Pumpkin and berries, nettles and broth. They needed time to sing, to soften, to find one another in the fire’s patient heat—time for the sweetness to meet the sharp, for the wild tang to mellow into something whole.

Thorne stirred slowly, steady as breath, listening to the crackle of wood and the faint hiss of bubbling edges. This was no grand feast, no banquet with silver and gold. Just the forest’s offering, coaxed into warmth. A humble thing. A living thing.

The cave was warm with the fire, shadows crawling along the damp stone walls, and yet the elf lounged as though he were sprawled across a throne.

He ran his fingers through his hair for the fifth time, preening strands that already gleamed in the firelight. He adjusted the drape of his sleeve, patted at his cheek as if dirt dared mar him, and finally huffed—a soft, tragic little sound—just loud enough to be heard.

The ogre did not bite.

Thorne only stirred the gourd, muscles shifting beneath his jerkin, jaw locked tight in its usual scowl.

Another sigh from Aelorian, this one heavier, weighted with the sort of sorrow reserved for ballads or long lines at the local market stall. He slouched dramatically against his boulder, head tilted, letting his hair tumble just so across his cheek. A picture of suffering.

Still, nothing.

Finally, unable to bear the neglect, Aelorian spoke: “You know,” he said, voice lilting, “some might consider it rude to let a prince waste away in silence while you meddle with vegetables.”

Thorne turned, wordless, and pressed the steaming gourd firmly against his lips.

”Eat,” The ogre rumbled, low and final.

Before Aelorian could summon another line of protest, Thorne tilted the gourd. The rim was hot, almost searing, but then the broth slipped past his mouth and onto his tongue, rich and earthy, garlic sharp and mushrooms grounding. The berries left a sweet ghost behind that was entirely unexpected. His throat worked as he swallowed, utterly silenced. 

When the gourd pulled away, Aelorian sat frozen, lips tingling from both the heat and the sheer audacity. “You could have asked nicely,” he muttered, half into the firelight, but his hand lingered when the vessel brushed his fingers. 

Thorne took it back with one massive hand, lifted it, and drank without ceremony. The broth caught in his beard, dripping down in a rivulet that he wiped away with the back of his wrist. Aelorian’s gaze followed the motion, lingering far too long.

The gourd passed again, hand to hand. Lips to rim. Again, and again. Fingers brushed with each exchange, fleeting yet deliberate, and each time the air between them grew heavier, thick with unspoken things.

By the fourth turn, Aelorian’s pulse was thrashing. He held the vessel a moment longer than necessary, refusing to let go, as though testing the weight of Thorne’s patience. And the ogre’s tired eyes flicked up, pinning him in place.

“How do you know how to do this?” Aelorian asked, voice soft, curious, and a little teasing. “Who taught you? You didn’t just wake up in the forest one day and decide to make nettle-and-berry broth soup, did you?”

Thorne didn’t answer at first, thumb tracing the edge of the gourd, gaze sinking into the fire. When he finally spoke, the words rasped like stones dragged over bone. “Maris. My wife. She taught me.”

Aelorian’s breath hitched, but he didn’t move. He only waited, knowing the ogre needed space to bleed out his story in silence.

Thorne’s jaw locked. His shoulders hunched. “She died during the Cleansing, along with our kids, Kier and Liora.” The names cracked out of him, and the air seemed to hollow around the words, as though the swamp itself went still.

“It was a purge. Not so much a war as an annihilation that Seredane called justice. ” His voice was low, grinding, as if the words themselves hurt to shape. “I was with his army. I thought I could protect them from the inside and be there when it mattered, so I swore an oath, like a fool.”

 “One night, they threw us a feast.” His scarred hands tightened around the stirring stick, wood groaning against his grip. “Said it was to honor us—one last meal before they let us retire. We’d won their ways, bled their enemies dry. They had their golden army now—gleaming, perfect, obedient. They didn’t need beasts like us anymore.”

The fire shifted, casting the ogre’s face in rugged light, shadows filling the hollow beneath his brow, the dark circles under his eyes. He looked carved out of grief, like stone struck with too many blades. 

“I should’ve known.” His mouth twisted. “The wine was too sweet. The meat too tender. They poured it like we were kings instead of war dogs.”

