Still Asher shook his head.
Trenet, who was facing him, must have read something in Asher’s expression. “You don’t want to eat today, Asher?” He sounded crestfallen.
That finally got Asher to release his hold on his humshus.
Once Vrayl had slid it from his mouth, Asher swallowed several times to reacclimate himself to feeling his mouth and throat so empty.
He didn’t like it. He was glad he’d get his humshus back soon.
“I…” Asher started, then licked his lips at how Vrayl and Trenet both immediately focused their attention on him. “I’m sorry,” he said, voice small. “It’s not that I don’t want to.” He was hungry, was the thing.
It was just that his hunger did nothing to touch the nausea that soured his appetite at smelling the meat dishes.
Vrayl smoothed a hand over his hair. “Is it bad memories, sweetling?” He asked, sounding so understanding that Asher could have cried.
He nodded, staring at the floor. It was hard not to feel shame. He felt so foolish, sitting there in the warm, brightly lit dining room—hungry, and yet refusing to eat.
“That’s alright,” Trenet said quietly as he took Asher’s mitted hands in his own. Even though the mitts were bulkier, Trenet’s hands dwarfed them. “If it’s too hard for you, you don’t have to eat right now.” He looked up, from Asher to Vrayl. “What if we just gave him his venigash now, instead of waiting until midday? So he doesn’t have to suffer his hunger.”
Venigash. Yshain support.Which answered nothing.
“I think that’s a good idea, my heart,” Vrayl said, palming Asher’s belly. Flat now, instead of rounded with venigash or stuffed with cock. “Can you fetch them?”
Trenet nodded and released Asher’s hands, moving to stand.
“Wait—!” Asher burst out.
At once, Trenet stilled, and both he and Vrayl focused their attentions on Asher again.
“Yes, little love?” Trenet asked. “What is it?”
“The… the venigash,” Asher stuttered. “What are they for?”
He didn’t think they were to humiliate him, not anymore. But he did remember the overwhelming fullness that permeated the days that his Dresht gave him the venigash. So he just… hejust wanted to understand why. How did they support a yshain? Supporthim?
Trenet knelt back down “You’ve been struggling so much with eating, little love,” he said. “Venigash are designed to nourish and fill a yshain.”
“They provide a yshain nutrients, but also prepares their body for many, many Seasons with their mates,” Vrayl added, stroking over Asher’s empty belly. “They elongate lifespan, introduce antibodies that will combat illnesses and disease, and reshape the yshain internally so they can be properly filled to the heights of pleasure, as any yshain deserves.”
While Asher was reeling from that information, Trenet set his large hands atop Asher’s spread thighs.
“We want to spend all our years with you, Asher,” Trenet said softly. “All our Seasons, dear heart. They’re all yours.”
Asher swallowed around nothing, missing his humshus dearly as the emotions threatened to overtake him. So the main reason he’d been given the venigash was because Asher had trouble with food. They provided nourishment. Asher had maybe suspected as much, but to be told those suspicions were correct was… huge. And—to be told he’d get sick less? He’dlivelonger?
Then to know that he’d truly be reshaped in some way, so that he could better please his Dresht and… and himself?
The venigash had been painted in his memory as something invasive and painful, but they got recolored now, with the new knowledge that they had been to help Asher all along. His Dresht really had been doing their absolute best to help and protect and love himall along.Since the very first day Asher had woken up in their arms, they’d done nothing but try to provide comfort and care.
Now that Asher could truly understand, he could appreciate everything they’d been doing. Everything Vrayl andTrenet had done in the time Asher had come to be theirs, they’d done only to serve their yshain.
Sniffling, Asher turned his head to kiss Vrayl under the chin, then leaned forward to kiss Trenet’s cheek.We want to spend all our years with you.Asher wanted that too. He wanted that so very much.
“I-I want them,” he said. “The venigash. I want you to give them to me.” He hiccuped, overcome but wanting to say this for them anyway. “E-even on days I can eat, c-could I still have them?”
“Of course, sweetling,” Vrayl said, hushed. “Of course, if you wish it. Anything for you.”
“It would be… such a gift to give them to you every day,” Trenet said, sounding hoarse. “To get you healthy enough for your first Season with us.”
