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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | Avrenne pays a visit to Zath after nearly two months absence, and they are both a little surprised. No wine bottles were harmed in the making of this RP. Romance and character driven RP, no plot here, adult content, read at own preference for entertainment. 11k words. |
| Rating: | A for Adults Only 18+ |
The calling card sent ahead of time announced the Duchess Avrenne Esprit's intent to arrive promptly at 7:15pm. However, anyone who has ever spent time around the duchess knows that she will not be there at 7:15pm. She will be there at 7:10pm, five minutes earlier than she said she would be.
She doesn't do anything to disguise her intent, or her place there, even if she also doesn't draw any attention to herself. As usual, her hair is in a chignon, if not a tight one, and there is only the barest touch of cosmetics to darken her eyes and lashes. She might be there on business, perhaps. It is known by now that the duchess goes where her political connections lead her, and she's made no secret of her support of the WEB.
Her dress is expensive for the materials it is made with, and the level of detailing done to it, a sumptuous gathered waist of dark green, a cape across her upper torso and arms, and black gloves that cover her arms up to her mid-upper arm. It only slightly muffles the knock of her hand on the door.
Captain Zath Tyrell of the 7th Legion answers the door in what must have been his work clothing. Not a combat or dress uniform clearly, but distinctly military nonetheless: crisp lines in the Legion's dark blue, trimmed with gold and just a touch of red.
He bows deeply enough that his initial expression is not visible, and when he rises from the bow he is Perfect Composure.
"Welcome to my modest quarters, Your Grace, and I apologize for the lack of creature comforts. Please do come in and let me know to what I owe the honor of your visit."
His voice is not cold; it is definitely his friendlier, more silken tone, but it does not at this moment dare anything of intimacy.
Avrenne's return curtsy is automatic, a pure mirror of habit rather than choice. Her own expression betrays nothing at all beyond the usual cool composure, a type of non reaction poise, as she steps forward with that confidence that makes her seem 6 feet tall, until you see her in relation to Zath's own height, breaking the illusion.
"Thank you, Captain," she says, while they're still visible and audible to those on the street. There are, admittedly, not many at all at this time of night, the day already waning with the end of September and the onset of autumn. She crosses the threshold and waits for the door to close behind her.
Zath closes the door behind her, curving his path so as not to close the distance between them beyond what would be appropriate for a political or business discussion, and then turns to make a beeline for the small island that serves as a food preparation space. On it are a few bottles of wine as well as expensive sparkling water.
"Would you care for water? Wine?" His gaze flicks up briefly, ice-blue, and then down again to the label of a wine bottle.
"I am not particularly thirsty," Avrenne says, and there's warmth in her voice, a slight tease, already in contrast to her tone a moment before. "I'll only take the wine if it's what lingers from your mouth should you drink some."
Zath's hand knocks into a bottle and sends it toppling; he manages to catch it quite smoothly before it crashes to the floor. He seems genuinely startled and disoriented; he has the look of a man who had meticulous plans to fight dragons in a swamp and suddenly finds himself in a desert surrounded by undead. Or possibly asked to babysit twins. Or something. Something decidedly not the dragons he prepared for.
For a moment he seems like he's trying to save face, to smooth over his confusion and pretend he still has the upper hand, but at last he just places both hands on the countertop, with the island still between himself and her, and looks up at her with earnest bewilderment.
"You… have taken me by surprise," he admits quietly.
Avrenne's brows raise slightly at the almost knocked over bottle, and then go higher at the admission, enough to cause faint lines on her forehead. She closes the distance between them, reaching out a hand to touch his arm. "Oh. Well, it is not only whiskey that makes me inclined to sleep. Wine does much the same, though I admit I might otherwise enjoy the taste, particularly the combination."
Zath gazes down at her as she approaches, then at the hand on his arm, then back down at her face, his expression peculiar. He lifts a hand to trace the edge of his thumb gently and almost sadly over her cheekbone as though memorizing it before the illusion melts away.
"When I got your note, I was expecting urgent business. To do with… the WEB, or the 7th. I wasn't — I still do not fully understand what is happening. Is something the matter?" His expression changes quickly from one of bewilderment to one of concern as he studies her face.
