he sees flittering within her eyes, dares not hope for what he cannot have. Not again, for his heart to fracture once more by setting up false narratives. He has loved and will love still for eternity — he doesn’t, however, have the tenacity to bear being abandoned again. 

And so, he shutters himself, gaze wrenching away from hers, a frown knitting tight against his brow. “Whatever it is that you want, if it makes you happy, I want you to grab onto it for yourself.” Fingers brushing against hers from where they rest within the sand, index and middle lingering longer against the base of her ring finger. Before he moves, carding hesitant digits through the fall of her hair.  

For it is the only way he knows how to love — regardless of broken vows — in her happiness, even if it would never be found by his side. 

VI. FLOW

The dream stirs vivid beneath restless lids — Rafayel hasn’t dreamt of that time of theirs together in so long, a welcome awareness of his mind’s conjuring, he embraces in that moment.   

Perhaps by-products of an exhausted, sick mind. 

Or yearning for an unfulfilled wish.  

A sweet sting of desire, just as the first time he remembers it. He lets himself drown deeper into the abyss of its calling. 

He’d cut a boring class during first semester at college — he could no longer remember the subject — in lieu of chasing the path of an ambitious sparrow within a secluded spot. Located far back along the grounds of the college and protected further underneath the dense foliage of the overgrown greenery as he’d sat perched upon a bench, motionless and silent.  

Save for the smooth rush of his pencil across his journal. Detailing the quest of the bird as it leapt across the grass towards a lazing cat, blissfully dodging the feline’s half-hearted attempt at pawing it away.  

Tranquility rippled only at a surprising intrusion; she’d walked into his private space — she always seemed to find him — and he’d startled at her presence.  

“Oh! Sorry. Rafayel, I thought I—” 

Their relationship on strained ice at the time — neither of them choosing to dig up unfulfilled childhood vows or the break of their fated thread. 

 A hastened apology she’d tripped over, for disturbing him before her eyes had flickered to the open journal in his lap and she’d breathed an awed sound. Called it beautiful — a slip of the tongue, he could tell, from her demeanor.  

They'd gotten back into conversation — albeit halting — after that.  

The moment, a pivotal one, in Rafayel allowing himself to accept her back into his life, both emotionally and physically. 

He recalls the citrus notes to her perfume as she’d tentatively seated herself by his side. The way her hair curled delicate against the curve of her cheek, beckoning Rafayel to dare a hand out and slip it back against her ear. 

The unconscious brush of soft digits against his as she’d moved to accept the proffered journal from him, when she’d asked for permission to view more of his artworks.  

The relief that had sunk into his marrow, body strung far too tight for so long — he felt each ache settle and ease, when she returned to his side. As if their bond still remained.  

As if it had never fractured in the first place. 

She moves to tug the curtains close, clipping back the last shafts of light from Rafayel’s room; his damp brow now decidedly relaxed in restless slumber, after being exposed to the heat of the sun for so long.  

He’s made a habit of drawing his windows open at night, perhaps to relieve the fevered pitch of his body off the cool breeze wafting of the sea. Restive sleeplessness; keeping him tossing until near close to dawn, when she often catches him falling, thankfully, into exhaustive sleep at the end of his long, disturbed nights.  

Rafayel had been out of sorts for nearly two weeks now; a distracted gaze and a listless stride his constant companions. Adamant and mulish in his response, at inquiring of his health, every time, that he was perfectly alright and merely plagued by the weariness of sleepless nights spent on his paintings.  

Barely a day or two into that ridiculous spectacle of his before her patience with him had expired and she’d hauled him off to his room and strong-armed him into bed.  

A rueful smile tugs at her mouth at the recollection of their silly argument then.  

“Hey, ow. Easy, you’ll break me! Aaah... too late. I think I’ve already dislocated my wrist. My life as a painter is done for. Ow.”   

“Rafayel. Shut up unless you want me to gag you as well.”  Forcing the covers over his body; she glowered at him for obedience while she hastened to take his temperature.  

Rafayel’s mouth soured deeper in distaste the longer she fretted over him. Opening his mouth, surely to protest, before she cut him off. “You’re running a low-grade fever.” 

Pressing a gentle hand over his forehead, “Please, rest now.” 

A knot twisted in between Rafayel’s brow at her plea. Threading his fingers against hers. “Alright, alright I will,” he murmured, a gentle thumb he smoothed against her furrowed brow. “So, stop making that face now.”  

His agitation at his prolonged ill-health, however, had manifested in numerous half-finished drafts and rough sketches, he’d filled sheets upon sheets of paper with, littered upon his bed.  

The subject matter of most, inexplicably similar in features; a fact that surprised her, for Rafayel had always been one for continual exploration of a wide variety of subjects in his artworks, rather than one stationary objective.  

She reaches for one such sketch now, discarded by his bedside. Predictably, it is the same subject her eyes have grown accustomed to: the graceful arch of a person’s — a woman’s — back, the cascade of her hair shrouding her gaze from view. It is ethereal, haunting. Lonely.  

And. 

She exhales an unsteady breath. Although a mere unpolished sketch, she feels Rafayel’s longing in the hastened strokes of charcoal across her visage.  An inscrutable sprout of emotion twinges at her chest each time she looks upon this faceless woman, a desire to tear her gaze away from the care put into the strokes and never look at them again and yet, it’s as if her hands are not her own, each time they sift through his sketches to reveal a new one made. She despises it, and the feeling of her selfish loathing itself. Not when she bears reason nor right to feel the way she does.  

The ring finger of her right hand throbs, an echo of her turbulent emotions manifesting in the faint red restraint flickering against the base of her digit before it winks once more out of existence. 

No.  

Her gaze instinctually jumps to Rafayel, his prone form still deep in sleep.  

She'd nearly forgotten the other reason for her undue distress these past couple of days; worry for Rafayel occupying each of her thoughts, leaving little space for much else.

She sinks, weak-kneed, onto the bed, right next to Rafayel. Carding her fingers through the soft brush of his hair, gently thumbing a line down his temple.  

She’d thought her mind was conjuring illusive tricks the first few times she’d caught that fleeting flicker of red across her finger. 

Impossible, for it had been nearly twelve years since she’d lost her bond after being forced away from Rafayel. And then, her eyes had insistently tried tracing the line of it, every time it shimmered against her finger, hoping that it would perhaps.... 

Just maybe, if a miracle were to occur— 

That it would re-connect. Back to the only person she’d ever loved. Back to him, her beautiful Lemurian. That perhaps, he’d grant her another chance. That perhaps there was a sliver of hope that Rafayel would love her back once more.  

Once more. 

 Her yearning dashed in the brutality of a truth, far too incomprehensible to her mind. 

On the day her grandmother caught sight of her glimmering thread before she’d informed her with much joy; a red thread of fate, if once severed, made an appearance once more, within the lifetime of rare, chosen… fortunate individuals. If Fate ever ordained for the individuals to find new love once more. Another love so great, it changed Fate’s threads and course itself.  

“You’re blessed, my darling girl. Most people are happy enough if they get to enjoy even one fated love throughout their lives. But you've found two in your lifetime. It is a joyous thing, my love, do not be sad. Do not weep.” 

“...Perhaps, it is time you let him — let your past go.”  

Like ice curdling within her veins. As if Fate itself were playing upon her a cruel jest. She could never. How could she ever? 

And then, her denials had crumbled entirely, shortly after that dreaded truth.  

Her oldest friend, her sole pillar when she’d lost Rafayel. The person who’d held her close and kept her heart safe—  

When she’d lie in bed all day during her earliest days, screaming from the deluging fever of her bond withering. 

—It was the day her childhood friend, her Caleb confessed.  

Even without the evidence of a corporeal bond connecting them, that had been her last straw.  

She presses her lips against Rafayel’s cheek, overwhelming emotions threatening to surge, unable to resist or hold herself in control. “I could never.” she vows under her breath, fingers stroking down the line of his cheek. “Even if you have let go of me, Rafayel, I’m—” 

She feels the roughened pads of his digits against where she touches his face, perturbed at the sudden movement. His eyes flitter, restless, beneath his lids, grasp tightening upon her wrist. “My beloved bride.”

She tries and yanks herself away from his touch, startled at his unconscious murmuring. Rafayel does not let go, nudging his cheek against the crook of her captured palm.  

“Rafayel.” She urges, her heart stuttering over its beats. “Rafayel, please wake up.”  

At long last, he listens; that beautiful, florid gaze misted with the callings of sleep still, as it focuses on her. He makes an indiscrete sound. “Is it morning already? Agh, my head hurts.” He continues to nuzzle his face against her palm.  

“R-Rafayel! Hey!” She winces, hand unbearably hot within his hold. “Let go of me now. If you’re up, have some breakfast instead. You need the energy, dummy.” 

“Don’t want to let you go. Pamper me more.” And yet, he refuses to heed her lukewarm pleas, extremely wilful in his post-sleep, feverish daze.  

She huffs out a breathless laugh, her apprehension ebbing, gentle, into silence the longer she feels his warmth against her.  

Maybe she is allowed to indulge just a bit longer.  

 VII. EBB 

An errant thread and an inexplicable long spell of heat, as if trudging up a steep path, burgeoning fast towards an inevitable destination he could not quite clutch at. Unsolicited suspicions, as to the true nature of his predicament, incessantly rapping at his thoughts.  

Rafayel feels that dour twist to his brow; darkening his features at the wheeling course of his mind. 

 She’s caught him in similar moods since his “illness” commenced, more times than he can count. The endless time afforded his way, involuntarily threading his thoughts to places he doesn’t wish to visit. He doesn’t wish, ever, to alarm or upset her, setting to ease her thoughts the moment worry mars her features, testing index and middle against the sharp knot at her forehead before his attentions — and hers — are compelled entirely her way.  

That is also something that has shifted in between them, into something entirely different. He’s been unusually attuned to her for the duration of his peculiar period of ill-health.  

She has always been his primary muse, the focal point where all of Rafayel’s tangled thoughts find eventual and inevitable convergence. However, somehow, all of those sensibilities have turned sharper, impossibly aware of... her.  

Unconsciously turning to placations the moment he comprehends her distress. Choosing to bury, in turn; soothe the heat of his body within the scent of hers. Her hands on him when she fusses to take his temperature, her clothes, he takes a surreptitious, lungful breath of, when she moves close to towel the fevered sweat off his body. Truly, he does not understand what is wrong with him.  

Two weeks in now and his need for answers has driven him to near madness. He’s loathe to admit he must consult one, perhaps, more knowledgeable on the subject than he.  

He paces into the lounge, heavy in thought, fingers worrying at the phone in hand. 

“Oh, you’re up. Are you feeling any better?”  Just as she calls over to him from the kitchen counter.  

“Of course,” he fibs, tucking the phone back into the pocket of his trousers. He ambles over to her, dressed neat in her trainee uniform as she works a paring knife around an apple. “What’re you doing?”  

“You should have something healthy to eat while I’m away.”  

“Ah.” He plucks a piece of fruit off the plate next to her, eyeing the peculiar shape. “So, you decided to cut me some apple bunnies.”  The corners of his mouth drag into a skewed grin. “I am not a child, cutie.”  

She makes an inflated motion of surprise, pressing a hand against her chest. “Really?”  

And when he rolls his eyes at her, “Of course you aren’t,” she grins. “I’ve never met any children as stubborn as you.”  

“Cheeky.” He flicks a gentle hand against her forehead.  

His eyes skim towards the wall clock and back towards her neatly pressed outfit. “You have an on-field Hunter’s exam this afternoon, don’t you? You’ll be late if you dawdle any longer. Besides, I can feed myself just fine.”  

She startles a bit as her eyes, too, take note of the hour. Hastily shoving the plate of her fresh cut fruit into his hands. “Alright, I’ll leave. You better eat, then rest up. Don’t exert yourself, alright?”  

She steps past the counter. “Come, Kiki.” A white dutiful ball of fur capers up to her as soon as she calls. Rafayel hedges further against the counter just as the white ball tumbles into her waiting arms.  

“There, what a good girl you are!” She croons over the cat, petting at that little fiend pet of her friend’s. She rises to her feet. 

“I’ll drop her off at Tara’s before heading to the centre.”  

“Good riddance,” Rafayel mutters, blenching just as she moves closer with the cat still in her arms.  

“Rude, I’m sad to see her go so soon.” She pulls a glum face at him.  “Do you want to pet her goodbye before she leaves and you start missing her?”  

“I won’t,” He dissents, even as he braves the tips of his fingers against Kiki’s head in a cautious scritch before snapping his hand right back. “Bye, white menace.”  

Rafayel’s moue of specious disapproval turns deeper with her knowing grin. “Let’s go now that you’ve said your farewells to Uncle Rafayel.” She kisses the top of the cat’s head as it purrs in elated satisfaction at her attentions. 

He quirks a flippant brow at her. “All affections for the furry feline, I see.” 

She laughs, the sound an aching balm against long-wrought nerves. “Why, is my fish jealous of a little kitten? Come here, then.”  

“I am not—!” He sputters, just as her hand curves about the back of his neck and pulls downward, pressing a quick kiss to his forehead.  

