The Serpent and the Sparrow

by tenebrisvox

Summary:

Shipwrecked. Dream-drunk. Blooming.

Sparrow was just supposed to survive a diplomatic voyage—not get seduced by a carnivorous garden, blessed by a god-flower, and chosen as a sacred offering for a serpent deity.

But the jungle has other plans. And Sparrow? He’s soft, sweet, and very much in bloom.

Chapter 1: Shipwrecked on the Island of the Blooming Maw

Sparrow groaned as he lifted his head from the sand, spitting grit from his mouth. His fingers curled into the damp, clinging shoreline like it had personally wronged him. His vision blurred as the distant rush of water thundered somewhere nearby—a waterfall, maybe? Perfect. Picturesque and miserable.

Where in the abyss was he? The last thing he remembered was the goddess forsaken ship, the endless gray horizon, the nausea—and then the storm.

The young astromancer shoved himself upright with a pained grunt, wincing as his body protested every movement. He felt like someone had dismantled him piece by piece and slapped him back together wrong. His fine robes were soaked through, torn, and plastered to his skin like seaweed. The sun blazed overhead—vulgar, obnoxiously bright, nothing like the shaded bows of High Grove.

Squinting, Sparrow scanned the beach, expecting—hoping—for at least some other survivors. Or debris. Or literally anything to suggest this wasn’t the worst day of his life.

Nothing.

Just endless sand and the creeping realization that he was very much alone. Stranded. Somewhere between home and the oblivion that was the far continent.

“Brilliant,” he muttered, dragging himself to his feet, nearly falling over in the process. “Absolutely brilliant. Next time Father volunteers me for a diplomatic disaster, I’m throwing an actual fit.” He slapped sand from his robes, sneering at the state of himself. “What was he thinking? ‘Oh yes, Sparrow has plenty of survival skills—look how well he reads star charts from the comfort of a balcony.’”

Panicking wasn’t going to help, though the tightness building in his chest suggested he was already halfway there.

The sun glared down, merciless. Sparrow lifted a hand to shade his eyes, groaning. “I won’t even know where I am until nightfall,” he grumbled, voice cracking from thirst. “Of course. Can’t even suffer dramatically without being parched.”

Thirst clawed at him, suddenly undeniable. His mouth was dry, his tongue thick. Great. Just fantastic.

“Alright,” he snapped to no one in particular, adjusting his soaked, clinging robes higher around his thighs, “can’t chart the stars if I shrivel up like a corpse. Find water, find shade, don’t die. Easy.” His voice wobbled on that last word.

The sound of a waterfall lured him toward the treeline.

“You can handle this,” he lied to himself, pushing into the forest. “Any beast dumb enough to tangle with me is in for a surprise. I trained under the High Magistrix. I passed my trials. I—”

A thorn snagged his sleeve, yanking hard. His foot caught on a root. Sparrow cursed colorfully as he stumbled, smacking brambles away from his face, leaves sticking to his sweat-soaked skin. His confident monologue trailed off, unraveling with every miserable step.

By the time the woods parted to reveal the waterfall, his composure was hanging by a thread.

The pool glittered, crystal clear, obnoxiously perfect—and all he could think about was how dry his throat was, how much he despised this island, and how much worse his father was going to suffer when Sparrow got home.

Assuming he survived, of course.

Sparrow stumbled into the clearing like a half-drowned cat, limbs heavy and posture undignified. The waterfall thundered just ahead, cascading down a cliff face overgrown with flowering vines and slick emerald moss. Mist hung in the air like breath held too long, catching the sunlight in a way that felt pointedly rude. Everything was lush, glistening, smug with life.

He staggered to the pool’s edge, collapsing to his knees in the mud. For one blessed moment, he simply stared. The water was so clear it made his eyes ache. Not even a ripple—no debris, no insects. Just shimmering, still perfection, like a mirror waiting for a mistake.

“Oh, finally,” he gasped, lunging forward.

His fingers hovered above the surface.

A breeze swept across the clearing. Not a natural one—too sudden, too scented. It reeked of sweetness. Crushed jasmine, bruised fruit, something cloying and wrong underneath. Like perfume poured over rot.

Sparrow froze.

The water moved.

Not rippled. Moved. It recoiled from his hand like a living thing, then pulsed outward, sending a ripple toward the waterfall. The vines above it shifted, slithering over stone with the softest of rustling sounds—leaves unfurling, petals blooming open where none had been before.

The rocks behind the falls blinked.

Not rocks, he realized with a lurch. Eyes. Dozens of them, half-lidded and honeyed, nestled among the flowering creepers like jewels in a crown. The vines parted, revealing a gaping orchid-like maw lined with glistening, petal-soft teeth. It yawned.

Sparrow jerked backward.

A dozen blooms around the pool responded, opening in harmony. Within each, a tiny face nestled—cherubic, sharp-toothed, cooing. Mawlings. They blinked up at him in unison, and then, in his own exact voice, they chirped:

“Oh, finally.”

Sparrow made a noise like a dying goat.

One of the Mawlings giggled. “So thirsty,” it sang, swaying side to side. “So delicate. So sweet.”

“Oh no,” Sparrow breathed, scooting back on hands and heels. “No, no no no. I am not getting devoured by glorified floral throw pillows.”

The central bloom opened wider, and a voice came from it—not spoken, not heard, but felt, coiling inside his ribs like warm breath.

“You may drink. But only if you offer something lovely in return.”

Sparrow stared.

The voice purred again, velvet and ancient:

“Beauty. Song. Memory. Pain. I will take any. Choose.”

Sparrow, trembling and mud-slicked, straightened his spine with as much dignity as he could muster. “I’m not giving you my pain,” he said stiffly. “I earned that.”

The Maw purred. The Mawlings mimicked his voice again in singsong:

“I earned that!”

He glared at them. “Oh, shut up.”

One of the Mawlings tittered and held out a tiny flower-hand. “Trade, trade, trade~” it chirped.

Sparrow hesitated. He could feel the water. It was calling to the dry cracks inside him. He was half-certain this was a hallucination and half-certain he didn’t care.

“Fine,” he snapped, wiping hair from his face. “Take my third-best memory of a kiss. The one with the ambassador’s idiot son.”

A pause.

Then:

“Done.”

The pool glowed.

And welcomed him.

Sparrow fell forward, cupping the water in both hands and drinking like his life depended on it—because it did. The water tasted like cool starlight. Like regret. Like something precious he couldn’t name.

Behind him, the Mawlings sighed, sated. The blooms closed one by one.

Except for one.

It watched him quietly.

The moment the water hit his throat, Sparrow felt his whole body exhale. Not just breath—but tension, fear, heat, hunger. All of it dissolved like salt in wine. A coolness sank into his bones, heady and liquid-sweet. It tasted like starlight and rosehips, like the space between dreams and memory.

The world wavered.

He staggered back from the pool, the jungle blurring at the edges. The sky deepened—bluer than it had been a moment ago. The sunlight filtered through the trees like gold silk, dappled and too soft to be real.

He barely registered the vines catching at his ankles, winding like lovers’ hands. Something perfumed and petal-soft brushed his cheek, and he sighed. The fear was gone. The ache in his limbs, the gnawing thirst, the hunger—all of it replaced by a warm, humming rightness.

A patch of moss just beyond the water’s edge seemed to beckon.

He collapsed onto it like a marionette with cut strings.

 

The dream rose around him slowly.

The moss became velvet. The air shimmered with the scent of lilac, sandalwood, and warm skin. Somewhere in the distance, a harp played—a melody he almost remembered. The soft hum of conversation drifted through the leaves, along with the clink of crystal and the flutter of fans.

He was home.

Not High Grove as it truly was—but better. Elevated. Eternal. The sky above shimmered with constellations that responded to his glance. Entire galaxies wheeled in lazy spirals, their light painting soft patterns across his skin. Astrological glyphs danced between the stars like fireflies, each sigil pulsing when he breathed. A comet passed overhead and left behind a trail of music only he could hear.

Everyone around him looked toward him with admiration, curiosity, and desire.

He was seated beneath a canopy of flowering branches and pale nebulae, dressed in diaphanous silks that clung to him like heat. His bare feet were kissed by the grass and brushed with stardust. There was no sand. No shipwreck. No island.

Only hands.

Soft ones, trailing along his shoulders. Fingers in his hair. A voice like cool wine and moonlight in his ear:

“You’ve always belonged here, Sparrow. Why do you always run away and hide?”

He turned, startled—except not startled at all. Not truly. The face before him was one he knew. The elven boy with the cruel mouth and too-pretty eyes. The ambassador’s son. He was smiling now—genuine. Devoted.

“You always disappear into those starcharts,” the elf murmured. “But you don’t have to here. You’re safe. You’re wanted.”

Another hand touched his wrist. Then another. Arms slipped around his waist, gentle but firm. There were too many bodies, too many mouths, but none of it felt strange. Just… pleasurable. Comforting. A dream pressing into the shape of his longing.

A girl with soft curls nuzzled his neck. A boy with starlight eyes knelt before him, a miniature galaxy flickering in his pupils. Someone whispered poetry against his collarbone in a language made of light, of planets turning, of suns being born. Their bodies radiated warmth and affection, a luxurious, drowsy adoration.

“Drink again,” said one voice.

“Stay,” said another.

“You’ve given enough. Let us give something back.”

Their lips were on his throat. His wrists. His heart. It felt like floating.

It felt like forgetting.

Above, the constellations shifted again, forming beautiful patterns. The stars remembered him.

Sparrow sighed and let himself fall backward into the silks and moss, the mouths and music, the pulsing heartbeat of this impossible dream. Every breath was thick with sweetness, every blink a surrender. He couldn’t remember what had ever been so urgent, or why his body had hurt, or why it had ever been bad to be adored.

A warm hand traced over his chest, fingers tapping softly in an almost magical rhythm—runes, he thought. Runes made of affection and orbit. A language written in star-time.

The harp swelled.

He smiled.

“Yes,” he breathed. “Yes, alright. Just a little longer…”

Back in the waking world, his body lay slack beneath the flowering canopy, limbs tangled in vines now gently pulsing with bioluminescence. The Mawlings cooed softly, petting his hair, rearranging the petals around him like dutiful attendants at a divine coronation. One blinked its flower-eyes, then whispered:

“He dreams so pretty. He’s perfect.”

The vines continued weaving around him, crafting a cradle of green and gold. Tendrils coiled gently around his waist and thighs, anchoring him with slow, rhythmic pressure, as if the island itself were trying to hold him in place.

In the dream, the touch became something else—familiar hands, imagined mouths, pleasure blooming behind his ribs like a second heartbeat. Someone was holding him open, not to hurt, but to fill. To worship. A sweet ache pulsed low in his body, steady and sure. The ambassador’s son whispered starlight against his throat, while a girl with golden hair wrapped around him like heat, her sighs like wind through harp strings.

Everything was warm. Everything was right.

Above them, the stars spun faster, forming shifting constellations in fractals and perfect geometry.

And Sparrow—adrift in velvet and vine—let the dream carry him deeper still.

In the waking world, the vines coiled tighter around his waist, winding up his torso in ribbons of ivy. They grazed across his chest, brushing tenderly over his skin until his nipples tightened under the delicate attention, pebbling beneath the touch. Slowly, the tendrils slid up his arms, locking him into the peaceful posture of sleep—hands tucked beneath his head like a dreaming prince.

In the dream, it all translated.

Mouths, fingers, teeth—sensations blooming over every inch of him.

Pleasure threaded through the illusion like starlight through silk, seamless and sweet.

He sighed into it, boneless and bewitched.

He didn’t question it.

Didn’t want to.

Here, every touch felt like devotion. 

One of the thicker vines, tipped with a blooming flower, brushed against his lips—sweet-scented and insistent—before slipping gently past them.

In the dream, it wasn’t a vine at all.

It was one of the cellists from the High Grove Royal Symphony—elegant, intense—taking over the kiss with practiced precision. Their mouth claimed his with a hunger that felt like reverence, not force. Music lived in the way they moved, in the press of lips and memory and breath. A grace that undid him.

He moaned helplessly, and the vines around him responded—vibrating with harmonic resonance, echoing the sound like a sacred chord struck true.

Pleasure crested. He let go.

The flowers around him pulsed and shimmered, their petals quivering with quiet delight. They drank him in like dew, only to stir him once more, coaxing sensation back into bloom—filling him again, bringing him to the edge once more, and then beyond it.

-

The vines parted with a sigh.

Tzi’chi stepped lightly through the undergrowth, their clawed feet gliding over moss without sound. The air was thick with the scent of ripening—a perfume the jungle wept only in the presence of a soon-to-be harvest. Sweet rot. Nectar breath. The musk of divinity coming undone.

They had expected to find another serpent-blooded form curled in the vine cradle. Another scaled back, another forked tongue slack with dreaming. Another offering.

But this…

This was not of the garden.

Tzi’chi froze.

The body lying in the center of the vinebed was pale as pearl, limbs sprawled boneless in the moss, draped in torn silk and wilting flowers. Hair like burnished chestnut spilled over the greenery, matted with dew and pollen. His skin was untouched by scale or ridge—porcelain, smooth, impossibly soft-looking, faintly glowing with the bioluminescence of half-digested magic.

And most startling of all: no tail. No scent of cold-blood. No history of scaled birth.

He was not Xolatl.

Yet the Blooming Maw had taken him. The vines had wrapped him, suckled at his skin, traced glowing blossom-marks along his hips and lower belly—petal-shaped sigils that pulsed faintly in time with the heartbeat of the jungle.

“Impossible,” Tzi’chi breathed.

They stepped closer, crouching, long fingers hovering inches above the creature’s chest.

Still breathing. Shallow. Dreaming.

There were early signs of transformation:

The subtle swell in the lower abdomen.
The faint sheen of pheromone-sweat on his thighs.
The beginning curve of bioluminescent patterns crawling like ivy across his ribcage.

He was ripening. Rapidly. 

Tzi’chi stared, mesmerized. He was wrong. Beautifully, profoundly wrong.

“You are not from here,” they whispered, reaching out.

Their fingers brushed his cheek.

The figure sighed.

And opened his eyes.

Lilac.

Bright, unnatural, startling—a flash of starlight in the humid dark. Tzi’chi recoiled, momentarily stunned. The fruit should not have awakened. Not yet. Not without finishing the dream.

“…Where…” the elf mumbled, voice dry and soft, “…am I?”

His accent. His tongue. The way he clutched at the vines tangled around his hips—disoriented, half-aware.

Tzi’chi had never seen anything like him, never touched something this… foreign, this delicate, this unclaimed.

And yet the Blooming Maw had chosen him.

Or had tried to.

The creature tried to rise. A vine tugged at his thigh. He whimpered, biting his lip, eyes fluttering.

Tzi’chi leaned in, their voice low and reverent. “You should not exist.”

The little beast blinked at them. “That’s… rude.”

Then began to rise.

Delicate fingers gripped at the moss, at the vine-slick roots beneath him, like a man clawing back toward something warm and golden just out of reach. His breath hitched. His glowing blossom-marks pulsed again, and Tzi’chi could feel it—the lingering resonance of the dream still clinging to him, like honeyed fog.

He is not fully ripe, Tzi’chi thought. But close.

Too close.

The creature let out a soft, almost petulant sigh. His head lolled toward Tzi’chi’s outstretched hand. Those lilac eyes fluttered, and when they opened again, they were full of longing.

“Can I…” he whispered, voice hoarse and trembling, “…go back?”

Tzi’chi tilted their head, pulse rising despite their stillness.

“Back?” they repeated, uncertain.

The tiny thing’s eyes welled, dream-sick and aching. “I was dreaming… I think I was… with someone. They were touching me, and I… I want to go back. Please. I need to.”

He sounded like a mourning bird, wings clipped mid-flight.

Tzi’chi should not have hesitated.

They should have bound him, covered his eyes, started the chant of reclamation. But instead they stared—drank in the shape of him. His sweat-slick skin. His parted lips. His voice. So foreign. So fragile. So… perfect.

“The most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

Not sacred like the scaled priestesses of the temple.

Not majestic like the dream-bearers who glowed green and gold with holy venom.

But beautiful like a mistake the gods were too proud to erase.

“Please,” the creature whispered again. “I just want to sleep.”

Tzi’chi’s throat tightened.

They nodded.

Gently—reverently—they slid their arms beneath the elf’s light frame. He made a soft, contented noise as his cheek pressed against their shoulder, breath hitching again as his fingers curled into their ceremonial mantle. His body trembled once, then stilled.

They lowered him back into the cradle of vines.

The jungle responded.

Tendrils coiled slowly, lovingly around his limbs. One curled up to his cheek. The moss shifted, growing softer beneath him, exhaling warm breath scented with orchid and honey. The blossom-marks on his belly glowed brighter.

And he smiled.

Just barely.

As the dream began to take him again.

Tzi’chi stood over him, shaken. They should not be doing this. This was not the ritual. This was not the way. He should be taken—collected, like any other fruit of the Maw.

But this… this was not any other fruit.

This was something else. Something that should not bloom, and yet did.

Why? they thought, scales prickling. Why would the Maw claim something so alien? So soft? So… different?

They turned, reluctantly, and stepped away from the cradle.

The vines sighed as if disappointed.

Tzi’chi moved like a shadow through the underbrush, past the line of dreaming trees and the glades of mirrored spores, toward the Heart of the Maw—where the old flower still pulsed and wept, where the roots of the garden whispered their intentions in languages older than flesh.

They would demand answers.

Why him? Why this creature of ivory skin and star-colored eyes? Why a boy with no scale, no tail, no place in our temple rites?

 

Why ripen such a strange fruit for the Ixalcoatl?

 

Tzi’chi walked in silence.

The jungle parted for them.

Not as it did for others—with grudging grace or predatory patience—but with something like recognition. Vines pulled aside. Spores dimmed their glow. Even the whispering fronds of the echo-ferns held their breath.

This path was older than language. Older than the temple. Older than names. Only the caretakers of the cycle walked it, and only when called—or when the Maw demanded answers.

Tzi’chi’s claws sank into the damp, velvet-rich loam as they approached the Hollow Root. The trees here no longer grew upward, but downward, their trunks corkscrewed and bloated, their bark riddled with breath-slits and toothless mouths. Fungal lanterns pulsed between their roots, shedding soft light in shades of bruise and blood.

The Maw waited beneath.

It was not a god. Not quite. But neither was it a plant, a beast, or a spirit. It was what remained when devotion outlasted memory. When sacrifice outlasted hunger. It had no face. No name. It was the garden’s dreaming heart.

Tzi’chi stepped into the core chamber.

The earth throbbed. A low sound—not heard, but felt—shivered through their sternum, vibrating each scale.

“Bloomkeeper,” the Maw intoned.

Its voice came from everywhere. From nowhere. From inside.

“I seek understanding,” Tzi’chi said, kneeling. “A fruit has ripened. Not of our kind. Not of the scaled.”

A pause.

Then the vines on the chamber walls stirred, unfurling like ribs.

“Yes.”

“You chose him?” Tzi’chi asked, stunned. “He is not of the clutch. Not bound by the old oaths. His blood is warm. His body unscaled…soft.”

The ground sighed. Petals bloomed in the stone. Bioluminescent fluid trickled from above like sap made of memory.

“He dreams in the patterns of the stars.”

“What pattern?” Tzi’chi’s voice was sharper now. “He is soft. Uncleansed. His body accepts the seedless ripening—but without rite, without offering. This is blasphemy. Or… a mistake.”

“He is neither.”

Tzi’chi’s fingers curled into the moss. “Then what is he?”

The Maw did not answer at once.

Instead, a tendril snaked from the ceiling, dripping with dew. At its end bloomed a flower—a perfect replica of the elf’s face, carved in ivory-pale petals, eyes closed in dream.

“The stars remember him,” the Maw said.
“And I am older than the stars.”

Tzi’chi’s breath caught.

They looked at the flower. Looked at the slight tilt of its expression, the curl of the lips—peaceful, yearning.

“You mean for him to be taken to the Ixalcoatl?” they whispered.

“He was always meant.”

“But why now? Where did he come from?”

A pause.

“Because the serpent stirs, the goddess returns, and the stars have turned their gaze back to the garden.”

Tzi’chi stood slowly, reverently.

The Maw had spoken.

They would obey.

But as they turned to leave, they glanced back once—at the flower with the creature’s face, still blooming, still dreaming.

And their pulse quickened with something they could not name.

The jungle pulsed with hush.

Not silence—no, never silence—but reverent quiet. The kind that hangs before a solar eclipse or the final chord of a sacred hymn. Even the Mawlings were still, perched in their blooming nests, heads bowed and petal-eyes closed.

The air shimmered with perfume: overripe nectar, musk, and starlight. The scent of final bloom.

Tzi’chi approached the cradle with bare feet, unarmed, unmasked.

Their ceremonial mantle—dyed in the hues of bloodfruit and moon fungus—trailed behind them like a living shadow. Bioluminescent ink spiraled across their exposed arms and throat in a sacred pattern, pulsing in time with the breath of the Maw.

The cradle had changed.

Where once there had been a tangle of opportunistic vines, now there was a bower of impossible beauty—woven with flowering tendrils and pale green light, shaped like a cocoon halfway opened. Moss had grown in velvet layers beneath the creature’s body, cradling him like a precious gem. The petals around him shimmered with dew. The sigils on his hips glowed with a steady, golden-blue rhythm.

