[ Yseult is unrepentant, his mouth stopping a soft chuckle in the back of her throat. ]
Sleep on it. [ She offers this advice while shuffling a step nearer, nudging his knee wider with a hip to make room. She nips at the lower lip he'd been worrying at earlier and draws him into a deeper kiss. ] It'll be clear in the morning.
[ Her laugh is quick and half muffled against his jaw, her answer by the press of her mouth to its underside just past where his beard ends, where she can feel his pulse beneath the skin. When did she start unbuttoning his shirt? ]
[It's a pulse that is a little quicker now--but then, she'd have known that before she kissed him. Probably she was counting on it. Darras tips his head back obligingly, grinning.]
Many minutes from now. Maybe.
[Many minutes. His skin prickles as her hand slips against his chest, and he takes hold of her wrist, and tries to shift this so he can kiss her, so he can push off of where he's seated and get close to her.
It's distraction, the best sort. And it leaves little room to think of careers, or ships, or anything but the moment. Yseult's eyes, and her mouth, and the push of her hands and the grip of her fingers and her legs and breasts and every bit of her, and it's the morning when Darras rolls onto his side and looks down at her, the way the sunlight from the window softens her face and gives her a kind of halo. He twines a strand of her hair around his finger. It's long since fallen out of any sort of braid or twist, and lays loose and lovely across the pillow. So does Yseult, with a blanket tucked around her and otherwise only bare skin, beautiful.]
I'll try it.
[Picking up a conversation from hours ago. It's easier to say now. She's the whole world. What else matters but her.]
[ It's early still, the hall outside quiet and the courtyard below, too. A seagull squawks in the distance, and they can almost imagine they hear the lap of the waves against the base of the island. Yseult smiles, and brushes sleepy fingers against the nearest bit of his chest. ]
It is. But I'd rather make a change now and have something to show for it at the end, instead of doing nothing and lose it all. A bloody ship doesn't do much good if the world's half ended.
True. [ Yseult traces of the star tattooed on his chest, pads of her fingers sliding down the lines of each point. ] And you're not doing it because you think I want you to?
[It puts a crick in his neck to smile down at her, but of course he does.]
I do most things 'cos I think you want me to. Or I think you'd like it if I did. I don't mean it badly. Just that I think that's what it is, being in love.
[ Her eyes slip briefly shut, smile soft. Maker knows they've fought about this--this narrow focus of his, the apathy it leaves over for the rest of the world. ] It's hard to object when you put it that way.
[ She lays her palm flat on his chest for a moment, and then slides her hand around his side, tugging him nearer so she can tuck her face somewhere around his collarbone. ]
Does it bother you that I don't do that? Most of what I do is things you'd never choose.
Be pretty conceited of me if I was in love with someone who is exactly me.
[He lets himself be pulled closer, wraps an arm around behind her back and pulls her closer still, so she's tucked right up against him, her breath warm against his skin.]
It's bothered me. When we've fought, it's bothered me. But I'm wiser about it now, about all of it. I love you because of who you are and what you care about. The choices that you make, I love you for those as well, even if they're not what I would choose to do. That's how I've come to square with it. If you were any different, you wouldn't be yourself. I love you enough to understand that.
[ Yseult presses a kiss, just beside where the bone dips down to form the hollow of his throat. And she leaves her lips resting there for a long moment, maybe two or three even, a soft hum sent from her throat to his and allowed to trail off as she thinks. He knows her well enough to tell that's what she's doing, that something in what he's said has caught at her and she needs a minute to pick her way through it and find what she wants to say. ]
I know I've said I want you to change. And in a way, I did. Do. But I don't want you to think I don't love you properly. I don't want you not to be yourself. I just don't believe all of that selfishness really is you. It's not how I've seen you. I just want you to be the man you are with me all of the time.
[He spends the time waiting for her response patiently, curling a strand of her hair around one of his fingers, gentle about it. The light warm pressure of her lips, the thoughts in her head.]
I know you love me.
[This tower room might be any room at all. It's easy to say things here, laid across the bed with Yseult, like they're home. The distant crash of the waves could be the surf at the bottom of the cliff. It takes no imagination to change the seagulls to gulls more familiar, the sunshine to their sun.]
But I am selfish. I can't help that. What I love, I love. I'll always be that. If you stand back and you let me fall in love with being a vice-admiral, with all of this--it'll never be the same as how I love you. Or my ship. It might come close.
