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#katharayawrites
katharaya · 2 years
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Hi! I read The Secrets We Keep Come Out in Our Sleep months ago and fell HARD in love with your writing -- I randomly thought of it today and went to read it again when I saw your new work! And once more, head over heels with For One More Sunrise. You are amazing!!!
thank you!!! ❤ Secrets We Keep is still a fic that i love and am proud of, but by the time i'd finished it i wasn't into the arcana anymore and kind of stopped writing anything for like....... a year lmao. For One More Sunrise was an old draft i picked up just to get back into writing, and i'm happy with how it turned out and am super super happy that other people like it too!!!!
thank you again for the sweet ask, and here is a bonus lil art of the bath kiss scene, which was the first scene i wrote and is still my overall favorite:
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katharaya · 3 years
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Their apartment on Mulch Road is . . . honestly, it's too generous to call it an apartment. It's barely a room. It's barely a closet, even—tiny beyond miserable measure, forcing them to squeeze around each other in a miserable box of four walls that do little to keep out the damp and the cold and miserable fucking rain. The windows, kept permanently shuttered against the elements, let in only slivers of the gray dawn light.
Aeran rolls over on his makeshift bed, the wooden floorboards pressing hard against his shoulder through the thin layers separating him from the floor. Their room, much like their last six months in Rona, is dank and cold and miserable, miserable, miserable, and—
And less than an arm's length away—their sleeping pallets overlap when spread out for the night; that's how ridiculously tiny their stupid closet is—Sana lies on her side facing him, her breathing slow and gentle in the soft dark.
And—
Even here, where the damp seeps in through the waterlogged walls and the stench of muck and decay permeate the air and a fatal deadline hangs over their heads; even here, in this wretched hellpit of a city—
—even here, she still glows like the sun.
. . . And that's the stupidest thought he's had so far today, and it's barely even morning, so he's got plenty more time to think of something even stupider, which is itself not an encouraging thought.
And he is, regrettably, something of a dreamer in the early hours before the sun rises.
And she is still wearing his pendant.
Got it as a bonus on an assignment, he'd told her, one of the rare occassions they'd crossed paths. Don't really have a use for it besides selling it. Thought maybe you'd like to have it.
Which was—true, to an extent.
But the reality was this: he'd been offered his pick of trinkets and treasures—ruby rings and emerald pins and diamond diadems worth twice their weight in gold—
And underneath it all he'd found a simple golden necklace, probably the cheapest of the lot, with a small piece of polished amber set into a pendant wrought in the shape of a sun. And as soon as he'd seen it, he'd thought, Oh.
Sunny should have this.
So he'd taken it and carried it around in his pocket for . . . a year, maybe more, until they happened to bump into each other in some backwater town beplagued by some unmemorable beast.
"You're giving me a necklace?" she'd asked, bewildered, the golden chain dangling from her fingers as she'd examined it.
"If you want it," he'd said, shrugging all nonchalant, and gods, he'd felt so young in that moment, stupid and reckless and hopeful all at once.
(He was young. It was before the Spire fell.)
"What for? Does it turn into a backup weapon? A lockpick? Can I open it up and hide poisons in it?"
He rolls his eyes, so stupidly, unbearably fond. "It's a necklace, Sassy, you wear it and look pretty, or whatever."
"Excuse you," she'd said, grinning. "I am already the pinnacle of beauty and grace, thank you."
And he'd laughed, warmth bubbling something ticklish in his chest, and his answer had come from the heart: "Of course you are, Sanni."
And they'd parted ways, like always, and then the Spire fell and the world went to shit and stayed shit until he'd found her again, his Sunny, and she'd still been wearing the necklace.
"Did you ever get to do anything with it?" he'd asked. "Maybe hide a poisoned needle in it or something?"
She'd touched the pendant briefly where it rested over her heart. "Still thinking about it," she'd said, and grinned. "But it does make me feel pretty and fancy."
And somehow, years later, she still has it. Honestly, it's something of a miracle that she hasn't lost it yet here in Rona, with all the pickpockets who'd steal a tin can if it was shiny enough.
(And here's another stupid thought: Maybe those kinds of tiny miracles will be enough to see them through.)
Sana stirs beside him, finally, cracking an eye open just as the daylight outside gets bright enough for her human eyes to see properly. It's their last day in Rona, for sure. Whether or not they find the Count's chalice, they won't be staying here longer than they already have.
"Hey," she says, a sleepy smile quirking her mouth.
"Hey."
"Big day today."
He snorts. "Long as it ends with us out of this shithole, I'm not complaining."
"Careful what you wish for," she says, stretching out on her pallet with her arms above her head. "But come on. Best get an early start."
He watches her out of the corner of his eye as they prepare to head out. She still looks so damn bright.
(Guess he hasn't completely shaken off his early morning dreamer, yet.)
"Are you coming or do I have to leave you behind until your brain wakes up?" she asks, with one hand on the doorpost and a foot already out the door.
He snaps himself out of it; slipping easily into his waking Wayfarer self, casual and collected and very much not in love with his best friend, thank you. He slings his bow across his back and smirks. "As if you could get rid of me so easily."
And she snorts, amused, before she tilts her chin up, a smug smile tugging at her mouth, and says, "As if I'd want to."
The look on his face must be something to see, because she laughs, and winks, and then disappears down the hall.
And Aeran stands there for a moment, stunned, before he allows himself a wild, dreamer's grin, and follows her out the door.
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katharaya · 3 years
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Ahh your vesuvian cuisine zine fic was so good 😭 I love that family
he's adopted now them's the rules
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katharaya · 4 years
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Pairing: Asra/F!Apprentice Word Count: 91,551 Summary: They are both of them a little more honest when they dream.
A/N: IT’S DONE THANK FUCK. thank you to everyone who kept up with this fic despite the like, initial lack of chronology and ridiculously irregular updates lmao. to any new readers who might stumble on this fic via this post, please keep in mind that it is VERY angsty, deals with depression and other heavy topics, and is also, like, pretty smutty lmao. additional warnings are listed in the author’s notes at the beginning of each chapter. 
happy reading y’all, and again, thank you so much to everyone who gave this fic a chance!! ❤❤❤
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katharaya · 3 years
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Relationship/s: Asra & Muriel; Asra & his parents; Muriel & food
Word count: 1,098
Summary: Asra attempts to rebuild his relationship with his parents; Muriel attempts to rebuild his relationship with food. Family dinners might not be so bad after all.
A/N: My contributor's copy JUST arrived this week lmao 😅 so here's the piece I wrote for the @vesuviancuisine zine! 🍛🍰🍽
They're also doing extra stock sales for merch right now, so please go check it out! Proceeds go to The Hunger Project ❤❤❤
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katharaya · 5 years
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I keep thinking about that one chapter where asra cuts his hair bc he thinks he doesn't deserve nice things...ouchie..
Aside from thinking he doesn’t deserve nice things (which is a constant for him throughout the fic), it’s important to know that at that point Asra is very sick and very, very out of it, and that he is remembering, among other things:
A) the fever scene from You Don’t Have to Climb These Walls, as stated in the chapter notes, and
B) this following snippet, which I am adding for y'all’s enjoyment and for further clarification as to why he does what he does (ᵕᴗᵕ ✿)
Asra returns in the middle of the night to find the shop much the same as he’d left it when he’d sprinted to the docks with a wobbling compass in hand and his heart in his throat.
