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Kirika’s eyes glisten in the hallway light, silver and clear, like starlight caught in a bottle.
His chest feels lighter, his worries finally spoken, his offer of support accepted without hesitation. Though his ears burn with embarrassment at the enthusiasm he’d shown in his little speech — To the ends of the world and beyond! — the actual feeling of embarrassment faded away entirely at the way she’d giggled. The smile still lingers on her lips as she leans against the door to her quarters, pink nightshirt slipping off one shoulder as she fiddles absently with the doorknob. Her hair which has been left loose falls over one shoulder, brushing her waist and making her look… younger, somehow. Softer.
His gaze lingers on her form, drinking her in like a man consumed, before he forces himself to move.
Offering her a final, warm smile, he raises his hand in a half-wave.
“Sleep well, my friend.”
May all your dreams be sweet, he adds in his mind as he lowers his gaze, biting at his lower lip. May you find all the happiness and rest you need.
“Raha, wait—”
It nearly hurts, the quickness with which he returns his gaze to her face. Her eyes widen as their gazes lock, though it’s hard to tell if she’s surprised at herself or at his reaction. The look only lasts a moment before it melts away, dissolving into something wistful and sweet. Her long, dark eyelashes cast elegant shadows across her cheekbones as she glances at the floor.
“...must you leave?” she asks after a moment, brows furrowing. Kirika glances at him and then looks away at the far wall instead. “I was rather hoping you’d stay. I am not… particularly in the mood to be alone, after everything that’s happened the past few days.”
His fingers are going numb as he smiles tightly and says, “Oh, I’m not so sure you want me to stay the night. I’ll likely keep you up with my rambling, and you need your rest.”
Her face softens almost imperceptibly. “...I like listening to you talk.”
“I — oh.”
His stomach flips, chest aflutter with a swarm of butterflies suddenly taking wing in his ribcage. He can feel the heat pooling in his cheeks as another bashful grin pulls at the corners of his lips, ears flattening against his head as he looks away. He can’t remember the last time someone wanted to listen to him talk for any reason beyond the idea that he might have information they need.
He clears his throat again, shifting his weight and clasping his hands together to try and keep from looking too flustered. “Ahem. Be that as it may… you need to sleep, Kirika.”
She hums softly.
“In Hingashi, it was often common for families to cosleep when the seasons changed and the weather grew colder. I spent many a night growing up in my brother’s room, curled up beside him next to the fireplace.” A nervous laugh leaves her lips as she reaches up and runs a hand through her hair. “What I’m trying to say is, sometimes I sleep better with someone near me. And when I’m especially anxious, it’s a lot easier to relax when I can feel someone else with me.”
His mind drifts a little, back to another time — another life, almost.
“Don’t go,” she pleads, grasping at his arms. He can’t look at her as he gently pulls back, but her fingers just tighten. “G’raha, please, there must be another way —”
“It’s alright,” he murmurs. “The future is where my destiny awaits. Now go — have the adventure of a lifetime. I want to read all about it when I wake.”
“G’raha, please stay —”
“Won’t you stay?”
Kirika’s soft, low voice breaks him out of his reverie (thankfully, because the memory of Cid having to drag Kirika away from the doors of the Crystal Tower was too painful right now). He blinks and finds her fiddling with one of the buttons on her too-big pajama top, a warm, inviting smile on her lips. His eyes linger there a moment too long, and for a moment he is overcome with the urge to cross the distance between them, pull her into his arms and sink his lips into hers. She is so close — her lips look so soft — but he can’t —
“...are you anxious?” he asks, breaking his gaze by looking back at her eyes.
Her smile turns sad and she shrugs. “I could say no, but that would be a lie. In truth, I’m terrified.” Kirika swallows thickly, and her eyes drop to the floor, brows furrowing. “You’re my best friend, you know? But if you’d rather not, I don’t want to—”
“— a moment !” he interrupts, leaping to catch the door as she’d moved to step back into the room and close the door. “Just a moment — you can’t just say something like that and close the door,” he says, laughing.
Her eyes are bright with barely contained hope, up this close. He watches her lips twitch, a cautious smile pulling at the corners. She’s close to him now — so close that he can see a small scar on the edge of her chin — and his breath hitches when she settles on one hip, a shift of her weight that settles her just that much closer to him. He’s sure his eyes are dilating as he chuckles nervously and asks, “I’m… I’m your best friend?”
Kirika laughs, looking away from him to glance down the hall. “Don’t say it so loud — I think Alisaie might suffocate you in your sleep if she overheard that.”
They both laugh quietly at that. Eyes like starlight drop back to the floor and, desperate to keep her smiling, to keep that spark of joy glittering in them, he reaches out and curls his fingers under her chin, nudging to bring her gaze back to his. Her mouth falls slack, cheeks dusted red (though, that might be wishful thinking on his end) as he lets his thumb brush over her chin once more before dropping his hand again.
“I’ll stay,” he says, smiling warmly. “If it will make you feel more at ease and help you rest — of course, I’ll stay.”
The smile that blossoms on her face lights up the entire hallway, it seems.
