Prompt: "Imagine person A getting their tongue stuck on a telephone pole and person B trying to find a way to get them unstuck."

"How did this even happen?" Kiza wondered. She stared at her Queen, thigh deep in snow, bunny-eared hat askew, a remarkably fierce expression gracing her features…

… and her tongue stuck solidly to their birdfeeder pole.

"Eada aired ee oo." Jupiter grumbled. Well. Grumbled as best she could.

"What?"

"Vladie dared her to," Caine snapped. He was surprisingly stoic given the situation. Kiza had only heard him whine twice in the last thirty seconds. He did keep lunging forward through the snow though, making aborted attempts to grasp Jupiter whenever she winced in discomfort, then stepping back to huff and droop his non-existent tail. Kiza rolled her eyes.

"Your cousin dared you to lick a pole? And you listened?"

"Kiza," Stinger sighed.

"And you decide to do this at our house? No offense, Your Majesty, but I'm not sure you should be in charge of any planets."

"Kiza!"

"Would you just go get the spray?" Caine growled. Jupiter suddenly let out a pained gasp as she tried to pull back again and this time Caine actually touched her. One arm went around her shoulders while the other flapped uselessly near her face. Kiza could pretty much see her dad's migraine forming as he rubbed gloved hands over his eyes.

"We're not using highly advanced medicine just to unstick a tongue," he muttered. Then Stinger paused, added, "Even a royal tongue."

"Then call the Terra medics!"

"… That's not necessary either, Caine."

"Ust oo uming," Jupiter moaned. Her head drifted forward and then Caine had something to do with his other hand. It cushioned Jupiter's forehead against the pole, lightly kneading the skin there as she glared into his palm and attempted to mutter obscenities.

Stinger took another moment to just stare at them in wonderment before he turned to Kiza. "Run back to the house and get a bucket of hot water."

"No way." Kiza deliberately leaned up against the nearest tree. "I'm not missing any of this fun. No doubt they'll do something else stupid while I'm gone and I'll miss it."

In her frustration Jupiter wacked the pole with her gravity boot. The whole thing vibrated and she let out a mini shriek at the sensation. Caine flailed some more, letting out a sympathetic whine of his own, Jupiter hissed at the pole like a snake.

Kiza turned on Stinger and raised an eyebrow.

"Oh fine. I'll be back in ten."

He stomped off and Kiza went back to watching her friends make fools of themselves.

"You could do something," Caine shot at her after another—not quite silent—snort. Kiza outright laughed at that and shot a snowball at his head.

"Me? I'm not who she needs." Leaning further into the tree, Kiza struck a seductive pose, arm behind her head and hips angled towards Caine. "She needs warmth, puppy-dog. You really want me providing that?" With a grin Kiza tossed another snowball, delighted when it smacked him right in his ridiculously stunned face. Shaking the ice away, Caine turned to Jupiter.

"Your Majesty?" he asked tentatively.

Jupiter smiled. Or tried too. When that just lead to more pain she gave him a purple, woolen thumbs up.

Kiza got out her phone just in time. It admittedly wasn't the most romantic of situations, but Caine did a damn good job of working around that. Moving behind Jupiter, he put one arm across her waist while the other gently titled her head as far as it would go. Then, leaning carefully around her shoulders, he closed the distance between their mouths. Opening his own to reveal a row of sharp teeth, Caine let out a puff of air so gentle it outright contradicted the rest of his black, winged ensemble. Reverently, he breathed against her with something like a contented sigh.

Kiza watched as Jupiter shivered and Caine's ears perked in response. She switched from picture to video with no shame. No shame at all.

It probably wouldn't have worked with another full human, but Caine, as a wolf splice, had a pretty high core temperature. Within a few minutes he'd puffed enough against Jupiter's tongue that the ice adhering it to the pole had melted. Slowly and tenderly, he was able to pull her away.

"There you are, Your Majesty," he said, voice gruff.

"Ahhh," Jupiter drew her tongue back into her mouth, made a rather hilarious face, scooped a handful of snow into her palm and carefully washed the taste away. Within moments she was smiling again, red lips glistening.

"Thanks," she murmured. Caine shyly dipped his head.

"What am I then? Beeswax?"

Jupiter rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Kiza. Ooo…" she lifted a hand back to her mouth, frowning. "Damn. That's gonna be sore for a while. Feels like I got stung…"

"Like you'd know what that feels like," Kiza said, wading over. She reached on tiptoe to throw an arm companionably around Caine's shoulder. He watched her in turn, warily. "You know what your stupidity means though, right?"

"… What?"

"You get to tell that cousin of yours you won the dare. Loser." Kiza dragged Jupiter into their tiny circle. "We should celebrate."

"Really."

"Yep. How about snow cones?"

Caine gazed in exasperation across Kiza's head. The romance, for the moment, was quite dead.

"Your Majesty. May I shoot her?"

Or maybe not.

Romance or no, Kiza's little comment ignited a snowball fight of fairly epic proportions… just as she'd intended. Stinger returned after ten minute's time, just as he'd promised, and found his Queen free from her icy bond, his daughter taking refuge behind a tree, and his soon to be ex-friend flying overhead, pummeling them both with snowballs. None of them noticed his arrival.

With exaggerated care, Stinger set the bucket of hot water down on the ground.

"Don't mind me," he muttered, turning away. "You kids have your fun. I'll just be back at the house, filling the Oreos Her Majesty brought with toothpaste and all your shampoo bottles with honey. Yes siree…"

(And a Stinger, as they found, never goes back on his word).