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It does not, all things considered, take them very long to tumble into bed.
That undeniable spark is there from the first fateful moment of their meeting, and so is the utterly irresistible attraction.
There is a vague thought of proper courtship, somewhere in Isobel's mind. But there is also a room vacant at Last Light Inn—a perfect sanctuary, far away from anyone who might deign to interrupt and drag in with themselves the rest of the world—on a night mercifully relieved of the beckonings of duty.
Tucked away in a corner booth, privacy enhanced even further by Aylin half-spreading a wing that is more like a shield than a curtain, the conversation turns easily but simmeringly to histories of wildly different lengths, yet endless rhyme and similarity. From earnest and heartfelt fumblings with fellow acolytes and rejecting an overbearing father's occasional suggestion of suitors, to sating curiosity with long-lost sisters-in-arms, and a distancing, an acceptance that duty came first and this was simply not the lot of a Sword. To a mutual, unspoken conclusion of nothing quite compares to this.
Whatever this is shaping up to be. Whatever—Isobel muses as she traces the gold-bisected knuckles of a large hand laid over her own on the table—they shape it into.
It all feels completely inevitable, completely welcome, and completely natural. She finds she does not need the liquid courage that more of the sweet cider would doubtlessly provide to tilt her chin up and boldly meet every heated gaze cast her way. What it has already provided, though, is a delightful shine to Aylin's lips that gets renewed whenever she takes a sip from her own cup, accompanied by a swarm of thoughts about how tasting it off her mouth will only add to the flavour.
Eventually, Isobel loses count of how many times their faces hover tantalisingly close while exchanging murmured confidences and their noses—and lips—almost brush. The distance between them has long shrunk to as little as possible; thigh pressed to thigh without any armour there to cool flushed skin, shoulders bumping against one another as Aylin keeps leaning down in blatant attempts to be even closer, to erase even the gap imposed by their different heights.
It is ultimately Aylin who decides to voice their conclusion, a soft rumble against the pointed tip of Isobel's ear that already feels aflame: "One must learn the preferences and peculiarities of every lover, must one not? It would be a great honour indeed if you would allow me to learn yours."
Isobel swallows with some difficulty around the heart beating in her throat, and fishes out of her robes the key to the room she went to request an utterly interminable amount of time or a minute ago. It settles on the wood of the table with a dull little sound, laden with meaning. Aylin wastes no time in snatching up the now empty hand in order to press a kiss to it, then turns it to kiss the palm as well.
The trip up the stairs is barely worth remembering, later. The door of the room closes quietly enough, the lock well-oiled and turning with a soft click.
Now that Isobel has her here, this woman who has captured her every sense and thought in a way none have ever managed before, for a long, long moment she does not quite know what to do. She busies herself lighting a few of the candles around the room, adding warm shades to the cool moonlight streaming through the lattice of the single window.
But then Aylin does little more than turn in place and speak Isobel's name, handsome features accentuated by the soft candlelight. The moment of stillness breaks, the tension finally snaps. Isobel takes a step forward, strains to stand on tiptoe, and pulls her down to kiss her. For the next interminable while the two of them part only for those frustratingly necessary breaths of air.
Why does she need to breathe, still, spins around Isobel's spinning head, when she has her?
Aylin's hands come to rest against Isobel's waist, first helping hold her up, then nudging her to stand down, graciously bending lower herself. Her wings have curved forward, partially encircling them both; an embrace that could create a sanctuary that is for them alone anywhere.
"Perhaps," she manages, nuzzling against Isobel's cheek, then lower to her jaw, then back up again to kiss against the curl of black ink that traces down Isobel's cheekbone, "the bed would be more comfortable. And we can do away with these… impediments."
Isobel just barely stifles her laugh at the absurdity of the situation, the statement—Selûne's own daughter, talking about Her holy clerical vestments with such disdain. She obliges, however; regretfully untangles her hands from Aylin's hair and sets them to familiar work on the many knots and ties and hooks and layers of her robes.
Aylin herself has long since dismissed her armour, the glorious panoply gone the moment she landed after the day's patrol. Her restlessness and dissatisfied air at the lack of any brush with danger, where most would have only felt relief, is something that has not escaped Isobel's notice.
