[Aster]
Standing before the towering beast, a mountain of muscles that could probably sneeze him into the next life, Aster felt smaller than ever before. Every single push-up and squat he had ever done in his life, every crunch and whatever other exercises he had forced himself through in hopes of getting stronger, suddenly seemed utterly pointless. Its one leg had more muscle than Aster had in his entire body, soft and feminine compared to what stood before him, exhaling plumes of steam into the freezing air.
Silvia stood beside him, half a head shorter and twice as scared. Her small fists clutched the front of her grey dress, her golden eyes wide as she stared up at the creature. Tomas just chuckled at their expressions and gestured for them to come closer. "It's alright, girls. She's a big softie, this one, I promise," he reassured, patting the horse's neck again before crouching down slightly. "Here, I'll help you up. You first, young flower," he said, looking at Aster all while patting his thigh for him to use as a step.
Despite the odd names he occasionally called him—like that 'young flower' just now that made Aster's left eye twitch slightly—the old man was actually quite... decent. At least, that was the impression they got in the short ten minutes that they spent talking before now.
Well, mostly it was Nivalis and Tomas who spoke, trading harmless words about roads and weather to ease the tension, while he and Silvia just stood there, nodding awkwardly. He didn't do anything weird or threatening, no strange glances, nothing. Just kindness, freely given.
It was strange to meet someone who wasn't immediately hostile, and not a bunch of bandits with knives and hungry eyes or some forest monster with teeth too long for its face, hungering for their flesh—things, given their luck, should have been the ones to find them. Instead, they met an actual decent human being. 'Well... I'm not so sure about that anymore,' Aster thought as he looked at the massive horse.
Swallowing the lump in his throat, Aster looked to Nivalis for help, but she just gave him a reassuring nod and a small, encouraging smile. Then, with a sigh, he hesitantly placed his boot on the man's thigh and reached for the saddle, Tomas's hands immediately coming to his sides to lift him. "There we go," he grunted, setting him down gently on the horse's broad back, right atop the worn leather of the saddle.
Aster let out a quiet gasp when the beast shifted under him, its muscles bunching and relaxing as it adjusted its weight. He quickly grabbed onto the saddle horn, his thighs pressing tightly against the horse's warm sides, the wool of the dress bunching up between them. "Try not to lean against the bags too much, alright? They might fall off," the old man said from below, pointing with his thumb at the sacks and bags tied to the back of the saddle.
Aster could only manage a weak nod, too busy trying not to fall off to answer. Then, it was Silvia's turn. She was even more hesitant than he was, trembling from fear, even more so when Nivalis slipped her hands under her armpits and lifted her onto the horse, right in front of him. "Ohmygods," she breathed out when her butt landed on the saddle, her small hands immediately grabbing onto the same horn Aster was holding onto, his chest pressing against her back.
"All good up there?" Tomas asked, looking up at the two sisters with a warm smile on his weathered face. When they both nodded hesitantly, he turned to Nivalis, "Not sure Bessie can handle any of us with them on her back. She has quite a few winters on her bones, and I don't want to strain her," he explained, taking the reins in one gloved hand, holding the straps out to Nivalis with the other. "Will you be alright walking with me? We can both lead her."
Nivalis looked from the reins to the man's kind eyes, then gave a slight nod. "Yeah... yeah. That's fine," she said, taking the cold leather, her fingers brushing against his gloved ones. She then moved to the other side of the horse, so the two of them were leading the animal together, one on each side. "Just hold on tight, alright? Don't fall off," she added, looking up at her children with a worried frown. When they both nodded once more, the small group began moving.
Two small shrieks came from above when the horse took its first step, Aster and Silvia bouncing slightly in the saddle. That made both Tomas and Nivalis chuckle softly and share a knowing look. Without stopping their walk, the old man gently patted the mare's neck and spoke, "Careful now, Bessie. We've got precious cargo."
It was weird, feeling every sway and breath of the animal beneath them, how it lifted its hooves high through the deep snow, the way its tail swished left and right. It took them a moment to get used to it, then another few to wiggle themselves somewhat comfortably in the saddle, all while trying not to slip off.