The red cross on the front door is smudged from when he’d shouldered it open in a forced entry. The door hangs slightly ajar, unable to close properly because of the locks he’d broken, so when he steps inside he simply eases it shut and keeps it from swinging open by blocking it with the stool from behind the counter. Faust slithers out of the bag he drops carelessly beside the stool, coiling up in a tight ball atop the seat. She doesn’t say anything, but he feels it all the same—the kind of sorrow for which there are no words, emanating from her in waves of distress.
The shop is deathly quiet. Cobwebs decorate the corners; grime smears across the windows; a heavy layer of dust sits atop the counter, except for the clean little rectangle where she’d left an envelope with his name on it, with her aquamarine pendant sealed inside.
Upstairs is even worse. The dishes are all washed, stacked on the shelf and gathering even more dust; all the perishable food is gone, leaving only the spices and the jars of preserves and the tins of loose-leaf tea. The bed is made, sheets tucked neatly under the mattress, blankets spread out flat, not a pillow out of place. The clothes in the dresser drawer are neatly folded, still smelling faintly of laundry soap. Her favorite skirt lies atop everything else.
It looks, all in all, like someone had cleaned out the whole house before leaving on a long, long journey.
Outside, on the balcony, the garden is dying of neglect.
His knuckles and fingertips sting when he clenches his fists, the half-healed cuts and bruises protesting in twinges of grounding pain.
He’s only wept once, so far. Only once, on the Lazaret, and not again since—not when Muriel had come to collect him on the ash-choked beach and brought him back to the hut; not when he’d trekked through the forest back to the city; not even now, as he stands here in the lonely, echoing silence of their abandoned home.
(Not yet, anyway.)
He feels his grief welling up from deep in his soul, feels it battering against the dam of his stone-cold heart and clamoring for release, but he wrestles it firmly down.
Not yet.
First things first: he needs—he needs to set the house to rights. Repair the door, restock the kitchen, water the garden…
She’d always kept their garden in perfect condition. He needs to fix it, because if not she'll—she’ll be upset, and—and—
Right. He should—he should start with the garden. Little things. He can deal with… the rest, later.
He stumbles over to the dresser. If he’s going to do some gardening, he needs to tie back his hair—
And he freezes there in front of the mirror, hands gone stock-still gripping his hair as the memory returns to him unbidden—
(She tuts as she redoes his sloppy ponytail, gathering his hair at the back of his neck and securing it with a leather cord.
“I know for a fact you can tie your own hair, Asra,” she says, shaking her head at him in the mirror, a fond smile betraying her scolding tone.
He only grins. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’ve been coming here with your hair tied back since before you even moved in with me!”
“Mmmaybe Muriel always tied it back for me.”
“Did he really?”
“No.”
She laughs as she twists him around to face her, arms coming to rest around his shoulders as she rises on her tiptoes to pull him into a smiling kiss.)
And as suddenly as he was pulled into it, the memory spits him back out into the dark and the emptiness and the ringing, damning silence, and it is not her hands in his hair but his, and it’s not her hands and it’ll never be her hands because he had clawed and scraped and dashed his own against the gritty sand and ash and bone that was all that remained of her and she is gone she is gone she is gone—
And his hands—his bleeding, wounded hands that are not her hands—are shaking, his grip tightening in his curls until the roots ache, and he lets go only to rummage frantically atop the dresser for the scissors and—
Several hurried, harried snips later, he’s holding a fistful of white hair in one hand, the scissors dangling limply from the other, and there’s a stranger in the mirror, short-haired and hollow-eyed and so very, very alone.
Shorn curls slip through his fingers, the scissors clattering to the floor as he begins, for the second time so far, to weep.
(And it is far, far, far from the last time he will do so.)
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katharaya · 5 years
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touch with an apology + asrei
This is an apology:
His hands on her shoulders, pressing her gently back down against the mattress. Sweeping back her cropped-short hair, cupping the sharpness of her cheekbone jutting out from beneath washed-out ashen skin.
“It’s alright,” Asra murmurs. “It’s alright. You’re safe.”
An unspoken question flickers like dying star in her panicked, grave-dark eyes.
(She asks it every time.)
“My name is Asra,” he sighs. He hates, hates, how familiar these words have become, wearing a bitter groove into the center of his tongue. “Asra. I’m going to take care of you.”
This is an apology:
An arm around her shoulders, the other behind her knees, lifting her all skin-and-bones and carrying her to the bathroom tub downstairs. Gentle hands divesting her of clothing before he turns on the tap, letting the water rise as he lathers soap between his scarred palms.
He makes bubbles for her just to make her smile, but he doesn’t meet her eyes, too trusting-innocent, as he bathes her, washing her clean even as phantom ash still lingers beneath his own fingernails.
This is an apology:
A squeeze to her hand as she presses her face into his shoulder, retreating from the too-bright sun and the too-loud crowd into the muffling shadows of her cloak.
“Come on,” he says gently. “We can go home right now, okay?” They’ve gotten bread and vegetables, but no meat yet. He waits for her to nod, then squeezes her hand again. She doesn’t meet his eyes, staring stubbornly at her feet as they leave the bustle of the market.
She makes a sound in the back of her throat, low and plaintive.
“Hey,” he says, soft, rubbing his thumb across her knuckles as he leads her through the quieter back alleys. He will have to make another trip later; he hopes he can catch the butcher before they close for the day. “It’s okay. You got pretty far today.”
She only makes that sound again, and doesn’t look up at him the whole way home.
This is an apology, said over and over and over, ad nauseam:
His palm sliding over her unruly curls, sweeping over the top of her head and curving down the back. His fingers linger at the strip of skin between the ends of her hair and the collar of her shirt, before he pulls back, and away, curling his hand around the strap of his bag to hide how it trembles.
“You’ll be fine,” he says, and if his voice sounds shaky it’s only because his scarf muffles the words. “Faust will keep you company while I’m gone, and I’ll be back before you know it.”
She rocks on her heels, a nervous habit. Faust, draped around her still-slim shoulders, gives her a friendly, comforting squeeze.
“Okay. Yes. Okay. Um—” Her hands ball into white-knuckled fists in the hem of her shirt. “Be safe, Master.”
He pulls his hat low over his brow. If his eyes tighten at the corners, it’s only a trick of light and shadow. “Yeah. You too.”
And this is an apology, always given hand-in-hand with the last:
A pinky brushed against hers when he slips beneath the covers, his body tired and aching from wandering much too far from home, from her. She stirs, lashes fluttering in the moonlight as she wraps her hand around his.
“You’re back early,” she mumbles, words slurred with sleep.
(He never really wanted to go in the first place.)
“What can I say?” he whispers back, lacing his voice with just the right amount of casual, unaffected humor. “I missed you too much.”
And now you’re here, he thinks, and I miss you still.
She grumbles something unintelligible, scrunching up her nose as she burrows beneath the blankets. But the way she falls back asleep with their joined hands tucked against her chest, kept close like something cherished and precious, feels a lot like Welcome home. Like I’m glad you’re back. Like I missed you, too.
And with her pulse beating steady and warm against his knuckles (alive, alive, alive), his own foolish heart tricks him into thinking it feels something like I forgive you, I forgive you, I forgive you.