“Thank you,” she breathes. She hesitates for a brief moment, before she reaches out to grab him by the wrists, tugging him the rest of the way into the room. He barely has time to turn around to face her again as she closes the door behind them, laughter bubbling out of his chest, before she’s thrown her arms around his middle and burrowed her face into the crook of his neck. Breath hitching, she tightens her arms a little more and presses in even closer. “ Thank you .”
“It’s alright.” He sounds confused, even to his own ears, but he doesn’t need any more prodding to bury his face in her hair and start swaying gently on the spot. “I’ve got you. You’re alright.”
Kirika laughs lowly, voice thick with barely suppressed emotion as she says, “You fool. You’ve fallen for my trap. Just see if I ever let you go back to your own bed after tonight.”
I wouldn’t complain, he thinks, laughing faintly.
“You say that as if you think that would bother me,” he says, deepening his voice until it sounds full of false bravado. “It’s you who is stuck in here with me — not the other way around, oh mighty Warrior of Light .”
That makes her laugh, brighter and happier than he’s ever heard her, until she’s snorting into his shirt in an attempt to quiet herself. She continues to clutch at his shirt as he tries to pull back and look at her face, trying to hide even as he tries to push her back, desperate to see what she looks like when she laughs so sweetly.
“Stop,” she squeaks, still laughing, covering her mouth with one hand as she ducks away from him trying to smooth her hair back. “Stop, I’ve such an ugly laugh—”
“And who in the seven hells told you that?” he laughs, lunging after her to pull her giggling form back into his arms (and she doesn’t struggle, letting herself be reeled in easily even as she continues to try and hide her face). “It’s adorable — let me see your smile!”
Her cheeks are red as she lets him pull her hands away from her face, smile lingering on her lips. He’s very gentle about it, so she could stop him if she truly wanted, but she doesn’t seem to really mind as a few more laughs bubble up and fall from her lips. His eyes zero in on the way her nose scrunches cutely as her teeth are bared — the glimpse of her sharp fangs doing something to his stomach, which swirls with heat at the sight — but he’s mostly just awed by the crinkle around her eyes, and the way her eyes seem to glow a little brighter with mirth.
She refuses to meet his gaze, even as he indulges himself a little, tucking some of her long hair behind her fin-shaped horns. Clearing her throat, she reaches out and fiddles with one of his necklaces as she asks, “Well? Seen what you needed to see?”
He hums. “Indeed, I have.”
She glances at him then, and he knows he must look hopelessly lovestruck because she becomes immediately bashful, looking away again with a new kind of grin on her face. G’raha considers letting the moment pass — but then a rush of courage overtakes him.
“You’re beautiful, you know,” he says softly.
Surprise melts away whatever expression had taken up residence on her features, full lips parting slightly as she looks back up at him. He feels the urge to chicken out of the eye contact as her eyes dart between his, but he forces himself to stay still. It pays off, because the smile that splits her face after that makes the lamp on her desk glow ten times brighter, and she is radiant.
“Thank you,” she replies, and her voice matches the level that his had been. Wetting her lips, she seems to consider her next words for a moment, before she drops her gaze and smiles as she says, “I think you’re beautiful, too.”
And now it’s his turn to be bashful.
It’s been a very long time since he’s had anyone be so openly complimentary of him in such a way. Well, perhaps not so long for this body — but he had not had dalliances in Norvrandt. He had barely allowed anyone to see his face at all beyond those select few he trusted, and though Lyna had tried once to set him up with people in the Crystarium, believing he deserved a little happiness, he had never allowed anyone too close. It had been… well , knowing what he knew of his own future, why would he ever allow someone to fall in love with him?
And what’s more than that — how could he ever have allowed someone close when his heart already belonged to the woman standing across from him now?
His cheeks burn and his hand flies to rub at the back of his neck, ears flattening and tail twitching nervously as he chuckles and focuses on one of the bookshelves instead of her face. He can distantly recall the last relationship he had prior to meeting Kirika at the Crystal Tower all those years ago — a nasty thing, a stain on his history that had muddied some of his memories of his time studying to become an Archon. For such a sweet, sincere compliment to come from her…
“Do you want a pair of pajamas to sleep in?”
The change in topic is much welcome, and he embraces it with a laugh, nodding as he sighs, “Please. Did they have any extra pairs in the drawers when they assigned the room to you?”
He remembers that they used to have clothes ready for new students to the annex, or for those who had just returned from traveling. The rooms in the annex weren’t often used as full-time living spaces, but came with extra sets of clothes and other comforts for weary returning students who had yet to launder their traveling clothes or who simply wanted to wash and collapse into bed before unpacking.
Kirika moves to one of the armoires with a giggle. “They did, though I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you know that. I think I saw a red pair like the one I’m wearing…”
Ten minutes later and he’s stepping barefoot out of her ensuite washroom carrying his clothes in his arms, trying to calm the frantic beating of his heart as he feels somehow exposed in just these soft chocobo-print pajamas and nothing more. It was a strange sensation, peeling his clothes off with the expectation of joining the Warrior of Light in her bed. He knows she doesn’t want to be put on such a pedestal, but it’s hard to undo old habits — especially habits that formed over a century ago, specifically to give him something to hold onto as he trudged ever onward towards his own ultimate end.