The ease and speed with which Aylin now shucks her boots, trousers, and shirt would be amusing as a display of sheer eagerness, if the beautiful sight of her wasn't so damnably, breathtakingly distracting. She rolls her impressive shoulders, free of confining fabric, and spreads her wings to their full span in a brief stretch, almost touching the walls of the room. Her feathers catch the light as she snaps the wings closed again, their fine vanes briefly dyed a sharp silver.
It is not exactly a new sight to Isobel, but she finds that means very little. The first time she saw Aylin clad in nothing but moonlight, standing amidst the several pools of different temperatures the bathhouse in Reithwin offered, stretching out her wings as if it was the most natural thing in the world—
Well, for her it probably was. For Isobel it meant a conscious snapping shut of a hanging jaw and a voluntary, deliberate return to breathing. Then an agonising hour of attempting not to stare too brazenly even as she stored away tantalising details for later private contemplation.
The shift in context and expectation changes everything, however, even if the captivating self-assurance and certainty and force of will that seem to govern and permeate Aylin's every little movement are still there. But there is also a faint tremble running through her, down to the very tips of each longest feather—anticipation, nervousness, desire, or a heady mix of all three.
Isobel leaves her outfit half-shed, and walks those few steps over to Aylin almost in a daze. Aylin, for her part, still stands bathed in the soft glow of the moon—and she has to have posed there deliberately, surely? Or was it one of the boons of a goddess' daughter, to have moonbeams flatteringly illuminate her at the most opportune moments?
She is masterfully carved marble, but there is also soft give and generous warmth burning right underneath her skin wherever Isobel reaches out to touch, to Aylin's approving hum.
The traces of gold that wind here and there are on full display. Earned in grand battles and quick skirmishes both—Isobel has heard of many, then asked eagerly about more—trophies of hard-won victories and memorials of the rare, ever-temporary defeat. Filigree wraps around a wide shoulder as if mimicking her pauldron; a tantalising trail runs down the side of her neck and along the cord of thick muscle; a thin but glistening line highlights the curve of a hip and the sturdy pillar of a powerful thigh.
But then Isobel meets Aylin's gaze again, and finds no trace of any cockiness, of any keenness to show off and impress. Instead, her eyes are wide, luminous as always, both catching the moonlight and radiating it, and her expression is nothing short of reverent.
Aylin leans down to kiss her deeply once more, then kneels, wings folding carefully behind her as she lowers herself, resting her head briefly against Isobel's bare stomach, where she has gotten her trousers off and her robes mostly open. The long flight-feathers brush against the floor with a soft sound, in time with the kisses Aylin presses into the skin before her, then as she strains up and dares the soft underside of a half-bared breast, and lowers herself again when Isobel reaches down for her. And this—oh, Isobel's own knees threaten to give out at the sight before her.
She leans her face against Isobel's hand when cupped, follows every little nudge, and manages nothing but a startlingly breathy Isobel.
"Come on," Isobel replies, with some difficulty, "let's go to bed."
The final remnants of clothing are lost along the way, unwanted and unnecessary in the still-warm air of early autumn. Aylin pauses for only a moment, considering the room, and the bed, purportedly fit for two—flexes wings that have come to sag behind her as if they, too, are heavy with want, and dismisses them in a soft flash of silver light.
Once they lie down on the freshly starched sheets, Isobel half-reclined against pillows, with the pleasant whiff of autumncrocus coming from the bedside table, Aylin does not stop. Lining kisses around a wrist as if creating the finest bracelet, then down an arm, with the smallest nuzzle and lick at the crook of an elbow, then up to Isobel's shoulder where she takes but a breath, pillowed perfectly, gazing up adoringly with those eyes that seem incapable or unwilling to hide anything.
"Beautiful," she manages, voice softened in what could almost be disbelief, one large hand reaching up to cup Isobel's face easily, fingers tangled in wisps of silver hair, a thumb tracing black ink. "Unparalleled. In all my days, I have never hoped or dreamed of such a sight…"
The sheer weight of naked adoration in her gaze is so immense, Isobel finds herself struggling to bear it.
It is all rather overwhelming, suddenly.
"Aylin," she manages through a slightly dry, halting throat, "you… you are… literally divine. In every way. I—"
Aylin shakes her head with a small smile. "But of the two of us, it is you who is Selûne's finest creation."
"I'm unsure your Mother had as much to do with my specific construction as She did with yours," Isobel attempts to demur only half-jokingly.
