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Shadows gathered at her feet as Luci gently shut the door behind her. She paused by the door, intending to let her eyes adjust to the moonlit darkness of Isgarren's quarters, but the astral lamps responded to her presence even with the shadows shimmering around her. They flared to life, bathing the room in a dim, warm light.
She stalked her way through the room, casting aside the faint disappointment of finding the room missing its primary occupant in favor of looking the room over with a tightening desperation in her chest. Here, draped across the couch, one of her coats she'd unthinkingly left behind and never bothered to take with her again. There, on the writing desk precariously sitting next to his many inks, a stack of books from his library she'd been meaning to get through. On the windowsill, framed against the starry night sky beyond, a potted Orrian flower she'd given him as a joke, somehow thriving in the crisp air of Amnytas.
She looked the room over one more time. Books on nearly every surface. Trinkets from every corner of Tyria scattered across various shelves, mementos from her journeys given a final home. Luci stopped before one such shelf, noting that Isgarren had reorganized some during her time away. Her yearly journals were no longer haphazardly stacked on the bedside table, instead given a dedicated shelf all to its own.
It was a strange thought—that this room felt so much like theirs together when she'd only been sharing it with Isgarren for but a fraction of the time it had been his alone.
A gentle warmth washed over Luci as she basked in the thought, accompanied by a sudden yet comfortable tiredness across her limbs. She was home. She could rest. The shadows slipped from her as she shuffled toward the massive bed and fell onto it, leaving her as easily as the worries dissipating from her mind as she sank into the dark sheets. Distantly she noted how comfortable they were compared to the past few weeks of camping.
Luci opened her eyes, yawned, and blinked.
She felt...refreshed. A little groggy, though she couldn't even remember falling asleep. Even so, her senses sharpened immediately as she sat up.
The first thing she noted was that the curtains had been drawn. Beams of golden sunlight spilled into the room through the gaps between them—she'd slept till late morning, she would guess.
The second was the blanket she'd woken up under, now pooling around her torso. Was it new? It seemed new. It was a beautiful dark blue, not unlike the color of her own bark, patterned with white stars, as Isgarren was always so fond of. She briefly pondered why he'd gotten a new one, then remembered they had ruined the last one on the night before her trip.
The third was that she was no longer alone. There, sitting at the desk, accompanied by the faint scratching of his quill, was the familiar back of the target of her affections.
"Are you hungry?" asked Isgarren without even turning to her.
She slid out of bed and padded over to him, dampening her steps out of habit. She wasn't ever really going to catch him unawares, but she crossed the short distance between bed and desk in silence anyway. She came up behind him, always delighted in how, with him seated, she could just barely look over his head. He was a dark gray today, his skin lit orange by the splash of sunlight falling directly over him. Gently, Luci touched his shoulders, waiting for him to finish writing before she leant in to wrap her arms around his upper chest.
"Wayfinder," he intoned in greeting, voice accompanied by the thump of his straightening the stack of papers. She could feel him turning his face toward her.
"I'll stop by the kitchens later," she murmured. "Isgarren..."
"I trust your trip was a fruitful one," he said. Slowly, he pushed back his seat, prompting her to circle around to his front. Isgarren rose, and suddenly his lower pair of hands hooked under her, lifting her into the air and drawing her even closer to himself.
She clung to him and buried her face in his chest. It was nice to be back, to be here in his embrace. "I'll do a full report later, but yes. Things in the Pale Grove should be much calmer now."
"And the self-proclaimed Nightmare Queen?" He began to move, away from his desk. From the direction, she guessed he was taking them to the couch.
"Dealt with," she replied, then, unable to draw back the trepidation in her voice, she added, "It will be in my report."
She looked up at his face, his brow knit together as he considered her words. Isgarren was usually so eager to learn the outcome of her missions, and she was never one to turn away his questions, but not even during the Steamspur campaign had Luci wanted to discuss matters less.
The silence stretched on, and he moved only to lower the two of them to the couch. She could feel his hands curl around her body, cradling her so gently in that way only he could, a wordless answer to an unspoken request, so she settled fully against him, allowing herself to sit upon his lower pair of arms. He leant in, resting his cheek against the side of her head, always so careful not to crush her flowers and always so unbothered by her thorns.
And Isgarren held her like he always did: one hand around her back to hold her steady, the other finding her face with his claws magically withdrawn, the pale pads of his fingers slowly tracing her features. He touched the long scars across her cheek, then the leaves that crowned them, sending small pleasant jolts through her. She held still for him, long accustomed to this ritual of his, this need to touch her methodically as if assuring himself that she were truly here. His fingers brushed her lips and he smelled of ink and old books and the fragrances of his garden, and involuntarily she moved against his fingers and heard him suck in a breath.
"Lucilaeh..." he murmured.
Most of the Astral Ward knew of their relationship. It was certainly difficult to hide that she spent her nights in his room no matter if he was presently using the one in the Tower or the one in Amnytas, a sure sign that they were more than Curator and Wayfinder. Still, they always kept things professional beyond these walls, so hearing her name from his lips, said so gently into the dark—the warmth she'd felt the night before returned in force, washing over her as affection for him surged from her. She had no doubt that if any other Sylvari walked past the door right now, they would be assaulted by the full force of her emotions.
He moved his hand away from her face, tucking a stray vine behind her ear before shifting in his seat for better comfort. Luci found herself draped across his lap, looking up at Isgarren, meeting his gaze past his spectacles. She reached up to him, pausing just before her hand reached his face in turn. He closed the distance for her, leaning his cheek into her palm, and she relished in the contact of his skin to hers.
She welcomed the quiet between them, after the hectic bustle of eastern Maguuma.
"How long will you stay this time?"
And there was the question she had been waiting for him to ask.
"The Crystal Festival is coming up, you know..." she said, grinning as his calm demeanor faltered for a moment. Luci couldn't help the smile on her face as she finally gave him the same answer she always did, even though Tyria was always tumbling along and they never knew when she was next needed, even though they both knew he would never ask her to not to go, even though he was busier than her and could not guarantee they had all the time they wanted for each other after today:
"How long do you want me to?"
He never had an answer, and she never asked one of him. He simply held her, for as long as they both wanted to rest.