Eysin: The Giggling Curtain | Ch. 8 - Bubby, the Good Boy, and the Forest That Refuses to Stop Crying
Let's take a deep breath now. Returning to the world through a mystic pastoral with secret charcoal notes, resin tears slow as memory, a musical collaboration, and plans changed by mud.
They leave the lighthouse at dawn, packs light, hearts heavier than they let on.
Arkion shoulder-bumps her onto a smaller road, and off into the Pine Woods they go.
The sky is an impossible blue—no clouds, just the faint shimmer of the Swarm drifting high overhead. Individual drones—tiny silver motes—link and unlink in lazy, living patterns, forming vast Medusa formations that pulse and drift like jellyfish through air. Long tendrils of light trail behind central knots, curling slow and hypnotic, a silent spectacle of ancient vigilance.
Pine needles crunch underfoot, releasing resin that smells like summer trapped in winter. Moss carpets everything in velvet green. Mushrooms—orange, purple, ridiculous—poke up like tiny cartoon planets.
Eysin plucks a late plum from a wild tree, bites.
“Forest tax,” she declares, tossing him one.
Arkion catches it one-handed, bites, grins sticky-purple.
Early on, she pulls the folded letter from her inner pocket—his last one, short and devastating in its simplicity.
“I’ve been keeping it close,” she says.
Arkion takes it, reads what he wrote. “Damn, I did not elaborate at all, did I?”
Eysin hands him a small charcoal stub. “Elaborate away!”
Arkion hides the view a little. “Alright, I’m gonna doodle a massive…”
He’s drawn a double-take wolf with an unfurled tongue rolled out like a red carpet, eyes bulging.
She snorts. “That’s a really nice tongue.”
He can’t help his shameless grin: “Yeah, I thought you’d like that.”
“Dork,” she says, snatching the charcoal, hiding her own grin as she copies the wolf—same pose, but now smoking a cigarette, hand wobbling like it’s still shaking from their half-kiss.
He reads it, ears pink, mutters something about having liked that one too-huh, and pretends to study the horizon very hard.
*
They eat the dried mushrooms then—handful from Cassius’ pouch, gentle and slow.
The world softens at the edges.
By the time they reach the resinous stretch of pine, colours breathe.
Trees weep amber in slow motion—thick golden tears oozing from wounds, catching sunlight like liquid jewels. Stand still long enough, and you can watch a drop swell, tremble, fall.
They stand. Watch.
Dragonflies stitch blue thread through the air.
A fat drop detaches, shoots past Arkion’s cheek like a golden bullet.
He sniffs. “Honey.”
“Yes, sugar?”
“I meant the thing.”
Not the resin—something sweeter, wilder.
They follow the scent.
A felled bee nest lies shattered in the underbrush, gold leaking slow.
Arkion kneels, pries out two fist-sized chunks of honeycomb—wax and honey still warm from the hive.
He hands her one.
They bite.
Honey floods their mouths: forest, smoke, distant flowers that only exist in September.
Eysin laughs, sticky to the wrists.
Arkion licks a rivulet off his thumb, eyes half-closed in bliss.
*
A reed sliced her thumb earlier—a thin, clean cut left her nerve screaming.
He builds a tiny fire, crushes juniper and something sharp-smelling from his pouch, makes a paste.
“Hold still.”
He cleans the cut, applies the paste, wraps it in clean cloth.
Eysin flexes her thumb. “Thank you!”
Since the fire is already there, they sit longer.
Eysin is up in his face, trying to see if there’s anything to see in his beautiful eyes.
“That violet fleck in your iris—it’s glowing. Makes you look like a tragic mystery.”
Arkion meets her gaze. “Dust explosion, about a year ago. We were containing a purple flame burning in front of a temple portal—sealed it in a vase we’d scored for the job. Weird territory. The vase didn’t hold.” He shrugs, keeps it light. “Zerks took the worst of it. Most of it is out of our bodies now. Appears inert.”
She nods, but the fleck pulls at something in her—a distant, hollow echo, like standing at the edge of an ancient war that never ended.
They sit in it for a moment, the shared sombre feeling settling like good wine.
He pulls her into his lap—arms loose, back against his chest, her head tucked under his chin.
No urgency. Just the slow hum of their frameworks syncing, a quiet buzz like bees in summer.
They play with each other’s fingers—slower and slower, almost fall asleep.
The pines begin to sing—soft, underwater bells swaying in a breeze that isn’t there. Chaotic, natural, windchime melody drifting through resin air.
Arkion feels the source—central, radiating from her.
He smiles against her hair. “That music we’ve been hearing. That comes from you?”
She tilts her head. “Yeah—It started around the same time the curtains—Whatever. But I swear, the curtains are not under my control.”
