[Aster]
The rustle of hay was the first thing that registered in Aster's mind as he slowly drifted back into consciousness, followed by the distant howl of the wind against the weathered walls of the barn, still angry as ever. The ache in his arms and legs was next, a dull, heavy thing that reminded him of the previous day's miseries, of walking through that endless snow and burning all those trees.
The ache in his testicles joined those of his limbs a moment later, but unlike them, this one he enjoyed. A warm smile spread across his face as he remembered the reason why they did so, of the reward he'd gotten for keeping them all warm. 'Best sleep ever,' he thought, sighing softly.
Whispers reached his ears then, the familiar, hushed voices of his mother and sister, barely audible over the crackle of the fire. He opened one eye, then the other, blinking against the soft orange glow of the flames. Both girls were already up and sitting by the fire, naked, with their backs to him, a familiar bag of grain between them. Their hair shimmered beautifully in the firelight as they murmured to each other, hips close together, their soft curves outlined by the warmth.
A few slow blinks later, Aster pushed himself up to a sitting position, half of the cloak, the other half still being their bed, sliding down to reveal his naked torso, all bony and pale. "Morning..." he mumbled, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with a badly scarred knuckle.
They both turned to him almost at once, a pair of golden and blue irises looking at him over their bare shoulders. "Hey," Silvia said with a soft smile, a handful of grain in her small palm, fingers dusty. "It's actually late afternoon, sleepyhead." Her small butt shifted in the hay a little, making the dry strands rustle.
Aster just blinked at that, then looked around at the dim light coming from a few cracks in the barn's walls. "Really?" he asked, then yawned, stretching his arms above his head until they popped, then some more. A series of pops, each one more satisfying than the last, echoed throughout the quiet barn.
"Really, honey. We were about to wake you up soon anyway," Nivalis confirmed, a warm smile on her face as she turned fully to face him, her full breasts jiggling with the movement. Silver ran all over her back, shoulders, and chest, reaching all the way down to her wide hips, and yet not a single hair hid the soft pinkness of her nipples, which were hard from the slight chill in the air. She gestured towards the small, broken jar by the fire, filled with water, and a bark plate full of clean-looking grains. "Making more of that... porridge." She wrinkled her nose slightly.
After one more sleepy stretch, Aster pushed himself to his knees. "I'll help," he mumbled, crawling over to them. When the firelight touched his pale skin, Silvia held out a handful of grain for him to do the same picking-out-the-bad-bits job that they'd been doing, but he ignored the offering with a wiggle of his hips, shuffling past it to get behind his mother instead.
His idea of helping was a bit different. Not some silly picking of possibly poisonous stuff out of their meal, but something much, much more important. The hay crunched softly under his bare knees as he positioned himself there, his small hands finding purchase on her soft, wide hips. "Don't worry, Mom," Aster hushed into her long ear, pressing his flat chest against the curve of her back, "help is already here."
His hands slid around her waist to the tummy, both soft and flat at the same time, then all the way up to the underside of her heavy breasts, where they stopped. Stopped to give those soft wonders of nature a nice, firm squeeze and lift from below, until his fingers just disappeared in them.
So big and warm in his palms, and in desperate need of support, of being held while she did all that important, hard work. No one but him, a loving son, could possibly handle such a difficult task.
Nivalis tensed a bit under his touch, a fleeting reaction that disappeared the moment she felt that his boyhood was soft, that it wasn't pressing against her with any naughty intentions. A quiet, relieved sigh came from her, after which she leaned back against him slightly, letting him take most of the weight of her soft mounds into his small hands. "I don't know what I'd do without such help around," she murmured, tilting her head back and to the side, only to smack that cheeky boy of hers with a gentle kiss.
Tossing the grain back into the bag, Silvia rolled her eyes at the sight of them, at Aster's face all scrunched up with that silly, overly serious expression of his as he struggled with the weight of those breasts in his hands. Pale flesh of their naked bodies pressed together, hues identical to the point that it was hard to tell where one ended and another began, the silver of their heads mixing together as she leaned into him.
A quiet, "Dummy being dummy," escaped her before she returned to her task, a little pouty that he'd gotten out of helping with their meal. And maybe, just a tiny bit, it was because there was nothing on her chest to hold on to.
But that pout of hers didn't last long, disappearing entirely when a pleasant, familiar warmth began to creep into their little nest. Without letting go of those heavy breasts, Aster had started filling the air with his pale golden mist, spending a decent amount of his mana on it. Unlike yesterday, he had plenty of it now, thanks to that long, deep sleep.