[ Her laugh is a soft puff of air against his skin and the press of fingertips into his back. Her tone is a little dry, but all fond. ]
I know, I don't need you to love it the way you love me. Or your ship. I just mean--
[ Here she pauses again, struggling--as she always has, every time they've tried to talk their way around or through this obstacle--to get the precise shape of her thoughts clear and sharp enough to fit into words. ]
A few weeks after we were married, we walked up the coast so you could show me that bay where the dolphins come, do you remember? And on the way back, we came across that man whose wagon had gotten stuck in the mud on the way to market. It was late, and we were tired, but you offered to help push it out almost before he'd asked. And a few years ago when that terrible lightning storm set those houses on fire south of the village, you ran down as soon as we saw. You helped make sure everyone was safe, and you carried water, you even carried those goats out of the barn, remember they bit you? You didn't do those things just to please me. That's who you are.
[Of course he remembers: Yseult standing on a rock a little ways off the road, the wind pulling her hair out of her braid, she'd started talking to the ox while Darras was pushing on the cart with the man, and when Darras had kissed her on the beach she had tasted like the saltwater, and when he kissed her after the cart was free, she'd taste the same. And then the fire, in the night, painted bright against the sky. Everyone's faces pale under the soot, shining eyes, clasping his hands. The dawn then pink at the lining of the sky, Yseult wrapping his thigh in the cottage. She'd bit the other thigh, just a little, teeth grazed against skin. And Darras had laughed, they had both smelled of smoke and he was sore all over so she'd climbed on him once they were in bed, rubbed her fingers against his skin until he had to kiss her, ask her.]
We think of it different. [He winds another strand of her hair around his finger, gentle.] When I think about those times, I think about you. You're there.
Maybe I mix it up. Maybe I think of it all being about you 'cos I'm thinking of you.
Edited (srry its a new keyboard) 2020-07-14 03:21 (UTC)
I'm there, [ she agrees, the faintest prickle of her nails grazed over his skin. ] And maybe you wrestled that goat under your arm and carried it out because you thought I'd roll my eyes at you if you said you'd dropped it when it bit you. Or pushed the cart harder to impress me. But it can't all have been for me. That first instinct to help, to be kind and generous, that's just you. That was in you before you ever met me.
[He looks up at the ceiling as she talks, skin prickling under her fingers.]
I think of it differently. You think bigger than I do. I think of people. Helping people, people I care about. And it's hard, then, to make it bigger. You start adding in--things. It starts to feel less about people.
[ She follows the prickle with a soothing hand, fingers spread broad and flat, palm pressed firm. ]
As long as you think of helping people. I don't care if we disagree about how. [ A beat, and then, dry again, brisker and a little self-deprecating: ] Well. I do care, because I'll think you're wrong, but I can live with it. As long as you're not the kind of man who sees a house on fire and goes back to sleep, or only thinks of what he might pocket from the ashes.
[ Her smiles nips at his throat, and her nose drags against the underside of his jaw as she picks her head slowly up, to where he can glimpse the corner of her mouth curled up, and the warmth in her gaze before she presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth. ]
[He laughs--not enough to disturb her, to interrupt that kiss--but he can't help it; it's entirely involuntary. He wraps his arm around her shoulder, pulling her close, keeping her trapped against him.]
Hmmmmm, [ she replies, drawing it out so lips buzz against his own with the sound, ] well. You are decently handsome. Reasonably funny. Smarter than you look.
It all depends on how smart I think you look, [ Yseult points out, after accepting her punishment with good grace. ] It could just mean you look very smart, but in fact you're even smarter. [ She flashes him a teasingly serene smile,
which then twitches into a real grin, and she tips close again, an arm wrapped around his neck, a kiss pressed to his temple. ]
You're gorgeous, [ she says from there, spoken soft into his ear like a secret ] And brilliantly clever and creative, and you make me laugh more than I thought I could, and since the day we met I've never wanted any man but you. And best of all, [ she adds, tease returning to her tone ] you're an admiral.
[She'd belayed any protest with her kiss--at least temporarily--but the buzz of her voice in his ear had done the rest. Darras had started grinning again not even a quarter of the way through those compliments. She must have been able to feel it, so close to him--somewhere around her shoulder, maybe, since he's tucked against her as much as she's tucked against him.]
A man with twice the title. Admiral is better'n captain. I didn't know I was married to someone that cared about status.
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Sleep on it. [ She offers this advice while shuffling a step nearer, nudging his knee wider with a hip to make room. She nips at the lower lip he'd been worrying at earlier and draws him into a deeper kiss. ] It'll be clear in the morning.
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You make it difficult to choose sleep over you, y'know. Not an easy thing to ask of me either.
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I didn't mean right this minute.
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Many minutes from now. Maybe.