Avrenne's smile is bright and warm, as she leans into his hand as if there's a different sort of warmth in the touch, for all of the coolness of his skin. "No. I just wanted to see you. I did not think to put it so explicitly in a calling card that might be handled by a butler or…" Avrenne's eyes remain on him, having already done the scan of the one (1) room. "Well. I was not sure what to expect. I might say I hope that I have not caused you to cancel anything else important, but I might just as more honestly say that I am glad enough to see you that I cannot regret it if you have."
"You are." It isn't quite a question. But there is just a ghost of a question in it. "You are… glad to see me." He speaks as though he is comparing her demeanor to her words and finding them a somewhat puzzling match. "Then tell me," he says, cool hand cradling her cheek again, "what I might do for you." Anything, his eyes say. Name it. "I suppose I am still not yet accustomed to being… a person that one is glad to see. I would have thought you much preoccupied. But if I might please you, tell me how."
Avrenne's gaze is steady on his, as though he's a fixed point in the room to her, the rest unimportant details. "I have been busy, but I will always make time for you, Zath, and be glad of it, every time. As for what you might do," she says, already rising up a little, stretching out her meager height, her voice gone lower with a telltale husky note to it. "Kiss me." There's a slightly wicked look in her eyes, the phrasing not entirely a suggestion, bordering on a demand.
He lifts his other hand, gently trapping her head between them and tilting it back just a bit more as he leans down swiftly to cover her mouth with his own. When he parts her lips and tastes her, he lets out a soft, helpless groan, like a man tasting water after crossing Tanaris on foot.
He lingers there so long it's hard to say exactly how much time passes as he kisses her deeply, melting-sweet and hot, cool slender fingers invading her pulled-back hair like tree roots finding purchase in soil, loosening her careful knot, bent on eroding and destroying order.
As usual, Zath has understood the assignment. Avrenne responds with the same enthusiasm of someone caught out in a storm who, rather than seek shelter, tips her head back and opens her mouth to feel the rain on her face to drink it in and bask in it. She moves into his arms, stretching up against him. Pressed more closely he can feel the shape of the seastalk case around her neck under the cape of the dress.
As her hair begins to escape its confines, her yielding becomes more active, her hands on his shoulders not only steadying now, but grasping, pulling. By the time it has fallen around her shoulders — notably longer by an inch or so than it was in July — she has already begun, despite the difficulties the dress she wears presents to this course, to attempt to climb him like a tree.
"Easy now," Zath purrs against her mouth, lowering his hands to her hips in a steadying gesture. "Let's get you out of that before you tear it, hm?" He sounds wryly amused. Hands still on her hips, and once again kissing her, he slowly walks her back toward the bed, which is not really all that far from the kitchen countertop.
That might as well be seven leagues away the way Avrenne makes a sound that is suspiciously like a low growl, but maybe we can call it a moan if we're being charitable. She does seem to have a decent sense of the space however, in relative distances, knowing when she's about to bump into the bed, or close to it, off by around an inch.
As he continues to kiss her, Zath's hands move over the dress, seeking fastenings in the usual places: back of the neck, down along the spine, at the ass… Zath, there probably aren't fastenings there, but the thoroughness of your investigation of the area is to be commended.
To be entirely fair, if he's followed the dress' salient points of interest for removal he was headed in the right direction. The cape it seems has a partial release at the back of her neck, a discreet button, but the dress is kept closed by a laced up ribbon, similar to a corset, tied at the very base of the small of her back, which must be undone and loosened before the dress can be removed.
In the meantime, Avrenne slides her gloved hands over the front of his shirt, examining the buttons possibly. Or possibly savoring the sense of the work clothes on him. She does seem to have a thing for a man in Alliance uniform.
Zath makes a soft humming sound low in his throat, mouth still pressed to hers, at the feel of her wandering hands. Meanwhile his own fingertips deftly locate the ends of the ribbon and pull, undoing the bow and then urging the crossed laces to loosen their hold as his fingers walk back up.
Once he has loosened the dress sufficiently for her to remove it he draws back abruptly, hands braced against her elbows, eyes raking down the front of her.
"Let me see you," he says. But despite the wording it isn't a command; there is a touch of pleading in his voice, and more than a touch of it in his eyes.
