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Stolas looked with horror at the feathers in the drain.
Now, he was an avian demon. A certain amount of feather loss was normal. He had learnt to get his sodden feathers out of the drain after he took a bath, one of the many, many activities that had once belonged to the palace’s servants and that now he had to learn how to do himself.
But the amounts of feathers in the drain was… concerning. He looked down on himself.
His upper left thigh was bare, the black, sensitive skin shivering and puckered. Stolas touched it and flinched.
Oh, sweet Lucifer, not now.
Of all the bloody, fucking times…
He was about to bloody molt.
-
Avian demons and, for the note, sinners with feathers, molted much like earth volatiles, though the process tended to be more expedited. A real owl couldn’t afford to lose all their feathers in one go, as that would make them utterly unable to fly and a sitting duck for any predator wishing for an owlish snack. An owl demon had no problem with this, so they tended to lose all their feathers in the span of a couple of weeks, re-grown them in the self-same timeline, and be more or less their old selves in three weeks, giving some overlaps between the two phases.
Once Stolas had had his definitive plumage at around sixteen, he had molted with the precision of clockwork once a year for two years.
And then he got married.
_
“Hi Stols-Rols! You ok? You were in for a long time.” Blitzø, love of his life, light of whatever he had that passed for a soul and currently dressed in a pair of jeans and a frilly apron with written ‘kiss the chef’ while he was cooking something that smelled bloody divine*, smiled at him. “If you were diddling your cloaca in there I hope you made a video for me, mister!” He added, with a wink, brandishing the spatula at him with a wink.
Stolas couldn’t help but smile and twitter. “Ah, nothing like that, dearest. Just took… longer with the feathers in the drain.”
“Ugh, that? Sorry pretty bird, the pain one has to go for beauty I guess.”
Stolas felt himself flush.
Among the many, many changes that had happened in the last year** this was one of the smallest and yet the hardest to get used to. Blitzø was in no way shy of telling Stolas himself and the world at large how much he… appreciated the owl’s form. In bed and out of it. Stolas, who had spent the first thirty-five years of his life believing himself to be utterly unremarkable, had found it to be an… adjustment.
Blitzø winked and put the honey-roasted carrots aside, jumping down the stool he had to use to reach the stovetop in order to open the oven. In the new, bigger apartment they had gotten some months after Stolas had joined their little family, he couldn’t reach anything as easily as before, which meant a lot of stepladders, stools, and general scuttling, sometimes using Stolas a ladder.
(Hey Stols stay exactly there, I need to reach that cabinet. Aaand here I am, thanks. A kiss for the bird!)
Stolas wasn’t complaining.
The smell of roasted meat made him salivate. Rabbits, by the smell of it.
He loved rabbit.
He started to set the table, trying not to think about his molting. The girls should be back with the Sinsmas Tree soon. They had plans to decorate it, that day.
The decoration would involve tiny taxidermy birds courtesy of Via, honeycombs for gluttony by Loona, and assorted symbols of sins.
He would be blessed if he let some plucking be in the way of family time.
* Blitzø had improved greatly in owl-cousine since the beginning of their cohabitation. Currently, he could give his previous chef a run for his money, if nothing else for the amount of creativity Blitzø put in his dishes. It was one of the many, many way in which Stolas felt incredibly loved.
** In no particular order: the loss of his magic and title, the loss and recover of his daughter, learning to live like a common demon, discovering how much Blitzø loved him, learning to live with somebody who actually loved him…
_
Molting was a very… private process.
Some birds and avian demons molted in condition of stress. Stolas was grateful he wasn’t among them, or he thought he would have spent the eighteen years of his marriage looking like a plucked chicken, which wouldn’t have improved said marriage any.
Others didn’t molt if stressed at all. Stolas supposed it made sense. Molting made you vulnerable, if you were already in a bad situation, it would only make it worse.
Stolas had been stressed for seventeen years.
And he had molted perhaps… four times, during all of the aforementioned years.
Feathers aren’t meant to last for that long, of course. Ideally, you should molt every year. Even with the best of care, they get ragged after three and unmanageable at four. They itch and look dirty as well. He remembered Stella’s withering, disgusted look.
Stella, of course, molted every year. She would hide herself somewhere in the palace for the three weeks, which was a cursed, cursed time for everyone and return more resplendent and angrier than ever. Via, too. She had just recently gotten her adult plumage, and her molting was regular, much to Stolas’ relief.
