"And and and," is Yseult's laughing protest. Her struggle is token, not enough to disrupt her mimicry of his cadence. She twists her wrist free of his grip but coils her arm back around his, pinning it between their chests. "So greedy, maybe I don't want you to speak with me for the rest of today at least."
Laughing, too, Darras keeps her close. She's allowing it, yeah, could likely twist free if she wanted to, but there's effort exerted on his part which counts for something. Rosana is still busily washing herself, and gives them an unimpressed look from her corner of the blanket. That's all right, this isn't about her.
"You couldn't stand it if I didn't speak to you all day. Or, you could stand it, 'cos you can stand anything, my brave beautiful wife, but you wouldn't like it. You'd miss the sound of my voice. Admit it. Admit it!"
"Is this meant to make me miss it?" It's difficult to scoff and laugh at once, but Yseult nearly manages. She pulls against his hold, but without employing any of the tricks that might help make up for their difference in strength.
"I would cherish the peace and quiet!" she lies, before at last conceding: "Alright, alright! I would miss the sound of your voice. Maybe not for just one day," she can't quite resist the immediate backpedal, "But after that."
He abruptly relinquishes his hold and collapses back. One hand he lets fall to his chest, clutching at his heart. The other he lets flop onto his brow in profoundest despair.
"I go without hearing your voice for one day, I'm weaker than one of Rosana's kittens. I'm bereft. A ship without a sail, a boat without an oar, and so bored I might as well lay down and die. Where you would cherish the peace and quiet."
Yseult sits back to observe this pose with a shake of her head. "You used to survive perfectly well despite going months on end without hearing my voice," she reminds, knees squeezing his sides and knuckles pressing ticklingly into the bottom of his ribcage. "I think you'd live."
She stops poking and sets hands on his chest, no real weight leaned onto them--he's meant to still be healing, after all--and rubs fingertips into the cotton of his shirt. For a moment there's a pause, a shift in the air like she might turn suddenly serious, but then she smiles instead. "I'll remind you of this moment when we're here together every day for years and you grow sick of me."
He grins, and--a little bit of tension had crept into him--the normal sort, first, that comes of being tickled--and then a little more at the direction this conversation, pleasant though it is, might turn--but then it doesn't, and her hands are resting still upon him, and Darras relaxes that much more as he grins up at her.
The sunlight in Antiva is always more golden than it is in Kirkwall. Or maybe that's romance talking. Even if that's so, the sunlight is golden now, and makes a kind of halo around Yseult's head, shocks her hair with strands of copper and warmth. Darras puts his hands on top of hers, pressing her palms into his chest.
"That'll never happen, but you can remind me all the same. I'll like to hear you talking." He rubs his thumbs against the backs of her hands, the peaks and valleys of her knuckles and the fine bones under her freckled skin. "I used to survive, and maybe I survived well, but I wouldn't say perfectly. And I could put off the anguish knowing it would end. Remember when we were here and you didn't speak to me for a day and a half? That was torment. And over nothing."
"For good reason," Yseult disagrees, with a mock-dark look, "You know what you did." As she says it, her hair tumbles loose over a shoulder, riffled by the breeze, ruining the effect. It doesn't last long anyway, her expression softening into something warm but weighted. She lifts fingers to tangle with his.
That sunlight casts him bronze, like a handsome statue come to molten life, and she lets him press her hands down until she can feel his heart beating behind the carved planes of his chest. I could put off the anguish knowing it would end, he says, and the direction the conversation might turn is hanging there again at her back, what-ifs piling on shoulders too heavily to keep ignoring. Her head drops first, and then she slides back to set her cheek on his chest, arms folding, one bare foot hooking around his shin.
"Surely it's no crime to enjoy talking about," and here he teeters on a second infraction--his next words possibly damning him to endure silence once more, but, at the last moment he chooses instead the broader, "someone you love."
He tucks his chin against the top of her head, grinning at his cleverness--and at the sheer pleasure of having Yseult laid close to him like this. Their hands are trapped between them but there isn't anything uncomfortable in it. There is nothing better.