“I have a good idea what your sounds might be.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Some of us have found rarer technique rings that have such intense force with it that they come with a Warring Sound.”
“Sounds more jazz than a warring sound to me, to be fair.” Eysin shakes her head.
They listen to the underwater tolling.
“Do you have a—warring sound?”
He chuckles. “Sure. Want to hear?”
“If it’s not really loud.”
He takes her hand, places it over his chest—barely pressure—and the air thrums once. “I’ll just do a little—”
A single, low toll rolls out, felt more than heard, like standing inside a cathedral made of gravity.
It fades—perfect harmony with the underwater bells still chiming from the trees.
“Ah right, that’s what Osgar was talking about… He said these are loud, though.”
“A full blast this close would probably end your heart.”
Eysin fidgets her unsolved bracelet. “The source could be this baddie. Locked, but… leaking jazz.”
“Ah, your good old third—still unsolved?”
Eysin grins. “Hel said something about it needing a special flux ledger. She described it to me and I think I’ve seen one back at home.”
“Perona?”
“Probably still stored in the basement, if someone hasn’t scrapped all the stuff away.”
“Maybe worth taking a look,” Arkion winks.
*
Movement in the pines.
Arkion spots them first—four figures chasing something big and desperate.
He touches her arm. “Wait here, watch grass. Gonna go take a dump.”
“That’s right, plant your marzipans.” Eysin keeps playing her quiet elevator music to wait.
The Väino brothers—tweed coats too big, faces flushed—drive the massive grey dog into a pit.
Bubby.
Foam at the mouth, eyes wrong, gait broken.
Arkion’s jaw tightens.
He walks over calm, hands open.
The boys startle, then relax when they recognise him.
“Arkion!”
“Need help?”
“We got him. Rabid—got into something bad at the quarry. Buyers in Netherlands want infected specimens. Good money.”
Arkion nods slow, offers his canteen.
They drink, adrenaline still buzzing.
“That’s smart,” he says. “But run it by Atlas first, yeah? Sketchy buyers—Gisnepo occultists, spies, whoever—tend to pay in bullets after the deal. I’d hate to see you boys end up collateral.”
The tall Väino brother scratches his neck. “Atlas’ll just say put him down.”
“Maybe. But then you know you asked. And you stay alive.”
He claps the nearest shoulder—big-brother firm.
“You did hard work today. Dangerous. Be careful who you sell it to.”
They nod, uncertain now.
He walks back to Eysin.
She didn’t hear the snarling. Didn’t see the foam.
He’s glad.
*
They walk on.
Letter comes out again.
Arkion doodles: two tiny figures on a swing, going upside-down, hair flying, laughing.
Eysin adds hearts raining down like confetti.
Arkion scribbles something on it and places it back in her pocket.
I love you
She reads it.
Tackles him from behind, arms around his neck, face buried in his back.
Muffles into his coat: “I love you too.”
He stands very still, smiling at nothing.
*
Late afternoon, reed fields golden in slanted light, sky so clear The Swarm seems close enough to touch—silent guardians still keeping some ancient promise.
“Careful,” he warns. “Creek somewhere here.”
He finds the edge—steep bank, muddy bottom, barely any water, reeds bowing like faithful witnesses.
Crosses easy, climbs the far side.
Eysin follows.
Steps on something slick—shit, mushroom, cosmic joke.
Legs fly out with comic grandeur.
She lands flat in the mud with a wet, glorious SPLORTCH—splash radius impressive, mud fountain spraying like applause.
A curtain witnessing it all the way from the attic of Atlas’ Dwelling yodels:
Up next: mud-caked arrivals, a menu reconnaissance in the washing room, a loaf too stiff to cut, smuggled birds for passage, and curtains threatening full riot when someone dares book the attic for a private session to teach secret techniques.
Don’t touch that dial.
Continue reading:
Eysin: The Giggling Curtain | Ch. 9 - Stiff Loaf, Birdsmugglers, and Blackout Threats
Sylrissa is on the attic balcony, smoking a cigarette in secret, when she spots two figures crossing the distant reed fields.
E-pub/book: Aiming for 2026 February.
C8 B-SIDE:
Prince Green
The mushrooms are gentle, but now the forest breathes with them.
Edges soften, colours hum, and the pine needles underfoot feel like they’re whispering secrets in moss code.
Eysin stops mid-step, squints at Arkion’s face, then leans in so close their noses almost touch.
“Anything?” He asks, not looking back. “Weak sauce.”
“I don’t know, I get a bloom effect but… Wait… hold still.”
She tilts her head like a curious bird.
“You’ve got something green in your beard… Your mouth, my goodness, what is happening? Are you turning into a tree?”
