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Ari Rosselin-Metadi infused a rare, organic certainty into the patterns of the universe that could never truly be replicated in any other way. He had always been that way, ever since Llanat had first met him. Although she had always been aware of it, to a certain degree, it had become all the more palpable in the aftermath of the swirling, confusing events aboard Night’s-Beautiful-Daughter.
She had lost a part of herself aboard the Deathwing— as alarming of a thought as it was, there was no better way to put it— and the void that had been left behind had been filled by something foreign, something that she simultaneously could, and could not, understand. Something that understood her with an unfathomable depth, an unshakable accuracy. It had been half of a millennium in the making, and yet, had never wavered.
Ever since she had awoken from that frightening vision, she had been different. Even if the others could not necessarily sense it, as an Adept would, there was something in the way they looked at her, reacted to her, spoke to her, kept a wide berth from her. It was the instinct of a prey animal when a predator was in its midst— whether they were aware of it, or not. If it was not that instinct, then it was a foolhardy, awestruck delusion borne of the parasitic calm that had overtaken her when her body had given the order to go to Gyffer.
She was either the wolf in sheep’s clothing, or the mythic savior that they had needed in the face of the impossible, and no one could seem to decide which role she was better suited to.
Llanat didn’t appreciate the attention, either way. She preferred the quiet life of an Adept, of a wallflower, of moving from one place to another without eyes lingering on her. That had all changed, and she feared that it would never truly go away. Definitely not while she was still on Gyffer, although, she suspected it would remain regardless of where in the universe she traveled.
There was only one exception to her desire for invisibility.
Even when in the midst of the ShadowDance, his presence, alone, provided a much needed anchoring to the meditative practice. She hadn’t even particularly minded that he was witness to how it had changed— how she had changed.
“You could have kept on. I don’t mind watching.”
She had spoken the truth to him, then. Her face had been warm, and not from any particular physical exertion. “I don’t mind having you watch me.”
Speaking her mind had always been easy, and it had only become easier in recent years, for better or for worse. Ari, though, had a special talent for coaxing the truth out of her without so much as a word. She simply wanted him to know what was on her mind. Dinner had been no exception, when she had told him, quite frankly, too much about the lines between Adept and Mage, and what it meant to cross them. Lines that she had crossed, even if she hadn’t said it in so many words.
And there, on Telabryk Field, she was speaking her mind again. At least that time, though, her honesty was a result of the veil of night, of the obscuring of his face— and hers— and of the freedom that came with speaking beneath a darkened sky. An honesty that he, apparently, was not entirely impervious to, either.
“Then I’ll stay. For as long as the Magelords and the Space Force let me. Longer, if you ask.”
As he spoke, the patterns of the universe melded into one another. Their patterns, she was realizing, hers, and his, and their irrefutable place in the stars. Although it had come as a bit of a surprise, even to her, it was simply another instance of his quiet certainty at work, tethering them together. Her answer, similarly, and, perhaps, expectedly, mirrored that quiet certainty that he brought out in the universe. That he brought out in her.
It was, by far, the simplest decision she had made in quite some time. Finally, something with a clear answer, and one that she wasn’t at odds with.
He had nodded and fallen silent, as if they had just agreed on what to have for breakfast. His many years of hunter’s training seemed to fail him, then, his body betraying his tension. It probably would have been imperceptible to anyone else, but not to an Adept, and certainly not to someone who knew him as she did. Although, she had never been witness to its failure before.
He made no move to touch her, nor to hold her. Though Llanat had never been a terribly romantic sort— again, she had always been too honest for her own good— she had expected him to do something. Hold her hand, perhaps? Take her into his arms? Kiss her? That was what couples usually did when agreeing to marry one another, wasn’t it? Or was he clutching onto his scruples with the decorum that his Galcenian lineage had instilled in him?
Then again, there had been more than one occasion when he had become self-conscious of his size, of his brawn, as if simply being in the proximity of a person or thing would be enough to shatter them to smithereens. While he moved with grace, he also moved with caution, and, sometimes, that caution manifested itself a little bit more than he probably would have cared to let on.
That moment was almost certainly one of those times.
Brushing the backs of his fingers with her own, her heart settled when he took her hand with a little more gumption than she had been expecting, intertwining their fingers as he gave her hand a firm squeeze. He was warm— warmer than the night called for. Raising his arm for him, she stepped beneath it, in front of him, and leaned back against him, using his arm as her own, personal safety webbing.
