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Coming home to someone else's. It hasn't yet gotten so old, but it feels like Taika may just have to get used to it.

Or like she never will.

“Welcome home, honey! Welcome back, Rikhard. Hello, Taika."

The tone that Hadewych's mother uses is chipper throughout her most regular greeting, but Taika notes again how quickly she rattles through it toward the end. It's normal. It makes sense. There's dinner on the stove for her to get back to, and that warm, cozy aroma has already wafted directly toward the three new homeowners-in-practice (two, don't be silly) arriving back at the house Hadewych grew up in partially.

By now, most of the garbage in the living room back in Rikhard's and Taika's home—thus, most of the things in that living room—has been cleaned out.

A month at cleaning, now? Shorter? Longer? It's been some time. Work goes on, however long it takes.

So while Rikhard and Hadewych both slip their boots or shoes off, it's between a big, warm hug offered to each that Hadewych's mother says, “I hope you three are hungry. I've got dinner simmering right now and it's going to be ready in just a few more minutes. That sound good?"

Taika just makes sure she can comfortably pull her tails out of their way for the hugging part. Her storm of blue emanates in nearly all directions when she isn't consciously taming it all, two or three tails twisting constantly at the tip as if some last breath of the autumn breeze still has them in perpetuity. She only needs to wipe her paws here, anyway.

“Sounds great. We're starving," Rikhard says, returning just one arm, much longer, for his hug. Two pats on future-mother-in-law's back, good and genuine and snug, and he steps out of the way to give Hadewych the room for the longer sort of hug with her mother.

The particular phrases of daughterly love and the usual thanks for letting them stay over from Hadewych escape Taika's exact notice. That's their business, that sort of thing. It's been another arduous day for all, and not even her own particulars can Taika recollect already.

But for Hadewych, it seems, there's one whisper extra at the tail end of her and her mother's hug that Taika notices. Or maybe a mutter, loosed under eyes shut tight and arms wrapped still over her mother's shoulders:

“Makes me wish Daddy was still here."

Taika doesn't realize she's staring up at them until her gaze falls any other direction, so she means only to further remove herself from obstruction as her shoulder squeezes past both their waists on her way out the entryway, getting out of their hair. But a burning reaches her face regardless.

It's not her role to elaborate that relationship.

And Rikhard, for his part… just rubs a hand over his girlfriend's shoulder. He keeps any real expression particularly contained. He's hardly any better joining in here.

Hadewych's mother pats her daughter on the back anyway. Without missing a beat, in just the tone she knows her little girl needs, she says, “Me too, sweetie. Me too. Now all of you come sit down and eat."

Thus, the question that Taika soon ponders tonight is one of technicality: is it really still casserole if the casserole is beefless? There's a careful lack of meat in tonight's home cooking.

Not that Taika's dissatisfied with such a state of meal, looking down at her plate from her seat at the table.

Because yes, here, Taika actually gets a seat at the table. Hadewych's mother sits at the head, and no one sits at the foot—not in this household, no ma'am. Hadewych and Rikhard both sit together on one side, and on the other side—well, there are more rules in this house. If you're eating, you're eating at the table. None of this dish-on-the-floor nonsense like on television. Everybody's family here.

So Taika gets the other side of the table to herself, sitting across from not Rikhard. There's more than one moment of self consciousness when she has to dip her entire face down to her plate to take each bite, but there's a grace in her bend, at least—she eats face first, yes, but like a lady. Slow, proper chewing. Her feet are all tensed right at either edge of her chair, straining not to sprawl off a size of seat not made for quadrupeds, but even her feet are tensed ladylike.

This isn't difficult, and she won't admit defeat here either. Not to this.

The rest of the table gets their fill considerably easier between tonight's chitchat and whatnot. It's all talk of family friends, funny stories from acquaintances, all the housework still needs doing—and somewhere still in the middle of all that, presumably, Hadewych's mother says, “What colors are you thinking for the bedroom so far?"