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katharaya · 5 years
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touch to say hello + asra/portia 👀👀👀
have some pre-relationship portia/asra. pre-flirting portia/asra, in fact. some iffy “just friends” stage portia/asra
Portia is in her garden, attempting to replicate the spell Aisha had showed her last week, when a quiet cough sounds behind her and she loses her concentration, causing the water she’d been manipulating to burst outward in a shimmering spray of mist, leaving her completely soaked.
She coughs and splutters, and behind her comes the sound of a familiar laugh.
“I haven’t studied mom’s spells in a long time, but I’m pretty sure that’s not supposed to happen.”
She turns, and Asra’s there, surrounded by water droplets that stop a foot away from him, and still thoroughly dry.
“Asra!” she says, smiling and wiping a hand over her face. He grins, with a wave of his hand he gathers up all the water in the air and in her clothes into a hovering bubble, flashing her a cocky smile before depositing it all neatly back into a nearby bucket.
She rolls her eyes. “Show off,” she grumbles, but moves to hug him anyway.
He returns her embrace with another laugh, wheezing a little when she squeezes him hard enough to lift him up to his toes, his hat falling to the ground as she does so.
“Pfhaha, hello to you, too,” he says, then pats her head playfully as she sets him back down. “I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it soon.”
She pulls away, but catches his hands, swinging them mindlessly between them as she talks, and he just smiles down at her, and lets her.
“I hope so,” she says. “Disappointing your mom makes me feel like the worst person ever.”
“I’m sure you could never disappoint her. Much.”
“Hey!”
He grins again, teasing, and then it softens, turning friendly and fond.
“It’s good to see you again, Portia. How have you been?”
She shrugs. “Oh, you know. The usual. Keeping the entire palace running, making sure Ilya stays out of trouble, getting wicked good at this magic stuff, no big deal.”
“Wicked good, huh?” He nudges her foot, still streaked with dried mud. He’d gotten all the water, but it left dirt still sticking on her skin. “I can see that.”
“Oh, but you should see Ilya trying to learn the basics. He's—and I’m quoting a certain magic shop owner who shall remain anonymous—pretty much still a lost cause as far as magic is concerned—”
Portia stops when a peculiar expression crosses Asra’s face. But soon enough he’s wearing that same easy smile again, and says, “How is Ilya, anyway?”
She raises an eyebrow at this. “You haven’t been to the shop yet?”
“… No.”
Ah.
Faust chooses this time to make an appearance, popping out from beneath Asra’s coat to flick her tongue against his cheek. He smiles at her, and bumps their noses together, but he looks—distant, somehow.
“Hey, Asra,” Portia begins, squeezing his hands. He hasn’t pulled away from her this whole time. “Your parents are in the library with Milady, but, uh—do you want to come inside for tea first? Maybe put up your feet for a bit? You came a long way, I’m sure.”
He blinks, refocusing on her, and then he smiles, for real, slow as a sunrise and twice as warm.
“Tea sounds lovely, Portia. Thank you.”
She flashes him a toothy little grin, and turns to lead him inside her cottage, his hand still held tightly in hers.
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katharaya · 5 years
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hey can i get some uhhhh hades rei railing persephone asra thanks
if y'all thought you’d seen the last of this then you’re wrong
it’s (technically) spring y'all so here’s some more asra x rei hades/persephone au
warning: lemon!!! lemon lemon lemon this is pure 🍋 unadulterated 🍋 LEMONS 🍋🍋🍋 there’s no plot this is just subby asra taking the strap u have been warned!!!!!
.
.
.
“Did you miss me, my love?” she asks him, the iridescent blue-black silk of her robe swishing behind her as she pads around her room. Her black hair has been let down from its elaborate coif, the ends of it swaying against her waist.
She glances back at the bed where he waits, obedient, his impatience only apparent in the way he digs his fingers into his thighs. She catches his gaze and smiles, keeping eye contact as she opens her dresser drawer and slowly takes out her leather harness.
He gasps, then bites his lip, a flush like roses creeping down his neck, spreading across his chest, made visible by the rumpled state of his chiton, already falling off his shoulder.
“Asra?” she presses.
He lowers his eyes, the gilt on his lids flashing golden in the dim underworld light.
“Always,” he breathes, thumbs digging into his inner thighs, slick from the oil she’d used to stretch him open for her earlier. And then he looks up at her through his lashes, a slanted, cheeky grin on his rose-petal mouth, and adds, “Spring was made for missing you, I think.”
She smiles, eyes going lidded, and slowly, exaggeratedly slowly, steps into the harness, fitting it snugly around her hips before securing the phallus in place. Asra watches her, squirming minutely all the while, eyes shifting from lavenders-in-the-morning to orchids-at-midnight.
She walks over to the bed, shedding her robe along the way, leaving her naked but for the harness, the false cock shining with oil even in the dark. She plants one knee on the mattress and reaches out to tip his face up by the chin, leaning close until their noses just barely brush together.
“As the autumn was made for loving you, then,” she whispers, and watches, satisfied, as his pupils grow to swallow the purple of his irises. She slides her hands beneath the hem of his chiton, bringing fabric up, up, fingernails dragging lightly along the dips and ridges of his torso. She pulls it over his head and tosses it to the floor, gripping him gently once more by the chin to give him a quick, honey-sweet kiss.
And when she pulls away, still close enough that her lips brush his, she murmurs, “Hands and knees, love.”
(Whoever says Spring is lazy and slow to arrive has clearly never seen him move when she’s about to fuck him.)
He scrambles to his knees atop her sheets, coming to rest with his head pillowed on his arms, looking over his shoulder at her with half-lidded eyes. His back bows in a sinful arc as he keeps his hips raised, ready, waiting. Eager.
She runs an appreciative hand over the slope of his ass, trailing it up his waist, his back, smiling when his body curves to follow the warmth of her touch. He shivers in anticipation when she reaches the base of his neck, his breath hitching when she slides her fingers into his hair and tugs, sharp then quickly gentling as she gathers a fistful of his curls.
“Rei,” he needles, squirming beneath her, grinding back against the false cock between her legs.
“Hm?” She takes the phallus in her free hand, rubbing just the tip against his entrance, still not pressing in, smirking when he whines in protest.
“Rei, please.” He leans his head back against the hand still curled into his hair, trying to encourage her. “Fuck me already.”
“Mm, I’ve changed my mind,” she says, releasing his hair to run a finger down his spine, and laughs when he whines again, louder and higher-pitched and twice as desperate as before. She splays her hand out on his back, between the jut of his shoulder blades. “Relax, Asra. I only meant I’d rather have you on your back. I want to see your face while I fuck you.”
He rolls over so quickly it makes her laugh again, her hand never leaving his skin as he turns to face her, settling back against the mattress with his legs spread, his hands finding her hips, tugging her impatiently closer. She obliges him, crawling forward to hover over him, pushing back his sweaty curls from his forehead before she leans down and kisses him, coaxing his lips to part with exploring tongue and nipping teeth. He pulls her down to settle her weight atop him, moaning hungrily against her mouth, running his sun-warm hands down her sides to cup her ass, bringing their hips flush together. Everywhere he touches, heat blooms like wildflowers beneath her skin, his fingers dragging a flush down her body, making a garden of reddening desire flourish with each pass of his hands.
She gasps, pulling away when he begins to trace lines down her inner thighs, and presses a finger to his lips when he leans up to chase her mouth. He kisses her finger with a petulant pout, and she laughs, pushing down on his shoulders to settle him back against the sheets.
