Love Across Reealms

“I’m surprised you hadn’t crashed somewhere near Somnium,” Devin said as Lennox played with the hair of his tail. The blond’s smile was slightly devious, but he’d learned that Lennox just smiled like that. “Surprised and glad.”

“Why?” Lennox said, “You didn’t think I’d be able to survive there?”

Devin snorted. It wasn’t elegant, but for all of Lennox’s refined look, he hadn’t been the pinnacle of manners either. It could be possible that Devin should’ve expected it, given the nature of the otherworldly companion he found himself with. Devin had thought himself open-minded before. The world was full of strange, rare and wondrous things. Be it as it may, he had never seen someone like Lennox. Sure, he’d met plenty of witty, confident people before. He was a witty, confident person if he had any right to label himself. But Lennox's personality, as great as it was, wasn’t the first thing he thought about when he thought of the man.

No, it was the ears (very soft, he checked), the paws (wholly different from hooves but still great!) and the wings (this, Lennox said, wasn’t common even among his peers, and yet it wasn’t unusual for Devin at all).

“I don’t doubt your survival,” Devin said in the end, although the silence between them had stretched on for so long that he wasn’t sure they were still having the conversation. “It’s just that it would’ve lowered your chances of meeting me.”

Lennox shuffled around the bench in the garden at the back of Devin’s house. He’d said that the wings were a bit of pain back where he came from — Loova, Devin remembered — because not many people had them. But it was different in Velarune. Aeria weren’t more or less common in Velarune than any other Equos, so the world around them accommodated them to different degrees. Devin had been going sightseeing with Lennox for days and he often remarked on this, although Devin hadn’t ever really seen him use his wings to fly. They seemed to be more decorative rather than anything else.

“I think I would find you, eventually,” Lennox said with such confidence that Devin couldn’t help but believe him, despite all of Lennox’s confidence. “Now turn around. I want to start decorating your tail.”

It wasn’t Devin’s thought. It was Lennox who’d seen a couple with matching ornaments in their tail. Devin turned around as requested, and indulged him. Lennox’s own was short, like that of the bunny. Surprisingly, that tended to be the thing people noticed when they saw him — not his soft, pawed feet, slightly similar to hooves but still differing greatly — but rather the stumped tail that he had. Devin thought it was cute.

“I’ll put some pink and gold trinkets,” Lennox was saying, “Is that okay?”

“Of course it’s okay,” Devin said, then thought that maybe he did it too quickly. “But only if you let me put some blue ones on your wings, okay? They won’t bother you,” he added.

“I’ll be fine for a day, even if they do,” Lennox retorted, fingers swiftly working around Devin’s tail and entertaining fur with jewellery. Lennox didn’t have an eye for it — Devin was so fond of him, but he couldn’t deny this — but, thankfully, it wasn’t Lennox who picked them.

For a few moments, they sat in silence while Lennox finished his work before they switched places and Devin started decorating the Lovabun’s wings.

“As I was saying,” Devin said eventually, somewhere between wrapping a wing and caressing Lennox’s back. “I’m glad you didn’t crash elsewhere because I’ve grown to love you a lot.”

He tried to say it casually like it was just another thing he said every day, and yet it still came out a little stilted. He was nervous, peering at Lennox even though they’d adorned each other in one another’s colours; it was, after all, only for a day.

“I love you too,” Lennox said back like it was something he said every day. He didn’t sound doubtful at all. “And I didn’t crash. I landed right where I should.”

And maybe it could be that easy. Devin smiled, then landed a kiss at the furry ear. He, too, agreed that Lennox had landed right where he should.