“I want to wallpaper it," Hadewych says, twirling her fork through the long noodles on her plate. “Not like a pattern or anything—I want a kind of a streaky red print, just so it looks like it's a bunch of different reds all mixed together that are a little lighter or darker in different places."

“Well, why don't you just use real paint to make it look like that? I'm sure you could hire somebody."

“Can you get paint to mix differently in different places like that? I don't know if paint works like that, Mama."

Rikhard says nothing to contribute to this line of conversation. Because he's a man, and decorating is a woman's thing? He wouldn't say it like that, and he may not believe it like that, but surely he has no preference for silly things like how the house will look when it's all finished. All he'll need is a good recliner, a cold beer, and a brand new refrigerator to keep the rest of his twelve-pack in, of course.

Except that his favorite color is blue, and when he grew up, he was going have a big blue bedroom. Blue on the walls, blue in the chairs, and blue on the outside of the house, too, everywhere. And he would have plants in every corner—not just flowers or ferns, but botanicals, the proper and fancy and impressive name. All that, yes, but most importantly a whole wall in the living room dedicated to family photos, father and all, after everybody would inevitably come back together and get them taken, every person wearing the same amazing smile frozen in the middle of saying cheese.

But right now, all Taika sees is Rikhard lifting his fork and filling his mouth without offering any differing opinion. Maybe he has a new favorite color now. Maybe he doesn't have a favorite color anymore. He hasn't mentioned anything like that to Taika in more than thirteen years now, not that she keeps count.

Not that Taika joins in the conversation, either. She leans forward, down, and takes another ladylike bite. Except she doesn't quite pull her bite up as cleanly this time, and as a sliver spills out the corner of her mouth, she rears up her jaw and snaps the food back in her mouth through an automatic open-mouthed chomp.

And then she chews. While the humans at the table pretend not to be paying attention mostly to her. Not talking.

In that silence, Taika swallows. And mostly toward her host, only when her cheeks are empty again, lips shut tight, she mutters, “My apologies."

Hadewych's mother just smiles again big and kindly. “You don't have to say sorry for enjoying my cooking, dear. You're doing fine."

Taika's doing fine. Agreed. So she takes her next bite much quieter.

Keeping up the small talk, Hadewych's mother says next, just as naturally, “But Rikhard, really, that truck of yours—when is that getting a new coat of paint? Or a replacement?"

Rikhard doesn't seem to hear her for a moment or so, attention set only near Taika's direction, but more distant than where she sits. His fork is in hand, but going nowhere. Lost in his own brain in a fashion purely understandable, if not understood why.

It makes Taika want to hear why, but… she's not like that. Really she isn't. Rikhard snaps back to attention smiling again the next moment anyway, and all is well just as quick.

“Sorry, the truck's non-negotiable. That's my third girl out there," Rikhard says, tone funny and friendly. “She's my baby. Part of the family. I can't just abandon her after all she got me through."

He looks across the table. He shrugs an elbow and a grin right at Taika now.

“Got us through. We have just as many memories as miles on that girl."

In Hadewych's case, something sours that friendlier look she just had.

But rather than discomfort or some deep blush at what double entendre she might infer from phrasing like that, Taika instead restrains just a smirk. His “girls," “girls," “girls"—even before he got with Hadewych, she's never had cause to question if he actually likes women.

Hadewych's mother chuckles little and dainty. “Well, after a service record like that, don't you think she's earned her retirement by now, dear?"

Taika next restrains a frown.

Because she's not that insecure.

Rikhard shakes his head and takes his next bite, speaking while he chews in one cheek, “Until me or she dies, she's with us for the long haul. New coat of paint, though—maybe I can do that soon. After we finish the house."

Right now, how the conversation has turned pushes even Taika's preference for reading between the lines. And she really doesn't need any help doing that.