He was solid against her back, radiating heat, anchoring her to the moment even more than before. It was as if his very presence could calm the endless scrambling of her mind, as if he made all of the other patterns disappear, leaving only their own behind. Not a silver thread in sight.
As she turned her head to the side, resting her ear against his chest, she wasn’t at all surprised to find that his heartbeat’s rapid pace matched her own. When she tilted her head back to look up at him, his breath caught.
“Thanks,” she said. After several minutes in silence, the word felt clumsier than it usually did. It didn’t help that it was the first thing either of them had said since she accepted his proposal, but, well, it was too late to do anything about it now.
“I think I should be thanking you.” His voice was an even softer rumble than before, as if he was holding himself back, and, still, it comfortably reverberated into her skull, luring her farther into his embrace. “What’s there to thank me for?”
“For being real.” His hand twitched, squeezing hers again with the movement. “It’s hard to tell sometimes, being an Adept. I know what’s there, and what isn’t, but those threads linger.” Although his face was obscured by darkness, she was sure he was steadily looking at her. “Not with you, though. I can always find you.”
Even if you don’t want to be seen, she thought with a soft smile.
“Is that because you’re an Adept, because of my stature, or…?” While there was something of a teasing undertone to his words, it was without the lilt that one would usually expect. His heart hammered in his chest, quickening beneath her ear, as he nonchalantly added, “For the same reason that I could always tell when you were in a room?”
Her face warmed as the implication settled over her. That warmth, paired with the obscurity of night, coaxed her to be even more truthful with him, if only because she could then reasonably expect such honesty from him, in return.
“A fair bit of all three,” she said, keeping her voice low so she could hear the stutters of his heartbeat. It was sweet, and simple— a welcome change from the chaos of current events. With a small shrug, she added, “Mostly the last one.” His hand twitched in hers again, but, otherwise, he didn’t react. He was regaining his hunter’s composure, it seemed. She wished she could see his face, if only to sear his expression into her mind for the rest of her days, especially when she needed something to use as a focus. “Since when, Ari?”
“A long time.” It was a simple answer, but one that she had been expecting. “Since the beginning, I think. I didn’t know it at the time, but…” he trailed off, more and more heat radiating from his body, warming her against the night’s cool air. “Probably always.” His other arm, which had been hanging limply at his side, finally budged, wrapping around her tentatively, as if she would suddenly desire escape from his embrace. “And now, I hope for…”
Clamping his mouth shut with a soft, frustrated grunt, the rest of his sentence hung in the air between them.
“For…?”
Although he hesitated for a few moments, his embrace tightened around her as he finally mumbled, “For the rest of our lives.”
☽★☾
Despite the nighttime ambience, nothing could have stopped Ari’s trained, keen ears from catching Llanat’s quiet gasp. He was thankful for the night, to a degree, because it kept his face from her inquisitive gaze, but it also had him running his mouth like no other. It had almost happened the last time they were alone in the dark together, too, back on Nammerin.
Before they had been so painfully interrupted back then, he had been dangerously close to telling her too much, and, simultaneously, not enough, at all.
Llanat was no stranger to adversary, nor was she easily put off by the people or things around her, however, he was aware that being an Adept was more of a burden on her than otherwise— especially lately. He had no desire to add more to her plate, particularly when she was already wrestling with the rights and wrongs of the Adepts and Mages.
Their conversation at dinner had unnerved him, if he was being honest, but not in any way that he could meaningfully describe. Perhaps because she seemed to have grown used to fighting off such spirals on her own, and he wondered if he had any right to support her as he once had.
That had been part of the reason that he had made the offer that he had.
When she extrapolated on it, and drew his meaning from it, he blamed the night for compelling him to dance around the subject, more or less asking for her hand in marriage, with enough leeway for him to make a tactical retreat, if the situation had called for it.
And then she had said yes.
It had been a pleasant— no, a very pleasant surprise. The Mages had taken over Galcen, and they didn’t have time to spare for any sort of courtship. Not that Ari was particularly well-versed in the intricacies of courtship, anyway; his time with the Selvaurs had left him with a much more practical mindset than that. Despite that, however, he knew that others didn’t tend to follow the same thinking. Even Bee, for all of her insanity and penchant for rebellion, had found herself in a proper courtship, more or less.
