Chapter Text
They met that morning the same way they always did: the maiden, carrying her basket of hen's eggs, walking to the central market the longest way, through the winding village side streets - the boy with his broom sweeping and re-sweeping the same spot over and over again to make sure his little shop's front steps were completely, impossibly, free of every flake of snow and dusting of the night's frost.
On any other day they'd simply bat their eyes in each other's respective direction, maybe stammer out a squeaky little "g'morning", before going about the rest of their day's business. Half of which inevitably consisted of wondering what the other was doing at any given time and whether they might have remembered that morning's encounter.
But today the young would-be lovers were in luck.
Today they were on Soap's list.
He shaped his bow from the vapours of the clouds around him, plucked one of the many extra feathers from the downy, overgrown fluff of his wings and teased it into the long from of an arrow. Soap knocked the feather into his bow, drew back his string, lined up the shot and let it fly.
It soared down from the sky towards the two humans, missing the girl and her basket by less than a hand-span and embedding itself into a particularly uneven cobble near her feet.
The girl had no way of seeing the magical arrow of course, but she could feel the sudden breeze its path cut through the air in front of her and she paused for a moment, just enough for the toe of her boot to catch on the upturned edge of the stone. She tripped forward with a surprised cry, trying to keep her basket and its fragile contents steady but it only swayed more wildly in the loop of her arm before it inevitably slid out of her grasp entirely.
It would have soared through the air and crashed to the ground if not for the convenient angle of the boy's broom stick. Holding it mostly motionless as he was, having long-since finished what little sweeping there might have been to be done, the handle of the girl's basket looped around the sturdy wood and slid down the broom stick right into the boy's equally sturdy arms.
The girl and the boy blinked at each other for a few moments, almost long enough for Soap to doubt himself, before the blushing and the laughter started.
Soap sighed.
Good. They could take it from there. Soap didn't have time to stick around to watch. He still had a dozen other couples on his docket for the day and some of the less human ones would be a lot more complicated than tripping kids too shy to start things off themselves into each other's arms.
And maybe, if Soap worked quick enough through his list, he might just have a spare few hours to try to see to his own needs. It was that or go through the arduous process of trying to find a temporary partner - and while spending another night alone trying to scratch itches much better soothed by a second set of hands, whatever company he'd be able to scrounge up for himself would inevitably be more trouble than it was worth and on top of all that, would only ever be a sad imitation of the deep, life-changing sort of connections he was helping direct with his arrows.
Even if the satisfaction from his own hands was only ever temporary, at least he was fooling himself.
Soap sighed again, shook out his too-fluffy wings and darted off to find the next two names on his long list.
Soap used to love "busy season".
He used to love love.
In some ways he still did - Watching two souls come together with a sudden, hot spark or a long, drawn-out thread, for a single night or a lifetime. It twisted something warm and fluttery in his chest. But there was a hell of a lot more bitter to the sweetness of it all than there used to be. Bit harder to craft unforgettable, life changing encounters and happy endings with a smile on your face day after day when you were pretty sure you went and cocked up your own past saving at the end of last season.
There was a reason Cupid was a temporary job title: once a lovebird found their soulmate and formed their permanent bond with them, they grew out of their cupid feathers and into whatever form best complimented their new mate. They could pass their responsibility for the world's romances onto the next fluffy-winged fledgling and live happily ever after with the love of their lives as a well-earned reward for a job well done.
Or at least that was how it had always worked before Soap.
He'd never really minded being the oldest, longest working Cupid on record before… that night. He'd flaunted it as a badge of pride for years, in fact: No one had been able to tie him down and make him molt his wings off because no one was good enough for him! No one deserved him except the world's desperate, feckless lovers.
And as much as he liked his job, he loved his wings and the freedom that came with them even more.
He didn't see what all the fuss was about anyway. If anything, Soap thought the fate of the last cupid should be considered a cautionary tale. Soap couldn't imagine giving up his wings for swollen, leaking teats and a round belly full of cubs. Sure, Price seemed deliriously happy and his mate doted on him hand and foot, but that wasn't the kind of life or even the sort of romance Soap was looking for. Soap had more than enough romance in his life watching a million and a half love stories play out safely from a distance in the clouds and when he did come down to earth, Soap had always found his time better spent with friends than any of the many fawning, would-be suitors who only wanted to tie him down and shape him into whatever perfect little mate they desired.