Hadewych swallows her mouthful with a roll of her eyes. But before she joins back in, she reaches her hand beside her, away from her plate, joining it around Rikhard's. She gives him a look like something old, knowing, and relented. Looking in his eyes, and he, looking back in hers with a smile fresh—all of that in just a moment or two before Hadewych looks back to her mother and says, “He's seriously never getting rid of that truck, Mama. That's the one thing you gotta give up on now."

Her mother lifts both her hands in the air and gestures them flat on either side of a pleasant grin, surrendering the point. Like offering an allowance for the conversation to change direction again.

Wherever it changes to, Taika only dips back to her plate. Within a peace they can all agree on, at least, the rest of the table talks. Taika's just here for the food.

During the rest of the night, in night's truest form, it's a real bed that Taika gets again. Lying on her back, under the covers, furry knees and long toes prodded only minorly upward. It remains a graceful look on her, mostly. It's all part of a position in which by its very nature Taika can be only awake: staring at the ceiling.

She's so awake.

It's not quite right to say she has her own room for the time being—this is Hadewych's. Hadewych's childhood room, anyway. It's all for Taika for now, yes, but only since Hadewych's instead partaking of the guest bedroom. With Rikhard.

From when Taika's gotten the tour before, she's seen that the guest bedroom is decorated somewhat more… grownup. Hadewych's bedroom, on the contrary, is better storied.

Or it's a giant time capsule still not dug up.

The space is done in by a girl's sense of decorum still stuck, perhaps forever, in her transitionary period between purple, sparkly, and proudly girlish, and monotone, modern, and mature. As mature as a self-conscious seventeen-year-old could reach for. Sentimental plush dolls, binders, and rolled-up boy band posters Taika can only imagine Hadewych couldn't bear to throw away just yet lie between real literature on the shelves (strangely dusty, even for this room), and thoughtful art framed on the walls, and a tasteful peacoat still slung over the chair by Hadewych's little desk. Stickers cover the face of the laptop still sitting in the middle of the desk, and they are all painfully old to see.

Part of all that was a white lie, however. Just one detail.

The band posters are all metalhead.

Not even the younger Hadewych could be so neatly slotted into a single category of person, unfortunately. Protagonist may be simple, but antagonist, nay—not in a single one of Taika's separate little stories. Taika got the short end of lived experiences.

At least Taika's got a proper bed again.

It's strange to think she'll be sleeping alone from now on, even after her own childhood home is fixed up. Rikhard says she'll have her own room there, too—said with a look on his face like he was excited for her. Enough space all in one home for her to have her own dedicated place. It really should be exciting.

She's slept in the same room as Rikhard for twenty-whatever years. She's had the times she would have given anything to get away from that maddenly smothering little boy, that infuriatingly moody teenager.

Now she'll get it, but only from that smiling, distant man.

Not embarrassing, not even tiresome, but how mundanely annoying to still feel like such a teenager for herself over him. As if she's the one still stuck in that purple and sparkly stage.

She should be more than used to this already. This may not be healthy anymore.

But maybe there will be nights where this will be nice. Privacy is the friend of a woman at any age.

And in an actual room like this, she can't even hear whatever Rikhard and Hadewych are up to tonight. The walls aren't so thin. They're sleeping, though, surely. Everybody worked hard today. They're all tired. Rest is what they've all needed.

Not that everybody gets their energy back the same way.

Taika rolls over onto her side, where she can sleep soundly. Or could. She worked hard today, too—but once again, sleep isn't coming so easily to her. Like most nights, these days.

She's bored.

A wisp of her fur slips loose and tickles over her nose, but her paw itches the opposite direction from her face.

She's not that bored.

So she'll just have to get used to it still.

So the next day comes, and it's back at the house. Not inside, but out in the yard. It's a cool day, but sunny, barely cloudy, some shade provided instead by the edge of the woods by the lawn, a breeze playing between their thick old trunks. And today's the kind of day that weather as pleasant as this matters the most.

In the middle of the lawn, weeds somewhat clipped and grass at least visible, here sits Taika, all better again—chin up, eyes closed, lips set straight. Rikhard stands before her, spine bent and angled down toward her, eyes set upon her.

