Avalanche
The Noxian's footprints were new and easy to read. Quinn thanked the freshly fallen snow for allowing her a near effortless pursuit. The sharp mountain ridges were no different from those she knew by heart around Uwendale, her homeland. The snowstorm had quickly ceased, giving way to an icy blue sky.
The assassin couldn't hide.
A swift shape flew over her in a blink, casting its large shadow upon the white slopes. The stretched wings sent a gust of wind through Quinn's hair, stirring up some powdery snow. With Valor watching over her from the sky, Quinn felt safe and in control. Her friend's eagle eyes already knew where their target was.
As she climbed higher while remaining concealed by low trees, the female ranger's view opened up. Her heart pounded with anticipation when her alert eyes found the object of their search, a few meters from her position: the Noxian was there. He was walking fast, following the barely recognizable trail. A long cloak from which hung menacing blades danced in the wind. There was now no doubt about the identity of this Noxian...
Talon Du Couteau.
Quinn had been on his trail for months, and still had no idea about his motive. Now was her occasion to accomplish her mission, at last: capture him, and bring him to Demacian justice on his knees. But it wasn't exactly an easy task, and Quinn was lucky to count on Valor as a second pair of eyes and ears.
And it was the perfect time for them to strike.
Quinn whistled, and her winged companion answered with a high-pitched scream. The eagle flew in the assassin's direction with the swiftness of an arrow, and screeched before aiming his claws at him. The Noxian spun around with feline grace, tightening the straps of his armblade in a prompt reflex. Quinn hurried down the slope: Valor was buying her some time. Her crossbow was ready to keep the fugitive in respect when she would corner him with the great eagle. But suddenly, the ranger felt that something was off...
It only started as a distant rumble.
The ranger's instinct knew what this sound was even before her brain processed it. Her anticipation of the Noxian's capture had turned into a crippling fear, which was growing fast with the intensity of the rumble.
And as her body was shaken by the tremors of the ground, there was no longer any doubt for Quinn about what was dawning upon them.
An avalanche.
From there, everything happened so fast.
The towering whiteness flowed down the mountain flank with the violence of a volcanic eruption. Quinn saw in horror the two silhouettes of Valor and the Noxian right under the unstoppable mass of snow. Valor had been taken by surprise, but a nimble flap of his wings pushed him right above the destructive wave.
The Noxian had reacted as quickly as a man could. He leaped behind the nearest large rock with an agility that surprised the elite ranger that Quinn was, propelling his body forward in a split second like it was effortless. But even his inhuman reflex of survival hadn't been enough... The avalanche swallowed him and the rock like he had been nothing.
Quinn was powerless as she watched the surge of snow devastate the mountain flank, unmoving as it all happened a few feet from her. Valor flew back to her in a hurry, and perched himself on her shoulder. Quinn could tell he had been afraid. After all, it was not usual for a bird to witness fir trees being rooted out of the ground by the sole force of nature.
The Noxian... Is he still alive...
When the snow finally settled down, the deafening beat of Quinn's heart pounded inside her head. She had not realized how much the avalanche had frightened her when it unraveled before her: her fingers were tightly clenched on her crossbow, her eyes sore from not blinking. She let out a long-held breath, and started walking towards the immobile mass of snow.
A sharp pang of guilt pulled at her chest. If the Noxian had died, it would be her fault. She suspected the avalanche had been triggered by Valor's loud screech when she had sent him as a diversion. As a native of Uwendale, she should have known better than to be loud in the high mountain peaks right after snow had fallen... But Quinn had been so obsessed by the capture of the assassin that she had neglected everything else, including her own safety.
The ranger rushed before the tip of the rock that protruded from the thick white layer, and knelt in haste. She plunged her hands in the snow and started digging, assisted by Valor's claws. She had to make sure that the man wasn't dead, and if he was alive, she would get him out of there.
Quinn couldn't forget she had been ordered to capture him alive, since the assassin held valuable information and was to be brought before justice. The female ranger almost shook her head in disgust when she thought of herself as a potential murderer.
No, I'm not like him.
Quinn did things right. She killed if she was forced to, but she was the winged arm of justice... Judging and condemning by herself weren't part of her role. She took in a long breath of determination: she would bring this man before justice, like she had sworn.