The mist swirled beautifully all around the fire and their cozy little corner, two soft hums of appreciation coming from the girls right after. "Much, much better, honey. Thank you," Nivalis whispered, and Silvia nodded happily. The boy hummed proudly in response and gave those breasts a little jiggle, his nose buried deep in the silver of her hair as he did.
And so it went for a good, quiet while, with his small hands disappearing in the soft weight of her breasts as he "supported" them. Every so often, Aster would give those pale mounds a little squeeze, or a juggle, or spread them as far apart as they could go—all because... well, because he had things to check, that's why.
Very important ones. "Mom," Aster hushed into her ear once more, lips barely moving, "we need to work on the left one first thing after breakfast. It falls behind the right one in squishiness by a whopping... two and a half Aster-units, no less." He gave both of them another firm squeeze to demonstrate his findings, but there was absolutely no difference between them. None at all. "And... yeah, the same for the nipples. We've been slacking."
Nivalis hummed absentmindedly, not really listening to his mumbles into her ear, and just looked past her fondled breasts and at the grain in her palm, keeping her attention on picking out every single piece that looked even slightly off.
Things like that she'd learned to tune out over the years, as he did that quite often, to a point where it was just a pleasant background noise, much like the fire in front of her or the rattle of the barn doors. A quiet, "Okay, honey..." was all she replied with. Silvia, picking at the grain beside them, didn't even look up and just ignored her little brother being a doofus.
It was only when Aster began to sweat a bit, and his arms started to shake from the strain of holding up her heavy, wobbly things, that Nivalis spoke up, "Alright, honey, that's enough help for now. Thank you, my back feels better already." Her hands covered his, then gently removed them from her breasts, after which she leaned forward to put another clean handful of grain onto the bark plate where it would wait to be rinsed later.
Turning to her daughter with a soft smile, she said, "You too, sweetie. Go on, both of you, get some rest. I'll finish up here on my own."
Putting away her much smaller handful of grain, Silvia whispered to her, "Are you sure? I can keep going..." but got a slow nod and another sweet smile in return. "Alright then," she sighed in return, wiping her dusty fingers across her thighs, leaving faint smudges on the pale skin. With that, she shifted away from the fire and turned, her golden eyes finding Aster's in the warm light of their little nest.
He was already sitting on the bed, leaning back against his arms, pale thighs spread out in front of him. A tired look was on his face as he watched her adjust the cloak and then sit down nearby, a lot more gracefully than he did. "Phew... tough work, eh?" he breathed, a bit of sheen to his flat chest and forehead from the sweat, a result of his hard labor. That made Nivalis chuckle for some reason, but she didn't turn around.
Silvia didn't say a thing, just glared at him over the cloak, her head tilted just enough that her silver hair slid over her shoulder. Aster knew that look—it was the same one she gave him when he'd done something particularly dumb, though for the life of him, he couldn't figure out what this was about. He tried a cute, innocent smile on her, but that just made her glare intensify.
Without a word being spoken, they stared at each other like that, a brother and sister having a silent argument across their bed, one filled with the soft crackles of the fire and the quiet humming of their mother. Whenever he squinted a little, she squinted right back. When he raised an eyebrow, hers followed. Even their breathing matched. That meant only one thing... war.
Not a muscle in their bodies moved for a good minute, the gold of their eyes locked in the warm light, their faces mirrors of each other that somehow had different meanings behind them. 'You don't want this,' Aster's face kept saying to her, to which hers kept saying, 'You're being a doofus, Aster. It has to be done.' Then, at the exact same time, they both lunged forward, a flurry of pale limbs and messy silver hair that sent the hay flying everywhere.
A squeal, high-pitched and sudden, broke the quiet in the barn, followed almost instantly by a girlish giggle that got swallowed by the hay. The whole nest shook and rustled from their struggle, a pair of pale, kicking feet sticking out of it for a moment before disappearing back inside the fluff.
They felt each other's breath on their faces, heard the soft thumps of their hearts, smelled the scent of each other's skin and hair as they twisted around. Ribs and hips and everything in between pressed together; places that shouldn't be touching did, but neither of them even seemed to notice.
Somewhere in the background, Nivalis sighed and muttered a quiet, "Be careful," without turning to look at them, her voice muffled by the high-pitched sounds they made.
