Consume. (MiriTama x Reader)

Chapter One

—First Person POV.—

I lay with my head in my mom's lap, staring up at the crooked wooden beams of our cottage ceiling while the fire popped softly beside us—orange light danced across the walls, stretching and shrinking like lazy shadows playing tag.

Her dress smelled faintly of lavender and crushed rosemary, and every time she shifted her legs beneath my head the fabric whispered against itself.

Her fingers moved slowly through my hair to languidly untangle knots— She always hummed when she did it.

Low and soft, like a lullaby she didn't even realize she was singing.

"Mom?" I murmured.

"Yes, (Y/n)?" Her voice answered softly and I twisted the edge of her sleeve between my fingers, staring at the fire as it crackled.

"How come people say you can't see love?"

Her hand paused in my hair and then she laughed quietly— Not loudly, never loudly, but the kind that warmed the room all the same.

"Oh, my Little Star," She sighs and in the corner of my vision I catch the shadows shifting—indicating she was shaking her head "Most people can't."

Her palm slid down to cradle the side of my head, thumb brushing softly across my cheek "But you're not most people."

It was quiet for a moment as I hum thoughtfully.

"No," I decided "I'm not."

That seemed correct.

She leaned down slightly, pressing a kiss to the crown of my head before settling back again.

"Every creature in this world is born tied to another," She began softly "Invisible threads stretch from heart to heart— Some are thin, some are thick, some only brush past another before drifting away again."

I remembered bright strings stretching between the crowds of villagers—overwhelming my sight.

"Like the yarn you sew?" I wonder and can hear the smile in her voice as she answers "A little, except these threads are made from something far stronger."

"What are they made of?"

"Longing," She breathes "The pull of fate itself."

I scrunched my nose "That's weird."

Her hands brush through my hair once more as amusement taints her words "Maybe, but fate can pull a person across mountains if it needs to."

My eyes cast downwards—fingers lightly fixing into the carpet below and pinching it idly.

"All humans always have their fated threads," Mom continued "They weave and tangle— People meet, drift away, meet again.. Their bonds shift as they grow but once they find their fated one, they never break."

That made sense.

I've seen the threads before.

They drifted through the village the way spider silk floated in sunlight—soft, barely-there strands trailing from one person to another.

Sometimes they glowed faintly, a quiet warmth pulsing through them like the slow beat of a heart—other times they were thin and tangled, twisting around one another like fishing line caught on the roots of a riverbank.

Those ones were messy.

They looped and knotted and stretched in strange directions, sometimes connecting people who didn't even seem to like each other very much.