The previously simmering, barely tamped warmth of his body bursts forth with a brilliant vengeance, his skin set ablaze at just the graze of her touch. Rafayel has to actively constrain himself from keeling over entirely on the floor from his sudden deluge of emotions. Has to curb the quiver of his arms from wanting to steal that heat back against his body.  

She draws back, just as swift, on her feet. The pink of her cheeks is infectious, enticing. Rafayel stares at her, mute and slack-jawed, even as she backs out of the kitchen and through the front door. “I’ll see you tonight, my little fish!” And then he’s left to his own spiraling thoughts.  

Ah. Rafayel scrubs agitated palms down the length of his face in the ensuing silence of their home. His scarlet thread burns incandescent in his hind-vision, flittering in its sporadic expansion. If only she knew how entirely ruined he was at her feet, alone.  

VIII. FLOW  

“You rejected Caleb’s confession?”  

She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t anticipated Tara’s baffled outburst.  

It was part of the reason why she chose to reveal the ‘news’ to her this unceremoniously, as she gently eased Kiki over into Tara’s arms while they stood at her open front door. She adored Tara but was of no mind to be sat down at length while her best friend grilled the details out of her.  

Not ready for the difficult conversations that would ensue; of her past grievances, the break of her fated thread and how she dreaded, within a dark crevice of her heart, that Caleb might turn out to be the one her Fate was once more, trying to bind her to. How could she even begin to delineate it wasn’t what she wanted?  

No, she wasn’t ready for that conversation with Tara, at all.  

“I’m going to be late for my exam, Tara.” She gives her a contrite smile.  

“Yes, I know, sorry, darling, but… why? I really thought things were well between you too. And I was sure there was something going on—! I— can’t you say?” Her friend’s gaze is weighty, imploring. “Is there... someone else?” Her eyes widen. “Is it—” 

And the longer she’s met with terse silence, the heat of her gaze wanes in gradual realization before, at last, she retreats her onslaught, a troubled groan leaving her lips. “At least tell me you’re alright. I’ve been worried about you.”  

“I know, Tara, I’m sorry. I’m perfectly fine.” She gives her free hand a squeeze before withdrawing back a few steps. “I should really go now.”  

Tara loses another sigh. “You really should. Promise we’ll catch up later?”  

“I promise.” She raises her hand in farewell, jogging down the few steps to her house.  

Tara calls out to her just as she reaches the foot of her stairs. “Good luck, girl! I’m cheering for you.”  

She flashes her friend an appreciative smile.  

With Tara, she really can’t be sure if she meant her encouragement for her qualifying physical exam. Or something else entirely.  

Knowing her friend, it was probably both.  

She reaches the examination centre just under the wire, right as the towering gates to the grounds swing shut behind her and two other late-comers.  

Toggling open her Hunter’s Watch, she hastens to join the formation up ahead of several other students, already lined in neat rows for their on-field Wanderers exam. Sidling in place, into her empty spot, just as the instructor in front drones on the list of rules for the exam, from upon his podium. “You are to form pairs of two, as per your roll numbers and enter your designated Protofields, to commence your exam. Before you begin, make sure...” 

He goes over the structures of the regulations one by one, detailing what actions would mete them points and what would deduct them in case of improper conduct.  

“These Protofields have been simulated under intensively controlled environments and contain a plethora of C and B-grade Wanderers you are to deal with, within the desired time limit. Coordinate with your partner, watch each other’s backs and follow all routine safety regulations. Violators will be disqualified on the spot.” He continues. “Keep within bounds of all marked fields, maintain your senses and you should do well. Lastly, trust your education and the skills you have acquired over the course of these years via means of your perseverance and hard work. May you reign victorious, young Hunters!” With his final words, the crowd disperses, heading towards their designated spots for their exams. 

She taps her fingers against her Hunter’s Watch, pulling up the specifications of the Protofield she is to clear, before setting out. 

“Gabriel? Hi.” She calls to her team-mate as she moves to join him, recognizing the man from the same class division as hers.  

He returns her greeting, the two setting to sync their data via their watches within the final minute countdown before their exam commences. The flux nexus, in front, pulses to life upon confirmation of both their identities, filtering its pre-programmed wavelength to project upon the barren field. A kaleidoscopic flitter of energy wheeling across the space once is their only indication of a protofield activated, before the two step forwards, cautious, weapons at the ready.  

“No.” Rafayel’s jaw steels in chagrin, hearing the resigned, gentle finality of the words on the other end of the line.  

“Rafayel...” Talia coaxes.  

“I said no. You’re wrong.” He gnashes out, even as the heat simmers, muggy and suffocating, within his body. Even as he continues to deny the indubitable truth of her words.  

For if he did, he would have to face the looming fate of another horrifying possibility.  

The regret of asking for Talia’s help sits heavy within his throat. Facts she utters in such certitude, it leaves Rafayel irrationally agitated. He knows it is not her fault.  

 He hears her soft sigh on the other end of the line. “You told me you’ve been suffering these bouts of ‘fever’ since the past two weeks, an ‘illness’ that refuses to abate and that your...” She pauses, as if seeking words best to voice her next. “incomplete thread has been showing sporadic signs as of late.” 

“Yes.” His voice is quiet, stiff. 

“Rafayel, you’re experiencing early symptoms of an oncoming rut and you know it. You feel it. You didn’t need to call me, when you’re well-informed on the matter yourself, even if you’ve never experienced it before.” She pauses.  “The only reason you reached out to me is that you wanted me to validate your suspicions, isn’t that right?” 

He does not respond to her astute observation.

“An unmated Lemurian cannot experience sexual cycles the same way as a bonded Lemurian. And as you are well-aware, my thread was long severed.” He refutes, contemptuous. “You know what, forget I asked. You clearly don’t understand what’s wrong with me any better than I do. Sorry for crashing your honeymoon. Goodbye, Talia.”  

“Is your thread truly severed, Rafayel?” Her voice rings, solemn, from the other end of the line, just as Rafayel moves to disconnect the call. He pauses, gaze involuntarily skewing towards his lengthening line of red thread. The frown in between his brow turns severe, as if being coerced to witness a sight against his will.  

“You’re experiencing a re-connection and you’re not allowing yourself the happiness that comes with new love. It’s a rare and beautiful thing, for your red fate to find itself weaved against a new person you would cherish.”  

Rafayel does not have the resolve to discredit her words despite his vehement disagreement; having known her experience the loss of her first love, the agony of her days after. And only years later, had she allowed herself to love once more, a happiness Rafayel was content to stand in observance to, glad at her well-deserved peace.   

He, however, was different from Talia. He’d rather his Fate dissipate entirely than for it to wind itself against a stranger. He was different, for Rafayel knew he would never love again, never cherish another, no matter the decades in between.  

For him, there would never be anyone else. 

A transitory pressure curdles heavy about her shoulders as they pace past the barrier and into the protofield. The familiarity of their training grounds dwindles away, large looming falls of thick trees rising, ominous, to blot the skies. Blanketing twilight, instantaneous, overhead. A slow, sweeping curl of gray, mists about their feet, soaking into the dank ground beneath. 

Beside her, she hears Gabriel’s apprehensive breaths. “I can never get used to this.”  

Weapons at the ready, they trudge a slow, cautious path through the simulated wilderness. Gnarled branches seize and snick at their clothes, the craggy mire beneath, a strenuous trudge to keep upright through; as if the forest itself were alive with wicked intent.  

Gabriel’s firearm is the first to go off in a thunderous shot, breaking a flock of obsidian birds to startle into the skies. She follows suit, breaking into a dash along with him; the dark, hunched figure of a fleet-footed Wanderer she aims her gun at and fires, the shot catching it right against its head. The creature lurches forwards onto its body in a seething screech of sound, following its crackling demise into a spoor of pungent smoke.  

The two maintain their steady pace of weeding the area of Wanderers, most they’re able to dispatch with ease. Reflexes and hard ingrained years of training coming into play, the more battles they win through, setting into an easy rhythm of partnership.  

The Wanderer Gabriel skews his sword through in a final thrust, disintegrates into smoke with a rattling gurgle.  She pauses to survey their surroundings, the deep, metallic skies yet to dissipate entirely: indication of a cleared exam. Up ahead, she spies a peculiar forking at the path, the protofield seeming to disperse into dense, murky mist past the intersection. Gabriel flicks the blood off his sword, moving to join her. “Strange.” 

“Yeah. I don’t think low grade Wanderers can distort protofields to this extent.” She agrees. 

“Likely an A grade, at least. Shouldn’t be harder than what we’ve handled so far.” He pauses. “Besides the fact that this one seems like it can replicate itself into weaker copies, judging from the splice it’s created in the field.” 

She frowns at his conclusion, likely accurate. There shouldn’t be an A grade on the loose within a junior hunter’s exam, to begin with; a Wanderer class reserved only for the final year senior field exam. Signals are, as expected sparse, this deep within the protofield, and with an A grade, at hand, tampering the protofield, the possibility of communications being established sits non-existent, at present. She drops a distress signal onto the Hunter’s site, regardless, moving to join him at the fork.  

“We’ll have to clear out the Wanderer, either way, if we want to leave this protofield.” She swipes her empty magazine for a new one, securing it fast back into her gun.  

“Right.” Gabriel’s own fist tightens against the hilt of his sword. “You take the right, I’ll take the left? The distortion should be obliterated on its own once we eliminate all of its copies. I’ll see you soon, partner.”  

“Right back at you. Good luck.”  

Gabriel flashes a flimsy grin at her before treading onto the left path. A swift heavy oppression belts massive across the field, the compression settling a deafening din to her ears. “Hah, Gabriel, wait—” 

But it’s too late. Her partner’s form, long digested by the roiling clouds of black before she can call him back.  

Something’s not right. An A-grade Wanderer shouldn’t be able to exert that kind of pressure. 

An electromagnetic resonance tremors across the space, as if something rattles at the confines of the protofield from beyond. Wanting in.  

Sweat gathers clammy and unpleasant across the back of her neck, her eyes skittering back towards where Gabriel vanished into the murk.  

She firms a hand around her gun, steeling her spine for courage. Whatever anomaly has occurred within the premises of their exam can be dealt with later. Her first priority; to help Gabriel out in eliminating all of the A-grade's clones and dissipating the distortion in front before they planned their next move. And help would arrive soon, once transmission allowed her distress signal to go through, they just had to hold on until then; she reassures herself.  

Moving forward to stride past the muted obsidian barrier at her right.  

The dark cloak of the Wanderer’s protofield washes across her skin like skidding, frigid fingers of emptiness, it spills an involuntary shiver down her spine.  

The cold, metallic spires of the protofield taper off into the void overhead as she steps onto the main field. A skittering figure, one, two, three; lunge, whip-swift, towards her as soon as they spot her, gaping maws and needle teeth poised to tear into her before her fight or flight reflexes jam in. She empties a volley of bullets into their bodies, sieving clean through the approaching Wanderers. Lobs of inhumane flesh, dissipating as soon as they hit the ground.  

Several far smaller figures melt out of the darkness to aim their attacks at her; one after the other she takes down in swift shots. Breaths trembling harsh and hot, her heart hammering over its frantic beats the longer the fight persists.  

A fatigued mistake; being mere seconds slow to switch her empty gun for another, costs her a hard, long gash sliced through the sleeve of her shoulder by the remaining Wanderer. Fire licks up across her arm in a sudden shock of pain, muted instantaneously underneath the roiling pump of adrenaline. She wrenches a dagger off her leg strap. Twisting her torso about to bring her uninjured arm up in a sharp arc, furiously tearing a split through the last Wanderer with a fierce yell and the remnants of her fraying stamina.  

The Wanderer’s remains snivel into a fire just as it hits the ground, the cool, metallic gloom giving way to the unraveling edges of the original forest once more. 

And just as her eyes adjust to the shadows of the protofield once more, she catches sight of a figure slumped upon the grass, unmoving. “Gabriel!” She yells, forcing her limbs underneath her through the pained grit of bared teeth. Clutching hard at her arm to stopper the slow rivulets of blood flow seeping from the gash before she stumbles across the grass towards the man.  

Her Hunter’s Watch blinks, in indication of a transmission successful — her distress signal. Collapsing to her knees at Gabriel’s side just as her watch flares to life in blaring red, an ominous warning running across the screen.  

S-Grade: Deluge Wyrmlord.   Protofield type: Memory Distortion Solo Hunters, do not engage.  

Her mouth runs dry at the far calls of her name—  

“Special Grade—!” Gabriel’s voice resounds just from across the field. “—Run!” 

The collapsed figure at her feet assimilating into thin air, a trick blanketed over her weary mind, by the workings of a high-class Wanderer.  

She feels that intense bone-crushing pressure creep across her back once more, her breath coming through in fits of raspy air. Fixing the barrel of her gun back across her shoulder, she fires, just as a great, dark talon comes across her face, drowning her in darkness.

The call has barely disconnected when Rafayel tosses the phone aside, staggering onto his feet under the heated weight of his body. His eyes drift — an involuntary reflex — towards that squeamish glow of red, his thread flickering in and out of sight, the extended length of it, an alarming sight. Vexation ticks harsh at his jaw.  

Before he’s able to reign control, the spits of a brilliant vermillion fire spurt forth from tapered digits, rushing across the incorporeal red string, in an effort to blaze the blasted thing off of him entirely.  