The creature himself glowed faintly.

His skin was damp with divine sweat, lips parted in quiet surrender. The markings along his ribs and thighs had finished blooming—runic whorls and blossom-curves that no longer pulsed but glowed steady and full. He was ripe. Dream-ripe.

Tzi’chi exhaled slowly.

He was ready.

They stepped forward, and the vines responded—pulling back, not in rejection, but in offering. The jungle had readied him for the taking. For the serpent’s blessing. For the long journey into the dark womb of the sacred.

Tzi’chi knelt beside him.

With both hands, they reached for the offering blade—not a weapon, but a curved crescent of pearlescent bone grown from the Maw itself. They drew the flat of it across the ripened fruit’s brow—not to cut, but to wake. To mark. To anoint.

“By vine and vein,” they intoned softly, “by dream and bloom, I gather you.”

The vines lifted the ripened’s body gently into the air. Not high—just enough to make him weightless, suspended in green breath and pollen.

“By the Blooming Maw’s will, by the stars remembered, I name you chosen.”

They reached up and pressed their scaled palm to the glowing sigil over the blossom’s heart.

The little thing stirred.

A small sound—half sigh, half whimper—escaped him as his head tilted back. His eyes fluttered open, drowsy and filled with gold-streaked lilac. He looked at Tzi’chi and smiled, confused but radiant, as if waking from the most beautiful dream.

“You came back,” he whispered.

Tzi’chi’s throat tightened.

“Yes,” they said. “You are ready.”

The bloomed creature was dream-drunk, laughing softly. “I’m ready? For what—are you going to take me on a date to the herpetarium?”

“I do not know what this ‘herpetarium’ is that you speak of,” Tzi’chi replied, moving to support the bloom with one arm as he began cutting him free of the vines with the other. The creature hung bonelessly against him—so light compared to a Xolatl.

“Are you a dragon?” the bloom murmured, voice lilting and loose. “Perry says there’s no such thing, but you look like a dragon.”

The words burbled out in that singsong cadence that betrayed how many hours of drunken haze still lingered. Xolatl typically slept through this stage—locked in quiet slumber. It made the ritual harvest easier.

“Shhh, little one,” Tzi’chi murmured, “rest. You have a long journey ahead of you.”

He freed the creature’s torso from the last of the vines and began working his way toward the hips, still cradled gently by the pedicel.

Tzi’chi paused.

The pedicel had not released. It should have been at least loose.

Vines clung lovingly to the bloom’s hips and thighs, cradling the transformation like a gift not yet ready to be unwrapped. The air was thick with scent now—musk, orchid, crushed stars. A final sweetness. A sacred stillness.

With great care, Tzi’chi reached beneath the cradle’s lip and coaxed the flowering sheath open.

The vine-petals sighed apart.

Where once the creature’s natural sex might have been, there bloomed instead a perfect corolla of flesh and light—translucent, glowing softly with the sigils of the Maw, and edged in velvet pinks, golds, and sunset mauves. It opened slowly in the warm air, pulsing faintly in time with the jungle’s breath. Beneath the bloom’s folds, delicate inner petals shimmered with dew. No longer male. Not female. Something beyond. Something divine.

The jungle shifted around them, reverent.

Tzi’chi’s breath caught in their throat.

It was not obscene. It was not shameful. It was holy. The shape of offering made flesh. The bloom was symmetrical and strange, impossibly precise, as if dreamt into existence by a god of beauty and want. It bore no trace of violence, no scar of change. Only the soft, inevitable curve of becoming.

“I see now,” they whispered. “Why the Maw chose you.”

The bloom opened a little more, honey-slick and radiant with heat.

The creature in their arms moaned softly, shifting in the cradle of vines, his hips arching with unconscious invitation. The blossom pulsed with his heartbeat, each flex revealing deeper petals within—like a star unfolding, like a secret being whispered.

Tzi’chi closed their eyes for a breath.

Then carefully, reverently, they cradled him close, lifting him fully free of the pedicel’s hold. The vines unwrapped slowly, reluctantly, and the bloom—still open, still pulsing—glistened in the air like a rare orchid caught between ecstasy and prayer.

“You are not for this soil,” Tzi’chi murmured, voice thick with awe. “You were grown for the Ixalcoatl.”

And the jungle knew.

The canopy above rustled in approval. The Mawlings crooned a low, musical chant. Even the flowering vines lowered their petals in deference.

Tzi’chi adjusted their cloak around the bloom, careful not to brush the open petals too roughly. The cradle of their arms was strong but gentle, their tail sweeping the moss behind them as they turned toward the path of pilgrimage.

As they walked, they whispered to the creature—soft, soothing nonsense meant to keep him lulled and half-asleep.

“Your name will be sung, little star-fruit. The Ixalcoatl will know you by taste and by light. They will awaken you fully. They will devour you slowly.”

The little creature nuzzled against their shoulder, his voice little more than a breath. “Sounds romantic…”

Tzi’chi smiled. “It is.”

And with the cradle of starlight in their arms, they began the journey to the Temple of the Blooming Serpent—where gods were made, and where beautiful, impossible things were never allowed to wilt.

-

The world floated.

Sparrow blinked slowly, eyes half-lidded, the way one does when waking from a dream but finding that the dream had no clear edges. Everything was warm. Everything hummed. The arms that held him were strong and cool against his feverish skin, claws gently pressed to the underside of his thighs, his back cradled like something precious. His head lolled against a broad shoulder as they moved, his legs swaying slightly with each gliding step.

He felt… good.

Really good.

Dangerously, obscenely good.

A low, dreamy sigh escaped his lips as another pulse of warmth flushed down his spine, pooling between his hips in a strange aching sensation which bloomed through him. Gods, what had they done to him? He was glowing. Glowing. It felt like petals down there fluttering with every breath of jungle breeze that slipped under the ceremonial cloth draped over his body.

“Oh stars,” he murmured, voice thick like he had too much wine. “I have definitely been drugged.”

His arms, slack around the neck of his captor—no, his escort, he corrected dreamily—tightened for a moment, pulling himself closer. They were moving. Through a forest that didn’t look like any forest he knew. The trees stretched like cathedral columns into a canopy of twilight green and gold. Bioluminescent spores drifted like fireflies, catching in his hair. Everything was glowing. Pulsing. Breathing.

The path beneath them was soft, moss and petals and soft loam that sang underfoot. Each step echoed in his body like music played on nerve endings. The vines bowed out of the way. Flowers turned toward him as they passed—some opening in reverent silence, others cooing softly in voices he couldn’t quite hear.

“Am I dead?” he asked the forest, not expecting an answer. “Did I drown?”

“No,” came the response—a voice that rumbled through his ribs more than through his ears. It was smooth. Foreign. Familiar. His dragon.

“Am I being kidnapped by a very attractive lizard?” he asked, squinting up at them, forehead brushing against their jaw. “Because if so, I feel I should be alarmed, but also… I’m weirdly into it.”

The serpent didn’t answer, but he felt the subtle hitch in their step. The way their arms tightened just slightly. He giggled.

The trees danced overhead, starlight caught in every branch.

Something in his stomach fluttered—not from nerves, but from transformation. His body felt liquid. Overripe. Petal-soft and full of heat. Every heartbeat nudged that aching blossom between his legs into awareness. He could feel himself—open, inviting, drenched in something holy. It should’ve been horrifying.

Instead, everything felt too good, and with that, he forgot to feel scared.

He moaned softly as the motion of being carried made the strange bloom between his thighs flex again. “Mnn. Why is this so nice? Shouldn’t this be traumatic? I think I was shipwrecked. Right? There was water. And screaming. And—gods, my thighs feel amazing.”

He shuddered, biting his lip, eyes fluttering shut again. The dream wasn’t gone—it had simply been woven into the world. He could still hear music—faint harp strings that trembled through the leaves. The air was thick with perfume. The forest adored him. He knew it. Every fern that reached for him, every vine that kissed his ankles as they passed—worship.

The lizardman adjusted their grip, and the cloth shifted.

A breeze kissed his inner thigh.

Sparrow gasped—soft, startled, delighted.

“Oh. Oh, that’s not fair,” he whispered. “I’m going to melt. I am melting. You’re carrying a very fancy puddle.”

Still no answer. Just the steady rhythm of footfalls, and the quiet thrum of sacred direction.

He craned his head back lazily, blinking up at the canopy. Somewhere beyond the green, he saw the glimmer of his constellations. His stars.

“Wait,” he said softly, a flicker of clarity threading through the haze. “I’m not supposed to be here. I was on a boat. I had—there was—someone’s going to be very upset about this.”

Then, just as quickly, the thought floated away, wrapped in the scent of crushed orchids and sun-warmed bark.

“Whatever,” he whispered, nuzzling against his savior’s neck. “I don’t really care. I didn’t want to go to Briarmyr anyway.” He reached up, lazily ran his finger along the serpent’s jaw, and then let his arm drop bonelessly to his side. “Those Thorn elves are bo-ring.”

The petals between his legs pulsed again, wet and aching. His body had no shame. No fear. Just that strange, sacred fullness—like a song he didn’t know the words to, but had been born to sing.

He giggled again, breathless and glowing.

“Wherever we’re going,” he murmured, lips brushing against a scaled collarbone, “I hope they have snacks. And sex. But mostly snacks.”

His dragon said nothing. 

But the forest laughed softly.

And carried him deeper into the blooming dark.

Chapter 2: Into the Temple of the Great Serpent

Summary:

Sparrow is drawn into the heart of a living temple, where beauty and danger entwine, and meets the Great Serpent.

The haze didn’t so much lift as splinter. The miasma of drunkenness flexed and flowed around Sparrow like a warm blanket.

First came sound—the hiss of wind through fronds, the lazy drip of water somewhere behind them, the quiet pulse of the serpent’s breathing under his cheek. Then came the ache in his thighs, sharp enough to remind him that something between them was not, strictly speaking, his anymore… and the slow, molten throb that refused to fade.

And finally, the memory: The beach. The pool. The dream. The mouth. The hands.

“Oh stars,” Sparrow murmured, voice low and thick. “That wasn’t water, was it?”

The serpent said nothing, their long, cool stride unbroken as the forest pressed in around them. His head bounced gently against their shoulder with each step—humiliatingly like a child too tired to walk. Sparrow straightened as much as the cradle of their arms would allow, trying to inject dignity into a position that had none, but the movement only made heat curl low in his belly.

“Alright,” he said, squinting at the path ahead, “I’m… mostly awake now. You can put me down…uhm… what’s your name again?”

The lizard’s gaze slid to him—steady, unreadable. “Tzi’chi,” they said softly, “You are precious. You will not walk it until it is time.”

Sparrow blinked, momentarily disarmed. “Precious?” he echoed, then tried for a wry smile. “That’s a nicer word than most kidnappers use.”

“I am not stealing you,” Tzi’chi said, their voice deepening into something almost reverent.“You are an offering to the Ixalcoatl, a gift from the stars.”

Before Sparrow could decide if that was comforting or terrifying, they stepped into a glade where the air shifted—humid, perfumed, heavy with the same cloying sweetness he’d first smelled by the pool. It took him a moment to realize why: the mossy ground was lined with vine-cradles just like the one he’d woken in.

Dozens of them.

Some held blossoms like his own—faintly glowing, folded in tight around sleeping figures. Others had already opened, revealing reptilian bodies draped in ceremonial cloth, their skin traced with luminous patterns that pulsed gently in time with the forest’s breath. A few stirred faintly, caught between waking and dreaming, their lips parting as though tasting some lingering pleasure.

Something cold and sharp fluttered in Sparrow’s chest—an instinct, primal and panicked, whispering run. The sight of so many bodies, so still and offered, scraped against the edges of his High Grove sensibilities. His hands twitched against Tzi’chi’s mantle.

But then the air shifted again. The sweetness thickened—hycinith, honey, the faint musk of something ripe—and the fear unraveled in him before it could take root. His pulse slowed. His body loosened, heavy and warm. That molten ache between his thighs pulsed once, twice, chasing the panic away until it was only a memory, dulled and harmless.

He exhaled. “Goddess,” he murmured, voice gone soft again, “everything smells… perfect.”

Tzi’chi’s arms adjusted around him in a way that felt almost protective. “It is as the temple wills,” they said. “The air keeps the chosen calm.”

Sparrow let his head sink back against their shoulder, eyelids heavier than they had been moments ago. Somewhere, deep inside, that earlier urge to flee still whispered—but now it sounded very far away.

The path narrowed as they left the glade, the canopy folding inward like a slow, reverent bow. The air grew warmer, heavier, until it seemed to slip along Sparrow’s skin like searching fingers. Every inch of him was awake now—not with the sharpness of fear, but with the molten hum that had followed him from the vine cradle.

The moss underfoot deepened to a green so dark it was almost black, each step releasing a faint puff of gold spores that caught the light like fireflies. The trees ahead leaned together into an arch, their trunks thick with pale orchids whose petals pulsed faintly, as though breathing in time with his own.

Sparrow shifted in Tzi’chi’s arms, trying for comfort, but the movement only made the ache between his thighs throb harder. The ceremonial cloth shifted over him, brushing against the bloom there in a way that felt indecently intentional. His breath hitched.

Tzi’chi glanced down. “You are warm,” they murmured.

“You don’t say,” Sparrow muttered, cheeks heating. “Either the air’s trying to seduce me, or I’m about to pass out. Honestly, it could be both.”

“It is the temple’s will,” Tzi’chi repeated, with the gravity of someone explaining the turning of the seasons.

Sparrow snorted softly. “Of course it is. Temples, very sentient. Love to make elven princes hot, don’t they?”

They passed beneath the first arch. The air beyond it was different—denser, perfumed with crushed petals and something deeper, older. His skin tingled in its wake, the sensation curling inward until it kissed every nerve like a secret. His nipples tightened under the loose drape of the cloth, and the breath he tried to swallow came out as a quiet gasp.

Tzi’chi’s grip on him adjusted—firmer, as if to steady him. “The gates are near,” they said.

The path opened suddenly into a wide terrace of living stone. The temple loomed ahead—not built, but grown: colossal tiers of pale, petaled stone, each level crowned with flowering vines that spilled over the edges in cascades of green and gold. Bioluminescent runes wound along its flanks in slow constellations, shifting patterns that Sparrow’s half-dreaming mind almost recognized.

And at its base, the gates: two massive leaves of some unknown blossom, each taller than the High Grove’s tallest tower, closed tight against the world. They glowed faintly from within, veins of light pulsing like a heartbeat.

Sparrow stared, wide-eyed despite himself. “Well,” he said finally, voice gone dry with awe, “I see why the temple gets a say on things.  Those are absurdly large gates.” His thighs shifted restlessly in Tzi’chi’s hold, the movement making him shiver. “Do they, ah… open for everyone, or just for—” he gestured vaguely at himself, “—exotic imports?”

“They open for the chosen,” Tzi’chi said, gaze fixed on the gates. “And they will open for you.”

The air seemed to press closer then, as if the temple itself had heard. Sparrow’s earlier sarcasm tangled with a new, trembling anticipation. The scent thickened—wild rose, honey, and something sweetly feral—and the ache in his body sharpened until he bit his lip to keep from making a sound.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, that small, distant voice whispered run. But the rest of him… leaned forward.

The gates shuddered.

A low, resonant note rolled through the terrace—felt more in the chest than heard—vibrating through Tzi’chi’s arms into Sparrow’s bones. The great petals trembled, then began to part, their inner surfaces slick with golden light and veined like living skin. Warmth poured from the seam, heavy with perfume so thick it felt like breath.

Sparrow gasped, the air flooding him with a heat that had nothing to do with temperature. Every nerve lit, the bloom between his thighs flexing in an unbidden, molten spasm that made his toes curl.

The petals eased apart, and the scent spilled over him—pollen and sweet air layered over something darker, almost animal. Inside, the temple opened like the heart of a living thing: a vast, domed chamber of pale, petal-shaped stone, its walls slick with cascading vines and flowering tendrils that dripped bioluminescent dew into pools the color of starlight.

They had barely crossed the threshold when movement rushed toward them.

Figures in flowing layers of silk and vine-frond emerged from the shadows—priestesses, their scaled throats glinting with gold paint, their arms stacked in bands of jade and bone. Their eyes caught the dim light and shone like cut amber. Each of them inhaled sharply upon seeing what Tzi’chi carried, and a murmur rippled through the group like wind over tall grass.

One dropped to her knees, head bowed. Another pressed her palm to her sternum, lips moving in a silent prayer. Several reached out, fingers trembling, as though desperate to touch but afraid to overstep.

Sparrow’s breath caught. The air inside the temple was thicker still, clinging to his skin like warm oil, every inhalation a languid stroke along the inside of his ribs. His pulse kicked hard. The sensation was too much—too many bodies, too many eyes, too much heat.

Instinct made him curl closer into Tzi’chi’s chest, his fingers clutching at the mantle still draped around him.

He felt their arm tighten in response, the other hand shifting to cup the back of his thigh as though to shield him from view.

“They know you,” Tzi’chi murmured, low enough that only he could hear. “The Blooming Maw marked you. You are the most beautiful of the chosen this cycle.”

Sparrow’s head spun. Beautiful was supposed to be a word tossed over a goblet at court, not whispered like it was holy scripture.

The priestesses pressed in, their faces alight with awe and hunger—not the hunger of cruelty, but of devotion. They spoke in a language Sparrow didn’t understand, a lilting cadence that seemed to wrap around his thoughts like a vine. The pheromone-thick air licked away what scraps of caution he had left. His thighs pressed unconsciously against Tzi’chi’s side, the bloom between them tightening in a trembling pulse.

One priestess finally stepped close enough to trail her fingers along the back of Tzi’chi’s mantle, her gaze flicking to Sparrow’s face. “He glows,” she breathed, reverent.

Sparrow hid his face against Tzi’chi’s shoulder, and Tzi’chi’s tail curled around his calf like a promise.

“Come,” they said, voice steady but threaded with something Sparrow didn’t recognize—protective, almost possessive. “The Ixalcoatl waits.”

And as Tzi’chi carried him deeper, past the kneeling priestesses and under the temple’s vaulted, living dome, Sparrow realized he no longer knew if the pounding in his chest was fear… or anticipation.

The air changed again as they passed beneath the final arch.

 It was heavier here, warmer, the scent of flowers now cut with something sharper—ozone before a storm, the iron tang of rain striking stone. Every inhale pushed Sparrow’s awareness inward, down to the molten ache seated low in his belly.

The sanctum was vast but intimate, its walls formed from great curving petals that arched high overhead before folding inward like a closed flower. Pale roots as thick as tree trunks twisted down from the ceiling, suspending lantern-pods of gold light. A shallow pool ringed the center dais, its surface dark and still, reflecting the shapes of the priestesses gathering around it.

And at the heart of it all, just beyond the dais, something stirred beneath the water—something vast. The shadows below shifted like a coil unspooling.

Sparrow’s breath caught. He didn’t have to be told: whatever the Ixalcoatl was, it was here. He felt it.

The presence pressed against his skin without touching, a weightless gravity that made his pulse stumble and his thighs tense. The bloom between his legs flexed once, sharply, like it knew. Heat flared through him, and his fingers dug a little deeper into Tzi’chi’s mantle.

The priestesses moved with graceful efficiency, parting for Tzi’chi to set him down upon a cushioned platform ringed in soft moss. They kept their eyes averted until the serpent stepped back, then they closed in, hands warm and reverent.

“Alright,” Sparrow said as they began to unfasten the ceremonial cloth draped over him, “someone tell me this is just a really elaborate spa day. Please?”

None of them answered, but a few smiled—small, indulgent, like they might humor a beloved child.

The cloth fell away.

Sparrow flinched despite himself, eyes darting down. He’d seen hints in the vine cradle, but nothing like this—not with his mind this clear. The bloom was luminous under the sanctum light, its outer petals soft as satin and flushed in pinks and golds, each edged with a faint, shimmering bioluminescence. Beneath them, delicate inner petals pulsed faintly, slick with a dew that caught the glow.

It wasn’t obscene. Goddess, that was the worst part. It was beautiful. Sacred, even.

He swallowed hard. “Right,” he said after a moment, voice unsteady. “So… that’s a thing now. That’s… me.” Something inside of him, not lulled by the influence of the temple, screamed.

One priestess knelt before him, her fingers brushing his hips—not to explore, but to adjust the fall of a fresh length of silk around him. Another traced glowing pigment along his collarbones, her touch lingering just long enough to make his breath falter. Everywhere they touched, the ache deepened, his skin fever-sensitive.

From the pool, the shadow moved again. The Ixalcoatl’s presence sharpened, coiling around him without shape or form, a predator circling without yet striking. His bloom responded with another involuntary flex, the inner petals parting just slightly as if in invitation.

“Do they know it does that?” Sparrow muttered, voice pitched low to the nearest priestess.

Her eyes flicked up to meet his, and though she said nothing, the faintest curve of her lips told him: yes.

Another hand smoothed across his chest, following the line of his sternum with a stripe of cool, shimmering paint. He shivered, his humor fraying at the edges.

The presence from the pool pressed closer. 

The need in him swelled.

Tzi’chi’s voice came from somewhere beyond the ring of priestesses, low and steady: “The Ixalcoatl watches. You are to be made ready.”

Sparrow’s laugh was too short, too breathless. “Ready. Sure. That’s one word for it.”