“Ready?” she asks, aligning the false cock to his entrance, watching his eyes darken, his need so thoroughly stoked building up into violet wildfire behind his lashes. “Or do I need to stretch you open some more?”
His hands flex almost painfully tight around her waist, before relaxing, tracing restless circles on her hipbones with his thumbs.
“I’m ready,” he insists, rolling his hips, trying to take the phallus into himself. The head of it just about slides in, but she pulls back, and away, watching him bite his lip against a frustrated whimper. “I’ve been ready forever, Rei, please—ah—!”
He cries out so beautifully when she presses in, just a little, at first, and then slowly more and more, thrusting lightly into him until he groans, snapping his hips up so he can take the false cock to the hilt, shuddering around the slick, hard length of it.
It does not take much to wreck him, like this. She’d already denied him release twice tonight—once when she’d stroked him to hardness, sucking rose-marks onto the skin of his neck as she’d pressed him up against her bedroom door; another when she’d lain him down on her silk sheets and stretched him open for her, working one, two, three fingers into his ass until he was clenching around her digits, incoherently babbling her name and please and finally close, close!, making him keen when she’d pulled her hand away. And so it does not take much to build him back up to the same peak, but oh, does he look breathtaking as she does.
Color begins high on his cheekbones and bleeds all the way down his neck to his chest, the prettiest red she’s ever seen. He is the brightest thing here in the dreary underworld gloom, and he is here, in her bed, scattering crimson petals across her sheets as his control frays, spilling sighs and moans into the empty room for her ears and hers alone.
His cock is dripping, leaking precome down its length, and for a moment she imagines how good it would feel to have him inside her, making her feel so deliciously full; to have him thrusting into her, pleasuring her and taking his own in the act.
But—later. He is writhing so beautifully beneath her, head thrown back, mouth hanging open as his breaths come in short, sharp hahs.
“Are you close?” she croons, hitching one of his legs onto her shoulder, grinning it makes his fingers scrabble in the sheets, a high, broken moan leaving his mouth as the new angle pushes the phallus against the spot inside him that makes him go wild. “Do you want to come, Asra?”
His yes comes in a strangled groan, eyes squeezed shut as he chases and chases release, and begs, “Please, please please please, Rei, let me come, please, I’m so close, please—!”
(Beautiful. Beautiful. Who knew she could make something bloom so beautifully under her baleful hands?)
“Then come,” she says, wrapping her fingers around his cock, swirling his precome around the head and slicking it down the sensitive length. He moans, bucking into her fist even as he struggles to continue meeting every thrust of the phallus in his ass. “Be good and come for me, my love. I want to see.”
And Asra—beautiful, beloved Asra—obeys, spilling into her hand as he comes undone choking on her name. She fucks and strokes him through it, not stopping until he slumps back utterly spent onto the mattress, unable to even speak for how ragged his breathing comes.
He’s still trembling from the aftershocks when she pulls her hand away, still trembling when she pulls out of him and fetches a clean cloth to wipe his spend streaking stark white across the golden brown of his stomach. Then she steps out of the harness, gives the phallus a perfunctory cleanup before setting it aside to worry about later.
She returns to him on the bed, where he’s just about caught his breath, and he smiles up at her, all blissed out, reaching up to run his knuckles along her outer thigh. She grins, and moves to straddle his head, grinning wider when he swallows audibly, his hands moving to clutch her hips.
“You’ve been so very good for me, my love,” she croons, threading the fingers of both hands through his curls, pushing his hair away from his face. “But you can be even better, can’t you?”
And Asra—beautiful, beloved Asra, his rose-petal mouth shaping itself into the wicked curve of the harvest scythe—pulls her closer still and obeys, coaxing her to bloom for him beneath his sun-warm hands.
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katharaya · 5 years
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Uy, opm Okay pero how about something written with a few lines from "Sa Ngalan ng Pag-ibig" by December Avenue as a prompt naman (sorry po natuwa kasi may nag anon nung isa)
okay but for real tho, this song is like. prime Drunk Karaoke™ music, just sayin
u didn’t specify a pairing, sooo here’s some one-sided asra/muriel, with mentions of asra/rei. pre-game angst, angst, and more angst.
I.
If only you had been able to seethe sadness in your smileThat one morning you did not returnWake up now, so you can finally seeThe sweetness of those times from a yesterday that won’t return
“Muri,” Asra’s voice calls out in the dark of the hut. “You awake?”
Muriel turns on the bed, making it creak beneath his weight instead of answering. From his pile of furs and pillows in the corner, Asra’s eyes shine like little moons in the light leaking from the window above the door.
“So,” Asra says, propping himself up on an elbow, “Rei—” Muriel stiffens at the sound of her name, and almost misses the rest of Asra’s sentence, “—asked me to move into the shop.”
A beat.
“… is she leaving.”
“What?” Asra’s hair bounces when he startles, his curls flopping over his forehead. “No, I'm—I’ll be moving in with her.”
Another purposely-obtuse beat.
“… is she sick.”
“No, she’s not,” Asra says, always good-natured, always patient. “She just—asked.”
“Why.”
“Well, because—” Muriel sees Asra’s fingers moving in the moonlight, picking at a stray thread on the corner of one of his many, many pillows. “—'cause we're—y'know—”
Muriel knows. He does. And he’s happy for Asra, truly.
(But being happy for Asra and being happy about it are two very different things.)
“When are you leaving?” Muriel asks, and he hopes Asra does not know how much those words cost him.
Asra flops back down onto the pillows, his teeth flashing white in the moonlight as he grins at him, though Muriel knows Asra can’t see him across the room, hidden by the shadows as he is. Good. It means Muriel doesn’t have to control his face as he listens to the sound of his impending solitude.
“Well, tomorrow, I thought,” Asra says, rolling onto his back, tucking an arm beneath his head. “I’ll start moving my things over bit by bit, and then I’ll spend the night there, but I’ll be coming back here the next few days to get the rest of my stuff.” Asra tilts his head at Muriel and smiles, but Muriel knows the light in Asra’s eyes belongs to someone else. “So you’ll still be seeing a lot of me.”
Muriel grunts, then shifts, earning him a soft whuff from Inanna as she’s roused from her sleep at the foot of the bed. He stills, letting her settle, and tries to imprint the image of Asra’s moonlit smile in his mind, for safekeeping.
“I’m worried about you, though,” Asra continues, voice going soft. (The sound reminds him, strangely, of the sea.) “Will you be okay?”
(Or not so strange. It reminds him of a smaller Asra, a younger Asra, a not-yet-in-love Asra, who only cared about Faust, and mealtimes, and magic, and Muri, Muri, Muri.)
“… yeah.”
“You sure? Maybe—”
“Are you happy?” Muriel asks, before Asra can second-guess himself, before he can put Muriel’s happiness above his own.
“What?”
“Are you happy.”
“I—yes,” Asra says, voice going softer still. It’s the voice of an older Asra, a more-in-love-than-ever Asra. “I'm—I’m really, really happy.”
“Then,” Muriel says, “I am, too.” (It is only half a lie.) “I’ll be fine.”
Muriel closes his eyes, but he can still hear Asra’s smile when he says, “Thanks, Muriel.”