Soap had said once to Gaz, over maybe a few too many flagons of his finest, sweetest-spiced mead, that maybe he wished Gaz would just fuck him (or if he could just fuck Gaz - his bits would rearrange themselves as needed) and so Soap could get the whole pageantry over with. He didn't want to lose his wings but if he had to be grounded, getting stuck with Gaz would at least mean getting to work alongside him in the tavern together for the rest of their long, preternatural lives.
And he trusted Gaz not to knock him up the first bloody chance he got.
Gaz only laughed and told Soap he wasn't nearly smart enough to come up with the sort of riddles it took to be a half-decent Sphinx.
Soap had shot him in the rump with an arrow.
Gaz wasn't on his work list so the arrow didn't do anything more than make Gaz yowl like a street cat and chase him around the tap room until they were both panting and laughing like they were hatchlings and kittens themselves again.
It had been a joke. Mostly.
Just like Soap was happy with life as a Cupid.
Mostly.
Everything worked just as it should anyway.
Or, at least, everything had been fine until the next time Soap was out too long, too late at Gaz's tavern, too deep in both those same mead flagons and those same feelings. THAT was the time, Soap had maybe met and fucked his soul mate while he was too drunk to remember them, their name or most of what they looked like.
(Soap did remember exactly how warm and safe and secure they'd felt. He remembered how they'd smelled, impossibly, like the lazy wind at sunset and the promise of a night with a clear sky, a bright moon and a million and more stars to explore.)
It was easier to tell Gaz that all he remembered was them being big and blond which was something concrete and marginally less insane-sounding but still … unhelpful, as Gaz had been quick to remind him once he'd finished nursing Soap back from the beast of hangover he'd been left with, along with the empty, cold bed in the one of the tavern's guest rooms:
"Don't think I've seen you look twice at anything that wasn't big and blond, mate." Gaz had said with more of a smile on his face than Soap would have liked but less of one that Gaz could have made, given the fantastical lengths he'd apparently gone to fuck up his life. Because Gaz was right: whether Soap wanted to admit it or not, Soap's eyes did always seem to land on those with a rather specific set of features.
His life-sealing tryst could have been with anyone.
Anything even, given the sort of clientele that frequented The Answer.
(And a lovebird's capacity to breed or be bred by just about any shape of creature keen on doing the deed.)
Soap had convinced himself it was better this way - So what if he'd made a complete fool of himself. So what if he'd handed his virginity off to the first taker to catch him off guard enough to roll him into bed. Apparently, unless he found them again and sealed the deal further he still had his job and more importantly, despite him waking up with the parts between his legs that could had have resulted in some unwelcome, more lasting consequences than his bruised pride, there was no seed taking root in his belly and he still had his wings.
Even if they were now stuck in some kind of ever-molting in-between sort of state that drove him mad from the itch at his back.
(His body had also, apparently, decided he not only permanently had a cunt now, but the cursed fucking thing had a permanent, hungry heat to it that had certainly never been there before that fateful encounter. He'd never disliked having a cunt before and he'd played with it when he did enough to know how all the bits worked and how good they could feel with some personal attention, but he'd never before had to worry about his little cock getting all ruddy and sensitive from a soft breeze or his hole starting to leak because his mind had wandered back to the half-memory of big hands on his narrow waist.)
He pressed his thighs together and forced himself not to let himself get side-tracked. He had a job to do.
Because he could still fly.
He was still free.
And that was enough.
It was what he wanted, wasn't it? It had to be. It wasn't like he was ever going to find his magically-bound soulmate again. It wasn't like he wanted to - and even if he did, once word had gotten out that the current Cupid had somehow met his soulmate but was still flying around on the market, he was barely able to touch his feet down without being immediately accosted by someone looking to shoot their shot with the first-ever lovebird on the open market.
