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Marcille pinched the shaft of a pinfeather, freeing it from its capsule, resulting in a satisfied purr from Falin.
Preening wasn't something she could do inside; otherwise, the whole room would be covered in powder down, and the faint candle lights would strain the eyes of the preener. The floriferous sunpatch behind the castle, however, was perfect for the job, except for the part where the entire underside of the chimera was green and damp with dew upon unloafing.
In both cases, she would need a bath afterwards.
It wasn't the noisy kind of day, save for the meadow's birds, regular birds, the ones that aren't 11 metres tall. Soft chirping and cooing of doves almost lullabied the girls to sleep --just enough to put them both in a cozy, relaxed trance.
"Just a few more... And you won't be itchy anymore."
"This is nice too... I don't mind..."
A couple more popped new feathers later, Marcille blew on the fluff, like a kid on a summer dandelion, making it ripple in the breeze as the sheath dust took off into the air. It was rewarding to see the coating looking a lot less spiky.
Marcille ran her fingers through the freshly-hatched fluff, ruffled the soft feathers up like a particularly fluffy pillow and watched as the little speckles swirled away with the wind, glittering in the warm sunshine. Speaking of pillows...
"Do you think we could use my shed feathers to stuff pillows?"
Marcille cringed, but was not a single bit surprized her girlfriend would think of that question.
"Hmm, I think that'd be... weird, to say the least." she responded, with loving self-restraint.
"How come?"
"Well, bird down pillows are usually made from the byproduct of dead birds, I think."
Falin giggled. "I'm not a bird, though. No need to kill me."
Marcille was obviously not going to do that, but she acknowledged the point with a quick nod Falin wasn't going to see anyway.
"We'd have to do a lot of washing and cleaning. I love you, but I'm not planning to breathe your post-preening keratin crumbs."
Although somewhere inside Marcille did want to smoosh her face between the roots of the chimera's giant wings and nuzzle the soft coating. Which would arguably be worse for her respiratory system.
"And you would do that for me, of course." Falin slowly turned around to briefly face her preener, habitually squinting her eyes despite not needing to anymore. The preener was having none of that.
"I would, of course, not. Your feathers are significantly larger than those of a duck or a goose."
Falin sighed dramatically and turned away. There were many things she could respond with, but none of them would lead anywhere. Her experiment was thoroughly denied.
She did, however, cheer up when Marcille's hand started moving closer to where her human skin was.
The elf picked up a single feather that fell off during the molt and got stuck between the others, and proceeded to show why exactly Falin's feathers were not suitable for a pillow.
"Oh, you're hugging me." the chimera pointed out with a smile.
"Yup, mhm, see, the quill is very-very sharp, I'd argue it'd be better for writing."
"You can take it."
"I was going to take the sharp ones for myself, yes. They're good for writing, but not for being stabbed in the face when sleeping. The shaft is atypically hard, too."
Falin giggled again, this time hiding her smile behind her hands. It took a while for Marcille to realize why; when she did --her cheeks started matching Falin's in hue.
"I'm never preening you ever again." she lied.
"Good. Laios would. He would try out my pillow idea."
The elf wrapped her arms around the creature's neck and signed. This entire tallman family was difficult to deal with, but she wouldn't trade it for anything else. At least Falin didn't seem too sad about the form she ended up taking after resurrection. The opposite: she seemed excited about her body's new capabilities and strengths. Even if she kept either staring at everything with eyes wide open or squinting out of habit. The changes in her vision were somehow harder to adjust to than the drastic changes in, well, size and anatomy. Marcille accepted that she was never going to understand that.
She rested her chin in the dip of Falin's shoulder, playing with the feather in one of her hands as the chimera watched it spin.
"Laios... You know he'd pluck you like a supper chicken if you let him, don't you?"