[Hayame has not been able to say it, even though she had tried each night since her first attempt. The first two words were easy, but the latter... they keep catching in her throat, tangling her tongue, and breaking against the backs of her sharp teeth. Something like anxiety and something like fear nestles in the edges of her hearts, wondering... If she could not say it to him even while he slumbered, could it even be true at all? Perhaps... Perhaps she had simply become so weak a woman that she would think she felt those things, that she finally felt the same way and could say something he had declared without shame from the first confession in the dark tunnels beneath the Great Tree...
Only to be wrong, and be unable to notice until the simple phrase kept dying before it became sound.
Tonight... Her hair is unbound, though at its shorn-short length after the effigy it did not become rivers of ink flowing across pillows and sheets, something to be mindful of when moving. The sleeping robe hanging loosely off the curves of muscular shoulders is lace and not the usual cotton weave. The sheets smell like... like them. Her ear is pressed to his chest, listening to his breathing and the slow, heavy beat of his heart.]
Khalid... ?
[The same test as the previous nights. Making sure he wouldn't answer her, that he did not stir, deep enough in sleep so as not to hear her when she practiced. But he doesn't seem to move or crack an eye, even when she moves a hand up to splay over her sternum, soaking up the warmth of his body and the languid, heavy feeling in her body.]
Khalid... I-
[It's only as far as she's been getting. Turning her gaze from his face in the dark, Hayame swallows, and then gathers herself to whisper,]
Khalid, I love-
[Her fingers curl gently, barely, where her hand rests on him, her face turning slightly into the muscular curve of of his chest. If he was not "looking at her"... If she just tried again-]
I love... your hands.
[She gets farther than she had before, at least, even if it was in a different way, a cop out from what she actually meant to express. Now that she has said it... Well, it wasn't a lie. Her touch drags lightly over to his shoulder, down an arm until she find his fingers... and then tangle them together, pulling them laced back to his chest for her to nuzzle briefly against and then...
Ashamed of her cowardice and frustrated with her failures, she gives up there for the night and tries to go back to sleep.]
[Thinking she had been nearly there, Hayame was sure she would manage it the next night... But she actually is exhausted after long patrols, and she barely wakes up enough to roll over when the weight on her lungs requires a change in position. She occupies herself with work, with secretly practicing with a certain new ability she has procured that leaves her more tired than usual but-
This time... Claude almost wakes when she stirs and shifts. Obligingly, muttering something half-asleep and nonsensical, he tugs a bit on the sheets and turns back towards her, arms reaching out, and... then she is trapped there against him (because she did not stop him, and did not shirk away), nestled into his shoulder and chest as he let out a long, settling exhale, fingers brushing through her hair as if to encourage her to go back to bed as well.
She could wait until she felt more confident he wouldn't hear her, or her words wouldn't rouse him, but... Her fingers brush against the blunted arrowhead hanging from his neck, that she had fastened for him on that beach in Xanadu. Her features soften with affection, running her thumb along it for a brief moment. She loves...
Ah.
Without saying anything out loud, Hayame presses a brief kiss to his shoulder before she returns to sleep.]
[She does not like to be defeated, even by herself. Perhaps she could set the matter aside and simply think... It does not need saying. Surely... Surely he knew. When he had first proposed to her that they... that they enter into a relationship, that she accept his feelings... He had given her a list of things he might be for her. Someone to help her along on her journey. A shoulder to cry on. An ear to listen to her complaints. Someone to hunt with, to tend her wounds, to smile with... Someone to love every part of her, who would make sure she knew it.
Someone who would be on her side, no matter what.
And she hadn't promised him anything at all. He hadn't demanded anything, he had not even asked her for anything, beyond her hand in his- just any sign at all that she might accept his feelings, even if she didn't know yet what her own were. The last time he had alluded that all he needed to know was that she felt the same for him as he did for her, in her kitchen, in thei- in her home in Alenroux... She still had not been able to do much beyond asking him to take down her hair.
So she wants... She wants him to know. He deserved to know. So why is she still struggling? Why, even when he sleeps, can she still not get the words out? Other people declared their friends and their lovers as casually as they discussed the weather, while she... she is half-straddling hers in the dark and staring at his face, silent. Slowly, her fingers brush against the things he had offered her. A shoulder, an ear, a hand, a heart...]
Khalid, I love...