When that all got changed, when he — for the first time in over a century — could look into the future and find joy and laughter and adventure there, it hadn’t made her any less of someone he admired. It had only made it worse, and now he has been at her side for a few months, that admiration has only grown. What had been hero worship and a puppy crush has turned into something terrifyingly bigger, more real and unfathomable than he’d ever expected to experience.
When he leaves the washroom, the lights are turned down low, only a small lamp burning on the desk by the bed lit to combat the moonlight flooding in. Kirika is sitting at the desk, scribbling into a journal as he pads over to the bed, setting his clothes on top of the dresser. Nerves send a prickling unease up his spine as he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror — he doesn’t recognize the man staring back at him.
The man in the reflection is young and fit, light skin tanned with the kiss of the sun from all the traveling he’s been doing. His hair is still that bright red it used to be, no longer whitened on the ends, and his eyes glint like rubies in the dim lamplight. G’raha swallows around the lump in his throat as he reaches up to redo his braid, and —
“Your hair looks nice like that.”
Startled, he glances over his shoulder as he combs his fingers through his hair, working out the tangles. He finds Kirika still sat at her desk, but turned towards him now, one hand propping up her head as she considers him. He tries not to focus too intensely on her bare thighs as he clears his throat and returns his gaze to the mirror.
“When it’s loose, you mean?” he asks, lingering with his hair loose around his shoulders. It’s longer than he had remembered it being, back in Norvrandt. Loose, it nearly touches the middle of his back, rather than stopping at his shoulders like he thought it had been.
Kirika hums. “It’s pretty. Red is my favorite color, you know.”
That makes him smile, despite the urge to be a bit embarrassed. “I do know,” he replies. “It suits you.”
She laughs a little, and he makes quick work of his braid to avoid thinking of something else to say, letting the familiar rhythm of his fingers help soothe his mind and his heart. This works for a moment, and he can feel himself relaxing with each new notch woven into his braid, but this only lasts until he hears the shuffle of fabric as Kirika climbs into bed. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her burrow into the pillows, huddling under the heavy, fluffy blankets that she must have requested.
The sight makes him smile — the marble flooring surely wasn’t helpful to her predisposition to being cold — just as the way she lets out a slow, contented sigh makes some of the tension in his own body melt away. The knowledge that his presence has put her so at ease is enough to have him ready to take on the world, and it’s suddenly very easy to tie off his braid and join her in the bed, turning out the lamp as he goes.
He groans dramatically as he slips under the covers, sinking into the pillows with a low sigh. “Why is your bed so much more comfortable than mine?” he asks, shooting her a grin.
She laughs, peeking at him from under the covers. “Is it?”
He slides a little lower, shifting a little closer, until he can feel her breath on his arm. With a shrug, he says, “Maybe it’s just the company. Or perhaps the veritable mountain of fluffy pillows and blankets you’ve managed to find.”
Settled on her side, the fluffy pillow manages to cushion her head and her horns enough that her neck isn’t bent at an awkward angle, and he’s fascinated by it as she snorts into the pillow. He’d always wondered how the Au Ra slept whenever he came across them — it seems the answer is far less interesting than he’d thought.
“I like to nest,” she says, starlight eyes half-lidded and content. “What of it?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing. I love to learn new things about you.”
The way her eyes light up is nothing short of marvelous, and whatever bashfulness he may feel at being so open dissipates at the sight. For a moment, she just grins at him, eyes darting this way and that as she takes him in — and then says, “I would learn more about you if you’d allow it.”
He snorts. “Are we not here to sleep, Kirika?”
Sticking her tongue out at him petulantly, she grins when he laughs and says, “You told me you’d tell me about your experiences in Norvrandt if I told you about my adventures. I’ve told you several stories, but you’ve yet to regale me about any of your adventures.” When he just rolls his eyes, she switches tactics, face softening into something warm and pleading as her hand comes to rest on his arm. “Come on, Raha — please? For me?”
For me.
She’s found his ultimate weakness, it seems.
Not that he minds.
Unwilling and perhaps even unable to tell her no, especially in this moment, he just laughs and returns his gaze to this ceiling. He doesn’t know where to begin, so he starts… at the beginning. While he considers starting with the work it took to get him to Norvrandt in the first place, it isn’t a happy tale, and he doesn’t want to sour the mood. Not tonight.
So he picks something else. He tells her about the first time he saw the purple forests of Lakeland. About the people who wandered up to the Crystal Tower in the early days. About becoming something more than himself as he took on the title of the Crystal Exarch. He lingers on stories that are happier — he speaks the most of Lyna and her childhood. He’d never fancied himself a paternal figure, but Lyna had changed something in him, and his happiest memories of that world were of her.
He misses her dearly. He hopes she’s found happiness, even in his absence.