"If you stopped talking to me, I'd still hear you whenever I dreamed of you. Which is often. I'm not saying I'd get over it, but I'd at least have that."
Despite his silly threat and the cheeky grin she can sense, Yseult is teetering on the edge of seriousness still. She's had too many recent opportunities to fear never hearing his voice again and, perhaps worse she's realized, to think on what the reverse could mean for Darras. More than a few of her sleepless nights in late summer were spent rewriting the letter she's always kept in a drawer for him against that possibility, but all the drafts ended up ash in the office hearth. There's an even older version that's lived in the linen chest here, pocketed when she unpacked their things earlier, but the intervening months haven't given her any more idea how to say the things she needs said.
Eyes shut, she listens to Darras's heart beneath her ear, and all at once feels again the sun on her back, the breeze tickling at her hair, grass beneath a toe. It's ridiculous to be maudlin in the midday sun, alive and well and lazing on their lawn. She focuses on the rising heat of the day, the buzz of insects in the tall grass, the distant crash of waves at the base of the cliff, lets the drone of it fill her mind and pour out of it again like air through a bellows.
She sits up and with one improbably sinuous motion tugs her blouse up and off. Her chemise beneath is worn thin and soft with age, all but translucent in the sun. She reaches for his shirt buttons and cocks her brows. "Tell me more about these dreams."
The whole of her is haloed now in the light. It comes in through the thin fabric, outlining the shape of her body beneath it. She might be thinking beyond the moment, ages in some dark future, but Darras is here and now and there is nothing that would make him leave this moment. His skin buzzes where her fingers are, and the feeling spreads all through him. He wants very much to reach for her. He resists the urge, unwilling to do anything that might break that contact or change the sight of her poised above him, just like that. Anything might ruin the moment.
"Funny enough," he says, deliberately casual, "many of them start very much like this. The worst ones end like this."
Yseult's brows do some further angling at this answer, and the slant of her mouth shifts, a smile tugging at its corners at odds with the querying look she's otherwise adopting. She thumbs buttons open in quick succession, giving his shirt a freeing upwards tug to get at the last few. As precariously balanced as it might have been a moment ago, there's nothing that feels delicate about her mood now--her weight rests steadily across his hips, knees planted in the blanket beneath them, hands sure, the humor in her expression steady and intent obvious.
"You're very lucky, that even your worst dreams are so good."
It's warm in the sun, warm in the grass on their cliff, warm under Yseult, but Darras' skin still prickles. He grins up at her. It's only years of experience that keeps him together enough to manage that. Anyone else wouldn't stand a chance, not when he's barely managing.
"I know. I've told you before, haven't I? About how lucky I am."
"Once or twice." Yseult's smile is warm too and so are her hands as she lays them on his bare chest, palm over the place he was wounded at Val Chevin though there's nothing left to see of it now. She bends to press her first kiss over the spot all the same. They are both lucky. She doesn't linger on it.
Later, she dozes with her head on his chest, letting the sun lull her back to sleep. She laughs as Darras insists on pouring wine into mouth instead of handing over the bottle, wetting fingers in the trickle that spills down her throat and flicking it at him. She cards fingers through his hair as he reads with his head in her lap. She relights the oven and slices bread while he fries salt pork. She stitches up a tear in a shirt while he tunes his guitar. She falls asleep with his breath soft against the back of her neck. Another day passes, two, three. They shop in the village, check the perimeter fence, take the sail boat out for an afternoon and eat their catch on the beach as the sun sets. They read, and fall asleep in front of the fire, and spar on the lawn, and debate whether they ought to buy goats someday, and wake each morning in their narrow bed.
It fixes more than it doesn't. But Yseult still wakes one night hours before dawn and pulls on her dressing gown to sit and write in the orange light of the barely-glowing embers.
Darras, at first, doesn't get up. This is the way it always goes. Yseult wakes, and gets out of bed, and Darras eventually follows--or at least rolls over to see where she's gone, see that she's all right--but not right away. He stays where he is a moment longer, two. If there were danger he would know. He wouldn't be caught laying around.