The fire dissipates, harmless, as expected, with the absence of a pure solid medium to burn. His thread glimmers to life once more, as if deriding Rafayel with its presence.  

Beyond agitated, fervent digits pluck upwards, summoning his Evol to life for a stronger burst of energy —   

A sudden inundating contraction pierces in vengeance across his heart, sending a bolt of excruciating pain lancing through his chest. Rafayel flounders; violently pitching to his knees from the intensity of its sensations. His breaths are hard to smother past lungs that burn for oxygen and yet refuse to inhale. 

Red throbs, vivid and urgent, across his ring finger, as if the call of a terrible siren, knelling of ill-fate and destruction.  

His own fire, begs to consume, hurtling across his skin, a throat that chokes from the fervid heat of his bond, threatening to annihilate him entirely. He feels his humane features molding against the translucent glimmer of cerulean scales, his human form scattering in response to the irrefragable call of his bond, his mate.  

She’s in danger. 

Alarming apprehension dawns upon his mind, the sole thought of her throttling his mind, his oath promised, urging to call upon the one person her thread connects to, a Fate irrefutable, a bond everlasting.  

No. 

A savage inferno tears across Rafayel’s body — scarlet and florid licks of fire — until it engulfs him entirely, leaving nothing in its wake.  

Silence is all that remains behind. 

IX. EBB  [TW for this chapter: passing mentions of domestic abuse]

White peels back from her field of vision; slowly revealing to her the dreary, stifling atmosphere of an incredibly familiar room. A young girl stands amidst a crowd of mourning adults, some in loud tears. Others who secrete their faces into handkerchiefs and shake their heads in dismay at the “poor orphan”. Nausea wrestles pungent within her belly at the sight.  

Her gaze, involuntarily shepherded, past the throng of mourners and towards the picture of the deceased — she knows that face before she sees it — her absent father who had often left her to her own devices, save for the times he was not actively trying to assault her with stray bottles of alcohol, laying in plain sight or the utensils and plates she used to serve his meals, on days he wore down all of their expenses for another swig of tepid, cheap alcohol.  

She knows the child in front of her now feels neither sadness nor remorse as people who call themselves her relatives step over, one after the other, offering words of specious pity and solace she has no use of.  

It was also the day she’d met her Grandma for the first time.  

The scene in front falls out from beneath her feet, traded for the sounds of defeated shrieks and futile violence in the tiny fists that try and shove off the social workers, from bodily dragging her away from the familiarity of her old house. The young girl screams and screams for Rafayel, begs them not to take her away, that she doesn’t want to live with her Grandma several cities across the seas; a gap so wide, how would she ever find the only person who had meant the entire world to her, once more? She hadn’t even told him she was leaving. They wouldn’t let her leave the house, for fear she might run away.  

Her head throbs in vicious pain, ominous tendrils of rooted fire curling through the recesses of her brain as she watches the girl’s — her — futile resistance. 

A gibbering shadow skates past the edges of her vision. She feels like she’s forgetting something direly important, skirting just past the edge of memory. 

The young girl never told the adults around her of the young Lemurian boy — bonded though they were. She knew of the dark whispers that coiled through the cesspool she lived within, how the Lemurians were a species, well-coveted for how steeply priced their bodies sold for, within the black market. 

Her fierce possession and numbing worry for her vulnerable Lemurian had kept her from ever revealing her thread in another’s presence. For how had any of the adults stepped up to be her protectors, ever, in the young girl’s life? She trusted no one, save for herself and her sole mer-friend. She'd promised him they’d stay together forever; she’d vowed upon the sole pair of glimmering seashells, they’d found sanded within their beach, that she’d marry him when they grew up. She had— 

Obsidian smoke curls about her limbs, seeps into her lungs; a slow, poisonous ingestion. The deep, dark dreary roar of a beast sounds from afar, within the recesses of her memories.  

“You abandoned me.” She whips on her heel, coming face to face with her young Lemurian, eyes listless, lightless.  

“No.” She totters away from the horror of her nightmares manifested.  

An ice-cold hand wraps about her torn sleeve, digits digging deep into her wound. She cries out in instinctive pain, wrenching at her arm in an effort to free it. Her wild gaze meets Rafayel’s. Older, far frigid; the present Rafayel looks at her with an insouciant emptiness, it tears at the heart bruising within her chest. “You abandoned me,” he repeats.  

His hand jams about her throat, lifting her clean off her feet. She throttles violently within his grasp, breaths coming in rapid, tapering hisses. “And then, like the rest of those shameless humans, you thought it wise to appear before my eyes once more.” The pressure upon her wind-pipe increases, bit by bit, forcing tears into wide, panicked eyes. “You wanted to capture me too, didn’t you? You're just like the rest of them.” Rafayel’s just ire, cleaves like knives shoved right beneath her breastbone, bleeding out her heart. 

It’s an illusion, Rafayel would never. A stray whisper catches at her ears.  

“Would I really never? Well, aren't your thoughts so convenient. Admit it, you’ve always known.” Rafayel’s gaze is dark in barely tamped wrath and disgust. “I despise you, you and all your kind.” 

“R-Rafayel...” The dull, grey curl of smoke — previously shifting in wait at the edges of her vision — approaches nearer, her defences swiftly waning underneath his assault. Fingers, she scraps bloody against his grip upon her throat, and yet he refuses to relent.  

“It would be better for you to perish here, no? You'll leave me free to live my own life then. I would no longer be shackled to you like some pet.”  

“Y-You were never—” 

A furious scarlet fire splinters a path through Rafayel — his body distorts out of existence for a moment before he gathers form once more. A surprised brow he raises in question at the interference.  

“Snap out of it!”  

Rafayel?  

Her swimming gaze hones in on her beloved, from across the indifferent Rafayel’s shoulder, surely another wraith of her mind; wide blown panic, turbulent within his gaze.  

“What do you think you’re doing believing that sham?” Another burst of Evol sparks across his fingers, aimed at the other Rafayel.  

“You must trust me, believe in me alone.” Another volley of enraged fire skewers through the Rafayel holding her captive — cleaving past him harmless — the latter views him as if he were an offending impediment. “That thing is not me. It’s trying to devour you!” 

“Shut up,” the colder Rafayel speaks, hand jamming tighter against her throat, causing precious breaths to come through stuttered wheezes.  

The other Rafayel steps forward, a desperate hand he holds outstretched for her; an electromagnetic interference rippling about his body, stalling his further motions. “You have to believe the truth in front of your eyes — believe me — to be free of its prison. I have never, not for a moment, held our past against you.”  

“An imposter,” the cruel one says.  

Rafayel drives another step forwards, through the whipping waves of the scape’s resistance, snicking wounds across his jaw, tearing at his clothes. “I don’t regret meeting you.” The gentle azure of his gaze sparks vivid in a deluge of emotions; misery, panic and hopeful sincerity commingling. You were — you have always been my greatest joy, my only muse.” 

The Rafayel that holds her captive bites out an inhumane bark, eyes fading swiftly into obsidian. “I hate you, I’ve always hated you.”  

“Do you remember,” Rafayel urges, heaving another step closer. “the seashells you used to weave into necklaces and put on me when we first met? You told me they made me seem as brilliant as a Sea God, your Sea God, when you did.”A splintered laugh escapes his mouth at the recollection. “Even when I told you the ocean’s gods didn’t wear necklaces made of shells.” 

His voice breaks, emotions raw and desperate within the throaty catch of it, dragging her down the spiral of fond memories. “And the songs you used to hum for us in that odd, off-note voice when you were happy, you’ve retained that silly habit long even into your adult years now.”  

Emotions spurt and tumble free-fall from the inky desolation of her heart, tearing open at the seams of doubts and guilt.  

“And when you are mad, the reckless storm that gathers at your face is endearing. When you forgive me just as easily, the smile that lights your face...” 

A distant rumble sounds through the scape of your illusions, world crumbling apart at the seams.  

“I remember it all, like irreplaceable ornaments, treasures. Without you, I—” He bites back, harsh, at his words. The curious blue sheen across his face, glimmers. 

Eyes that glisten in moisture that threatens to seep past damp lashes; Rafayel’s eyes fall shut in a scraped plea.  

Emotions fueled by the catch of a distraught mind though he were, his words snag, painful, at her throat, springing tears to flow free-fall, at the comfort of his tender confessions. She, too, remembered all there was to know about him, her Rafayel, because of how she adored him. His words and steadfast affection seeping gentle into her mind now, in swift recollection. 

The great, dark beast in front has long shed its false skins, rattling useless in the face of her realization; it wrenches away from her body as if burned. “Pestilent humans.” As it flees entirely from the scape of illusions, great, dark fractures spilling up the space with its departure. 

She drops towards the disintegrating floor, once released, heaving in great lungfuls of air. Rafayel — the wraith of her mind — lunges forward, snatching her body mid-air against his as they fall, with the demolition of the Wanderer’s illusions shattered from her mind.  

A deluging rush of remembrance; the exam, the Wanderer, of being dragged into darkness by the Deluge Wyrmlord tumbles back into a now clear mind. 

And this Rafayel, having stood witness to all her memories.  

He lands on nimble feet, upon the now revealed protofield of the Wanderer; the weight of his Evol, she feels, scatter into the air.  

“You’re injured.” He mourns softly, fingers glancing gentle against the abrasion of her throat from where the Wanderer choked her, down her bruised arm, the blood long staunched in dark red across the cut. 

“I’ll be fine.” She cradles his face within a careful palm, face softening in overwhelming gratitude. If only she, too, could tell him how much she truly loved him. 

Rafayel makes a skeptical sound of disapproval. A hand, he sifts up into her hair and curls about the back of her head. “Hold still.” And before she can finally think to question why a figment of her mind still persists outside the cast illusion, Rafayel is pressing his lips against hers, mouth moving to part hers until she feels warmth flow into her, the shock of his actions making her throat swallow around him on instinct. 

The dull throb at her arm, the cuts and bruises across her aching legs — breaths that seep in easier, with the patched abrasions of her throat — give way to strength as she witnesses her wounds stitch up, in disbelieving surprise. 

“A Lemurian’s essence holds healing properties,” He breathes, heated against her lips. “our tears, saliva—” He pauses. “You’ll feel better soon.” The fever of his skin beneath her grasping fingertips, his shallow breaths come in quick; the flush across his cheekbones feels much too corporeal to be mere figment of her imagination. 

Her eyes widen in disbelief, mind refusing to comprehend his presence. Restless hands tracing the shape of his firm body underneath hers; his neck, the strength of his shoulders, down the unyielding expanse of a solid chest. 

It just couldn’t be. 

“Are you... real?” She slips a palm about the curve of his cheek, index and finger pinching at the flesh. “You can’t be real, you can’t be here.” 

Rafayel chokes on an incredulous laugh. “What an inane question, can’t you tell, silly girl?” He sounds offended. 

A plethora of questions tumble within her mind as Rafayel bumps his forehead up against hers, moisture glistening like pearls upon his cheeks. “I can sense you. And I felt it, when I nearly lost you.” He grits out the words, chagrined; breath hitching in pain as if reliving a nightmare. 

Her heart shrivels at his admission, aching gaze tracing the outline of his Lemurian features. “But, I... I don’t understand. You look so different, Rafayel, what—” 

A great ominous roar sounds from the center of the protofield, the Wanderer now having recovered from its short rebuttal of having been torn away from its prey.  

Rafayel lets her down onto her feet cautiously. Taking her hand in his, his skin sits unbearably warm against hers, “Questions later. We have to get rid of that Wanderer right now. Come on.” 

She nods at him, the two turning to face the Wanderer before they fixate their stance. Hurtling forth in tandem towards the approaching monster; weapons materializing within firm fists. 

They rush, as one, at the large winged creature, aiming right against the base of its great talons. A shield thrown upon the Wanderer, comes half-way down with their first assault.  

Back against his, she feels him tackle down the monster’s onslaught of weaker Wanderers, unearthly fire blazing away at its minions. A shimmering, amethyst line of fetters gathers form with his Evol, to grasp about the Wanderer’s body as it rages. She feels his breaths coming in harsher, feels the way he tightens his body through each motion of offense against their enemy — in no condition to be fighting off a high-class Wanderer with the weight of his sickness slowing him down.  

She captures Rafayel’s wrist in hers, jolting him backwards. Lunging in front of him to take the Wanderer’s next full-bodied assault. “Rely on me, I’ll fight for us both!” She calls to him over her shoulder. 

She catches his mute moment of surprise, out the corner of her eye before he bursts into quiet laughter. “What a reliable bodyguard.” Curving a palm about her shoulder, his Evol, she feels resonating against hers in harmony. “But if you insist.” Weaving their Evols together to strengthen; the dark fetters that plunge forwards this time, chain about the Wanderer’s girth, firmer, breaking clean through another of its shields.  

The Wyrmlord screeches in crazed agony, ramming a heavy appendage straight for them. The two lunge in opposing directions to avoid the assault; Rafayel, a split second too slow to dodge as its claws catch at the side of his abdomen, tearing at his shirt.  

