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Mark adjusts the satchel on his hip and whispers a few words of magic to the entrance of his cave. The protection runes carved in the rock glow softly in the dimming evening air, and a calm buzz of energy blankets the entire space.
He’s leaving his sacred mountain for ten days’ time, the same as he always does twice a year, to visit Sean, his friend and lover by the sea.
Mark is a mountain witch, a mystic often spoken of in myth and legend, but rarely seen by most average humans. He remains in isolation in his caves, secluded at the top of the mountain he’s ruled for as long as he can remember. There, Mark practices his magic with nimble, flame-tipped fingers and dark eyes, weaving fire spells and protection charms for the flora and fauna of his precious mountain.
He rarely gets guests of any kind that aren’t wildlife or messenger birds, sent from his beloved down below, but occasionally another witch will make their way to his front step, wishing to exchange spells and goods and stories of adventures past.
Felix and Marzia, a lovely pair of earth based witches, had visited him nearly a month ago after meeting up with Sean on their trip to the seaside. Marzia was strangely enamored with the ocean, for a woman whose magic mostly dealt with solid ground, and Felix was a wandering spirit, eager to go wherever his mate would.
Mark cherishes their visits as much as he does his solitude, but as of late he’s been growing lonely by himself on the top of his mountain, cut off from the world with only his familiar, Chica, as a companion.
It’s for this reason that his trip to see Sean will be different this month.
He’s long loved Sean from afar, atop his mountain miles away from the edge of the sea, and even further from the ocean’s floor where Sean resides. He makes the journey to visit him twice a year, but Sean cannot do the same and his limitations trouble him, Mark knows.
Their relationship has been a thing of yearning since its beginning, but it has brought Mark more peace than suffering, and he truly loves Sean despite the many barriers that lie between them.
Mark starts down the side of his mountain; bare feet coated in dust as he traverses the worn pathway he’s taken so many times over the years, a mere muscle memory for his legs and heart. Chica follows behind, docile and sweet, sniffing at the plants that grow alongside their path and barking at the beetles that confront her on the way.
His satchel thumps against his hipbone, heavy with a reminder that when he sees Sean this time, everything will change. There’s a necklace hidden there, woven of braided leather and precious stones, blessed by Mark’s own hands for prosperity, wisdom, and understanding. With it, Mark will work his most daring magic of all.
Sean is a sea witch, born with gills in his neck and a tail instead of legs, and his eyes glitter like blue sapphire in the sunlight whenever he’s looking up at Mark.
Whenever Mark visits, Sean sacrifices his tail, dissolving the radiant mosaic of green and black and diamond into a pair of legs that bear the strength of toothpicks. He does it for Mark, who cannot swim into the sea with no gills from which to breathe, hindered by a childhood fear of water that’s refused to leave him since nearly drowning as a young boy.
Sean cannot climb Mark’s sacred mountain, bound by his fear of heights and weak, thin legs that never see much use. When Mark visits they remain together on the beach, a soft middle ground where neither has to swim or climb to get what he wants.
Mark will wade up to his knees in the ocean, just to see Sean’s face while the waves break over their calves, and Sean will lean against him as they walk the length of the shore, unable to run or jump or travel as far as the mainland.
For all that they are as different as the sun and the moon, they share everything together on their beach: stories and kisses and new spells they would not otherwise discover without the influence of the other.
Sean knows every fish in the sea, every organism that floats beneath the waves and every shell that washes up onto their beach. Mark watches him calm the waves and draw pools of water in the shoreline, creating tiny ecosystems that thrive and rise to greet him with barely a flick of his finger to the water’s edge.
He calls all manner of sea creatures to his side and unearths pearls from the sand between his toes, and when the days are over and Mark’s carrying him to their hut atop the sand dunes, Sean lights their way with a whisper and a mischievous smile.
Mark’s journey will take him half a day’s time, and when he reaches the edge of the ocean it will be nearly dark. Sean will be waiting for him, just like he always is, and they’ll sit together on the shoreline before Sean trades in his magnificent tail for a pair of legs that won’t take him much farther than the white sand of their beach.
