****SHUT. THE FRONT. DOOR. Asta and Molaki got first prize in WPC 275: Loving the Beast! Truly, I am humbled and floored. I feel like as a writer I should have more to say, but I'm just gonna bumble over myself about it. I am an artist by day and am working on wares for a big convention in the summer, but I HOPE HOPE HOPE I can get some more Webnovel inspired art onto my Instagram: @BadVibesWN!***
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The evening wasn't as awkward as Molaki was imagining it. All he wanted to do was devour - metaphorically that is - his spouse. When they were in public, he found so many other things to be worried about, hovering over her to protect her while making sure she had everything she wanted. It was easier to push back the deep seeded urge to practically crawl into her skin, but now that they were inside, the wolf had nothing else to focus on but her.
He had led Asta upstairs, but only stood on the steps while he motioned where there was a nightgown for her to wear. He wanted to give her privacy, and needed to busy himself with anything other than staring at her for a moment. He also needed to figure out what he was going to wear to bed.
He lived alone. He had females over, and dated, but it was his house, and those girls weren't shy. He just slept naked. He didn't think he owned a single pair of clothes that were appropriate to wear to bed. He pinned his ears and whined as quietly as he could to himself as he struck a flint in the fireplace, starting a very small flame to boil tea water on. Bed clothes were stupid, he grumbled, pinning his ears. They made no sense. They never made sense.
Except in the case where you're having a sleepover with a woman who's scared of her own shadow. Then they make sense.
He was just about sick of sticking his tail between his legs and feeling like a dumb puppy. He wasn't mad at her; he could never be. He was mad at the way he felt strong and ambitious just mere days before, and now he found himself whining and licking his lips in submission to the Idols every time he turned around and found himself lacking.
The wolf had expected the creaking of footsteps on his staircase to give him a warning to snap out of his self loathing, but he clearly had not gotten used to the fact that Asta was a Shadow, shuddering to keep himself from jumping in surprise when he looked up and saw her standing quietly at his side, watching the dancing fire.
No sooner had he regained his composure, did he nearly lose it again. She was a vision, simply in a nightgown. It was Prim's, again, so it was just a bit too large, the cream colored fabric almost falling off one shoulder. Like everything in Lykos, there were small embellishments over the night dress, rose colored embroidery lacing through the sides and collar. Nothing worn by the women in Lyko was terribly skin tight, except for what they wore to hunt in the warm months, but something about the light fabric hugged, then fell, off her chest perfectly, in a way he hadn't seen her yet. The doe's green hair had been let down, falling in softly waved wisps around her face.
"...Tea?" The male croaked out.
Asta offered a small smile when she nodded, and eventually the two of them were back on his leather sofa, curled up with clay mugs of a mugwort and chamomile mix. This, *again,* had been left by his sister, her younger brother only ever having strong and bitter black teas in his house. Prim had made the mix purposely to help treat anxiety and allow Asta to sleep soundly, though it wasn't such a tonic as the truth medicine - it wouldn't make one sleep, only help someone relax from a stressful day.
Asta was leaning up against Molaki, trying their best to engage in small talk, though Molaki was finding it hard to dance around subjects that didn't bring up the life Asta could never return to. Because of that, it became slightly one sided, him rambling about his youth, his complicated family relationships, how he once tried to keep a pet blue jay but his mother made him release it, until the room became quiet for a moment, Asta looking around again at the trinkets on the shelves.
"You've lived alone for a long time, haven't you?"
Molaki snorted. "Why'd you say that?"
Asta waved her free hand towards a red clay vase in the corner, with fresh autumn flowers in it. "Because I can tell most of the stuff in here besides the books and the random things from the woods are new. You didn't have to do this all for me, you know. But - " She gulped hard before asking, "Were you... how were you not with anyone?"
Molaki raised an eyebrow at the question, taking a moment to realize what she was asking. Neither of them had been actively looking for a new mate when they found each other, so she assumed he had to have been romantically involved. He held his breath for a second, unsure if the deer had a different culture surrounding mating.
"I uh... well, I really wasn't. I had been, at one point. But like you said, she clearly didn't live here. Or leave anything."
"It doesn't bother me," Asta offered quickly. "I was asking more because for us, twenty is time to settle down. Or overdue, honestly."
It was then that the wolf realized he had never asked if she had been ripped away from a mate. He *knew* she recognized him as her True Pair, that wasn't the issue. But even knowing that, he felt a mix of both dread and jealousy well up inside his gut.
She settled it for him. "I wasn't single."
Asta felt him clench up under her, part of her wanting to leap up and sooth him, whisper all the ways he shouldn't worry. But instead she just stayed the course.
"I wasn't in love, though. But there was a lot of pressure for us to get pregnant, even though I was considering leaving him. Our numbers are low. I understood it. I just..."
"It doesn't bother me either," Molaki answered, hoping it would settle her. He reached his arm around to pull her closer into his chest. She fit so perfectly there, bundled in his throw blanket with her mug that was nearly empty. She took another swig, finishing it, and peering into the bottom, scrunching her nose.
"Can you read tea leaves?" She asked.
Molaki shook his head, finishing his own cup and looking at what he felt was most definitely a blob of ground up leaf slush.
"Mine has trees - good fortune and prosperity," She sang, opening a palm to take the wolf's cup.
"Mmm," she teased, looking up at him with a sparkle of teasing. "Yours is a toad. That means you have a secret enemy."
He growled at the same time she yawned, setting the cup down to cover her mouth before laying back down in the crook of Molaki's arm.
Wolves were not in the habit of reading tea, the male's hackles raised slightly at the idea that Asta had just "read" that he had a secret enemy. But he shrugged it off, considering she seemed to be making a joke of it.
"You shouldn't fall asleep like that," he teased back, pulling the hair out of her face. "You'll wake up with a crooked back."