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“Are you my Nhaama?”
The question catches you off-guard. It yanks you from your thoughts so suddenly that you scarcely have enough time to turn your eyes to the source.
So focused had you been on tending to a young Oronir warrior, the approach of another is the last thing on your mind--the footsteps all but numbed from your perception when compared to ensuring the gash on the young boy’s arm is sufficiently bandaged.
Though you have been a guest of the Oronir for but a week, you've already learned to deal with the prodding attention of its older warriors. Those who assume they know more than you, some still who see your work as useless--and some, though very few, who see your light-colored scales and say nothing at all, gazes hard and suspicion clear.
It's a healer’s job to heal. To care for people who need help. Though you may have not seen yourself traveling upon the Azim Steppe but few months before, you have long-since accepted to go where fate guides you.
So of course, in the presence of such a large Xaela tribe, you had expected the presence of others to interrupt your hands as they bandage wounds, your thoughts as you channel careful aether into ill bodies.
However, the sight of Magnai himself, leader to the Oronir, falls far beyond such feeble assumption. It's rare to see him, rarer still to see him outside of the throne room, for you have only seen him but twice before.
Once to allow you upon the Dawn Throne, and once to offer you extended blessings for your work upon the tribe. The latter of which was three days ago, when you realized how deep injuries from the previous battle had run across the tribe's members.
But neither time did you feel nearly as afraid as you do now at his approach, his strides long and hurried, reaching you in but a breath of time from the moment your eyes finally lay upon his grand form.
Worry creeps up into your words as you speak despite the desperate efforts to keep the tone even.
“W-what....did you say, r-radiant brother M-Magnai?
Surprise fills your veins and keeps you frozen in place, eyes wide as the moon as the man approaches you. A look of fire burns in his gaze as he stops at last, but a stride or two in front of you, keeping a distance though he looks like a predator readied to pounce.
“My Nhaama,” the leader repeats, tone firm and as unyielding as the rest of his being.
The word is more familiar in mind than upon your tongue, for it is a Xaela word for a Au Ra belief.
You blink, trying to let the thoughts catch up to you, recalling the significance of what the Xaela call the Dusk Mother--Nhaama--and how it ties so intricately with the Oronir tribe.
How Magnai, believing himself to be the mortal-born Dawn Father, known as Azim to the Xaela, searches endlessly for his lover--his equal and destined Nhaama.
To hear him accuse, no, to question if you are such a one as that...
You know not what to say. But the silence at least is not long-lasting, for the leader of the Oronir is quick to speak.
“For years have I wondered if my Nhaama would be born outside of the Steppe, less so outside of the Xaela--but after many sunfalls of thought, such sense does it make at last!”
Magnai’s words are filled with such warmth and energy, an excitement that mirrored that of a child--you can't help but feel a heat across your cheeks as you listen and look upon the man, rising slowly to your feet to but come barely to his chest.
“Just as Azim took on the form of the Xaela, so too might the sun’s own fated one be of the Raen--a union of Dusk and Dawn, of Sun and Moon. An ethereal maiden of healing as if blessed by the Dusk Mother herself--I have seen how your gentle touch has already healed the brave warriors who follow the Sun.”
The words, spoken with such flourish and care, leave you without a single sound in your throat. All you can do is stare at the man, still frozen, still silent, taking in all he has to say.
“You have found your way home at last, into the warm embrace of the Sun’s court, for the Oronir--for the heavenly Sun himself--have been waiting for you. My sweet, beloved Nhaama.”
From around the Dawn Throne’s land, people approach. Young and old step into the open area, if only to explore the commotion of noise of their leader’s booming voice, for Magnai did naught to keep his confident declarations of love quiet.
You can see them all as they grow nearer, some trying to hide their curiosity behind the edges of nearby tents, and others yet who cared if they were seen watching with crossed arms and quirked brows. Buduga and Oronir warriors alike, all watching in a slowly-gathering crowd, gazes fixed upon the grand Xaela warrior at its center, and the small Raen healer who he stood in front of in but a grand display, arms outstretched and tail lashing behind him in that same child-like excitement.
