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A touch of chill ghosted across his skin, raising gooseflesh and rousing him some from otherwise restful sleep. The cause: Sarangerel had slid from his side. Rising onto her knees, she stretched widely, yawning as her arms rose over her head and in the shadow of the morning her skin is as stone, her scales as obsidian; A far cry from the soft blues of snow in the moonlight, and the deep cerulean ice of a frozen lake. Seeing her with hands extended, her breathing even and slow, it is as if he gazes upon a graven idol, beseeching to the heavens above…
It sparks something, deep in his loins, and Drillemont draws a sharp breath, breaking the drowsy silence. But as she looks to him, with a sleepy smile and long, dark hair all fallen around her face, just as quickly he finds it gone— doused by his shame, quick and fleeting as the warmth leaving his side. Fury save him, so used to her heat he’s become that he’s starting to forget the chill of Coerthas and of perpetual winter, and it… troubles him. More so as Saran stirs further, arms dropping, her tail sliding from his waist where it had wrapped as they slept. The dry rasp on his skin makes him shiver again; her eyes are heavy with sleep still, and as she smiles, relaxed and drowsy, leaning down to kiss him, he…
…turns his head, feeling her soft lips on his jaw instead of his mouth, and in an instant he is ashamed.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, but it’s too late, and the damage is done. Sarangerel pulled away, her smile fading and her eyes cast in inscrutable shadow as the dawning morning light lit her frame from behind.
“Are you?” She says, voice sharp- now as cold as the stone she appeared to be carved from at the first. Drillemont bowed his head; with fumbling hands he sought her, cupping her waist and feeling the ridges of her scales under his calloused fingertips.
“I am,” said Drillemont, trying to clear his throat- holding his grip steady as much as he can. He rises awkwardly, to face her on an equal kind of footing, but instead he finds himself on his knees on the mattress, bowing his head before her, and even though her stature is so slight, so much smaller in comparison to his tall elezen height, it’s he who feels small in this moment. Small and ashamed, begging before the idol of his goddess— no, no, Fury preserve him, these are not the thoughts of a proud and forthright knight of Ishgard, but now that his traitorous mind has summoned these thoughts, they are all he can think of, and oh how close he is to being lost, this very moment. If he were a lesser man he would weep, but he cannot— will not— do so in front of Sarangerel, who shared his bed and blessed it so with her warmth amongst endless snow.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think— I hadn’t meant it so,” he pleads to her once more, daring not raise his head to look at her face; he’s unworthy of it right now. “Please forgive me, Saran, not after— that is, if you wish to leave I will not call after you. I only didn’t expect— the sleep in my eyes, it only—”
He’s babbling like a fool. He could not be further from himself right now, and he meant his words as they were said but truly if she turned away without a word, oh, his heart could not take it, even after sabotaging itself so, his dearest Saran—
“Drillemont.” She spoke to him, in the midst of his rising panic, and his name from her tongue is as a balm, soothing his fraying nerves. “Drillemont, stop. No more. Look at me.” Under his chin, her fingers slide, and though he swallows heavily, Drillemont stopped his halting speech, allowing her firm and gentle strength to push his reluctant gaze upward— he meets her eyes. And he is drawn into them, neither of them speaking as she stares back, expressionless and silent… but then she smiles.
“Oh, Drillemont,” she murmured, a sigh in the quiet room, and in some disbelief, he kneels frozen as she embraces him— her arms slide around his neck. She tilts her head that her horns might rest easy behind his head, and he feels her breath upon his bare skin as she speaks, calmly, steadily.
“I don’t ask that you forsake yourself for me,” Sarangerel whispered. “I don’t ask that you turn your back on your city, or your duty, or your faith. I lie with you because I admire you— and because you desire me to.”
Her moves back and forth in a slow, serpentine wave, back and forth, as if she hypnotizes him as she speaks to him in her soothing voice. Carefully he removes his hands from her waist, but only so that he might embrace her. Feel as much of her as he can; the slide of her scales, the swell of her breasts, the scars old and new, the steel in her spine that near contradicts the softness of her actions. On the field, he is strong and sure in his duty and purpose, but in her arms here… he feels so very weak.
Sarangerel does pull away, after a scant moment that feels eternity. Raising her hands, she cupped his face between them, with fingers just as rough and calloused as his own. “Look at me,” she commands him again, and he does— fearful and reverent both. “Despite whatever it is that guilts you so,” Sarangerel whispered to him, drawing him close, brushing her lips across his neck, his jaw… “I am yours, Ser Drillemont. So long as you allow me at your side. So long as you can yet look me in the eye, and be not afraid of what you see.”
Her hands, so gentle, grip him yet with a strength deceptive to her size, and Sarangerel kisses him then, drawing him close and holding him in place but this time he doesn’t fight it or turn away— he struggles not, succumbing to her love that blazes like the sun of summers long ago. As he kisses her back, fiercely and with feeling, relief and fervor in equal measure, overcoming his fear at last. For now. No longer does he genuflect; now he will plunder what has been offered— and Halone save his soul for what the auri does to him, how she sends him reeling between two fronts. Fury above, how he cannot help but see his bed as a battlefield of a different sort— and Sarangerel’s love, oh, how her love is a war of attrition that at its finish, leaves him so utterly and completely undone.