He hurtles heavily onto the ground, body rolling across the Protofield before he swiftly catches himself, teetering back on to unsteady legs. His pants come in harsher, the scales across his face glimmering in fevered sweat; his body’s condition holding him back.

“Rafayel!” She calls for him on an urgent shout, rushing the Wanderer from its side, to cleave clean through its shield of defense. “Don’t push yourself anymore and stay back! You aren’t well!” 

He shakes his head at her, holding his body high once more. His shallow wound, she sees, stitch up soon after, the incandescent cerulean glow of his scales striking against his features. “It’s not what you think it is.” Rafayel streaks forward just as the Wanderer attempts to take flight for a sweeping offensive. 

He springs for the monster, using the momentum of his run, punting hard off its body; vicious chains of static purple zipping through it, to bring it crashing down onto the ground. The Wanderer’s remaining shield shattered in one critical hit, bringing it down in a violent collision of great, dark wings and a massive scaled body, vulnerable to damage.  

“Now! Rafayel instructs. Coalescing the bulk of his powers into the clench of a fist, he lunges for the Wanderer; her own movements, complimenting against his. Raising their weapons up high, their Evols converge against the other’s in a final, galvanic purple blast of energy. 

The Wanderer screeches one final sound of agony before it skitters lifeless at the ground, its disintegration setting into tattered fragments of energy.

The protofield around them begins to wane, jagged shards of breakage appearing across the domed surface of it, as soon as the Wanderer falls. 

“It’s over.” She exhales, relief plucking sharp across the back of her breastbone.

“Let me take… a moment to catch my breath.” And with the sheer adrenaline of the fight holding him up now, gone, so too does Rafayel’s strength ebb from him entirely, as he pitches onto his feet. “Rafayel!”  Just as she dives forward to catch him within her arms before his body hits the ground. “Hey!”  

Rafayel’s breathing harder, the sweat that dampens his brow far more pronounced with the appearance of his Lemurian features, glimmering scales gradually fanning wider across his skin. “Stay with me, it’s over.”

And then she sees it, the flittering of vivid red, burning against his ring finger. Pulsing harsher with each labored sound of breath he endures through and her breath frosts within her lungs.

She feels the distant pattering of approaching footsteps just as Rafayel’s hot palm curves about her wrist in a possessive hold. “We have to get out of here. I need to get home.”  

The frantic calls of her name echo across the field; she lifts her head to catch sight of a pale-faced Gabriel, waving his hands at her from just across the area. She shouts at him to stay where he is, cradling Rafayel closer to her torso for fear of his scales being seen. 

In this moment, she cannot bring herself to care for anything except providing what Rafayel needs; the frenetic urgency to his words enough to have her obeying without questions asked.  

Calling for her teammate, once more, to let the others know they were both alright and that she’d be back at a later time before Rafayel urges her thoughts back to himself.

“That’s... enough. Come now.” He moans within her embrace, just as Gabriel utters an unintelligible question of confusion. Her Lemurian’s fingers spasming against hers, “Hold tight.” he grinds out, before they’re both engulfed in a florid sea of fire.  

X. FLOOD 

The two of them come crashing onto a hard, polished surface; Rafayel’s arms tightening about her body in protection, just as his shoulder connects with the floor, with their fall. Deposited into the empty safety of his room — she notes in shock — by his Evol already shriveling out of existence.  

He shudders in visible pain beneath her, just as she scrabbles to get off his body. “I’m sorry—” The ferocity of his strength, however, hauls her back, bodies crushed against each in a firm, searing line. 

Rafayel’s pants rattle hot against the skin of her neck; the harsh rise and fall of his chest, she feels burn against her own, even through their clothes. He keeps them enclosed within that sweltering space of silence for several, long moments. 

Reaching her fingers out to comb through his unruly hair, in comfort, the adrenaline of their fight having fast shifted into worry for his health.  

Why had he decided to come after her in the fevered state he was in? How had he even known to come for her? The questions, unanswered, careened about in an endless cycle within her mind. 

Her Rafayel shifts, face sinking deeper against her breasts. Nosing, delicate, at the space exposed by her open collar as he inhales, long. His previous labored breaths seemingly soothed in her proximity, as he continues to breathe her in.

Her next gasp soughs past her lips on a catch of barely tamped sound, Rafayel’s gaze rolls up to meet hers — hot and piercing.  

“Rafayel,” She cups a hand about his warm cheek. “Let’s get you off the floor now, you’ll worsen your fever.”  

He knocks his cheek further into the space of her palm, lashes quivering shut, in comfort. “I told you... it’s not a fever ruining my body.” He repeats the words he’d uttered to her back in the Protofield.  

“It’s you.” Her mind jostles to a screeching halt.  

“What?” 

Rafayel’s body tightens beneath hers, the lean strength of his arms coming about to lift, with an ease entirely unexpected of a sick man. He moves them both onto the expanse of his bed, seating himself down, with her firm on his lap. “I’ve been going through these feverish bouts because you’ve been calling for me.” He heaves. “I’d never experienced them before because we’d never—” his words break. Rafayel’s fingers slip a slow, cautious path along the base of her spine, it makes her shiver above him. “I could’ve lost you,” he murmurs, “back there.” Hauling her close once more to sink his face into the crook of a tense shoulder as he breathes her in deep.

“I’m here now, I’m fine.” She soothes a gentle palm down the line of his back, the mild quivers that take it, muted into rest with her strokes. “Thank you for coming for me earlier.”

“Of course I did.” His grip upon her body tightens. “You called for me.” 

She rakes her fingers through his hair. “I... did not call for you, Rafayel. Even if I did, it’s impossible for you to have heard—”  

“Silly girl.” He captures her hand within his hair, entwining his fingers in between hers. “Do you not see?” Bringing their palms up close together for her to witness—

Red flitters about her ring finger, vivid — her heart jostles over its beats — the line of it longer and far corporeal, glimmering within the dark of his room, spiraling an undulating path up, up.  

Finding its other half, caught against the base of Rafayel’s finger. Her breath seizes within her throat at the sight, wary gaze tracing the line of the previously absent thread against their fingers. Not daring to believe the implications of the sight and what Rafayel too was saying. “How could this— I thought we were—”

“A Lemurian’s very being is set to perceive their beloved, in their entire capacity. Without exception.” He brings their entwined fists up to his mouth, feathering a kiss onto her knuckles apiece. “And I have not changed since the first moment I met you.”  

The heat of his words is within her head, the frenzied hammering of her heart within her throat. She dares not breathe too loud, dares not speak for fear of this precious moment shattering. The inference of his words could not be clearer and yet. A fleeting recollection of the Wanderer’s cast illusion comes to mind, the cold Rafayel’s unforgiving gaze flashing against hers.  

“Has your heart then... changed?” He asks, the wavering azure of his gaze fixated firm upon hers.

She caresses the back of her fingers against his cheek, down the line of his jaw. “It has not, not for a single moment in all these years but—” She whispers. But could you ever forgive me for leaving you on your own? 

“I’m not asking you for anything beyond that. I don’t care for it.” He shifts a thumb against the line of her lips dampened with a nervous swipe of her tongue. “I’m asking to know if the woman I love is willing to accept me again.”  

Her breath hitches within her throat. Turbulent emotions burst forth within her chest at his words, a sweet ache quivering at the back of her breastbone, the magnitude of his words she isn’t able to comprehend. Unable to believe the words she’s been wanting to hear him say, all this time, leaving that beautiful mouth. 

She surges forward onto his lap, desperate to answer the man who’s entrusted his heart so keenly into her hands. “I never stopped in the first place.” She speaks, adamant. Her fingers brush at his face, down the length of his neck to hold. The pads of them grazing the beauty of his scales, glimmering within the moonlight that shafts into the quiet dark of his room through the gauzy curtains. “I’ve loved only you all these years and by god, Rafayel, I don’t think I could ever love anyone but you.” She’s out of breath and dizzy in love, it’s a feeling she never wants to clamber out of, if it means he’d continue to look at her, just the way he is now.

She hears the audible throttle of his breath; a low, anguished sound, as if she’d told him something he’d considered entirely impossible. Rafayel had seemed so sure of her feelings, and yet, he looks at her now, with a relieved sort of devotion and desire. “Which god?” His whisper is sultry, his gaze along with the heat of his skin beneath have her feeling faint within his embrace, the flex of his arm tightening its hold about her waist.  

She tips her head closer, her lips shaping her answer a mere breadth from his. “My Rafayel, my own Sea God.” She braves a kiss against his mouth. “I love you.” She confesses, “I love you so—” 

Rafayel heaves forwards, filching the rest of her words right against the desperate tongue he sweeps into her mouth. Lips moving against each other in a mesh of reckless teeth and tongue, refusing to release from each other. Her fingers catch at the fabric of his collar, in a bid to drag him closer. Rafayel’s palms, a stable hold about the flare of her hips as she bucks against him in instinctual desire at the feeling of his tongue sweeping into her mouth. Her core grazes against the distinct line of his stiff arousal, straining beneath the placket of his trousers.  

Rafayel moans a low, throaty sound against her damp lips. “This is your fault,” he whispers, feverish. “You’re the one who has left me so vulnerable.” 

The turbulent seas within his gaze burn luminous, the gentle florid pinks of his irises swallowed within the blue that takes them. The scarcity of his scales now fleshing a path from his face. Down the graceful arc of his neck and across the expanse of his clavicle. Disappearing just under the line of collar of his shirt. She treks a reverential path about his beautiful Lemurian features; a shuddered exhale leaving Rafayel, in his inexplicable state of heightened sensitivity. “Do you know what’s wrong with me?” He seizes her exploring wrist within his gentle hold, halting her movements. His chest heaves once more in vehement, anguished pants, his skin impossibly hot beneath hers.

“No, tell me what’s happening to you. Why are you—” 

“—so sexually aroused?” He supplies, mouth skewing into a smile with the hot flush of her cheeks.  

“...I was going to ask about your humane features unraveling but that too. You're... burning up.”  

He sighs against her glancing touch, at the scales of his neck. “Each year, when the moon shifts phases and the tides ebb from the shores, bonded Lemurians go through an inevitable period of increased sexual activity. We are,” he pulses a delicate kiss to the inside of her captured wrist. “extremely vulnerable during this time, our base appetites, near insatiable, unless we bear it through with our bonded mates.” 

A streak of desire spurts within her chest, seeping down into her abdomen to pool in between her legs. “So then, all this time, you were...” 

“‘Sick’”, he continues, “because I wasn’t funneling my desires with my mate.” He tugs her close by her imprisoned hand, murmuring, hot, within her ear. “within my mate.” 

A low moan of desire breaks from her lips at his licentious provocation.  

“I’ve never experienced one before.” He confesses heavily. “I wasn’t sure what it was, when it started; the time of the year seemed to coincide with my symptoms but we weren’t bonded... not to my knowledge.” Rafayel’s gaze treks against the shimmering line of their thread, re-connected. “It’s a rarer miracle for it to find itself weaved against the ones it broke in between, more so than it is for the thread to re-emerge in between new lovers.” He laughs; a low self-deprecating sound. “Fate really played me for its fool.”

She murmurs his name, gathering his hand closer to press a reverent kiss against his ring of red at his finger. “I love you, Rafayel.” she reiterates, dragging his wide, wavering gaze back towards herself, letting the irrefutable truth of her words sink in. That it’s not Fate that tugs at the cogs of their bond now, but her feelings, unchanged as they’ve remained.  

“Promise me,” he implores. “Promise you’ll continue to see me the same, no matter how many years pass us by. Promise you’ll stay by my side this time?”  

Her answer rushed, eager, yearning to soothe. “Yes. Yes, I will. I want to stay by your side.” Stealing her arms about the broad strength of his shoulders, to pull closer.  

“Don’t let me go.” Rafayel breathes. Their mouths crush against each other in a consuming kiss; an urgent prayer he makes of her name. 

Each time she squirms atop his lap with the force of his kisses, her increasingly damp core shifts in glancing strokes above his clothed length. Her fingers jolt about Rafayel’s shoulders, sinking harsh into the skin through cloth, with a particularly ruinous lap of his tongue into her mouth.  

Her fingers fly for the clasps of his shirt, rushing down the length of buttons, generously revealing the unyielding expanse of his chest, the line of his toned abdomen. Briefly trekking the warmth of his skin with the pads of inquisitive digits before her mouth follows suit, drifting from Rafayel’s to kiss a path across the firm expanse of his chest. Slicking a gentle tongue right above his heart in devoted gratitude for the one who loves her so wholly. 

She glides a slow palm down his abdomen, appreciating the tremulous clench of muscles, underneath her touch. Her coveting digits pause at the metal clasp of his belt, gaze canting up to meet Rafayel’s in silent request.  

“Yes,” he grinds out, through arduous pants of her name. “It’s yours, I’m yours, do as you please.” She pushes off his lap, dropping onto her knees in between his legs at his affirmation. Rafayel’s breaths hitch higher within his throat, at the snag of her fingers reaching to swiftly undo the fastenings of his belt, pulling it clean from its confines to discard it onto the floor of his room. Her palm slips down the line of his zipper, stimulating him impossibly harder as she works to release him from the confines of his trousers.  