But there's no danger. The light in the cottage is that dark pre-dawn light, and the glow of what's left of the fire. They had eaten bread and a spiced vegetable stew for dinner; the smell of it is still in the room. The warmth of the blankets and the coolness of the air that sifts in between the curtains. It smells faintly of the sea, a far-off perfume--and there's the sound of the waves too, distant, crashing against the rocks. The scratching of Yseult's pen is the next sound that makes its way to Darras and he smiles, half-asleep, and rolls onto his back.
The scratching stops when he rolls over. In front of the fire, Yseult sits still quiet except to turn an ear back toward the bed, in case he's just shifting in his sleep. The paper is propped on a book on her knee, the nib of the pen leaving a blot before she lifts it.
"Nothing," she replies, softly like there's still some chance of not waking him, "Go back to sleep."
He falls quiet again for a moment, luxuriating in the drowsy peace. Rosanna is curled up on the pillow just beside his head, snoring quietly. He reaches a hand up and scratches behind her ears, and she wakes instantly with a little brrp, pushes her head into his hand.
Darras rolls onto his elbow, lifting himself up.
"I'm awake already," he says, "might as well tell me about the 'nothing'."
"If I knew how to do that, I'd be asleep," Yseult replies, beneath her breath but not so soft that a few words might not carry in the quiet of the cottage. The fire burns low with only the occasional soft pop, and with the windows shut and curtains drawn the waves are muted to a distant hum. She presses her thumb between her eyes a moment, until the pen between her knuckles drips ink onto the page. Back in the inkpot it goes, and the page is folded and fed to the coals.
"It's just foolishness." She gets to her feet with a sigh, crossing the few strides back into the dark and folding her dressing gown over a chair before sliding into bed. "A letter I can't seem to write. I don't have your ease with words."
He shifts over to make space for her in the bed, one arm laid flat upon the mattress so that he can curl it around her and pull her even closer when she lays down again. The fire has risen a little higher after its late dinner of the page, flames encouraged.
"But if you tell me what it is you're trying to say, perhaps me'n my easy words can help."
She hums amused disagreement with that sentiment as she arranges herself beside him, then lets him pull her nearer and does it again, reaching down to draw the blanket up to her chest. In the flare of the firelight she smiles, soft and wry, and sets a hand on his side.
She blows out a breath. "I need to convince someone that even if the worst should happen, they shouldn't give up. Not to let grief ruin the rest of their life."
Sleepy, musing, he settles in. Rosana, meanwhile, turns her face away and tucks her nose back into her tail. She's settling herself in as well--back to sleep. She doesn't have anything to add to the conversation. Darras, meanwhile, rests his hand on Yseult's, holding it against his side, and stares in bleary thought up at the ceiling.
"Tough one, that," he says after a moment. "Are they the type to let that happen?"
Yseult gives a little nod, a shift of her head against the pillow. "Yes. They...." She trails off, fingers kneaded once into his side in demonstration. This is the struggle.
"The loss would be terrible. But at least some parts of the plan for the future could still go ahead. Everything doesn't have to be lost forever just because one part of it is lost. Even if it's a major part. It could be replaced with something different, eventually. You see? It sounds so cold."
The sleepy murmur is also one of commiseration. Yes, it's a tough one. Yes, it sounds cold. Darras lets his eyes slip shut again as he thinks, half-asleep, still enjoying the feeling of being in their bed in their house, together, just the two of them.
He's quiet long enough that it might seem he's fallen back to sleep until, somewhat abruptly (and still quite drowsily), he says, "Maybe don't speak of the replacing. That's the part that sounds cold. And there's some things that can't be replaced, y'know. But there can be newness that comes. That's all right."
"You're right," she says, "Not replacing. But new, and still good. Possibilities."
Lips brush his shoulder, and her hand strokes his side in a lulling rhythm, slow and easy, matching his drowsy tone. With her mouth still pressed to his skin she hazards it.
"I know," she says, in that same low murmur, familiar with the sentiment if not quite in agreement. Her hand never stops its circuit up and back, the gentle scuff of her palm.
"But you shouldn't lose everything else that might be, too."