Soap didn't know which was worse: The ones who only wanted him for a night so they could say they'd fucked Cupid, or the ones that tried to convince him they were his mostly-forgotten soul mate.
That was one good thing about busy season, at least - the length of his list kept him aloft and away from potential distractions.
On the brighter side of things, all of his personal failings aside, Soap managed to strike through most of the names on today's list without issue or incident - for all that humans were mad, perplexing things who made very strange choices with their short lives, they were always the easiest matches to make. There was something inside most of them that longed for connection and companionship and all they really needed was a little nudge in the right direction.
The pairings between humans and non-human creatures were always a little bit more challenging, but still never required more than one, clean, if slightly more creative shot. Once Soap provided the opening for them, human curiosity never failed to finish his job for him.
Insane, wonderful creatures.
Not for the first time, Soap wondered what it would have been like if things had been that easy for him and … whoever he had found that night.
Did that mean his soulmate wasn't human?
Most non-humans had their own courtship rituals and traditions they'd been doing for a hundred years or more, that were consequently very suited to their specific needs and magical biology. If two non-humans ended up on Soap's list, it was usually because they were drastically different type of creatures, too stubbornly set in their own ways to meet in the middle without substantial help from the current Cupid.
It was one of the reason's he'd gotten his current moniker - on account of how fast and efficiently he cleaned up those sorts of messes.
Did that mean that his soulmate was not only more than human, but maybe just as powerful and tangled up in the trappings of their species and station as Soap was?
Soap shook his head and the twitch out of his overly-sensitive, too-downy wings with an extra angry few flaps.
It didn't matter who his soulmate was, what sort of creature they were, or if their own hang ups might be keeping them from Soap as much as his were from them. He didn't want to meet them and he'd need his wits about to take care of the next name on his list.
Ghost.
His name on Soap's list was certainly a surprise. Moreso because it wasn't an entirely unfamiliar one.
The stallion had a rather infamous reputation as a warrior, among other, stranger rumours that couldn't possibly all be true.
Ghost and some of his herd were occasional patrons of The Answer, mostly on special occasions or festival nights. Apparently he'd known Price reasonably well, before he'd retired as cupid, because when Ghost did stop in he always made a point of asking after him with Gaz. Soap could only assume that Ghost missed his old drinking buddy, now that Price was too busy getting fucked full of cubs every season by his big, bear of a mate to get out to The Answer for a drink anymore. But it was still strangely nosey of him. Now that Price was mated there was no reason for anyone else to be sniffing around looking for gossip.
Right?
The first time Soap had seen him he'd been … curious about him. To say the least.
(Gaz had quite a bit more to say about it. 'Ghost' was, after all, as much a nickname because of his pale, almost white blond mane as it was for the skull mask he always wore. Plus, they didn't come much bigger than Centaurs, and Ghost was big even for that standard.)
But when Soap had flitted over to introduce himself, Ghost had been quick to shrug him off. Rude even.
He'd taken one look at Soap, muttered "Fucking hell" and all but physically shooed him away.
Maybe that's why Ghost's was the only name on that line of his list. Too rude and spooky to attract his own love interest. Soap couldn't imagine who he'd possibly deign worthy to give the time of day, much less any romantic interest in. And, stranger still, the list provided no answers to that question. Ghost's name was alone on the list. No prospective partner even hinted. Maybe he was too ornery and bullish to properly match with anyone.
Soap had never seen that before.
Still, if he was on the list, he was on the list for a reason and it was Soap's job to figure out why. Even if all Soap did was chase the centaur around from the clouds and fire arrows at him for a few hours - that'd be a bit of a fun for Soap at least.
Soap plucked one of the larger feathers from his wings and shaped it into an arrow. Best to have one on hand just in case - one could never be too safe around centaurs - and then Soap flew away to chase down a Ghost.
Soap had long since tossed away that first arrow. He huffed and brushed away more snow and some little twigs out of his hair. They were annoying, scratchy little things and they seemed to insist on getting snagged on him and poking his wings. He didn't like being forced to fly this low and having to weave his way under the treeline worse still, but there was no avoiding it. It was too early for the trees to start sprouting their new spring leaves, but even their naked branches stretched out between each other and the occasional evergreen to create a thick lattice, and the thick cover of snow and ice did the rest.