Silvia almost did, but Aster's left hand immediately flew to her waist, letting go of the horn to hold her steady against him, while the other one remained gripping it for dear life. A tiny, "Thanks," came from her, followed by another wiggle. He sighed.
"So," Tomas began while the kids were still figuring out their seating, his breath pluming in the cold air. "My sight might not be what it used to be, but even I can tell that you three are not from around here. How did you end up wandering all alone in these woods?" he asked, looking at Nivalis from the other side of the horse. "If you don't mind me asking."
For a few heartbeats, Nivalis didn't say a word, her gaze fixed on the path ahead. Then, she let out a quiet sigh and glanced at the old man. "It's a long story. But in short, my... husband," she started, her grip tightening on the reins until her knuckles turned white, "he was not a good man. One day, I just... I couldn't take it anymore. So, I took my daughters, and we ran. We came from the west, far from here, from a small village."
Tomas listened to her with a solemn expression, nodding along, his gaze going back and forth between the road and her face. "West?" he asked, his voice thoughtful as he led the horse over a deep patch of snow. "You mean from behind the Hollow Forests? That's quite a distance to get around it, especially with little ones," he commented, shaking his head with a sigh.
He didn't say anything about the husband, didn't ask for any more details on that, just kept walking, his boots crunching rhythmically beside hers. "And your relatives, you said? Where are they?" he then asked after a small silence.
Nivalis looked a bit lost for a moment, both trying to remember the lie she had told earlier and come up with something believable. Aster noticed that from above, the way her brows furrowed and her gaze darted to the trees for a heartbeat before returning to the road. "East," she eventually answered, clearing her throat quietly. "My aunt... we're not sure where she lives exactly, but her letters always mentioned a big lake and... and a church. Somewhere around here, we hope."
A low hum came from Tomas, his lower lip pushed forward as he thought about that. "I'll be honest, that doesn't sound too good. There are a lot of lakes and churches in these parts," he said, glancing up at the silver-haired girls on the horse's back, just to check on them. Seeing them huddled together, all fine and bouncy, he turned back to Nivalis. "Well, we'll talk about it more at the inn if we have any strength left by the time we get there. Maybe Adeline will know something. She knows everyone around."
Nivalis offered him a weak smile in return, "Adeline's your wife?" she asked, struggling through the deeper snow with her thighs.
The old man nodded and was about to say more, but no words came from his mouth. He stopped before he could utter a word and simply looked at her. At her, and the dress she wore, at the slight tremble running through her body despite her best efforts to control it. "You're cold," he stated, letting go of the reins and stopping the horse with a gentle tug.
Without saying a word, he began unbuttoning his heavy brown coat, revealing a worn gray sweater beneath, "Should've done this right away," he grumbled to himself. He shook his head, and before Nivalis could protest, he had the coat off and was holding it out to her over the horse. "Here. Take it."
Nivalis looked at the offered coat, then at the man, and shook her head. "O-oh no, please... I'll be fine," she tried to say.
But Tomas would have none of it, shushing her gently by furrowing his eyebrows. He went around the horse, the snow crunching under his boots, and draped the heavy coat over her shoulders himself. The coat was enormous on her slender frame, swallowing her up completely. Her nose wrinkled cutely at the scent of old leather, hay, and horse sweat, but that went away immediately the moment she felt how warm it was. "How did you even make it this far dressed like that?" he asked, tugging the collar up around her neck.
A little sigh clouded her face as she answered, "With lots of stops to warm up by the fire," while looking into his pale-blue eyes with an expression of still not wanting to take it. He scrunched his face at her, then at the coat, and then at her again, a silent 'no, I won't take it back' written all over him. "Better give it to the girls," she eventually said, already starting to shrug the heavy garment off her shoulders, but Tomas stopped her before she could do so.