But when the priestess before him lifted her hand from his hip to cup the bloom itself—gentle, reverent, as though lifting the face of a rare flower—his sarcasm dissolved into a sharp, quiet inhale. His thighs trembled. The sanctum light dimmed, or maybe his vision narrowed, the whole world collapsing to the soft pulse of petal and breath and the great, unseen thing watching from the water.

And deep in his chest, alongside the flicker of fear, Sparrow felt something else blooming: want.

The water moved.

Not a ripple, not a current—movement like a continent shifting. The surface bulged, light bending across it as something vast and sinuous rose from the depths. The air in the sanctum tightened, as though the entire chamber had drawn a single breath.

The priestesses stilled. Every one of them bowed their head, their hands still resting on Sparrow’s skin, silk, or bloom.

He could feel it looking at him.

Not eyes—not yet—but an attention so total it was as if every part of him were being read, measured, memorized. His breath quickened under the weight of it.

Then it broke the surface.

The Ixalcoatl’s head emerged first, crowned in a mane of pale, trailing fronds that gleamed opalescent. Scales caught the sanctum light in mirrored flashes, the colors shifting as it moved: blue to gold to soft rose, each shade echoing the palette of his bloom. Its eyes—Goddess above—were ancient gold, slit-pupiled and deep enough to drown in.

Sparrow’s pulse jumped painfully, the bloom between his thighs flexing in a rhythm he couldn’t control.

The god-serpent slid further into view, each ripple of its body silent, hypnotic. The air carried its scent now, something richer than the orchids—amber, musk, and the faint ozone crackle of stormwinds. The presence that had been circling his thoughts now pressed right up against them, testing the edges, brushing against memories and feelings in a way that was intimate without being physical.

A whisper—not with words, but with weight—slid into him: Mine.

His thighs pressed together reflexively, a shiver running up his spine.

The priestesses began to move again, their motions synchronized. One knelt to place her hands at the base of the bloom, holding it open just enough for the sanctum light to spill across the inner petals. The cool air against the heat there made him gasp.

He looked toward Tzi’chi instinctively, finding them standing just beyond the circle, head bowed in a gesture of profound respect. For a moment, Sparrow clung to that sight as an anchor.

“This,” Tzi’chi said softly, without looking up, “is the honor given only once each cycle. You are the seen. You are chosen.”

Sparrow’s lips parted, a retort hovering—but nothing came out. The Ixalcoatl’s gaze had found his face fully now, pinning him in place with the same inevitability as a tide pulling out to sea.

The voice pressed deeper into him, a vibration that made the fine hairs on his arms lift: You are ready.

Every nerve in his body seemed to answer yes without his consent. His humor felt thin and distant now, like something he might set down and forget to pick back up.

The serpent’s head dipped low over the pool’s edge, so close he could feel the exhale of its breath—a warm, damp wind that carried that same intoxicating scent. The petals of his bloom quivered open in response, slick and wanting.

Sparrow swallowed hard. “Well,” he said, voice unsteady but still his own, “I suppose… introductions are in order.”

The Ixalcoatl’s pupils narrowed to fine points, the golden eyes flaring brighter. The sanctum pulsed with light.

And the god-serpent began to close the distance.

The serpent moved like a ribbon through water, each motion slow, unhurried, inevitable. When the tip of its muzzle crossed the pool’s edge, the surface did not break; it simply slid into the sanctum air, trailing droplets of gold-lit water that pattered softly onto the moss.

Sparrow’s breath stalled.

The Ixalcoatl’s head lowered until it hovered inches from him, its great eyes narrowing in a slow blink. The weight of its gaze felt like fingers along his skin, starting at his face, tracing down the column of his throat, lingering at his chest. Where it looked, he tingled—heat blooming just beneath the surface like ink spreading through paper.

The priestesses stepped back but did not leave, their hands falling away as if in surrender of their work to a higher hand. Only the one kneeling before him remained, still cupping the base of his bloom, her palms warm against the silk of his inner thighs.

The serpent inhaled. Sparrow felt the breath more than heard it—a low, resonant pull that seemed to draw heat from him, tugging at the ache between his thighs until the bloom flexed helplessly. The petals parted a fraction more, slick inner folds catching the sanctum light.

The Ixalcoatl’s tongue flicked out—forked, narrow, quick—and just barely touched the outer petals.

Sparrow’s hips jerked. The contact was nothing like a kiss, but the jolt of sensation that shot through him made his hands clutch the silk draped over his legs. He gasped, a sound caught between surprise and relief.

The serpent withdrew an inch, then nosed lower, its scaled muzzle brushing the inside of his thigh in a glide that was too deliberate to be an accident. Heat coiled low in his belly, the world narrowing to the cool, smooth press of those scales and the electric anticipation of the next touch.

A whisper filled his head again, richer now, layered with something like hunger: Perfect.

The tongue returned, slower this time, tracing the curve of a petal’s edge before dipping just deep enough to graze the sensitive inner bloom. Sparrow’s vision blurred at the edges; his lips parted in a breathless, involuntary moan.

Tzi’chi’s voice came from somewhere beyond the haze. “The Ixalcoatl learns your shape. Your scent. Your taste. It must know you before it can bless you.”

Sparrow’s laugh came out ragged, barely there. “I… think it’s… getting the idea.”

The serpent’s inspection continued—slow, precise, devastating. It circled him, the long body coiling partway around the dais, its head dipping low and rising high in a rhythm that felt like a tide. At his chest, it paused, the muzzle brushing his sternum. A low vibration rolled out of it—a purr, or something far older—that resonated through his ribs until his nipples tightened against the open air.

When the tongue flicked upward to tease one, he nearly collapsed forward.

The serpent’s head tilted, studying his reaction as if filing it away, before returning to the bloom. This time, the contact lingered—firm enough to open the petals fully, slow enough to make every second stretch like molten glass being drawn into a thread. The wet heat of its tongue slid over him in a single, unbroken pass that left his entire body shivering.

By the time it pulled back, Sparrow’s head had tipped forward, hair falling into his eyes, breath ragged. The sanctum seemed brighter, the air thicker, the scent so rich it was almost dizzying.

The voice in his mind again—soft, certain: You will open for me.

And Goddess help him, Sparrow wasn’t sure if it was a command or a promise… or if he wanted to refuse either.

The coils shifted.

Not abruptly, but with the inevitability of the tide rolling in, the Ixalcoatl drew itself closer, encircling the dais further in a living wall of opalescent scale. The air thickened until Sparrow swore he could taste it—honey, stormlight, and something older than language.

The serpent’s head lowered again, coming level with his hips. The priestess, still cupping the base of the bloom, bowed low and stepped back at last, leaving him bare to the god’s attention.

The moment her hands left him, Sparrow felt naked in a way that had nothing to do with cloth. The bloom quivered in the open air, inner petals fluttering like they already knew what was coming.

The serpent breathed over him once more, warm and humid, the scent curling into his lungs like incense. His thighs tensed—and this time, instead of pulling back, he leaned forward into it, seeking.

The tongue came again, slower, broader, dragging from the root of the bloom to the tip of its innermost petals. The contact was heat and wetness, and weight, the stroke deliberate enough to leave him trembling.

A sound escaped him before he could catch it—high, breathless, almost pleading.

The Ixalcoatl’s eyes were half-lidded, pupils narrowing as if savoring the reaction. A low, thrumming vibration rolled through the coils around him, traveling up through the dais and into his bones. The sensation was everywhere at once: in his chest, in his thighs, blooming deep where the tongue had touched him.

From somewhere beyond the circle, Tzi’chi’s voice carried, low and reverent. “The god claims what is offered.”

The serpent pressed closer. One broad coil slid inward, curling just behind his back, not binding but supporting, tilting him slightly toward that waiting muzzle. The touch was firm, almost cradling, and his body surrendered into it without thought.

The next lick was not exploratory—it was a seal, a binding. The tongue pressed deep enough to open the bloom fully, petals flexing around the heat of it, each movement measured and slow. Pleasure flared through him in sharp pulses, each one stealing more of his breath.

Sparrow’s head tipped back, a ragged laugh tumbling out between gasps. “Goddess—this is—this is very thorough—”

The serpent’s mental voice coiled around his thoughts like memory: I know every part of you.

His hips shifted without his permission, seeking more. The bloom was slick now, dew clinging to the god’s tongue as it withdrew only to circle the outer petals with maddening care. Each pass sent another shiver through him, and his thighs trembled so violently he had to brace a hand against the coil behind him.

The priestesses moved in the periphery—one anointing his throat and sternum with fragrant oil, another brushing pigment over his hips, their touches feather-light compared to the consuming focus of the god. Every new scent and stroke of paint layered over the heat until he was drowning in sensation.

When the tongue returned to the bloom, it moved with slow, deliberate pressure, stroking in a rhythm that felt like worship. His vision blurred; the sanctum’s gold light seemed to pulse in time with his heartbeat.

The voice again, firmer now: You will open for me. You will bear my mark.

Sparrow shuddered, a helpless sound escaping his throat. “I—” His voice broke, and the words dissolved into a gasp as the tongue curled inside the bloom, stroking where he was most unbearably sensitive.

The coil behind him tightened—not trapping, but holding him steady—while the god’s attention sank deeper. Each motion was a pull, a draw, coaxing him toward something inevitable and vast.

And as the pressure built, Sparrow realized with a dizzy clarity that this wasn’t just seduction—it was a claiming, and the temple, the priestesses, the god himself, all expected him to say yes.

And Goddess help him… he was going to.

The rhythm deepened.

The Ixalcoatl’s tongue moved with the same inevitability as a tide, each stroke drawing Sparrow further from the shore of his own will. Every flick, every lingering press against the tender heart of the bloom unraveled him until he was nothing but shiver and breath and heat.

The coils behind him shifted, one sliding higher up his back, another curling loosely around his thighs, parting them with unhurried strength. The god did not need force; his body leaned into the guidance as if it had always been meant to fit there.

Sparrow’s head tipped back, lips parted, eyes half-lidded. He clutched at the living coil for balance, his breath breaking into helpless gasps as the god’s tongue teased and pressed, finding every fold, every place that made the bloom flex and tremble.

The priestesses’ soft chants rose around him, low and harmonic, matching the slow thrum of the Ixalcoatl’s purr. Oil-slick fingers traced patterns down his arms, across his ribs, over the flat of his belly until they framed the bloom like a shrine.

The tongue slid deeper—just enough to make the heat crest, a perfect pressure that sent a sharp, electric pleasure racing through him. His thighs shook. His toes curled. The sound that escaped him was not court-polished wit but a raw, desperate moan.

The god’s voice poured into his mind, heavy and silken: Give yourself to me.

And Sparrow did.

The tension in his body broke like a dam. Pleasure flooded him, hot and sweet, spilling out in a rush that made his entire body tremble. The bloom clenched and pulsed around the god’s tongue, releasing dew that shimmered in the sanctum light. Every heartbeat felt slower, richer, thick with something molten that seeped into his bones.

The coils held him through it, steady and sure, the great head lowering until the god’s golden eyes filled his vision. He was distantly aware of the priestesses’ voices peaking in a single, resonant chord.

When the release ebbed, he sagged against the coil, honeyed and heavy-limbed, breath coming in soft, unhurried pulls. The tension that had braced him since the beach was gone; in its place was a languid warmth, a deep and sated ease.

The Ixalcoatl drew back just enough to look at him fully.

Mine, the voice said, deep and final.

Then, aloud—its hissed syllables echoing in the chamber and vibrating through the moss beneath him:

“The serpent’s fruit.”

The priestesses bowed as one, their foreheads to the moss. Tzi’chi knelt at the sanctum’s edge, head lowered, tail coiled neatly beside them.

Sparrow blinked slowly, still leaning into the supportive curve of the coil. “Fruit, huh?” His voice was warm and drowsy, words slurring with pleasure. “At least I’m not… a disgusting vegetable.”

A ripple of amusement—whether from the god or Tzi’chi—brushed his thoughts like a warm wind.

And then the coils began to shift again, not releasing him, but drawing him deeper toward the sanctum’s heart, where the serpent’s fruit would be kept, fed, and ripened for the god’s further pleasure.

Notes:

"Sparrow: 10% survival instinct, 90% bad decisions in pretty packaging.

Chapter 3: The Sanctum of Nectar

Summary:

Beneath the lantern-lit petals of the sanctum, Sparrow is bathed, anointed, and worshipped until he glows like a living prayer. But in the god’s coils, devotion blurs into destiny—and surrender is only the beginning.

The coils moved like water—slow, inevitable, with a rhythm Sparrow could feel pulsing through the meat of him. They didn’t drag or bind. They invited. And his body—soft and syrupy with afterglow—followed without question.

The moss beneath him gave way to something cooler, slicker: a path of overlapping petals that kissed the backs of his thighs with every inch they slid beneath. Above, lantern-pods swung gently from the vaulted bloom of the sanctum, trailing filaments of gold-lit dew. It fell in lazy droplets that pattered against his skin—warm, fragrant, flirtatious.

Behind him came the rustle of silk and bone-banded arms, the faint perfume of the priestesses who lingered like reverent shadows. Somewhere beyond them, Sparrow could feel Tzi’chi’s presence—a steady thread of watchfulness woven through the heat. But around him, beneath him, beside him—was the god.

The Ixalcoatl’s coils curved like crescent moons, sliding beneath him in slow undulations. Not binding. Bracing. Not holding. Cradling. The god’s head stayed close, those ancient, golden opalescent eyes never leaving his face. Each time they met, Sparrow felt something deep and low unfurling in his belly—heat, yes, but more than that. Calm. Worship. Like looking into the night sky and realizing it was looking back.

They passed beneath another arch—this one made not of carved stone but of root and petal, twined so thickly they gleamed like bone. The air changed as they crossed its threshold. Warmer. Heavier. A sweetness so rich it nearly drugged him: crushed orchid, ripened fruit, the ozone tang of a storm about to break.

The chamber beyond was smaller than the sanctum, but no less breathtaking. A heart-blossom, half-closed. Petal walls curved inward in hues of pearl and blush, their edges slick with nectar that glowed faintly in the warm light. The floor dipped into a shallow basin lined in moss as fine as fur, at the center of which rested a pool so still it shimmered like liquid starlight.

The coils guided him to the edge and paused. One slid beneath his knees, lifting him with reverent care until he hovered above the water, suspended like a prayer just before it’s spoken.

Sparrow blinked down at the surface. “You’re not… going to drown me, are you?”

The god’s voice unfurled in his thoughts, weightless and warm: We will bathe you.

“Oh,” Sparrow said softly. “Right. Bath. Totally normal amount of ceremony. The cellist bathed me once; it was nice.”

The coils tilted him forward—slow, fluid, sure—and the pool rose to meet him. The water slipped around his body like silk, warmer than blood, clinging with every inch it covered. It smelled like jasmine and honey and the hot stone scent of summer rain.

Then came the hands.

The priestesses joined him silently, the water barely rippling around their movements. Their touch was featherlight, practiced, utterly unhurried. One smoothed perfumed oil along his collarbones, down the slope of his arms. Another tilted his head, fingers working through his wet hair with slow reverence, as though disentangling the past.

Sparrow let his eyes flutter half-shut, caught in the blur of scent and sensation. Somewhere in the periphery, he could still feel the Ixalcoatl—watching, waiting.

Not jealous. Not impatient.

Anticipating.

And Sparrow knew, deep in the marrow of him, that the god would not wait long.

The priestesses moved like petals caught on water—sliding close, never jostling, their hands tracing along Sparrow’s limbs with the gentleness of devotion. One smoothed oil over the inside of his thighs, each pass a slow stroke that left his skin tingling. Another cupped the back of his neck and poured warm water through his hair in a silken cascade. Fingers painted his skin in curving sigils of glowing pigment that hummed softly in time with the temple’s breath.

Sparrow drifted in it—heat, scent, sensation—suspended in water that rippled with gold light. The perfume of crushed blossoms saturated the air, thick enough to breathe. His body felt boneless, honeyed, his mind wrapped in gauze. Wrapped in a waking dream.

The temple’s presence clung to him—comforting and obscene. It rocked him in warm water and whispered against his skin with phantom touches, each one coaxing his nerves toward brightness, toward bloom. The ache between his thighs had softened but never left. It pulsed faintly now, in rhythm with the flick of a priestess’s cloth along his chest, the brush of hair against his shoulder, the warm pressure of water flowing between parted knees.

He felt open.

Not just physically, though that was part of it—but spiritually. Viscerally. Every sense stripped bare. The temple was inside him now. Singing to him through the veins.

And still, the god watched.

The Ixalcoatl coiled along the edge of the bathing pool, its massive head lifted and poised above the water. Its scales shimmered like molten pearl, catching the golden light and fracturing it into rose and amber. Those eyes—slit-pupiled, ancient—never left him. Every ripple of the god’s attention caressed Sparrow’s skin as surely as the priestesses did.

Sparrow squirmed under the weight of it, the bloom between his legs flexing against the water in response. He tried to exhale—tried to keep the sound from becoming a whimper—but the breath that left him was too soft, too needy.

Across the water, a shadow moved.

Tzi’chi.

They stood at the edge of the sanctum, motionless, their eyes on him—soft but unreadable. The coils at their feet stilled, tail curled neat as a blade. In this light, their scaled skin shimmered like marble, and their throat, still marked with gold leaf, bobbed slightly as they swallowed.

Sparrow felt heat rise to his cheeks.

Of course, they were watching. He’d been gasping and glowing and writhing like some kind of sanctified concubine in a starlit spa. And of course, they had that same steady, maddening expression. The kind of face that didn’t judge—just saw.

He opened his mouth, perhaps to make a joke. A deflection. Something clever.

But the Ixalcoatl spoke first.

Not aloud. Never aloud.

The voice coiled through the air like smoke, soft as breath:
“This one is beautiful. You have brought me a fine offering, little serpent.”

Tzi’chi’s head dipped, a bow of deep reverence. “I only followed the signs, great one.”

“And now,” the god murmured, the sound sliding into Sparrow’s chest like warmth through delicate tea, “I offer you a gift in return. Join the blessing. Let your hands be upon what you have given.”

Sparrow’s breath caught in his throat. His eyes snapped open. Wait. What?

The priestesses didn’t react. Not with surprise, anyway. One smiled faintly, like a secret had finally been shared. Another stepped back to make space, water lapping gently as her robes swayed.

Tzi’chi moved forward, each step slow and deliberate. They stepped into the pool without hesitation, their robes clinging to their form, darkening as they sank into the water. When they reached him, they knelt—elegant and reverent—across from where Sparrow floated.

The bloom flexed, heat rising again.

“You don’t have to—” Sparrow started, breathlessly, voice tight. “I mean, you found me. Isn’t that enough performance review for the year?”

Tzi’chi only tilted their head, quiet. Their hands reached—not to seize, not to claim, but to cup his ankle, fingers gentle, reverent. “The god asked,” they murmured. “You are sacred. You are…the maw chosen bloom.”

The words landed heavily. Not like praise. Not like comfort. Like prophecy.

Sparrow’s humor stuttered. Something inside him twisted. Because in that moment, the haze parted just slightly.

He felt it.

His body was no longer his own.

Not entirely.

The bloom pulsed gently under the water, inner petals reacting to the warmth, to the presence. It was responding as if it knew. As if it had always known.

And the god—watching was pleased.

The realization struck not as horror, but clarity. A cold, shining sliver that sliced through the softness of the moment. This wasn’t just sensual. This wasn’t even just ritual.

This was preparation.

He had not simply been chosen. He had been cultivated. Ripened. Softened like fruit left in honeywine. The temple didn’t want him to surrender—it wanted him to open.

It wanted him bred.

His fingers curled in the water. Breath stilled. A single sharp tremble ran through him.

But then a priestess touched his cheek, and Tzi’chi’s hands slid higher along his calves—soothing, grounding—and the temple breathed through him again, that thick, honey-sweet incense curling through his thoughts until the edges of fear softened, smoothed, bloomed.

He was still Sparrow. Still sarcastic. Still scared. But he was also… glowing. Wanting. Worshipped.

He closed his eyes.

The god purred low, deep in his mind, a thought like velvet against skin: “So beautiful when you bloom. My fruit. My vessel. My beginning.”

And Sparrow—drifting in sacred water, trembling under reverent hands, body alight with sensation—could only murmur back,

“…I’m going to need so much therapy after this.”

Tzi’chi’s hands moved with careful purpose—never rushed, never rough, but with a gravity that made Sparrow tremble beneath the surface of the water.

Fingers smoothed up his calves, over the sensitive hollows behind his knees, pausing to stroke the inner thighs with the kind of attentiveness usually reserved for precious manuscripts or rare blooms that might wilt if breathed on too hard. Their thumbs pressed small circles into muscle, working higher with each breath, reverent and sure.

The priestesses had fallen still, forming a silent ring around the pool, their heads bowed, arms folded in blessing. Only the god watched—coiled high above, its golden eyes half-lidded, exuding approval like warmth from a fire.

Tzi’chi lifted one of Sparrow’s legs gently from the water, supporting it at the knee, and pressed a kiss to the inside of his ankle—just above the bone. Another to the soft, slick skin of his calf. A third, higher still.

Sparrow gasped, the sound low and startled. His bloom fluttered under the surface, inner petals parting in reaction, slick dew leaking from its center to blend with the bathwater in shimmering threads.

“I—” he began, but the words dissolved on his tongue, chased away by the sensation of lips brushing the crease of his thigh.