Until Rafayel sits there; her devastatingly alluring Lemurian, near-naked, save for the shirt that sags against broad shoulders, and the remaining modesty of his underwear. She takes a moment to control her shaky breaths before her thumbs slip under the waistband of his final barrier, keeping him from her gaze. Sliding the garment in one careful stroke, down the strength of his legs until she tosses it off to the side. His cock springs to full length, freed from its confines, hard; it curves, slight, towards his abdomen, the gentle slick of minute bluish scales running along the underside of his shaft. A thing of beauty, just as its owner.

The twitch of his length within her grasp is palpable as she moves to work an admiring fist about it. A lone bead of pre-cum sits upon the flared head of his cock; her tongue darts out in instinctual rapacious desire to sweep it into her mouth. The sweet-salt tang of him she hums against, in a soft moan, “I love how you taste.” 

Long, tapered digits thread through the fall of her locks, curving a loose fist at the back of her head. Her eyes traveling up his torso to meet his, bright in aroused impatience. It makes her want to flip that expression over into something entirely different. She tips forwards, lips falling apart to take the head of him into her eager mouth, just as Rafayel rewards her with his first approving groan. Tongue slicking about the head of him to lick, down, at a vein just underneath the flare of his head. His hips judder up into her face with the action, slipping more of him into her welcoming throat. “What’re you doing to me?” He moans, in gravelly rapture. “Your mouth feels divine.”  

She feels the clench of her own abdomen at his praise, wetness seeping further into the cloth of already damp panties. Her mouth slips further down the thick length of him, working him deeper into her throat as she tries and relaxes against the instinctive gagging intrusion of him. A shuddering string of words, he makes of her name, in overwhelming arousal, help her along on his cock. Until she is sliding about the length of him, back and forth, tongue drooling its spit down the expanse of his cock she cannot fit into herself.  

His fingers have tightened into a near-spasm within her hair, not nearly enough it hurts, holding her fixated in place; the pads of his digits tracing soothing, encouraging circles about her scalp as she sucks at his cock. “You’re doing so — agh — so well.” The fingers of his free hand, Rafayel brings to curve, delicate, about her jaw, tipping up; her eyes finding his, on silent instruction.  

He looks entirely gone, the rugged flush of his cheeks enticing as it dashes across his ears. Springs down the crescent of his neck and across the firm expanse of his chest. Rafayel’s cock hits the back of her throat on her next intake; she swallows against the heady swell of him, deliberate, measured, refusing to relent her gaze as she does. It immediately has the effect she desired; Rafayel’s next breath rattling out of his chest on a wrenched groan of pleasure, the blue of those inhuman eyes glistening brilliant as he propels his hips into her, in a reflexive bid for more.

His fingers skid along the underside of her jaw, where mouth meets throat, grazing for the place he knows she has him settled inside. A long, tapered index, he flicks down the line of her neck — she swallows on instinct, dragging another choked moan out of him as reward — before it comes to rest at the buttoned collar of her shirt. “Off.” He murmurs, hazily. Deftly unfastening open the first few buttons before he curves his index beneath her collar to tug. “Take it off. I want to see all of you when I come.” Pooling a blush into her cheeks at his sweetly sensual appeal. 

She pulls her shirt over her head, lured along by the nimble hands that drag her close, reaching around her, to undo the clasp of her bra before he coaxes that too, off her body. Mouth falling slack, cerulean flashing vivid, in flared arousal and want; to witness the heaving tremble of her breasts as she descends on him once more. 

Rafayel eases stray locks of her hair back against her ear to better afford himself the view of pink, moist lips parting to swallow around him once more in renewed enthusiasm. 

Her hands flitter about the length of him, slick slide aided by spit and pre-cum as she moves to work her tongue around the tip; the broad of it she teases at the slit, making Rafayel shudder above her. Slipping, slow and sure, down the generous length of him, insatiable desires flooding in the clench of empty walls, for the brimming taste of him within her throat.

Rafayel’s pants have turned far harsher, sporadic in impending release. She continues to ease her tongue about his length, her palms soothing down the tense muscle of his thighs before she moves to cup her fingers about his balls. “I’m—” Rafayel snaps.  

The skin beneath her fingers tightening, as she sucks about his shaft, to help him along the final stretch of his incoming release, swallowing up to the base of him in one forceful go. Her throat constricting in protest at the rough intrusion. Rafayel groans out loud — frenzied palms pressing at either sides of her head to force her off of his cock, just as he comes in thick, spurting strokes, across her cheeks, her nose; down the curve of her chest.  

“I can’t take it any longer,” he rasps. Hauling her onto her feet by her arm, he tumbles her back onto the cool, crumpled sheets of his bed. 

She barely has but a single moment to catch her breath — more from the surprise of his vehemence — before the shorts of her uniform, are being wrested off her body in the fervent catch of desperate fingers. Rafayel gets the material half-way down her thighs before his long-frayed patience snicks off entirely; a cool rubescent fire licks up clean across the material, blazing the offending cloth away entirely.  

She’s left dumbstruck, pleasure-addled mind wrung in between faint amazement at his precise Evol manipulation and mild offense at his ruination of her uniform. “We’ll get you a new one.” He heaves — as if he’s read her mind — in between kisses laid onto the instep of her bare leg, working up across her calf. “As long as you let me have you right now, I’ll do whatever you want.” 

Her breath seizes within her throat at his sultry request. Rafayel’s palms trace about the shell of her hips, curving about the sides of her abdomen before he caresses them up her stomach, pressing, light, into the yielding flesh. Her body shudders beneath his testing caresses. One of his hands steals down the cusp of her clothed mound, index and middle stroking at her labia above panties, before he skates them in between her folds. The two moan in unison; to feel how drenched she is for him.  

Her body squirms against his, begging for more of that sweet friction. Hips bucking up into his hand to force more of him against her aching slit. Rafayel towers above her, the delectable flush across that slack, sensual expression has her fluttering in on emptiness, her hole aching to be filled completely — as if she too has taken on the fever of his desires, writhing in phantom heat. Her drifting mind wonders for a fleeting moment, if a human bonded to a Lemurian could experience the mind-numbing lust of their cycles, along with their partners. That stray thought, she believes, with each passing second he riles her up in delirious rapture.  

Holding himself above her upon the crook of a folded arm, Rafayel descends for her mouth, covetous tongue savoring a moan against hers. She feels the hot, wet strength of his cock — already firmed to stone once more — rolling against the inside of her thigh. Just as he slips a long, tapered digit past her underwear, to curve it directly against her soaked opening. Her hips jump violently at the contact, her squeal of arousal Rafayel pilfers against a throaty chuckle. “You’re so wet.” Pressing up into her to make his point, the audible squelch of her slick, loud within the quiet night. “Are you enjoying this, my love?” 

“Isn’t,” she gasps, heat gathering, strong, into her face. “isn’t the answer obvious?” 

Rafayel hums, the skew of his smile tugging higher; a slow, relishing tongue he runs across his upper lip, end to end. And before she can think to parse the intention behind that wicked gaze, Rafayel’s palms are cupping about the soft of her ass —  digits pulsing into pliant flesh — to shear her underwear off, lifting her hips up to shove his tongue in between her legs. 

Her next sound leaves her on a shriek of pleasure, blaring stars wheeling across her field of vision. Fervid digits she convulses into the yank of his hair, in a manner that has to hurt and yet Rafayel makes no move to budge back, mouth sinking deeper against the wet flood of her heat. He curves his tongue up against her fluttering walls, sweeping at the slick. Nosing a stifled hum against her clit and that is all it takes for her over-sensitised body to break, spasming into a prompt, violent orgasm that siphons the breath from her lungs and the voice from her throat.  

Dazed in her floating awareness of the scrupulous mouth that continues to suck at her folds, laving away all of her released desire for himself. And when she sinks a quivering hand into tousled locks in whimpered protests of being too sensitive, all Rafayel offers her is an impish chuckle pressed into the soft of her thigh, right beside her mound. “You had your fun, didn’t you? It’s my turn now.” 

With that sensuous warning uttered, his mouth returns its attentions to her weeping slit once more, lips closing about the nub at her apex, sucking gentle at the bead. The jump of her hips Rafayel conquers, in the indolent arm he shackles about her waist, fingers reaching to hold hers across the quivering pliance of her stomach.  

The broad of his tongue laps a path above her entrance, catching at any stray slick that leaks from her before he eases the tip of it back into her slit, relishing the clench of her walls in a throaty groan. He continues to prolong that titillating torture of his, edging his tongue at just the entrance of her pussy, till her body burns once more within the kindled flames of a cresting orgasm.  

“Rafayel, there — hah — right there. Rafayel.”  Sliding that tormenting tongue into her walls once more, to her relief, to the mewls of his name flooding like rain from a parched tongue, the spasm of her fingers she smothers against their entwined digits at her abdomen.  

“Sing higher,” his stuttered groans smothered enthusiastic, into the drench of her slit. Tongue curling up against her frontal walls, in a drag that has her fracturing under his mouth once more. Tears sprung to lust-hazed eyes from the overwhelming arousal wrought upon her body under Rafayel’s dexterous tongue.  

He exhales a pleased sigh against her mound, each heated breath causing shivers to jump across tender skin. A kiss, Rafayel lays right against her swollen clit. 

“Once more.” Her walls clench in wrecked protest, a whimper leaving her throat at his whispered words. “Give me just one more.” He entreats. “I need your taste in my mouth again.” A flitter of kisses he strokes against the line of her pelvis, her mound; dark gaze rolling up to meets hers from in between her legs. She flushes at the intensity of their contact held, without mercy. Her wordless squeeze about her hand given, is all the permission her hungering Lemurian requires to sink back towards her wet heat.  

Tapered digits reach to shape a path about the sensitive bead of her pleasure, pinching in between steady, pleasurable strokes. Before they descend lower, coveting towards her fluttering entrance. Rafayel presses up, gentle, into her walls to coax wetness onto his digits with each drenched thrust of his fingers into her.  

His hand releases from hers, palm drifting up across the plane of her body to cup about a pliant breast. Fingers caressing a circular path about her areola in soft, stimulating strokes and she quivers at the sensation, breaths coming in short, stifled bursts of air.  

Rafayel’s mouth closes about her clit, just as the arch of his fingers hit at a particularly hot, sensitive spot within her pussy; walls spasming about his fingers, swallowing him in. His name soughs past her lips on whimpered gasps with each steady thrust of him up into her walls.  

The pads of his digits tweak about the puckered bead of her breast, thumb denting gentle at the bud, sending a jolt of arousal straight in between her legs.  

Rafayel continues to lap her up, dutiful; his lashes descending in pleased satisfaction just as her third, mind-numbing release crests through her body, leaving her skin a drenched, ruined mess Rafayel sucks at, in throaty moans of delight.  

“Rafayel,” she urges, unable to stand the searing desire he’s put inside her, body hungering for the heat of his cock in desolate emptiness. The overwhelming desire to feel his heat flooding into her, with how long he’s strung her dry for himself. She catches his face in between tremulous digits, pulling him from in between her legs to meet his gaze, dark in fervent desire. “I need you inside me now.”  

Heated obscurity scatters momentarily from his eyes at her fevered request, hips rolling against hers so she feels the hot strength of his arousal brush against her inner thigh; her gasps breaking into the air, at that brief second of contact. Burying her next moan in the vicious bite of teeth at his clavicle, when his cock ghosts across her mound, so close to where she wants him. “If you’re sure you want this...” He groans in ardent murmurs against her mouth.  

Her clambering response is swift and eager. “I want this, I want you.”  

“I’ll let you have me,” he relents in between their wet kisses. “this time, all of me. So drown with me, my beloved bride. Love me.” 

Just as he snaps his hips forwards, the head of his cock pressing her open for himself. The delectable stretch of him, so easy within the drenched warmth of her body as it ravenously sucks at him, all the way in. Rafayel’s searing groan of pleasure, he breaks against her jaw; mouthing, mindless, at the taut skin.  

The union of their bodies, have left them both winded, without breath to draw into aching lungs; several moments they take in between heated gazes and consuming kisses, unmoving. Growing accustomed to this new, exquisite feeling of being so deeply intertwined into each other, she feels she could live like this against him for the rest of her life.  

Until Rafayel begins to move and her world explodes into turbulent sparks of blinding pleasure, unlike anything she’s quite experienced before. His hands are upon her body, covetous digits flittering in between them to touch at dewy skin. Testing his touch against the trembling give of her breasts. Mouth capturing a pert nipple into his mouth, to suck until she keens underneath him.  

Her ankles hook about the base of his spine, dragging Rafayel’s propulsions deeper into her. A stuttered moan, she throttles out of him, at the stimulation before his hand steals about her ass to lift her lower body entirely off the bed. Angling his hips, Rafayel’s thrusts turn impossibly deeper, with the assistance offered in their new position; his pelvis grinding flush against hers on each fevered plunge. “You’re perfect around me, so very — hah — warm,” he grinds out in heedless praise, hips snapping against her harder, in rising intensity, in chase of a hovering orgasm.  

She moans in appreciation around the tongue he slips into her slack mouth in yearning want. “Rafayel,” she chokes out. “I’m so close.”  