Mark tugs his cloak tighter around his shoulders and fingers the necklace in his bag, feeling the magic trickling off the edges of the stones he’d strung together so diligently.
He’s going to ask Sean to marry him.
He walks for hours, the sun warm but un-oppressing on his scalp and cheekbones, and Chica never once leaves his side, content to follow in his footsteps for as far as he’ll go.
The path gets smoother and the plants flourish the closer he gets to the bottom. By the time he can clearly see the base of the mountain, the sun has long since exploded across the sky, streaking all manner of flames and warm colors across the horizon.
Mark’s feet are tired, but his heart is alive with possibility and the desire to see his beloved once more. Chica can sense his excitement through their bond, and she licks his hand, rubbing up against his side as Mark’s feet cross the final barriers of rock that separate the mountain climb from the beach below.
The sand is soft and cool beneath his worn feet, the heat slipping away from the beach as the sun goes down for the rest of the night and the sacred moon takes her place in the sky.
Mark can hear the waves in the distance, and the horizon is a dark, wavering line at the edge of his sight, proof that his gaze is traveling towards the ocean he’d ever-staunchly avoided until the day he’d met Sean.
Chica barks loudly, chasing her tail in the sand and rejoicing at the soft ground beneath her paws, and Mark smiles at her. Sean has a familiar as well: a strange, one-eyed sea creature named Sam whose species Mark cannot identify, and who can only leave the waters of Sean’s beloved ocean by the power of his own magic.
Mark starts towards the shoreline in the distance, his tired ankles sinking further into the pull of the sand as his toes curl in weary happiness. Sean will be only yards away from him now, lying in the sand as the waves break over his tail, a glittering beacon in the setting sun.
Only five minutes of walking later, Mark can see the flare of something brilliant and unearthly in the fading rays of the sun, and he recognizes it as Sean, waiting for him just as Mark had known he would.
Mark quickens his pace, the promise of the necklace in his bag and the soft press of Sean’s skin against his beckoning him forward, bits of seashell marking his proximity to the reach of the tides.
At the sight of his lover’s green hair and pale skin, Mark sheds his bag and his clothes and abandons them in a heap in the dry sand, his path dampening into footprints as the ground grows wetter and the edges of the water creep towards his feet. Chica runs off to chase seagulls against the horizon, doggy prints littering the beach as she dances in the dying, glistening light.
“You’re here.” Sean murmurs as Mark sits beside him in the loose dark sand, leaning up to greet him properly with soft lips and hands.
Their fingers tangle atop Sean’s lap, his smooth scales shimmering like a treasure chest burst open on the sand, an oasis of gems scattered to the waves.
Mark kisses him without hurry and he can feel his magic rising back to his fingertips from where it’s been dormant all day. Sean laughs.
“You’re excited about something,” he says, his words fizzing with mirth beneath soft eyes. “Care to tell a sea witch your secrets?”
Mark squeezes his hand and presses their foreheads together, breathing in the salt of the sea and the thrum of Sean’s own magic below his skin. “My secrets are never secrets when I’m with you,” he mutters, not unhappily. “Your mischief alone would uncover them all.”
Sean pokes him in the side and grins, happy and wider than the ocean itself. “Are you sure it’s not my infinite wisdom at work?” he asks. “I’ve heard tales that no one knows the mind of the mountain witch like he who lives in the sea.”
“Hush.” Mark prods him back and smiles at the horizon as Sean tucks his face into Mark’s neck. “If you talk as incessantly later as you do now you may never even get to hear the sound of my voice.”
“Would that be such a bad thing?” Sean’s accent is warm and musical on his tongue, the sweetest of sounds in Mark’s ears after a day of traveling alone. “Were it not for your personality any man would think you and your voice were pompous and insufferable.”
“You love me,” Mark responds in a smirk, because Sean is mischief and glad humor at heart, a boundless vessel of energy despite his inability to travel far on land. “Without my voice you would wither and die.”
“So ye say,” Sean tells him, but he doesn’t deny it. “Sing for me then, if your voice is still so lovely.”
It’s the end of the day and Mark’s bones ache down to their marrow, but Sean has asked him to sing and Mark can deny him nothing at all.