“You are sacred,” Tzi’chi murmured against his skin, voice low, roughened with something Sparrow didn’t want to name yet. “This body is an altar. Let me offer thanks.”

Sparrow’s fingers found the edge of the pool, gripping for stability. The sensation of being worshipped—truly worshipped, with the kind of reverence usually reserved for divine relics or royal heirlooms—was almost unbearable.

And Tzi’chi was only just beginning.

Their hands traced the contours of Sparrow’s hips, calloused thumbs brushing the naked expanse of his belly as their mouth pressed a kiss just beside the bloom. The contact made the petals shiver, flexing open slightly as if reaching for more.

“You’re making it worse,” Sparrow whispered, breathless. “You know that, right?”

Tzi’chi looked up—only for a moment—and in their eyes there was no mockery, no humor. Only awe.

“I would never defile you,” they said softly. “But I will glorify you, if you allow it.”

Sparrow bit his lip. The words shouldn’t have made him ache—but they did. Goddess, they did.

Tzi’chi bent again, this time to press a kiss to the outermost petal of the bloom. The contact sent a bolt of sensation through Sparrow’s core—pleasure that was warm and pure, flooding outward through every limb like nectar. He made a sound then, something high and gasped and utterly undone.

The bloom opened further in response, inner petals glistening, trembling.

And Tzi’chi—slow, steady, sacred—lowered their mouth to it fully.

Their tongue traced the edges of each petal, tasting him with the care of someone reading scripture by candlelight. Their lips moved in patterns that seemed rehearsed, but not rote—ritualistic, designed not to provoke lust but to honor. Though what it did to Sparrow was anything but holy.

His back arched in the water. His hands slid over moss-slick stone, grasping for something solid as the sensation bloomed outward, flooding his chest and hips with heat. Each stroke of Tzi’chi’s tongue felt like a petition, a hymn—offering praise to every trembling, pulsing inch of him.

The water rocked gently with his movement, the bloom weeping sweet dew into the pool, his thighs spreading further as his breath hitched and caught.

“I—oh—goddess—Tzi’chi—”

They paused only to whisper against him, breath hot on the slick, pulsing center: “I was born for this. To serve. To bring you forth in full flower.”

Sparrow moaned—open, unguarded, shattered.

He didn’t know where his body ended anymore. Only that his bloom was pulsing to the rhythm of the temple itself. Only that Tzi’chi’s mouth had become a sanctuary. And only that the god was watching—not with jealousy, but with joy.

Good, the Ixalcoatl’s voice purred in his thoughts. You begin to understand. You are not possessed. You are adored.

Tzi’chi’s tongue slid deeper, now circling the sensitive heart of the bloom, coaxing it to part fully. The pleasure sharpened, grew bright—hot as gold poured into a mold—and Sparrow cried out, his voice cracking into something utterly unlike speech.

He was being opened. Not by force. Not by duty.

By devotion.

And the god was waiting.

Tzi’chi’s mouth left the bloom with a final, trembling kiss, lips slick with dew and reverence. Sparrow barely registered the absence before he felt the weight of their hand—warm and sure—settle between his thighs.

Fingers stroked along the outer petals, slow and deliberate, the pads of each touch gliding through nectar-slick folds like they’d been sculpted for this singular purpose. The sensation was almost unbearable: too soft, too precise, too knowing. The bloom responded eagerly, pulsing open in rhythm with each pass, the inner layers parting with liquid, wanting heat.

Sparrow could no longer find words. His breath came in little gasps—half-formed protests swallowed by pleasure. He floated in the pool, hips twitching against the press of Tzi’chi’s palm, skin flushed and glowing like some rare, overripe fruit.

Tzi’chi whispered something in an old tongue—something Sparrow didn’t understand, but felt. It rippled through the water, through his bones, settling like a benediction at the base of his spine.

And then they circled the center of the bloom—once, twice, slow enough to make his toes curl and his thighs tense.

“Please—” Sparrow gasped, voice thin, lost. “Tzi’chi—I can’t—”

“You can,” they breathed, and leaned close enough for their lips to brush his ear. “You will.”

They pressed the pad of one finger to the bloom’s pulsing center and rubbed—gently, carefully—until Sparrow’s back arched clean out of the water, mouth falling open in a silent, desperate cry.

He was close. Too close. His body was trembling, glowing, coming apart under the pleasure coiling inside him like lightning waiting to strike—

And that was when the god moved.

The Ixalcoatl uncoiled from its place above, its body sliding over the petals with impossible grace. Each ripple of scale was a wave of heat in the air. The water barely rippled as it entered the pool, but Sparrow felt it—the gravity of its presence, the scent of divine musk and storm-petals thickening in his lungs.

Tzi’chi’s hand did not leave him. Instead, it stilled, cradling the bloom with a final, reverent stroke.

Then they pulled back, just enough to bow, forehead to the water.

And the god took his place.

The Ixalcoatl’s head hovered low above Sparrow’s body. Its golden eyes drank him in—throat flushed, skin shimmering with temple oil, thighs parted around the bloom it had shaped. He was perfect.

Sparrow couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. He floated on the edge of something that felt like worship and drowning.

The god dipped its head.

The first lick was slow.

Its tongue—broad, slick, warm—dragged from the base of the bloom to its glistening tip, parting the inner petals with a precision that left no inch untouched. The contact was fire and silk. It set Sparrow ablaze.

He sobbed. The sound came from somewhere deeper than speech, raw and unmade. The bloom clenched around nothing, slick with need, desperate for more.

The Ixalcoatl obliged.

It licked again, firmer now, tongue flattening as it spread the bloom open beneath its mouth. Each pass was a claiming—an undeniable knowing of his flesh, his pulse, his shape. Every fold was mapped. Every shiver recorded.

Sparrow’s hands scrabbled at the edge of the pool, fingers slipping on damp stone. His hips rocked helplessly against the pressure, pleasure ripping through him in great molten waves.

There was no cleverness left. No sharp wit. No court-polished snark.

Only yes.

Only more.

The god’s tongue curled inward, pressing into the trembling center of the bloom, and Sparrow cried out, voice hoarse and high. It was too much, too deep, too slow—he didn’t know where he ended anymore, only that he wanted to be taken, worshipped, used.

The coils closed around him—not to bind, but to hold. He was lifted slightly from the water, the bloom bared fully to the god’s attention. Slick dew dripped from him in threads of light. His thighs were parted wide by gentle pressure, and he gave no resistance.

The Ixalcoatl's purring voice filled his mind again, thrumming through him:

“Open. Let me fill you with my name.”

And then its tongue pushed deep.

Not metaphor. Not poetry.

The god’s tongue entered the bloom with an obscene, perfect pressure—hot, slick, thick—and Sparrow broke.

His scream echoed through the temple, swallowed by the vines and stone and god’s coils alike. The bloom clenched around the intrusion, his whole body locked in a convulsion of unbearable, transcendent pleasure.

He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.

Only feel.

The tongue moved inside him in slow, inexorable strokes, each pass stroking the walls of the bloom as it pulsed with dew and heat. The god’s mouth sealed over the outer petals, tongue delving deeper, filling him completely.

His hips rocked in time with the rhythm, every nerve flaring bright with each stroke. He sobbed, cried out, gasped, moaned. Nothing was sacred anymore—except this. Except now.

The priestesses chanted again in the background, low and melodic, but Sparrow could barely hear them. His world had narrowed to tongue, bloom, heat. His body was reduced to a pulse of yes, a shrine slick with divine want.

The pressure coiled tight inside him—unrelenting, unbearable.

And the god pressed deeper.

“Come again,” the voice purred, molten and final.

And he did.

Sparrow shattered.

His body seized in the coils, bloom contracting in waves around the god’s tongue, more slick nectar spilling into the water like starlight. The pleasure rolled over him in crashing bursts—again, and again, and again—until all he could do was tremble and cry out and give.

He fell back into the cradle of the coils, boneless, breathless, mouth parted and eyes glazed. The bloom fluttered open in the warm water, wide and glowing.

The god withdrew slowly, tongue sliding free with a shudder-inducing slickness, its eyes half-lidded with arousal.

And in Sparrow’s mind, a final whisper: “Now… you are ready to become mine.”

Sparrow sighed a breath of a laugh, “Now?”

The god's tongue withdrew slowly from Sparrow’s bloom, each inch dragging with wet, deliberate precision. The petals clenched faintly at the absence, trembling, flushed with slick nectar. Sparrow sagged in the water, glowing, panting, utterly open—his thighs slack, his body pulsing in time with the temple’s breath.

But the Ixalcoatl truly was not finished.

The coils shifted around him, slow and inexorable. One slid beneath his back, lifting him gently from the pool, water cascading from his skin in shimmering ribbons. The air kissed every wet inch of him—warm, perfumed, sacred. The bloom pulsed open in the golden light, the petals gleaming with the dew of his pleasure.

Sparrow's breath hitched.

The god coiled upward in a ripple of scale and divine heat, rising high above him. His glowing eyes pinned Sparrow in place—not with menace, but purpose. Inevitable. Absolute.

Then the Ixalcoatl struck.

Its head dipped fast—impossibly fast—and its great fanged mouth clamped gently onto the back of Sparrow’s skull. Not enough to break skin. Not enough to hurt. But enough to hold. Enough to claim.

Sparrow gasped, his body going taut in the coils. His bloom fluttered wide, anticipating.

The god’s voice pulsed in his thoughts like thunder beneath his skin: “Now. You will be filled.”

Something thick and hot pressed against the bloom’s slick opening.

Two of them.

Twin shafts—hemipenises, slick with divine fluid—curled forward from beneath the god’s coils, gliding along his thighs, searching, parting. The bloom responded as if it had been waiting, the inner petals swelling, flexing open, guiding the twin heads toward the heat of his center.

Sparrow moaned—high, breathless, wanting.

The god bit down a fraction tighter.

And then—he was taken.

The first shaft pressed in, slow but unstoppable, thick and hot, stretching the bloom wide around it. The second followed almost instantly, slick with oil and heat, both of them driving deep into the trembling heart of his bloom with a pressure that was perfect—just shy of pain, all pleasure. The petals stretched, accommodating both with obscene ease, nectar gushing around the penetration as his body accepted what it had been made for.

Sparrow screamed—a sound raw with sensation, stripped of words.

The god rutted into him slowly at first, twin cocks working in tandem, pushing deeper, spreading him open in wet, molten strokes. The bloom, designed for this, thrived—milking the shafts with inner muscles that fluttered and clung, coaxing them deeper still.

The coils tightened around him, lifting his hips, arching his back, pinning his limbs in a cradle of scale and heat. He was helpless in the most glorious way—held, used, loved.

Each thrust sent waves of pleasure rippling through his body. The shafts curved perfectly, stroking every sweet spot within the bloom, slick with the god’s musk and Sparrow’s own release. The petals were fully unfurled now, clinging to the god’s shafts like a flower too drunk on sun to close.

And the bite.

The bite on the back of his skull burned hot and bright, not painful, but anchoring. The god’s fangs sank just enough to hold him in place, sending a signal down his spine: You are mine now. Stay.

Sparrow’s body obeyed.

His hands scrabbled against the coils, seeking something to ground him, but there was nothing but sensation—nothing but the divine pounding heat of the Ixalcoatl inside him. The bloom clutched and spasmed around the twin shafts, clinging like it didn’t want to let them go.

And the god’s breath was all around him.

“So perfect. So open. So ready.”

The pace increased. The coils rocked him with each thrust. One shaft angled deeper while the other widened, stretching him with unbearable fullness. The bloom wept continuously, slick, glistening with the honey of his arousal.

Sparrow could no longer cry out. His mouth opened, but sound had abandoned him. The pleasure had become too much, bright and blooming and endless. His legs shook violently, then went limp.

He could only feel.

And then—without warning—the god spilled.

Hot, molten seed flooded the bloom in thick waves, each pulse a divine brand that filled Sparrow so completely he thought he might shatter from it. The shafts twitched inside him, locked in place, bloom fluttering and clutching around the release, welcoming every drop with greedy, shuddering joy.

Sparrow came with a broken gasp, body locking around the god’s cocks as another wave of pleasure ripped through him—deeper, richer than the first. His bloom pulsed around the flooding shafts, sucking them deeper still, glowing brighter with every spasm.

The Ixalcoatl purred low, satisfied.

And only then did the bite release.

Sparrow slumped forward as the god pulled out of him, cradled in coils slick with water and nectar and divine seed. His bloom remained open, leaking the excess in glowing rivulets. His breath came shallow and sweet, eyes half-lidded, lips parted.

He was no longer merely claimed.

He was filled.

He was blessed.

The world rocking gently around him like a lullaby, Sparrow thought—faintly, distantly—

I understand now.

Sparrow lay boneless in the cradle of the god’s coils, limp and radiant, his breath slow and fluttering like the wings of a moth caught in candlelight. The bloom between his thighs was still spread wide, pulsing faintly, flushed and glowing, petals slick with the overflow of divine release.

He couldn’t speak. Could barely think. He floated in golden heat, in scent and sensation and the echoing thrum of his own heart.

The Ixalcoatl lowered its head.

Its great muzzle nuzzled gently along his cheek, the scales smooth and warm, brushing his damp hair aside. The tip of its tongue flicked across his temple—not tasting now, but soothing. The bite on the back of his skull had left no wound, only a faint, tingling heat. A mark. A seal.

“You were perfect,” the god whispered—not aloud, but into him. Into every trembling, honeyed nerve. “So beautiful. So open. You took all of me.”

The coils shifted slightly, lifting Sparrow’s hips higher for a moment—just enough to let the god see.

Seed seeped from the bloom in luminous rivulets, trailing along his thighs and the glistening petals. The sight made the Ixalcoatl hiss softly, pleased.

“Look how full you are. You were made for this. To be opened. To receive. To flourish.”

A warm breath ghosted over the bloom, making it flex weakly in response. Sparrow whimpered, his body too tender to bear much more, but the sound was soft. Contented. Worship-drunk.

“You will produce well,” the god continued, purring deep into his mind. “You carry my essence now. The temple will tend to you. You will ripen further and bear my fruit. This is only the beginning.”

Sparrow exhaled a shaky breath. He couldn’t answer—but something in his body did. The bloom fluttered faintly, pulsing around the last of the heat still inside him. As if it knew.

A soft splash echoed nearby.

The priestesses stepped back into the pool, silent and gentle, their robes floating like seafoam. They moved to Sparrow’s sides, kneeling in the shallows, hands outstretched not to touch, but to offer. Waiting.

The Ixalcoatl exhaled once more, a warm rush of sacred breath over his body, and slowly, reverently, the god lowered Sparrow back into the water. The coils unwrapped like a slow, affectionate tide, leaving behind only warmth and the scent of musk and nectar.

And then the priestesses were there.

One cupped the back of his head and whispered a blessing. Another smoothed warm water over his chest. A third gathered the still-leaking seed from his thighs with a silken cloth, careful not to disturb the bloom’s soft, shivering openness. Their hands were soft, skilled, practiced in the tending of divine fruit.

“You did well,” one murmured into the crook of his neck.

“You are so lovely,” another whispered, brushing gold pigment over his cheekbones with fingers kissed in oil and starlight.

“You are blessed,” the third said, trailing her hand down his arm and lacing their fingers gently.

Sparrow’s lips parted.

And though his voice was gone, and his strength with it, he felt something low and quiet well up inside of him—a deep, rooted thing.

Yes, it whispered.

Yes.

The bloom between Sparrow’s thighs pulsed one final time—tired, tender—and began to close.

Its inner petals fluttered, drawing inward with a shiver, curling around the divine seed that still filled him. The outer folds followed, soft and damp and glistening, sealing him like a sacred blossom folding in on itself at dusk. Each motion was slow, instinctual, final.

Sparrow exhaled a long breath.

He could feel it inside him—the heat, the weight. The fullness. His body cradled it easily, greedily. As though it had been made to hold a god. He shifted slightly, and the movement made him gasp: there was no denying what he carried. He felt it. Still hot, still thick, still there.

Heavy. Sacred.

His thighs twitched and relaxed again as the last of the temple oil was rinsed gently from his skin, the priestesses' hands soothing him with soft cloths and murmured prayers. Their reverence was a lullaby—nothing sharp, nothing loud. Only quiet awe. Only care.

Somewhere above, the lantern-pods swayed, casting golden circles over the water. Sweet perfume clung to the air like memory, and the sound of water lapping gently at the stone filled the silence left behind by his moans.

Sparrow floated.

His limbs had gone too soft to hold shape. His thoughts were puddled across the floor of his mind, trailing lazily behind sensation. He knew—somewhere, faintly, distantly—that this was probably bad. Dangerous, even. He’d been claimed by something ancient and massive and so far beyond the politics of princes and the posturing of elven courts that it made his old life feel like a painted mask.

But stars above, he felt good.

Every nerve was aglow, every breath thick with warmth and sweetness. He felt kissed, claimed, cradled. The temple rocked him in its unseen rhythm, slow and full of lull.

There was no pain. No sharpness. No questions.

Only weight.

Only warmth.

Only the slow, sacred closing of a bloom that had been opened, filled, and cherished.

Sparrow let his eyes drift shut, the last flickers of caution curling into sleep like petals at twilight, as Tzi’chi gathered him gently into their arms and his consciousness slipped into dreams.

Notes:

This was supposed to be a “gentle bathing scene.” Somehow we ended up at “eldritch fertility rite.” Oops.

Chapter 4: An Interlude and the Bouquet of Teeth

Summary:

While someone begins to worry over Sparrow’s absence, he wakes to a world of silks, incense, and unsettling ceremony—where beauty hides sharp teeth, and every step pulls him deeper into the Serpent’s design.

Notes:

The plot has shown up to make a quick appearance...

A month before—

The tea was floral and faintly sweet—some rare mountain bloom pressed into pale green leaves—and Sparrow hated how much he liked it.

He cradled the delicate cup between both hands, legs folded beneath him on the lounge, swathed in a robe far too large for him. It belonged to someone else. Someone broader across the chest, someone whose scent still clung to the collar. It smelled like bergamot, clean linen, and cello resin.

Outside the window, High Grove’s canopy swayed beneath the golden haze of late afternoon light. Birds sang in lazy bursts. Somewhere far below, children shrieked with laughter in the orchard pools. The whole world seemed to sigh and settle—except for Sparrow.

He scowled faintly at the teacup.

“I can feel you watching me,” he said, without looking up.

From across the sun-drenched parlor, the low, velvety voice answered with laughter. “I’d hope so,” said the cellist, seated barefoot at the edge of his practice bench. “You’re wearing nothing but my robe and a bad mood.”

Sparrow grunted. He took a sip of tea and stared into the steam like it had wronged him personally.

The cellist—whose name was lost often to nicknames and indulgent sighs—rose and padded across the room with fluid ease. He moved like music sounded: smooth, deliberate, rich. Tall, dark-skinned, and cat-eyed, he looked like a verse carved in motion. His long black hair had been plaited down his back earlier, but strands now framed his face where Sparrow had tugged it loose.

He knelt beside the lounge, one hand sliding up to cradle Sparrow’s ankle, then his shin, until his thumb found the sharp curve of bone below Sparrow’s knee and rubbed in gentle circles.

“You’re thinking so loud it’s chilling the tea,” he murmured.

“I’m not thinking,” Sparrow said, glaring harder at the cup. “I’m sulking. It’s very different.”

The cellist chuckled and leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to Sparrow’s shin. “My apologies, princeling. I forgot sulking was your art.”

Sparrow sniffed. He didn’t move his leg, but his scowl softened.

A silence settled between them—easy, familiar. The kind that only came with long days shared between bedsheets and longer nights stretched beneath the cellist’s dark body. The cellist’s hand stayed on his leg, warm and steady, like a tether.

Eventually, Sparrow sighed.

“He wants me to leave,” he muttered. “Or—no, worse. He wants me to play at being useful. Send me off to charm dignitaries and make peace with people we’ve spent generations pretending don’t exist.”

“Diplomatic service?” the cellist guessed, voice mild.

“Mm.” Sparrow took another sip. “He says it’ll ‘build character.’ I think he just wants me out of the way so I stop flirting with the wrong courtiers.”

A low hum of amusement. The cellist traced a lazy circle on Sparrow’s thigh with his thumb.

“Would it be so bad?” he asked gently. “To see the world?”

Sparrow leaned his head back against the cushions and groaned. “It’s out there,” he said, gesturing vaguely. “With the weather. And expectations. And people who don’t know who I am, which means I’ll have to introduce myself. Repeatedly.”

The cellist chuckled. “Unforgivable.”

“And I’d have to wear shoes. And behave. And smile in ways that don’t make people nervous.” He glanced down, one lilac eye half-lidded. “You know how hard that is for me.”

“Terribly,” the cellist agreed, leaning in to kiss the inside of his knee again. “You’re so disarming. I tremble whenever you enter the room.”

“You do,” Sparrow said, smug. “But for completely different reasons.”

That earned him a warm laugh, and then a kiss to the side of his hip, where the robe had slipped open. Sparrow didn’t resist the touch. He never did. Not with him.

The room fell quiet again.

Sparrow’s fingers tightened around the teacup. “I don’t want to go,” he said softly. “Not just because it sounds awful. But because I’d be leaving this.”

The cellist’s touch stilled. His eyes lifted—sharp, clear chartreuse—and locked with Sparrow’s.

Sparrow didn’t look away.