“Me too,” he groans, shifting his weight forwards to lean against the crook of his arm at her side. His fingers trek up a path against her slack arm, digits entwining through hers, the line of their red thread flickering in between them both as they approach the crest of their combined pleasures.  

“I love you,” she sobs in between quivering gasps; his gaze crinkling in warmed affection and desire so acute, it drags another whimper out of her.  

“I love you.” Rafayel declares, into the catch of his kisses against her mouth, her cheeks, down the crescent of her jaw. Laving a kiss into the curve of her neck in a worrying bite of teeth, marking her for his own. He switches his pace once more, cock spearing up against her frontal walls in frenzied thrusts. “Come for me,” he beseeches. 

Jaw falling slack in a daze of undulating desire when she obliges at the heated scrap of his words, tumbling over the edge in an orgasm so vehement, her spine arcs clean off the bed. “You’re so good for me.” He worships.

Cresting waves of pleasure, she rides in the hard clench of her walls against Rafayel’s throbbing cock, pulsating hot within her until he too follows soon after. An incomprehensible swell of his cock inside, rising with its pulsations, has her gasping out a low, keening sound at the aching stretch of her pussy, it prolongs her high onto wondrous, searing moments of dizzy elation. Her toes curling into the sheets as the steady bulge of him catches at her walls and snags inside, hot spurts of cum surging into her, so much of it, she feels light-headed from how stuffed he has her. Just as Rafayel’s head falls low, on a loud, long groan of release.

Their damp breaths break against each other’s mouth for several moments that follow after, as they try and muster their senses back to themselves. Her fingers tracing absent, soothing circles along the curve of Rafayel’s spine until his trembling body stills to a gentle lull above her, quieted in the wake of their vehement orgasms.

A strange, fascinating imprint, throbs scarlet right above his heart — in the fleeting likeness of a fish — just as Rafayel’s rattling breaths abate. Captivated fingers she ventures, to trace against the edges of the mark. “...What is this, Rafayel?”  

“A sign of Lemurian loyalty.” A quiet smile tips across his face at the question.

The swell of breathless surprise, she knows is upon her face. “My devotion, here on, it’s yours to do with, as you please.” A kiss he buries into her palm in overwhelming affection. “I’m allowing myself to be trapped by you.” 

A low sob of adoration breaks from her throat at the words, just as the proof of his vow fades fast into his skin. A hand, she brings about his neck, to haul him down against her, to treasure a kiss right above where his heart thrums its beats, elated desire burning warm within her chest.  

Rafayel moves above her, maneuvering their positions until she rests at her side, within the circle of her arms, bodies still conjoined. His cock — she realizes with dazed shock — is still hard within her body. “Are you afraid?” He asks, gentle fingers carding through the mussed tresses of her hair. “I’ll need you much more times before I’m sated, you know.”  

She shakes her head at him, palm moving to cradle against his cheek. “I want all of what you have to give me, Rafayel. I’ll take it all.” 

He drags her closer by the hips at her affirmations; his touch along the back of her ass tending a slow fire back up within her weary body, as he moves to hoist her leg up against the cut of his hip.  

And she lets him show her just how profound a Lemurian’s devotion to his beloved truly runs, throughout the entirety of the night and into the greeting of dawn — a depth as unbounded as that of the Oceans.

End Notes: Tagging as requested: @samanthagnicole , @catboi-anon , @bitches4lifebro

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misty invasion - omnipotent perception

━ .ᐟ✧ PAIRING: rafayel x female reader (afab)

━ ✧.˖ GENRE: smut, porn with some plot, porn with feelings, angst with comfort

━ .ᐟ✧ WORD COUNT: 6.5k (who’s surprised)

━ ✧.˖ WARNINGS: mdni, explicit sexual content, slight spoilers and alterations to ‘omnipotent perception (rafayel’s misty invasion card), slightly toxic relationship, m!receiving handjob, bathtub sex, pulling out, cummies in hair/face, lots of making out, hickeys, HEAVY references to rafayel’s lore (sea god and some abysswalker), references to rafayel’s 4* memory fragrant dream, so much angst (with comfort), soooo much feelings, sensory deprivation, sensory play, blindfolding, switch!raf, desperate rafayel, kinda withholding rafayel, clothes on in tub, p in v seggs, use of y/n, use of pet names

━ .ᐟ✧ LINKS: video | ao3 | xav's version | sylus's version | zayne's version

━ ✧.˖ A/N: RAF IS HERE! sooooo this one is a long one. each one of my misty invasions got longer and longer, i am a menace to myself. but this one made sense, i felt as if raf’s misty invasion had the most lore subtly stitched into it and you guys know i always try and explore some angst/lore <3 i am very happy and excited to finally close out the misty invasion series. 

i’m going to be taking a much needed break after this. i’ll likely still be writing, but slowly and in my own time. I had a brief period of motivation, after the clarity of sharing my story, but now i am back to being anxious and exhausted.

that being said, please do not send anyone hate in my name or in my defense. I have never and will never ask for that. it’s enough that i have your support, i don’t need more than that. 

special thank you to my friend @myusuchaa for helping me SO much with the rafayel lore. definitely the biggest fish forker i know <3

as always, if i missed any warnings or used too specific physical descriptors, let me know and i can do better! thank you guys for your support. i love you!

THIS IS MY ONLY ACCOUNT. I WILL NEVER POST MY FICS ON OTHER TUMBLR BLOGS. I WILL ONLY POST ON THIS ACCOUNT AND ON AO3.

✦ . ˖ ✧ .ᐟ ˖ nsfw | minors dni | 18+ only | minors dni | nsfw ✦ . ˖ ✧ .ᐟ ˖

“Do you feel lonely in this world that is totally different from yours?”

—

It’d been a beautiful summer day, riding bicycles along the Italian coast of Verona. Rafayel had just finished his piece for an art exhibition in the capital of the picturesque city, and you’d had time to soak in the summer breeze with each other. The air was wonderfully salty, just enough to remind you of the sea itself. Of Rafayel. 

It hadn’t truly surprised you when you’d found out Rafayel had lived here before, especially now knowing his Lemurian roots. Something about the way he walked through the Veronian brick paved roads, the rustic wind tousling his beachy waves, the cloudy sun shining on his effervescent skin. Like he’d belonged here, once upon a time. 

It was the perfect day.

Even when you’d teased him about the Lemurian who’d dissipated into sea foam for a mere human, and Rafayel’s expression misted over with a melancholic nostalgia. When his eyes glazed over with a torrent of inexplicable emotions, he could tell you wanted to prod him about it. But you didn’t, and for that he was incredibly grateful. There was a part of him that longed for you to know, to remember, the truth of that story. But he couldn’t trust you with that part of him again. Not yet. 

Even then, it was a perfect day. The two of you in Verona, the city of Romeo and Juliet. 

Two ill-fated lovers. 

It was perfect, he was perfect. 

Until you asked him that question. 

“Do you feel lonely in this world that is totally different from yours?”

Suddenly, Rafayel couldn’t look you in the eyes. Even when the rain droplets had started to patter onto your sun kissed skin, Rafayel holding you close under his favorite cardigan to shelter you from the onslaught of crystalline water. He couldn’t look at you. He refused to look at you.

If he did, you might’ve seen the tumultuous storm flickering in his eyes. The violets in his irises bright with unshed tears, the blues dark with a bitter loneliness. 

He didn’t speak to you the entire way back to your hotel, heading straight to the bathroom. At first you think that perhaps he’s upset with you, but he only draws you a warm bath in the luxurious clawfoot tub overlooking the Italian night lights. 

When he finally does speak to you, peeling off his layers of soaked clothing, you can tell he’s masking his true emotions under a facade of classic Rafayel sarcasm. Joking about whether he should write a Lemurian handbook for you or just read you 1,001 Lemurian stories. But he surprises you when his voice cracks with a raw genuineness, one that’s masked under layers and layers of hesitancy and loneliness. You can’t quite understand it.

“You can be my caretaker. And I can tell you 1,001 stories,” he mutters, eyes trained on the ground once more, voice soft and vulnerable. 

“I’m okay with every choice you provide,” he continues as he peels your wet jacket off your shoulders innocently. When his hand reaches the inside of your coat, grazing against your exposed waist, he pulls his hand back. His face is a storm of conflicted torment.

“...But you should take a warm bath first. Or else you’ll catch a cold.”

As he turns to leave, the sight of his lean and muscled back making you blush, you muster all your courage and call out to him, “You can’t leave. You still haven’t answered my question.”

You catch his wrist, using all your force to pull him back. Rafayel stiffens, unable to catch himself before he tumbles backwards into the filled tub. 

He’s able to protect his head from hitting the edge of the tub, the water sloshing around and splashing onto the tiled bathroom floor. Rafayel sits in the tub, not a semblance of annoyance on his face. Instead he looks flustered, the warm water clinging to his defined muscles.

“Do you want me to stay?”

Rafayel’s hair is disheveled, the water making clumps of his damp hair stick to his wet skin. His eyes watch you with inscrutable emotions, waiting for you to speak. 

You don’t answer his question, instead asking one of your own.

“You can spare me the details, but there’s something important you should tell me…” you hum, walking to his side by the tub, leaning over him, “How do Lemurians express love?”

Rafayel looks startled by your question for a second before composing himself, “Do you really want to know?” The fragrant candles in the bathroom flicker, the steam of the bath dancing against the soft flames. His words seem less like a genuine question…and more like a vague warning. 

Before you can respond, Rafayel’s fingers are closed around your wrist, tugging you into the tub on top of him. You squeal as Rafayel guides your body onto his, the violent crashing of water loud against the soft sound of the rain against the large glass windows.

Rafayel looks smug, his hand holding yours against his chest. You’re messily sprawled across his half naked body when he shifts you off of him so that he can sit next to you, his strong arm wrapping around your body. The warm water is uncomfortable against your still half-clothed body, but you can only focus on the way Rafayel holds your fingers up to his mouth, pressing a kiss into the back of your hand like you were royalty. 

“When Lemurians fall in love with someone…” Rafayel mutters, his warm breath fanning against your hand, “All our senses are committed to perceive them without question.” His eyes are intense as he speaks to you, hoping to convey even an ounce of the love he speaks so honestly of. 

You raise an eyebrow at him, “Your senses? Like…this?” You untangle your hand from his, bringing your index finger up to his lips. You barely graze his pouty bottom lip before he’s panting, struggling to speak. 

“...Your way of triggering my “senses” has only touched the surface,” he mutters sulkily, yet he has to look away from you, cheeks rosy at your mere touch. He grabs your hand, eyes locked back onto yours giving you a silent warning. 

But you only proceed further, your fingers grasping his chin, your eyes peering up at him with a faux innocence. It’s not long before your fingers wander south, pressing into his heaving chest, flitting around his sharp collarbones. Rafayel’s reaction only fuels you with mischief and confidence, the way his breath matches his heartbeat: fast, erratic, and demanding. 

He looks at you with almost…disbelief. Disbelief at your actions, but more so disbelief at the way your simplest touches can have his body reacting so viscerally. It was a testament of just how much the dark-mauve haired Lemurian loved you, his every sense reacting to you so readily.

“...Are all humans idiots?” Rafayel grits, refusing to look at you again. But his body betrays his words when your hand ventures further down. You’re barely able to register the shocked expression on his flushed face before your back is pressed into the edge of the tub, the water splashing wilding as Rafayel hovers atop you.

He’s careful not to press his body into you, knowing he’d be an absolute goner once he felt your core against his. His thick muscles twitch angrily as he holds you down against the back of the tub, your hand clutching his shoulder for support against his erratic actions. 

“Someone’s intentions are as clear as day,” he accuses you. Though his words hold not even an ounce of ill-intention, he narrows his eyes at you. Just then, the rain outside turns into lightning, briefly illuminating Rafayel’s ethereal features. The flash of light accentuates the tempest that’s brewing in suspicious eyes. 

As you watch the turmoil flicker in them, you suddenly think maybe you pushed too far, “Do you not like it?” Your voice comes out more insecure than you’d wanted it to, suddenly aware of how forward you were being.

Rafayel sighs, pausing before his voice comes out pained, “If I said I didn’t, would you stop?” 

At the hint of anguish in his voice, you move to pull your hand away. But Rafayel’s hand abandons its grip on the tub to clasp against your hand, holding it tighter against his neck, refusing to let you go.

You gasp, as his movements cause the warm water to swash around. With his forceful hand over yours, your flushed skin prickles against his alarmingly chilly skin. 

“Rafayel, your body is so cold!” you whisper worriedly, fearing he might be catching a cold. For a second you forget that he’s Lemurian, accustomed to the frigid depths of the ocean. As your eyes search his anxiously, hand still gripping his cold shoulder, Rafayel’s own eyes watch yours meticulously. 

The swirls of blue and pink in his eyes have always been breathtaking, like the perfect mix of the most expensive paints. But now, as he watches you with the depth of the whole Lemurian oceans in his eyes, you’re completely speechless to the flickering of rampant passion behind them. 

That is until he grabs your chin roughly. Rafayel was no stranger to taking what he wanted, but this was different. The way he grabbed you screamed of…insecurity. Demanding, but unsure all the same. His cheeks are tinged the prettiest of coral pinks, his bottom lip jutting out ever so slightly as he closes the distances between your faces. Quickly, so he can’t change his mind. 