"The horse will keep them warm, and they have each other," he said, patting the mare's neck once more. "Now, don't argue and put it on properly. And give the girls your bag, no need to carry it yourself," he grumped like she was a child herself, then returned to the other side of the horse and picked up the reins again without uttering a word, just waiting for her to do as told.
A quiet, "T-thank you..." was all Nivalis managed as she reluctantly took the bag with all their belongings off her shoulder and let it drop to the ground. Then she put the coat on properly, her hands disappearing into the sleeves that were way too long for her, and buttoned herself up.
Once done, she picked up the bag again and handed it up to her children, tucking it into the already cramped saddle, right in front of Silvia. "Hold on tight to it, okay? Don't drop it," she said, her voice now muffled slightly by the fur collar, then returned to holding the reins with the old man.
With the bag in front of them, Silvia had no other choice but to press herself even harder against her little brother, her small butt shifting against him as she tried to find a comfortable position with the thing in the way. When the horse began swaying again under their weight, it only got worse. Her tender behind slid against him in the most distracting way, over and over again, with each and every step the mighty animal took. "Stop that," Aster whispered into her ear, the sudden pressure in his mud-colored pants under his skirt making him panic slightly.
Before the girl could ask what he meant, she got her answer. Her puffy lips parted with a silent, 'Oh...' when she felt the familiar shape of his little mushroom growing hard and pressing into her soft bottom. She looked back at him with a slight frown and an expression that said, 'Seriously? Here? Now?' all at once.
Aster just gave her the most helpless shrug, feeling her body tense against him as she tried to stop her hips from moving, to stop hugging his little length with her soft buttcheeks with every sway of the horse. But there was just no space in the saddle, and the road was too uneven for that.
While the siblings were having their silent conversation above, Nivalis and Tomas continued walking. "Well, Adeline... she's my everything, that woman. Been together since we were just about your girls' age," the old man said, the corners of his eyes crinkling with a warm smile. "An entire lifetime, can you believe it? Just glued to each other, and that's all there is to it."
Nivalis hummed along without saying much, just nodding and occasionally looking up at her kids, a warm smile playing on her lips beneath the fur collar. "Had... two sons," he added after a slight pause, the warmth slowly fading from his face; her smile did the same. Nivalis didn't ask what happened, and he didn't say anything else about it. They just walked. Walked until his wrinkles softened and his eyes shone again.
"You'll like the inn. It's a quiet place most of the time," Tomas continued, changing the topic with a quiet cough. "We get the occasional traveler, but most days it's just us, especially when winter's biting. Though sometimes... heh. Sometimes it's anything but that. One time, we cooked an entire cow in our fireplace—yes, an entire cow—took us the whole day..." Tomas kept going, rambling on about this and that, about the inn, about the guests, and the funny things that happened there, all to chase away two names that haunted him.
...
Two hours. That's how long their small group of four walked, two hours of nothing but crunching of snow, two hours of wind rustling the branches of the pines they passed by. Everyone was tired, even the sun, slowly but surely crawling towards the horizon, wanting to paint the clouds in soft shades of orange and pink, then dip behind the trees to go to sleep. With days being so short during the winter, it wouldn't take too long for that to happen.
"It's not far. R-right around that hill over there..." came the old man's breathy voice, pointing with a gloved finger at a small rise in the distance. He trembled like a leaf in the wind without his coat, nose red and cheeks flushed from the cold. Yet not once did he complain, nor even show a hint of regret for giving Nivalis his coat.
A quiet breath of relief slipped past Aster's lips upon hearing that, and he felt Silvia do the same against his chest. While riding a horse was undoubtedly one of the coolest experiences he had ever had—if to forget how terrified he was at first—one that made him feel like some kind of knight from a tale—if to forget he was wearing a dress—he never imagined it would be this... exhausting.
It was just insane; his inner thighs burned and screamed with pain, worse than they ever did from just walking. His butt had gone numb in the first half-hour, his legs cramped up, and the constant bouncing made his lower back feel like it was about to snap. If this was what it felt like to be a knight, Aster was suddenly glad he wasn't one.
