Work Text:
Aribis paces in the lounge room of her and her wife’s modest two story home, waiting for her to finish cleaning up from her boxing practice that day. Turning toward the stairs and calling up them.
“You coming down or what?”
“Yeah, just finished.”
Nyx comes hopping down the stairs as she finishes pulling her sneakers back on, mostly still in the outfit she was in before.
“Really, you’re going to wear your stinky gym clothes?”
Aribis teased, putting a hand over her mouth and nose.
“Oh har har, they’re clean, besides I don’t want to get anything else out, my washing load is already full enough. Come on, I put on the cute tights for you, let’s get going.”
Nyx takes her wife’s hand and pulls her out of the door, heading toward the park by their home, really just an empty spot in the surrounding forest since they live so far out of the way of the city, but it’s still their park.
The two of them slowly walked hand in hand, enjoying the peace and quiet they seldom get these days, what with Aribis and Nyx having jobs that took them far away from home frequently. Life of an adventurer and all that. Aribis leaned her head against Nyx’s arm, looking up at the much taller woman who was using her wings to shade the both of them. Aribis blushed softly as the wind tousled her wife’s hair and she brushed a lock of it back behind her ear. Sometimes Aribis couldn’t believe that a woman like Nyxivaan would love her the way she does, but then the smallest things have her falling head over heels once again.
“What’s got you so entranced?”
Nyx turned her head down to look at Aribis, having felt the other tiefling’s gaze burning into her, and grinned softly.
“You.”
Aribis closed her eyes and hummed softly, leaning closer to her wife.
Nyx blushed a darker shade and leaned down to press her head against Aribis’, the two of them stopping for a moment to bask in the feelings of affection for each other.
“Come on, the river isn’t too far, we can find a spot to sit and be all mushy there.”
Aribis pulled back first and gave a tiny tug on Nyx’s arm.
The pair continued walking as the sounds of the river approached, taking a seat nearby the bank, leaning against each other and playing with the others fingers as they sat together, wordlessly communicating how much they missed each other.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
A sudden splash and crack of a twig had the two of them standing up and looking around for the source of the noise, standing back to back and staring intently out into the trees.
“Xe tiwz vyzytz piqut.”
Nyx rapidly chanted the incantation for a spell to reveal the hidden, highlighting to her vision 3 cloaked figures surrounding her and Aribis.
“How many?”
Aribis whispered in infernal, clenching her fists nervously and hoping the intruders didn’t understand it.
“Three humanoids, cloaked. Did you bring a knife?”
Nyx whispered back in the same language, slowly moving her right arm back towards her wife and avoiding looking directly at the cloaked figures.
“No, didn’t think I’d need one so close to home. You?”
Aribis pressed closer to her wife when she noticed a handle of a dagger just poking through the skin of her wife’s arm.
“That looks so weird.”
Nyx laughed quietly as Aribis took the dagger from her disguised prosthetic’s hidden storage compartment that she’d opened for her.
“Alright. We know you’re here, let’s get this over with.”
Switching back to common the tiefling couple shouted into the forest.
A moment of silence passed before two crossbow bolts came flying out of the trees at Aribis, a quick flourish of her dagger had both bolts sailing aside around the two, a third flourish and a wince and suddenly her blade ignited with her bloody flames, twin jets of flame launching from her back and setting her and Nyx’s jackets to fluttering at the sudden rush of air as her phoenix wings manifested in a blaze.
Nyx, the second after Aribis had ignited, spun round and with a wave of her hand and another high-speed unintelligible incantation a blast of glittery light filled the area by the two cloaked figures, neither reacting quick enough to avoid being coated in the Faerie Fire that now illuminated them to the two.
“Still one behind us, you’ll be right against those two?”
Nyx crouched lower so she could whisper to Aribis, ignoring the flames licking at her exposed abs.
“Just be quick and then come help?”
Aribis turned and pecked Nyx on the cheek before launching into the air and dive bombing the two glowing assassins. Nyx meanwhile took a few running steps forward and with a powerful kick from her legs and flap of her wings she too launched into the air, leaping at the remaining assassin, fist drawn back ready to crash it into their jaw.
The assassin jumped out of Nyx’s way as she came crashing through, shattering the thick branch they were standing on, the assassin blanched at the sight, wondering what the hell that punch would have done to their ribs. Nyx stood up off the ground, flicking a shard of tree from her sleeveless jacket and glaring up at the assassin.
“Are you here for me, or my wife?”
Nyx shouted at the lone assailant.
“Both of you.” The assassin replied, lining up a shot at the blue-haired tiefling.
Nyx just shrugged and leapt straight up as the still invisible assassin shot their bolt, landing on a branch she kicked off again straight toward them, right fist drawn back for another haymaker like the first, the assassin clearly hadn’t realised that Nyx had earlier cast See Invisibility so the three attackers were completely visible to her. The assassin jumped aside again but this time was caught in the shock as Nyx’s fist pulverised the tree, spinning around she managed to grab onto the attacker and with a roar of effort, leant back, plummeting from the tree branch and suplexing the assassin straight into the ground, right on their neck and ending the skirmish as fast as it began. Turning back towards her wife there was a smoking corpse of one assassin, clearly Aribis had caught them up in a flurry of flames before delivering the final strike and she was engaged with the other one, who had a sword glowing with lightning? Interesting. Leaping across the gap again Nyx gave a roar of warning, the two elemental blade wielders disengaged and stepped back as Nyx landed between them, the assassin tried to take the opportunity to attack but didn’t expect Aribis to flare her wings brightly in an attempt to blind them. Ordinarily such a tactic wouldn’t work with Nyx’s imposing figure between the two shorter rogues, but Nyx and light don’t really get along, as in Nyx doesn’t cast a shadow, so the light flared bright enough to blind the assassin, catching them off guard at the unseen assault before they were swiftly ended by a combination of Aribis’ flaming dagger in between their ribs and Nyx’s silvered fist crashing into their sternum.
All three assailants dispatched the couple clung to each other, breathing hard as the adrenaline wore down.
“Let’s go home.”
Aribis spoke first, just wanting to be close to her wife.
“Yeah. I’ll send Sparky to clean them up once we get back. I’m sure Ostivia would like the gift.”
Nyx whispered back, holding tight as her smaller, but much stronger, wife lifted the two of them from the ground and started gliding home.