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Willow felt the sheets shift next to her. She'd been feeling movement for a while now, but she favored staying curled up under the blankets rather than figuring out what was going on. It had been a long day and the game that day was against a particularly aggressive rival team. Flyer Derby didn't get its infamous reputation as a dangerous sport for nothing.
She wasn't injured (Hunter definitely made sure), but that didn't mean it wasn't tiring. Her back ached quite a bit.
She knew Hunter had a long day as well. Carving palismen in such a hunched position all day left his back with a multitude of sore spots. On top of that, though, Hunter's arm had been bothering him recently. The joints in his shoulders have been acting up recently and they had yet to go to a healer.
She drifted in and out of sleep, blinks lasting for a bit too long but not long enough for it to be real resting. Her back ached uncomfortable and Hunter kept shifting next to her. Every now and then she'd feel something soft and ticklish brush against the back of her shirt.
She was too tense and felt like she was bent uncomfortably, yet putting a pillow under her felt worse than just laying on the floor. And laying on the floor felt worse than just laying on the bed. Maybe they can do a double appointment with the healer.
She was able to ignore it for a while, drifting in and out of sleep. She shifted her head to face the other way and snuggled into the pillow. Her peaceful sleep was rudely interrupted when a soft feather went into her mouth as she breathed in. She coughed and spat the feather out. The shuffling stopped.
“Hunter,” she mumbled.
Hunter hummed a quick response. “Oh. I'm sorry. Did I wake you?”
“No, you didn't.”
“Really?”
“Mmm…” Willow thought for a moment. “Well, a little bit, but my back was keeping me up anyway.” She didn't want to give Hunter's anxiety the moment to dwell on it, so she spoke up again. “Are you okay?”
“Hm?” He sounded sleepy. Maybe he was just having a bad dream. “Oh. I'm trying to preen my feathers. I… I can't reach some of them.”
She hesitated for a moment. “Does your arm still hurt?” He nodded. “Do you want me to help?”
She felt the pause where he hesitated too. “Only if you aren't tired.”
She laughed under her breath and sat up, propping herself against the pillows. He'd been a lot better at asking for help recently. Her eyes adjusted after being closed and pressed against the pillows for so long and, as they did, she started noticing all the red and black feathers that littered the sheets. Soft down feathers mixed with primaries and secondaries. She had a guess as to what flew into her mouth so suddenly.
“Did you put those there on purpose?” Willow looked towards Hunter for an answer. He turned towards her, mid-yawn, eyes drooping. She remembered when she found a bunch of down feathers around their pillows, picked them all up, and placed them in the drawer of her desk. A couple hours later she found out they were there to make it more comfortable (and the had to admit, they were soft), and she had a sulking Hunter in her arms on the couch.
She remembers him cursing his own nesting tendencies and bird-like habits. Even after years of being in environments where he could safely express these habits, he still seemed to struggle with old memories.
“I mean, some of them are the down feathers. If you want, they can stay in the bed. I don't really mind it. I mean, it makes sense that I don't mind it, they're mine. But, I mean, it's your bed. Well—” He cut himself off at that point, staring into space seemingly trying to stay awake.
Willow giggled, trying to shake the last bit of sleep off so she could really focus, and picked up one of the feathers on the blanket. “Our bed.” She examined the feather in her hand. “This is a wing feather.”
“Oh, yeah.” Hunter went back to shifting his arms and stretching his wing out so he could reach, tugging at some of the feathers. She noted the somewhat awkward, tense way his arm bent. “Those can be thrown wherever. I promise I'll clean them in the morning.”
“It's okay. They can stay here.” She gently placed the wing feather on the bed again. Sometimes the ones that fell off of Hunter's wings would poke her in her sleep, but his feathers were big enough that the calamus of them didn't actually feel too prickly. More of just a dull blunt stabby feeling.
It was molting season, anyway, so there would just be more feathers on the bed the next day despite any cleaning (besides, Willow loved the feathers).
She scooted forward until she was behind Hunter, ignoring the twinge in her back. “Can I help?”
“Yes,” he mumbled “Please.” She watched his right wing fold up again against his back.
For what was seemingly an anatomical addition onto what was basically just regular witch anatomy (if one were to ignore the facial and arm feathers, the talon-like nails, the bird-like behaviors—), the wings folded very snugly (too snugly, too tense) against his back. She ran the back of her hand gently down one of his primary feathers and watched as the wing relaxed a bit, unfurling slightly.
She began shifting some of the feathers. She could see the places where he couldn't reach quite clearly. A lot of the feathers were ruffled and slightly askew from laying in bed, some coverts pushed to the side so far that the base of the primaries under them could be seen.
The more feathers she shifted, the further Hunter seemed to relax. At some point, she realized she had begun leaning forward a bit too far to compensate for Hunter slouching down.
“Sit up a bit, Hun'.”
Hunter mumbled something incoherent in response and shifted, sitting up. Willow resumed her ministrations, adjusting feathers and smoothing down others. She was careful around the ends of his wings. Though the clipped part of his wings healed years ago, the area was still sensitive, like a memory of a wound. She found that when people touched the edges of his wings, Hunter would tense up and his wings would quiver. She caught on quickly and avoided those areas, but it took him a long time for him to tell Willow why he didn't like her touching those parts of his wings.
It was a matter of minutes before Hunter began to slouch again, and Willow just let him. She followed through with his movement and leaned over him, careful not to let her body accidentally crush any delicate feathers. Her back protested slightly, but she was able to put most of her weight through her elbows on her thighs to take pressure off of her back.
After nearly half an hour of gentle prodding and shifting, she leaned back to take in Hunter's wings. Many of the maligned feathers were back in their proper place. The dark feathers towards the bend of his wings made a nice gradient down into a softer, lighter red towards the ends of his wings. Willow admired the wings and pretty, pretty feathers. She knew through molting season they'd begin to look a bit ratty in a week or so, not that that made him any less beautiful (she made sure to drill that into his head).
Her legs were covered in little down feathers and various wing feathers that had fallen into her lap while she preened. She shifted and let them fall onto the blanket under her.
“How do you feel now?” Willow whispered.
Hunter jolted slightly at the sudden noise and turned his head to the side, mumbling something soft as an answer. He turned fully and pushed Willow until she was laying on her back, feet at the pillows and head at the extra blanket they kept on the foot of the bed. Hunter nestled into her chest and wrapped one arm around her torso, the other threading through her hair, wings neatly tucking into his back.
Willow sighed at the comfortable weight and blissful, scratchy feeling of his sharp nails across her scalp. While she wrapped one arm around Hunter, careful of his freshly preened wings (that would, now that she thought about it, probably be all messed up after sleep), she picked up a feather that had fallen next to her head, rubbing it against her cheek absentmindedly.
It was soft, the texture was nice.
“What are you giggling 'bout?” Hunter mumbled.
“Hm?” She hadn't realized she was giggling. “Mm, the feather is soft on my face. Very nice and healthy feather on my face.”
Hunter chirped and buried his face further into her neck-chest conjunction. “Shh…”
She laughed again softly and abandoned the feather in favor of playing with Hunter's hair as he did with hers. The soft weight of Hunter on her combined with actually sleeping on her back properly helped to alleviate some of the soreness, and she was able to fall asleep a lot faster with the combination.
She dreamed of pillowy, red feathers on her face.