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"Home?" Nicholas queries, weary but still obstinately cheerful in the wake of their victory. His blade is still in his palm, held like a natural extension of his arm, a limb unto itself. Toothiana doubts he even realizes it.
"Home sounds perfect," Katherine says, wrapping her fingers around the pommel of North’s sword and tugging it gently away so that she can ensconce her hand within his own.
"You are all welcome at Santoff Claussen, my friends," Ombric says to the rest of them. "We have rooms enough for the night, and I have a feeling there might be a bit of a celebration in order."
Toothiana hesitates, eager to return her fairies to their nests, eager to count and coddle every single one until she is assured that none have been lost to the dark forces. Instinctively, she knows that they are all accounted for; they are a part of her, and she would feel it, if any had been taken. But logic has nothing to do with it. It is not the first battle her daughters have seen, and it will not be the last, but she will never grow used to the nervous flutter it puts her in to think of losing a single one. And then of course, there are the teeth to collect...
But the one called Bunnymund and the little golden man are agreeing to stay, and Katherine is talking about how excited the other children will be, and Nicholas is laughing that great bright laughter, and they are all not-looking at her in an effort to not-press and Toothiana realizes to some surprise that she is not quite ready to let these strange new fellows out of her sight.
"As long as those elves of yours behave, Nicholas, my daughters and I would be glad of the hospitality," she announces, sheathing her own sword.
---
Santoff Clausen is smaller than she expects it to be. From the stories that Nicholas and Katherine told, she would have thought it a glimmering city filled with wonders beyond imagination. It is more quaint than spectacular, but there is no lack of wonders. They gather at a massive table beneath the stars and the whole village abandons their hearthsides to attend. She is introduced to a string of Williams as the evening progresses and small tide of other children, and their parents, and even though she remembers her own parents with the utmost affection, even though her own fairies have begun to call her 'mother,' the unease still sits in her belly like sand as she greets each smiling face.
The anxiety abates soon, however, swept away by the celebration, the company, and the very nature of the little community under the stars. The amount of food is impressive, and so much variety! Toothiana is certain Ombric either employed some manner of spellwork in its preparation, or that perhaps he had sent word to have a victory feast assembled for their return, although that seems awfully bold to her. Spellwork or no, the food is divine, and Bunnymund questions every dish that passes his nose; they have seen the effects of chocolate on his person, and he assures Nicholas darkly that they'd be less impressed by the effect of meat on his stomach. Toothiana chuckles, but watches which dishes he does and does not take from, and Sanderson winks at her when he notices her mimicking the Pooka's choices. Meat may not upset her, but does not forget the debt she owes to the creatures who saved her in the jungle those months after her parents passed. She raises her glass to the golden Guardian with a smile and he turns back to his meal without further comment.
Sanderson also, it seems, has a sweet tooth, and she only scolds him a little as he piles his plate with every sugary confection within his reach. The spectral boy called Nightlight settles next to Katherine for the entirety of the evening and doesn't touch a morsel. Elves run everywhere underfoot, jingling madly, and she stops discouraging her girls from antagonizing them after the third repetition.
Eventually, a small boy--one of the Williams?--starts to yawn and soon all of the young ones are yawning with him, stretching their limbs and rubbing tired eyes. Ombric claps his hands and suggests they all retire, yes Katherine, you too, even little girls who save the world still need their rest. So the children say their goodbyes and Toothiana makes sure to slip in a reminder about keeping their teeth clean and eventually they all amble sleepily toward Big Root.
And yet bed time for the children is not nearly bed time for the rest of them, and once the children are bundled off to their pillows and dreams, North breaks out the vodka. There is a first toast, and then a second, and Toothiana is not the only one trying not to make faces as she takes delicate sips to Nicholas's long draughts. Ombric treats them to a little more variety, ciders and wines and less corrosive liquors, and they have eaten like kings but the drink still has the lights going fuzzy at the edges of Toothiana's vision by the fourth round.
She hasn't ever been drunk before and isn't sure if she is now, but she thinks she might like it.
North is certainly drunk, and regales them with countless fantastic tales of his youth. Some they hear twice. Toothiana would not believe half of them if she hadn't grown up with her mother and the long woven history of her kinsfolk. She still does not believe a third.