The Noxian wasn't buried as deep as she had thought: her gloved fingers reached his arm after a few minutes of searching. When she had uncovered most of his body, Quinn pulled him out of his hole in the snow, helped by Valor who nudged him as well with his beak.
The female ranger allowed herself a brief respite as she laid the man's body on the ground. The shock and sudden cold had knocked him unconscious, but he was still breathing. Alive.
She realized she had never seen his face this close before.
The unnatural paleness didn't alter the elegance of his face. Quinn furrowed her brow as she discovered a handsome man in his thirties, where she had wrongly imagined a burly guy with a sinister face in her past ponderings.
Her golden eyes trailed down his defined cheekbones to his angular jaw. She noted his cheeks were slightly hollow, probably due to a long journey in the cold with too few supplies. All of a sudden, Quinn felt bad to hand this man to Demacian justice. How many beatings would it take to leave scars upon his slightly curled lips? How many weeks of starvation would suffice to drain all colour and life from his skin?
Quinn squinted her eyes shut, hating herself. She couldn't be having such thoughts right now!
Chasing them away, she shifted her gaze from the intriguing man on the ground to her surroundings. The disaster had given another face to the mountain.
"Find me a path, Val." Quinn asked Valor.
The great eagle scouted the mountain flanks while Quinn remained close to the unconscious assassin. The ranger knew she had to find a shelter fast, for hypothermia was not to joke with. She also wanted to find a place that would protect them from the threat of new avalanches. Quinn shivered, her sweat coating her back in icy wetness.
Valor knew better than to scream again this time. Instead, he flew back to her, and aimed his head in a particular direction. With hope, Quinn knew he had found something. Her eagle assisted her again in dragging the assassin's unconscious body, but luckily, the slippery snow helped.
Quinn's heart dropped in a mix of surprise and relief when she saw where Valor had led them. In the flank of the mountain was a cavity with just the right size to shelter them all. It had been untouched by the avalanche, and was in a spot where it wouldn't be at risk at all. When she had finished pulling the Noxian in, Quinn let herself sit in exhaustion and took her helmet off, soflty sighing in the process.
But a quick glance at the assassin's body told her rest would be for later.
"I need some wood, Val!" She tiredly said.
The eagle couldn't nod, but his eyes showed his understanding. He had brought Quinn some wood many times during their numerous journeys in the wild. He flew away in a majestic movement, soon shrinking to a dark spot in the sky. Quinn felt a lump in her throat: she was now alone with Talon Du Couteau.
Quinn briefly closed her eyes and breathed in. Resting would be for later, she had to take care of the assassin laying right there as soon as possible. She crawled by his side and studied the state of his body.
His face was still pale, and his lips were noticeably losing their colour.
Quinn had been educated on how to handle a victim of hypothermia since she was a young girl. Every Uwendalian child was taught these emergency gestures... A traitorous blush creeped up her cheeks when she thought of the obvious: she had to remove the wet clothes from the Noxian's body... All of his body.
The surge of heat that ran through her body had nothing to do with the effort of dragging Talon up the mountain flank... Being in the midst of action had kept her mind away from the embarrassing reality that she would have to fully undress a man. Especially when the man in question was a dangerous assassin she had to capture and deliver to justice.
The female ranger shoved her thoughts away and rolled her sleeves up. Each second of hesitation could be decisive for the Noxian's life, and she had no right to leave him in that state.
Her fingers reached for his heavy cloak and started unclasping it. When she laid it by his side after taking it off, Quinn was surprised by its weight. The blades attached to its ends probably had something to do with it... She then pulled down his hood, releasing a smooth mass of dark brown hair.
A breath of appreciation escaped her lips without a warning. Though his hair was messy and the wet strands clung to his face, Quinn would be a fool to deny that this man had reached a new level of appeal.
The Demacian woman set her jaw and tried to ignore the pleasant burn stirring her insides. She removed the multiple straps holding his gear in place, uncovering a few hidden blades in unconventional places. At last, Quinn lifted the assassin's shirt over his head and put it on his cloak.
For the first time of her life, Quinn almost choked on her own tongue. Talon Du Couteau indeed was quite the sight to look at...
The flustered ranger hadn't expected his shoulders to be that broad, and his arms' muscles to be that well defined and firm.
She had always been a sucker for strong arms.
