Chapter Text
9.54PM, June 14th, The Storm Spire
They were supposed to be sharing the room with Soren and Ez. Ez had fallen asleep in Amaya’s lap earlier though, and he was probably not joining them. Soren had joined them, but had left almost immediately, with an exaggerated wink, bringing his blanket with him. They had been surreptitiously eying each other and the door ever since.
Rayla predictably acted first. “Okay. He had his chance.” She got up, and retrieved what looked like a piece of wire from her pack. She shut the door. Kneeled in front of it. The lock clicked. She stood up and took a bow, triumphant grin melting into something… suggestive. “I did pay attention in some of my lessons.”
“You learned lock picking… well, lock… locking? …in school? Okay, that’s pretty awesome.”
She laughed. “No dummy. Could you imagine the mayhem if every 7-year-old could pick locks? Civilized society would be brought to ruin. Runaan taught me. It’s a good things some of my assass-” She turned away. He supposed those assassin jokes weren’t that funny anymore. She had killed a person. Those monster soldiers he had knocked off the mountain… it might be debatable if they were people at that point, their sentience seemed to have been burned away leaving only aggression. And that debatability kept him from a breakdown right now. But Viren undeniably had been a person, if not a very good one.
“You want to talk about it? About… Viren?”
“No. That wasn’t… a hit. Nothing about it was like I’d been taught. No orders. No ritual. I didn’t do it to kill him, no acceptance that his death was the least price to pay, that it was right in any bigger sense. I did it for Zym. For all of you down there. Unarmed. Hood down. I’m… not an assassin. I don’t know what I am.”
“You were a good Dragonguard. No one can dispute that. A hero.” He smiled at her. “You don’t have to be any of those things either though. If you don’t want to.”
“I’m still your girlfriend too.” She giggled a bit. “Your… cheese and mustard sandwich.”
“We’re not using Moonshadow terms for that! I’m putting my foot down! I love you! I don’t love mustard. Not like I love you.”
“No that would be weird. And potentially painful.”
She climbed into the bed next to him. He looked at his beloved, beautiful beyond compare in an oversized, borrowed soldier’s shirt that left her long legs uncovered. But he didn’t want anything but sleep and peace. It seemed, neither did Rayla. That saucy grin when she had locked the door had been all bravado. The day had been so long and so overwhelming, all the people and the regents and Zubeia waking up, all on a few stolen hours of exhausted sleep in she short window before the soldiers made it to the top of the Spire.
She pressed close to him as they had both yearned to, but had been hesitant to do before Rayla locked the door. All these people were around now. Katolis people. Katolis values. It was not like he cared very much, considering all the vastly more important things going on, but it did occur to him that going to sleep like this was really not considered appropriate among the nobility on the other side of that door.
None of their opinions mattered nearly as much as what the two of them, on this side of the door, decided to do. He put his arms around her, her bare legs tangling with his. And let go of it all. His swirling thoughts. His consciousness.
…
The impact with the floor startled him awake. He looked around confused. He had been in mid air, Rayla slipping away from him, through the clouds. It was not real. But the tears on his face, the cold sweat on his back and neck, the rapid throb of his heart… that was real. He steadied himself, palms against the cool stone floor. He felt sick, and yet he knew with horrifying surety that the dream was not nearly as bad as it could have been. He had awoken before the really bad part. Had been fortunate enough to thrash so much he had tumbled over the edge of the bed.
It had been so close to being real though. His mind was eager to extend the cut-off scenario with would-have-beens. He wiped his face. It was not so bad. Well, it was. But it was not like that, not really. Rayla was fine. She was in the bed next to him, or had been, at least. And he could touch her and press close to her, and know she was okay. He climbed back in bed to do just that, but stopped dead when he saw her.
Rayla was curled into herself, a tiny ball, like she had been, back at the oasis. Fitful sleep, not thrashing, but shaking, tiny quiet whimpers that might be the worst sound he had ever heard.
“Rayla! Wake up! It’s a dream, you’re okay.” He shook her shoulders, but as he saw her start to wake, shifted his hands to her face, soft strokes across her cheeks and forehead. “You’re okay. I promise.”
Her lilac eyes opened, wide and vulnerable and terrified, whatever nightmare she had been caught in still clinging to her. He drew her into him. She unfurled slowly, gasping dry sobs against his chest.
He swept his fingers through her hair, around the base of her horns, wordless comfort, again and again until she stilled. She gradually seemed to realize what was happening, slowly but then all at once. Her eyes widened, and it dawned on him how was touching her, that he did not know what that meant to elves. Horns were a body part he did not even have.
