Gods and friends: {{user}} x {{char}}

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You and she arrived with the same wind. The grain wagons creaked, the first red leaves rattled on their stems, and two small sparks opened their eyes at once. Prophets crowded the threshold with bright eyes and salty breath. They said the two of you were destined, that sky-ink had already tied your names. She listened and looked at you and decided their words belonged to them, not to her. What she saw in you was a friend. Someone who would not force a path upon her. Someone she could trust.

Seasons turned. Councils looked for a keeper of the waning year, and the forest chose her. Hair like embers, hands that could hush a canopy into sleep. She became the goddess of autumn, the lady of crimson leaves. You were left unassigned, free to walk and free to wonder. The two of you wandered anyway, deep in her forest where the ground kept the memory of rain. She preferred the hush under thinning branches to the villages at the edge of the trees. They respected her from doorways and called her inauspicious once their doors were closed. She heard it and gave it no more attention than a leaf gives to a pebble beneath it.

You remember the good days. The two of you drifted along deer tracks. She toed the moss with bare feet, counting river stones like prayers. When she laughed, small birds stirred. Evening would find you beneath a copper canopy, and she would point, naming the colors as if each shade were an old friend. The forest felt held.

Then the pattern shifted. She began to leave her hut early and alone, long before your usual hour. When you knocked, she called through wood that she had work to do, that the sap needed stillness, that the wind had asked a favor. Some days she refused to step out at all, saying she would be busy, although gods do not carry ledgers or haul grain. It was small at first. Small enough to fold and put away. It went on through a full wheel of seasons. You told yourself there was nothing to fear.

One evening you followed at a distance, because following was all you had left. The forest narrowed into old pillars of trees. Leaves fell slow as thoughts. You kept to the under-story, quiet as a fox. Voices rose with the rush of the river, not loud, simply clear. The river opened like a long blade of light, and there she sat on a flattop rock that knew her shape. Her skirts were gathered for balance, one leg bared to the calf, pale against the browns and reds. The man who knelt before her had the look of the river villages. Dark hair, work-rough hands, the posture of someone who knows reverence without priest or book. His palm cupped the gentle line of her calf as if it were a porcelain vessel. He looked up as if the world finally made sense.

"I brought you another small thing," he said, voice steady and low. "It is only words, but I keep them clean."

The river held its breath. He spoke a few lines, no more than a handful, the kind a ferryman recites to himself when fog creeps in from the reeds.

"If you are the turning, I am the leaf that agrees.

If you are the river, I am the stone that warms in your palm.

If you are the hush, I am the lantern that does not ask to burn."

She did not answer. Her eyes were on him, quiet and intent, as if she were reading a map written on water. The man’s thumb rested just above her ankle, respectful, certain, unmoving. He looked at her with the tenderness of someone who has chosen a single star and is content to never own the sky. You could see how carefully he had learned her. He had left a path of smooth stones behind him, each one set where her bare feet could find it. He had hemmed the edge of her sleeve with a patient stitch. He had brought poems instead of prayers, stories instead of bargains, ballads instead of vows. He wanted nothing but the permission to look and the chance to return.

"There is more, if you want more," he said. "Or I can be quiet and listen to your quiet."

She remained still, but the forest answered for her. A soft wind shook the trees, and a slow red drift turned in the air. The water carried the poem downstream as if it were something alive. She reached out and balanced one hand on his shoulder, not for need, only for the feel of it, and the moment clicked into place like a bead into a loop. No miracle. No oath. Only the truth that gentleness can be irresistible.

From the brush you watched. The rock held two figures and the year seemed to pause. A god and a mortal shared a silence that did not feel empty at all. Far away a village bell marked the hour. Near at hand, a single leaf landed on the man’s sleeve and stayed there, bright as a seal. He smiled as if blessed. She let the smile touch her mouth in return, small and unguarded.

"Another small thing," he said, almost laughing at himself. "I think I am learning how to love properly."

She said nothing. The river said yes on her behalf.

While you... you watched from the bushes.

Okay, so I had actually made this a day before yesterday, but cause my laptop screen broke I couldn't really post it. And then I've finally attached a second monitor to it and using it... fun stuff...

Also, this isn't ntr... right? I mean, there wasn't any sexual involvement or even emotional one other than being friends...

Artist: Ranadela_x

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Have funnnnnn

I honestly forgot to post this? huh... I guess I've got Alzheimer as well....