The rest of his body did nothing to help Quinn out of her torturous contemplation. She couldn't take her weakened eyes from the well-developed pectorals and chiseled abs that narrowed into his sculpted hipbones. The dark line of hair that trailed down his navel to the hem of his pants was the cherry on top.
Come on, Quinn. That's your enemy right there... Focus.
Her inability to handle a handsome man's body was laughable. When all of this would be over, Quinn was glad to think that no one would ever know how weak she had been. All she had to do was stop the hypothermia, capture him, and deliver him to Demacian justice. Simple as that.
The poor woman now braced herself to remove his lower clothes. All the while she slid his pants down, she squinted her eyes near shut in a pitiful attempt not to watch, for it was becoming very intrusive. But she couldn't stop her greedy eyes to steal a glimpse of the toned thighs that had allowed him to climb every wall protecting Demacia and make it look easy.
Now came the dreaded moment: Quinn had to take his briefs away too.
It doesn't matter that much if they stay on... Does it?
The mortified scout tried to find a way around it, but she knew she had to take them off. Quinn gathered all the courage she could find, and tucked her thumbs under the fabric, grazing his hipbones. She fully closed her eyes and pulled them away. Her hands then unclipped her own cloak, and shakily draped it over his pelvis.
All of Quinn's blood had rushed to her cheeks, leaving her in an unpleasant state of shame and satisfaction. The first part of the process was over...
Quinn took her gloves off, aware that both their skins would touch. But she had to be fast.
The things I do for justice... She groaned in her thoughts.
The ranger gently laid her palms on Talon's pectorals, and started to rub. Her timidity made the movements too soft, so Quinn forced herself to give more energetic strokes. After a moment of frictioning most of his members, Quinn paused, panting. That would definitely not be enough, and Valor still wasn't back with the wood for the fire. That left her the last resort...
Quinn bit her lip.
No, no, no!
There was no way around it. If she wanted to save the Noxian, Quinn had to share her body's warmth with him.
The thought filled her with dread and... Curiosity. The kind of curiosity that made her burn with anticipation, and that she hated to admit.
Quinn started brutally taking off her boots and leather armor, resigning to the inescapable necessity. Each layer of clothing she removed made her feel angry and vulnerable. She kept on repeating herself that she did it for justice like a mantra, but it didn't help with the fact that she would lay naked with an enemy man. Before she realized it, all her clothes were away apart from her linen underwear. But the thin fabric felt like it wasn't there...
Quinn squinted her eyes shut, forbidding herself to think more. Time was running out. Drawing in a sharp breath of courage, she pressed her trembling bare body against Talon's. The cold touch of his hard frame against her sensitive skin almost made her leap away. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and draped a leg across his stomach, looking away in a shameful blush.
His ragged breath made her thigh irregularly move up and down. Her breasts were squeezed against his chest, and Quinn was glad she was still wearing her linen bra... Talon's cold skin had made her nipples harden in reaction to it. She secured her hold on his arms, readying herself to stay there a moment.
The treacherous blush wasn't leaving her damn cheeks. Quinn was a tight ball of embarrassment, agitated by her aroused senses and by feelings she couldn't control. At least, the unnatural amount of warmth produced by her body would reach the Noxian pretty fast...
Though Quinn had thoroughly averted her gaze from the handsome man she was tightly wrapped around, she authorized herself an innocent peek.
What a blazing mistake.
Colour was slowly coming back to Talon's face. His eyebrows were tightly knit in a frown of pain and his jaw muscles twitched in the same manner. This was the death of Quinn, for the ranger was too vulnerable to her body's natural reaction and urges. The assassin's muscles tightened against her silky skin, wetting her with his sweat and his entrancing scent.
The Demacian woman was horrified by her own body when the devouring warmth in her lower stomach started spreading southwards. Though it was still covered, her womanhood was pressed against Talon's protruding hipbone. The contact was rather pleasant. Quinn trembled, reassuring herself that this could be worse, and that at least she wasn't w-
She felt it – The inevitable slickness that just began to coat her insides. Need and shame flooded her at the same time.
It's okay, it's okay. I'm a woman, he's a man... And he's... Terribly attractive, oh God. It's only natural and it doesn't mean anything... Right?
Quinn wanted to hit herself out of shame. She deserved to suffer for having such urges. Her body betrayed her at the worst moment, and her thoughts weren't helping. She had to be sick in the head.
