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“I have something for you,” Perrin announces with all the enthusiasm of a particularly proud 10 year old holding what they’re sure is the very best surprise—though he sweeps in with an easy grace one only obtains from decades of barging into her closet unannounced.
He comes to a stop with a little bounce on the balls of his feet, hands held behind his back and a delighted smugness that melts any annoyance she might have felt. Something annoying in and of itself.
“Oh?” She arches an eyebrow, securing her earring as she straightens. The truth is, she’s more curious as to the why. For a marriage that’s more a perpetual swinging pendulum of war and peace, they’re remarkably good at remembering anniversaries and other personal dates. She’s bad at the traditional holidays and customs but that’s what aides and calendars are for. “Am I to be softened or placated?” And what’s even more frustrating is she can’t keep herself from smiling at his exaggerated injury that she would suggest such a thing. (It’s been peaceful lately.)
“Neither.” He pulls her in as natural as the tide returning to shore, placing her in front of the full length mirror. And for a moment they lock eyes, years and years passing through the reflection. Then, Perrin is reaching for her earrings with a barely there wrinkle of his nose while she ignores the swoop of her stomach and creeping warmth across her skin. “Those won’t do,” he mutters to himself, setting them aside; all Mon can do is sigh and watch him with a fondness no one else could ever hope to understand.
“Close your eyes.” The command whispers across her skin and curls through her blood and all Mon can do is follow it. She closes her eyes, sweeping her hair aside as she bows her neck.
Without her sight, everything is magnified tenfold and it’s all Perrin and she loves it and hates it in equal measure and she can’t imagine it any different. He wears the cologne she bought him years ago and replaced nearly as many times over. The silk of his sleeve ghosts across her skin, rustling in her ear accompanied by the quiet clatter of what she can only assume is a necklace. Neither breathe but she swears she can hear his heart just as sure as the warmth of his body is pressed to her back.
The air held captive in her lungs is pushed out by the barely-there weight of metal across her collarbone. Perrin’s hum sinks into her bones and she knows his eyes aren’t on the fastening at the back of her neck, but her face in the mirror and she knows he sees flushed skin and parted lips and she’s bare in that way only Perrin can strip her down.
“Open.” The gift is beautiful in its simplicity—or what appears to be simple at first glance but is in fact an intricate web of delicate chains, silver and gold and rozai all knotted and sparkling and endless. Perrin is leaning over her shoulder, adjusting the drape just so, his fingers trailing across her chest and Elders, she’s softened clay in his hands and she can’t stop the flutter of her eyes and the shiver that runs through her as he caresses the ridge of her spine with the pad of his index finger and a final, “There.”