"Oh-kay... m-mom!" Silvia wheezed out between laughs, pinned face-first into the bed, and was getting tickled mercilessly by her doofus brother. Her hands flailed around helplessly in the hay, trying to grab something, anything, to get away from those evil fingers wiggling into her sides and armpits.
Every poke, every little wiggle of his fingers into her tender spots sent a fresh wave of squeals through her, made her hips buck and body squirm as she tried to break free. And she did, after a minute of that torture, with a desperate push of her pale butt into him and a "Get—off—me—you—big—dummy!" leaving her lungs in a series of pants.
A few intense rolls and tumbles later, and it was her who ended up on top. Her small bum pressed both Aster's hands firmly into the flat of his chest as she straddled him, her flat chest—with two cute little bumps on it—rising and falling rapidly as she tried to catch her breath.
"You're so done," she huffed, her golden eyes glinting triumphantly down at him, her messy hair full of straws sticking to her flushed cheeks. Not giving him a chance to say a thing, she launched her attack, her fingers going straight for his sensitive sides, just as he had done to her.
Another round of squealing and giggling filled the air as Aster thrashed beneath her, kicking and squirming helplessly. "M-mom! H-help! She went madddd! I didn't even—" he eventually managed to get out through the laughter, his voice high-pitched and breathless. His face was flushed, cheeks pink as wild strawberries, and golden eyes squeezed shut as her fingers danced along his sides. "—do anything!"
Silvia huffed above him at his words, her cheeks puffing out like a little hamster's. "Exactly! You came in here, all 'I'll help, I'll help,' and what did you do? Spent the whole time fondling mom, while we had to pick out moldy grain by grain," she huffed again, giving his sides another tickle. "And then you have the nerve to say 'tough work'! Tough, my butt!" she added, wiggling said butt on top of him.
The boy sucked in a ragged breath, his chest puffing out beneath her wiggling bottom as he tried to get enough air for an answer. "It's a very... important and physically demanding duty, requiring immense attention to detail..." Aster managed to wheeze out, his voice cracking as he tried to defend his noble duty of breast-holding.
For some unknown reason, that just made her tickle him even harder, to the point that small tears began to pool in the corners of his squeezed-shut eyes. He kept screaming, "But it is!" over and over again as she tortured him, but it didn't do him any good at all.
And so it went for another minute or so, with her sitting on top of him and doing an important and physically demanding duty of her own—tickling some sense into her little brother, something every sister out there must do every once in a while. Society can't possibly function otherwise.
All the while, Nivalis sat by the fire, a quiet smile on her lips as she kept picking through their grain, her humming barely audible over the squeals and giggles from their little nest. She let her children tire themselves out, not bothering to look over her shoulder once. They weren't going anywhere today, not in this storm, so that was just fine with her.
"Say you're a dummy!" Silvia demanded through her own laughter, not stopping the tickle torture for even a second. Armpits, ribs, belly—nothing was safe from her quick, nimble fingers, while she held him down with her thighs. "Say it!"
He almost did, almost gave in and embarrassed himself for all eternity, but a single heartbeat before the words could escape him, her knee shifted a bit in the hay. Not much, just a little slide as she adjusted her position, her weight moving off one of his hands.
The small freedom it gave him was all he needed to change the tide of this sibling war. He wiggled his wrist free from under her and immediately went on the offensive, pinching that tender buttcheek of hers. Hard. "AIEEEEE!" Silvia shrieked, jumping up high from his chest, her hands flying back to protect the offended area as she fell to the side, right into the hay.
Before she could even process what happened, Aster scrambled up from the bed and was on her, pinning her down with all of his petite might. She tried to fight back, kicking and squirming beneath him, but that only got things worse because he ended up pinning her hands above her head, and there was nothing to stop his lips from doing things to her neck and ears. Horrible, nasty, wet things.
"Y-you know, to think of it," the girl muttered breathlessly when she understood that she was done for, her bony chest heaving as she stared up at his overly evil eyes, "maybe you're not that much of a dummy after all." Aster's only response to that was a smug little grin on his flushed face. "P-plehehease..." she squealed as he slowly, so very slowly, lowered his face into her silver locks and towards the delicate of her neck, lips smacking dangerously.
But before he could do it, before he could taste the soft, pale skin of his sister, something else caught his attention, stopping him just a breath away. "Huh..." he hushed, expression softening as he looked at the ground, right behind her head.
There, amid the tangled hay, was... a bit of wood peeking out. Not a random splinter or a piece of a board they'd brought for the fire, but something directly on the floor, almost entirely swallowed by the dirt. "Applepie," Aster whispered out of the blue, making the girl beneath him go completely still.