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Laughing, too, Darras keeps her close. She's allowing it, yeah, could likely twist free if she wanted to, but there's effort exerted on his part which counts for something. Rosana is still busily washing herself, and gives them an unimpressed look from her corner of the blanket. That's all right, this isn't about her.
"You couldn't stand it if I didn't speak to you all day. Or, you could stand it, 'cos you can stand anything, my brave beautiful wife, but you wouldn't like it. You'd miss the sound of my voice. Admit it. Admit it!"
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"I would cherish the peace and quiet!" she lies, before at last conceding: "Alright, alright! I would miss the sound of your voice. Maybe not for just one day," she can't quite resist the immediate backpedal, "But after that."
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He abruptly relinquishes his hold and collapses back. One hand he lets fall to his chest, clutching at his heart. The other he lets flop onto his brow in profoundest despair.
"I go without hearing your voice for one day, I'm weaker than one of Rosana's kittens. I'm bereft. A ship without a sail, a boat without an oar, and so bored I might as well lay down and die. Where you would cherish the peace and quiet."
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She stops poking and sets hands on his chest, no real weight leaned onto them--he's meant to still be healing, after all--and rubs fingertips into the cotton of his shirt. For a moment there's a pause, a shift in the air like she might turn suddenly serious, but then she smiles instead. "I'll remind you of this moment when we're here together every day for years and you grow sick of me."
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The sunlight in Antiva is always more golden than it is in Kirkwall. Or maybe that's romance talking. Even if that's so, the sunlight is golden now, and makes a kind of halo around Yseult's head, shocks her hair with strands of copper and warmth. Darras puts his hands on top of hers, pressing her palms into his chest.
"That'll never happen, but you can remind me all the same. I'll like to hear you talking." He rubs his thumbs against the backs of her hands, the peaks and valleys of her knuckles and the fine bones under her freckled skin. "I used to survive, and maybe I survived well, but I wouldn't say perfectly. And I could put off the anguish knowing it would end. Remember when we were here and you didn't speak to me for a day and a half? That was torment. And over nothing."
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That sunlight casts him bronze, like a handsome statue come to molten life, and she lets him press her hands down until she can feel his heart beating behind the carved planes of his chest. I could put off the anguish knowing it would end, he says, and the direction the conversation might turn is hanging there again at her back, what-ifs piling on shoulders too heavily to keep ignoring. Her head drops first, and then she slides back to set her cheek on his chest, arms folding, one bare foot hooking around his shin.
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He tucks his chin against the top of her head, grinning at his cleverness--and at the sheer pleasure of having Yseult laid close to him like this. Their hands are trapped between them but there isn't anything uncomfortable in it. There is nothing better.
"If you stopped talking to me, I'd still hear you whenever I dreamed of you. Which is often. I'm not saying I'd get over it, but I'd at least have that."
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Eyes shut, she listens to Darras's heart beneath her ear, and all at once feels again the sun on her back, the breeze tickling at her hair, grass beneath a toe. It's ridiculous to be maudlin in the midday sun, alive and well and lazing on their lawn. She focuses on the rising heat of the day, the buzz of insects in the tall grass, the distant crash of waves at the base of the cliff, lets the drone of it fill her mind and pour out of it again like air through a bellows.
She sits up and with one improbably sinuous motion tugs her blouse up and off. Her chemise beneath is worn thin and soft with age, all but translucent in the sun. She reaches for his shirt buttons and cocks her brows. "Tell me more about these dreams."
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"Funny enough," he says, deliberately casual, "many of them start very much like this. The worst ones end like this."
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Yseult's brows do some further angling at this answer, and the slant of her mouth shifts, a smile tugging at its corners at odds with the querying look she's otherwise adopting. She thumbs buttons open in quick succession, giving his shirt a freeing upwards tug to get at the last few. As precariously balanced as it might have been a moment ago, there's nothing that feels delicate about her mood now--her weight rests steadily across his hips, knees planted in the blanket beneath them, hands sure, the humor in her expression steady and intent obvious.
"You're very lucky, that even your worst dreams are so good."