Aelorian’s throat tightened, the edges of Seredane’s temples flashing through his mind. The long tables he had sat at, head bowed, obedient. The way the priest smiled when he offered goblets of firewine, as though generosity could disguise chains. 

“They killed them all.” Thorne’s words came like blows. “One moment, laughter and celebration. The next—fire.” He spat the word, as if it scalded his tongue. “Sunfire filled the hall. Burned the flesh from their bones. I managed to escape, but when I turned back, there was nothing left but screaming.”

Aelorian flinched. He could smell the smoke as if it still clung to him. His skin remembered Seredane’s fire and how it licked too close, and licked too cruelly. How it wanted not warmth, but worship and devotion. His whole body buzzed like the flame was crawling over him now, lighting his veins with panic.

 “I thought—maybe if I went back to my village, maybe there’d be someone left to bury me with.” Thorne’s chest heaved, his breath uneven. “But when I came over the ridge…all I saw was smoke. Screams. I ran through the streets calling their names—Kier, Maris, Liora—but all I found were the echoes–their voices, swallowed by flames. I grabbed Kier—he was barely awake, barely breathing—and thought I could carry him to safety. Thought I could outrun fate. But… the smoke—it betrayed me. He slipped from my arms. Vanished.”

He dropped the stick, letting it smolder. “Maris had Liora. I saw them, just for a heartbeat. Fire licking at their heels. She was screaming my name. I swear I saw the fear in her eyes, even through the smoke. And then the roof collapsed, and I wasn’t fast enough to catch it that time, it Just… fell.”

His voice broke, a raw rumble of grief and fury. “And the soldiers… Seredane’s men—they found me crawling from the ashes. Dragged me out like I was one of the dead. ‘Complicit,’ they said. ‘Traitor.’ Because I killed the priests who started the fire. Because I killed their men when I should have been burning down houses with them.”

The coals hissed, tiny sparks leaping like mocking spirits. Thorne’s shoulders shook—not with sobs, but with the force of all he had buried. “I swore I’d protect them. I swore…” He shook his head, swallowing the scream that wanted to tear free. “I wasn’t fast enough. I wasn’t clever enough. I wasn’t enough. And now…” His eyes, dark as wet stone, fixed on the fire. “Now there’s nothing left but ash. And the guilt that sticks to me like a second skin.”

Aelorian didn’t move. Didn’t smirk. His eyes softened, flickering with something rare: understanding, fragile and trembling.

“Thorne…” His voice was a whisper, careful, almost afraid to touch the wound. “I—”

Thorne shook his head slowly, the barest hint of a snarl tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Don’t. Not for me. Not for anyone. This—” He gestured to the fire, the cave, the shadows that clung to his massive frame. “This is all that’s left of them. And all that’s left of me.”

The gourd between them steamed quietly, forgotten for a moment, a simple vessel holding warmth while grief settled like a heavy stone in the cave. And Aelorian, despite every dramatic instinct screaming, reached just slightly closer, letting the warmth of his hand hover near Thorne’s. A silent offer: presence. Comfort. Witness.

Thorne glanced down at his hand and then glanced away, holding the gourd out to him. “Drink your soup, elf,” he said, low and gruff, but there was something in his tone that wasn’t just a command—it was care, careful and fierce. No flourish, no ceremony. Just him, the fire, and the quiet insistence that the elf stay alive.

"Rude," Aelorian huffed, but sipped slowly, savoring the soup now, belly growing comfortably full. 

Thorne’s massive hands fiddled with a stick, slowly peeling the bark off it. His shoulders were set stiffly, as though bracing for impact, and his jaw worked with unspoken words. Finally, his voice rumbled out, rough and low, almost like a growl that had gotten stuck halfway in his throat.

“You know, I’ve met elves before. Swift, sharp-tongued, pointy-eared troublemakers. Arrogant. Cold.” His dark eyes flicked up, just briefly, before darting back to the stick. “But you? You’re the first one I’ve ever seen that made me notice in a way I don’t like noticing. It’s annoying. I don’t like it.”

Aelorian choked. Actually choked. He sputtered, coughing on the broth, nearly spilling the gourd all over himself, the fire, and probably the ogre’s boots. His cheeks flushed hot, and he swiped at his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “O–Ogre!” he stammered, scandal personified. “You—you can’t just say things like that! Dropping it on a poor, defenseless elf without warning! What do you expect me to do with that?!”