But Aylin will not be dissuaded. "Did She not?" Her smile turns brilliant, her entire bright, intense regard aimed at Isobel. "Then I must conclude you improved upon Her design yourself, which makes you all the more marvellous."
Before Isobel can formulate a response to this direct and forceful adoration and—mild blasphemy? Naked truth? Aylin has returned to her efforts. She laves at neck and collarbone, nips cheekily and briefly at the pointed tip of an ear, and finally settles in to lavish delectable attention upon each breast in turn.
"Worship," Aylin states plainly, murmuring against soft, flushed skin. "That is what my darling deserves, and that is what she shall have."
Solemn and fervent both, Aylin's touch trails down her sternum slowly, over the plush curve of her belly, then lower still. Her hand hovers near where Isobel's small length lies soft against her thigh, tucked somewhat between her legs. The moment is almost unbearably sweet—Aylin, so bold and absolutely determined both in battle and out, so careful and gentle with Isobel here.
"May I?"
The simple question, the yearning in it, makes Isobel's breath catch. She reaches down and guides Aylin's hand, pressing it against herself. "Yes. Please."
The small gasp—of joy and relief and excitement—that escapes Aylin at the permission, at the invitation, makes Isobel feels a brief sting of disappointment that her wonderfully expressive wings aren't present for the occasion.
"There is no greater joy, no honour more sacred," Aylin continues ardently, calloused palm firm and warm against where Isobel herself feels boiling heat, "I shall give my utmost, for as long as my beloved will permit me to please her, in whatever way she finds most agreeable—"
"Aylin," is all Isobel, face aflame, manages to gasp out in the midst of these brazen vows and delightful sensations, and then fails to resist the need to kiss that earnest face, that proclaiming mouth. Beloved, oh, to be named thus… how lovely those lips looked forming the syllables. She traces them with a thumb, as if hoping to pluck and grasp the sound and keep it with her forevermore.
"May I taste you, darling?" Aylin asks, tremulous, almost, against her kiss, for all that earlier divine determination.
Isobel nods her assent, relishing the shudder running through her at the intoxicating reality of the situation. There is Aylin, her angel, the woman she loves—for how can this nascent thing between them be anything else? Time has no bearing on the truth of it.
But there is also the hovering, heavy outline of the fact of who and what Aylin is, and the counterpoint of how very insistent she seems to be on being at Isobel's every beck and call. The combination is dizzying.
Aylin takes her, still soft, into her mouth entirely. The rich, wet heat is almost overwhelming, and Isobel cannot keep her hips from twitching. She gets a satisfied hum in return, and the way it travels through sensitive flesh makes coherent thought a distant impossibility.
But then it does become overwhelming. At Isobel's little grunt and the lightest of pushes against her shoulder, Aylin pauses, pulling back with a concerned furrow in her brow.
"Is this not to your liking?" Her voice has gone so very soft, her eyes so wide. "I would rather suffer a hundred blades than do anything you find disagreeable. You need only tell me and I shall adjust immediately."
The contrast with her silver-flushed cheeks and her damp, swollen lips is devastating. The eagerness visibly thrumming through her entire self, just barely restrained for Isobel's benefit, makes Isobel melt.
Isobel wants to laugh, then, utterly disarmed by the enthusiasm, once again struck by the irony of the immortal one of the two of them being the impatient one.
"It absolutely is to my liking." Isobel combs her fingers through Aylin's hair, then traces gently down to her chin. "Just a bit slower, alright?"
Aylin's face clears into understanding and something like relief, mixed with renewed determination. She returns to her task eagerly; varies pace and pressure, swirls her tongue, tests this way and that and captures Isobel in that intense, luminous gaze in order to carefully document every little twitch and hitched breath and small sound.
"That's good. It's wonderful, Aylin, you're wonderful," Isobel manages to reassure, the heavy, burning flush blanketing her face and chest making it difficult to draw a proper breath. "Don't stop."
There is something about the weight and warmth of her half-laid across Isobel's legs and belly, the soft hair falling over her thighs, the strong jaw and smooth skin brushing against the inside of them, the hands that push her legs just a bit more apart and up, and lips that dedicate themselves to work, when Aylin does something rather devastating with the flat of her tongue—
"That's—" Isobel gasps, hand tightening in golden hair. "Oh—"
Aylin's hands are busy again, fingers tracing up and down the inside of a thigh, then trailing backwards, cupping a buttock easily. She tears herself away from her ministrations with visible reluctance, but she is not one to bear uncertainty and lack of direction for very long, and so she must ask.