One by one even the adults of the company excuse themselves into the darkness or nod off against the table. Toothiana's girls have split themselves into shifts, and the ones that are not out on duty doze in the trees or cuddled up to place settings, their tiny bellies full and their wings twitching restlessly even in sleep.
She looks up several times to Bunnymund's eyes on her.
It is nearly dawn when she decides to take her leave. She doesn't know how any of them have managed so long; they had all been exhausted after the battle. Good company, it would seem, was a bad influence. Nicholas has long since lost any semblance of coherence and keeps muttering something about steak knives into his plate. Ombric, conversely, does not appear to feel the need for sleep, and though Toothiana has seen him drink as many cups of wine as any man or woman present, he smiles warmly at her when she approaches to present her thanks, and he takes her arm as they walk from the table.
"There is a room for you if you would like it," he tells her, but his tone implies he already knows that is not what she is after. The moon is full and bright and the trees cast silver shadows as they move away from the glow of torches and the fairy lights hung in the trees to paths untouched by their harsher light.
"I haven't slept in a house since my parents’ passing." She tries to say it matter-of-fact, because it is, or was, up until that old foe emerged, led by Pitch Black from the shadows and back into her waking hours. It has been a lifetime since her mother's people passed into the things of legend; she had thought that wound mended.
The Monkey King is no more. This time she has made sure of it.
Ombric speaks again, startling her out of her reverie. "Houses are for the children, hmm? The ones you watch over?"
She laughs lightly. "Houses are for adults, Ombric. You should know, your children sleep in a tree."
"They do, don't they?"
She hums archly. "They're very happy here," she muses. "Their teeth hold some of the most excellent, and, ah, interesting memories I have collected."
"That is a high compliment. I only hope we can keep it that way." He clears his throat. "If the room is not to your preferences, might I say that the forest that surrounds our little haven is quite agreeable. It also happens to be the safest in the world. " Ombric leans in conspiratorially. "After all, only two beings on this earth have ever been able to breach our defences; one has just been soundly trounced by our collected company and the other is, I believe, currently snoring into his cups."
"Thank you, Ombric,” she says, smiling. “I haven't seen such hospitality...in a long time.”
Ombric flaps his hands. “Say nothing of it. Now you must excuse me, I have others to see to their quarters for the night.”
“Good luck with Nicholas,” she calls lightly after him, and he shakes his head as he wanders back the way they’ve come.
She should be tired, she thinks; she has fought long and hard and struggled with old enemies that weighed more upon her mind than upon her body. She was exhausted just a moment ago, was she not?
But there is something in the moonlight that strikes her into wakefulness, and she looks up to the bright round disk that is nearly bright as day with its fullness and wonders at the claims the others had made, about it being a marvel of metal and gears and captained by a boyprince-turned-man who looks down upon them all.
She wonders if he is sharing in their celebration this evening. And maybe it is the drink singing through her still, but she feels restless under that silver light.
She is not the only one.
It is not often that she has reason to be idle, and in the silence that reigns here in the absence of wingbeats and the snap of the winds, she cannot help but notice the long-eared shadow that follows her. She remembers his eyes from dinner, the weight of his quiet presence already growing familiar, and something like anticipation breathes against her ribs.
If there is to be a chase, let him be the one who is hunted.
Humming lightly, she weaves at a leisurely pace through a grove of smooth-barked saplings, stopping here and there to examine a leaf, a stem, a flower, but she looks more with ears than eyes, listening for the soft tread that does not disappoint, and she leads her quarry further and further away from the cluster of dwellings and their comforting fires, deep into the forest where the moonlight shines less brightly for the thickness of the trees.
It begins as a game and ends as a conquest. The drink and the night and the wake of the battle they have come from are making her bold, setting sparks to her blood, giving her ideas. A new world has opened up to her in the recent days, new stories, new bonds forged in blood, and just because their common enemy has been vanquished doesn’t mean that she must slip back into shadow and legend.
She has been alone long enough, hasn’t she?
She was grown in a jungle and these trees are not hers, but quickly enough she spies one that will do, with a large trunk and thick limbs that branch low. She circles, and leaps with a poise half-innate and half-practiced, catching at the crags in the bark and swinging herself up into the understory to crouch, and hide, and wait.
It is strange to be without her fairies, who she would have had to hush and hush as they tittered like children at a game.
Then again, she has to quash the urge to giggle herself, and briefly presses a hand to her mouth to hide her gleeful smile.