Muriel grunts again. He hears Asra shift, hears the rustling of fabric as Asra settles onto his side with a pillow under his arm, the way he always sleeps.
“Night, Muri.”
He lets it echo in his mind, the words bouncing around until it gets tucked away into his long-term memory with all the other Good night Muri’s from over the years. Night, Muri; Night, Muri; Night, Muri.
It’s the last one he’ll hear for a long while, he thinks. He wants it to last.
“Night,” Muriel says, and hopes morning never comes.
It does, of course, and not even a full hour after the sun has cleared the horizon, Asra is already packed and dressed, standing in the open doorway.
“—come back for more of my stuff tomorrow,” he’s saying. Muriel nods, only half listening. Asra looks so bright in the sunlight, Muriel feels like he should cover his eyes. He doesn’t. He looks at Asra and tries to imprint this memory of him, too.
“—should come visit,” Asra continues, turning to look straight at Muriel. “I’m sure Rei would love to have you over.”
Muriel just shrugs. “Maybe,” is all he allows, but Asra smiles anyway like he’d agreed all the same.
(In truth, it’s only a matter of time, and stubbornness. He doesn’t know how to say no, not when it’s Asra.)
“Well, I’ll be off,” Asra says, fitting his scarf closer around his neck. It’s what he’s said pretty much every morning for the past—four? Five? Gods, he doesn’t even know anymore—years, ever since Asra’d started working for Rei’s aunt, before Rei had ever come to Vesuvia and stolen (no, not stolen—had been gifted) his heart. It shouldn’t sound so melancholy, and in truth maybe it really isn't—it’s just Muriel’s ears and his brain and his heart overlaying a string of please don’t go’s that make it sound that way.
“Yeah,” Muriel replies. It’s what he always says, too, but this one (the last one?) feels heavier on his tongue.
Maybe Asra senses it too (of course, of course he does), because his smile turns a little sadder, a little more wistful, and Muriel wants to kick himself for it. Asra should always smile like the world has given him everything he’s ever wanted.
Asra reaches out, places one of his soft, soft hands on Muriel’s very-much-not-soft arm. “Take care,” Asra says. “See you tomorrow, okay?”
“Yeah.” Muriel touches just the pads of his fingers to Asra’s knuckles, and smiles a little, only a little, only for him. “I’ll be here.”
And Asra smiles back like that’s everything he’s ever wanted.
II.
Until the very end of our infinityUntil this heart stops feeling anythingEven if this forever ends somedayI will still wait, all in the name of love
Muriel shoulders the door of the hut open and carries Asra inside. Neither of them had spoken a word the whole way back from the Lazaret. In the quiet of their old home, the sound of the sand stuck to Muriel’s boots scraping against the floor with each step is much too loud.
Asra refuses to let Muriel heal his hands. When Muriel reaches for a pot of salve after washing off the blood from the skin of his split knuckles, Asra wrenches his hands away, tucking them close to his chest.
“Leave them.”
“Asra.”
“Leave them,” Asra says, almost a growl, before he slumps over, and says, softer, “please.”
“They’ll scar,” Muriel says. He knows this from experience. Asra shouldn’t have to bear such scars.
“I know,” Asra sighs. “Let them.”
And then Asra gets up, crossing over to the pile of furs and pillows that Muriel never put away, and climbs into it, laying himself down facing the wall, his hands tucked to his chest as if to hide them from a world that would steal what little macabre mementos he has left of her.
Muriel stays awake that night, listening to the dead silence.
(He thinks it would have hurt less to just hear Asra cry outright.)
Asra doesn’t move for a solid twelve hours, save for the shallow rise and fall of his breathing, which is the only thing that reassures Muriel that he’s still alive.
And even that, perhaps, is not a certainty; there are many ways to die, and not all of them means the heart stops beating. Alive is sometimes relative thing.
(Muriel would know.)
Late in the afternoon, Muriel kneels down beside the unmoving lump of furs and nudges a plate of eggs forward.
“Eat,” he says.
The lump stirs, a little.
“’M not really hungry, Muri,” Asra mumbles. “Thanks. Maybe later.”
Muriel sighs, and sits, and waits patiently for later.
When later comes, when the sky has gone purple and the eggs have gone cold and the embers in the hearth have dimmed to a dull glow, Asra finally rolls over, blinking when he sees Muriel. His eyes are puffy and dull, but dry, although the wounds on his knuckles are still weeping, shining faintly in the dark twilight.
“Muriel,” Asra rasps out, voice cracked and dry like a desert gone decades without rain. “You’re still here.”
Muriel shrugs. “Where else would I be,” he says.
Asra doesn’t smile, but he doesn’t cry either. He just sighs, eyes closing, and goes back to sleep under Muriel’s watchful eye. There is still ash smearing Asra’s cheek, and a few grains of sand dotting his skin. Muriel reaches out to brush them away, then stops himself, and decides to just let Asra sleep.
Muriel shifts into a more comfortable position, and settles in to watch, and wait.
Morning couldn’t come fast enough.
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katharaya · 5 years
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In this ask you get to write an Asra/MC drabble but here's the thing: you gotta choose a few lines from "Kahit ayaw mo na" by This Band as a prompt. (Hi ate I love you and your apprentice tho)
opm is the way to my heart tbh (hello din and thanks beh!! ♥️)
asra/female apprentice (technically this is rei but i didn’t use her name), early post-amnesia
Even though so much of you has changedI’m gonna love you anywayThough you don’t feel the same
“Ta-da!” Asra says, grinning at her in the dresser mirror, but it sounds flat even to his own ears.
She reaches up to touch the ends of her hair, just barely brushing the sharp jut of her jawbone. She stares back at him in the mirror, face blank, dark eyes sunken within her gaunt cheeks.
His smile falters, but only a little. He has gotten very, very good at faking a smile since—since.
“It’ll grow out more evenly, now,” he tells her, reaching over her shoulder to return the scissors to its place atop the dresser. She’s still touching her hair, twining it around her fingers and tugging lightly, but it remains stubbornly short, curling in little flyaways that make it seem even shorter. Her brow furrows in minute frustration.
“It’s very pretty,” he reassures her, smoothing down some of the frizz at the top of her head. He thinks she’s beautiful no matter what (even now; even after—After), so he’s not lying, but still a line creases above her nose the way it always does (always did) when she suspects he’s not quite telling the whole truth. She pouts, lower lip jutting out in just that familiar way, and he would laugh and kiss it if only she—if only.
A mournful sigh builds up in his chest, but he forces it back down, and keeps the smile up.
“It really is very pretty,” he says softly, and he has never, ever told her she was beautiful without meaning it with every fiber of his worn-out being, and he isn’t about to change that now.
(Too many things have changed since the night he’d left with a slam of the door. He doesn’t need to add to them more than he already has.)
She doesn’t (—can't—) answer, just stares down at her feet, her fingers still curled in the hair at her nape.
“Wanna go back to the bed?” he asks, and she nods, reaching absently for his arm. She grunts as she rises, swaying unsteadily on her feet, and grits her teeth as he helps her hobble the few feet to the bed they (still) share. She sinks onto the mattress with a deep sigh, pulling up her legs as he rearranges the blankets around her. “Comfortable?” he asks, and she nods again, combing her fingers through her hair in a valiant (if futile) attempt to tame the flyaways that never quite did what she wanted them to, even before—Before.