His soft lips slot over yours in a bruising embrace of passion, need, and unwavering longing. There’s something mind numbing about how gently his lips take yours, yet the pads of his fingers hold your chin so forcibly, as if afraid you’d slip into the depths of the water and disappear from his arms forever. 

The thunder rumbles deafeningly but all you can hear is Rafayel. He pants into you, his mouth claiming every inch of your lips, of your tongue. He kisses you like he knows nothing else, like he feels nothing else. 

He doesn’t let you go, although you’d never want him to. You only want him to hold you tighter, pull you closer, take you harder. You want to protest when he finally pulls away, gasping as a thin rope of saliva connects your parted and bruised lips.

Flashes of light illuminate his face, making him look as ethereal as the sirens warned about in ancient tales and myths. He hesitates to speak, trying to find the words to convey the emotions he’s been trying to control since the memories of Verona had begun to overwhelm him. The memories of his past. His past with you.

“And you’re warm,” he pants, still trying to catch his breath. His heart was pounding painfully, his body always so willing to react to you. All his senses, always so hyper aware of you, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. His thumb strokes your glistening bottom lip, fingers still holding your chin captive. His eyes watch you with an unbearable longing, the previously intense crinkle in them softened to a tender vulnerability. 

“So perfect for me.”

Butterflies wriggle in your tummy, and you reach your wet hands reach up to cup his cheeks. 

“Rafayel, you seem different…” you mumble, stroking the cold and smooth expanse of his cheek. He looks down, avoiding your gaze, clearly grappling with a turmoil of intrusive emotions and memories. Despite that all, his face softens under your touch, even unbeknownst to him. 

Before you can ask him what’s on his mind, he’s rubbing his cheeks into your palms. The warmth of your affectionate embrace makes it difficult for Rafayel to think clearly, and he can’t stop himself from whispering, “Will you still love me no matter who I become?”

You’re speechless at the blatant insecurity in his voice, in his eyes. Rafayel was always confident, years as a world-famous artist had made him self-assured in more ways than one. But now, as his shadowed and down-cast eyes searched yours desperately for an answer, you could see just how unsure he was. You could see the cracks forming in his polished shield, the fissure spider webbing uncontrollably, on the precipice of shattering completely. 

His eyes pierce yours, fully intending to get an answer from you. You don’t even think he notices how pouty he’s become, his bottom lip protruding in an tragically adorable show of just how badly he needs you to understand him. To love him. 

To remember him. 

Unable to withstand his paralyzing gaze any longer, you yank him down to you by the chain that hangs around his neck. The silver necklace matched the shimmering bracelet he’d gifted you, that currently sits on your own wrist. 

Rafayel grunts as you pull him closer, clearly taken aback. His gaze doesn’t lighten, only becoming more intense and heated as your breath grows more bated against his own parted lips. 

“You…” he grumbles, trailing off, eyes flickering down to the beautiful sheen across your lips, before they dart away, looking to where his fingers grip the edge of the porcelain white tub. The rosy blush that dusts his cheeks gives away just how much he yearns for more, more of you. 

You find him to be so irresistibly tortured that you can’t help but hook your arm around his neck, pulling him further down until your lips collide with his collar. If you can take even an ounce of his tumultuous pain away, you’d do it.

The thunder roars violently as you kiss him, the water in the tub splashing over and hitting the bathroom tile. Rafayel is quick to relent all control, letting you take every inch of him. His fingers thread into your hair as you kiss his sensitive chest, teeth nipping at the cold skin on his collar. His whimpering gasps are audible, fingers tugging at your damp hair, as you suckle torturously at his chest, no doubt leaving a reddened bruise. 

When he finally pulls away, there’s a clear look of reluctance on his beautiful features. You try and pull him back, and he briefly lets you before pulling back, the look of hesitation returning to his thunderous eyes. 

You give up, instead moving your finger to brush against the reddened hickey forming on his collar. Rafayel looks at you, pained and begging for mercy, as your fingernails graze over the sensitive skin. 

“When humans fall in love…” you hum, admiring the beautiful bruise, “We try to leave a unique mark on them.” 

At that precise moment, the moment you mention you’re in love with him, you can visibly see the fractured remnants of Rafayel’s walls come crashing down. He pants, eyes fixed on the way your hand presses over the right side of his chest, so dangerously close to where his heart was. To where his bond with you was etched into his very soul. 

In that very moment, a flip switches in Rafayel. His eyes burn, not with anguish or uncertainty, but with a dangerous desire.

“If you say so…” he rasps, leaning in until your breaths mingle into one. As his eyes flicker closed, lips ghosting along yours, he whispers, just before his lips claim yours. 

“Join me, then.” His lips press into yours, holding back as to not take you completely.

“Let’s drown in the ocean.” He inhales your torrid gasps, his words deceitfully simple. 

“Together.”

Rafayel kisses you, instantaneously consuming you. He pants into you, unable to soften the way his body reacts to you, the way his senses consume you until there’s nothing left of him. To him, loving you, losing you, and repeating the cycle…felt exactly like that.

Like drowning. 

He throws all that emotion into the way he kisses you. The embrace is so intense that it makes tears form in your eyes, emotions welling in your chest so tightly you fear you might burst. 

When he pulls away to breathe, you look up at him, “You never answered my question from earlier.”

Rafayel’s eyes widened, knowing exactly which question you were referring to. What he didn’t expect was for you to be so direct. His eyes dart around, but you hold his face in your palms before he can physically turn away. He opens his mouth to speak, before pursing his lips again in hesitation. 

You gently prod him, fingers stroking his locked jaw, “Raf?” 

“It…” he starts, eyes crackling with emotions. Rafayel struggles to find the words. He knows exactly what he wants to tell you, but can’t find the words to express it to you. 

It’s not that he wanted to be withholding, least of all with you. He would give you anything. He had given you everything, time and time again. To the point where it destroyed him. 

But the fear of having it all taken away, again, had made him so reluctant to lean back into the wind, like he’d done so many times in the past. Too scared of how much of himself he’d lose again in the never-ending cycle of falling irrevocably in love with you. 

And yet, as much as it took from him, it didn’t matter. Because you were everything to him.

“In this human world…it’s not difficult for a Lemurian to become lonely,” he laments wistfully, eyes misted with a faraway look. 

He continues. “But in all the lives I’ve lived, I almost never felt lonely,” Rafayel gently smiles at you, a smile filled with a wistful sorrow. 

“Really? Why?” you ask genuinely, still soothing his hardened jaw. His features had softened considerably as he peered down at your wet form, the tension between his legs growing visibly.

Rafayel chuckles. His answer was simple. 

Because, there was always you. 

But that was a tale for another time. 

“Are you trying to trick a foolish Lemurian into giving up all his secrets again, my little human?” he whispers huskily, leaning down to kiss at the skin under your ear. 

You’re about to ask him what he means by again, but the words die on your tongue when Rafayel sinks his teeth into your neck. His fingers find the buttons of your drenched top, unbuttoning it feverishly, desperately shedding your layers of clothing off of you.

Before you know it, you’re naked in Rafayel’s arms, his own bare manhood pressed insistently into your inner thighs, dangerously close to your core. Though the rest of his body is chilly from the rainwater, his throbbing erection burns against your skin. Even submerged in water, you can feel his pre cum oozing onto your leg, hot and thick.

His lips trail down your shivering body, kissing the grooves of your collar, teeth grazing the swell of your breasts. He’s nearly heaving, gasping for air like he can’t breathe. And truthfully, he couldn’t.

The dam of his emotional barriers absolutely decimated, the flood of his unabated passion overwhelming his senses. There is only you. The smell, the sound, the feeling, the sight, the taste of you. 

A Lemurian in love. Utterly, brokenly, and wholeheartedly. 

You try to match his intensity, pulling at his soft and wavy hair, drawing him closer to your naked body. You thrust your chest towards him, wanting him to claim you like he’d done so many times before. 

Rafayel chuckles at your obvious desires, but more than willing to oblige. His Queen. 

His lips close over your breast, his lips cold but his tongue wet and hot against your nipple. The warm water splashes messily against your clashing bodies. The lightning outside flashes, the shadows of your lewd acts dancing against the bathroom walls.

“Nnghnh, R-Raf!” you wail, his skilled mouth devouring you whole. Your spine arches into his demanding mouth, the wet splashes of the bath and the ravenous slurps filling the acoustics of the hotel bathroom. 

The pleasure of his tongue is so intense that your body can’t help but squirm backwards. Rafayel chuckles almost cynically, as he captures the back of your neck with his long and slender fingers. 

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re trying to run away from me,” he pouts, leveling with your drooping eyes, body already delirious from the pleasure Rafayel knows how to bring you. 

“Hey,” he murmurs, bringing your chin up so that your eyes meet, “Don’t make me wait anymore, please.” 

You can’t help but smile at his adorable pout, his eyebrows furrowed in a sulky plea. You wrap your hands around the back of his neck, twirling his wavy hair into your fingers, bringing him closer until your foreheads are pressed together. 

“I don’t want to wait either,” you whisper breathlessly against him, his face so close you can feel the length of his eyelashes against your cheek.

Rafayel gulps, his neck bobbing with the pressure of how forcefully he has to restrain his senses, restrain himself. It’s so clear how vulnerable he is to your every whim, so you take the opportunity to push him below you. His glimmering eyes shine with confusion, but he lets you climb atop him, hissing when your slick cunt presses down on his cock.

“What are you doing, Miss?”

You don’t answer, leaning over the tub to grab Rafayel’s damp cardigan, bringing it up to his face. He raises an eyebrow in question at you, his palms resting in the fat of your hips as your bare pussy drags against his pelvis. 

“Do you trust me?” you grin playfully at him, spreading the cardigan out and preparing to use it as a makeshift blindfold. Rafayel seems to know exactly what you’re planning. He looks up at you, inexplicable emotions reflected in his glassy eyes. 

“I do,” he whispers finally. His worlds are simple, yet something about them rips through your consciousness, filling you with a torrent of bittersweet fractures of a lost memory. 

A memory of another time Rafayel told you those same words.

I do.

Rafayel can read the confusion in your eyes, and squeezes your hips reassuringly. You’re shaken from the confusion of your mind-bending memories. Trying to focus on the moment at hand, you clear your throat and carefully tie the soft and expensive cardigan around Rafayel’s head, effectively cutting off his vision.

You lean down to whisper against his ears, lobes pink with excitement and anticipation.

“Let me show you what else humans do when we’re in love.”

Rafaye’s entire body quakes, his chest rising rapidly at your unabashed words. His fingers dig into your hips as he does his best to limit his embarrassingly visceral reactions to your body. With his vision limited, all his other senses are heightened to your will. 

With your lips at this ear, your neck is exposed to him. The smell of your pheromones mixed with your perfume clouds his thoughts, the urge to drive his teeth into your pulse so unbelievably overwhelming. But your palm on his chest pushes him down, your lips trailing down his ear, down his neck, and to his chest. 

With his eyes covered, his skin is all the more sensitive to your touch, 

“Please,” Rafayel rasps, nails digging into your thighs, “Please. I can’t wait anymore.”

You giggle at how adorably needy he’s become. You can tell just how much the blindfold affects him, his body more readily reactive to your lips, your fingers, your words.

Even with his eyes covered, Rafayel can’t help but pout. The inability to see you, his beautiful Queen, made him all the more desperate.

You decide to indulge him, fist closing around his cock under the water. Rafayel’s hips jolt violently, his lower half lifting to chase the friction of your soft hand. While he cries out in pleasure, you kiss down to where the water meets his defined chest.

“O-oh fuuck,” Rafayel hisses, his head thrown back on the edge of the tub, neck straining into the cool ceramic. His hips buck up into your fist wildly, your hand moving far too languidly for his taste. You continue to tease him slowly, his cock and your hand completely submerged under the surface of the water. He whimpers, teeth digging into his bottom lip, continuously thrusting up into your hand.

You take his desperation as an opportunity to torture him more, moving as gently as you can so that you can move up to his ear without him noticing. With your hand still pumping his oozing cock under the water, you whisper into his ear, letting your tongue graze his earlobe.

“When humans love someone…we want to make them feel good,” you whisper seductively into his ear, purposely letting your words come out in hot breaths. Rafayel jolts and squirms in response, fingers gripping the edge of the tub until his knuckles are pale white. 

“Sh-shiit,” he hisses breathlessly as your hand pumps up and down faster, the movements causing the water to ripple. His muscles flex under your touch, shining with a wet sheen against the flashing glow of lightning. 

“So? Does it feel good, Raf?” you murmur into his neck, pressing a chaste kiss to where his throat bobs with the heavy beat of his pulse. 

He thrusts himself into your hand violently, voice coming out in a gravelly groan, “Yes. You always feel so fucking good. S-so soft.”

Surprising him again, you take his lips into yours, insistently pushing your tongue into his mouth, all the while your fist continues to jerk him off. You catch every one of his unabashed moans with your own mouth, the muffled sounds of his pleasure mixing with the thundering storm outside.

It’s a furious clashing of saliva, teeth, and pure unfiltered passion. His fingers digging into your waist, your fingers squeezing his cock so tightly it threatens to have him spilling all over you and the filled tub. 