But the silence lasts for far too long, and her heart beats too quickly, and after several long minutes, her smile is gone. She is sure that he has wandered away, lost her and gone back. She no longer hears his footsteps, or the swish of his cloak. No breeze rousts the silvery leaves above her and even the insects, so loud in her native land, are disturbingly quiet in this enchanted place. Her own breathing is the loudest sound in the night.
She sighs, disappointed. She had not thought he would give up quite so quickly. But perhaps it was for the best. They will all go their separate ways soon, to attend to their separate duties, and the world will continue on until it has need of them again. She thinks it might be time to leave, to wake the rest of her slumbering fairies and slip away with the dawn before she has too much chance to feel sillier than she does.
She drops to the ground, and there is Bunnymund, standing in the moonlight not three feet from her.
At least she is not the only one who jumps.
"Queen Toothiana!"
"Master Bunnymund."
“I hope I’m not disturbing--”
“No no, I was just, uh.”
“Admiring the--trees?”
“Yes, I wasn’t tired, and well, I’m not used to--”
"Not used to rooms and beds.”
"No."
“Me either.”
They are left staring at one another, and he quickly drops his gaze, clearly just as embarrassed as she at being caught.
And yet, with the shock wearing off, she finds herself wondering why they bother with embarrassment at all.
“The, ah, dinner was excellent, was it not?” she ventures.
“Hm.”
He is distracted by something. There is something he wants to know, something he wants to say, because if there wasn’t, he would have made an excuse to be off by now, but he stays, stiff and quiet.
She has never had much patience for silence.
"Dance with me?" she suggests coyly.
"What?"
"Dancing. It is a ritual of courtship. Among the humans."
"Strange custom," he says, almost dismissively. He makes no move to indulge her, apparently preferring to study the shadows in the pre-dawn that is steadily creeping up on them.
In turn, she studies him, this strange lagomorph creature from the heavens. It is odd to see him so still, so unsure, after what they have been through together. She is having trouble reconciling the two figures in her mind, the sure-footed soldier and this fussy, cantankerous being before her.
She wonders which he is at his heart.
"The stories say you're the last of your kind," he says bluntly.
She raises her chin. "I am the only one of my kind." And she is; unique, half human, half Sister, and entirely her own.
"Me too," he says awkwardly after a beat. It is almost an apology, and his ears are pressed back in contrition.
She studies him, all of him, and makes no show of hiding it. The fur, the cloak, the way he hunches in on himself, uncomfortable in his own skin. But he has followed her, she knows he has followed, and she can only fathom one reason why he would.
"Not that I have much experience,” she says, “but that's a terrible way to proposition someone."
"I wasn't--" He sputters, and she stops him with a hand.
"But you want to."
He doesn’t deny it, he doesn’t say anything, just looks at her with that unfathomable stare, and it’s beginning to madden her. “You want to,” she repeats, stepping toward him, around him, so that he has to turn to watch her.
In three short paces, she backs him against the tree where she had hidden, presses in close, reaches up-- She is a tiny thing before him, and he holds very still, whiskers quivering, but allowing her this, and she runs the barest tips of her fingers over the fur of his cheeks, tracing lines over the bridge of his nose and around the curve of his eyes. At least he isn’t wearing the spectacles any longer. She thinks he might have lost them in the fight.
“Why do you wear clothes?” she asks him idly.
“The humans wear clothes,” he tells her, as if it is obvious, as if she has asked a silly question, but he is flustered all the same.
She frowns. “Are you human?”
“No.”
“Take them off.”
He sputters. “We’re in the middle of--!”
“They’re all drunk or asleep and neither of us like beds and I want to see you,” she says, and it passes her lips as more of a plea than she intends. She reaches for his fastenings, her lithe fingers making quick work of the sash and strings and layers of hooks.
He watches her with keen eyes and simply lets her ease the heavy tattered fabric from his shoulders. When he leans forward, the cloth falls away to pile against the base of the tree in greens and golds that have lost their vibrancy in the silver light.
She takes a half step back, suddenly afraid to touch him. He is all sleek lines of lean muscle under thick fur, lithe-waisted and broad-shouldered, and his legs are strong. He stands even taller than before, his back straighter without the press of his vestments, as if he wears encased within them a constant burden and is now free.
There is a trembling that sets into her hands, her knees, that will not stop.