Stolas had molted the year before, not long after the disastrous Blitzo Sucks party.
He hadn’t been expecting…
But then, he wasn’t stressed now.
Still, his physiological process should have a better timing! This was his first Sinsmans season with his full family and…
…
And Stolas hated, hated the idea of losing on it.
__
The tree was magnificent.
Stella would have screeched herself hoarse at it. It wasn’t glittering, white, or in any way perfect. It wasn’t something you could show to guests. Stolas and Blitzø had put on ornament after ornament, each more ridiculous than the last, as Blitzø proclaimed loudly their absurd provenience. Via had fussed with the birds (and other small animals). Loona had made a video of everything, in her deadpan voice, narrating like she was some sort of human British naturalist.
“As you can see, the demonic owl makes a nest with his partner by giving gifts in front of the owlet to improve his change of mating” Via had screeched and showed her middle finger to Loona “as you can see, the owlet has definitive feelings about her parents’ mating prosp-“
A pillow flew from the couch and hit Loona on the side, and the hellhound laughed, wobbling on her feet. Via was also laughing. So was Blitzø and, Stolas discovered, himself.
Yes. The tree was magnificent.
He loved everything about it.
He didn’t love the conversation he was going to have to have with Blitzø.
He didn’t love that he would have to leave now, for three weeks, and lose the first Sinsmas together, as a family.
In fact, he hated, hated, HATED that part.
_
Blitzø closed the door of their room and turned on the tall glass of owl that was sitting on the bed and smiled, licking his lips.
Stolas felt whatever feathers he still had fluffing up in response.
Pavlov would probably find him a good study subject, he mused.
“So, birdie. Ready to make some decorations of our own?” Blitzø wiggled his eyebrows, and put his hands on Stolas’ thighs.
Directly on the bald patches.
Pain prickled over his legs. Stolas’ beak chittered and Blitzø moved his hands as if scalded, then looked down and up, frowning. “Stols? You ok?”
Stolas nodded, miserably. “I… am molting.”
Blitzø blinked one eye, then the other. “you what?”
“… molting. It is a process in which birds lose all their feathers and grow new ones. It is for… health, and hygiene. In healthy, stress-free avian demons or sinner it happens once a year.” He looked down, miserably.
“And that is painful?”
Stolas shrugged. “The molting itself isn’t. The new feathers, the blood feathers coming in are… sensitive, yes. It started on my thighs.” Stolas swallowed. “It is… about three weeks long. I’ll come back in time for New Years Eve, I think.” He added, trying to keep the misery out of his tone and failing miserably.
He could feel Blitzø staring.
“Why?”
It was Stolas’ turn to blink without understanding. “Why what?”
“Why are you leaving? Is it like, contagious and can hurt Via?” Blitzø was frowning. “I have no feathers, I could come with you in that c-“
“Oh! Oh. No, no. It is just, well. I look” terribly, horrible, like a plucked chicken “very bad without feathers and…”
Blitzø was staring.
Stolas felt his words die in his throat.
“Feathers, are you telling me you want to leave our home for three weeks because you are going to be temporarily an uggo?”
Stolas cringed. “Blitzø, you know I have four eyes, right?”
“Yes? Hard to miss, really.”
“Try imagining them without my feathers around.”
Blitzø stared and flinched. “Ok, you’ll be temporarily an uggo. So what? You can hide in our room and watch Hell-a-Novela and read books. I’ll make you tea. I bet there is some kind of cream for the new feathers, so they don’t bother you so much. Or pills. Whatever. I’ll get it for you. Christ on a stick, Stolas, I am not going to leave you for three weeks to be miserable alone just because of that.”
Stolas stared.
It should be noted he had never, not even once, assumed molting it could be different than “hide somewhere until it goes away”. As far as he was aware, it was the same for all adult goetians. Even as a child, when he molted out of his fluffy nestling plumes into the next stage of his coat, the servants who took care of him explained how he should always be… private, and stay indoors and in his rooms. It had been a huge scandal when he had refused to let Octavia be taken care of by the servants during her molting.
That Blitzø would want to, would want to help…
He felt his eyes fill with tears.
“I will probably be a huge bitch.” He sniffed. “Molting is… uncomfortable.”