It was their silly, little emergency word they'd come up with ages ago that stopped all fights instantly, one they promised to use only if it was something truly important. "Look," Aster added in a hush, letting go of her and pointing at the ground.
Pushing herself up onto her elbows, her messy hair everywhere, Silvia followed his gaze and spotted it too. Her golden eyes narrowed slightly. "Huh...?" she breathed out, pushing a few stray strands from her flushed face. "Applepie," she replied, agreeing with him.
Nivalis turned around at that, her blue eyes immediately finding her two children kneeling in the hay, staring at the ground a few steps away from their nest—or rather, what was left of it. "What's wrong?" she asked, just when they began to clear the hay away from that spot with their bare hands, pale butts sticking up and wiggling in the firelight as they worked.
Without looking up, they answered as one, "We found something," voices still a bit breathless from their wrestle. A few more handfuls of hay cleared away, a bit of dirt brushed aside, and there it was. A square frame of dark, sturdy wood set into the packed dirt, with a rope handle attached to one side. "Whoa..." and "Yeah..." escaped them at the same time, two sets of golden irises wide as they looked at it.
The dry straw rustled as Nivalis pushed herself up from her spot by the fire, her well-kneaded, soft breasts swaying gently with the movement. A quiet, worried sigh left her as she made her way over to them on her bare knees.
But that worry quickly turned to surprise when she saw the thing sticking out from the ground. "Oh... that could be a cellar. For food," she breathed out, leaning over the hatch to get a better look, her shadow falling over the wood as she did. "Help me open it," she added, giving Aster a little pat on his silver head.
The boy nodded and grabbed at the rope sticking out from the ground. Nivalis did the same a moment later, while Silvia just sat there, watching with a worried frown. "Ready?" Nivalis asked, then took a shaky breath. "On three. One... two... three!" Her arms tensed, delicate muscles flexing under her pale skin as she pulled, her face scrunching up with effort, her breasts doing a little bounce that stole Aster's eyes for a moment.
'Two and a half Aster-units, indeed...' he thought with a shake of his head, his special theory of relative squishiness proven right yet again, then pulled at the rope as hard as he could.
A groan came from the old wood as the hatch lifted a little, a cloud of stale, earthy-smelling air puffing out, making them all wrinkle their noses. Another tug, and it came all the way open with a loud, heavy thud against the floor, revealing a square hole that swallowed all of the firelight.
No one spoke; Aster and Silvia both tensed, keeping their distance from the opening as they waited for their mother to check everything in there with her Blessing. And she did. Nivalis shut her eyes even before the thud happened and let the buzzing of her Blessing fill her mind, a familiar shiver running through her naked body.
Two soft claps of her hands followed, then silence as she listened to the echoes. A moment passed, then another, with the children watching her with bated breath. "It's... not very big," she found her voice after a handful of heartbeats. "Nothing's moving down there. No rats, no monsters. Just a bunch of broken shelves."
That made both of the kids let out relieved sighs, their shoulders visibly relaxing. "But..." she added a second later, her blue eyes opening slowly, "It looks like the ladder fell to the side. It's right at the bottom, just needs to be put back against the wall." She looked down into the darkness, a bit of dizziness on her face.
Nodding once more, Aster whispered a determined, "Yeah, I'll do it." He then made a small flame in the palm of his scarred hand and leaned over the opening, peering down. The flickering light couldn't quite reach the bottom, revealing little more than the uneven walls, a mix of dark wood and some packed clay that just... disappeared into nothing. There was no ladder in sight, not even a hint of one. "...how deep is it?" he couldn't help but ask.
As Aster pulled away from the hole, he was greeted with the sight of his mother with a bunch of their clothes in her hands. "About twice as tall as me, I think," she answered, and without wasting another moment, began dressing him. He tried to protest, but she didn't listen, and before he knew it, he had his girlish tunic and pants on again. "Better get these on. The last thing we need is to get scratched there with something nasty," she said, and a second later, his boots followed.
Within moments, all three of them were decent again, wearing their underclothes while the dresses were left by the fire to finish drying. "Alright," Nivalis hushed after the last knot had been tied, her blue eyes finding his golden ones, "Don't worry, I'll lower you down, so it won't be as high. Just... hold on tight."
Mumbling a quiet "Okay," Aster positioned himself over the opening, sitting on its edge with his legs dangling into the darkness. His breath misted in the cold, earthy-smelling air coming from below. With a last, determined nod at his mother, he grabbed at her hand and then let go of the edge.