He looks naked before her, diminished, somehow, without his cocoon of silks, and this is, unquestionably, what she wanted, but the reality of her conquest is overwhelming. She has dispatched countless foes, she has watched her parents slain and has risen from their ruin, a warrior and a queen in her own right, but she has never done anything like this, never been so bold, and it scares her that she suddenly doesn’t quite recognize herself in these desires.
And just because he hasn’t stopped her yet doesn’t mean he won’t, doesn’t mean he shouldn’t.
“Toothiana--”
“Forgive me,” she says. “I did not mean--that was very forward, I’ve--presumed too much, it was the drink, I think, I--”
“Toothiana,” he says again, and this time there is an urgency to it that stops her, turns her gaze back to him.
By the Sisters, he is so beautiful.
“Toothiana,” he repeats a third time, and reaches out a hand to her, taking her much smaller one in his own, drawing her to him. He leans down, closing his eyes, pressing his forehead to hers. His hands move to engulf her shoulders and she breathes him in, the air catching in her throat.
“You have not presumed too much,” he says. “And maybe I--should have had a bit more of that drink.” His voice is rough and low and the lilt of it is shifting strangely, less formal than before, like he has held himself in check and is coming undone.
“Do you need drink to love me?” she demands, but gently, because it is hard enough to keep the trembling out of her voice and she isn’t a fool.
He draws back, green eyes blinking his surprise. “I--”
She doesn’t let him answer, shoves him back in a fit of daring, and he overbalances (he lets himself fall, how could he not) and half-slides down the tree trunk to rest, blinking up at her, the folds of his clothing providing a convenient cushion.
He is looking at her like he can’t decide if she hasn’t changed her mind. Like she might mean to leave him here at the base of this tree, undressed and unsure in the last legs of night. For a moment she considers it.
But she has come this far.
She quirks her lips and descends to join him. If not for the drink, she would have talked herself out of this long before it began, and at the moment, all things considered, he is the braver of the two of them.
She clambers into his lap with less grace than she would like, her legs wrapped strong around his lithe furred waist and he settles one paw at the small of her back, hesitant, cautious of her wings.
"I'm not made of glass," she insists, carding her fingers through the longer fur at his shoulders.
"I know," he says.
They'd been cornered together by a contingent of Pitch's Fearlings. Between her two sabres and his six arms they had fought their way out, watching each other's backs, had ended up fighting at each other's sides for much of the rest of that final battle.
He knows her measure.
She means to learn his.
Before she can think better of it, she brings her mouth to his, kisses him, fierce, knocking their teeth together, tracing the enamel of his incisors with her tongue, and his teeth are strange shapes against her lips. He is kissing her back, not shy but just as fierce, and she makes a noise of triumph against his mouth even though she has no idea what she's doing but he doesn't seem to know either. She aims to make up for her lack of skill in sheer intensity, and he is not to be outdone.
Someone is bleeding when they break apart. The tang of it coats her mouth and his teeth are edged in tiny lines of red. There is a wideness to his eyes, a dazed sort of wildness, that has her lip curling, birthing a wicked smile and a breathlessness like that she has felt when the clouds are miles beneath her and there is nothing up above but blue.
She knows he is there, that warrior she had fought beside. Hidden under layers of--of something. Heartbreak, she thinks, because it is all too easy to recognize it in another.
He is hesitant, and his hands are far too soft, but it is not because he does not want.
She will find the warrior in him yet.
“Touch me,” she demands.
“I don’t--”
"Touch me, Bunnymund," she teases him.
"Aster. C-call me--Aster."
“Aster. I am not a flower, nor a butterfly, nor an egg to be broken. I am a Queen of Warriors from a people of warriors. Touch me.”
He bites his lip on a grin, the first real grin she has seen from him yet, and she doesn’t know whether to be proud or offended.
“Don’t you laugh, I am deadly serious,” she says, hiding smiles in his fur.
“Yes you are.”
“Aster--”
“You’re too much for me,” he tells her. And the awe in his words, oh. It stops her breath and brings tears unbidden to her eyes.
This was not what she anticipated.
“I think you underestimate yourself,” she says.
His answering laugh is sharp and ugly. “Clearly you don’t know me.”
“I want to,” she says, leaning back to meet his eyes. He doesn’t answer, so she runs her fingers across his crown and coaxes him to her. “I am as curious about you as you are of me,” she murmurs into the base of one of those long, sleek ears. “I will learn you, if you let me.”