"What would you like of my hands? Fingers?"
"It's alright—" Isobel begins, then stumbles over a groan as Aylin continues her insistent explorations even as she awaits her response. "We have time. We do not have to try everything tonight."
There will be other nights—Aylin lights up at the unspoken promise, even more radiant than her impressive normal.
"I do not wish to ration my devotion," she murmurs against the divot of Isobel's hip. "And I am tired of restraint."
Isobel in turn can't restrain her chuckle at that, utterly smitten and endlessly charmed—it has been a handful of tendays of yearning for them both, barely more than a full turn of the Moon in the sky. And Aylin is so determined to be done with anticipation and waiting, has become so mired in impatience. It is flattery of the highest order.
She considers, briefly, struggling to divest herself of the dregs of her sensation-drunk state and start explaining that there are ointments and tinctures, that there is even a spell she has concocted herself—a bit of repurposed healing magic to warm and encourage blood flow when she wants it.
Aylin is so earnest and so devoted and so very eager and curious. Isobel takes pity on her—on them both, really, for her own patience has been worn desperately thin by that glorious mouth, not least when it praised a cleric's knowledge of the body, inside and out earlier in the evening—and decides to keep it uncomplicated, for tonight. "Alright. Let me show you something."
She takes Aylin's hand and guides it lower, to the soft hollow where thigh meets groin. Presses the large fingers gently near her root and just to the side, leading them in small, slow circles until—"Here. Can you feel it? Your finger can slip inside if you're very careful."
Aylin's face is aglow with delight as she follows her instruction. Isobel gasps at the sensation, at the delightful pressure and the deep warmth radiating through her in waves.
"Marvellous," Aylin breathes, wonder and adoration mixing in her voice, eyes fixated on Isobel's thrown-back head. "And the other side as well?"
"Yes, please, both—"
With two large fingers circling, pressing against Isobel and dipping in, Aylin's mouth returns to its devoted work. The pleasure builds, and builds, mounting and inevitable from somewhere deep within and Isobel is beyond word or thought. Until she comes with Aylin's name on her lips, arching into Aylin's lips in turn.
She drifts back into herself eventually, boneless and gasping—and a bit chilled, gooseflesh prickling up under sweat. Until Aylin graciously pulls herself up on the bed and gathers Isobel's languid form to hold her against the full solidity of her radiantly warm self.
Her eyes are glimmering with pride and her lips glistening with the remnants of Isobel's release, and she is about to say something—
"Come here," Isobel demands and pulls her in to kiss her thoroughly instead.
—
"What do you like?" Isobel insists some moments later, feeling thoroughly spoiled. She is mussed and dazed and limb-melted and yet unflappable in this demand. Aylin flushes silver and blinks at her and tries to demur once, twice—but Isobel will have none of it, and so she at last replies.
"I would see you undone at my hands again and again until you bid me to stop. As many times as there are stars in the sky and more still, until the end of my eternal days, I—"
"Aylin," Isobel almost scolds, though it is undermined by the fondness bleeding through every sound. "I mean it, seriously: what can I do for you? To bring you pleasure as well? Obviously you understand the appeal."
"I… anything, with you," Aylin says, after the briefest moment of genuinely considering the question for the first time. "If it is you… you, darling Isobel. Whatever you would wish, I would gladly accept and sweetly suffer. I—"
Isobel is still displeased by this unhelpful non-answer, and her face must clearly show it, because Aylin stops, then gets a somewhat distant look. Then she tilts that marvellously chiselled chin. "What would you do to me?"
Isobel pauses a moment, mind hiccuping at the situation. "Pardon?"
But Aylin, blast her handsome face, smirks, as realisation visibly dawns across her features. She slides from the bed and in one fluid, almost practised motion comes to kneel beside it. "You may do with me what you will," she proclaims, shoulders pulled back, eyes never leaving Isobel's. "You can ask any service of me, and I will provide most joyously."
"That…" Isobel presses the only slightly cooler back of her hand against her burning face, attempts to marshal rapidly scattering thoughts. "I think, maybe, that will require… some conversation?"
Aylin raises a challenging eyebrow.