The beat of your heart is rapid. It hammers hard in your chest, making your blood rush and your head feel dizzy. Thoughts come too rapidly for you to catch. Like sand through loosely-bound fingers, they slip through. All you can do is stand and behold Magnai in all of his show, his burning attention upon you and you alone.
Despite it all, your eyes remain locked with his. You heard his words, yes, but they scarcely pierce through your swirling emotions. For as many experiences you’ve held close to your chest, for as many near-deaths, fears, hopes and dreams that you’ve clutched in the years since birth, never once did you feel an emotion quite like the one filling your chest now.
It feels warm. It feels radiant. It feels comforting and familiar.
Like a switch, a button, something flipped inside of your heart. A revelation crashed through your mind like an ocean of water, threatening to swallow you whole, to drown you in its never-ending pressure. One of your hands reached up to your own chest, fingertips digging into the cloth that lay over your heart as if you had to keep it from jumping out.
And still you met Magnai’s gaze.
Without meaning to, you take a step forward.
You take another, and then a third.
Magnai is still as you approach him, closing the last few strides of a gap between your forms, until he is close enough to reach out and touch. He makes no move nor shift. Though he could all but reach out and grab you the man keeps himself still, as if but the slightest motion may scare you away.
The warmth in your chest only grows as you get close to him, getting hotter until it’s a burning radiance of emotion you can but barely describe, of which the Oronir leader is the undeniable source.
Careful. Cautious. Unsure.
You reach a hand up, fingertips shyly brushing across the side of the man’s face. Though you struggle for a few moments to reach him comfortably upon the tips of your toes, Magnai wordlessly leans down enough that you can lay your palm flat over the curve of his cheek, fingertips against the texture of his obsidian scales as black as night.
And then, you feel compelled to speak. A deep instinct bubbles within your chest. It is primal, the feeling, and one you cannot stop.
“You are my Sun.”
It feels as natural as breathing.
"My...Azim."
If not for how you looked so closely upon Magnai’s face, you might have missed the way his eyes widen, glimmering golden in the light of the sun above. You might miss how his lips tremble or his body shakes. The man’s brows knit tight above his eyes in a range of emotions untrained or simply unprepared, the words a key to an ocean of raw feelings he too was not ready to feel.
And all the while, to the outside world, the two of you stand in silence.
Magnai finally reaches a hand up to your face. His fingertips lightly stroke across one of your horns, as if committing the shape and texture already to his memory.
“You are the most beautiful thing ever to grace the vision of the Sun.”
His words are a whisper, spoken soft and intimate for only the two of you to hear. After a moment longer you feel the man’s hand shift, cupping one side of your face against his palm; the touch is warm, fingertips calloused from years of training and battle.
Your heart sings for the simple gesture.
“I...” you start, heartbeat beginning to race again as you take in the moment. “I don’t understand what’s going on....why I feel this way...”
“Worry not, my Nhaama, you will learn the details of your journey to me in time.” Magnai reaches his other hand out to cup your face completely, thumbs gently rubbing over the curve of your cheekbone, as if tracing the lines of your scales. “Know only that you will be loved and cared for in all of your years under the embrace of the Sun. I have found you at last.”
At last his hands move, arms reaching around your body to tug you against him--you offer no rejection, just a soft noise of surprise as you feel your form press flush to his. Your face instinctively nuzzles against where it reaches of the man’s chest before your eyes peer up to meet Magnai’s own once more.
In but one breathless moment he pulls you up and into his arms, lifting you off your feet enough so that neither he nor you have to strain to reach eachother’s lips.
There is no hesitation in how your mouths meet, and neither is there issue with the shape of your horns and his. It is truly an exhilarating thought, a revaluation, your bodies and faces and lips meeting as if you were truly crafted to be with one another.
Though you feel a gentle pressure of his horns sliding against your own, there is nothing to stop him from claiming your lips with tongue and teeth, from growling into the kiss in a manner that only vaguely reminds that you have an audience of Oronir and Buduga still watching the union before their very eyes.
Before you could think to pull away, Magnai has long-since felt the subtle change in the pressure of your lips. His face pulls back just enough, though your foreheads still touch, breaths mingling delicately across one another’s skin.
“I have found you at last,” the man murmurs lowly, making no effort to release you or allowing you out of his arms. “And now that I have you, my beautiful Nhaama, I will never let you go.”