Special Edition Event-Focused Kinkmeme

[amourtician]

I'm not the only one looking at all Dark Days and thinking of the potential, am I?

Hop to it. Just, uh, remember content warnings.

Comments

part 4/??? cw: wet animeeple fur everywhere, kain being a huge dumb

[(Anonymous)]

Drying her was an arduous task at the least, her loose fur getting everywhere and the damp smell lingered long after she seemed to be fully dry. Kain had done his best to brush her, but after the third time he was immobilized by explosive sneezes, Mika had to take over. While he struggled to dry his watering eyes, she unraveled the tangled nest her hair had become and swept herself clean of most of her remaining winter coat. With that done, she cleaned the brush only to hand it back to him
with her head turned to hide her flushed cheeks.

"Could you do the rest? Twisting is..." She fell silent, her mouth twisting in embarrassment, but he could understand why she was reluctant. Her injuries still plagued her and had made simply brushing her hair a herculean task of its own, let alone twisting to reach behind her. With a small sense of trepidation, Kain took her tail in hand and slowly ran the brush across the damp fur, nervous about pulling it by accident. Apparently he needn't have worried, as Mika quietly told him that it wouldn't fall off if he brushed it properly. He could feel the heat in his face as he bent over her then, which allowed him to notice exactly the moment that her back began to arch. The change was surprisingly subtle, a straightening of her shoulders, her hips shifting slightly, movements so minute he would never have seen them had he not been so intent on watching what his hands were doing.

Another sweep of the brush and it became more pronounced, by the third pass he realized it was when the brush passed over the base of the tail itself, the completed motion actually relaxing Mika instead of creating more of the subtle tension. When he could no longer continue to brush her tail without it seeming suspicious he set the brush aside and reached out to touch where the fur began to thin near her spine. The only signs that Mika noticed was the faintest huffing sound she made, and how her ears flicked back toward him as if to simply listen. Heartened by this, he began to scratch the base of her tail in earnest, and sure enough her spine arched and her tail stuck out straight behind her almost as if she'd been petrified. Fascinated by this response, it wasn't until he'd noticed the way her breathing had grown ragged, coming out in heavy huffs or how she gripped her knee that he realized her reaction might not be entirely appropriate. Jerking his hand back as if scalded, apologies spilled out of his mouth until he realized the look Mika was giving him was actually one of disappointment.

"Why did you stop?" Her tone of voice was almost plaintive, and it ground his words to a stuttered stop, leaving Kain standing there and staring down at her dumbly. He found that he honestly had no answer for that, feeling as if his face were burning brightly as he pressed a fist to his mouth.

part 5/??? cw: huge nerds

[(Anonymous)]

Part 5

Unable to bring himself to answer her question, Kain forced a change of subject and simply bundled her into a towel to avoid her gaze. Not that this eased his discomfort either, for it brought back memories of a very thorough toweling that Mika had given him. As well as the night she'd spent grumbling to herself about idiot dragoons while she had buried herself deeper under the blankets next to him that had followed. Had she been so frail then as well? How had he never noticed her poor health before?

Clothes. How she had carried herself and what she had worn had been intended from the very start to disguise every flaw. Never in his time at the Meadous had he seen more than her face and hands exposed even when she had slid into his bed beside him to keep him warm. Exactly as Mika had intended, from the looks of it. His hands went still in mid-motion, gazing at nothing until he snapped himself out of his daze and gently squeezed her good shoulder.

"Perhaps we should have someone see to your wounds soon. Once you are dry, of course." He added hurriedly, relieved at Mika's silent nod of consent.

With her clean and carefully bundled in a towel, her own clothes looked all the more ragged and filthy, and he left them to soak in a basin before he returned to her side. By then she had sat at the edge of his bed, almost completely hidden beneath the towel as she huddled for warmth. Soon he held out a neatly folded stack to her, and he was rewarded with the first sight of her face without even a hint of her anxieties. How long had it been since she'd had a moment without cares? Kain couldn't be certain, and that thought upset him greatly.

"It is not much, but it should suit you well enough for the moment." He tried to smile, yet found it difficult when she was in such a poor state. "The trousers are likely a poor fit." Mika stared in dumb silence until she shifted, both hands appearing from the towel's depths to accept the clothing. For a long moment she simply sat and stared at them, before she finally hugged them close, her face pressed against the clean, soft linen of one of Kain's shirts. The warou took a deep breath and sighed, relaxing as she kept her face pressed to the bundle.

Kain almost didn't hear her murmured thanks, or how she seemed to mention how nice his clothes smelled as she sighed softly into the bundle in her arms. Distracted and exhausted as she was, Mika didn't notice how his face suddenly turned scarlet, and after assuring her that she was welcome to them, Kain hurriedly excused himself and fled the room with as much dignity as he could muster.

part 6/??? cw: PTSD symptoms,

[(Anonymous)]

Returning to seeing her lacing his tunic tighter and wearing his trousers backwards so her tail would have someplace to go had left him covering his mouth so she couldn't see the way he had bitten his lip. His shirt was long enough on her that it hung past her hips, and she had then confessed that the only reason she'd bothered with the trousers at all was because her tail tended to lift dresses and shirts that had no accommodations for it. Even still, she had to regularly reach back to tug his shirt lower or the trousers higher, and her little sounds of frustration hadn't helped. In the end, she'd given his hand a gentle tug and leaned against him in a loose, one-armed embrace that caught him off-guard before he could return it.

"Thanks. For everything, I mean." Her head was bowed and she gave him a lopsided shrug, while he waved it off.

"Think nothing of it. You've done the same for me before, returning the favor was the least I could do." While his words hadn't had the effect of lightening her mood much, she had smiled a little, Considering the rest of their month, it was a start, and one that she desperately needed. Taking her by her uninjured hand, Kain studied her face, his concern outweighing his earlier embarrassments. "We'll take you to one of the mages to have you healed, but for now you need your strength and rest."

His heart hammered against his ribs in a way that seemed completely alien to him now, even as he watched her halting nod. Why had asking her to sleep in his bed been so easy before? Had it been because he had not been fully human? "Would...would you like to stay here for the evening? Or is there somewhere else you'd wish to stay? If so I will take you there myself."

"Here's fine." Her voice had been so soft he had almost missed her words, though it was impossible to miss the way she gripped his hand as she let her brow rest against his chest. "I don't....I don't want to be alone right now. Please stay with me, I know it's a really terrible-sounding request but I don't think me being alone is safe right now." Mika was almost visibly shaking, and he could feel her tremors in the hand he held.

"No, I understand." It was a feeling he could understand all too well, and he wrapped an arm protectively around her injured side to hold her in a loose embrace as she began to cry. Sleep came surprisingly quickly for the both of them, deep and without the usual nightmares, and was better rest than either of them had had in a long, long time.