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It was strange how her hands could be rendered so beautiful in Erza’s eyes, when they were not so in Ultear’s own. They were stained with blood and reeked of iron to her senses, but Erza called them lovely, and held them as gently as she would delicate glass. There were no calluses upon Ultear’s hands – a side effect of the magic they wielded, perhaps – and always so cold from the ice that ran in her veins (a gift from her mother that had surely protected her just as much as it had damned her). They were in stark contrast to Erza’s own hands which were rough and so warm that Ultear felt like melting whenever they touched her.
And touch her they did, and often. The first time had stemmed from an apology, given in a spare moment in a hidden place soon after Erza’s return from Tenrou. It had been innocent, that first touch. Erza had clasped Ultear’s bloodstained hands in her own and had enveloped them in warmth Ultear hadn’t known how to feel until then. That was all it had been, though. Just that little amount of contact – neither of them were comfortable with having the walls they’d erected around themselves breached by a practical stranger – but… it was enough. That first had led to another meeting, Ultear seeking out the redhead without even realizing it. At the beginning she’d made the excuse of updating Erza on how their mutual friend was doing. But soon enough Erza was asking after her instead, and Ultear forgot to use the crutch Jellal provided more and more often, until he became an afterthought rather than her purpose.
It was strange, too, that her hands could now bring forth something other than death. Now her hands made red stains across Erza’s skin instead of pools of blood. It made her wonder if, someday, the former would outnumber the latter. That the only red staining her hands would be scarlet hair strands from her lover, or kiss-swollen lips held against her palms.
Only time would tell.
But Ultear intended to give it the chance to.