“I’d miss you,” he said. “And not in a tragic, romantic ballad way. In the actual way. The tea. The music. The fact that you let me sulk without making me feel like I should stop.”

The cellist rose slowly, bracing a hand on the lounge, and leaned down until his forehead touched Sparrow’s. His hair slid forward, brushing their cheeks. His breath smelled faintly of pear syrup and jasmine.

“You’ll return,” he said simply.

“How do you know?”

“Because you’re too stubborn to do what your father wants for more than a season.” A smile curved his lips. “And because I’ve already composed what I’ll play when you walk through my door again.”

Sparrow stared at him for a long moment. Then he set his tea aside, tugged him forward by the collar of his loose shirt, and pressed their mouths together with slow, lazy familiarity.

“You’re lucky I like cellists,” he murmured against his lips.

“You’re lucky I like princes who sulk,” the cellist replied.

-

Later—

There were at least three different kinds of harp playing at once.

Sparrow didn’t know which one to resent most.

He stood beneath the carved boughs of High Grove’s lower atrium, dressed in sheer court finery dyed in soft-gold and vine-green, sipping from a crystal flute of something that claimed to be wine but tasted like elderflower and boredom. Lantern-moss bloomed overhead. The marble was polished to a mirror shine. Nobles flowed around him in waves of laughter and perfume.

And Sparrow, radiant and miserable, had not smiled sincerely in over an hour.

“Your face is doing that thing again,” came a low voice beside him.

He turned slightly—only slightly, because court etiquette said anything more dramatic would be interpreted as interest—and met the bored gaze of the ambassador’s son.

Hair like sun-bleached wheat, eyes sharp and brown as burnished copper, he looked devastating in black and burgundy. Taller than Sparrow by half a head and broader through the shoulders, he leaned against the nearest column with the indifference of someone who knew exactly how much attention he commanded and was wholly unimpressed by all of it.

Sparrow sighed. “What thing?”

“The one where you look like you’re contemplating faking your own death.”

“I am contemplating that,” Sparrow muttered into his wine. “Very seriously.”

The ambassador’s son—who went by at least three names depending on the company and none of them when it mattered—smirked.

“Don’t bother,” he said. “You’re too pretty to disappear. They’d notice within the hour. You’d be dragged back with ropes and an apology fruit basket.”

Sparrow sniffed. “Would you send the fruit basket?”

A pause.

“I’d eat half of it first.”

Sparrow smiled—small, fleeting, but real.

A courtier passed too close and said something obsequious about Sparrow’s impending departure for Briarmyr. He offered a thin-lipped nod in return, and once they were gone, the ambassador’s son muttered, “I hope your boat sinks.”

“That is mean,” Sparrow said, arching a brow.

“It’s basically a fishing village. You’ll smell like smoked eel and desperation within a week.”

Sparrow pressed a hand to his heart in mock offense. “You’ll miss me.”

“Unlikely.”

“You’ll write me letters.”

“I don’t even write my father letters.”

“You’ll pine.”

“I’ll ask to have your room converted into an echo chamber so I can enjoy the silence.”

Sparrow bumped his shoulder. The ambassador’s son didn’t move.

Across the atrium, a noble dropped her fan, and a minor scandal unfolded with all the tension of a blown kiss. People were scandalized. People performed. Someone actually swooned. Sparrow watched it all with tired eyes and took another sip of his drink.

“None of this matters,” he said after a moment.

“Of course it does,” the ambassador’s son said. “Your father arranged the whole thing so he could parade his most beautiful mistake before shipping him off to the edge of the map. This is High Grove tradition.”

“Don’t call me a mistake.”

“You said it first.”

“I said it nicer.”

The ambassador’s son turned fully toward him now, eyes scanning his face, his robe, the way the light caught in Sparrow’s lilac eyes. His gaze lingered—too long to be polite, too quick to be scandalous.

“You are the most beautiful person here,” he said finally. “Even when you’re sulking.”

Sparrow blinked. “Was that a compliment?”

“Don’t get excited. It’s also a tragedy.”

And then, more quietly, “I don’t want you to go.”

Sparrow swallowed. His fingers tightened around the glass.

He didn’t respond—not right away. Not with the court watching, and the harps playing, and his father somewhere in the crowd pretending not to orchestrate every moment.

But his arm brushed the ambassador’s son’s. Just slightly. Just enough.

The contact held, and the party continued under their light scrutiny late into the evening.

-

Then—

The tent smelled like resin and velvet and sweat-dried rope.

It was strung between the trees behind the main performance grounds, patched with gold-threaded banners and canvas dyed in rich jewel tones. Muffled music drifted in from the main camp, where the fire-eaters were still competing with the illusionists for who could steal the most attention. Someone was singing off-key. Someone else was laughing too loudly.

Sparrow didn’t care. His mouth was full.

The gymnast straddled his lap, her small, muscular frame warm and certain against his. She kissed like she climbed—strong and knowing, like her body was built for motion and mischief. Her curls were damp with heat, and every time she shifted her weight, the gauzy little scraps she called a costume shifted just enough to make him lose his train of thought.

He was slouched back on a pile of cushions, robe half-undone, chest flushed and glowing with the heat of her. One of her hands was buried in his chestnut brown hair. The other had fisted the front of his robe in a way that told him she was Not Finished.

Her breath was fast. So was his.

“I thought,” she said between kisses, “you weren’t leaving until sunrise. Why does it feel like you are already gone?”

“I’m not,” Sparrow mumbled, breathless. “I’m just... packing emotionally.”

She huffed a laugh and pressed her forehead to his. “Emotions. You? Shocking.”

He grinned, weak and crooked, and curled his fingers into the small of her back. “I’m full of surprises.”

“You’re full of shit.”

“Also true.”

She kissed him again—less teasing now, slower. Her lips lingered. When she pulled back, her blue eyes were suspiciously shiny.

“I don’t like this,” she said softly.

Sparrow’s smile faded.

“I don’t either.”

Her nose brushed his. “Then don’t go.”

He let out a breath. “If I don’t go, my father will make a Very Big Deal about how I’m a selfish disappointment to the realm, and then he’ll probably send Altair in my place, and Altair will declare war on the first person who doesn’t bend to his will.”

She snorted, but it cracked into something raw at the edges.

Sparrow touched her cheek. “I’ll come back.”

“Don’t promise things you can’t guarantee.”

“I will come back…hopefully?”

“Better,” she whispered. Her voice hitched. “You better, Sparrow. Because I’m not going to kiss anyone else this stupid and pretty. And no one else lets me get away with as much as you do.”

Sparrow’s throat tightened.

“You don’t get away with anything,” he lied.

“Please,” she muttered, dragging her fingers down his chest. “You let me tie you up with scarves.”

“It was art.”

“It was horny art.”

He laughed, breathless and fond, and pulled her back into a kiss that trembled a little more than it should’ve. Her mouth opened against his, warm and hungry and aching with everything they weren’t saying. His hands skimmed down her sides. Her legs tightened around his waist.

They stayed like that a while—kissing, whispering, kissing again—letting the world outside the tent spin without them. Letting themselves pretend this was just another night and not the last one.

Eventually, she rested her head on his shoulder. Her fingers found his and threaded them together.

“When you get there,” she murmured, “promise me something.”

“What?”

“Every time you look up at the stars… think of me.”

Sparrow closed his eyes.

“I always do.”

-

Today—

The music room was silent.

The cello sat unused in the corner, bow resting on its stand like a waiting hand. Afternoon light spilled through the tall arched windows, catching dust motes in its beams and striping the polished floorboards in gold.

Lyre, the cellist, stood at the far end of the room, arms folded, back straight. His dark skin was thrown into high contrast by the ivory of his shirt, the sleeves rolled just enough to reveal the tension in his forearms. He did not look at the other two. Not yet.

Kit, the gymnast, sat on the windowsill, knees pulled to her chest, curls a riot of frustration around her face. She wore a half-fastened tunic and a scowl, her hands twitching like they wanted something to climb or break.

Vesper, the ambassador’s son, was already pouring wine.

“I don’t know what you think this is going to solve,” he said coolly, holding the decanter up toward the gymnast without looking. “Want some? You look like you’re about to break a window.”

“I’ll break your nose first,” she muttered. Then, after a beat, “Yes.”

He handed her the cup. She drank it like water.

The cellist finally turned.

“It’s been twenty-three days.”

The room stilled.

“Since Sparrow’s ship left the High Grove port,” he continued. “The voyage to Briarmyr should’ve taken no more than six. Eight if the wind was against them. Ten if they were caught in a minor squall and made port for repairs.”

He walked to the cello but didn’t touch it.

“There’s been no word. No letters. No secondhand gossip. Not a whisper from the captain or the manifest courier. And most concerning of all—his father hasn’t said a thing.”

The gymnast pressed her forehead to her knees.

The ambassador’s son drained his cup in one long pull and poured another. “Maybe they made port, and the couriers are just slow. Or maybe Sparrow found a good-looking fisherman and forgot how to write. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“No,” the cellist said sharply. “He’s flaky. Not cruel. He would’ve written one of us. Even if it was on a fishskin scrap with a pressed flower and a postscript about sand getting in uncomfortable places.”

The gymnast let out a broken laugh. “Stars. That does sound like him.”

“Exactly.” The cellist’s voice lowered. “He would’ve sent something.”

The room fell quiet again.

The ambassador’s son leaned against the far wall and swirled the wine in his glass.

“I’ve been telling myself he’s alive because I’d feel it if he wasn’t.”

The gymnast looked up.

The cellist tilted his head slightly. “And what do you feel now?”

The ambassador’s son didn’t answer right away. His jaw tightened. “Nothing. And it’s driving me insane.”

The gymnast slid off the sill, bare feet hitting the floor with a whisper. “If something happened to him—”

“Then we’ll find out,” the cellist said. Calm. Absolute. “I’ve sent word through the musicians’ network. There are ears in every port. If his name is whispered in any tavern, any temple, I’ll know.”

“I can ask the caravan masters,” the gymnast offered. “Some of them owe me favors. I’ll start with the ones who run east.”

The ambassador’s son nodded once, then finally looked at the cellist—brown eyes sharp, dark. “You think something happened.” It was a statement, not a question.

“I know something happened,” the cellist said, his voice low and firm. “And I’m done pretending otherwise.”

He crossed the room and picked up the bow.

His hands, long and steady, traced the wood as if it were Sparrow’s skin.

“When he comes back,” the cellist said quietly, “we can all fight about who missed him the most. But until then, we look.”

The room held its breath.

The gymnast nodded, wiping at her cheek with the back of her wrist. “Agreed.”

The ambassador’s son downed his wine and set the cup aside. “Fine. But when we find him, I get to punch him once. For vanishing.”

The cellist gave a small smile. “You’ll have to get in line.”

-

Sparrow groaned.

His brain felt like it had been scrambled, poured back into his skull, and then rattled out through his undercarriage for good measure. Every inch of him hurt. His bones throbbed as though they were trying to burst from the inside, his skin buzzed with raw sensitivity, and his insides ached—pulled tight, rearranged, stuffed back in wrong.

And then the memory hit him.

The coils. The tongue. The bite at his skull. The fullness.

Sparrow’s eyes flew open, breath catching in his throat.

“Oh goddess,” he whispered, staring up at the swaying lantern-pods. His hands twitched toward his abdomen, hesitant, like he wasn’t sure he wanted to confirm what he already felt—that heavy, molten wrong-rightness lodged deep inside him, pulsing faintly with every beat of his heart.

His stomach gave a weak protest, a queasy little lurch that nearly tipped him back into panic. He pressed his lips together, swallowed, and tried to focus on literally anything else. Anything.

“…do gods serve breakfast?” he croaked, voice wrecked and thin.

The sanctum stayed hushed, save for the quiet trickle of water somewhere close. Warm golden light bathed his skin, soft as a lull. Sparrow let his head fall back against the moss, chest fluttering with half-formed laughter and dread in equal measure. The odd heaviness in his lower belly pressed insistently as he shifted, a reminder that last night hadn’t been some dream.

He wasn’t sure if he wanted to weep or beg for toast.

He shifted gingerly, the filmy robe whispering against his skin. The movement pulled his thoughts downward, to the place he’d been deliberately avoiding.

The bloom.

Last night it had been wide, slick, obscene. Now, with the haze burned off, it was closed again—petals drawn in tight, sealed flush against him where his dick used to be. A flower. His flower. His—goddess—his balls were gone too.

Sparrow sat very, very still, staring down the slope of the robe where the outline of the thing pressed faintly against the sheer fabric. For one horrible, silent moment, he couldn’t breathe.

Then the words tumbled out, sharp and strangled: “…I’ve been deflowered into literally being a flower. That’s… that’s hilarious. Somebody kill me.”

His laugh cracked halfway through, dissolving into a noise that was closer to a whimper. He pressed his hands over his face, then dragged them down again, peeking through his fingers like the bloom might somehow vanish if he blinked hard enough. It didn’t. Of course it didn’t.

“Great,” he muttered, voice wobbling. “Just great. I always knew I was special, but not in the orchid-for-a-crotch kind of way.” He choked out another broken laugh, the sound too sharp, too brittle. “Hopefully, I won’t develop a weed problem.”

The bed beneath him pulsed faintly, moss and petal soft and obscene against his back. The robe clung damply to his skin, translucent as dew. Plush. Opulent. Horrifying.

And that was when the curtain of trailing vines parted.

A priestess stepped in—robes whispering like water—and behind her came Tzi’chi, tall, solemn, and unbearably composed.

Sparrow immediately jerked upright, yelped as everything in his abdomen protested, and collapsed back into the bedding with a groan. “Oh, fantastic. An audience. I was just about to start my one-man comedy routine called ‘Guess Who’s a Botanic Abomination Now?’”

The priestess didn’t react. She only knelt gracefully at his side, her hands cool and steady as they brushed damp hair from his forehead, checked the pulse at his throat, and tugged the loose robe back into order where it had tangled at his hip.

Sparrow peeked at her, lips twitching. “Don’t suppose you people do refunds on, uh… body modifications?”

Her face stayed perfectly serene. Too serene. Sparrow’s heart banged against his ribs, and the humor turned sharp in his mouth.

“So what’s next, then?” he rasped, flicking his eyes toward Tzi’chi. “Breakfast? Or do I just… photosynthesize?”

Tzi’chi smiled in that distinctly lizard way. “We must bathe—”

“Another bath?” Sparrow balked. “I know I was pretty dirty—sandy, probably stinky—when you…” He faltered, the memory pressing in. The lizardman had picked him. Picked him. Like plucking a flower. “Found me. But I really don’t need another bath.”

The priestess blinked, looking first at Sparrow and then at Tzi’chi as though this suggestion had never once in the history of forever been made. “The bloom—” she began, only for Tzi’chi to lift a hand.

“The bloom is hungry. Let us feed him. The ritual can wait. The Great Serpent wants the chosen one happy before ceremony.”

Her eyes went narrow and snakelike, incredulous. As if to say, And how exactly would you know that? But she didn’t argue.

Sparrow, however, felt a small, ridiculous thrill of victory—though it was very hard to feel like a winner when one was currently full of some glowing mass that pulsed low in his guts like a second heartbeat.

He kept reminding himself that freaking out was not an option. Laughing and screaming at the same time wasn’t an option either, though both pressed at his throat like wild animals fighting to get out.

It’s fine, Sparrow. Totally fine. You’ve had plenty of interesting partners in your coital career. This is just… one more. Except now something is living inside you. No big deal. Your mom did it, you can do it too.

Except he wasn’t his mother. He wasn’t a woman. He might have been delicate, even effeminate, but he was still a man—and he’d never once doubted it. Until now.

Tzi’chi held out a hand, and Sparrow took it, his grip unsteady as his gaze dropped back to the tightly sealed flower where his sex used to be.

“Does… do I… will I get my dick back?” Sparrow asked, his laugh too high, too thin. “It has a lot of fans.”

Tzi’chi only helped him up from the bed, his heavy-lidded gaze offering no sort of answer.

“At least let me anoint him and dress him,” the priestess pressed. Her white-scaled features caught the light in a way that was both beautiful and unsettling, the cobra hood at her temples flaring just slightly as she leaned toward the larger lizard. “He is small and favored. He must look powerful—or the garland will eat him alive, no matter the Ixalcoatl’s blessing.”

Sparrow froze at that, blinking. “Wait. The what now? Did you say garland? Because you’re making it sound a lot less like flowers on a maypole and a lot more like… oh, I don’t know. A death sentence.”

The priestess gave no reply. Instead, she turned her full attention to him, her hands cool and perfumed with some resinous oil as she began to undo the robe knotted haphazardly at his hip. Each brush of her scales against his skin made him jolt, too aware of the sensitivity left behind by the temple’s strange rites.

She moved with ritual precision—unclothing him, rubbing salves into the tender places of his chest and belly, then smoothing another balm across the curve of his throat, the hollow of his hips. The scents mingled—sweet myrrh, something sharp like crushed green stems, something faintly metallic.

Sparrow swallowed hard. The sensations were overwhelming—no longer the dream-drunk haze from before, but something sharper, clearer, every nerve lit as if his body had been rewired.

“Seriously,” he tried again, words tumbling out to mask the way his pulse hammered. “What’s the garland? Because you said it like capital letters, and I’m not sure I’m emotionally prepared for a capitalized Garland.”

The priestess ignored him, working with practiced care. The robes she wrapped around him were nothing like the flimsy, transparent thing he’d woken in. These were sumptuous—layers of gauze and silk so fine they seemed to breathe, embroidered with silver threads that shimmered in shifting serpentine patterns. Every fold made his slight frame look intentional, sculpted, almost statuesque—as though arranged by the hand of an artist who specialized in worship.

Last came the crown: a circlet woven from pale feathers and frost-bright crystals that caught the light like snow. She set it gently on his brow, tilting his head until it glimmered like a halo. For a heartbeat, he glimpsed himself in the polished surface of a bronze basin—lilac eyes wide and startled, framed by impossible regalia. He looked less like himself and more like an offering.

The priestess stepped back, serene as ever. “You are the centerpiece of the Great Serpent’s garland,” she said softly. “You must appear strong, or the others will consume you, no matter his favor.”

His stomach lurched. Centerpiece. Consume. Others. Not decorations. Not flowers. People.

“I’m sorry—centerpiece? Consume me?” His laugh cracked, too thin to be convincing. “That’s not encouraging vocabulary. And when you say garland, I’m guessing we’re not talking about a festive door wreath. Because the way you’re saying it, it sounds more like… people. Hungry people. Tell me I’m wrong. Please.”

Neither of them answered. Tzi’chi simply adjusted his mantle of scales and gold, then took Sparrow firmly by the arm. The priestess glided to his other side, guiding him as though already presenting him to an audience.

“Okay, no, seriously,” Sparrow pressed, words tripping faster now. “You can’t just drop capital-G Garland on me, ignore my follow-up questions, and then parade me through a temple like this is all normal. Do you hear yourselves? Because I don’t know about you, but I am not prepared to be—what was the word?—centerpieced.”

But Tzi’chi was already steering him deeper into the temple’s belly, where light and shadow braided across the walls. The air thickened with incense, and each step carried Sparrow closer to the truth he was desperate not to face.

The incense worked to relax him, its fragrance rich and grounding—soothing rather than forcing the brazen arousal of the night before.

The hallway narrowed into shadow, then opened suddenly into a vast and startlingly lush garden.

It was tropical, riotous with life. Vines spilled down from stone arches, heavy with bright blossoms that dripped nectar onto the moss below. Palms and broad-leafed ferns rose like green pillars, framing pools of clear water that reflected the torchlight in jeweled colors. It was beautiful—wild in a way that made the air itself taste alive.

Sparrow’s chest tightened. He couldn’t help but compare it to the High Grove gardens he’d grown up in. Those had been manicured to perfection—hedges shaped with such precision they looked painted, roses bred into impossible colors, every blossom curated for symmetry. Here, nothing was curated. Everything was overripe, vibrant, excessive. Too much and exactly right.

He thought of sneaking kisses in the shaded corners of the Grove, pressed against marble trellises. The memory hit with a sudden sting: the gymnast, quick and laughing, tasting of wine, their lips catching just once before she darted off, leaving him reeling.

He almost smiled—then the memory was swallowed whole by the sight ahead.

It struck him, this must have been the Garland.

They were gathered in the garden’s heart, sprawled across low couches and curling against each other like a living tapestry. Ten of them— and it was clear they were concubines of the Great Serpent. Each one different, each one resplendent. A lithe, copper-skinned figure whose scales shimmered like beaten bronze. A broad, crocodilian man with a languid smile full of sharp teeth. A cobra-hooded woman who flicked her tongue idly as though tasting Sparrow’s unease on the air. A gecko-like youth with bright golden eyes, perched playfully on the edge of a fountain.

And more. Snakes and lizards of every shape and hue, dressed in fabrics that clung to their scaled or half-scaled bodies, dripping with jewels that gleamed in the torchlight. They moved with a practiced sensuality, every glance deliberate, every shift of weight calculated to remind Sparrow what they were.

His eyes skipped across them nervously, until they landed—stuck—on one.

She was purple, her scales glimmering like amethyst in the garden’s light. Smooth, sleek, powerful. She reminded him instantly of an indigo snake—dark, regal, and commanding without effort. She reclined among the others, but it was clear she didn’t need to posture. The way the rest of the Garland angled toward her, the way silence seemed to bend around her presence, made her role undeniable. She was their leader.