The feeling of falling, of nothing beneath him, of the darkness swallowing him was pretty scary, but only for about a heartbeat. That's how long it took for Nivalis to stop his fall, if it could even be called that, her fingers digging painfully into his wrist as she did so. "You alright?" she asked, her strained, quiet voice coming from above.
Aster hummed back a "Yeah," after a shaky breath, the flame in his palm wavering a bit. Slowly, ever so slowly, she began lowering him down, as much as he possibly could, holding onto the wooden edge of the opening with her other hand. Dust and tiny bits of dirt rained down on him as he descended, tickling his face and making him blink rapidly.
Soon enough, the light of his flame reached the bottom of the pit, revealing the dirt floor and the fallen ladder lying there on its side, as well as some broken shelves and shattered clay pots around it.
With a quiet "Let go," Nivalis let him fall the last bit, which was still a bit too high than he would've liked, but not terrible. He landed with a soft thud, bending his knees as he did. "Oof... all good," he hushed, looking up at the rectangle of light above him, and two worried faces looking down.
After a short glance around to make sure nothing creepy was hiding in the corners, he went for the ladder. It was heavier than he expected, but he still managed to lift it and, with a bit of effort, prop it against the wall, right under the opening. "Mom, I'm not..." he called, eyeing the old wooden thing. "I'm not sure... this thing's pretty shaky. It might not hold you. Silvia should be okay, though."
A series of murmurs from above followed, none of which Aster could really hear properly. A minute later, his sister's legs appeared in the opening, followed by the rest of her as she carefully climbed down the shaky ladder. "I'll stay up here and keep an eye on things," Nivalis said, her muffled, worried voice coming from above as she helped Silvia get down safely. "Be careful down there, okay? Don't touch anything weird."
"We won't," Silvia whispered back as she put one wobbly foot after another onto the rungs. The moment she was in reach, Aster had his hands on her hips and helped her the rest of the way down.
A quiet, "Thanks," came from her once she was on the dirt floor beside him, her small hand finding his in the darkness, a bit sweaty and a bit shaky. "Ugh... it smells weird down here," she added, wrinkling her cute nose at the damp, earthy smell. The boy could only hum in agreement.
With the flame in Aster's palm, they looked around, the flickering light barely pushing back the oppressive dark of the cellar. The place was small, with dirt walls and a low wooden ceiling held up by thick beams, covered in cobwebs and some kind of black mold. Broken shelves were all over the floor, with shattered pots and jars scattered among them—an incredibly creepy place to be in.
And a golden opportunity to do the most brotherly thing in the world. "I think I know what this place is..." Aster started, letting the flame dim a little to make the shadows longer and scarier. He leaned closer to her, lowering his voice to a spooky whisper, "...a torture room."
Looking at him like he was the biggest idiot in the world, Silvia replied, "No, it's not, you silly goose." And yet, a moment later, her eyes darted around the dark place, and her fingers squeezed his a little tighter. "It's just a... cellar. For food," she added, but her voice got a tad smaller.
Nodding slowly, the boy hummed a thoughtful, "Yeah... yeah, you're right." After standing there for no reason at all and just staring at a particularly dark corner, he tugged her toward the broken shelves. "Alright, let's check these first," he said, then crouched down and began carefully rummaging through the debris.
Silvia crouched beside him after a short, hesitant look at the ladder, her hands moving to help. They worked together for a good minute, clearing away the broken pottery and rotten wood, finding nothing of interest but dirt and more dirt.
It didn't take long before a quiet, "Don't see any food. And it's kind of cold in here, right?" slipped out of Aster's mouth, making her flinch and look at him. "Probably because of all the ghosts... I mean, of people killed here." He stopped what he was doing and just listened to the silence, letting the flame flicker dramatically. It was normal for a cellar to be cold. It was the whole point of cellars.
But Silvia didn't think of that at that moment. "Oh, hell nah," she blurted out, then scrambled to her feet and made a beeline for the ladder, her movements clumsy and panicked. The wooden thing rattled loudly as she practically flew up it, disappearing through the opening without a single look back. "It's a torture room! With GHOSTS!" her terrified shout echoed down from above.
Aster quietly chuckled, a triumphant, boyish sound that echoed in the small space. But his face quickly softened when he looked at all the mess around him and realized he now had to search this entire place on his own. He blew a strand of silver hair from his face, adjusted his stupid pants a bit, and went back to work, muttering a quiet, "Worth it."