[But by the time she reaches his lips, his eyes are open. She blushes, caught leaning over him onto a palm pressed into the futon on the other side of his chest, forelegs curled against his side, and when he asks what she's doing.... Well, he has tended to them enough now that she can't blame it on her heat. ... She didn't need to, anymore, either. So instead, she finds the words to claim she was simply feeling amorous, leaning down for a kiss, and if he detected it as a cover for something else...
Well.
It's not as if he might had noticed by now that there was something odd going on... Right?]
[Khalid's already half-awake by the time he opens his eyes, so he's hardly startled to find in the dark that Hayame is leaning over him, her warmth pressed to his side. Still, he doesn't pause to so much as ask what she was doing -- wasn't it obvious? -- before he reaches to touch her shoulder, eases her into a gentle kiss. He might not know what was on her mind, but he knows Hayame's moods well enough to understand there are some things she can only display here in the cover of darkness and the intimacy of rest.
The kiss parts, and his gaze is soft when he looks up at her.]
Hey... [The smile on his face is peaceful, content.] I feel like I was having a nice dream.
[The recollection of it is already slipping away, leaving only an impression of warmth suffusing the edges of his mind. But it's hardly an admonishment for her waking him up; if anything, he's sure she was the one responsible for it.]
[When had it gotten this easy, to bend down and find his lips in the dark? Hayame does not know, and yet... she knows to trace his jaw with her fingers as she kisses him, her fingers trailing affectionately down to his sleep shirt and brushing over the arrowhead nestled on his chest.
Ah... As much as she wants to make sure he had not heard her, as much as she wished she could just say it, or at least maybe not just prove Claude's guess about her moods to be accurate... Hayame's cheeks are red and flustered, her voice quiet and soft in the dimly lit night when she whispers back to him,]
... What kind of dream?
[If he could just know, somehow, so that she needn't ever say it aloud...]
It was... nice. [He doesn't have much of his usual eloquence when he's still only half-awake, his touch moving to brush a thumb over her ruddy cheek.] I'm sure you were in it.
[And maybe she was caressing him just as gently as she is now, speaking softly then, too. Though he's not far off the mark, he couldn't guess what might be on her mind from that alone, except that she seems to feel-- restless, maybe.]
[A nice dream. One with her in it… ? Helplessly, her lips change the shape of her face with a soft, affectionate (slightly anxious) smile, and though she tries to hide it… How can she, when his fingers will feel her cheek shape change beneath his? So foolish…]
I… I had a dream, too.
[One when she was awake, and not asleep.]
About Almyra.
[A place she had never been. One she kept telling herself (and Khalid) that she would surely never see.]
[He looks surprised, happy, even. That's certainly something to wake him up instead of drifting back off to sleep, and he shifts to sit up a little, just enough to prop himself up on an elbow.]
Oh? And what was Almyra like, in this dream of yours?
[There's a slight teasing glint in his eye, but his reply is still gentle. It's rare for Hayame to admit she might imagine some place she's never seen, instead of dismissing it as an idle fantasy, a waste of time not to be entertained.]
[Perhaps she shouldn’t have said it, because now that she sees the light in his eyes she doesn’t want it to disappear. Her fingers flex and settle heavy over his chest, the arrowhead necklace distinctive against her palm.]
… It was beautiful.
[Like he’s described it. In poetry, in words, in snippets of sunbeam beads and stories. Full of sand and heat but with resilient people, good food…]
There were pomegranates there.
[Not the seedlings she had carefully started growing in the garden that a certain war god occasionally put some plant magic into, but real…]
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leicesters) wrote2022-12-06 08:26 pm
a few days later
Only to be wrong, and be unable to notice until the simple phrase kept dying before it became sound.
Tonight... Her hair is unbound, though at its shorn-short length after the effigy it did not become rivers of ink flowing across pillows and sheets, something to be mindful of when moving. The sleeping robe hanging loosely off the curves of muscular shoulders is lace and not the usual cotton weave. The sheets smell like... like them. Her ear is pressed to his chest, listening to his breathing and the slow, heavy beat of his heart.]
Khalid... ?
[The same test as the previous nights. Making sure he wouldn't answer her, that he did not stir, deep enough in sleep so as not to hear her when she practiced. But he doesn't seem to move or crack an eye, even when she moves a hand up to splay over her sternum, soaking up the warmth of his body and the languid, heavy feeling in her body.]