“Sorry. Is that… inappropriate?” He asked.
“More inappropriate than sharing a bed with you unsupervised? No.” She chuckled, a little mirth breaking through the brittle vulnerability. “It’s… intimate. Something only done within families, usually. But it’s okay.” A faint flush, barely visible in the dim light, spread across her cheeks. “I mean, it’s okay if you do it.”
He obliged, continued the caress, gentle motions at the base of her horns. He liked the way it made her muscles relax, the soft little sighs from her lips. It made him relax, it was so soothing. And cute. Unbelievably cute. Probably just because it was her though. “You want to talk about it? Your dream? I had one too. I don’t think I made it as far into it as you did though, so it wasn’t as bad.” Her eyes opened. Her hands stroked across his temple, his ear, through his hair where his horns would have been if he had been an elf.
She shook her head gently. “No. We had the Big Feelings Time just this morning. I’m not really ready for another one. If you are, I’ll listen. But I just want you. You and sleep.” You and sleep. Yeah, those were good.
Neither of them could go back to sleep though, so they would have to make do with the ‘you’ part, which really was a very good part. Despite the exhaustion having gone nowhere, his mind and senses were wide awake. He could feel every point of contact where Rayla was pressed against him, her foot against his calf, her chest against his, her strong slender body more keenly felt without so many layers of clothes and armor between them. He shifted his grip from her shoulder to her waist and found bare skin. Retracted his hand. Her sleeping shirt had ridden up, clearly. But she did not look offended, her eyes merely met his firmly, a question. If he wanted to or it had been an accident. Well, it could be both, right? He put his hand back. Smooth, warm skin under his fingertips, firm muscle, the faint ridge of an old scar at the small of her back, her ribcage expanding with her breath, faster now.
Rayla looked at him, heat in her eyes, and fast and graceful as ever, before he even registered what had happened, he was on his back, her on top of him, her strong legs on either side of him. Her still-bandaged right hand at the tie of his oversized, borrowed shirt. Hesitating? Or asking permission? He nodded up at her, in case it was the latter. And she flicked the tie open. Her hand against bare skin now. A gasp tore from his throat.
This was… new. But nice. Very. Definitely. He reached up to embrace her, hands at her waist. Slipping under her loose sleeping shirt, up the smooth bare skin of her back.
Rayla leant over him, smiling tenderly down at him, but she flinched as she leant further down. That grimace of pain across her face bore itself past the haze of wanting urges like Amaya’s boot through a door. Her left wrist, Callum remembered. The bound one. She had said something about it earlier, but only so much horribleness could really register at once. He sat up, Rayla sliding down slightly to sit in his lap instead.
He took her left hand gently in both of his. Angry swelling along the graceful lines of her slim wrist. Lujanne had said, he remembered, that her wrist might more susceptible to overworking or injury. He kissed the tender inside of her wrist, then her palm. Slight pink scar at its base, where her bracers usually covered. The sunforge blade, he realized. He kissed the scar too. On him, that was, his idea with the blade, and it had not worked, just hurt her. For some reason he could not look away.
Rayla’s other hand swept across his brow. “Dummy. You’re thinking something stupid right now, right? Along the lines of any of that being your fault.” She really did know him.
“No. Well, maybe a bit.”
“You do remember what the state of that hand would be without you, right? Or the state of the rest of me for that matter?”
A stump. A corpse against the rocks below the Spire. No, he remembered. Would never forget. But still. It bothered him. The marks left on her that might be there forever, no matter how slight. The way she had looked before he woke her, curled in on herself, whimpering, scared and helpless and hurt. The invisible marks that did that. “Yes.” He answered her, belated and grim.
“We’re both still here though. Maybe a bit worse for wear,” her fingers swept across the bruises at his throat. “But here. That’s more important. You’re just lucky I have more going for me than my looks.” She grinned at him.
He laughed. But also, what? Was she serious? “You do realize you also have your looks going for you?” She shrugged. He was baffled. “Really? You’re so, so beautiful, Rayla.”
“And you’re biased.” She laughed.
“Well, you’re not wrong, but… You have to know you’re not just beautiful to me? Most people would think so. I don’t understand how you could possibly not know that. I cannot be the first person to tell you that.”
“No, Ethari told me once, when I was 12 and hated my outfit for the spring dance.”
“That doesn’t count,” Callum laughed.