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"I know. I've told you before, haven't I? About how lucky I am."
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Later, she dozes with her head on his chest, letting the sun lull her back to sleep. She laughs as Darras insists on pouring wine into mouth instead of handing over the bottle, wetting fingers in the trickle that spills down her throat and flicking it at him. She cards fingers through his hair as he reads with his head in her lap. She relights the oven and slices bread while he fries salt pork. She stitches up a tear in a shirt while he tunes his guitar. She falls asleep with his breath soft against the back of her neck. Another day passes, two, three. They shop in the village, check the perimeter fence, take the sail boat out for an afternoon and eat their catch on the beach as the sun sets. They read, and fall asleep in front of the fire, and spar on the lawn, and debate whether they ought to buy goats someday, and wake each morning in their narrow bed.
It fixes more than it doesn't. But Yseult still wakes one night hours before dawn and pulls on her dressing gown to sit and write in the orange light of the barely-glowing embers.
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But there's no danger. The light in the cottage is that dark pre-dawn light, and the glow of what's left of the fire. They had eaten bread and a spiced vegetable stew for dinner; the smell of it is still in the room. The warmth of the blankets and the coolness of the air that sifts in between the curtains. It smells faintly of the sea, a far-off perfume--and there's the sound of the waves too, distant, crashing against the rocks. The scratching of Yseult's pen is the next sound that makes its way to Darras and he smiles, half-asleep, and rolls onto his back.
"What is it?" he says aloud, after a moment.
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"Nothing," she replies, softly like there's still some chance of not waking him, "Go back to sleep."
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He falls quiet again for a moment, luxuriating in the drowsy peace. Rosanna is curled up on the pillow just beside his head, snoring quietly. He reaches a hand up and scratches behind her ears, and she wakes instantly with a little brrp, pushes her head into his hand.
Darras rolls onto his elbow, lifting himself up.
"I'm awake already," he says, "might as well tell me about the 'nothing'."
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"It's just foolishness." She gets to her feet with a sigh, crossing the few strides back into the dark and folding her dressing gown over a chair before sliding into bed. "A letter I can't seem to write. I don't have your ease with words."
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He shifts over to make space for her in the bed, one arm laid flat upon the mattress so that he can curl it around her and pull her even closer when she lays down again. The fire has risen a little higher after its late dinner of the page, flames encouraged.
"But if you tell me what it is you're trying to say, perhaps me'n my easy words can help."
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She blows out a breath. "I need to convince someone that even if the worst should happen, they shouldn't give up. Not to let grief ruin the rest of their life."
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Sleepy, musing, he settles in. Rosana, meanwhile, turns her face away and tucks her nose back into her tail. She's settling herself in as well--back to sleep. She doesn't have anything to add to the conversation. Darras, meanwhile, rests his hand on Yseult's, holding it against his side, and stares in bleary thought up at the ceiling.
"Tough one, that," he says after a moment. "Are they the type to let that happen?"
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"The loss would be terrible. But at least some parts of the plan for the future could still go ahead. Everything doesn't have to be lost forever just because one part of it is lost. Even if it's a major part. It could be replaced with something different, eventually. You see? It sounds so cold."
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The sleepy murmur is also one of commiseration. Yes, it's a tough one. Yes, it sounds cold. Darras lets his eyes slip shut again as he thinks, half-asleep, still enjoying the feeling of being in their bed in their house, together, just the two of them.
He's quiet long enough that it might seem he's fallen back to sleep until, somewhat abruptly (and still quite drowsily), he says, "Maybe don't speak of the replacing. That's the part that sounds cold. And there's some things that can't be replaced, y'know. But there can be newness that comes. That's all right."
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Lips brush his shoulder, and her hand strokes his side in a lulling rhythm, slow and easy, matching his drowsy tone. With her mouth still pressed to his skin she hazards it.
"I'd want that for you, if I died."
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"That's," mumbled, and he yawns, trying to rouse himself so he can put this to some words. "You're different."
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"But you shouldn't lose everything else that might be, too."
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hello look who it is, it's me
who???
;P
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sorry i wrote this in my head and only my head