[Many minutes. His skin prickles as her hand slips against his chest, and he takes hold of her wrist, and tries to shift this so he can kiss her, so he can push off of where he's seated and get close to her.
It's distraction, the best sort. And it leaves little room to think of careers, or ships, or anything but the moment. Yseult's eyes, and her mouth, and the push of her hands and the grip of her fingers and her legs and breasts and every bit of her, and it's the morning when Darras rolls onto his side and looks down at her, the way the sunlight from the window softens her face and gives her a kind of halo. He twines a strand of her hair around his finger. It's long since fallen out of any sort of braid or twist, and lays loose and lovely across the pillow. So does Yseult, with a blanket tucked around her and otherwise only bare skin, beautiful.]
I'll try it.
[Picking up a conversation from hours ago. It's easier to say now. She's the whole world. What else matters but her.]
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Be sure. Like you said, it's a big change.
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I do most things 'cos I think you want me to. Or I think you'd like it if I did. I don't mean it badly. Just that I think that's what it is, being in love.
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[ She lays her palm flat on his chest for a moment, and then slides her hand around his side, tugging him nearer so she can tuck her face somewhere around his collarbone. ]
Does it bother you that I don't do that? Most of what I do is things you'd never choose.
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[He lets himself be pulled closer, wraps an arm around behind her back and pulls her closer still, so she's tucked right up against him, her breath warm against his skin.]
It's bothered me. When we've fought, it's bothered me. But I'm wiser about it now, about all of it. I love you because of who you are and what you care about. The choices that you make, I love you for those as well, even if they're not what I would choose to do. That's how I've come to square with it. If you were any different, you wouldn't be yourself. I love you enough to understand that.
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I know I've said I want you to change. And in a way, I did. Do. But I don't want you to think I don't love you properly. I don't want you not to be yourself. I just don't believe all of that selfishness really is you. It's not how I've seen you. I just want you to be the man you are with me all of the time.
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I know you love me.
[This tower room might be any room at all. It's easy to say things here, laid across the bed with Yseult, like they're home. The distant crash of the waves could be the surf at the bottom of the cliff. It takes no imagination to change the seagulls to gulls more familiar, the sunshine to their sun.]
But I am selfish. I can't help that. What I love, I love. I'll always be that. If you stand back and you let me fall in love with being a vice-admiral, with all of this--it'll never be the same as how I love you. Or my ship. It might come close.
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I know, I don't need you to love it the way you love me. Or your ship. I just mean--
[ Here she pauses again, struggling--as she always has, every time they've tried to talk their way around or through this obstacle--to get the precise shape of her thoughts clear and sharp enough to fit into words. ]
A few weeks after we were married, we walked up the coast so you could show me that bay where the dolphins come, do you remember? And on the way back, we came across that man whose wagon had gotten stuck in the mud on the way to market. It was late, and we were tired, but you offered to help push it out almost before he'd asked. And a few years ago when that terrible lightning storm set those houses on fire south of the village, you ran down as soon as we saw. You helped make sure everyone was safe, and you carried water, you even carried those goats out of the barn, remember they bit you? You didn't do those things just to please me. That's who you are.
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We think of it different. [He winds another strand of her hair around his finger, gentle.] When I think about those times, I think about you. You're there.
Maybe I mix it up. Maybe I think of it all being about you 'cos I'm thinking of you.
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I think of it differently. You think bigger than I do. I think of people. Helping people, people I care about. And it's hard, then, to make it bigger. You start adding in--things. It starts to feel less about people.
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As long as you think of helping people. I don't care if we disagree about how. [ A beat, and then, dry again, brisker and a little self-deprecating: ] Well. I do care, because I'll think you're wrong, but I can live with it. As long as you're not the kind of man who sees a house on fire and goes back to sleep, or only thinks of what he might pocket from the ashes.
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Oh, well. As long as you can live with me being wrong. How're you going to stand it?
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Thankfully, you have other redeeming qualities.
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Do I, now. Such as?
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[This he repeats with incredulity. For her crime, he kisses her again.]
That one's worse'n [--he puts on an imitation of her voice--]-- 'reasonably funny'. Humor, that's all subjective. Looking clever is less that.
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which then twitches into a real grin, and she tips close again, an arm wrapped around his neck, a kiss pressed to his temple. ]
You're gorgeous, [ she says from there, spoken soft into his ear like a secret ] And brilliantly clever and creative, and you make me laugh more than I thought I could, and since the day we met I've never wanted any man but you. And best of all, [ she adds, tease returning to her tone ] you're an admiral.
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A man with twice the title. Admiral is better'n captain. I didn't know I was married to someone that cared about status.
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