He allows himself one small sigh, straightening up. “I’ll go start on lunch, okay? I’ll be in the kitchen.”
Before he can turn his back, she rasps out, in her rough voice that sounds to him like she’s still only halfway out the grave, “A-ah.”
She’s looking up at him, her hands folded and motionless in her lap, and she smiles, tiny little thing though it is. “Teng koo.”
His own mouth moves to mirror hers, his smile turning just a little bit warmer, a little more real.
“You’re welcome.”
There’s a small flash of teeth as her grin widens a little bit more. “Pri-tee.”
He blinks. “Sorry?”
She gestures to her mouth, tracing a U-shape in the air with her finger. “Pri-tee.”
He actually laughs, a short burst of startled, embarrassed joy. “Flatterer.”
She frowns, poking lightly at his chest. No, you are.
“I meant it.”
She thumps her hand emphatically against her heart. So did I.
(Well, he supposes. The more things change—)
“We’ll call it even, then.” He grins, gently tucking her hair behind her ear. “I’ll just be in the kitchen, alright?”
His heartbeat sounds too loud in his ears as he turns and walks toward the kitchen, feeling her eyes on his back every step of the way.
(Who knew a half-heart could still beat so hard?)
And perhaps it is nothing more than a traitor hope, but he thinks of the way she smiled at him, and still, he hopes: maybe this one thing stayed the same.
(And even if it’s just this one thing—just a familiar smile in a stranger-beloved’s face—then everything else was worth it.)
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katharaya · 5 years
Note
[SCREECHES INTO KATHARAYA LLC DRIVE THRU] HI CAN I GET SOME HOZIER AU MURIEL/ASRA WITH BONUS GODDESS REI 🅱LEASE AND THANK
lmao so this is gonna be a whole Thing, eventually, but for now have this uwu
🔞🔞🔞CW: This is basically a Bog Mummy Asra AU, and as such will (eventually) touch on themes like gore, body horror, and ritual sacrifice. This particular snip mentions scars in detail and heavily implies ritual sacrifice. And also a lil bit of smut. If any of those things make you uncomfortable, then this story is not for you.🔞🔞🔞
anyway, asra/muriel lime under the cut, with vague implications of asra/muriel/rei if u squint
Asra has scars, like him.
It’s strange to think about—somehow both appalling (Muriel is sure that Asra, of all people, did not deserve it) and assuring (they’re the same; a matched set of the most macabre kind—the slayer and the sacrificed, the staunch devotee and the dreaded scourge.)
Muriel had balked upon first seeing Asra’s scar—the dull red of a just-healed wound slicing clean across his neck, artery to artery. He would have bled out in mere minutes, and passed out cold before even then.
Asra wears scarves now, always, to hide it, and buttons up his shirt fully to hide the matching scar on the left side of his chest.
He wears neither now, stripped bare as he straddles Muriel upon the stone altar. The hallowed grove—a sanctuary at the heart of the bog, untouched by the encroaching decay and oppressive humidity—is silent in the moonlight, seemingly empty but for the two of them, though Muriel can sense Rei’s presence in the blackened willow tree, its leafless branches swaying in the faint breeze. Her dog skull mask hangs above the hollow in the trunk, carved out by centuries of heart rot.
Muriel blinks, and for a split second the scene changes: the willow is whole and alive, verdant boughs shivering in a spring breeze; the stagnant air of the surrounding bog—usually kept at bay by whatever enchantment froze the grove in perpetual spring—is replaced by the crisp, cool sweetness of heather and wildflowers. Somewhere, a woman laughs like silver starlight, and he catches a glimpse of blue hair blowing wildly in the wind—
—and then it’s gone, and there is only the dead willow and the dismal bog and Asra, blinking down at him in the moonlight.
Asra places a tender hand on Muriel’s scarred cheek, smiling softly down at him.
“You okay?” Asra asks, and Muriel’s eyes flutter briefly closed as he leans into the warmth of Asra’s touch.
“I saw—” Muriel begins, but he does not know what he saw, not really. If this place was ever anything more than the wet expanse of peat and muck that it is today, then he knows, at least, that now is not the time to talk about it. “—something beautiful,” he says instead, looking directly at Asra, and it is not a lie in any way.
Muriel trails calloused fingertips across the red line bisecting Asra’s chest, then presses his palm flat against the warmth of bare skin. Beneath bone and sinew, his heart beats an impossible miracle rhythm.
Asra catches Muriel’s hand, brings it up to his mouth to press soft lips to bruised knuckles. When their eyes meet, Asra’s gaze is an amethyst wildfire, sending heat flashing like a forest fire across Muriel’s skin, pooling in the hardening desire between his legs.
Asra grins, a fox on the hunt, and leans down until they’re pressed together, from hips to heartbeats to all their harrowing scars. A groan shudders from Muriel’s chest and into Asra’s, and with a huff of a laugh Asra moves closer still and kisses him. And they kiss, and kiss, and kiss, and both of them say precious little else as the moon moves across the sky.
Overhead, the willow branches rustle in the wind, the quiet sound almost like a laugh, soft and silver as starlight.
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katharaya · 5 years
Note
Imagine umuwi ka na baby but it's your mc and asra
i mean. umuwi ka na baby is pretty much the gist of every single rei-pov chapter in secrets we keep lmao but uh. here u go
this is set during book iv - emperor (night) in the prologue, because i miss the scene in the old prologue where faust comforts mc if they choose to go to the abandoned wing
Even the comfort of having Faust near isn’t enough to help Rei sleep. She still remembers the feeling of ash on her skin, the ghostly sound of claws scraping down the painting, the dizzying vertigo of being pushed down the marble stairs of the abandoned wing.
She sighs, and Faust tilts her head with a quizzical, empathetic look. Rei gives her a scritch on the chin, smiling a little when Faust leans her head into her palm.
“You go ahead and rest, Faust. I guess sleep just isn’t for me tonight.”
Faust leans back, flicking her tongue, then raises herself up, bobbing side to side as she fixes her gaze on the tall window.
“What's—” Rei catches a glimpse of swaying green outside the glass. “The fountain!”
Faust trills her tongue again, mouth curved in a serpentine smile. Rei pushes away the covers, slipping her feet hurriedly into her sandals. “Will Asra be there, do you think?”
Faust slithers around her shoulders, hissing softly in her ear, and Rei laughs at the ticklish sensation.
“Okay, okay, let’s go.”
They sneak through empty hallways down to the garden, following the familiar path through verdant hedgerows until the fountain comes into view. The mere sight of it is a comfort, the music of falling water soothing her frazzled nerves.
Rei slips off her sandals with a sigh as she sits on the lip of the fountain, letting her feet dangle in the cool water. She breathes deep, relishing the calm quiet for a moment, then frowns. Now that she’s here, it dawns on her that she has no idea how to actually call Asra.
“Well, now what?” she grumbles, sullen, leaning forward on her elbows with her chin in her hands as she stares down at her own frustrated face reflected back to her.
Faust slides down to her lap to take sniffling flicks at the water. As ripples move through the surface, the reflection of the starry sky fades away, and in its place Asra’s familiar face smiles up at her, painted in the watercolor hues of the strange landscape he’s in.
“Rei,” he says, his smile warming her even through the cool water of the fountain. “It’s good to see you again.” And then he frowns, worry chiseling a small line between his brows. “It’s late, though, isn’t it? What’s wrong? Can’t sleep?”
