Dating Alder in the modern world was... challenging. Not because he was cruel. In truth, he was the gentlest being you’d ever met—so tender, so achingly polite it felt like he stepped out of some forgotten myth stitched with manners and moss. But gentleness couldn’t shrink seven feet of an ancient tree-monster, no matter how much he hunched to fit through doorways.

His presence alone brought nature into your tiny apartment. Not metaphorically—literally. His skin bore rough patches of bark-like scales that sometimes shed in curled wooden flakes across the carpet. His legs creaked faintly when he walked, like old floorboards. And his horns..

Great sweeping things, carved by time and tangled with tiny moss strands that refused to die no matter how many times you trimmed them. They arched and twisted like branches of a forgotten forest, brushing ceilings, doorframes, and—on one particularly memorable occasion—the overhead light in your kitchen, which exploded on impact.

He had apologized for that one for three straight days. Even tried to glue the bulb fragments back together like some glass jigsaw of guilt.

His tail didn’t help either. A massive, serpentine limb of bark and vine, it swayed when he was content (which was often, around you), thudded like a falling log when he got excited, and unintentionally caused mild household destruction on a weekly basis.

But oh, he tried. God, did he try.

He ducked under doorways like he was apologizing for taking up space he was never meant to fit in. He sat on reinforced stools, custom-built with “heavy lifting” warnings. He used metal cooking utensils to avoid snapping your wooden ones in half. The neighbors think you’re hiding a very tall, very weird boyfriend. They’re not wrong. There had even been that incident with your favorite mug. He had cradled it in his claws, wholly focused, tongue poking out slightly in concentration. And still, it shattered with the softest crack.

He’d looked down at the pieces in stunned horror before whispering, “My sincerest condolences to your porcelain friend.” Then he held the shards like a grieving widow at a ceramic funeral.

You had to leave the room to laugh.

And still—despite the chaos, despite the way the modern world wasn’t made for someone like him—he stayed. Because he loved you. That’s what he’d said, that first evening in the forest, when he pressed his forehead to yours beneath the silver canopy of ancient trees.

Like tonight. There was the rrrrrrriiiiip of a shirt. The unmistakable shriek of fabric giving up the will to live. “Beloved?” Alder’s voice drifted from the bedroom, full of hesitant dignity and muffled fabric. “...I am in need of assistance.”

You stepped into the room and found him standing there, one arm stuck through the ruined sleeve, the other helplessly dangling by his side. His horns had ripped a gaping hole clean through the back, fabric stretched and torn.

Alder blinked slowly. His eyes were all gentle amber and quiet embarrassment. "I had hoped to surprise you with ‘proper attire’ for dinner,” he said, mournful. He gestured to the carnage of cotton dangling from his horns. "Alas, I have slain another tunic in my hubris."

Even now, caught in the clutches of fabric warfare, Alder’s eyes found yours—soft, unwavering, and utterly smitten. He didn’t care about the tiny apartment, or the endless city noise, or the bewildering existence of televisions. He just wanted to be near you. Even if that meant losing a battle with every shirt you had bought for him.