Sparrow’s throat went dry. Whatever jokes he might have had ready dissolved before they reached his tongue.

Sparrow’s throat went dry. Ten of them. Ten sets of eyes gleaming in the dappled torchlight, sizing him up like he was already on the menu.

His lips twitched before he could stop them. “Well,” he muttered, too bright, too thin, “that’s… quite a bouquet. A whole flower arrangement with teeth. Festive.”

The Garland shifted, subtle but unmistakable, a ripple of interest through the group as though his words themselves had been a kind of offering.

The joke lodged bitter in his mouth. Sparrow’s pulse jumped, and he darted a glance up at Tzi’chi. “Don’t… don’t leave me in there,” he said quickly, too quietly, his voice betraying him. He caught the lizardman’s hand before he could think better of it, clutching hard. His palms were damp, his fingers trembling.

For a beat, Tzi’chi didn’t move. Then his clawed hand tightened back, warm and steady, a reassuring squeeze that anchored Sparrow like a lifeline.

Sparrow exhaled shakily, relief and terror tangling in his chest. He didn’t let go.

The Garland stirred as they entered, heads lifting one by one, forked tongues flicking, jeweled eyes narrowing with interest. The air shifted—the languid play of bodies gone suddenly alert, a ripple of attention focusing all at once on him.

Sparrow wanted to quip, to fill the silence before it ate him alive, but the words snagged somewhere behind his teeth.

From among them, she rose.

The amethyst-scaled serpent.

She unfolded from her seat with liquid grace, tall and long-limbed, her movements smooth as water. Sunlight from the high garden canopy caught her scales, making them glimmer with violet fire; the linens draped across her body clung like a second skin, sequined with crystals that sparkled whenever she shifted. She was dazzling, radiant, impossible to look away from—and she knew it.

The others seemed to fall back as she approached, making space as though her presence stretched further than her body ever could.

Sparrow’s pulse thudded in his ears. He realized belatedly that he was squeezing Tzi’chi’s hand again, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop.

She stopped before him, tilting her head just slightly as her eyes flicked over him—quick, sharp, assessing, as if peeling back each layer of him with a glance.

“I am Ixchara,” she said at last, her voice rich and lilting, threaded with something serpentine. Her lips curved into the faintest smile. “So this is the bloom. How small. How delicate.”

Sparrow’s mouth went dry, but instinct shoved a joke past his teeth anyway. “Yeah, well. Travel-sized. Convenient for storage.”

The line hung there, brittle. Ixchara tilted her head, studying him as though he were some curious insect she hadn’t decided whether to admire or devour. Then, with deliberate grace, she extended her hand—not to him directly, but to Tzi’chi, her fingers hovering near where Sparrow still clung.

“Give him to me,” she said softly. “He is full of the offering. He must be fed.”

Tzi’chi’s grip on Sparrow’s hand tightened. For a moment, he didn’t move. His gold-flecked eyes flicked to Ixchara’s, unblinking, and something taut stretched in the silence between them.

Sparrow’s pulse hammered. His palm was damp in Tzi’chi’s, his knuckles aching from how hard he clutched. The fear pressed down on him like a weight, thick and suffocating. For a breathless second, he wanted to scream don’t let go.

And then he thought of home. Of High Grove, of its manicured hedges and impossible roses. Of music, laughter, and warmth. He saw the Cellist—Lyre, his bow dancing over strings with that perfect, effortless grace. He saw the Ambassador’s son—Vesper’s sarcastic smile hiding devotion that ran deeper than politics. He saw the gymnast—Kit, bright and laughing, strong and unafraid as she threw him around like a baton.

He ached for all of them. He wanted them here. Wanted their hands in his, instead of this trembling grip between a serpent and a lizard queen.

Ixchara’s fingers brushed his free hand at last—cool, jeweled, glittering with rings. She drew him closer with a languid curl of her wrist, her scales whispering against silk as she leaned near.

“Leave the dreamhunter, little one,” she murmured, her voice smooth as honeyed wine. “They have done their task—they found you, blessed the Garland. Now you must eat, and stay strong, as you ripen the offering for the Great Serpent.”

Her other hand slid down, unhurried, pressing against the place where the molten warmth pulsed inside him. Sparrow jolted at the contact. It was intimate, invasive, undeniable—a heavy reminder that none of this was a dream, that the throbbing glow in his belly was alive. Real.

He turned sharply, seeking Tzi’chi with his gaze. The dreamhunter’s expression was unreadable stone, but Sparrow’s own eyes betrayed him—wide, lilac, brimming with fear.

Then Ixchara tugged, firm and insistent, pulling him from the safety of Tzi’chi’s grip. His hand slipped free, and suddenly Sparrow was being drawn toward the others: the concubines who lounged like predators at rest, their jeweled eyes catching firelight as they watched him approach.

The priestess lingered behind, serene as ever, but Sparrow felt her absence like the floor tilting beneath him.

Ixchara’s touch stayed firm against his belly, guiding him forward with a grace that felt more like command than invitation. Every step carried him closer to the concubines sprawled in jeweled silks, their eyes gleaming like torchlight on water.

Sparrow’s mouth moved before his brain could stop it. “Well,” he said, voice a little too bright, “at least if I get eaten, I’ll count as a balanced meal. Got protein, carbs, questionable glowing center… real fine dining.”

The joke fell flat in the humid air, but it steadied him somehow, like gripping a rope in a storm.

The Garland stirred. One by one, they rose from their reclining seats, tails and limbs and fabrics shifting in unison. They closed in around him, their movements too fluid, too practiced, a circle of heat and scent and gleaming curious eyes.

For the briefest heartbeat, Sparrow caught sight of Tzi’chi still watching from the edge of the garden, silent and unflinching. Then the view was gone.

The Garland had claimed him.

Notes:

Ten concubines, one confused princeling. Sounds like plenty of… material for future chapters.

Not to mention the offering.

Chapter 5: Beneath the Blossom, Mouths Unending

Summary:

The Garland makes their introductions.

The Garland pressed tighter. Ten jewel-scaled bodies, ten pairs of gleaming eyes, heat and perfume wrapping Sparrow like a living net. His throat worked as he tried to keep his chin up, but it was Ixchara who broke the silence.

She stepped forward, violet-scaled and commanding, her presence eclipsing the others. With a lazy sweep of her ringed hand, she gestured toward Sparrow.

“He is the chosen fruit. He is ours to know. Introduce yourselves.”

The word introduce struck like a spark. The Garland stirred, understanding without question. For reptiles, introduction was often achieved through touch.

Ixchara’s cool palm trailed down Sparrow’s arm, lingering at his wrist where his pulse beat fast. “Ixchara,” she said simply. “First among the Garland.”

Her hand pressed deliberately over his belly where the glow pulsed, and Sparrow gasped before she let him go to the next.

The crocodilian rose. Broad, plated in dark green scale, his golden eyes glinted as he bent near. One claw traced Sparrow’s throat in a slow, deliberate line.

“Xilotl,” he rumbled, his grin full of teeth. “You are soft. Breakable. The serpent delights in delicate things. Do you desire to be broken?”

Sparrow’s laugh fluttered, the clawed fingers at his throat making his heart hammer in his chest.

A flash of emerald—as the gecko youth darted in, bright-scaled, jewel-eyed. He leaned close, his tiny golden tongue flicking quickly against Sparrow’s collarbone. “Chitali,” he chirped, tail twitching. “Nectar-sweet. I like him.” 

Sparrow yelped, flushing. “Okay—uh—boundaries. Or… no? Guess that’s not a thing here.”

A statuesque lizard swept forward in a rustle of flame-colored robes, her tall frill rising in display. She caught Sparrow’s chin, turning his head this way and that, studying the lilac eyes like precious trinkets. “Oquetz,” she declared. “Small gem, bright setting. He burns already; the offering will be potent.”

“Burning is rarely on my list of hobbies,” Sparrow muttered, though his knees wobbled.  The throb of arousal pooled heavily in his guts and in the bloom between his legs.  He could feel a welling, a wetness coming to him that was familiar, but not when it came to himself.

A stout lizard followed, heavy and moss-hued, orchids twined through her dewlap. Her touch was slower, a palm pressed to Sparrow’s sternum, feeling his heart pound beneath the silk. “Tzamal,” she said gravely. “Your pulse is fast. Not only with fear. Interesting.”

Sparrow coughed, “Beg pardon?”

The Black-and-orange patterned lizard slithered close, scales rasping faintly against silk. She leaned down, her forked tongue flicking against Sparrow’s temple before her lips brushed there. “Zyqul,” she murmured. “You smell of the bloom, potent, fertile, god-like.”

Sparrow swallowed. “I-I just smell like whatever they are rubbing all over me every fifth bath.”

The anole, delicate and pale, slid her hand over his chest, her pink throat fan pulsing with gentle hues. “Yalua,” she whispered. “You tremble, do not fear, we are here to serve each other, to become our best for the Great Serpent.”

Heat flushed Sparrow’s cheeks. He didn’t answer.

A shadow fell. A monstrous, tall, heavy boned lizard loomed over him. His broad tongue flicked once, tasting the air, before he bent to graze teeth lightly against Sparrow’s shoulder. “Kozael.” He said simply as his clawed fingers pulled at the tie of Sparrow’s robes, “I wish to see the bloom.”

Sparrow nearly squeaked. “These are the most intimate introductions I have ever had.”

The next of the Garland drifted toward him as though she walked on air. Her colors sliding over her scales like oil. Her turret eyes moved oddly as she slid her hand inside his robe and drew a single claw along Sparrow’s hip, tracing just above where the bloom sealed shut, drawing a gasp of arousal from him. “Itzil,” she whispered. “You are already changing. I like things that cannot decide what they are.”

A shiver bolted down Sparrow’s spine. His laugh came thin. “Yeah, well. I’m having a bit of an identity crisis.”

Last, a broad, sea-turtle-shelled creature approached. Lotus blossoms braided through her adornments. She cupped Sparrow’s cheek in her great hand, her touch gentle but inescapable. “Xyloh,” she said, voice like the tide. “Be still, little creature. You will endure. Or you will break. Either way, the tide will shape you.”

When her hand fell away, Sparrow realized he was trembling—not entirely with fear. His skin sang where they’d touched him: claws, tongues, scales, teeth.

Ten names. Ten touches. Ten claims.

His laugh cracked but steadied. “So… introductions here come with a lot more tongue than I’m used to.”

The Garland’s hissing laughter filled the garden, rising soft and strange, winding around him like perfume.

Ixchara’s hand returned to his stomach, pressing firmly over the glow. “Chosen,” she purred. “Now you belong to us, you are the bloom of the Garland.”

She looked to Xilotl, “You must feed him. The offering needs sustenance, and we must ensure its growth.”

The crocodile chuffed, smiled, pleased with himself.  

“Of course, Ixchara. I will feed this little flower until he is full.”

“Wait, what, this is symbolic language, and I don’t know if I am picking up what you are putting down. I’m kind of slow.”

Xilotl’s grin widened, full of knives. He reached past Sparrow, and with a casual tug on a beaded cord, a servant slithered forward carrying a golden bowl. Within, ripe fruits steamed in their own fragrance—sweet rot, honey-slick, dripping juice like blood wine.

Sparrow blinked. “Oh. Actual food. That’s… less terrifying.”

The crocodilian plucked a fruit the size of Sparrow’s fist and tore it open with one claw, exposing glistening pulp. He held it near Sparrow’s lips, close enough that the perfume cloyed in his throat. “Eat,” Xilotl commanded. “You must be fed with the Maw’s plenty. To flower, you must gorge.”

Sparrow hesitated, then shot a glance toward Ixchara. Her violet eyes gleamed, her scaled chin dipped in the barest nod. The circle leaned closer. Ten bodies breathing him in, expectant, hungry.

He opened his mouth. Juice spilled over his lips, sticky, dripping down his chin as Xilotl pressed the fruit home. Sweetness exploded across his tongue—nectar and spice and rot, dizzying in its richness. It burned down his throat like wine, leaving a heat that spread low in his abdomen. He gagged, swallowed, and shivered at the aftertaste that tingled through his veins.

Chitali giggled, darting forward to lick the juice from his jaw with quick flicks of his tongue. “Sweet, sweet,” the gecko trilled.

Sparrow flinched, a blush rising, though the tickling strokes sent a pulse of heat straight to his core. “Personal space—! Oh, right, not a thing here.”

Oquetz’s frill flared, her voice silken. “No space between Garland. We share. We taste. We endure together.” Her fingers tipped his chin up so the rest of the pulp could be pressed into his mouth. The taste was sharper this time—seeds bursting across his tongue, juices soaking his lips, and with it came a rush of warmth, a heady, shameless ache stirring under his skin.

One by one, they offered him pieces: figs sticky with seeds, citrus bright and biting, blossoms steeped in syrup. Each pressed to his lips by a different clawed hand, scaled mouth, or forked tongue. The flavors swelled sweeter and heavier, until Sparrow’s head swam and his thighs pressed unconsciously together. His belly churned, tight as the glow beneath his navel, heat pooling low and insistent.

By the time Zyqul leaned down to lap at the last streaks of honey from his lower lip, Sparrow moaned before he could catch himself. His body burned, trembling, sticky with juice and perfume, each nerve alive and hungry.

Xyloh’s great hand steadied him by the shoulder. “Endure,” she murmured again, voice like surf.

Sparrow coughed, breathless, his laugh breaking on a shudder. “Okay. So. That was… not what I expected when someone says they’re going to ‘feed me.’ Also, not sure how much of that was food and how much of it was foreplay.”

The Garland laughed again, sibilant, a storm of hisses curling up the marbled arches of the garden.

Ixchara only smiled, her palm firm against the pulse of the bloom. “It was both.”

Her hand closed on the sash at Sparrow’s waist, and with a sharp tug, she yanked it loose, and his robe parted, the silk falling away to bare him fully to the circle of reptilian eyes.

Heat climbed Sparrow’s cheeks. He could smell the nectar—his own nectar—leaking from the bud of his bloom, the scent thick and sweet, mingling with the perfume of the garden. The throb in his lower abdomen pulsed hotter, twisting up through him until his breath caught. Their gazes drank him in, and his body thrilled under the weight of it.

Xilotl moved first. The crocodilian loomed near, golden eyes glinting as his broad claw trailed down Sparrow’s chest, slow and deliberate. “Lean,” he rumbled, savoring the word. “Soft.” His grin widened, teeth gleaming as his hand descended further, brushing the new slight swell of Sparrow’s hips, pausing just above the bloom. “Beautiful. Even the bud of your flower—parted, dripping with nectar.”

Sparrow shivered violently, his legs nearly giving way. He had never felt so exposed, so devoured by a gaze. The air itself seemed to heat with their hunger.

A flash of emerald. Chitali darted close again, curious as ever. The gecko tilted his head, eyes bright with mischief, before reaching out one small claw to poke Sparrow’s chest. Sparrow gasped as the touch landed square on his nipple, sharp pleasure jolting through him.

Chitali blinked, fascinated, and poked again. “What is this bud?” he chirped. “Strange. It stiffens when touched.”

The others leaned in, scales rustling, a chorus of low chuckles and curious hisses rising.

Sparrow moaned before he could stop himself, back arching toward the touch, his chest tightening with need. “Stars—don’t—ah—”

Ixchara’s hood lifted in amusement. “So sensitive,” she purred. “This bloom-flesh has hidden buds, it seems. And you… like it.”

Chitali’s tongue flicked again over Sparrow’s nub, eager and relentless, his small claws splayed against Sparrow’s chest as though he had found a new toy. Each lick sent jolts of raw pleasure sparking through Sparrow’s nerves until his knees trembled.

A rustle of silk as Oquetz swept forward. Her frilled silhouette loomed with ceremonial grace, and with a single fluid motion, she slid Sparrow’s robe from his shoulders. The fabric whispered down his body, pooling at his feet, leaving him bare and trembling in the circle of reptilian eyes.

Sparrow groaned aloud as cool air kissed his skin—and then heat followed, Xilotl’s broad hand stroking down his flank, claws grazing lightly, his palm kneading Sparrow’s hip. “So soft,” the crocodilian rumbled, voice like stones grinding deep. His golden eyes devoured Sparrow’s trembling form. “Like flower-petal flesh. A thing meant to be bruised and savored.”

Sparrow gasped, his back arching toward both touches at once—the gecko’s nimble tongue at his chest and the crocodile’s heavy caress. His mind reeled, overwhelmed by the heat of the fruit still burning through him, every nerve raw, every touch magnified until he was lost inside it. The pressure low in his belly pulsed harder, insistent, building.

And then—his bloom parted.

The opening unfurled like a flower in time-lapse, slick and luminous, nectar spilling in a slow, honeyed trickle down his thigh. Sparrow cried out, half-shocked, half-undone, clutching weakly at the air as if he could hold himself together.

Itzil drifted closer, her colors shimmering like oil in water, her turret eyes drinking in the sight. One claw traced delicately around the trembling petals, gathering nectar on its tip. “Exquisite,” she whispered, awed. “Not like our flowers. Yours gleams like a pearl. Flesh and bloom, one body—so strange, so beautiful.”

Her touch circled the edge of the opening, slow and reverent. Sparrow whimpered, hips twitching helplessly as the sensation lanced through him like lightning.

Zyqul leaned in, her forked tongue flicking the air just above the bloom, eyes bright. “It weeps for us,” she murmured. “It is ripe. Sweet with wanting.”

Sparrow moaned, head falling back, hair clinging damp to his cheeks. The fruit’s fire roared through him, the Garland’s hands and tongues and voices winding tighter around his body like a net of heat and praise. Every part of him trembled, every part of him open.

Ixchara’s jeweled hand returned, pressing lightly but firmly against the pulsing bloom, smearing nectar over her palm. She smiled, her gaze sharp and hungry. “The Maw has blessed you well, little one. You flower for us, and we will tend you until you overflow.”

Sparrow could only sob with pleasure, lost in the touch, the voices, the heat—utterly consumed by the Garland’s worship of his body.

He felt Xilotl loop a massive arm beneath his leg, lifting him effortlessly, spreading him open. The crocodilian’s thick fingers dragged through the nectar between his thighs, smearing it over soft skin before pressing against his backside. Sparrow’s breath hitched, his bloom twitching helplessly until he felt a blunt digit push inside.

“You like this,” Xilotl rumbled, his golden eyes glinting as the finger curled and probed.

Sparrow cried out, back arching, as the touch found a spot deep inside that made his vision explode with stars. Pleasure tore through him, raw and shocking.

He gasped, dazed, his words tumbling out without thought. “I—I-I lost my balls, but not my—oh stars—”

Xilotl toyed with the spot, relentless and slick, wetness poured from his bloom in glistening rivulets. The rest of the Garland shifted closer, scales rasping, tongues flicking in the humid air, drawn by the scent of him. Nectar pooled, and they lapped eagerly at the offerings dripping down his thighs, their reverence almost worshipful.

Itzil leaned in first, her shimmering colors rippling as she pressed her mouth to Sparrow’s bloom. Her long tongue darted deep to drink, lapping greedily at the nectar. Sparrow cried out again, shuddering at the slick invasion, thighs trembling against the strength of Xilotl’s grip.

At the same time, Ixchara’s hand pressed flat against his stomach. She began to massage slow, deliberate circles into the taut skin just above the bloom. Sparrow whimpered, caught between sensations—the probing tongue, the thick finger inside him, and the rolling pressure against his stomach. Something shifted beneath her touch, alive and strange. The feeling was wrong and wonderful all at once, sending waves of heat spiraling through his body.

“It moves within you,” Ixchara purred. “The offering awakens. You feel it, don’t you?”

Sparrow sobbed, drunk with the fruit’s fire, his body betraying him with how much he wanted. “Y-yes—I—oh stars, yes—”

Xilotl’s finger withdrew only to be replaced by two, stretching him wider, drawing more nectar down Itzil’s tongue. The crocodilian’s muzzle lowered until his teeth grazed Sparrow’s shoulder. Then Sparrow felt it—a hot, heavy pressure grinding against his slick backside. Hard, ridged, unmistakable.

His eyes flew wide as Xilotl removed his fingers and pressed himself more firmly against Sparrow. “Is that—?” His words dissolved into a moan as Xilotl rolled his hips, dragging his thick arousal against Sparrow’s trembling entrance, smearing nectar between them.

“Yes,” the crocodile growled, voice low and hungry, vibrating through Sparrow’s bones. “Feel me. Know me. I am here to please you, to please all the blooms.”

Pinned between the circle’s worship, Sparrow was lost—confused, trembling, drunk with aphrodisiacs, yet utterly consumed by the sensual reverence of the Garland. Every touch, every lick, every stroke of worship unraveled him further, until he could only writhe in their arms, a trembling bloom adored by serpents.

Xilotl shifted his weight, that immense bulk forcing Sparrow further open, his leg hooked easily in the crocodilian’s arm. The blunt head of his cock pressed insistently against Sparrow’s backside, smearing nectar and slick with each slow grind.

Sparrow’s breath came in shallow gasps, his body trembling, torn between fear and the pounding ache of desire. The aphrodisiac of the fruit roared through his veins, and every nerve in him screamed to be filled.

Then Xilotl thrust.

The stretch was sudden, immense, Sparrow’s mouth falling open in a broken cry as the crocodilian’s thickness breached him. His bloom fluttered violently, nectar pouring as his body shuddered. But the ache turned swiftly to heat—pleasure so sharp it made his whole body bow toward it, toward more.