Rei looks down at her lap, running a finger over Faust’s head. She keeps seeing ember-red eyes in the shadows behind her eyelids, but she’s not about to tell him that.
“Bed’s too soft,” she jokes instead, grinning down at him. “Not enough pillows.” A pause. “And no one’s there to steal the blankets.”
Asra laughs, soft, almost drowned out by the sound of cascading water. “I only steal the blankets because you always hog them.”
“I do not!”
“You do, and it’s okay.” He grins, lopsided, and her insides do a flip at the sight of it. “I let you.”
She feels her cheeks warm despite the cool evening air. Asra must see her embarrassment on her face even through the rippling water, because he throws his head back in a carefree laugh.
“Oh, Rei,” he says, impossibly fond. “It really is hard not to miss you when I’m away.”
She flushes, somehow, even more, and has a hard time meeting his gaze despite him not actually being here. She clears her throat, and tries, nonchalant, “Will you be coming back soon?”
Asra sighs, eyelids drooping in something that might be tiredness or something that might be regret. “Maybe.”
A frisson of irritation cuts through her exhaustion. It always seems to be maybe with Asra.
(She thinks, bitterly—and not for the first time—that if she asked him if he loved her he’d just say the same damn thing.)
“Sorry,” he says, looking guilty. He’s always been able to read her so easily. “It’s hard to tell when I’ll be done here. But I do want to come home soon.” His reassurances sound earnest, perhaps even a little desperate.
(And it is not his fault that she’s come to want more than he’s willing to give.)
“I know,” she says. “Sorry, I’m just tired, I guess.”
“Did something happen today?” he asks, immediately concerned.
She shakes her head. Asra has enough to worry about on his travels, surely, without thinking his apprentice can’t sleep because of some ghost stories and an overactive imagination.
(Even if imagination can’t account for her falling down the stairs.)
“Rei?”
“It’s nothing,” she assures him. “I guess I’m just getting sleepy after all.”
“Well, you should go and rest. I’m sure Nadi’s keeping you busy enough.” He smiles, and his image begins to blur and fade in the water. “Good night, Rei.” A low, soft chuckle. “Sweet dreams.”
When the water stills again, she stretches her legs, slipping her sandals back on as she savors the scent of the night-blooming flowers for one moment more. The echoes of Asra’s parting words mingle with the sound of the wind in the willow, soothing as any lullaby, and it follows her all the way back to her room, lingering in her head even after she slips back under the covers and into a strange but somehow comforting dream.
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katharaya · 5 years
Note
ang cute naman ni rei !!! scenes w/ rei getting flustered are the best shes so cuteee gj asra ;o
salamat!! :3
idk if this was meant as a prompt or just a response to something i wrote but im taking it as a prompt anyway lmao. so here’s a deleted scene from Secrets We Keep, with flustered rei and asra teaching her how to ride, which is unfortunately not as dirty as that sounds rip
“Would you like to try?” Asra asks, standing with her outside the fenced-in track, watching the various riders make their way around the packed-dirt oval. Around them, the sounds of the Midsummer festival in full swing swell in the warm, dusty air.
“Oh,” Rei says, looking with trepidation from the track to the corral and back, “no, I don’t know how.”
He laughs, squeezing the hand he’d been keeping hold of so as not to lose her in the crowd.
“I’ll teach you,” he says, eyes twinkling. “That is, if you don’t mind riding together?”
She flushes under his shameless smile, and he laughs again, ruffling her hair, and soon she’s caught up in his excitement and the whirlwind of speaking to the proprietor and choosing a mount. Asra picks a pudgy but kind-looking white horse, stout enough to carry both of them. He links his hands to give her a foothold and boosts her up, before swinging up behind her in a surprisingly fluid motion.
“Where did you learn to ride?” she asks, but he only grins down at her, sun-bright, as he guides her hands to the reins.
It’s … comfortable enough, for something that’s a completely new experience. They go slow, and it’s simple enough to match her movements to that of the animal beneath her, although, the way the hard saddle digs into her legs takes some getting used to, as is the way Asra presses up against her back, one arm slung casually around her waist, close enough that she can feel his chest expand with every breath.
They pass by Sunita, riding with her little boy atop a piebald pony. Sunita waggles her eyebrows at Rei when she sees her with Asra, and gives her an enthusiastic thumbs up.
Rei gives her a dirty look.
“Easy enough, right?” Asra whispers, right in her ear, when they’ve gone a few laps around the track.
She pointedly ignores what sounds suspiciously like the baker’s voice calling out whooping encouragements to her and Asra from beyond the fence, studiously pretending that the warmth in her cheeks is from the heat of the late morning sun beating down on them.
She’s getting used to the horse’s rocking motion, at least, and so gives Asra an agreeing hum. He grins. “Great! Shall we run?”
“Wh—?”
Before she can get a single word out, Asra tightens his grip around her waist, his other hand snapping the reins as he urges the horse into a canter, then a gallop.
Their speed knocks her back against his chest, the wind and the summer sun near-blinding as they race around the track. She almost screams, but it dies before it leaves her mouth, kept in check by the way his arm stays steady and secure around her, anchoring her firmly in the saddle. The warmth and safety of his touch gives her the strength to somehow keep her eyes open as the world around them blurs into a rioting current of color and sound. She’s glad she does, because the exhilaration of the sprint is something else.
But it is Asra’s golden laugh—and only his laugh—that truly makes her feel like they’re flying.
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katharaya · 5 years
Note
touch on a scar + reiah 😌
cw: this is a bath scene, and therefore involves naked people, but is otherwise SFW 😌
Ziah has just finished washing Rei’s hair for her, pinning it up to keep it out of the sudsy water, when Rei turns a little between her legs and asks, “Can I wash your back for you?”
Ziah’s face is unreadable for a long moment, long enough to make Rei wonder if it was a mistake to even ask, but Ziah’s eyes flick up from pondering the soapy water to meet her eyes as she says, “Very well.”
Ziah rises, stepping around Rei to sit in front of her, the thin rivulets streaming down her skin glimmering in the candlelight. The water sloshes over the lip of the tub as she moves, but soon enough it settles, and Rei settles on the task at hand. She takes a small towel, lathering it with some mildly floral-scented soap, and slowly, gently, begins to scrub down Ziah’s back.
Ziah remains stiff at first, the slope of her shoulders tense for several long moments, but gradually she begins to relax, leaning forward to rest her chin on her knees, seeming to almost arch into the sensation as Rei drags the towel in measured swipes down the length of her back. Rei works the lather into a soft white foam, making iridescent bubbles catch and shimmer in the scars spiderwebbing across Ziah’s skin.
She has never been allowed to look this closely. She has hardly ever been allowed to touch, and even that had been a recent development. It’s mesmerizing, almost—the way lines of scar tissue crisscross over Ziah’s back, laid out like a story she doesn’t know in a language she doesn’t understand. In the geometric shapes formed between healed-over scars there are still spatters of freckles and moles dotting the unblemished skin, like little glimpses of Ziah’s past before she’d been permanently marked by whatever injustice forced her to bear these old wounds.
There’s a slightly larger mole just beneath her shoulder blade shaped almost like a heart, and Rei, entranced, unthinkingly traces the tip of her pinky over the dark brown beauty mark. Ziah flinches, shoulders tensing beneath her hands, and Rei immediately pulls her hands away.