Blitzø snorted. “So you are in your bird-period once a year. No sweat, pretty bird. Let daddy take care of you” Blitzø took his face in his hands and kissed him, delicately.
Stolas kissed back, his heart thumping with love for this demon.
_
It ended up being an… interesting Sinsmas.
In a week, he had lost most of his feathers. He looked a fright and sequestered himself in their room. Blitzø brought inside books, pills and creams to relieve the discomfort, endless cups of teas on demand, and for some reasons heating pads and chocolate*.
*He was a bit confused, but he got the spirit.
_
The snag happened when he lost his head and face feathers.
Stolas decided he was going to behave in a way becoming of his maturity as a father, a partner and an adult demon and a once-member of the Ars Goetia.
When he rubbed his cheek one morning and fluffy white feathers billowed down from his touch, he put his head inside the pillowcase and refused to get out.
Blitzø woke up to more feathers in the bed, including what he recognized as Stolas’ crest feathers and the white feathers of his face-plate, and a vaguely plucked white and black * chicken with a pillow case on his head.
He bit his lips not to laugh, thus showing that he had, in fact, matured in the last year and half.
“Stols, you aren’t going to frighten me.”
“I am not getting out” Said a vaguely muffled voice from inside the pillow case. “I have lost all the feathers on my head. I am bald.”
“Well so am I”
“Yes, but in your case it is hot.”
“Can’t really say no to that. So, what are your plans?”
“I plan to keep the pillowcase until you have left the room and keep it on whenever you are in it” The pillowcase answered.
Blitzø sighed, mournfully. “Damn, even as we sleep? Because I’ll have to tell you, Stols, that sounds dangerous but I s’pose I can sleep on the couch.” He sighed again, theatrically.
The pillowcase paused.
“You are doing it on purpose.”
“Me? Never. Anyhow, gotta go to work. I’ll come back with an idea this evening, uhm? Love you, pillow princess.”
Stolas showed him one finger as Blitzø left, laughing.
But he didn’t take out the pillowcase until he was sure he was alone.
*Stolas’ skin, under his feathers, tended to black, save on his chest, just over his knees, and, Blitzø suspected, on his face. It was also very soft. Blitzø was the one applying the cream, so he knew.
_
That evening, Blitzø knocked on the door of their room.
“One moment!” A ruffle, as, Blitzø supposed, a pillowcase was hastily put on. “You can come in.”
Blitzø went in and yep, here was the pillowcase. Stolas had cut in four holes for his eyes and one for his beak. Blitzø lifted his eyebrows.
“Stols. I have a better idea.”
Stolas, generally swatted in blankets as clothes were “itchy”, crossed his arms in front of himself. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Ta-Dan!”
With a flourish, Blitzø showed him what he had brought.
A beanie, a grey-blue like his feathers and with stars on it. And a mask, the kind humans had used during that coviddy thing upstairs. “Here, with this elastic thing you can put it around your head, and this way, you can come out of the room AND have dinner with us on Sinsmas.”
Stolas stared. “I cannot have dinner with the mask.”
“Do you want to have dinner with us on Sinsmas or not?”
Stolas-in-the-pillowcase nodded, slowly, then looked at his talons. His hands and feet were one of the parts of him that hadn’t changed. “Yes.” He took a deep breath. “it is only… us. Via understands. And Loona, Mildred and Moxxie with their little one…” It was a different party from last year. This time, due to the presence of Moxxie and Mildred’s baby (Stolas hadn’t known baby implings were this adorable. It made him keenly regret the lack of Blitzø’s baby photos) it was decided that the house party would be a family affair.
Stolas enjoyed the prospect.
“I spoke with them. They won’t give you any trouble Stols. I swear.”
“I know they won’t. Very well.”
And then he took out the pillowcase.
Blitzø wouldn’t lie. Stolas looked fucking horrid. His secondary eyes, not anymore hidden by the feathers, were two balls on his head. His whole cranium looked, well, like a plucked chicken.
And the skin on his face was white indeed.
Blitzø looked at him, and look, there are things that are so horrid they go all the way around to be cute again, ok? Or maybe he was just SO WHIPPED for this owl.
He probably was just so whipped for this owl.
“Hey, cute.” He said, softly, touching Stolas’ bare skin with his hand, and it was impossibly soft, then he brought their mouth together, lips to beak.