Taika hears the bare shifting of his sleeve over his skin, and he lifts his hand up toward her, just grazing by her cheek. A slow breath catches over Taika's nose, and she feels him lean close to her. She holds his sole attention. And she trusts him.

Then cool metal slips above her forehead, and a snip cuts through their mutual quiet.

Her haircut goes well, as always. Her grooming. She's come to expect such from Rikhard's hands. He steps to her side next, circling around her while he looks for where exactly else needs his scissors. This is a routine, and it's become quick over many years of practice.

Not present in this moment, specifically, are both Hadewych and Rikhard's truck—together. Running errands. Gone.

Taika resists the urge to wrinkle her nose as more stray hairs flit down over her eyelids in constant little bits, but it's no struggle. There's a peace in this. There's no evil gaze she feels boring into the back of her head, for now, and she and Hadewych haven't fought at all in quite some time, anyway.

Taika still hasn't quite yet gotten used to this today either, but she could. Everybody finishing clearing out and fixing up the house together, and then she and Rikhard can get back to regular training. Short traveling. Competitions. Then, too, Rikhard and Hadewych can get into the groove of… marriage? Whatever next logical step they find. Maybe they stay unmarried. Children?

If Taika weren't there to feel it spread across her lips herself, even she wouldn't believe the tiny smile making its way over herself at the thought of precious little babies crawling around who she could help take care of.

Having them for herself sounds like a pain, quite so. But she'd make a wonderful babysitter.

In that small bliss, she mutters the thought aloud, “You'd be a wonderful father."

Searching still with his scissors, Rikhard chuckles, “My kids would get some great haircuts, yeah."

Taika purses her lips in a gesture meant only for herself.

“You can at least tell me how you really feel, Rikhard. Don't be so mild."

The blades pull away from Taika's scalp. All she hears immediately is Rikhard's silence, or the sound of his fingernails brushing through his own hair, or a single step of his boot as he shifts his weight. Lips open, nails scratch again, and no words come.

The empty noise of a struggle to respond.

But when he's ready, he says, “I don't know if kids are for me, Taika." He mutters, “You know that…."

“I don't know if I do," Taika says, proffering no such dramatics in her tone. “What I know is that you'd do a much better job at fathering than yours did."

As he steps around her to within her line of sight, Taika catches the smirk on Rikhard's face just before he says, “A better job, or any job?"

Taika says nothing to that. Whatever his tone with that means to him, it doesn't sound like the right one to her.

“Seriously, I doubt I'll ever want kids anyway," Rikhard says. “That's a load on my plate I just don't know about."

No? Interesting.

It's a short moment more before Rikhard moves his scissors again. He steps back around to Taika's side, silent and satisfied within such, and keeps snipping away.

Fair enough. Something like that. Taika sighs long and slow, lets that beginning of a frown slip away with it. All this is a peace she may not have wanted, but one she and Rikhard both need.

Then the breeze blows cooler across the lawn, and all the rest of Taika's smile slips away with that.

But she'll get used to this just the same.

It's a little while longer of that before Rikhard combs her clean, snips one or two more spots on second inspection, combs her again, inspects—and their break ends. Taika stands up and shakes off, Rikhard puts away his tools in the little bag dedicated to them, and in a minute more, they set back for the house. It's not like they were taking the whole afternoon off. And today holds new possibilities for what horrors they clean.

HALLWAY.

THREE PATHS ARE NOW OPEN.

(bedroom, master bedroom, bathroom)

(bonus path: linen closet)

Two bodies survey the way forward. This time, Taika stands by Rikhard's side. The hallway is a disaster zone in much a similar but different way than the rest of what they've all worked through so far—the same stained, bulky kind of mess as in the living room gapes across either wall here, but there's a winding way over the musty green carpet opened purely by time and necessity to reach the bedrooms.

There's not really any options of where to work next, actually. The hall is dire. But the thought of being conveniently able to visit the whole rest of the floor is nice for a fleeting moment. Comforting, then exhausting.

