Lunsdie/Ckkkrt 16 (Patreon)

@Startide and @Millerdark (and honestly a bunch of readers over the months) requested that I continue the Lunsdie/Ckkkrt story. I've been meaning to do this, but just haven't made the time, so here goes.

Also, it looks like I'm facing some very bad news in the morning. Ugh. Please keep 'em crossed for me.

———

Lunsdie groaned and covered his eyes. The starlight was far too loud and making his head pound. Ckkkrt gently stroked her fingers across the top of his head. “Are you ok?” she whispered in what seemed like a shout.

He shook his head. “Head hurts.”

She kissed the top of his head. “I honestly have no idea how you could have gotten drunk on so little alcohol. I guess you never drink, huh?”

He shook his head once more, but that only made it pound harder.

“Okay, you stay right there,” she shout/whispered as she slid from the bed. “I will make you a remedy.”

The anup listened to her walk to the far end of the home where she proceeded to bang cookware together like she was building an addition onto the house. In a few minutes, she returned with a glass of … something, set a pillow against the headboard, and urged him to sit upright. “Drink this.”

“What is it?” he groaned.

“Back home we have a guaranteed hangover cure,” said Ckkkrt, “but of course I can find none of those ingredients here. I have done the best I can to make substitutions.”

He looked at her with his ears hanging just low as they could.

“Oh, just drink it,” she said. “It will make you feel better. Then, we can cuddle some more.”

The red concoction was thick and spicy, but it didn’t taste quite as horrible as it smelled. Lundie forced it down just as quickly as he could, then she set the empty glass on the nightstand and slid back into bed. She rested against the pillow, and he held her around the middle, ear on her stomach.

“Good thing ‘the feast’ is only once a year, huh?”

“Yes, probably for the best,” she agreed as she ran her fingers through his short, black fur.

They laid in silence a long while before some thoughts that had been bubbling in his brain these past few weeks finally floated to the surface. “I’ve been thinking about what you said about me,” he sighed. “Remember? When you first took me on as your apprentice, you said I was too kind to ever be a good salesman.”

“I remember,” the sourang said with a smile on her whiskers, “and you said that you would rather be a poor salesman than give up being kind. Have you changed your mind about that?”

He shook his head and drew little circles in her golden fur with his fingertip. “No, I don’t think I can change that. If I did, I don’t think I’d be me anymore.”

“You would still be you,” she said. “You will always be you. Every day we change a little. That is just normal. You may not realize it, but you have changed so much. I suspect that if you went back to the day we met, you would not even recognize the person you were.”

“I suppose,” Lunsdie sighed, “but I hope I never change that. I like who I am, even if that means I’ll never be a success.”

“You may never be a success, but you will be more successful than you are today,” she said. “You are already more successful than you were back then.”

“But I’ll never be ‘a success’. I’ll never be ready to go off and do this without your help,” he said. “I’ll always be your apprentice.”

“No, that is not true,” Ckkkrt reassured him. “Yes, your head is exceptionally thick, but I am exceptionally persistent. Sooner or later, my teaching will get through to you, even if you are old and bent by the time I finish with you.” She kissed his head once more.

“You must be very disappointed,” he whispered. “You didn’t know what you were getting into when you agreed to help me, and now you’re stuck here, obligated to stay until you’re finished.”

“You are the one who is obligated,” she laughed.

“And you too,” he said. “If I’m stuck, then so are you.”

The sourang shrugged with a flip of her paw. “This is not an obligation that I mind,” she said. “Yes, your growth is slow, but seeing you improve makes me happy. I am not frustrated, if that is what you worry about.”

“No, that’s not what I’m worried about.” He squeezed her muscular torso closer.

She stroked his head for a bit, but he remained silent. “So, what do you worry about?”

“I’m afraid of success.”

At this, she laughed hard enough to make his head ache. “You have nothing to fear.”

“No, I’m serious,” the anup sighed. Then, he twisted in place and curled up around her. His paws hung over the bed’s edge, but now he could look up from resting on her stomach and see her face. “If I were ever successful, then you’d be done teaching me. You’d have no reason to stay.”

She curled forward with her flexible spine and kissed both of his eyelids, one at a time. He doubted he’d ever get used to that but accepted that the act meant a lot to her, even if he didn’t understand it. “You worry over the strangest things, apprentice, like a cub who is afraid that learning to walk means he cannot hold his mother’s paw for support.”

“No, I mean,” he said in frustration, “I think we’re really good together.

Ckkkrt smiled. “You cannot make me a partner in your business while you are only an apprentice.”

“I’m not talking about the business!” he groaned. “I don’t care about the business.”

“I am working on that,” she said, encouragingly, “you must learn to care—”

“I’m talking about us!” He sat up on one hip, so his head was level with hers. “I don’t know what sourang practices are in regard to taking a mate, but anup are very serious about it. We only ever take a single mate. Not even widows and widowers—”

She put her paws about his face, holding his jaw gently but firmly closed. “Lunsdie,” she said, bringing him to a stop, “do not ask me for things that I cannot give you. This will only bring both of us pain.”

Lunsdie touched her paw and waited until she loosened her hold on him. “You don’t want—?”

“This is not about what I want,” she explained. “It is about what I cannot be. I have a mate.”

“Rrrr?”

“What is made, cannot be unmade,” she said.

“But you left him,” he said, trying not to whine.

Ckkkrt closed her dark eyes and bit her lip. Eventually, she opened them once more only to stare up at the ceiling. “I was his mate, and his apprentice, and his conquest. Yes, I left to free myself, but I cannot give you what I no longer have.”

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ewZ4CQ3iuBxLyeYgs2RxbWafl8439tpv4-2lMW76nLM/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?