The conversation lulls a bit, Raha staring up at the moonlight playing on the ceiling as Kirika traces the little chocobo figures on his shirt sleeve with delicate fingers. His mind wanders, remembering the way Lyna had asked him point-blank if Kirika was his lover. Remembers the way she’d laughed when he’d said no — remembers the way she’d pointed out how happy he seemed since she’d shown up.
Eventually, Kirika breaks the silence again.
“I knew it was you, you know.”
A beat passes in which he has no idea what she’s talking about — and then G’raha laughs, turning his head to look at her again. His grin is cheeky as he asks, “Oh, you did, did you?”
She nods. “From the moment I saw the Crystal Tower on the horizon, my heart was in my throat. I hoped… and then you came skipping out of the Crystarium and I heard you speak and it was like you’d never left.” Her smile turns wistful, hand coming to rest on his shoulder. “I’d recognize you anywhere, I think.”
Be still, my beating heart.
Breathless, he forces himself to laugh again as he asks, “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
That makes her roll her eyes, snorting, as she says, “I could ask you the same thing. And I did say something—I asked about G’raha Tia that very first day. You said you didn’t know anyone by that name.” She shrugs, unbothered even as he winces at the memory — how he’d hated lying to her. “I figured you had your reasons and that you would tell me everything when you were ready.”
“I wanted to,” he murmurs, turning on his side to look her in the eye better. Catching her hand with his, he squeezes gently. “Gods above, I wanted to tell you everything so much that it hurt, sometimes, just looking at you. I hated keeping things from you.”
All she does is smile sadly, squeezing his hand right back. “I know.” The phrase lingers for a moment, heavy and full of meaning. His heart has begun to ache when she runs her thumb across his knuckles. “And I know why you had to keep things to yourself.”
It nearly breaks him, the depth of her generosity and understanding. He’d lied to her, used her, changed the very color of her eyes — that red was a connection to her mother, she’d once told him, and he’s the very reason that she’d lost it — and yet here she is, holding his hands and telling him that she understands. Forgiving him when she has no obligation to ever want anything more to do with him.
“I’m still sorry about it,” he says after a moment of silence, giving her hand another squeeze.
She smiles a little wider, running her thumb across his knuckles again. “Can I ask you another question?”
“Anything.”
His answer falls from his lips before she’s even really finished speaking — something that makes her laugh. It doesn’t last, though, as her eyes fall to his shirt, smile falling away with a shaky breath.
“Were you frightened?” she asks, focusing on her hand in his as if trying to ground herself. “When you made the decision to take the jump to the First? Knowing that either you would die then and there, or that you would succeed only to die when you found me… were you afraid?”
It’s a question he isn’t expecting, but somehow doesn’t take him off guard like he might have thought it would. The world is threatening to unravel at the seams and, at the center of it, she’s left holding a needle and thread and expected to put it all right again. The entire reason he’s in her bed right now is because she’d said she was frightened — even so, he can hear the other questions lurking beneath the surface of the ones she asked.
Did you regret it? Did you wish someone else could take your place?
…Are you sure I was worth it?
Rather than shy away like he might once have, he feels himself smile a little, squeezing her hand again. At this point, the link their hands has created seems to be holding the both of them together, and he’s loathe to break that contact just yet.
“It… truthfully, the decision wasn’t as hard as you might think,” he says, laughing a little.
She tilts her head. “No?”
For a moment, he considers telling her something more tame than his real reasoning. Considers making some long-winded speech about the good of mankind and the future of the star — but he doesn’t want to lie anymore. Even if he doesn’t tell her those three little words, he wants her to know… to know what she means to him, if even a little bit.
“The idea of living in a world without you in it felt wrong,” he admits in a hushed voice. One of his greatest regrets had been that he’d been sleeping rather than fighting beside her when the Eighth Umbral Calamity hit. When those who woke him offered him the chance to do it over, to go back and put things right… how could he say no?
“If there was even the slightest chance that I could save you — that I could do something and put things back how they ought to be, to be in a world where you live and breathe once more — it was worth it. It didn’t matter what it took. There isn’t —“ he pauses, feeling bashful at the way she’s watching him, glancing away to focus on the moonlight on the wall behind her instead. His lips twist in a bitter, half-suppressed smile. “There really isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you, if I’m being honest, Kirika. It wasn’t much of a decision.”
“ Raha… ”
Her voice comes out a soft, wistful rasp that sends a shiver down his spine. He can feel her gaze as if it were a tangible thing, running over his features, trying to figure out how much of what he said was a lie. Trying to find the joke or the punchline.
She’ll find nothing of the sort.
“And I would do it again,” he adds emphatically, though his eyes don’t move from the wall. “I would do it all over again in a heartbeat if it meant I’d get to be here with you at the end of it. Without a second thought.”
Especially if I knew how close we would be, he adds in his mind. If I knew the Warrior of Light would not only consider me a comrade, but one of her best friends? If I knew you’d be curled up in a bed with me in my homeland, tracing idle little figures against my bare arm as the night wears on? That you’d have your legs tangled through mine under the sheets — that you’d want me around so much that you seek me out even when you have nothing to talk to me about in particular — that not only would you make me feel completely part of the team, but you pick me every time you get the chance — that you —
“I would do the same for you.”