Avrenne knows this game, and clearly enjoys it. There's not an ounce of shyness to her, as she lowers her arms to slowly pull at each one of the tips of the fingers of her gloves. These are left to fall like leaves at the end of autumn, hitting the floor with that particular whisper of silk. For the dress itself, it's as though she's plucking petals from a flower, removing each side slowly, revealing the pale golden skin beneath it — and as he has come to know, only that. Underpinnings are a thing other people do with these inefficient systems that they insist on for creations of silhouettes and adapting their forms to fit the fashion of the day.
But not Avrenne Esprit Fallon. Once the dress bares her to her waist, there's simply nothing else for it to cling to, and this green creation meets the gloves on the ground, showing the fullness of her form. The seastalk case hits between her high, small breasts, but other than this, there is nothing else on her, her eyes locked on his face, gaze steady and bold as anything.
A man with a particular sense to detail might note the very slight change at her waist, the barest swell of her lower abdomen, as the first external sign of her pregnancy.
Zath devours the display with an almost schoolboyish look of wonder in his eyes, gaze lingering on every detail of the exposed skin. That by-now-familiar pale blue gaze travels over her body at the speed of a savoring, caressing hand, until it slows to a halt at the subtle swell of her belly. His expression flickers, as though he is waking from a dream he had not quite realized he had slipped into.
"Is it…?" A hand comes to rest over her belly for a moment before he seems to remember it is cold and draws it quickly away. His eyes flick up to hers for a moment, something almost like guilt in them. "Is it… all right, to— is it safe?"
So many subjects on which this man could expound for hours: poetry, metaphysics, war strategy — and he clearly doesn't even know the first basic thing about such common domestic matters as this.
Avrenne reaches back out immediately for his hand, intending to place it back on her, while her other hand moves to touch his cheek in a soft mirror of his own touch, light and grazing. Her hands are no warmer than an ordinary person's, and she steps in closer to him, arching up her head to expose the line of her throat more as she looks at him, her eyes so dark they look almost black.
"What is it that you are concerned about, specifically?" She asks it gently, without a sense of a scold, a simple question to hear what it is that might be in his mind, rather than guessing at what might be the fear that has gripped him.
He seems to relax a fraction at her touch, at least enough to better locate his words.
"You are in a delicate condition," he says very softly. "I do not wish for any… excitement or exertion to damage you, or endanger your— I am led to understand these situations are… fragile, fraught. In ways I have had no opportunity to witness or experience. I had no younger relations to witness coming into the world, have known no mothers well enough to discuss such sensitive matters. I couldn't bear it if I somehow… destroyed what you and he—"
He loses his words again and just shakes his head.
Avrenne brushes a finger along his cheekbone. "I am already past the point where an early loss might happen for no particular reason. I have been given leave to resume any and all activities. Well." She sighs. "I have been barred from riding by horse. Apparently it is a fall risk." She is a grown ass woman, and is not pouting about this. Surely not.
She might be, a little.
"As for all else, I am under no advisement at this time to alter anything of my usual activities." She offers him a rueful sort of smile. "I found myself in the same place as you with this, for all that I am a woman. I was the youngest, and I never spent any time around any woman in such a state myself either. I have had to ask quite a lot of questions, and I have been learning much that I had no idea at all to expect. I have a priestess midwife I see. She has been very patient in explaining things I did not know, and my own…concerns." We'll call them concerns and not anxieties, because ahem, we don't talk about those kinds of Feelings, nope.
Zath draws her into his arms, pulling her naked form against his clothed one, one hand gently clasping her head against his heart, the other arm around her back as though to warm her, shelter her, shield her. He simply holds her there for a long time, saying nothing. When he finally does speak, it is very softly, but his voice is resonant in his chest, and her ear is resting there.
"I would forsake every ounce of pleasure in this world to keep you safe," he vows. "As much as I long for you, I am a man accustomed to living without satisfaction, and it would be no unusual hardship for me. Let us proceed gently, and please, if you feel at all uncomfortable, exhausted, lightheaded, if you experience even the slightest pain, speak immediately, no matter how… committed I may seem to my endeavors."