Arkion blinks once, slow.
Then he grins—wide, shameless, full-toothed—and the effect is immediate.
His lips and teeth are vivid, unmistakable algae green.
Spirulina pellets from earlier, the ones he popped like candy while muttering about “enlightenment lawn clippings.”
The green stains everything south of his nose like war paint from the chlorophyll gods.
He holds the grin longer than necessary, eyebrows waggling in exaggerated innocence.
“Tree? Me? Nah… just a very happy shrub.”
Eysin stares.
Then she loses it.
She doubles over, hands on knees, laughter exploding out in helpless barks that echo through the resin air.
Tears, snorts, the full catastrophe.
“You—your mouth—oh no—I thought I was seeing things—spirulina—” she gasps between waves.
Arkion steps closer, still grinning like a fool, green teeth flashing in the dappled light.
He leans down, voice low:
“Shrooms so weak we need to make our own special effects, huh?”
She straightens, wipes her eyes, cheeks flushed from laughing.
Then she reaches up, cups his green-stained face in both hands, thumbs brushing the corners of that ridiculous grin.
“Before we gag down some more of that mushroom crap,” she whispers, “may I kiss the frosh?”
“It’s prince Frosh to you, miss,” hands taking over her butt.
She looks at his lips again, giggles bubbling up.
He kisses her—slow, sticky with leftover honey and spirulina and joy—and the forest sighs around them, amber drops trembling like they’re laughing too.
He pulls away a little, grins, “your mouth is green now.”
She grins and giggles, “great,” starts pulling him towards a tall pine, “Now I need more green, like, here…” She trails her finger along her neck, stops at the top of her breast.
“Okay,” he follows her steps, unzipping her jacket with slow warning, “I might do that, I might do something else.”
They take a few more steps.
“She’s grinning, she’s not going to stop me,” he comments, pacing up until they stop against the tree, “just say the word.”
She grins, “the word,” and rests her head against the tree.
He kisses her, feral, pressing himself against her, hands feeling her body under the bomber, under the shirt.
Her skin is cool, his hands are warm. His mouth trails off her lips, a gentle kiss on her chin, a toothy, gentle bite on her neck, lips, lick, and a gentle bite again on her collarbone.
He nips her peak through the fabric, his hands underneath the shirt contact her breasts—kisses them over the shirt once more, then bunches the shirt over them, a big but gentle bite turns to a kiss, turns to suckling. As he cups one breast, the other hand trails over her back until he’s out from the warmth of the bomber; finds and squeezes her butt, works like a button to arch her back, lifting her chest as her hands find support around the treetrunk above, fingers curl around rough bark. Her hips follow the rhythm he is fondling her.
He switches and cups the soaked breast so it wouldn’t catch a cold.
She stops his other hand before it reaches her butt.
“Too much?” He asks between a bite and a suckle.
“No,” she leads his hand to the front side, “same thing, just here,” chuckles, “no pressure, though. I mean…”
She gasps and fails at laughing as his hand settles on her, “Same—Pressure. Yes.”
“Ahah,” he somehow manages to sound neutral with all that grin, and continues the kneading.
Bold enough through the fabric like he’s about to get inside her at every curl.
He cups her, heel of hand rocking steady while fingers curl, pressing the seam—and her hips return to the rhythm, chasing and matching, and then overtaking.
His other hand releases her breast to support her back as the rocking intensifies; there’s a tremble in her gasps as her entire body begins to feel light contractions.
She calls him out with a whimper, “Ark…”
The name lands soft and broken. Without stopping, he looks up from her bare breasts, green smears glowing in the light.
Eyecontact: unbreakable.
She gives a faint nod, two short breaths, a chuckle, and a “kiss me.”
He does, right in time to trap a moan that now settles in the nerves of their necks; they rock through a few more of those until she’s about to lose her handle and footing and Arkion catches her from slipping sideways, so she can lean on him, or back on the tree.
She chuckling to herself, out of it.
Arkion finds amusement in her expression, not sure whether it’s the shrooms or what just happened, “cool?”
“Fantasticool…” She chuckles and shivers, smears the green on her face with a trembling hand.
He kisses her once more, then pulls her shirt back down, zips the jacket.
When they stand, pine needles stuck to her back like tiny emerald medals, he presses something small and hard into her palm.
An acorn.
Still warm from his pocket.
She closes her fingers around it, slips it into her own pocket, and holds on.
Until the end of all awakening.
Somewhere high in the canopy, a single lace veil flutters, utterly scandalized and delighted:
Somebody get this green frosh-shrub a toothbrush… and a crown of leaves. And maybe a safe word for the forest.
*Snorts*