Once A Fighter Slave, Now Mate to the Dragonkin Who Freed Me

This review contains spoilers. The art is what first attracted me- but the character writing so far stands on its own and the age gap is acknowledged in a way that doesn't creep me out like these genres tend to. All in all, I think the author wrote the age-gap trope quite well. It doesn't try to ignore the glaring issues and clashes this dynamic can bring out.

For specifics- Celeste cherishes Yui as a guardian and more. His feelings for Yui is definitely romantic love but also admiration with the desire to protect. He leaves Yui room to feel and even acknowledges that Yui is a child- that she isn't ready for such a relationship and the only viable form of communication for Yui in his position would be to stand as her guardian until she is more independent. Then, before you have time to feel creeped out, she's given the choice to never reciprocate. It helps that despite this "soulmate" thing that Celeste has due to his racial features, he finds the power to respect Yui to this extent, teetering the fine lines of not grooming Yui but actually being her support. Celeste might be too perfect but I think that's the point.

A vanilla and very respectful exploration of such a dynamic type compared to other stories that try this kind of age-gap soulmate relationship.

Bonus points for the variety of races in the story that actually add flavor and individuality, instead of trying to exemplify some kind of badly written race game of "uurrr orc bad, elf racist... must hab war!!" etc, etc.

Hope to read more.