This time, there's no moment of silence. Just a quiet sigh, and Taika says, “Shall I begin in the bedrooms while you get started through here?"

Rikhard stretches one shoulder, then the other, then shrugs.

“Go for it," he says. He mutters, “Got a lot left to do, I guess."

It's all he has in him to say. But gloves on, sleeves rolled up, his face is already set in a pitying acceptance of the current circumstances as he pulls a folded garbage bag out from the crook of his elbow, flaps it open, and glances only for what nearest broken things will fit within it. He sets to work.

So Taika doesn't interrupt him, and she tiptoes around their little shattered realm toward the first door on the left. The smaller bedroom. Hers and Rikhard's, back in the day.

Just past the threshold, gaze static, she pauses. Doesn't look around. Just takes it in.

Here, too, is a dumping ground.

Taika hangs her head an inch lower and shakes it. She's not surprised. Just disappointed.

What kind of room might have looked liked Hadewych's here, trapped in between times, is thusly long gone. The bed is covered in more clothes, more drapes, shoes, more empty plastic bags that most of the other clutter came in through the mail. The closet, whatever utmost secrets a little boy might have hidden within it, is totally blocked off as if with warning tape by a desk chair stacked to overflow with bright yellow rain jackets, the sort made out of a bulky plastic, more of them than even a complete family would ever need.

Trodding up to them, Taika brushes a paw over the topmost jacket, and it slides slowly, at first, then tumbles off the stack in a heap.

These are donatable. Never worn, not visibly moldy. Not that she'd recommend Rikhard or Hadewych use them.

She looks to examine the rest of the room, but no other corner fared the ravages of hoarding any better. The bed, too, what warmer memories she used to hold of curling up on it beside another, is buried. Every square foot is her work zone.

Her lips curl into a look of not particularly looking forward to this.

So she just so happens to next notice, instead, the mirror hung just next to the closet, a miraculous half of it still unobscured. And with soft footsteps made carefully, with just a quick glance back at the door to make sure nobody notices, she gets to take a proper look-see at the fine job done across her coat this time.

What pose she strikes comes with the smallest of self-indulgent grins, her hind and her back facing the glass, her chin lifted high in a look over her shoulder before she shifts the other way, thrusting her furry blue crest toward the mirror, crossing one paw before the other, fluttering crystal eyelashes, voguing in place.

One more glance back toward the empty door, more intense, full of seriousness this time—and Taika makes the time for just one more pose, smiling thin but proud, full of herself and earning it.

Then she—no, did he really?—yes, she spies a spot Rikhard missed.

It's barely a few strands in one little patch on her shoulder blade that are longer than those around them, but Taika leans in closer just to make sure. And sure enough, after more than a decade of doting on her coat, not even Rikhard has perfected his art of the scissors.

Taika smiles in some smaller way she nearly doesn't notice.

It used to be the kitchen that she got her fur trimmed in, that is.

Rikhard was getting so tall. Taika was still so short. Still just a Vulpix. Sat on a dining chair dragged over in front of the dishwasher so that her discarded clippings could be swept up later over linoleum rather than carpet, and Rikhard standing there before her in his thick woolen socks, so tall. His mother wouldn't do the job, so fate called upon him for it.

So Taika sat perfectly still. Trusting him, even then. Sharp twin blades in the hands of a boy with fingers still sometimes clumsy enough to let his glass of water slip and shatter all over the floor—scissors tipped barely through soft white tufts, the metal cold less than an inch away, grazing over her chilled skin. A quiet snip, and slowly, she's lighter. And she knows not what he does to her.

But she trusts him.

That was the worst day of both their young lives.

Taika twists to the right again and gives herself another look in the mirror before her back in present day, eyeing the rest of the fine current work done of her. She can only smile now, but when Rikhard raised the hand mirror to her back then, holding back his own tears, she found personally what mange must look like on a living, breathing person.