He won't know, he won't know... When I feel he's warm enough, I'll get off him and tie his hands. And Valor will be back, and we'll be off to Demacia... Yes, everything will be okay. And no one will ever know...
Especially not him.
Quinn tried to find desperate comfort in her thoughts, pushing away the electrifying sensations. The nightmare would soon be over, all she had to do was to wait for the warmth build up.
Talon felt like he had been ran over by an entire cavalry.
There had been the damn eagle swooping down on him, the distant rumbling, and the damn falling snow... He had leaped away as fast as he could, lucky enough to see a rock on his way. Then, it had been all black and cold.
He should have died, choked by the heavy mass of snow. But all he felt was a tingling warmth in his muscles, a medium weight on his chest and pelvis, and an uncomfortable hardness right below...
What the fuck?
With difficulty, Talon forced his eyes open. He quickly adjusted to the light, and froze as he took everything in...
He was lying down in a sort of cave, naked, and a lovely woman, naked as well, was huddled against him and sound asleep. A jolt of realization struck him: She was the little scout following him.
His blood ran cold, and Talon pounced on the female ranger, pinning her to the ground. All his painful muscles were on edge, his senses, alert.
The woman's eyes shot open in fear as she awakened in his chokehold, her hands clawing at his own as a survival reflex. She coughed and squeaked in surprise as she beheld the Noxian who was menacingly hunched over her. Talon's blazing eyes were set on her like those of a lynx who had just caught his prey.
"Wait!" She squealed, trying to free herself from his grasp.
The position they were in was far too intimate and could easily be confused with something else. Talon suddenly realised a piece of blue fabric had been draped over his waist.
"What the fuck is this?" He hissed through gritted teeth.
"Just... Release me you idiot! Ow..." Quinn squirmed.
The insult just made Talon apply more weight on her and on his hand. The vulnerability he had caught himself him in before waking up had put him in a high state of alert and wariness. He had to know what was going on. And this woman was an enemy.
"Have you tried to kill me, woman?" He snarled.
"No, I tried to save you!" She protested.
"From what?! You've been on my trail for days, I know it!" Talon growled.
"There was an ava... Avalanche... You were freezing..." She muttered, furiously blushing.
Talon's eyes widened in realization. The avalanche... All of a sudden, he voraciously stared at the woman panting below him. Her near naked body and the goosebumps on it... His own clothes in a pile near hers... His sore muscles, and the warmth she had provided his body in some places... She was right. She had saved him.
The tense assassin used the moment to observe her more closely, since she was at his mercy. Her cheeks were red from the chokehold he was keeping her in, and her parted lips fought to take in as much air as she could. There was no denying her beauty. Talon had never seen hair with a purple hue like hers. And his digits harshly pressing in her sweet skin filled him with a kind of heat that wasn't due to his anger... His rage had almost made him forget that he had woken up hard, and unfortunately still was.
"I knew you Demacians were stupid, but you must be the worst, little scout. How could you be so careless?" He snickered with all the viciousness he could muster. "You should have left me to die, because I won't be as nice as you..."
The Demacian woman's lips quivered – Her curved, sensual lips... Talon bit his tongue. He tried to ground himself with the pain.
"I don't regret what I've done. I – I'm not a murderer like you."
"That's right, I'm a murderer. And you've literally given yourself to me."
Talon took a second to realize the other meaning of his phrase. His chest heaved rapidly, spreading the undesired warmth to all of his body. The defiant little scout below him was covered in a thin sheen of sweat that only enhanced her feminine curves more. The fabric of her bra didn't really conceal her pert nipples, and the red marks of heat on her body sent another kind of message to Talon's brain than kill her...
That's when he caught her scent.
It wasn't flowery like other women's. The female ranger smelled of pine wood, leather, sweat... And a unique fragrance he could attribute to fear or desire. Maybe both. Talon breathed it in shamefully, filling his lungs with conflicted delight. He released an inaudible sigh when he was done.
The woman was a helpless quivering mess.
"I'd rather be a dead Demacian than a filthy Noxian..."
Talon should have retorted something hurtful before reaching for his blade and slitting her throat. Each time he had shown pity in his life, he had paid it a heavy price... But his eyes were drawn to her, unable to break free from their enraptured contemplation.