"Are you...?" he asks, and he’s frowning, like he's thinking too hard about logistics, and she just wants to feel.
She laughs, breathless, joyous, and just this side of hysterical. "I don't know," she tells him. His question doesn't even matter, because she doesn't know, she has no idea. She has watched humans copulate from afar, but voyeurism is no substitute for knowledge, and after all, she is only half and cannot know how her anatomy may measure up against a full blooded human woman's. She does exist, however, so there must be something to be said for the compatibility of the genetics of her parents, the compatibility of their bodies.
She is the impossible product of an impossible love and her first lover will be a being from beyond the stars and who knows? Who knows?
"Just tell me where to touch you," she whispers to him, and he shudders, eyes falling closed.
“Anywhere,” he breathes, and she laughs, because that is the voice of surrender, because he is hers. And she is as terrified as she is excited, and somehow, inexplicably, it feels right.
He noses at her neck, across her shoulder, light passes growing bolder with each repetition, and his paws at her hips are strong, anchoring her against him. He undoes her with his touches, and she holds as much of him as she is able, pressed to all that fur, fingers roaming, exploring the long lines of muscle in limb and body for places that make him gasp and twitch. He drags firm claws down the small of her back and across the swell of her thighs again and again in an endless cycle and her legs tighten around his torso. She rocks against him and he is so warm beneath her. She already wants more but she doesn’t know how to ask for it. There is a pressure building between her legs and she can’t help the whine that creeps into her voice as she digs her fingers into his back.
“Aster--”
He nips at her feathers and curls an arm around her, bracing her from hip to ribcage, and with his other hand he reaches between them, shifting her easily sideways on his lap and trailing touches up her inner thigh. She doesn’t know what to do with her mouth but his is still preoccupied with her neck, not that she’s complaining. She finds herself muttering encouragements to him in higher and higher tones, but he still isn’t touching her, fingers moving purposefully just shy of where she needs him, over and over and--
“Aster!” she says again, and he chuckles.
Oh. Oh, if he thinks to make her beg for it then he does not know her.
She slides her hand down his stomach and lower, bumping wrists and twisting limbs and bucking in his grip, and, hmm, that is certainly not fur. She wraps her hand firmly around his cock and he shouts, and his fingers skip over her clit in a way that has her crying out in answer.
“That--is what I want,” she tells him, panting.
He laughs, and it comes out breathless and strangled as she strokes him. “A’right then.”
He presses his fingers to her, and she writhes against him, her hand tightening on his cock, and he knocks his head back against the tree as his body goes rigid. She takes the opportunity to scrape her teeth over the short fur of his throat, the feathers of her crown dancing across the underside of his chin, and he rubs circles against her clit and it is so perfect she wants to cry, and then his hand shifts and there is a finger crooking inside her and she is screaming her pleasure to the false dawn rising around them.
She is trembling again as he moves back to her clit and starts his circles all over again, and she loses herself in the not-quite rhythm, her hands on him and his in her. There is no skill to it, just their bodies shifting together, both too far gone for words, both seeking to drive the other mad by touch alone. The angle is awkward and her wrist is beginning to hurt, so she pushes at him with her cheek and switches hands, and he is growing clumsier as he presses into her again but it all feels like paradise at this point. She can feel the cusp of her next orgasm, just there, and she twists her wrist and is rewarded as he stills, silent and tense through his own release, but she makes enough noise for both of them as she crashes over that precipice a second time.
For a moment, they pant against each other, boneless and exhausted, her head against his shoulder and his chin against her head, and when she shifts to wrap her arms around him, he holds on to her, tracing idles patterns across her hip. She feels loose and her hands are sticky, and she wipes them against his fur as he grumbles at her gently. She drifts, emptying her mind of thought, and tries to memorize his scent.
Warm fur and turned earth and dry leaves, the spice of battle and a lingering sweetness...
“I told you y'were too much for me,” he murmurs happily into her feathers, and it suddenly strikes her what she has done, what they have done together, and dawn is catching at the leaves as she begins to laugh and he laughs softly with her. They really should be getting up, getting back. Her fairies will wonder where she has gone, the others might come looking. It is dawn and they haven’t slept, and they are Guardians now, they can’t be found like this.
But it is dawn, and they haven’t slept, and they have a few hours yet, before the others will wake.
She snuggles into the warmth of him, and laughs herself to sleep.