Khalid... I-
[It's only as far as she's been getting. Turning her gaze from his face in the dark, Hayame swallows, and then gathers herself to whisper,]
Khalid, I love-
[Her fingers curl gently, barely, where her hand rests on him, her face turning slightly into the muscular curve of of his chest. If he was not "looking at her"... If she just tried again-]
I love... your hands.
[She gets farther than she had before, at least, even if it was in a different way, a cop out from what she actually meant to express. Now that she has said it... Well, it wasn't a lie. Her touch drags lightly over to his shoulder, down an arm until she find his fingers... and then tangle them together, pulling them laced back to his chest for her to nuzzle briefly against and then...
Ashamed of her cowardice and frustrated with her failures, she gives up there for the night and tries to go back to sleep.]
a few days later (again)
This time... Claude almost wakes when she stirs and shifts. Obligingly, muttering something half-asleep and nonsensical, he tugs a bit on the sheets and turns back towards her, arms reaching out, and... then she is trapped there against him (because she did not stop him, and did not shirk away), nestled into his shoulder and chest as he let out a long, settling exhale, fingers brushing through her hair as if to encourage her to go back to bed as well.
She could wait until she felt more confident he wouldn't hear her, or her words wouldn't rouse him, but... Her fingers brush against the blunted arrowhead hanging from his neck, that she had fastened for him on that beach in Xanadu. Her features soften with affection, running her thumb along it for a brief moment. She loves...
Ah.
Without saying anything out loud, Hayame presses a brief kiss to his shoulder before she returns to sleep.]
a few days later (once more)
Someone who would be on her side, no matter what.
And she hadn't promised him anything at all. He hadn't demanded anything, he had not even asked her for anything, beyond her hand in his- just any sign at all that she might accept his feelings, even if she didn't know yet what her own were. The last time he had alluded that all he needed to know was that she felt the same for him as he did for her, in her kitchen, in thei- in her home in Alenroux... She still had not been able to do much beyond asking him to take down her hair.
So she wants... She wants him to know. He deserved to know. So why is she still struggling? Why, even when he sleeps, can she still not get the words out? Other people declared their friends and their lovers as casually as they discussed the weather, while she... she is half-straddling hers in the dark and staring at his face, silent. Slowly, her fingers brush against the things he had offered her. A shoulder, an ear, a hand, a heart...]
Khalid, I love...
[But by the time she reaches his lips, his eyes are open. She blushes, caught leaning over him onto a palm pressed into the futon on the other side of his chest, forelegs curled against his side, and when he asks what she's doing.... Well, he has tended to them enough now that she can't blame it on her heat. ... She didn't need to, anymore, either. So instead, she finds the words to claim she was simply feeling amorous, leaning down for a kiss, and if he detected it as a cover for something else...
Well.
It's not as if he might had noticed by now that there was something odd going on... Right?]
no subject
The kiss parts, and his gaze is soft when he looks up at her.]
Hey... [The smile on his face is peaceful, content.] I feel like I was having a nice dream.
[The recollection of it is already slipping away, leaving only an impression of warmth suffusing the edges of his mind. But it's hardly an admonishment for her waking him up; if anything, he's sure she was the one responsible for it.]
no subject
Ah... As much as she wants to make sure he had not heard her, as much as she wished she could just say it, or at least maybe not just prove Claude's guess about her moods to be accurate... Hayame's cheeks are red and flustered, her voice quiet and soft in the dimly lit night when she whispers back to him,]
... What kind of dream?
[If he could just know, somehow, so that she needn't ever say it aloud...]
no subject
[And maybe she was caressing him just as gently as she is now, speaking softly then, too. Though he's not far off the mark, he couldn't guess what might be on her mind from that alone, except that she seems to feel-- restless, maybe.]
What about you? Couldn't you sleep?
no subject
I… I had a dream, too.
[One when she was awake, and not asleep.]
About Almyra.
[A place she had never been. One she kept telling herself (and Khalid) that she would surely never see.]
no subject
Oh? And what was Almyra like, in this dream of yours?
[There's a slight teasing glint in his eye, but his reply is still gentle. It's rare for Hayame to admit she might imagine some place she's never seen, instead of dismissing it as an idle fantasy, a waste of time not to be entertained.]
no subject
… It was beautiful.
[Like he’s described it. In poetry, in words, in snippets of sunbeam beads and stories. Full of sand and heat but with resilient people, good food…]
There were pomegranates there.
[Not the seedlings she had carefully started growing in the garden that a certain war god occasionally put some plant magic into, but real…]
And you were happy.