FSE

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Kodi scratched the back of his head and brought the tip of the paint brush to his chin, lost in thought. There was something wrong with the piece he was painting at the moment, but he couldn't figure out what exactly. Maybe it was the proportions, or perhaps he hadn't chosen the best pose to display the character...

It was still better than he had anticipated when he had started painting, though. He had imagined his first piece would be a total disaster, but things were turning out just fine.

If he could only keep his model still.

"I'm starting to get cold, you know," Ezra complained.

They rubbed their shoulders and arms for a second and then returned to the previous pose - or at least, to the pose they thought was their previous one. To Kodi, who had been staring at it for a long time now, the differences were obvious, but it made sense the deer wouldn't notice.

"Come on, it isn't that cold," Kodi replied.

"You have your clothes on."

"Yeah, but can still tell it isn't that cold. Plus, I even turned the heater on for you," the wolf pointed out.

Ezra sighed.

"Okay. Maybe I'm not that cold. I'm just bored."

Kodi chuckled and kept on painting the deer on his canvas. The brush traced a thick, slow stroke of violet paint. He had already drawn the deer's body, the heart-shaped violet patch of fur on their chest, the cute white dots on their sides. There were lots of details to pay attention to.

"I would have never guessed."

"Sorry. Modeling for someone sounded way more glamorous in my head. It turns out it just means standing here, naked and still, for hours."

"We've only been at this for like a few minutes, you know."

"What?"

"Nah, I'm just kidding. It's been a solid twenty minutes," the wolf answered, still smiling. "But hey, I'm almost done. The problem is that, now that I'm already getting the hang of it, I'm considering painting a new one..."

Ezra frowned. Staring at Kodi from their motionless position like that, the result was probably way more comical than they intended.

"You're kidding me," they said.

"Hmm. Perhaps there's a way to make it easier for you," the wolf thought, scratching the back of his head again. Then, as if all the pieces of the puzzle had come together in his mind, a big grin appeared on his face.

Ezra, still standing in the center of the room, could only imagine what that grin meant. They'd seen it a few times by now, and it usually meant trouble.

"Wait, what? What are you going to do?"

"Oh, relax. It's nothing you won't enjoy."

The wolf left his canvas unattended and walked slowly towards Ezra, who had blushed almost imperceptibly at the mention of that word.

"Hmm... uh, you know, I can always come back another day..." the deer stuttered, visibly flustered.

Kodi's grin widened. He gently grabbed one of the deer's antlers with his paw and made them tilt his head, establishing visual contact.

"Oh, don't worry," he said. "That won't be necessary."

Ezra opened their mouth to answer, but the words never came to his lips. A myriad of concentric yellow rings appeared on the wolf's eyes, overpowering any single mental process the deer had that hadn't been subdued by embarrassment or anticipation by then. First, their body shivered weakly. Then, their mind overloaded with the intrusive visual input and their eyes began to mirror the intense yellow rings. A soft moan climbed up their throat.

"Come on. Just make things easier for me," the black wolf cooed.

The rings kept coming. Ezra's shoulders relaxed, their body being kept in place only by one of Kodi's paws, which held them by their waist. The other paw stroke their antler gently, making sure that heavy head of theirs wouldn't drop to their chest and lose the beautiful spectacle they were being forced to witness.

"That's right. I want you relaxed. But I also want you tense. Frozen. Like a statue."

Ezra barely felt their body complying. Their relaxed muscles grew stiffer. The contradiction made their mind melt. Relaxed but tense. Asleep but frozen. It should have been impossible, but instead it felt natural. As if they'd been created to be in that state. They could only see yellow rings now. Kodi's voice echoed in their head like a rolling thunder.

"Good boy. Get rid of all those thoughts. Be a good model for me."

The sweet words echoed in Ezra's brain for a few seconds before it turned to stone and its processes faded into oblivion. Then, there was only silence.

Kodi stepped back and looked at his creation. The deer simply stood there, completely motionless, their body stiff like a statue. It would be so much easier to paint him now that they weren't constantly complaining and squirming. He should have done that from the beginning.

He scratched his chin and moved the deer's face to the left, then turned it slightly. The wolf grabbed that wrist and moved it freely until the arm matched the pose he had in mind. There it is, he thought. That's much better. The deer's empty gaze didn't even move. Their eyelids didn't close. One could hardly tell they were breathing, unless he paid really close attention.

And there was nothing behind that vacant gaze either.

Kodi chuckled again, admiring his handwork. Who knows, he thought. Perhaps I should focus on sculpture instead of painting.