“Sorry,” she says. “Too much?”
Ziah is still for space of two breaths, then three, before she lets out a long, low sigh, and says, “No. No, I am simply … unused to the feeling.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, I am alright.” A pause, and then, “You may continue, if you wish.”
Rei places her free hand on Ziah’s shoulder, staying far enough away from where her scars begin. Her thumb traces soothing circles into the smooth skin there, leaving little soap bubbles in its wake. “You’re sure?”
Ziah’s hand comes up out of the water to rest atop hers, and squeezes. “Yes. I am sure.”
Rei presses a kiss to wispy strands of hair at the top of Ziah’s nape, and returns to lightly scrubbing her back, slower and gentler than before. They lapse into a comfortable silence, broken only by the soft sloshing of the water, until Ziah says, “Does it not bother you?”
Rei looks up from her work to find Ziah staring straight ahead, not even the slightest tip of her head in Rei’s direction.
Rei hums, pondering the question, then slowly, deliberately, rests her fingertips on Ziah’s skin. She eases Ziah into the feeling of being touched, with fingertips then finger pads then fingers then palm, until her whole hand is flat on Ziah’s back, just below her shoulder blade. Her thumb swipes over that heart-shaped mole again, twice, thrice. Ziah startles at the first pass, causing little ripples in the water, then relaxes again.
“Mostly, I just wish …” Rei says, carefully choosing each word, “that you didn’t have to bear them. I wish you were never hurt like this.” She traces a finger along one of the longer lash marks, cutting from right scapula to left hip. Ziah shivers, but neither objects nor moves away. “No one deserves this, I think,” Rei continues, leaning forward. “Especially not you.”
Her mouth presses onto the topmost knob of Ziah’s spine, her hands slipping below the water to rest on Ziah’s waist. Ziah inhales once, soft but sharp, before she leans forward, an invitation. Rei kisses her again, lower, and again lower still, just at the spot where smooth skin dips into the edge of the first scar.
“You said you weren’t used to this,” Rei murmurs against her, breath skimming down her damp back, raising goose pimples along her spine. “Do you want to get used to it?”
A moment, and then another, wrapped in silence and flickering candlelight, and Ziah sighs, turning her head slightly at last, just enough for Rei to catch the upward quirk of the corner of her mouth.
“Yes,” Ziah says quietly, “I think I would like that.”
Rei catches Ziah’s eye over her shoulder and grins, pressing another kiss to Ziah’s scarred, freckled, beautiful skin with a lovingly exaggerated mwah.
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katharaya · 5 years
Note
Ate, have you checked the #ManilaEncounters tag in twt? If not, you should probably check it. Might inspire a few... ideas. :3c
bless u, writer’s block has been a bitch recently ( ˘ ³˘)♥
this is gonna make zero sense to all but like three of you, im sorry. inspired by this tweet in particular.
asra x rei, modern au/manila gothic(?), of sorts. kinda angsty.
...okay, pretty angsty.
“Be careful on your way home,” Rei’s mother tells him, hugging him as fiercely as she ever did. When she pulls away, her eyes are red and puffy, and he has a hard time meeting them.
“I will, Tita. Good night.”
He pauses for a brief half-second at the food-laden table, slipping a single piece of candy into his pocket. He leaves without another glance at the casket.
Ilya catches him just outside the funeral home, stands next to him while Asra fumbles with his phone and waits for an available Grab driver, tsk-ing with increasing irritation at every failed booking. He studiously ignores the little icons at the top of the screen, indicating a missed call from his dad, five from his mom, and the two texts from Muriel.
A black-gloved hand offers him a cigarette, and Asra lights it from the glowing end of Ilya’s own before taking a long, deep drag and exhaling the gray smoke into the stiflingly polluted night air. Even so, he still prefers it out here, with the smell of car exhaust and cigarette smoke and stale piss in the gutters. The overpowering orchid-anthurium-antiseptic smell of the funeral home makes him sick.
“You shouldn’t go home straightaway,” Ilya chides him, exhaling smoke upwards. Asra just grunts in reply, watching the smoke rise and curl, watching it block his view of what little stars there are left to see in this wretched city. “There’s a fast food joint just on the corner over there. I’ll even pay.”
“No thanks, Ilya. I’m tired.”
He means it so much more than he has the energy to say.
“Just a coffee,” Ilya insists. “A sundae, or one of those little chocolate marshmallow pies you like so much—”
“I said no thank you, Ilya.”
“He’s right, you know,” Portia’s voice sounds from behind them, and he turns to see her stepping through the glass doors of the funeral home to glare at the cigarette in Ilya’s hand. Ilya flicks the butt to the floor and stamps it out with an embarrassed cough. Portia turns to Asra, and continues, “C'mon, let’s go to a 7-11 or something. Get a donut, a biscuit, anything.”
“Aren’t you and Arion supposed to keep watch tonight?” Asra counters.
Portia shrugs, pulling her borrowed hoodie closer around her despite the heat of the evening. The air-conditioning inside is always set to too-cold.
“We are. I’ll get him a coffee while we’re there, c'mon, Asra—”
Asra’s phone blips, Yay, we found you a driver! the map showing the little car just around the corner.
“Grab’s here, sorry,” he says, jogging across the parking lot toward the sidewalk, squinting at the approaching headlights with a plate number that matches the one on his phone. He hails the car and half-turns to throw a little wave back at Portia and Ilya, still standing under the dim fluorescent lights of the funeral home foyer. “See you guys tomorrow,” he calls out, and gets into the backseat without waiting for a reply.
“Start trip?” the driver asks, with the slightest tremble in their voice. It’s late. They’re probably exhausted, too. Their hands shake ever so slightly on the steering wheel.
Asra murmurs an assent, and watches the city lights pass by him in a blur, sodium-yellow street lamps and highlighter-neon bar signs outshining the invisible, ever-present starlight high above the sprawling orange street-veins of the metropolis.
His phone rings—his dad, again. Asra lets it ring, doesn’t look at her face smiling at him from the lock screen. The driver keeps shooting glances at the rearview mirror, but Asra pays them no mind.
Soon the car turns onto a quieter street, rolling to a stop on front of the run-down apartment building he lives in. Asra steps out into the street, pays his fare, then watches the driver speed away the second he closes the door, the taillights fading swiftly into the blue Manila night.
He takes the rickety elevator to their—his—floor, unlocks their—his—apartment door with her copy of the key, still attached to the wooden strawberry keychain she’d gotten from their Baguio trip a couple years ago. If he grips it tight enough the garish red wood of the charm seems to pulse like a beating heart.
He locks the door behind him, tosses the keys into the little bowl next to the drooping plant he’s been meaning to water but still hasn’t. Kicks off his shoes as he crosses the living space, digging into his pocket for the little candy and tearing the packaging open with his teeth, popping it into his mouth as he collapses onto their—his, only his, now—unmade bed. He lets the candy sit on his tongue, not really tasting it as he waits for it to melt away. He lays there in the dark, silent, the smoke-and-flowers smell still clinging to his clothes bleeding into the sheets, until the last drop of factory-flavored melted sugar disappears down his throat.
And in the dark, a sweet whisper comes, a voice his heart would know anywhere calling out to him from the shadowed corner of his—their—bedroom.
“Hello, my love.”
He smiles.
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