-.-
It’s two days later and the sun has long since gone down, but the flames encircling their still forms shed more than enough light for Mark to see the contented haze in Sean’s blue eyes.
Mark’s magic is all heat and fire, rarely subtle or soft compared to the things Sean can do with his hands and mind, but it’s an art form all its own and Sean is in love with his flames.
“There’s still something on your mind,” Sean reminds him, his pale, fragile legs intertwined with Mark’s beneath the seaside moon and the orange glow of Mark’s fire. “I can see it in your eyes.”
Mark just stares at him, the minutes ticking by as the stars twinkle like a fistful of glittering sand in the sky and Sean draws warmth from his bare chest. He’s not afraid to ask Sean to be his mate, because though there’s no taking back the magic of an official bonding, there’s never been a whisper of a doubt in his mind that Sean is anything other than his.
“I have something to ask of you,” he says finally, fingers tracing constellations into Sean’s back. “I would ask you to consider it, as a favor to me.”
Sean looks at him, confused but unafraid, and his trust in Mark is a magic all its own.
“What could you possibly want from me that you don’t already have?” he asks, wondering aloud. “My magic can do a lot for the both of us, but it cannot give you a tail, Mark.”
Mark shakes his head and sits up gently, careful not to jostle Sean’s lower body or startle him.
“I don’t need a tail to be with you, Sean.” Mark rummages around in his bag, searching for the necklace that’s been burning a metaphorical hole in the inner pocket for two days now. “But I do need your consent.”
“You have it.” Sean’s reply is immediate, still laced with perplexed fondness and sweet exhaustion. “You’ve always had it, no matter what.”
Mark lifts the necklace from his bag and fists it in one hand before turning back to Sean, the magic swirling against his skin beneath the surface of the sacred stones.
“Do I have your hand then also?” He presents the necklace to Sean, still sprawled out across the sand and lit by the flames dancing above their heads. Were it not for the gills on his neck and the color of his hair, Mark would think him a fire witch after Mark’s own kind.
Sean sits up faster than Mark’s ever seen him move before in his life, and all at once he’s taking the necklace, turning it over in his hands and rubbing the stones softly, feeling out the energy that burns beneath them.
“You would tie yourself to me, a lowly sea witch who can scarcely walk on land nor conquer his fear of heights, for all of eternity?” Sean is bewildered, enraptured by the jewelry in his hands and the question Mark’s laid at his feet. “I’m only a mischief maker, and not a very good one at that.”
Mark tips his chin up with one finger and meets Sean’s eyes, suddenly clouded with puzzlement and disbelief.
“And I am only a mountain witch who rarely leaves his cave and still balks at the idea of getting his feet wet,” he tells his beloved. “I cannot follow you down to the sea, but I will wait for you everywhere else.”
Sean grips Mark’s hand in his right and the necklace in his other, and the flames around their heads dance higher and higher, pillars of hopeful flame towering in the salt air.
“I will gladly be yours,” Sean says after a lifetime of quiet, and there’s no note of hesitation coloring his words. “If you’ll have me, that is.”
Mark does the honors of putting the necklace around Sean’s neck, and the sight of his creation decorating the skin of his lover is a sight beyond anything nature could create.
Fire licks at the edges of Mark’s bright red hair and Sean kisses him, with all the energy and toil of the sea that feeds the magic in his soul, and the roiling skirmish of Mark’s flames explode into celebration.
Heat crackles and pops around them and one of the flames licks close to Sean’s hair, tickling him into a laugh that forces their lips apart.
“I’m just after agreeing to marry you and ye nearly light me on fire,” he scolds, but there’s no heat to it at all, because Mark’s magic poses no threat to him.
“It would be a good look for you,” Mark assures him, and Sean swats his words from the air like they’re swooping gulls.
“If I wake up tomorrow with singed hair, I’ll know who to blame,” he warns, and Mark doesn’t even attempt to conceal his laughter. Every cell in his body is alive with his magic, and his limbs dance with the knowledge that his soul belongs in the hands of someone he loves.
The fire in his chest burns hotter than ever and Sean of the Sea is his, finally.