Work Text:
warm fingers brushed the base of one of her horns, where the skin thinned and gave way to luminous crystal, feather-light in pressure until they danced further up, past where her skin and nerves could feel.
in the daytime, nothing about mara seemed particularly radiant- no unnatural glow, no glimmering of her horns or eyes; the spiderwebbing pattern of the unnatural growths seemed dull in the light of the sun- frosted over until night, when mara shined with an ethereal light from seemingly no true source.
right now, she was brilliant. the light of the fire seemed to only add to her. if not for lack of warmth, mara could’ve been their only light and they would’ve been fine.
“they” being hiravias and itumaak, really- everyone else was tucked away in their sleeping rolls, leaving the watcher and the orlan to keep an eye on things. neither were, of course, but that’s what itumaak was here for, right? a lookout when the group’s beloved leader was enamored with the feral druid that had found his way into the party, which had become increasingly often.
hiravias, in a rare moment of softness, had found himself near-on top of her chest, tracing the godlike’s features- all the so-called ‘strange’ traits that marked her so clearly; the glowing tear-like markings on her cheeks to the crystalline horns and moon-shaped mark above her forehead. he fancied them as a sort of beacon- like she was a lighthouse, sturdy and bright, to his sea-weary sailor. or something to that effect that he thought sounded stupid but was sure she’d like if she read it somewhere. she’d always been one for romantics, even when he rolled his eye at the sweet words.
“what do they feel like?” he’d asked, watching as mara’s eyes fluttered open and blinked at him- an endless expanse of light where her pupils and irises should have been.
“my horns?” she’d given a question in return for his, not waiting for any sort of actual confirmation as she tilted her head slightly, peering up as best she could at them. it was a silly motion in such a serious moment that it jarred him out of their little bubble, suddenly aware of how close they were- how cold her skin was against his.
“i don’t notice them, much, unless i’m trying to wear a hat,” the tiniest of smiles tugged at her lips, smooth voice rough and deepened with sleep- he liked the way the edges of her words crackled. “they’re heavy. especially when i’m tired. sometimes, when i’m sick of being ondra’s least favourite child, i think about what it would be like to cut them off. have one less feature touched by the gods.”
she delivered this little fact so casually that hiravias could only nod, fingers only momentarily halting their exploration, before dipping back down from the crystal to her skin, tracing along the shell of her pointed ears. she ran unnaturally cold, a fine companion to his unnatural warmth- it was strangely nice to be near, unlike the bitter cold of some of the areas she’d brought him to, the chill of her skin was familiar, reminiscent of a cool lake in the evening, something to long for on long days. an uncomfortable reminder of feelings that he didn’t let himself dwell on.
he was no stranger to the fleeting fancy of being born differently, or of choosing to living another life. they weren’t alike in any way; he believed in the path wael set out for him- and in some way, the one galawain had, -but he still understood.
one of her hands drifted up from where her arms lazily held his waist, briefly against his neck and then her cold palm was against his cheek, the pad of her thumb brushing warmth back and forth under his good eye.
there was something melancholy in the way she was staring back at him, in the way he’d been trying to memorize how her face felt beneath his hands.
this couldn’t last.
wouldn’t.
“and sometimes,” she hummed after a moment, eyes closing again as she leaned further into his touch, her own fingers dancing along the edges of his ruined ear, feather-light, “i let myself think they’re almost pretty. i see them on the head of a child in a village we pass through, catch a glimpse in a mirror before i have to leave- see them in the glittering of the moon and waves below, and they’re almost worth it.”
there was nothing the orlan could say that mara hadn’t already heard or thought herself, he was sure, no experiences or advice that could mean anything; and as close as the two had gotten- given that he was currently lying on her chest and her arm was twined with his free one, -hiravias really wasn’t the best at sweet words or comfort, if that’s what a person was looking for.
“well, i think they’re great. particularly for me to hold on to when we-“