…what?
He finally returns his gaze to hers, confused, only to find her smiling at him sweetly, eyes warm and full of barely restrained affection. Rather than explain immediately, she drops her gaze to her hand still grasped in his and asks, “Do you remember when we first met? I know it’s been a while now, especially for you, but—“
“How could I forget?” he interrupts with a gentle laugh. He grins cheekily, rolling back onto his back and settling a little closer to her on the mattress. “I’ll never forget what it was like realizing you — the mighty Warrior of Light, Hero of Eorzea — hadn’t the foggiest idea of how to shoot a bow.”
She settles closer to him as well with a laugh, letting his hand go finally to wrap her arms around his as she does. “You made me enjoy it far more than anyone else who has ever tried to teach me archery,” she murmurs.
He remembers it well, truthfully. The memory of the way she fit against him as he pressed up against her to fix her posture was something that had haunted him for a century.
Her eyes turn wistful before she leans forward and buries her face against his sleeve. “I adored everything about you, Raha. I already had a whole list of adventures I wanted to take with you when you locked yourself inside that tower.” Her smile falters a little, and she reaches up to play with the end of his braid where it rests over his shoulder. “I don’t want to imagine my life without you ever again.”
Raha feels his heart squeeze in his chest at that, and his breath catches in his throat as he reaches out and brushes the backs of his knuckles against her cheek. Her eyes flutter shut and, ever so slightly, she leans into his touch, nuzzling back against his fingers.
I’m in love with you, he thinks desperately.
It almost hurts, the desire to let the words fall from his tongue, to finally just tell her how he feels. To let the floodgates burst and let the truth finally flow free. With every beat of his heart, all he can hear is the same sentence.
I’m in love with you, I’m in love with you, I’m in love with you.
How many times had he dreamt of her over the years? How many nights had he awoken, sweaty and sticky and gasping, with her name on his tongue and his body aching for her? How often had he thought about being able to talk to her — to laugh with her, to cry with her, to be with her — to the point that every night that wasn’t haunted with nightmares of the world he left behind was consumed with dreams of a woman he’d thought would forever be out of his reach?
How many nights had he spent berating himself for leaving her behind to take care of the Crystal Tower? How often had he thought that at least he could make up for that failure by saving the First and the Source all in one go?
He could never deserve her, truthfully. He knows this in the pit of his gut — that his is not a name meant to live on beside hers in the way the other Scions are meant to — but he still can’t help but be selfish. Can’t help but crave her attention and her affection, even if he isn’t worthy of them.
Her brows pinch in the middle, and his chest aches with the urge to lean in and kiss away the furrow. To rest his forehead against the intersection of scales on her forehead — the little tiara of opal on her skin. He lets his knuckles brush against her cheek again, allowing himself one more moment of indulgence, one more selfish act before he puts space between them—
—and then she takes him by surprise.
She’s been doing that a lot tonight.
Kirika, after a moment of hesitation, catches his hand with hers and pulls it to her lips, pressing a lingering kiss to the back of it. His breath hitches, fingers tightening around hers, heart pounding in his chest so hard he’s afraid the force of it might shatter his ribs. He has no idea what kind of face he must be making (longing and wistful and desperate, most likely), but she doesn’t look up at him right away, shifting a little just to lay another kiss against his skin, reverent and sweet and lingering in a way that has a knot forming in his throat.
This isn’t real.
The phrase permeates above all else as she nuzzles against his hand, eyes still closed as if savoring the touch of his skin to hers. He can hear his breath getting shallow, and he clings desperately to that little mantra to keep himself from floating away into the great expanse. The way her face twists, he can tell she’s thinking very hard about something, something that is pulling at the corners of her lips and threatening to make her frown.
“Kirika…?”
His murmur is barely a sound at all, but she hears it nonetheless, diamond eyes fluttering open to look at him curiously. The frown fades at whatever face he’s making, replaced with a sweet smile as she squeezes his hand.
He forces himself to grin, running his thumb over her fingers. “Penny for your thoughts? Perhaps I can start carrying that satchel for you like I mentioned.”
She snorts, grinning happily enough that the worry in his gut eases. Shaking her head, she kisses his hand again and sighs (her breath on his skin — humid and hot — makes his head spin).
“It’s nothing,” she lies, shrugging half-heartedly. “Nothing to worry about, anyway. I don’t want to… I don’t want to risk ruining this.”
This isn’t real.
“This?” he repeats, smiling a little.
“Us,” comes the clarification, easy as breathing, but it feels like he’s had the wind knocked out of him at the sound of it. His heart skips a beat or five in his chest as she looks away, still holding fast to his hand as she shrugs. “I promise, it’s nothing bad, it’s just… probably not a good time.”
This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t real.
“Kirika, whatever it is — there’s nothing you could say or do that would change how I feel about you,” he says, voice hushed, hoping that’s what she wants to hear.
I’d love you no matter what you said or what you did. I’d love you at your worst. I’d love you at your best. I’ll love you even when you love someone else.