"Fine," Isobel sighs, exhales, straightens her shoulders on her slightly awkward seat half-propped up on the bed, legs hanging off. "For tonight, I want you to lie back down here with me, and sweetly suffer what I do to you—but you must let me know when the suffering is sweetest."
"If that is what you wish, my lady," Aylin returns to bed with evident eagerness, settling herself among the pillows.
"I do wish it. Very much."
Isobel makes many a delightful discovery that night.
She learns that the place where neck meets shoulder makes Aylin gasp when bitten gently. That the gold woven into her is smooth and warm under questing fingers, but not particularly sensitive. That small, quick licks to her nipples are an easy way to make her produce delightful noises and writhe in a particularly appealing way.
And, after some coaxing to get her to summon them back (and the careful removal of the vase of autumncrocus from the bedside table, just in case), she discovers that the places where Aylin's wings connect to her back are the most exquisitely sensitive of all. That pressing kisses to the complex workings of muscle and tendon hidden beneath downy feathers reduces her glorious proclamations to soft whimpering, sends her wings twitching and shuddering with each touch, completely beyond her control.
When Isobel's hand finally settles between Aylin's thighs, Aylin reclined between hers, broad, powerful back pressed against Isobel's front, wings spread wide across the bed to either side of Isobel's splayed legs, the heat and wetness she finds there are gratifying beyond measure.
"For me?" Isobel can't help but tease, very deliberately circling with the lightest of touches only.
"Always," Aylin murmurs ardently, head thrown back against Isobel's shoulder. Her hips lift futilely. "For you and you alone, my darling."
Isobel has half a mind to keep up the feather-light caresses until she drives Aylin to pleading, until she takes mercy and sends this charming, endlessly endearing woman who also happens to be a refined instrument of divine vengeance careening with just a few flicks of the wrist.
But there will be time for that later, and she wishes to indulge in something else just now. When she slips one finger inside, Aylin makes the most beautiful, almost musical low sound Isobel has ever heard. Her wings flutter, one sweeping across the bed, and she grasps at Isobel's forearm as if anchoring herself.
"More?" She asks, and Aylin nods against her, pressing closer almost desperately.
Two fingers, then three when Isobel has worked out an angle—and oh, she knows well where to look, but she knows she's found the spot when Aylin's breath catches completely, when those luminous eyes go wide and lost. When her hips buck against Isobel's hand, showing off but a tantalising bit of the power in those glorious thighs.
"There?" Isobel whispers, and Aylin can only nod frantically.
"Please," Aylin gasps into her shoulder, and Isobel cannot quite believe how beautifully undone she has made her.
"Go on," Isobel whispers encouragement into damp, mussed hair, and Aylin obeys, crying out, clenching delightfully around Isobel's fingers, wings straining and fluttering, beating helplessly against the bed once, twice.
"Oh. My love—"
The immense truth, the honesty of that word, gasped out hoarsely, is striking. It is no mere platitude spoken while cresting a wave of overwhelming pleasure. Dame Aylin does not simply say things; not without meaning them so surely and deeply it is sometimes hard to comprehend.
Isobel moves slowly, lets her lie back down against the soft covers and pillows, withdrawing her fingers carefully. She brings them to her mouth, curiously, for a taste, as Aylin watches, chest rising in great breaths, overwhelmed, having been taken apart quite thoroughly.
After granting herself another few moments of simply sitting back and admiring the beautiful sight before her, Isobel slots herself against Aylin's side, underneath the arm that has already reached out to embrace her, and beneath the wing that has already enveloped them both, softer than any blanket or duvet could hope to be. She reaches up idly to stroke the soft feathers near Aylin's shoulder, and feels the wing tighten around her in response, drawing her closer still.
The closeness is a treasure to be relished. The feeling resounding deep in her very bones is one of belonging. Of unbelievable rightness.
One might, Isobel muses, looking up at Aylin who is welling with such devotion and adoration in turn—a perfect mirror of what Isobel feels rising within herself—dare even call it fate.
She cups Aylin's face between both hands and pulls her close as if for another kiss, which she eagerly obliges—only at the very last moment Isobel pauses, and simply stays looking, absorbing, breathing in this wonderful, precious, beloved presence.
"I love you," she concludes and confirms, finally, for it is the only thing that needs to be said, and kisses her, as if sealing a holy promise.