“Why?” Thorne didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. He just shrugged, the motion heavy and unbothered, though the tips of his ears betrayed a faint flush. “You’re ridiculously pretty.” His eyes dragged over Aelorian’s face, lingering on the mud smudged across one cheek, the twigs tangled stubbornly in his hair. “Mud, twigs, whatever shit you’ve got snarled up in that mop. Doesn’t change it.” His voice dropped, quieter, more dangerous in its honesty. “And gods, I hate that I notice.”

The fire popped sharply, like it too was scandalized.

Aelorian sat frozen, gourd clutched to his chest like a shield, eyes wide as saucers. His lips parted, closed, then parted again as if his brain had short-circuited and forgotten how words worked. Finally, he managed a strangled, “You brute!”—but it came out far too soft, far too breathless to carry any weight.

Thorne shrugged, head lowering, and it was in that moment that Aelorian realized something.

The ogre hadn’t called him pretty like Seredane and his men, a word laced with smirks and possession. He hadn’t meant it as currency for what he wanted to take. Thorne had said it as though the word was a prayer, rough and reverent, the kind of truth that escapes before a man can stop it.

Aelorian set the gourd down carefully, though not carefully enough to hide the lingering warmth of Thorne’s fingers against his own. He shifted, hesitated, and then—small, almost timid—he scooted closer to Thorne, the rough edge of the ogre’s jerkin brushing against his shoulder.

He perched there, knees drawn up, hands folded neatly in his lap, looking absurdly tiny and delicate beside Thorne’s immense, hulking frame. His hair fell in loose strands around his face, smudged with mud and twigs, and his lips parted just slightly, a soft, almost imperceptible smile tugging at the corners.

“Thorne Harrowbranch, you may be a brute…” Aelorian whispered, voice trembling just slightly, as though speaking too loudly might shatter the fragile bubble around them. “But you’re my brute.”

Thorne’s massive hand shifted once, scraping along the coarse fabric of his sleeve before landing near Aelorian’s knee, hesitant, almost awkward. He muttered something under his breath, the kind of sound that was half complaint, half… concern. “You’re ridiculous, you know that?”

Aelorian’s lips twitched into a tiny, scandalized smile, warmth rising to his cheeks. “Thank you,” he said, voice barely above a whisper, “for saving me from the boar earlier… and for the soup. You didn’t have to do that.”

Thorne’s jaw flexed, a muscle ticking in irritation—or maybe in some silent acknowledgment. He didn’t answer, just adjusted slightly so that Aelorian’s head rested more securely against his shoulder. The movement was minimal, but it radiated a quiet insistence: stay. Safe. Here.

The warmth of the gourd, the fire, and Thorne’s solid presence wrapped around him. Exhaustion, relief, and something dangerously soft tugged at his limbs. Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, Aelorian’s eyes fluttered closed again, the weight of the day pressing him down. His head dipped just slightly, and a tiny snore escaped his lips.

Thorne’s stormy gaze flicked down at him, then softened almost imperceptibly. “…Damn elf,” he muttered, but his hand stayed firmly at Aelorian’s knee, steady and unmoving.

Little by little, the delicate weight of the sleeping elf pressed into his side, and Thorne’s chest tightened in a way that made his usual scowl feel like it might crack. He’d spent years guarding nothing but ash and silence, keeping everything locked away in iron and stone, and yet here was this… thing, this tiny, impossible creature, curling against him like he belonged.

How had someone so small, so soft, managed to claim so much of his attention, his thoughts, his chest that rarely felt anything but weight and rage? An uncomfortable, undeniable possessiveness bloomed as his thoughts collected—a wish that no one would touch him, not even the world, not even fate. That he could guard this sleeping elf forever, grumpy growls and all, and maybe, just maybe, let himself care without shame.

“Bloody hell,” Thorne grumbled, low and rumbling, though it sounded more like awe than annoyance. “This… is frustrating as hell.” He didn’t move. He couldn’t. Not an inch.Not a muscle. Because even a grumpy ogre knew, once in a blue moon, some things were too rare, too fragile, to disturb.

And so the fire crackled, shadows dancing across the walls, and for a little while, the world shrank to a gourd, a cave, and an elf sleeping against his shoulder.