The depth of his feelings is a familiar ache in the very center of his chest, behind his ribs and under his lungs, but it’s easy to ignore now. What isn’t so easy to ignore is the way she’s looking at him now, eyes glimmering with an emotion he can’t quite place — though, he’s not sure if it’s unfamiliar, or if he’s just afraid to let his fragile mind cling to any misplaced hope.
After a moment that feels both like it lasts an eternity and a fraction of a second, she giggles a little, face flushed in the dark room as she looks away bashfully and says, “Selfishly, I think part of me is hoping it would change how you feel about me.”
A dream. This is a dream.
“Talk to me,” he hears himself plead, “Please. You know you can tell me anything.”
Her eyes return to his, darting between them, back and forth — and then, almost deliberately, they drop.
Her eyes linger on his lips as she breathes, “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“That’s impossible,” falls from his tongue before he can think about it, half a laugh bubbling up into his throat.
Her eyes flick back up to his. Smiling a little, a tinge bitter, she says, “You sound pretty sure about that.”
G’raha wants to laugh, but manages to keep it to a chuckle.
“I’m positive. There’s nothing — I feel so safe with you. I trust you more than I’ve ever trusted anyone. I —,” he starts, but cuts himself off abruptly, jaw snapping shut with an audible click. She frowns at that, worry evident on her beautiful features, and he can’t help but want to melt under the weight of the affection he can feel radiating from her. Sinking into the pillow a little, he sighs softly and murmurs, “I am not as sure of myself as I once was, but when your eyes are on me, I feel like something worth seeing. I’ve never felt that way before. I don’t… I don’t know what to do with that, but it’s all I can think at times.”
That final confession comes out on a breathless laugh as his face burns, but it’s vague enough that he doesn’t feel as if he’s bared his whole heart to her just yet.
For a moment, all she does is look at him, thoughtful and curious as she considers his words. At length, she squeezes his hand again and begins to speak.
“When I look at you, sometimes all I can see is loneliness,” she murmurs. “I think about the way Lyna once said that she’d never seen you happy until I showed up. How you spent a hundred years living in a world not your own, knowing that you could never go home, and that the closest you would get would be to die saving the life of a woman you hardly knew. I can still see that haunted look in your eyes sometimes when you look at me—like you don’t quite believe you’re here. Like you don’t believe you belong here, with us. With—with me. And it makes me want…”
He is hanging on her every word when she pauses, biting at her lower lip as if suddenly unsure of herself. His breath is caught high in his throat, heart aching to hear the words stuck in hers—hoping against hope that maybe she’s about to say what he desperately wishes she would.
Releasing his hand, she reaches for him, fingers delicately brushing his hair from his eyes before trailing down his cheek. Her touch lingers against his skin, thumb following the shape of his clan markings beneath his eyes—before it trails farther down and, ever so gently, follows the curve of his lower lip.
Her eyes watch her thumb on his mouth as she finally finishes her thought.
“…it makes me want to kiss away every negative thought you have about yourself. Until you start to see yourself the way I see you.”
Her eyes come back to his and she offers him a faint, tentative smile.
“You once called me a hero’s hero,” she breathes. “What does that make you, if you’re my hero?”
His breath leaves him in a ragged whoosh, eyes stinging as he grabs at her hand on his face, holding it there in a desperate attempt at grounding himself. His entire body is shivering as he tries not to break down sobbing, and he tries to think of something to say— anything to say—but all that comes out is a hoarse, “I— Kirika… ”
He can feel the concern radiating off of her in waves, and she rubs her thumb back and forth on his cheek in an attempt to soothe him. A hundred years of yearning and he’d never once truly thought about what he would do if given this chance to really, truly be with her. Never thought that he’d be enough of a splotch on her map to actually catch her attention, to catch her affection.
Now that he’s here, he is, for once, completely without words.
“I have,” he starts, wincing when his breath hitches audibly. Screwing his eyes shut, he presses onward, ignoring the urge to be embarrassed until he’s finished saying his piece. “I have wanted you—I have wanted to be with you—for so long, I—for a hundred years, more than a hundred years, I have yearned for you, in secrecy and silence. Never once did I think that you would ever return that affection. Never once did it cross my mind that I could—,” he pauses, turning his head to press several fervent kisses to her palm, reveling in the joy washing over him at being able to do such a thing, “—that I could save the world and still come home to you. That I could have this—that I could have everything. I just— .”
“Raha, breathe ,” she laughs, her other hand coming to join the first on his face, cupping his cheeks and swiping gently at the tears that slip from his lashes. “Look at me.”
He does as she asks, and he finds her smiling at him, giddy and blushing such a pretty shade of rosy pink that he’s afraid his heart might burst in his chest just looking at her. Still grinning, she caresses his cheeks with her thumbs as she speaks.
“I have had the biggest crush on you since that very first week at the Crystal Tower. It’s been longer for you than it has been for me, but you were not alone in your yearning.” Her eyes roam over his face with such a raw sense of wonder that he can almost feel it like a physical touch on his skin. “We’ve been reaching for each other across time and space, I think.”