But what ached more than anything else combined was his erection, still pressing against the soft cushion of his sister's butt, hidden beneath the layers of wool with only them knowing about it. Every little bounce, every sway of the horse, had been a small, delicious torture for the last two hours, making him bite the inside of his cheek more times than he could count. Yet their faces showed none of that, just two tired sisters clinging to each other.
Just as Tomas said, they rounded the hill a minute later, and there it was. The smell of woodsmoke reached them first, just a tiny tingle in their noses. Then came the sight of the inn itself, nestled between the swaying pines and firs. Not big, not impressive, just a simple, one-story, elongated house made of weathered logs, the roof sagging a bit in the middle, with a single window glowing with warm light. A thin plume of smoke rose from the stone chimney, curling into the darkening sky. A small barn sat a dozen steps away, almost buried under the snow.
There was no fancy sign hanging by the door that Aster was sure inns were supposed to have, the kind with a rooster or a dragon on it, with the bizarre name written in swirling letters and an even more bizarre story behind it. There was nothing to tell that it was even an inn, just a regular house a big family might live in, with a small door and a stack of chopped wood piled high next to it.
And yet there was no disappointment in his golden eyes because of it, quite the opposite. In a way, this simple, unassuming place was even more inviting than the fanciest of inns he could imagine. "Here we are. Home," Tomas announced with a proud smile, then gave the reins a gentle tug, leading them towards a small, cleared path that connected the inn to the main road.
Bessie picked up her pace slightly, probably eager to get to her barn, to eat and rest after a long journey, making the two siblings bounce on her back even more than before. "Adeline, I'm home!" the man called out when they got close enough, his breath pluming in the cold air. "We have guests!"
The next thing Aster knew was him and Silvia being helped off the horse, Nivalis and Tomas doing the honors, each taking one of them. The boy's feet sank into the snow up to his ankles when he touched the ground, and he almost fell face-first into it, his legs so weak and wobbly he could barely stand. He would have, if not for the old man catching him by the arm, pulling him back up with a quiet, "Careful there." Silvia fared no better, though she rubbed her butt more than anything else, a wince on her face.
Aster nodded, his gaze dropping to his dress. He whispered something that was supposed to be a thank you, but it came out as nothing more than a breathy mumble, all because of the small but so incredibly noticeable bump right between his thighs, right on the soft wool of the dress. His hands flew to the front of the dress, hiding it behind them as he took a shaky step towards his mother.
A soft creak of a door cut through the quiet evening just then, followed by the silhouette of a woman appearing in the doorway. "Took you long enough, old m—oh..." Her words came to a halt when her eyes fell upon the four of them.
She was about as tall as Nivalis, with dark hair tied in a messy bun at the back of her head and a tired-looking face, her features plain but her brown eyes kind, graced with wrinkles at their sides. A simple, homespun dress covered her lean frame, with an apron tied over it, stained all over.
The woman's gaze swept over the three gaunt figures standing in the snow, their clothes a bit too big for their skinny frames, their hair braided in a way she had never seen before, of a color foreign to these lands, their faces sickly pale and exhausted. "Clients?" was all she asked, to which the man shook his head solemnly and led the horse towards the barn.
"Found them on the road, freezing and all alone," he answered over his shoulder, already untying a bundle of goods from the horse's back. "Couldn't just leave them out there. They've... had a rough time. Husband was not a good one. Prepare them my favorite, alright?" he then added as he continued to the barn, disappearing inside it with the animal in tow. "With an extra butter!" came an echo a moment later.
Adeline's eyes lingered on Nivalis, then on the two girls, and a small sigh escaped her. Then, an even longer one when she noticed those ugly burns on Aster's hands that he tried to hide in the sleeves of his dress. "Come in, girls. Come in. Don't just stand there freezing," she said, her soft voice inviting them inside. "Let's get you all warmed up."
Nivalis gave her a weak, grateful smile and nudged her children forward, then followed them into the warmth of the inn, where the firelight and the smell of woodsmoke welcomed them, along with the soft creaking of floorboards under their old, snow-caked boots.
...