Forgiveness was difficult at that age. But they persevered. Tried again. He got better, but not before he got her a shiny new clip to tuck away at least some of the mess he made.

That was the one day she nearly got over him.

Taika lifts her gaze, looks over again at the foreign clutter taken over her real life. At the memories hidden under linen and rubble.

There really will be other children calling this room their own someday.

Sleeping in that bed. Hiding their own mess in the closet. Avoiding homework, watching television instead.

Taika can't keep smiling.

How can she possibly be any part of that?

She can't really babysit. She can't be adjacent to the man she's in love with and his wife while they live their best life together. She's incapable of the mental gymnastics to figure herself into any happy space next to the happy couple.

Truly, without fantasizing, what part of that next stage of life—their life—does Taika fit into?

The moment has finally truly hit her. It's taken long enough, but she finally realizes it. Just maybe.

She looks back to the bedroom door. On purpose, her mind wanders. It hears another.

how much you pay for this junk? the hell you do with this, mom, what even, what is this for? where you even find this, why

There's a clatter in the hall as Taika hears Rikhard suddenly stop what he's doing, then a stillness. In his real voice, she hears him call clearer, “Taika? Was that you?"

Taika holds that same stillness inside and out.

“Rikhard?"

Her whisper comes out just as the front door knocks open, echoing clear and creaky.

“Got the stuff," Hadewych yells, the shivers of plastic bags in her grip rustling under her voice. “Mildew remover, like five bottles, more garbage bags... lots of 'em.... Baby, you in here?"

There's a moment more of Rikhard waiting for Taika to continue, but she drops it. The direction of his voice drifts away from Taika to instead where Hadewych's came from, and he calls to her, “We got started back here. You already got yourself some lunch, Haddy?"

Still from a close distance, Hadewych grunts some affirmative. And without conveniently forgetting the previous line, Rikhard calls lower back toward his other girl, “Taika, what's up?"

Plastic bags shake closer. But Taika already knows what she needs to say.

She lowers her head and lifts a paw up past her face, nudging at her ear—pushing her little clip out from its tufts, letting it fall away, bouncing amongst all the rest of the spill here. She doesn't see where it goes. Her mighty wisps cling closer against her ear suddenly, but she only shakes them further back.

“Never mind. I just figured it out on my own. You can keep going."

Night's quietest form.

Someone else's home. Cold. Face to the ceiling. Alone. Sheets pushed half off her legs.

There is no part of their life Taika fits into. The last six hours have yielded no other answer.

Maybe it's time she pursues her own life.

Maybe get over him? Make the time for it.

Taika's eyes, wide open, are the illustration of existential crisis.

What open-ended terror she faces.

There's a window over her bed, curtains remaining shunted open, black shadows beyond the glass. From right where she lies, there's the moon in the corner of her eye, halfway through its cycle, right there, through the pine needles and treetops, merely a million miles away.

Every so often Taika's eyes shift toward its glow, and her brain flits around silly metaphors she now believes in completely.

Reaching beyond her reach. Can she make it? She must, though.

Where in the world could she go? But now it's a serious question. It needs an answer. Could she find some other partner for battle, a new coach? Could she find a… new line of work, as it were? Secretarial. Or translating. She can speak English, after all, in the only way that matters.

But could she really move on? Truly, though?

In these purely theoretical terms, could she really ever picture Rikhard as someone distant? Her closest friend, the only shoulder she had to cry on when failure or fear bore down, and the little boy emotionally vulnerable to her, too, before mother and schoolyard and society ripped that vulnerability away from him. Before they both learned how wrong it was for human and pokemon to be so touchy-feely between each other.

Taika's legs shift against her blanket. She looks back to the ceiling, permanently indistinct.

She didn't fall in love with such a dense man. She fell in love with a kind boy.

She misses the man that boy could have been.

And is it Rikhard who she can't get over, or is it that man?

Her legs shift the same again. When she thinks about it like that—purely theoretically, not considering Rikhard anymore, just a mind's-eye crystallization, degrees away… what could have her relationship been like with that man?