When you pull away, the spit dribbles down Rafayel’s chin and onto his damp chest. He looks adorably flustered, the cardigan still covering his eyes. With his sight gone, the feeling of your tongue against his, your fingers wrapped around his cock, your plush thighs against his twitching muscles is all the more intense. His body, all the more pliant for you. 

“Hah – if you keep going, I’m g-gonna–”

He doesn’t even have time to finish his words when his cock lurches in your greedy hands, thick and burning rivulets of cum shooting into the lukewarm bathwater. It’s strangely beautiful, like a ribbon of iridescent pearls. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Rafayel gasps, nearly choking over his own rapid breath, his fingers gripping the edges of the tub.

His body convulses with his orgasm, a broken mantra of swears and lewd groans the only thing audible even in the roar of the storm outside. 

“Nnnghnh – b-baby,” Rafayel whines as you pump him through a mind-numbing overstimulation, desperate to see you. But you don’t stop, only giggling as you watch even more cum spurt from his angry pink tip. 

In a sudden flash of splashing water and strong fingers gripping your thighs, you find yourself under Rafayel again, his hand holding the back of your neck protectively as he slams you into the edge of the tub. His cardigan no longer covers his eyes, likely discarded somewhere on the wet floor.

Your eyes are wide from the whiplash of his sudden movements, “Rafayel?”

His sunset eyes blaze wildly as he watches you, the sight of you so utterly indulgent and overwhelming after having his vision returned to him. 

“Will you let me worship you?” 

His question is vulnerable, desperate. He looks at you so damn hopefully that it’d be impossible to say no even if some insane part of you wanted to. 

You reach up to clasp his cheek in your hands, pulling him closer until your noses brush against each other, “Yes, always.”

With the breathy desperate utterance of consent leaving your lips, fanning across his open mouth, he loses it.

He forces your thighs wider, gripping you by the fat of your hips and dragging you towards him until your bare cunt brushes right against once-again hard erection. You were used to Rafayel’s virtually non-existent refractory period, his cock upright and commanding attention so quickly after his orgasm.

The lukewarm bath water makes every touch feel much more fluid, all the more intimate and sensitive. Your grip the edges of the tub for support, Rafayel’s movements erratic and unpredictable. He leans down towards you, your bodies as close as the confines of the tub will allow. 

“My Queen,” he mutters under his breath like a vow, shifting to line himself up with your entrance. Without another warning, he pushes himself into you. 

You squeal at the stretch, your arousal making it easy for him to push into you completely. Rafayel groans as he enters you, his head thrown back in ecstasy, his large hands wrapped around your thighs. 

Rafayel is absolutely not shy with his cries of pleasure. His body shudders even though he hasn’t moved since seating himself fully inside of your warm and impossibly tight walls. 

When he doesn’t move, you screw your eyes open in confusion, doing your best to speak through the wonderful stretch of his cock inside your quivering walls, “R-Raf? Are you okay?”

Rafayel doesn’t speak, but the glow of the storm outside illuminates the way his throat bobs, every fiber of his body overstimulated with the pleasure of your body gripping his, refusing to let go.

You move to shift towards him, worried about the way he’s locked up, but that only causes your body to involuntarily squeeze around him. Rafayel hisses, pushing you back down gently, his fingers caressing your cheek.

“I-I just need a second.”

“A-are you okay?” you ask worriedly.

“You’re so tight, so warm,” Rafayel chokes out, his fingers tightening around your cheek and thigh. You can vaguely feel his cock growing inside you, and it’s then you realize he’s paralyzed, not by hesitation or pain, but pleasure.

You can’t stop yourself from teasing him, clenching down on his manhood snug inside you. Rafayel moans, his hands coming down to grip your thighs in a silent warning.

“No more teasing me,” he cautions with a pout, one hand shifting to rest on your naval. At your mischievous grin, Rafayel presses down. 

You cry out, eyes rolling back as he forces the walls of your pussy to rub against his cock. Rafayel wants to smirk at your helpless writhing, but the sensation is also overwhelming for him. His body heaves, nearly collapsing on top of you, only catching himself by gripping the sides of the tub.

Your fingers wrap around his trembling biceps, eyes urging him to take you.

Rafayel swears, obliging at the fucked-out look in your eyes. He unsheathes himself fully from your addicting gummy walls, barely even leaving his tip in, before shoving himself back into you.

The newfound vigor of his thrusts makes the water in the tub slosh wildly, splashing all over your face and hair. But you could care less, because the feeling of his excitement bruising its way in and out of your throbbing cunt is literally all you can think about. Pathetic moans of pleasure, the only sound you can make.

Rafayel fares no better, strings of beautiful grunts leaving his own lips. His pelvis slams into your soft inner thighs, the sound of the water against your colliding skin sinfully mixing with your combined moans. 

“You’re so – nghnh – perfect for me, Y/N,” Rafayel groans as he drives into you, the tip of his cockhead brushing into your cervix and g-spot all at once, at every thrust. 

His hands clutching the tub on either side of your head cage you in, making it so the only thing you can focus on is him. And the only thing that his senses can perceive is you.

The only thing he can see is you, your tears mixing with the soapy water, the reddened love bites blossoming on your skin.

The smell of you heightened even against the fragrant scent of the bath soap, your pheromones driving him to the edge of insanity. 

Your wanton cries for him, fueling him to fuck you harder, the sounds of your sweet pleasure making his own noises come out unabashedly. 

The taste of you lingering on his tongue every time he bends down to capture your lips in his, saliva running down both your chins. 

But mostly…the feeling of your perfect walls constricting him, pulling him in, refusing to let go. The feeling of your hands, pressed deep into his twitching muscles. Your soft thighs locking him against your sopping cunt. 

God, he was so in love with you it was nearly pitiful. 

“You’ll always be my Queen,” Rafayel babbles, thrusts becoming erratic as he becomes overwhelmed by the bittersweet memories that’d resurfaced in Verona, “My entire heart.”

You nod vigorously at his words. “Always Raf,” you gasp, holding onto him as he pounds into you even harder, your spine thudding into the tub, the water cushioning the blows.

“You better never leave me,” he broods, putting every ounce of emotion into the way his cock claims every inch of your poor cunt. The word ‘again’ dies on his lips, the writhing artist above you opting to save that for another time.

“W-would – nnghnh – never leave you.”

His wild eyes focus on your words. He says simply, the subtleist hint of insecurity and doubt playing in his shaky voice, “I’m gonna – hah – hold you to that.”

You bob your head, wanting him to see how serious you are, see just how much he meant to you.

Your fingers venture to your clit, desperately pent up from all the sexual and emotional tension that’d built up from today. Rafayel doesn’t see you immediately, his head thrown back in a drawn out groan, his body glistening with sweat and bath water, chiseled muscles twitching with his impending release.

When he finally glances back down, he sees your fingers furiously pawing at your clit and he nearly growls at the sight beneath him.

His voice comes out broken and husky, uncharacteristically so for the normally charismatic and smooth-talking painter. He gently pushes your fingers away, his own lengthy and skilled fingers replacing yours.

“Let me,” he begs, hips stuttering as he nears his second release, “I’ll take care of you Y/N.”

His sweet words make you shiver, your body convulsing around him. Rafayel shudders as you grow tighter around him. It felt like you were nearly cutting off his circulation, in the best way. 

Rafayel’s fingers on your quivering bundle of nerves have you seeing lightning even with your eyes screwed tightly shut. He truly had the hands of a god, fingers slender and deft, the pads of his digits hardened from years of skilfully maneuvering expensive paint brushes. Your body was his canvas, and he’d spend hours creating art with you. 

“R-Rafayel, I’m soo – nngh – c-cloose,” you slur, your body arching into him, head thrown back until all you see is the ceiling above. 

Rafayel heaves at the sensation of you coming undone around him, his fingers still rubbing furiously. There’s a bright desperation in his glowing eyes, the need to see you cum on him as strong as the need to fill you up with his endless seed. 

As his body trembles above you, his fingers grip the tub so harshly his knuckles have turned taut and deathly white. 

“I-I’m close too, baby,” he groans, “Please, can I cum?”

You nod vigorously, wanting nothing more than to feel him release with you But Rafayel wants to hear you. 

“Say it, Y/N. Tell me,” he pleads, “I need to hear you.” His voice is so brokenly desperate it drives you closer to your release, the sound of his lewd pleas so utterly erotic. 

“Ra-Rafayel, n-need it s’bad. Shiiit – please!” you all but scream, his insistent fingers pushing you into your orgasm. 

Rafayel chews on his bottom lip as he watches how beautifully you explode on him, so unbelievably close to finishing himself. He desperately wanted to cum inside you, but he knew if he did that he would be at the point of no return. You’d very well spend the rest of your trip in Verona locked in your hotel room, his cock nestled inside you until you literally begged for mercy. And maybe not even then. 

So with every ounce of will he had left, he pulled out of you as he came, standing on his knees so he could wrap his fist firmly around his cock as he came. The force of his cum so strong it shot all over your damp breasts and even your face, your expression still contorted in the ecstasy of your climax. 

You watch in awe, your cunt convulsing around nothing, your orgasm tapering off, as Rafayel trembles through his own pleasure. His cum is hot as it splashes onto your wet body, some of it shooting into your hair. Honestly the sight of how powerfully his cock erupted makes your stomach lurch in arousal.

Rafayel whimpers through his endless orgasm, his fist pumping up and down as he finishes on you. You’re left quivering beneath his imposing body, mesmerized by the white ropes of cum that shoot from his angry red tip. 

When he finally finishes, his glassy eyes watch you, absolutely awestruck. He bends down, his forearms trembling as one grips the side of the tub, the other stroking your cheek. He catches a rivulet of his milky seed with his finger, grinning cheekily at your reddened face.

“I’ve never seen anything so damn beautiful.” 

If it’s even possible, your cheeks burn even more furiously. You swat his fingers away.

“Shut up,” you whine, looking around at your bodies, joined in the filled tub. You inwardly cringe when you notice there’s more pools of milky white fluid than there are bubbles at this point. The amount of cum he gave you every time was nothing short of a phenomenon. 

“It’s everywhere!” you shriek dramatically, hitting his chest above you, “We need to get cleaned up!”

Rafayel’s grin widens, and before you can ask him what he’s scheming, he uses the finger still on your cheek to smear his cum around.

“Rafayel!” you yelp, trying your best to inch away from his filthy fingers, coated in both your arousals, struggling due to the limited space of the tub.

“But you look so exquisite like this,” Rafayel murmurs, fingers capturing your chin, pulling you up to look at him, his eyes hazy and sated, “My beautiful Queen…”

He dips down to press a lingering kiss to parted lips, mouth hitched open in excitement. When he pulls away he grins playfully at you.

“Besides, it’s good for your skin. Lemurians have a lot of uses, you know.”

You raise an eyebrow at him, “Is that why your skin always looks so flawless?”

Rafayel’s cheeks flare, his eyes averting from yours, “Okay! Let’s get cleaned up shall we?”

You smile widely, unable to contain your fit of giggles. Your body shakes with your laughter, making the water ripple, “You’ve tried it haven’t you?”

Rafayel’s sheepish expression answers your question, “No! Shut up!”

“I knew it!”

© aeyumicore 2024.

.ᐟ✧ THIS IS MY ONLY ACCOUNT. I WILL ONLY POST ON THIS ACCOUNT AND AO3. i am not @/aeyumicores or @/aeyumiicore or any variations of my blog name.

✧.˖ i do not permit translations or reposts of my work on tumblr, ao3, or others. please do not reuse my blogpost headers, dividers, or layouts. these are original designs of my own.

THE CROW OF JUDGEMENT HAS SPOKEN

A Message From Rafayel

There's only one week left until your first meeting. You found a handwritten letter from Rafayel in the mailbox. Reading it feels like you're listening to the ebb and flow of the tide... When you see him next week, what will be the first thing you say?

You will always be my muse.

Art by me

Me defending my pookie rafayel because he did nothing wrong 🫶🏻

bro please shut the fuck up im looking at the moon

Rafayel Humming Cropped

I cropped it a little better, so now you can just listen to his humming on a loop if you want.

I started playing “Love and Deepspace” and realized fictional men can make you feel special like no real man ever can.

Not only that HSHSHHS here are some of my drawings last year

OHHHHH MYYYY GOOOODNEESSSSS

My beautiful fish 🩷

Okayyy so here are the fanarts i did, today and yesterday for rafayel's upcoming birthday

Another fanart for his upcoming birthday!!! I will post it tomorrow

A fanart of rafayel that i did, its still not done yet i got lazy rendering the clothes hehe

Work in progress

SO HI!! IM BOKKIOKI IM A DIGI/TRAD ARTIST

. - - - - .へ ♡ ╱|、

૮ - ՛ ) (` - 7

/ ⁻ ៸| |、⁻〵

乀 (ˍ, ل ل じしˍ,)ノ

ֶֶָ֢୧.𐙚˚tteokbokki.𖥔˚

⊹₊ ⋆🪼⋆.ೃ .ᐟ࿔*:･

ʚɞ ⁺˖ ⸝⸝ A R T IST.ᐟ⊹