King Elk Forest bittersweet

his brows creased together into a gentle frown, and he pursed his lips, annoyance flitting across his brilliant eyes for the briefest of seconds. "why not?" archer asked, eyes narrowing ever so slightly, "you deserve to be complimented. frankly, everyone deserves to be complimented," he lifted a shoulder in a shrug, as the corner of his lip twitched upwards in a gentle humour, his eyes twinkling with an almost absentminded humour. "that's what i live by," he informed her, "why waste time bothering with people who are shitty towards you? and for those who aren't? why treat them badly? everyone deserves praise every now and then. that's all there to it, isn't it?"
what he hadn't been expecting, however, was for grace to say what she said next, and at that, archer couldn't help but smile widely, a soft laugh rumbling from his chest and he closed his eyes for a moment, feeling extremely amused for some strange reason. it had been sometime since someone had complimented him in a...roundabout manner, if he may. "thank you," archer smiled at her, "i think you're cute too," he said in an offhand manner, not knowing that his words may have a more profound effect on her. in his mind, the dewinter was just being honest, like he usually was. "and pretty as well," he added with his signature lopsided smile, fixing his eyes at her.
archer listened intently to what she had to say, and cocked his head curiously at her words. "man, you're clever aren't you?" he murmured, "i can literally never imagine being a healer. it's just so much work, and it's so stressful. seriously, i applaud you for that." he grinned. "and like, you must have trained so hard to hunt well. i bet you're better at it than i am," archer smiled ruefully, licking his shoulder fur. "i'm genuinely not even that good at it. i don't even know how i managed to survive, to be honest."