Her chest rises slowly as she breathes in. Awkward as the angle may be in this four-legged body, she pushes one leg down over her stomach and brushes it someplace low, between herself.

Wet already.

That perfectly human voice in the back of her head chides her for being so immature. Stupid. But she's a sexual being, too, just as much as Hadewych. Taika's psyche has the same needs.

What if she tried being more mature about all this after tonight?

She could try that. Tonight is a baby step, somehow, as one digit strokes farther the littlest inch it can go, and Taika's breath fails within the long gasp it elicits from her.

She doesn't need to think about all this so hard, anyway. Not tonight. Just for tonight.

She closes her eyes. Tonight, she's not just bored.

There's no reservation left in the motion as her paw closes in across her mound. Taika clenches lips together before the noise in her lungs escapes her throat, and she rubs firm, long, gropes over herself like how she can imagine so easily her pretend lover would, equally desperate for her pleasure and her readiness for a long night, over and over. Blue fur shivers one limb against another, and guttural squeaks leak regardless.

Then her toe—his finger. She opens to her own touch, pressing firmer down, dipping inside herself. Just one digit. Just one so far, and Taika bites her lip now, squeezes her paw the deepest it reaches through shivering recesses.

Her fur is hot in a way she can't deal with but for kicking her blanket farther away, frowning for the moment her concentration is taken away from stroking her filthy self.

And in some other way, it's finally that she's hot. It's a heat more unbearable than any cold and exactly what she's waited for. And yet her paw can't do anything more for her. Can't reach. Her leg is set at a dull ache within its stretch, and her stubby toe can't press as deep as her man needs to for her.

She needs more. A man's erection. Abnormally hard, in dire need of immediate inspection by whoever's closest.

There's a single moment of shame as it's Rikhard's immaculate naked form that enters her mind, but really, it's not even Rikhard she's picturing—just some effigy passably resembling him. And it's not an “erection" she pictures—it's his cock. Dripping, throbbing, in huge need of Taika's warmest reaches wrapped around it.

And there's absolutely no shame in the panting grin taking over Taika's lips as she imagines making this form of the man wait.

For the wait she's had to endure so much longer, she's first earned his tongue.

And picturing it that way, it just feels horribly, sickly right.

Taika opens her eyes quick, hazy, and dim. Pulls her paw back, shoves her knees over, rolls onto her side and then her stomach. She pushes to her feet. Lungs chide her heartbeat, but with lips open and breath falling hot off her tongue, she takes deep steps back over the mattress toward one of the rear bedposts—smooth, round, too large to fit anywhere, but just high enough over the rest of the bed to exploit.

She looks back only to position herself, dipping her face to a sweaty nuzzle just over the sheets, lifting her hind end high, legs spread far, and she closes her eyes again, and she squeezes swollen bud perfectly against unyielding wood. And every toe curls. And the sound out her throat isn't some maiden's tiny gasp, but a woman's growl.

Territorial.

Wanting.

Taika pants through bared, clenched fangs, and surely burns herself on her own heat radiating out from her dribble leaking down the bedpost already. But not actually. Firm wood is more so nimble tongue, and all Taika can feel bursting in her nerves is a man built thicker than his truck knelt down on his knees behind her, licking her, swiping long, drenching the further depths he can reach inside her.

The whole bed rattles with Taika's every backward scrape and thrust, and it should.

And there's no hesitation in the decision that she's going to cum all over his face.

Deeper rutting, harder, and if Taika breaks this damn bed she's still going to collect her un-rivaled orgasm from it. Knees shake and toes tremble and she feels in her bones that this is her moment, and he's pressed right inside her, and she buries her whole face in the sheets and shoves her mound violently tight against its release and cries out, squeals through cotton—legs twitching, dribble all of a sudden squirting, entire throat shivering, and Rikhard is thrust deep inside her, pouring in—

Long overdue, Taika collects her release.