It was almost impossible to even see through, much less shoot an arrow through. Even for a shot as good as Soap.
Not only was the going rough, but Ghost was proving to live properly up to his namesake.
Soap was beginning to suspect Ghost didn't even live in this forest. There were plenty of hoof tracks that had to be from centaurs - no self-respecting horse would venture this far in - but Soap hadn't seen any that could have been large enough to be from the big stallion.
Maybe the rest of the herd had long since kicked him out for his sour attitude. Maybe Ghost was too big to live in this stupid forest.
Who was Soap kidding, anyone who called himself Ghost probably loved living in a gloomy forest like this. Spooky bastard.
The sun was well on its way to setting. It was getting dark eerily fast in the shadows of all the trees and Soap's wings were starting to get tired and sore - faster than they ever had before. Probably all this damned low, slow flying. He refused to think about any other reason they might not be working like they used to. If he weaved back out of the treeline to get to open skies he still had to fly all the way back to his room at The Answer. Not to mention doing this whole trek back into the forest again come morning starting from scratch.
Soap's wings twitched at the thought.
Plus, his whole body felt like it was a little heavier than normal too, like he'd swallowed down a whole jug of two-sweet, honeyed milk. Maybe some new trick his buzzing, increasingly greedy cunt had devised to convince him to neglect his duties in favour of paying it ever more attention. He didn't really want to reward it for all the trouble it was causing him, but he'd work much better with a clear head and a lighter belly.
Maybe he really was going to have to take someone up on their offer - surely he could find someone who was only interested in fooling around with him once and then fucking off and leaving him be. He didn't love the idea, but maybe a something approaching but
not-quite-actually a full dick-down might satisfy his drooling cunt. Might be worth it if it temporarily settled his libido down and bought him some clear-headed time to figure things out and come up with a more permanent solution.
Not that Soap had seen anything in these woods so far he was interested in - he'd barely seen anything at all.
Which was a blessing in its own way, at least he'd have some privacy to see to his own needs. It was obvious he wasn't going to be making much more progress today. Better to get some rest, rub out one (or four) and start again in the morning.
It felt like a reasonable choice - especially since once he's started to look for one, Soap was able to find a suitable hollow in one of the massive, old trees. It wasn't quite as lofted as he would like, but it was full of undisturbed, dry leaves from last fall that made too tempting a warm bed to pass up. Once he shook out a few of his ever-molting feathers, it wasn't a half-bad nest. It was a far cry from the cozy, familiar one he kept back at Gaz's, but it'd do for the night.
Soap's thighs were already wet by the time he settled in and pushed his tunic up around his waist and out of the way. The little nub of his cock was swollen hard enough it was almost like it was trying to grow back out of his body on its own. He bit his lip and got to work - just because it seemed like he was alone, it didn't mean he was going to risk advertising what he was doing to the whole forest.
He managed the first one easily just by playing with this little cock but it got teeth-tinglingly sensitive about halfway to the second one so he gave it a break and slid one of his hands lower, between the wet folds of his cunt. Then he pushed aside the fabric covering his chest so he could massage one of the flat, puckered nipples on his sore chest.
That had been another novel body experience since that ill-fated night with his soulmate. His teats had always been flat and sunken-in, which had never bothered him before. It wasn't like he was planning on using them to feed anything anytime soon. Probably never, if it meant giving up flying, so it was convenient to have them tucked away. But now, his chest would swell and his nipples would get irritated if he didn't play with them enough - and even when he did they'd only get tender and more sensitive. He didn't know what he was doing wrong.
They did at least, like almost every other part of his body, feel better when he wriggled his fingers up into his leaking hole.
Even if his cunt always seemed hungry for something bigger and thicker than his fingers, that could reach whatever deep part up inside him was making him like this.
He could feel a third one building but like plenty of attempts before the actual crest of it kept eluding him everytime his tired hands slowed their rhythm and eventually he gave up and settled for good enough. But he dreamed of bigger, tireless hands between his legs and the smell of the wide night sky.