“Beautiful,” Xilotl growled, driving deeper in a slow, relentless push. “So tight, so hot. You take me, flower. You open.”

Sparrow moaned, vision gone white as the thick ridge of flesh rubbed directly over his sweet spot, now so hypersensitive he thought he might come apart from the touch alone.

Xilotl shifted again, angling Sparrow’s body higher, tilting his hips just so—exposing him utterly to the circle. His thighs were spread, bloom glistening, nectar dripping freely down the insides of his legs as Xilotl sank into him.

The Garland hissed and clicked in approval, circling closer, eyes gleaming in the incandescent light.

Chitali scampered up, too curious to stay back. His golden tongue flicked Sparrow’s chest again, this time lashing insistently at his nipples. Sparrow gasped as pleasure tore through him, the small claws pinching and tugging until the soft peaks grew puffy and straining.

Chitali trilled with delight, lapping more eagerly. He pulled back, blinking in surprise as a faint sweetness touched his tongue. “Nectar!” he chirped, wide-eyed. “Your chest buds—weeping nectar too!”

Sparrow’s head snapped down in dazed confusion, his mind swimming. “W-what—? That’s not—that’s not supposed to—” He broke off in a cry as Xilotl thrust deeper, forcing a gush of nectar from his bloom that Itzil lapped up eagerly.

The Garland hissed their wonder, voices rising in reverent laughter.

Ixchara’s sinuous hand was still massaging his belly as her gaze devoured him. “You flower everywhere, little elf. A body of blossoms. You are ripening before us.”

Sparrow sobbed, lost in the storm of sensation— suckled, bloom weeping, offering rolling under Ixchara’s hand, and Xilotl’s cock grinding deep, every thrust battering the spot inside him until stars burst behind his eyes.

He could no longer think, only writhe and keen under their touch, their worship, their hunger. He was fruit, bloom, offering. A body given to the Garland.

Xilotl drove into him again, slow and heavy, grinding deep until Sparrow’s body bowed and shuddered around him. His claws pressed into Sparrow’s hip and thigh, holding him open, exposing him utterly to the circle. The crocodilian bent close, teeth grazing Sparrow’s flushed ear.

“Exquisite,” he rumbled, voice deep as earth shifting. “So soft. So open. You bloom better than any flower I have ever known.”

Sparrow whimpered, caught between the pounding ache inside him and Chitali’s mouth worrying his nipples to raw peaks. Nectar beaded there now, sweet and faint, licked eagerly away by the gecko’s golden tongue. The sensation tangled with the relentless strokes against his gland, each thrust dragging a broken moan from his throat.

Xilotl ground his hips, pressing Sparrow higher, spreading him wider. “Look at you,” he growled reverently. “Every part of you is flowering. Your bloom weeps, your chest buds drip nectar, your body ripens beneath our hands. You are perfect. You will bear offerings unending for the Great Serpent. And our Garland will be strongest of all—blessed across the eons by your fruit.”

The others hissed and trilled in agreement, their bejeweled frills and eyes glittering in the light. Itzil’s tongue darted inside Sparrow’s bloom again, lapping up the gush of nectar that spilled with every thrust. Zyqul leaned close to his cheek, flicking her forked tongue against the tears of pleasure streaking there, tasting even his breath.

Ixchara rubbed the taut skin on his stomach where something shifted and rolled within. “Already it stirs,” she murmured, her tone half-command, half-prayer. “Already, he swells with offering near ready to produce. We will be unmatched.”

Sparrow moaned, head tossing weakly. His body burned, his thoughts swimming in honey and heat. He didn’t know what he was becoming, only that their worship consumed him—praise and hunger, tongues and claws, the press of Xilotl’s cock grinding his insides to trembling bliss.

“Beautiful,” Xilotl purred, thrusting deep, the words vibrating against Sparrow’s throat. “The Maw has made you perfect. You will feed us, flower, and we will make you bloom again and again until the spirits themselves bow to our Garland.”

Sparrow sobbed, drunk on fruit and touch, his body nothing but trembling petals in their claws. He was fruit, bloom, offering—and stars help him, he wanted it.

The pressure crested all at once. Chitali’s eager mouth tugging at his nipple, the sweet pressure of Ixchara’s firm palm kneading his warm mound, Itzil’s tongue drinking greedily from his bloom—and the relentless weight of Xilotl’s cock grinding against his swollen, trembling nub of nerves.

Sparrow shattered.

His cry broke high and helpless as his body clenched tight around Xilotl, fluttering, milking the crocodilian’s thickness with spasms he couldn’t control. Nectar spilled from his bloom in gushing streams, slicking his thighs, coating the tongues and claws that lapped eagerly at every drop.

From his chest, too, sweetness welled—thin, shining beads of nectar slipping from his swollen buds. Chitali squealed with delight, lapping at them hungrily. “More! He gives more!” the gecko trilled, sticky with Sparrow’s offering.

Sparrow sobbed with the force of it, his body convulsing in wave after wave of wet, unbearable pleasure, every part of him flowering and spilling for the Garland. His thighs quaked in Xilotl’s iron grasp, his back arched as though trying to break free—and yet he only pressed deeper into their worship, into the storm of touch and taste surrounding him.

Xilotl did not relent. The crocodilian held him open, cock buried deep inside, grinding through Sparrow’s spasms with a low growl of satisfaction. His golden eyes blazed as he bent close, teeth grazing Sparrow’s shoulder.

“Beautiful,” he rumbled, voice thick and reverent. “You bloom so wet, so tight. You clutch me like the flower clutches the sun. This is only the first.”

Sparrow whimpered, dazed and trembling, his body still shuddering around him.

Xilotl rolled his hips pressing mercilessly against that raw, aching place inside. “I will bring you again, little flower. Again, and again, until your nectar runs endlessly. Until you are emptied and refilled. Until you learn what it means to truly bear offerings. ”

Sparrow could only sob, lips parted, sweat and nectar clinging to his trembling body as the Garland closed tighter around him, worshiping his climax, eager for the next.

Xilotl’s pace quickened, each thrust grinding Sparrow’s raw, trembling insides. His body was already undone, still spasming from the first wave when the second built almost immediately beneath it, sharp and unstoppable. His nipples leaked freely under Chitali’s suckling tongue, nectar spilling from both chest and bloom in shimmering rivulets.

Sparrow cried out, voice breaking as the pleasure rose too fast, too soon. His whole body convulsed, clenching tight around Xilotl’s cock. Nectar poured, his thighs quaking, his back bowing until his spine ached.

And then—through the haze of blossoms and iridescent eyes—he glimpsed him: a silent shadow at the garden’s edge, Tzi’chi, watching from among the lotus and vine.

A sob ripped from Sparrow’s throat, the ache of pleasure tangled with something deeper, more desperate. His vision blurred with tears even as his body peaked again, shaking around Xilotl in helpless bliss.

The crocodilian growled low, satisfied, driving through Sparrow’s second climax with unyielding strength. “Yes. Again. Spill for us, flower.”

When Sparrow slumped, trembling and weeping nectar, Xilotl lifted his head toward the looming shadow of another. “Kozael,” he commanded, his teeth bared in a smile. “Take his bloom. Fill him from the front.”

The monstrous Komodo-like lizard rumbled his assent, moving forward with the slow, implacable confidence of a predator. His broad claws caught Sparrow’s thighs, lifting and parting them further as his heavy muzzle dipped to taste the nectar spilling from the bloom. Then, with a guttural growl, Kozael pressed his thick length to the trembling opening and sank inside.

Sparrow’s scream was broken, high and desperate. The bloom stretched, yielding with a wet sound as Kozael filled him. The dual sensation—Xilotl pounding his backside, Kozael pressing deep into the bloom—was unbearable, exquisite, tearing another wave of pleasure from him even before he had finished sobbing the last.

His mind went white, everything dissolving in heat and bliss. In that blankness, memory stirred—dreamlike, wistful.

Lyre’s hands, long and graceful, coaxing sound from strings and from Sparrow’s body alike. Vesper’s laugh, soft against his throat, the diplomat’s son with lips tasting of wine. The three of them tangled together in lamplight, touching, kissing, sighing as though nothing else in the world mattered. Sparrow remembered the warmth of that night—the safety, the tenderness, their bodies joined in a way that made him feel cherished, not consumed.

The memory lingered like a half-heard melody, faint against the roar of present pleasure. His body shuddered, gasping under the weight of both lizards inside him, nectar spilling in gushes. His chest buds throbbed under Chitali’s lapping tongue, each tug sending him spiraling further.

He was lost, blooming, broken open in worship, haunted by the ghost of gentler love.

The dream clung to him like cobwebs. Lyre’s long fingers stroking the bow across strings, then Sparrow’s skin, music and touch one and the same. Vesper’s soft voice in his ear, whispering politics one moment and poetry the next, his lips tasting faintly of dark wine. Sparrow remembered their laughter—the way their hands met across his chest, the gentle way they held him. For one night, he had not been prince, or offering, or bloom. He had simply been loved.

The memory blurred, dissolving into another face—sharp smile, quick wit, hair always in his eyes. Kit. The ache in Sparrow’s chest nearly undid him. Kit would worry. Lyre and Vesper, too. Stars, how long had it been? How many days—or weeks—since he’d been on the sea and then stranded here? He needed to write, to send them word, to say I’m alive. He needed them to know.

His thoughts fractured as Kozael thrust deeper, his massive length filling Sparrow’s bloom until nectar spilled in floods. At the same time, Xilotl drove up into him from behind, battering his swollen pleasure point, pinning him between their relentless bodies.

Sparrow’s cry rang through the lush arches of the garden, his body overwhelmed, nectar pouring from every trembling seam.

Xilotl snarled against his shoulder, his thrusts growing ragged. “Flower, perfect flower—tight—clutch me, take me!” His hips slammed harder, each stroke sinking him to the hilt.

Kozael groaned low and guttural, his claws pressing bruises into Sparrow’s thighs as he drove home, filling the bloom to its limit. “He blooms around me—drinks me in,” the Komodo rumbled, shuddering.

Sparrow’s climax tore through him like lightning, every nerve detonating, his bloom fluttering around Kozael as his backside milked Xilotl at once. His chest spilled nectar down Chitali’s eager tongue until, with a sudden jolt, Sparrow bucked so violently that the little gecko yelped and toppled off his chest with a squeak, landing on the mossy floor in a tangle of limbs and tail.

The circle’s hissing laughter rose high, half-mirth, half-exaltation.

Sparrow barely noticed. He was lost in the flood, writhing helplessly as both Xilotl and Kozael roared their release, hot surges filling him front and back, spilling out in thick streams mingled with his nectar. The thing inside him throbbed under Ixchara’s scaled palm, his thighs slick, his body trembling in a haze of ecstasy.

At last, drained and shaking, Sparrow sagged against Xilotl’s chest, his lashes wet with tears, his lips parted as he tried to remember how to breathe.

He thought dimly of Lyre, Vesper, Kit—his heart aching with love, even as his body was worshipped, used, adored. He hoped they would forgive him for being lost for so long.

And then the Garland’s voices rose around him again, sibilant, triumphant, as if the Eons themselves bore witness to the offering.

“His body is so hungry, the offering so well fed. He will produce for the Great Serpent for many, many cycles.”

Ixchara smiled at Xyloh, eyes shimmering. “He may be our savior. If we can keep him blooming for the Serpent, He will not demand our flesh. And if He does not demand our flesh, we will not become ambrosia.”

The great turtle-shelled matron sighed, her voice deep as the tide. “This bloom is one of us now, Ixchara. At the first sign of his withering, we must protect him as we would any of our Garland.”

Kozael rumbled low in his chest as he withdrew from Sparrow’s bloom, thick streams spilling out as he shifted the small flower into his arms. Despite his size and monstrous frame, his hold was surprisingly gentle, cradling Sparrow against his scaled chest. Xilotl followed, pulling out with a final groan, leaving Sparrow slick, trembling, and weakly clinging to Kozael’s shoulders.

The Komodo’s heavy head bent close, his slit-pupiled gaze oddly tender as he regarded the fragile, nectar-slick creature in his arms. He said nothing, only rumbled a sound deep in his throat that might have been approval.

Sparrow blinked blearily up at him, lips curling into a weak, crooked smile. “So this is why you lot keep dunking me in baths all the time.”

A ripple of laughter hissed through the Garland, sibilant and strange, echoing against the stone arches. Even Ixchara’s stern mouth curved faintly, while Chitali—still sticky with nectar—giggled openly.

Held safe in Kozael’s arms, Sparrow let his head fall against the Komodo’s chest body passing into exhausted, filled sleep.

Notes:

Next time on Sparrow Just Keeps Rolling With This Experience for Some Reason (Probably Because He’s a People Pleaser): The Offering Makes Its Appearance.

Chapter 6: The Blooming Garden's Offering

Summary:

In the Serpent’s garden, Sparrow wakes to a terrifying bloom and the first luminous offerings the Ixalcoatl demands, while a whispered prophecy coils tight around his fate.

Sparrow woke to the sound of water.

Not the crash of waves he’d always known, but the trickle of hidden fountains and the hiss of mist cascading down broad-leafed vines. Light streamed through panes high above, scattering the garden-housing in fractured rainbows. It smelled of orchids and scales and something faintly metallic, as if stone itself had been rubbed smooth with incense.

He shifted and froze.

His belly was heavy. Not just full, but weighted, as if something pressed low inside him, foreign and real. He laid a trembling hand against it, his pulse skittering.

“Oh stars,” Sparrow whispered, throat dry. “Oh no. No, no, no.” His mind spun. Did they—? Am I—?

The thought speared through him with sick heat: eggs.

He bolted upright, clutching at the blankets draped over his waist, breath hitching as his fingers pressed into the taut swell of his abdomen. The images came unbidden—shells inside him, leathery and alien, nests and clutches and hatchlings. His skin crawled.

“No, no, no,” he hissed again, half to himself, half to the mother goddess of his people who might or might not be listening. “That’s not—people don’t just—” His voice cracked. “Do they?”

His mind raced, scrabbling for sense, for science, for anything to explain the heavy throb in his gut that wasn’t the horror his imagination supplied. Maybe it was just swelling. Maybe it was leftover from the fruit. Maybe he was simply bloated. Stars above, he hoped it was bloating.

But even that thought made him wince. He hated how stupid he felt. He wasn’t Wren—sharp, clever, well-read in a dozen disciplines—or Finch with his calm reasoning and instinct for people. He was Sparrow: unstudied, unschooled in the way of the world, the brother who loved his stars and the safety of astromancy that came as naturally as breathing. He was the one who got lost in the poetry of the constellations, the one who would rather sketch verses in the margins of his charts than memorize histories or sciences.

And now here he was, terrified, clutching at his own belly like a child, unable to name what was happening inside him.

The leafy canopy above swayed as if in answer, and he realized the Garland must be near. He could hear them—the faint scrape of scales, the ripple of hoods, the soft, communal hissing that meant conversation. They had housed him in their heart, wrapped him in their home, and yet all he could do was shake and whisper in panic.

“I swear, if I wake up one day and I’m laying clutches—” He buried his face in his hands, groaning. “Kit is never going to believe this. Lyre would write a cheeky opera. Vesper—stars, Vesper would smirk and say he told me diplomacy could get messy.”

The thought made his throat tighten, equal parts longing and despair.

Then it struck—sharp, sudden pain low in his belly, followed by a mounting pressure in his nether regions. Sparrow gasped and cried out, clutching himself, fear spiking white-hot through him.

The rustle of scales broke through his cry. A shadow filled the doorway—broad, heavy, unshakable. Kozael. His Komodo bulk moved with surprising silence, slit-pupiled gaze steady as he stepped into the chamber. Behind him, Ixchara followed.

She crossed the floor without hesitation, her hands lifting Sparrow’s blanket. Her gaze dropped low, inspecting the quivering pulse between his thighs. “You ripened fast,” she said simply, her tone equal parts observation and reverence.

Sparrow choked out a laugh that landed hollow even in his own ears. “Great. Quick-ripening fruit. I always wanted that on my resume.” The joke faltered, falling flat. His chest hitched, his eyes stung.

When he dared look down, he saw it: nectar slicking down from his nipples in pearled trails, his bloom pulsing and wet between his thighs, hidden yet throbbing as if alive on its own. The sight undid him. His throat closed, tears spilling freely.

“I’m just—” His voice cracked. He covered his face, shaking. “I’m just a stupid elf prince. I don’t know why this is happening to me. I don’t—goddess—what did you do to me? What’s wrong with my body?”

Reality was starting to claw its way to his heart, which beat at a lightspeed pace.

Kozael made a low sound, more vibration than word, deep in his chest. He crouched beside the bed, his huge clawed hand resting with surprising gentleness on Sparrow’s thigh. His heavy muzzle dipped low, and he gave a slow, deliberate blink—soothing in its quiet way, a reptile’s reassurance.

“You are not broken,” he rumbled at last, voice gravel-thick but steady. “You are… beautiful. Strong. Different, but not wrong.”

He didn’t understand, he couldn’t, and Sparrow forgave him that.  To him, this was normal.

Ixchara leaned in, her scaled hand brushing Sparrow’s damp cheek, smearing away a tear with the pad of her thumb. Her eyes glimmered sharp and bright as cut gems. “Little elf,” she said, her voice low as she tasted the word for the first time, heavy with meaning, “this is not our doing. It is the Maw. The Blooming Maw does not touch what it does not desire. It chose you. It shaped you. Your body flowers because the Serpent wills it.”

Sparrow shook his head, sobbing softly, caught between Kozael’s quiet rumble and Ixchara’s unshakable certainty. His chest heaved, his belly throbbed, his bloom pulsed like a second heart between his legs.

And for the first time, he realized—there might not be a way back to the boy who had loved his stars.

Sparrow’s sobs deepened, spilling out of him in ragged little gasps. His hands trembled as he clutched the blanket to his chest, then let it fall, ashamed of hiding.

“I want to go home,” he whispered, the words breaking like glass in his throat. “I should have even been on that boat. What was father thinking? I was shipwrecked. I didn’t mean—” His face crumpled, tears streaking hot down his cheeks. “I didn’t mean to end up here.”

Ixchara tilted her head, reptilian eyes unreadable. Kozael only blinked slowly, steady and silent, his heavy presence anchoring Sparrow even as his heart raced.

“There are people at home who miss me,” Sparrow went on, voice spilling faster now, desperate. “People I miss. My brothers. My—” His throat closed on the words, but he forced them out anyway. “Kit. Lyre. Vesper. They’ll think I’m dead. They’ll think I’m gone forever.”

His chest hitched. “I don’t want them to think I didn’t care. Because I do. Stars, I do.”

He wiped at his wet face with the back of his hand, then reached toward Kozael without thinking. His palm found the Komodo’s broad snout, warm and ridged beneath his fingers. He stroked slowly, shakily, the gesture as much to comfort himself as to soothe the massive creature. “You’re lovely,” Sparrow whispered, lips quivering into a weak smile. “All of you are. It’s not that. It’s just—I’m not supposed to be here.”

Kozael leaned into the touch with surprising gentleness, his slow, deliberate blink holding Sparrow steady. A low rumble shivered in his chest, almost a purr.

But then it struck.

A sharp contraction ripped through Sparrow’s belly, doubling him over with a cry. The pressure slammed down into his nether regions, hot and insistent, his bloom pulsing violently as slick nectar poured out. He clutched Kozael’s snout desperately, gasping against the scales, his whole body trembling under the force of it.

“Ah—hhhhh, what’s happening?” Sparrow gasped, his voice breaking, sweat slick on his brow. “Nobody has explained what the offering is. Am I—” his breath hitched as pain clenched low in his belly, “—am I about to lay eggs? I shouldn’t be laying eggs.”

His head rolled back against the cushions, grimacing as the ache spread into his lower back. “I don’t think I’d make a very good mother. I’m more the weird-but-well-meaning uncle material, or incompetent dad who just does his best.”

Ixchara’s hood flicked, and she shot a look at Kozael. “Go. Fetch the priestesses.”

The Komodo rumbled deep in his chest, unmoving, his broad hand still pressed to Sparrow’s trembling thigh.

“Kozael.” Her tone sharpened. “Now.”

Reluctantly, the great lizard shifted, lowering Sparrow gently back against the cushions. He lingered a moment longer, eyes reluctant, before lumbering out through the marble archway.

When the heavy scrape of his tail faded, Ixchara leaned closer,  fingers brushing Sparrow’s damp hair from his forehead. Her voice softened, low and deliberate. “You are not laying eggs, little one. Do not fear. What swells in you are offerings—nectar turned seed, fruit of the Maw’s blessing. Not clutches, not hatchlings. Offerings.”

Sparrow barked a laugh that broke halfway into a sob. He gestured weakly at his belly, swollen and tight beneath stretching his skin taut. “Ixchara, I look pregnant. My back aches, I’ve got pressure in places I didn’t even know existed, and if this isn’t what labor feels like, then the universe owes women everywhere an apology because I heard it is the worst pain on Yor and this is the worst.”

His voice cracked, and he pressed an arm over his chest as more sticky nectar dripped from his nipples. “And on top of it—I’m lactating. Lactating, Ixchara. Hummingbird food, dripping out of me like it’s nothing.” He gave a broken laugh, eyes blurring with tears. “I don’t even know what part of the food pyramid I am anymore.”