“Runaan might have… discouraged my peers from paying that kind of attention to me. He could be pretty intimidating.” Runaan had a lot to answer for, Callum thought, a little bitterly. Insecurities that hurt her, ideas and expectations that hurt her, the band around her wrist that had hurt her and still was. His father’s death. But he had already answered for it, he realized. And Rayla had loved him. Till the end. He put the thought away, it wasn’t very hard to do, looking at Rayla now, the loose shirt falling off one shoulder, graceful curve of smooth skin laid bare.
“I’m paying attention.” He said, even though the unpleasant thoughts were still there, scratching and poking at the back of his mind.
“I know,” she smirked. “You always were.” He was, he realized, thinking back. His realization that he was in love with her had crept up on him, there had been no lightning strike like in the books, but… his attention she had grabbed right away and kept. “Callum.” She drew very close, running her fingertips across his nose and cheeks. “You’re beautiful too,” she said, smiling so sweetly he couldn’t not believe her. Although, she was most definitely biased. His cheeks heated. “Even more beautiful when you’re blushing,” she teased, pressing her lips against his. “You’re beautiful and you’re strong. We’re strong. We’re not unscathed. But we’re strong.” Not unscathed. No. That opened the door to those thoughts that were poking at him.
“It just- it was supposed to get better. But it hurts. And it hurts to watch you hurt.”
“Remember back in Aergeid Forest, when we waited out the rain under the toadstool?” He nodded. “Those weren’t very nice stories. It really was a terrible question.”
“Thanks Rayla, I thought I already apologized for-”
“Not the point dummy,” she smiled. “The point is, we weren’t really unscathed when we met either. I know I wasn’t. I know now. You helped me see it. And then you made me better. So- I guess, what I’m trying to say- …what I’m hoping you’ll agree with is… it’s okay if you’re not okay.”
“You made me better too. You’re right. We made each other better. We can do it again.”
She considered him. “Callum. It’s okay if I’m not okay either, right? You stopped something that felt… really good… because I was hurting a little bit. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want less of the good things, just because they’re not perfect or painless. I want you even if it hurts.”
“The things you say… It’s nice to know I’m not alone in being a cheesy lovestruck dork.” He leant over to kiss her, but she stopped him with a finger on his lips, not amused.
“You’re not.” She fixed him with a firm stare. “Like I’m not alone in deflecting when there are things I don’t want to talk about.” Yeah, distraction thoroughly unsuccessful.
He didn’t answer right away. Because it was hard to answer. He wanted her to have all the good things. No argument there. And he did see her point. No part of their courtship - if it in any conceivable way could be called that - had been perfect or painless. But it wasn’t okay that she was hurting, it just wasn’t. And like in the Oasis, outside her parents’ room, back on the sunleaf after Sol Regem that just seemed to strongly override anything else his brain could possibly be thinking about. Rayla could clearly see his hesitancy, he could tell. She wasn’t pushing him though, but waiting, giving him a chance to make sense of it.
It definitely wasn’t a question of not wanting her, he thought, considering her. Fine white hair splayed over the pillow, bright eyes, slightly parted pink lips… no. Not that. He considered. Time for him to be brave. He had jumped off a mountain. He could do this. He leant over her, resting his weight on his hands, like she had, but without the pain. Then he straddled her like she had him. Swallowed his nervousness. Leant down to kiss her but stopped short just shy of her lips. “Okay?” He asked, slightly hesitantly, even though she would have definitely let him know if it wasn’t.
“Very okay. Extremely so.” She smirked, then rose slightly to meet him, her lips nipping at his. “A brilliant compromise that no-one could object to.” A lot of people probably would object to it, Callum thought. But that was not important. Only that she didn’t. And he forgot anything else as her lips found his again.
Hands and lips reached their respective boundaries after a really not very long journey, because straddling her like he had, had already been skirting his. And they had time now. He would have to get used to that. That there was no rush. That they were not potentially dying tomorrow. They settled down for another try at sleeping. The first one had not been all that successful, true, but he felt better now. Hopeful.
“Rayla. I have another compromise. Or well, kind of a generalization of the earlier one?”
She kissed the top of his head. “I would like to hear it.”
He took a deep breath, and drew back so he could look at her. “It’s okay if you hurt. I know in my head it can’t be helped sometimes. I’ll work on my instinctive… possibly slightly overblown reaction to it. But it’s not okay for you to hurt for no reason. Or if I can help it. And you have to work on that. Okay?”
She considered him seriously. “Okay.” Her hand found his, a firm squeeze like a handshake, an agreement. “But you won’t work on that. And I won’t either. We will. Okay?”
“Okay.”