He couldn’t have been more grateful to Llanat for being an exception to the status quo, right along with him.
Even as she had moved into his embrace, he had been hesitant to put too many of his affections on display. He had been the one to propose, and that had been enough for him. He wouldn’t expect anything of her, what with the innumerous other problems she was currently facing. That delicate balance between what the Adepts did and did not find acceptable was enough to keep anyone preoccupied for months, as was evident by her “thanks for being real” comment.
He would give her as many reminders as she needed.
“For the rest of our lives.”
It was something to strive towards, especially in the wake of so much confusion, so much tumult. While they were rushing through the nonexistent courtship, they, at least, could cherish the time they had from there on out.
“Please do,” she said, her softened voice delicately cradling the silence of the night. It was bliss, pure bliss, hearing her speak at the same frequency as the rest of night, as if she was borne of it in all of the best ways.
Night’s-Beautiful-Daughter. That was the name of the Deathwing she had come in on— and how fitting it was.
Perhaps it had been rightfully hers, all along.
“I will. I swear.” Despite the natural end to the sentiment, the night yet compelled him farther forward, urging him to keep speaking. “As long as I’m alive, I always will.”
With a light chuckle, she shifted in his arms, turning until she had pressed her chest against his, resting her hands on his sternum. He froze for a handful of seconds, a little unsure of where to put his hands, in turn. It had been a faraway fantasy he had always been aware of, but had never truly allowed himself to indulge in, even in the privacy of his own mind, if only to stop himself from getting his hopes up. There she was, though, effortlessly prying apart his composure, unraveling him, even if she wasn’t aware of it, herself.
With his experience with Adepts, he doubted she was entirely unaware of it. Maybe not consciously acting on it, but she had some awareness of it, deep down. It was as if she had caught a glimpse of the temptation within his mind— which, all things considered, wasn’t out of the question.
“Like the letters you were going to write me?”
As she spoke, his hands found purchase on her waist. Awkward, stilted, unsure. It was only a ghost of a touch, for fear of how she would react, otherwise.
“I did write you letters. You can blame Vallant’s mutiny for never receiving any.” He still remembered how he had puzzled over stationery, picking out a set that would only ever be used to write to her. Not to his family, nor any others… only to her. He would never have admitted it aloud, but he had known it was the truth, even as he made the purchase. “Still in my desk drawer aboard the Fezzy, if I had to guess.” She chuckled again, but said nothing, her smile lost to the darkness that enveloped them both. Once again, the words drifted out of him, outside of his control, “But, this time, I won’t be leaving your side so easily. I’ll write you more letters, if that’s what you want, and I won’t need a postal carrier to get them to you.”
He swallowed hard, the image already so clear in his mind: bringing her a cup of cha’a in bed in the morning, her hair loosened from its usual pins; kissing her on the forehead as he passed her a folded piece of paper along with her favorite mug. A love letter, only between them, with nobody to intercept its delicate contents, giving him, perhaps, the room to be a bit more candid with her. It would be nice, he thought, to shop for stationery at regular intervals throughout his life.
“I’d like that,” she said, resting her chin at the crook of his neck.
With every new shared touch, his heart leapt into his throat. It had been, admittedly, a long time since his heart had beat in quite the way it had that night— its marathon had started as soon as she had joined him at his side, and hadn’t taken much in the way of breaks ever since.
She chuckled softly again— only a ghost of a sound, and one that could have just as easily been confused as a nighttime breeze passing through the field. “You used pen and paper?”
It felt as if she was teasing him, in a way, but he couldn’t quite puzzle out how. “It felt more—” Personal. “— appropriate than a voice chip.”
“I thought you might.”
There was something to her voice, to the undertone of a tease beneath it, that betrayed her meaning. As if she knew him well enough that she expected nothing less of him, as if she knew his quirks, his mannerisms, his behaviors.
As if she thought of him as often as he thought of her.
If there had been any apprehensions about marrying her before, they had all but vanished with that sentiment.
“It’d be nice,” she continued, “to keep your letters. They always hold traces of the writer’s presence, you know. They’re real in that way, in a way that voice chips aren’t.” Yet another comment about the real, as if she would sooner disappear into oblivion without it. “They— you could anchor me.”
“Tell me how.” She lifted her chin, then, straightening her posture as she shuffled closer. “I don’t know how to make things real for you. But I want to.”
“By being you, Ari. That’s all it takes.”