Ixchara’s ringed hand pressed steadily against his belly, feeling the pulse of the bloom beneath. Her eyes glinted, not unkind. “Strange as it feels, this is the Maw’s gift. You are ripening. Every ache, every drop—it is all part of the flowering. You are not alone in this.”

“I didn’t ask for this.” His voice shook, jaw tightening as another contraction seized him, bowing his back with pain.

The diaphanous curtains stirred, scales rasped against stone, and suddenly the chamber was alive with motion. The priestesses swept in—frilled, robed, their careful hands already full of bowls, cloths, and vials that glimmered with oils. Their hissing voices blended in a chorus of urgency and prayer.

And then, another presence.

Tzi’chi slipped in behind them, shadow draped across his shoulders like a cloak, his strange eyes fixed on Sparrow as though nothing else in the room existed.

Ixchara’s hood snapped wide. She moved instantly, stepping between them. One hand shot out, catching Tzi’chi by the arm, her strength enough to pull him back from the bed. “What are you doing here, dreamhunter?” she hissed, her voice sharp as glass. “Your task was done. You were not summoned.”

Tzi’chi’s gaze did not waver, still locked on Sparrow, though his smile was a faint, unsettling curl.

Ixchara pulled him further aside, her eyes narrowing. “Tell me, then—what did the Maw whisper to you of this fruit? What did it promise you, hunter, when it set you on the path to him?”

The priestesses bent to Sparrow as she spoke, their cool palms pressing to his belly, their scaled hands soothing, preparing. Sparrow whimpered, another contraction tearing through him, but his blurred gaze darted toward Tzi’chi despite the pain, throat tightening with a sob he could not hold back.

Tzi’chi’s strange eyes gleamed in the light, fixed unblinking on Sparrow even as Ixchara held him back. His voice was soft, threaded with dream.

“The bloom spoke of the stars,” he murmured. “It said they would bend, that their songs would quicken when its vessel awoke. That he would not be fruit for the Serpent, but a sky to be filled.” His smile was faint and unreadable. “The Maw’s vessel. His body, her garden. That is what I was told.”

Ixchara’s grip on his arm tightened, her hood flicking with unease. “Careful with your tongue, dreamhunter.” But she could not keep his gaze from Sparrow.

Sparrow groaned, a sharp contraction arching his back again. His belly tightened beneath the priestesses’ palms, the pressure low and unbearable. He gasped, tears streaking his flushed cheeks.

The priestesses hissed in unison, their frills lifting as they moved with practiced grace. One uncorked a vial, anointing her hands with golden oil that shimmered faintly in the warm light. She pressed it gently across Sparrow’s lower belly, another smoothed it down his thighs, and a third rubbed the warm slickness along the trembling petals of his bloom.

The effect was immediate. The ache softened, then melted, unwinding into shivers of pleasure that stole Sparrow’s breath. He gasped, his moan breaking high as the pain dulled into heat, into something that made his toes relax instead of clench.

“Better,” one priestess whispered. “It eases him.”

“His bloom ripened so quickly,” another murmured, almost in awe. “Faster than any before.”

They shifted him carefully, guiding him onto his back, lifting his knees, and parting them wide. Pillows and folded blankets were tucked beneath his hips, tilting him open in a posture both vulnerable and ceremonial. Their scaled hands supported his thighs, their serpentine bodies crowding close in a circle of touch and breath.

Ixchara’s firm hand returned to his belly, pressing gently where the swell pulsed. “Breathe, little one. The first offering comes.”

Sparrow’s fingers clutched blindly at the sheets, his head rolling against the cushions as his bloom throbbed, wet and open. The pressure shifted low, insistent, and he moaned as the priestesses’ oils turned it all to liquid fire—pleasure and ache, tangled so tightly he could no longer tell them apart.

Sparrow’s breath came fast, ragged, his chest rising and falling in shallow waves. His belly ached and tightened, his bloom pulsing with wet insistence. The priestesses’ hands never left him, scaled palms stroking his thighs, belly, chest, each touch slick with fragrant oils that tingled against his skin.

Another contraction seized him. His back bowed, a strangled cry breaking from his throat—yet the oil’s heat dulled the pain, turned it into something unbearable in a different way. His hips lifted, trembling, seeking relief.

“Easy,” one priestess whispered, smoothing oil over his bloom, her sharp claws glistening with his nectar. “It is close. It comes.”

Ixchara leaned over him, her hood glowing in the fractured light. Her hand pressed low against his belly, steadying, guiding. “Breathe, little one. Do not fight it. You ripen because the Maw wills it.”

“I—I can’t—” Sparrow gasped, tears streaking his face. His thighs shook, his nipples leaking nectar that the priestesses caught with reverent fingers. “I don’t—” His words broke into a sob as the pressure bore down harder, filling him with the sense that something alive and glowing was pushing low, lower, forcing its way through.

“Shhh,” another priestess soothed, her tongue flicking against his damp cheek. “You can. You must. The offering is ready.”

The contraction peaked, Sparrow’s cry rising to the sculpted arches. His bloom spread, slick and shining, petals parting wider than they ever had. Pressure gave way to burning fullness, then to something sliding, heavy, and alive.

And then—release.

The first offering slipped free into the waiting hands of the priestesses: a glistening orb the size of a grapefruit, luminous as pearl, its surface slick with nectar and glowing faintly from within.

Sparrow collapsed against the cushions of his bed, sobbing with relief, pleasure still shivering through him. His bloom pulsed wetly, honeyed fluid spilling down his thighs, his whole body trembling.

“It is beautiful,” one priestess whispered, lifting the orb high. “Perfect.”

“Never has one so swiftly produced been so lusterous, so dense with primordia,” another breathed, reverence soft in her hiss.

Ixchara touched Sparrow’s damp hair, pressing his head gently back into the cushions. “You have done well, little elf. The Maw has chosen truly. You are her vessel. Each offering will make us stronger.”

Sparrow stared dazedly at the glowing orb, his lips trembling. His chest ached with the weight of it all—grief, wonder, confusion. He felt wrung out, emptied, yet still thrumming. His bloom twitched as though unwilling to rest.

Then another contraction seized him. His body arched, a broken cry spilling from his lips. The priestesses turned at once, their frills snapping open, eyes gleaming with awe.

“He ripens again,” one whispered. “There is more—two, at least.”

Sparrow clutched blindly at Kozael’s arm as the Komodo settled behind him to cradle his trembling body. “N-no, please—” he gasped, though the oils turned the pain again into molten heat that stole his breath. His thighs shook, nectar streaming, his bloom already fluttering with the next burden pressing low.

The Garland marveled over the firstfruit still glowing in their hands, but their voices now lifted higher in amazement. “So many. So quickly. The Maw has blessed him beyond measure.”

Sparrow sobbed as the pressure built, tears streaking down his flushed face. He could feel it coming again, unstoppable, another shining weight pressing down to be born of him.

Kozael supported him from behind, broad chest a wall of heat, his thick arm supporting Sparrow’s shoulders. As the elf trembled, the Komodo’s claws threaded carefully through Sparrow’s damp hair, combing it back from his wet face in a strangely tender rhythm.

Sparrow leaned weakly into the touch, until Kozael’s hand drifted lower—across his collarbone, down the sheen of his chest. His thick fingers brushed Sparrow’s nipple, slick with nectar, swollen and puffy against his palm.

Sparrow gasped.

He looked down and saw them as Kozael did: buds rounded, flushed, glistening, softened into something almost breast-like. His breath caught on a sob, shame and disbelief twisting in his chest. “Oh stars—no—”

Kozael rumbled low in his throat, neither mocking nor cruel, only steady. His thumb stroked over the damp peak, gathering the shining nectar as though it were sacred. He lifted it to his mouth, tasting. His golden eyes softened, unreadable but not unkind.

Sparrow’s tears broke freely. “I—my body—what is it doing to me?”

But he had no time to answer. Another contraction slammed through him, stronger than the last. His belly clenched, his back bowed, and his bloom pulsed violently between his thighs, gushing nectar over the cloths and cushions. He screamed, clutching at Kozael’s scaled arm as the weight shifted inside him, heavy, pressing low, demanding to be freed.

The priestesses hissed encouragement, their hands stroking oil across his thighs, his belly, his trembling bloom. “Breathe, vessel. Yield. The next comes.”

Sparrow sobbed, his body straining, the burn building to a shattering fullness. His thighs quaked, his bloom stretched—and then, with a wet, radiant slip, the second fruit crowned and spilled into reverent hands waiting below.

This one was larger than the first, glowing brighter, slick with nectar that dripped in gleaming rivulets onto the bedding. The priestesses raised it, their voices rising in hissing prayer.

Kozael’s hand stroked Sparrow’s damp hair again, grounding him as he shook, exhausted and horrified, his chest heaving. His nipples leaked freely, his bloom fluttering, his body undone—yet already, deep within, he felt the pressure of the third fruit beginning to stir.

There was no pause. No chance to breathe, to gather himself. Even as the priestesses marveled over the secondfruit, Sparrow felt the next contraction slam through him, deep and brutal, wringing a cry from his throat.

His belly tightened like iron, the pressure unbearable, crushing down through his core. His bloom spasmed violently.

“It comes again,” one priestess hissed in awe, hood flaring high. “The third—already, already!”

Sparrow sobbed, his legs trembling in the priestesses’ loving grip. The fullness inside him was heavier than before, vast and unyielding. His bloom stretched, straining wider, every nerve alight with pain that melted, impossibly, into pleasure. His vision blurred with tears, his cry breaking into a moan as his hips rolled helplessly against the hands that held him open.

“Breathe,” another whispered, smoothing oil along the trembling petals of his bloom. “Let it come, bloom. Let it crown.”

Kozael’s clawed hand pressed firm against his belly, guiding the heavy orb downward, his other hand combing Sparrow’s damp hair back, brushing tears from his face. His golden eyes never wavered. “Strong,” he rumbled, voice thick as stone. “So strong. You open so well, flower.”

The pressure built to shattering. Sparrow screamed, his whole body arched taut as the largest fruit yet forced its way free. His bloom stretched around it, slick and trembling—and as it slid through, bursting past the point of agony, Sparrow’s body convulsed with pleasure.

He came.

The orgasm ripped through him raw, his bloom gushing nectar in floods, his chest buds spurting sweetness as his whole body shook apart. His cry rang to the arches, half ecstasy, half broken sob.

And then it was over—the thirdfruit, massive and radiant, slipped into the priestesses’ waiting arms. They raised it high, voices shrill with reverence. “Three offerings! So soon, so swift! He is chosen, blessed beyond all reckoning!”

Sparrow collapsed into Kozael’s hold, trembling, his body slick with sweat and nectar. His bloom twitched weakly, emptied, his chest still dripping sweetness down his belly. He sobbed and gasped, overwhelmed.

Kozael bent close, pressing his heavy snout against Sparrow’s damp hair. A low, steady rumble vibrated in his chest—a purr, a hymn. “Beautiful flower,” he whispered in his gravel-deep voice. “You bear for us. You shine. The Maw chose well.”

The priestesses hissed in awe, their tails shivering as they clustered around the three glowing offerings, their eyes alight with triumph.

And Sparrow, limp and trembling in Kozael’s arms, wept with exhaustion, unsure if he was broken—or holy.

The chamber quieted, save for Sparrow’s trembling breaths and the faint hiss of cloth shifting under him. The priestesses moved quickly, gathering the three radiant orbs into ceremonial bowls lined with moss and petals. Their hoods flared wide in pride as they lifted the glowing burden, bearing it as though it were a sacred treasure.

Sparrow stirred in Kozael’s arms, blinking dazedly through sweat and tears. His voice came hoarse, cracking as he pushed the words out. “Wait—where are you going? Those—they came from me. Why are you taking them?”

The priestesses glanced back, their eyes gleaming with reverence but their hisses sharp as blades. “Rest, vessel. You have given. You must recover.”

Sparrow struggled to sit up, one weak hand fumbling toward them. “But they look like eggs! They are eggs, aren’t they? From me—out of me—and now you’re just… carrying them away?” His laugh broke high and panicked. “You can’t expect me not to ask!”

The tallest priestess turned, her frill shimmering with authority. “Not eggs. Offerings. Fruit of the Maw. They are not yours to keep, but His to claim. The Great Serpent receives all, and in that, we are preserved.”

Sparrow shook his head, tears brimming again. “You keep saying fruit, but stars, I saw them—they look like eggs. Big, glowing, sticky eggs. What is He going to do with them?”

“Shhh.” One of the smaller priestesses slithered forward, placing a cool hand against his damp cheek, her tongue flicking near his temple in a gesture both soothing and silencing. “Do not trouble yourself with the Serpent’s will. You are tired. You must rest, or you will wither before your next flowering.”

Sparrow let out a sharp, helpless laugh, broken at the edges. “Rest—after laying eggs that apparently aren’t eggs. Sure. Easy.” His belly cramped faintly as if in echo, and he flinched, clutching at Kozael’s arm for grounding.

The bowls glowed in the priestesses’ hands as they swept from the chamber, leaving only the heavy scent of nectar and the hollow ache in Sparrow’s gut.

Sparrow sagged against Kozael, every muscle trembling, every breath shuddering in his chest. His eyelids fluttered, heavy as lead, though panic still gnawed at the edges of his thoughts. He wanted to keep asking—about the eggs, about the Serpent, about why his body had been turned into a garden—but the words slipped like water through his teeth.

The exhaustion pressed down harder, not natural, not just from his body’s labor. It was the temple itself, its humid air thick with perfume and power, wrapping him, drugging him, coaxing him toward silence. The verdant walls seemed to breathe with him, pulling him under.

The Garland entered in a hush of scales and silk. Jewel-bright claws dipped cloths into bowls of scented water, wiping nectar and sweat from his trembling body. Cool palms supported his legs, smoothed oils across his thighs and chest. Gentle tongues flicked against his skin, tasting, soothing, assuring him he was tended.

“You are safe,” someone hissed softly in his ear. “You are ours.”

Sparrow tried to protest, but only a weak sound escaped him. His head lolled against Kozael’s chest, the deep rumble of the Komodo’s breathing steady beneath his cheek. The warmth of scaled bodies closed in, the perfume of orchids and oils wrapping around him like a net.

His eyes slipped shut.

The last thing he knew was the feeling of hands—many, scaled, cool—washing him clean as the temple’s influence pulled him down, slow and deep, into sleep.

-

The dream was a warm memory, gilded with candlelight and the lingering resonance of strings.

Sparrow stood just outside the small dressing room, chest still fluttering with the echoes of the performance. His cheeks glowed, lilac eyes wide and shining, his lips parted with awe as though he hadn’t quite caught his breath since the last note fell. The music still lived in him, thrumming through bone and blood, his body alight with it.

Beside him, Finch leaned against the wall with his arms folded, his expression polite but faintly weary, as though this sort of thing—artists, concerts, eager little brothers—was something to be endured rather than savored. His dark eyes slid to Sparrow, a corner of his mouth twitching in dry amusement. “You look like you’ve just seen the heavens themselves,” he murmured.

“I did,” Sparrow whispered, almost reverent, pressing a hand to his chest. “Did you hear him, Finch? Every note, it—it wasn’t just played, it was alive. Like he was speaking straight to me, to my stars.”

Finch arched a brow. “To your stars. Of course.” He straightened his cuffs with deliberate slowness. “I suppose to everyone else it was just… music.”

Sparrow shook his head, curls falling into his face, a shy smile breaking over his lips. “Not just music. Never just music.”

The door opened with a soft creak, and Lyre stepped out. Tall, lean, every movement graceful in the way of cats, his dark skin still glistened faintly from the heat of performance. Long black hair spilled damp at his shoulders, framing a face of sharp lines softened by the glimmer of his bright chartreuse eyes. They caught the lamplight like cut jewels, shifting with a feline intelligence that made it difficult to look away.

His gaze landed on them, and a smile tugged at his lips—subtle, tired, yet carrying the quiet warmth of someone who lived half in music. “You waited,” he said simply, his voice low and melodic, each word falling with the measured rhythm of his art.

Sparrow’s heart leapt so sharply he thought it might rattle out of his chest. He straightened, too quick, nearly tripping over his own robe hem before blurting, “Of course I did.” His cheeks flushed, lilac eyes wide and shining with awe.

Finch, arms folded and expression faintly bored, muttered under his breath, “Some of us didn’t have a choice.”

Lyre’s eyes flicked to him briefly, amused but unbothered, before returning to Sparrow—lingering, steady, as though he already knew which of the brothers was truly here for him.

Lyre’s gaze lingered, viridian eyes gleaming faintly in the lamplight. Then, with a slow, deliberate grace, he stepped closer. His long fingers reached for Sparrow’s hand, cool and deft, lifting it with the same reverence he might give his bow.

Before Sparrow could even think to protest, Lyre bent low and brushed his lips across Sparrow’s knuckles—soft, lingering just enough to burn.

Sparrow’s breath caught. Heat rushed up his neck to his ears, and for one dizzying moment, he thought he might actually faint. His lilac eyes darted down, wide and stunned, only to find Lyre watching him through the fall of his dark hair, smiling faintly like he knew exactly what he was doing.

“Lyre,” he said, voice smooth as velvet. “At your service, Your Highness.”

Sparrow made a strangled little sound that was supposed to be words, his throat tight with awe and nerves. “I—ah—you were—amazing. I mean, the music was. You were amazing too—are amazing—I just—”

Finch exhaled audibly, long-suffering, and muttered, “Goddess save us.”

But Lyre’s attention never wavered, his fingers still gently cradling Sparrow’s hand. “And you,” he said, his smile deepening, “must be the prince who hears the constellations.”

Sparrow felt the heat bloom in his cheeks and rush to the tips of his finely pointed ears. “I—I, that’s me!” he stammered, lilac eyes darting anywhere but the cellist’s bright green gaze.

Finch made a rude sound with his lips, leaning forward as though bored beyond repair. “I’m leaving. You two don’t need me to supervise your first time batting lashes at each other.”

“FINCH!” Sparrow yelped, covering his face with his free hand. “We aren’t flirting!”

Lyre’s low laugh carried the same velvet quality as his music. “I am most definitely flirting,” he said, still cradling Sparrow’s hand.

Finch rolled his eyes skyward, muttering something about lost causes as he stalked down the corridor, leaving them alone. The silence left behind was thick with Sparrow’s racing heart and Lyre’s steady, catlike presence.

Later, the two of them walked side by side through the palace’s public garden, the summer air rich with jasmine and the fountain’s cool spray. Lanterns burned low, but above them the sky opened wide and glittering. Lyre walked with his hands clasped behind his back, gaze tilted not at the flowers but at Sparrow.

“You truly hear them, then?” Lyre asked. “The constellations?”

Sparrow’s face lit at the question, his earlier shyness forgotten. He turned his gaze upward, pointing eagerly. “There—do you see? The Crown of Veyth, the seven stars that bend around the horizon? They’re said to mark where the veil between worlds thins. And there—the Twin Arks. Sailors swear they guide ships back to harbor.” His voice grew brighter, lilac eyes shining. “And that cluster—Garan’s Flame. It burns red in the winter sky, a warning of storms to come.”

Lyre watched him with quiet amusement as Sparrow went on, his hands gesturing animatedly to trace lines only he could see.

“It isn’t just poetry,” Sparrow continued breathlessly. “It’s astromancy. The stars aren’t silent—they’re alive. They speak to us, to those who can hear. They shape the tides, the crops, the fates of kings. I—” he faltered, suddenly self-conscious, his voice dropping. “I spend most nights charting them. Sometimes I think I understand them better than I do people.”

Lyre’s lips curved faintly, his eyes catching the starlight. “Then tonight I am fortunate. To hear a prince translate the language of the heavens for me.”

Sparrow flushed again, torn between hiding his face and soaking in the attention.

Lyre reached out, his long fingers catching Sparrow’s hand and drawing him gently closer. His eyes now glimmered in the lantern light. “I wish to kiss you, Your Majesty,” he said softly, “if I may be so bold.”

Sparrow’s breath caught. “I—I—I’ve never… I don’t. Just the ambassador’s son.”

Lyre’s lips curved faintly. “I have competition then?”

“N-no! It’s not like that. He doesn’t really like me.”

“I find that difficult to believe.”

Sparrow bit his lip, gaze lowering. “I can be grouchy,” he confessed, almost sheepish. “I have fits of melancholy.”

Lyre’s voice softened, velvet in the night air. “That’s because you have an artist’s soul.”

For a long moment, they only stood there beneath the stars, the garden hushed around them. Then Lyre lifted Sparrow’s chin with a careful touch and bent low, his lips brushing against Sparrow’s in a kiss that was long and deep and wonderful. The world melted away, leaving only the heat of the touch, the taste of breath and sweetness, and the dizzying realization that he was wanted—truly wanted.

When at last they parted, Sparrow’s lilac eyes danced with starlight, his lips parted as though he had forgotten how to breathe. Lyre’s smile was faint, knowing, and unbearably tender.

The night closed around them, the stars burning overhead.

He was in love, and it felt amazing.

 

Notes:

Next time on Sparrow might be a bit slow, but really, he means well: an attempted escape.

Notes:

Sparrow is a prince of the High Grove, and the princes of the High Grove have the worst luck—same world as The Owl and the Oriole and Heart-Shaped Coffin, but no prior knowledge necessary.

I am the worst at tagging, so if you have a tag suggestion, please suggest. I am, in all truth, a moron.