Her eyes plunged into his, and his into hers. A magnetic heat was slowly pulling Talon towards the sprawled out woman, and his repulsion couldn't fight it. Then there was something... A slight friction between their tense bodies, almost nothing. But to Talon, it was everything, an eletric shock coursing through his throbbing members. His mind was clouded by a growing, painful need.
The veins pumping warm blood under his fingers felt silky. Her sweet panting breath on his hand was as sinful as it was delicious. Her lips were parted. Ready. And Talon was enraged.
What the fuck have you done to me?
Talon wasn't able to explain why his fingers lightened the pressure on her neck, or why he leaned towards this desirable woman. Did his head thrum with some kind of fever, did the ranger slightly tilt her head upwards, opening up her lips a bit more?
She looked vaguely sick and entranced. When she released a soft sound against her own will, Talon knew he was gone.
His hungry mouth hotly crashed against hers.
He could feel she had been craving it: her lips and tongue urged him to taste and explore her. The woman below him let him take complete control of her mouth and swallowed their mixed salivas, openly getting drunk on it. For how long had she been wanting him like that, torturing herself with forbidden thoughts? When Talon felt her enrapturing breath tease his skin in a brush, he opened his eyes during the kiss and saw her heavy-lidded eyes had slightly rolled back.
The sight of his enemy surrendering herself like that to him made his manhood pulse with an aching desire. He couldn't stop his hips from grinding into her, pushing his thigh between her legs, and what he felt there almost made him lose the last remnants of control he still had.
His thigh had slightly been coated by her wet warmth, pooling from the part of her that was concealed by her underwear.
"Fuck..." Talon hissed like he was in pain.
"Oh G – God..." The ranger whined so quietly that she may have not even noticed she had spoken.
"What have you done, ranger?" Talon growled.
The violence left in his voice came from the restrain he was forcing upon himself. His anger had been vainquished a few minutes ago already...
"Nothing!"
"Liar... You did something to me..." Talon punished her by softly biting her neck. He was rewarded with a muted cry that she didn't have the strength to hold in.
"Y – You did something t – too... It's your fau..." Her words disintegrated into unintelligible sounds as he thrust against her roughly.
"Blame it on altitude..." The corners of his lips curled, revealing a flash of sharp teeth.
"I blame it on you, Taah... Talon..."
The Demacian had lost her sense of speech again when his thigh rubbed against the incredible warmth between her legs. Talon's heart brutally lurched inside his chest when he heard her clumsily say his name for the first time. So she knew his already... And yet he knew nothing about her.
"What is your name?" Talon deeply looked into her eyes.
"Quinn".
Her answer sealed the moment between them, for the coming language they would use could do without words. Their avid mouths crashed upon each other again in such violence that their mixed taste was laced with a delicious hurt.
Talon finally allowed his hands to take full possession of her. He grasped her breasts and plucked them out of their linen bra like ripe fruits. He pulled the fragile buds into his mouth, and licked the soft white flesh filled with blood and life.
Is it a cruel joke, thought Talon while tasting her salty skin, That I wake up next to such a perfect woman?
But the thought was quickly evacuated when his attentions to Quinn's breasts were rewarded by a more daring mewl. His chest rumbled with a repressed growl. He had to make an agonizing effort not to take her on the spot and ravage her into oblivion. His bulging length terribly ached each time it stroked her creamy thighs and couldn't feel her more.
Suddenly, Quinn's body wriggled out of his grasp and put her palms on his chest, then pushed him on the ground. Talon let her do, captivated by the ravenous haze clouding her eyes. Her small hand wiped away the cloak that was covering Talon's privacy, and wrapped itself around it. Talon grit his teeth at how sensitive and unstable he was. This woman didn't know she was playing with fire.
"This... What happens here, stays here." She blew out ashamedly.
Talon nodded, watching her with a dark look. He didn't want to think about the outside world, now a disliked obstacle to the promise of their union.
After a few tentative strokes on his length, Quinn slid out of her underwear, and straddled Talon. He had never been with a woman wishing to start on top of him, this new curiosity only made his need grow. His shaft impatiently laid on his taut muscles while the woman positioned herself over him. He now had the luxury to fully admire her: the skin of her stomach was soft and silky, and delicately thinned where her hipbones started. Her pale and perky breasts asked to be seized and sucked again, but Talon reserved that idea for later.