His breath caught in his throat, especially knowing, now, that she meant it. There had been room for doubt before, but no longer.
He held his breath as her hand traveled up his chest, trailing along his neck, grazing his jawline, and coming to rest on his cheek, her fingers spread between his cheek and his ear. More than anything, he wished he could have seen her face in that moment, to see the smile she was surely giving him, bright, and teasing, and almost chastising, in a way, as if he should have known better than to ask such a silly question.
Mouth twitching somewhere between a flustered smile and a self-conscious grimace, the words, once again, escaped him of their own volition. “I’ll take pointers—”
The rest of his quip failed on his lips as she tugged his head down to hers, their breaths catching, in tandem, when she brought him to a stop just before his lips met hers. A moment passed, then two, then three. His mind was inundated with images of what he could have done— of what he should have done— rendering him unable to do anything, at all.
Where he hesitated, however, Llanat was much more proactive.
Her lips met his, softer than any of his dreams or fantasies had ever led him to believe. Gentle, as if testing the waters, her head slightly canted to the side as her nose brushed his. His hands, initially, squeezed her waist, too eager to bring her closer, before he realized himself, and let go. Instead, they hovered around her, keeping a wide berth as he slowly, carefully, kissed her back, letting his eyes flutter closed.
Llanat broke the kiss first, and, as he looked into her face, he caught the barest glimpses of her eyes reflecting the skyglow as she scanned his features.
It had been a long time since he had kissed someone; had she been satisfied? Had he been too clumsy? Too awkward? Too—?
“Don’t be so cautious with me, for a start,” she said, a little breathless. “Go ahead and kiss me like you mean it.” Her candor brought a whole, new wave of heat to his face. A million and one things rushed through his mind, and yet, all he could do was let out a shaky exhale, his breath mingling with hers. “It helps. I promise. It’s— you’re real, and that helps.”
He had said he wanted to give her something real. He had said he had wanted to help her. He couldn’t shy away from it, especially now that the opportunity was right in front of him.
Following her lead, his hand found its place at the back of her head, cradling it as he tilted it back, while the other wrapped around the small of her back, tentatively pulling her closer to him.
“If it helps,” he whispered, his fingers combing into her hair, working in beneath the braid, “then I’ll give you something real to anchor yourself to.”
Letting his eyes flutter shut once more, he kissed her again— that time, without the same hesitation as before. A small gasp escaped her as he loosened his grip on his inhibitions, if only minutely, her arms wrapping around his neck. Her hands worked into his hair as she pulled him closer, a smile forming on her lips, even when captured by his own.
After being separated from her for what felt like decades, he had hardly believed he had found his place back by her side. It was only then, and there, as her body was pressed against his own, as their hearts beat erratically against their chests, as their lips captured one another, again and again, that reality finally settled on him.
He had been meaning to give her something real to focus on… he had hardly anticipated receiving that realness, in return.
When he finally drew back, his face flushed, and his hair disheveled, he loosened his hold on her, if only a little, giving her the space to back out, if she wanted. She remained, her fingertip tracing the outline of his swollen lips before dipping in one, last time, kissing him gently before resting her head against his chest once more.
Somehow, that last kiss was the one that sent his heart on a whole, new rampage. Keeping one arm around her waist, he ran his free hand through his hair before running it down the length of his face, willing himself to keep it together.
“Was that real enough?” he asked after a handful of seconds in comfortable silence. It was half of a tease, but directed more at himself than at her.
With a light chuckle, she lifted her head from his chest once again. The grin was apparent in her voice as she said, “Mostly.” He arched a brow at that, even if she couldn’t see it. He knew he was making fun of himself, but that didn’t mean she had to join in. “I told you. Being you is enough.” Leaning forward, she kissed his pulse, calling attention to the exact thing he wanted to hide the most. “That was exactly the anchor I needed.”
Craning his head back, he looked up at the sky— the stars still obscured by its glow— as he ran his hand through his hair again, feeling all at once too warm. He readjusted his arm, letting it rest comfortably along the small of her back.
“Any time you need another reminder…”
The remainder of his offer was left unsaid, but Llanat was able to glean the meaning from it, as she almost always could, wasting no time in taking him up on it. With the imminent threat of an invasion, be it by the Magefleet, or by Vallant, Ari wasn’t going to pass up any opportunity to grant her the solace she needed, no matter what form it took.