She breathes through stuffy cotton for the next minute as she comes down. She doesn't move. She doesn't lift her gaze anywhere.

But after that minute, when she does look back up, the rest of the world is still here. She looks back out the window, and the moon hasn't left her. It's still in view.

Here's the moment back where she's not fooling herself anymore.

Should she feel ashamed?

Somehow, she doesn't. Her face is just a canvas in waiting for any sort of next feeling.

Maybe she should feel ashamed of what she just did to Hadewych's old bed, at the least, but she doesn't even feel that. Not right now. She'll have to clean it up in some way in the morning, of course, but…

Taika should leave.

That home isn't hers anymore. She should go.

She'll help get it ready for the family that can make use of it, and then she'll truly get out of their way.

She rolls back over, knees tucked up closer to her chest. Nothing but a strange, numb acceptance warms her now. Or chills her? It's hard to tell. But she's tired.

There's a mere last thought inside her before she may, for once, really be ready for sleep.

I hope he'll miss me, too.

One boot lands over grass and gravel, then the other crunches beside it. Calloused hand holds the door open for her, and Taika squeezes herself and all her many tails out the truck, hopping down much softer in the driveway back home. Home-ish. Maybe not anymore.

Her mind is at a dull jog, groggy in the morning. But she's still thinking.

Even as early as they all come out here every morning, Rikhard's got a typically warm smile for Taika today, too, glancing down at her as he squeaks his door shut behind her.

He reads her face in an instant and chuckles, “Is that a good mood I see hiding in there this early? Really?"

Not that he read it correctly.

She hasn't told him anything.

So with what effort it takes, she smirks all coy back up at him and says, “We'll see."

She's still convincing herself that he won't react too badly to her departure. That he'll accept it and move on the same, for what maybe both of them need.

There will come a right time to tell him later. Just… not now.

The passenger's door slams shut next, and Hadewych crunches lighter around her side of the truck decidedly grumpier at this time of day, both arms raised high in a stretch from her spine to her fingers. When arms drop and she sighs that breath back out, one hand comes back up toward Rikhard, palm open, fingers wiggling—she grunts.

It's with the same smile as for anyone that Rikhard reaches his hand out to hers, too, and twines fingers together, and Hadewych clasps tight, and they walk together. And at a patter, Taika follows them in a day in which she can already see she is not the main character.

At least now she's truly admitted it to herself.

“Bathroom's fucked," Hadewych grumbles barely louder than her bootsteps. “Didn't even wanna get started on it yesterday… like a pipe busted in there or something, and now the floor's all cruddy."

Rikhard says nothing more than humming some affirmative, not quite a grunt.

“Your mom must really not have a given a shit about any of it," Hadewych grumbles still.

Rikhard shrugs. “Her bedroom has its own bath, so she probably didn't notice too often."

“Well, she still managed to fill this one up with shit, so, sorry, but she wasn't just ignoring it."

“God, like… literal shit?"

“Christ no. If there were actual turds on the walls in there or whatever I'd burn this place down myself, what the fuck."

Taika pays what attention to them it takes to register the words, but little more. She has just the focus enough for an appropriate pause in her pace behind Rikhard and Hadewych as they step up on the porch, and Rikhard fishes his key out from the pocket of his coat with his free hand. And he frowns.

“You think I should go see her?"

Hadewych cocks her brow with an instant scowl at him, her answer just as ready.

“Fuck no."

Rikhard stays quiet, barely louder than the jingle of the key.

“I think I should go see her."

As he rattles the knob unlocked, Hadewych's hand drifts away from his. Both her hands go back in her own pockets.

“You have fun with that."

Rikhard looks back to her as he pushes the door open, but the look between them is a conversation that's happened before. Maybe one that will happen again, but not this time.

Right now, Rikhard turns back to Taika. And the expression that next shifts on his face is a crack in his armor she hasn't seen in a long time.

“You want to come with?"

Truth be told, Taika really doesn't want to either.

So she smiles again.

“Of course."