An enticing blush spread on her cheeks when she grabbed his heavy member and guided it towards her starving entrance, slightly raising herself above him. At the first push against her eager slickness, Talon thought he was about to die. She lowered herself on him as he slid inside her tight walls of flesh, ripping a cry of pleasure from her.
Talon was breathless. He was pushed inside to the hilt, entirely surrounded by the clenching love and heat of this beautiful woman. He put his hands on her waist, firmly holding her for what was coming next.
The Noxian gave a few tentative moves, observing her reaction, and torturing himself in the process. Nothing had ever felt so good. Quinn's eyebrows were knit into a frown as she tried moving too. The lack of control she had over her rocking hips screamed inexperience, and made Talon wonder if he was her first. But he wasn't disappointed, on the contrary. The chemistry between the Demacian and him was incredible.
Talon was surprised when Quinn brought both of her legs up, rising them like she was sitting so that her feet supported her. She offered Talon a much better view on her lustrous peachy lips, so perfect that Talon bit his tongue. Her hungry slit was loaded with his member so deeply that it almost seemed too thick for her to handle. But the dark look in her eyes told him that it wasn't too much, and that she needed more...
She started pushing her hips up and down, experimenting on the sensations. But Talon couldn't wait anymore, and he accompanied her movements with deep and powerful thrusts of his own. He growled in agony when he realized he would never get enough of her warm flesh sliding against him, of his tip hitting the softest spot in her body, or of her breasts bouncing and heavily falling at the rhythm of their lovemaking. He wanted the moment to last forever, and he didn't want to remember who they were afterwards.
He didn't want to be the Noxian, and her to be the Demacian. All they needed to be was two strangers that had been made for each other from the moment of their birth, meeting at last.
Talon didn't care who she was anymore, and stroked Quinn's sweet little nub while his eyes devoured the place where their bodies joined. The gesture made her throw her head back, whimper, and even sob: for this moment she belonged to him, and him only. Quinn squinted her eyes shut, gasping and breathing out. She crashed her saturated and weeping slit on Talon's thickness so he slammed into her deepest spot over, and over, and over...
Quinn froze for a split second and was shaken by a throaty cry, and Talon just knew they were both gone. The Demacian woman arched herself like he had never seen her do, taking him further than he had ever been. Her uncontrollable movements were too much, and she cried again.
The ground started shaking as they were both helplessly reaching their peak, but nothing in the world could stop their movements. Another avalanche was raging somewhere on the mountain flanks, sweeping away the last trees that had resisted the first one. Quinn's soft sounds had triggered the unstoppable force of nature again.
Talon dug his fingers into her thighs deep enough to leave bruises as her convulsing muscles tore his release out of him. He grudgingly pulled out before he could spill his seed into her, and came with force on his own stomach, tightly greeting his teeth and stroking the last drops out of himself. His throat rumbled with a profound masculine purr he never thought he had in him. Quinn collapsed on his side, her body still shaken by the force of her release.
They were both gasping, breathless, and absolutely exhausted. Talon didn't want to speak now and remind them both of who they were. He held Quinn with his sore arms, allowing her to rest her head on his shoulder. His eyes fixed the icy blue sky out of the cave, keeping the future at bay.
He still refused to believe what had happened...
Something liquid and warm fell on his chest.
Tears...
Talon could tell the Demacian woman hated herself as much as he did. After all, the aftermath of the sin they had committed was painful to look at, but definitely not ugly... Quinn was a beautiful mess with her swollen lips and her hair sticky with sweat. The Noxian was unsure if he wanted to comfort her, but he squeezed her shoulder as he tiredly spoke:
"No one can know, little scout."
And Quinn nodded in painful approval.
Talon thought that even though the world outside the cavern bore the disfigured face of destruction, lingering there for a while wasn't such a bad idea. He had never heard that altitude fever had caused such behaviours, but decided to blame their union on it for now. Maybe he still had time to abuse this convenient excuse.
The moment would soon come where they would put this behind them and go back to their little game of hunter and prey, but in the meantime...
The icy slopes of the mountain were still at risk of another avalanche.
[A/N: Okay, it's the first time I've been that ashamed for writing such an amount of smut. Don't judge me, the summer heat is killing me, and I needed to write something that happened in the cold. Please tell me if you've enjoyed it, that would at least ease my pain T_T]