He laughs—a little hysterical, a little watery—and shakes his head, closing his eyes again and squeezing her hand as she leans in and bumps her forehead affectionately against his. Her breath tickles his lips as it washes over his skin, the tip of her nose brushing his as she nuzzles against him. He shivers, and she giggles, shifting ever closer under the blankets until she can tangle her leg through his, hooking her ankle behind one of his.
Her skin brushes against his where his pant leg has ridden up, and he sighs at the sensation of skin on skin. Her thumb runs over the shape of his markings again, and beneath the blankets her tail curls lightly over his thigh. The touch is hesitant, but it tightens when his tail brushes against hers, inviting her closer. He wants every part of her touching every part of him. He wants to be enveloped by her, body and soul, until he can no longer tell where he ends and she begins.
He is hers.
Completely and inexorably hers.
And if she wants him, by some strange twist of fate, then by the gods, he is the last person on the star to deny her that which already belongs to her. If she wants him, she can have him. If she wants him, he will give her everything, and then find some way to give her even more. He will give her all the stars in the sky if that’s what she wants.
Right now, with her breath hot on his skin and her body pressed up against him, there is only one thing he can think to give her — and though she has confessed as much, the tiny, rude little voice in his head needs to hear her say it again, lest it be convinced that he’s actually misinterpreted everything.
It takes him a moment to get the words out. He digs them up from his rib cage and drags them to his vocal chords, but forcing them up past his lips feels almost impossible. He has to count backwards in his head, tail twitching anxiously under the sheets, before he manages to spit them out, haltingly and barely a whisper.
“Can—I want—do you want—I—“ he huffs, shaking his head, before he forces the question out on a rush of air. “Can I kiss you?”
Oof.
Gods, what was that? How embarrassing. You’ve surely just ruined it. You——
“Please.”
One little word.
She’s undone him completely with one tiny little word.
He opens his eyes to look at her, disbelieving his own ears, only to find her gazing longingly back at him, eyes zeroing in on his lips. Kirika smiles, warm and sweet and full of affection, as she brings her eyes back to his. Her hand slips into the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer as she murmurs another reply.
“Please kiss me.”
He doesn’t need her to ask a third time.
Delicately, he reaches up and brushes some of her hair away from her face, letting his fingers follow the pattern of scales on her cheek and down her jaw. His fingers curl against her skin, following the line of her jaw until they settle lightly beneath her chin, tilting her chin just so — angling her face so that she can lie comfortably against the pillow and reach him without straining. Though every part of him is screaming for him to rush forward, to join their lips with the reckless abandon he so craves after so much time spent yearning from afar, he doesn’t want to ruin this.
If this ends up being the only kiss he gets — if she wakes up on the morrow and has come to her senses — he wants this moment to live on in his memory as the perfect first kiss. He wants to do it right.
She deserves nothing less.
And so he resolves to make it as memorable as he can, moving slow and letting each touch linger. The first tickle of her breath on his lips sends heat cascading over his body, from his scalp all the way to his toes. The first brush of her lips to his causes them both to inhale sharply, surprised at the shock of pleasure that courses through them at the sensation of skin-to-skin. He stays there a moment, not quite pressing forward, committing the tension — desperate, aching desire in the pit of his stomach, a pull like a fishing wire wrapped around his sternum pulled taught, pulling him into her orbit — to memory. Her lips fall parted as he nuzzles his mouth against hers, trying to find the perfect angle, the perfect fit before he finally (finally) kisses her.
When he does kiss her — soft and hesitant, slotting her lower lip between his with a quiet sigh — it’s even sweeter than he’d ever dared to dream. The hesitance in his kiss lasts only a moment longer, until she presses back a little harder, curling around him to pull him closer with a quiet insistence that makes his head spin. His second kiss is firm and desperate, pulling a muffled little noise from her throat that has his brows drawing low, willing her to feel the depth of his wanting with each press of his lips to hers.
Again and again and again.
Kisses that are, for all intents and purposes, perfectly chaste and sweet, but for the fervor behind them. His hand slips from the side of her neck to her waist, wrapping around her back to twist his fingers into the cottony fabric of her pajamas — and she mirrors him, tail sliding fully around one of his legs and holding firm as her arm wraps around his shoulders, nails digging into his back sharp enough that he can’t help but groan quietly against her. Soon the room is silent, filled only with the shuffling of the blankets and the whisper of lips on lips (sounds that send heat rushing to his cheeks when one kiss breaks with a particularly loud smack, and the awareness of the sound has him shivering a little with… something he doesn’t know how to put words to). Every so often, a hitched breath — a gasp, a groan, a sigh — joins the mix, sending shivers up and down his spine when they do.
Deepening the kiss feels like trespassing — like asking for too much. He half expects her to push him away when he flicks his tongue out to brush against her lips. She does gasp a little, and he nearly pulls away to apologize, but then her mouth opens against him and—
—and she meets halfway on the next pass, and he can’t stop the desperate noise that leaves him. He is shaking all over as he practically whimpers into her mouth and Kirika pulls him closer in response, resting her hand on his cheek and brushing her thumb over the arch of his cheekbone as if she’s trying to soothe him. It has almost the opposite effect as he presses ever closer, begging for more without words, pressing her farther into the pillows.