Stolas kissed him back, even as his expression showed how incredibly dumbfounded him was. Blitzø giggled. “I love you, silly head. Feathers or no feathers.”
Oh, the white showed the blush so well.
Pity there was no fluffing up though.
“Ah well. I love you too, Blitzø.” He sighed. “And at least I have lost all I had to lose, now it is the regrowing moment.”
_
Stolas’ feathers looked less like feathers in the regrowing moment, and more like, Blitzø didn’t know, quills or something. They hurt when jostled too, so he tried not to. Especially the really long ones of his tail. If he had looked like a plucked chicken before, by the time he was sitting (on a special, molt-approved pillow) at their Sinsmas family feast, he was more like a porcupine or some shit like that.
And yet, the Sinsmas feast was a blast. Moxxie bought his fancy pasta, and Millie brought some Wrathian glazed ham that was The Shit. They added more food, potatoes and fried mice and sauces and pies and they all opened presents under their kick-ass Sinsmas trees, singing songs about Kranpus whipping bad children. Stolas, of course, knew the most carols, but Moxxie was a close second. Everyone cooed around the baby because, shit, that was a fucking baby what there isn’t to coo about, and Stolas holding a baby impling did things to Blitzø’s heart that he should probably go to Sloth to have the organ checked if he had more money.
Nobody made any sort of comment on Stolas’ bald face, or on how his long sweater (an ugly Sinsmas one, matching Blitzø’s of course) and long trousers were strange on him, or on the fact he kept on his beanie the whole time. Via opened some kind of popping thing with Millie, and they exploded in a very nice way, and they exploded in Moxxie’s face which was hilarious (Via also laughed at that, and then apologized to Moxxie because she was Stolas’ daughter so she was like, well bred or some shit). The baby laughed, because good sense.
Stolas got tickets from musicals from Moxxie, a personal gun from Millie (“it’s time ye have yer own!”), a bracelet made from bones and gold from Via, and Loona gave to him and Via both tickets for a concert that made Via’s squeal and Stolas look only slightly pained, at least until he looked at Via and then he smiled, and thanked Loona with that sincerity of his that Blitzø had stopped pretending not to love. The baby got a shit-ton of presents.
His present for the bird was more… private. It was in their room. For after molting time. He had whispered that to Stolas, and Stolas had blushed very prettily and smiled at him.
Blitzø had also gotten a lot of very good stuff, most of them horse-themed, because his people knew him, and then it was time for Millie and Moxxie to leave so they could get in the elevator in time to go to Wrath for their second round of Sinsmas stuff with Millie’s family, and the girls had a party in Gluttony, and Stolas and he were alone and Blitzø, sitting on the couch, which was The Couch, looked around, and felt his heart in his chest and the blood running in his veins, and exhaled, and wondered how in his fucking life he got this damn lucky.
“Thank you, Blitzø.”
He turned toward Stolas, who was also sitting there, and looked at him curiously.
“Whatever for, pretty bird?”
Stolas looked at the gifts. He smiled, but it was a sad thing. “I didn’t molt for years, you know. Some people… don’t, when they are… too stressed.”
He gently pulled at Stolas, opening his arms. The bird went willingly, if with more care. “That bitch of your ex-wife?”
“Uh, indeed. I hadn’t even realized how bad it was until I wasn’t… there… anymore. Until I was… Safe. Happy. With you.” He nuzzled into Blitzø’s horrible Sinsmas sweaters, which had Krampus riding a horse, and if the gesture was also more delicate than usual, it was still more than enough to break and remake all sorts of thing inside Blitzø. “And… you are taking such a good care of me. Making sure I don’t… lose on anything. It matters, you know. So much.” Blitzø couldn’t have avoided kissing Stolas between his eyes if his life depended on it, so he didn’t. Stolas smiled. “So. Thank you, Blitzø.”
Blitzø shook his head. “No. Thank you, Stolas. I love taking care of you. You know that.”
The quills tried, and failed, to fluff. “Ah well. Just my luck I guess.”
“Our luck. And hey, pretty bird?”
“Uhm?” Stolas had closed his eyes and was breathing softly, in his arms.
“Happy Sinsmas.”
Stolas hooted. “The happiest of my life. Happiest Sinsmas, my light.”