He has dreamt of this for so long, and finally having everything he’s ever wanted in his arms is quickly driving him mad. If he could just lay here forever kissing her, he would. He’d live another hundred years of solitude just to get one more chance to hold her like this, he thinks, and he’d do it gladly.
When the kiss finally breaks, it’s for Kirika to pull away with a giddy laugh, tilting her head away to catch her breath and rest. Unwilling to break contact, G’raha just turns to trail a line of kisses along her jaw, lingering, following the trail of scales down her neck. This in particular he has thought about more times than he could ever count — he’d often dreamed of laving kisses to the scales on her throat, dragging his teeth along the edges where scales meet skin.
The sound she makes when he nips at her neck — surprised and breathless and pleased, tilting her head farther to give him better access — is enough to drag another groan from his chest. He buries his face in the crook of her neck, hugging her close and squeezing, as she pushes her fingers through his hair.
“You’re shaking,” she says quietly, running her fingers through his hair over and over again.
That makes him laugh as another, more violent shiver wracks his frame when her fingers trail over the fine fur covering one of his ears. “I am,” he agrees, both of them laughing lightly when he shivers again, burrowing further into her arms, trying to soak in the physical contact while he can.
She kisses at the side of his head as she continues combing her fingers through his hair, the move so sweet that it makes him want to cry. Affection, more than he’s ever known, wells up in his chest, blossoming until he can scarcely breathe around it.
“Should I be concerned?” comes her murmur a moment later.
G’raha snorts.
Does she really not know?
He pulls away finally, pressing up on his elbows to grin down at her. Her hand returns to his cheek and he leans into her touch as he takes in her rosy cheeks and well-kissed, flustered appearance. She’s ethereal, eyes still lightly glowing as she smiles up at him. As he looks at her — he’s sure he must look hopelessly and incandescently in love — her grin turns giddy, nose crinkling as she bites at her lower lip as if trying to tamp down on her own joy.
Gods, is she really smiling like that because of him?
“It is a very, very good thing,” he tells her, voice low and a little hoarse. Because he can’t help himself, he leans in and presses another kiss to her lips. Once, twice, three times, until they are doing nothing but grinning into each other’s mouths instead of kissing.
I love you.
He pulls away again when trying to kiss her through his grin doesn’t work, brushing the tip of his nose against hers affectionately. He’s loathe to pull away far, but he can’t stop grinning enough to kiss her properly, so this will have to do. She nudges him back, giggling, tipping her head back to kiss the tip of his nose. He bends his head and her lips land on his forehead next, and his eyes close as she lingers there, brushing his hair away from his forehead as she presses another few kisses to his skin. Something about that makes his chest ache — an expression of affection so pure and selfless that it almost hurts to receive it.
“You’re incredible,” he murmurs, pulling back to look at her again. She’s still cradling his face as he does, pushing her fingers through his hair with one hand and trailing down the side of his face with the other, starlight eyes half-lidded and warm with barely restrained adoration.
He’s running his hand through her hair — twirling his fingers through the greyed strands, following them to the whitened ends, remembering the jet black it used to be before the Lightwardens took their toll — when something in the room shifts. One moment the blue-ish tint of the moonlight is all that illuminates the two of them, entangled in her bed, and the next there’s a faint, reddish glow coming from somewhere above the headboard.
Together, he and Kirika push themselves into a sitting position, looking over the headboard at the desk behind the bed. There, the strange flower Kirika had picked up in Labyrinthos is glowing a brilliant, bright pink with yellow in the middle of it. Kirika grins as she settles back into the bed, brushing her fingers against his arm as she does.
“What a pretty color,” she says, urging him to lie back down. “I wonder what it means.”
His face burns as he settles beside her, shaking his head. He’d read about the language of flowers in Norvrandt, out of boredom mostly, but he knew very little about it here on the Source. Still, if he had to guess…
“I’m — I’m not sure. What do you think it means?”
Kirika smiles at him, curling her fingers under his jaw to guide his face to hers as she kisses him again. It’s a lingering kiss — slow and soft and sure — that makes his heart pound and his breath hitch.
“It’s the color of blossoming feelings,” she breathes into his lips.
The color of new love, he thinks, kissing her again. How poetic. How perfect.
They kiss well into the night.
With tangled fingers and giddy laughter, they trade stories — she tells him of the creation myth of the Xaela, the way the Steppe made her blood sing, and he tells her about the people who woke him from his slumber, who sent him on his way with smiles and laughter despite the horror waiting them. Between stories, they trade kisses instead, each time thrilling him just as much as the first. They laugh when she asks if she’s “doing alright” because she’s never done this before (his heart sings at the thought that he is her first, and that she wanted it that way).
Eventually, when they are too tired to keep their eyes open a second longer, they fall asleep, nothing more than a tangle of limbs and happy hearts.