Avrenne seems unaccountably small there, that illusion of height well and truly broken for how easily she fits against him, for all that Zath is not a very large man. There's a softening of her, a slight curling inwards as she presses her face into him, breathing deeply. It might be obvious that as much as she may want to stick her tongue down his throat and on other things, she also very much wants to be held, just like this.
"You have my word," she promises in turn. "I won't do anything that would put myself or the child in any danger." Her hands, which had been still, begin to wander, stroking along his lower back, tracing lines that would not likely make any particular sense to someone else, but he can feel are following scars into imaginary shapes, little geometric angles she's memorized. "And that is the only concern you have then? You do still…" She lets the rest of it go unspoken. You do still want her, then? He hasn't changed his mind now that he can see that her body is slowly but surely changing?
"I've… I've thought of little else since I got your note," he confesses with a note of guilty self-loathing. His hand strokes her hair, savoring the strands, that sampling, tasting feeling his fingertips sometimes evoke. "Even though I did not think you were coming here as a lover, I could not keep my mind schooled, and I had to do my best to at least conceal that fact. Or so I thought."
There's a touch of relief in her, a relaxing of her shoulders, that reveals that tiny vulnerable worry of doubt that snuck in. She makes that humming sound, a laugh kept in her throat rather than allowed freedom. "Oh, if you only knew how many times I have had to talk myself out of looking for an excuse to just wander near the 7th Legion's offices, or time an excursion out that would just so happen to be the route you would take home, for what could be at most a polite exchange of words on the street, so that at least I could have a glimpse of you, a moment to breathe you in as I pass by." She has that teasing note in her voice, although she might be, in this case, directing it more at herself than anyone. "It is a terrible temptation, but I know how seriously you take your reputation and your image for the 7th, and I do not want to interfere with that."
He actually startles slightly at her confession, his breath catching in confused surprise as he takes in this information. But he doesn't comment or argue, only slides his hands so that they gently grip her upper arms and then guides her back to sit on the edge of his bed.
He stands looking down at her for just a moment, his gaze melting-soft, then sinks to his knees on the floor, leaning between her thighs to rest his head against her heart for a moment.
He can tell how quick it's beating — that for all of her relative calm of manner, her pulse is racing, and that as she slides a hand into his hair, it goes up another notch as she sighs with obvious pleasure at the touch, her thighs spreading wider to accommodate him.
Something about the opening of her legs seems to abruptly alter Zath's mood; with little preamble he suddenly shifts his head to draw a nipple in his mouth and suckle hungrily, one cold hand bracing her shoulder blade from behind. He gives that small breast a shower of ardent, loving attention for a time, then moves to the other. But the latter breast does not receive its equal due. Breath quickening, he impatiently kisses his way down her belly to bury his face between her thighs with a growl.
Despite his sudden slide into bestial lust, his attentions still carry a nigh-worshipful quality; his posture is just short of religious prostration as he kneels on the floor before her, still fully clothed, hands resting at her hips where she sits on the edge of the bed. His hair is, as she remembers, ridiculously soft. It is also — she can see now that she has mussed it from its carefully slicked combing — a bit overdue for a trim, bordering on roguish.
Avrenne cries out loudly enough that if he has concerns about the insulation of his walls, he's going to need to address that volume in some manner. Her hand thread through his hair goes from a light stroke to a grip, a brief pressure of her nails for a moment, as she rocks forward. The fact that he is wearing 100% more clothes than her does not seem to concern her for the moment, or perhaps there's still some inherent appeal in the sight of a man of the Alliance between her thighs, as she slides a leg up along his back to hook it over his shoulder, gasping his name repeatedly like a mantra.
The Captain seems to appreciate the repetition of his name, to judge by the little shiver that runs through him, but he is at present unable to reply. His purpose is single minded, his tongue warm and wet and insistent. His chilly hands roam up and down her thighs, occasionally grasping at her hips as though for purchase, and briefly moving to steady one leg's new position on his shoulder. The movement of her hands through his sleek, silvered black hair hair stirs the familiar wormwood-black currant fragrance that always accompanies him.
If he is worried about the noise, he gives no indication of it.
He is by now familiar with the heat of her, unnaturally hotter than most, a hint of the arcane elemental fire that runs through her, and it is not his imagination that it seems hotter than before, an increase by several degrees that grows more intense as she rides towards that edge. She was clearly already well on her way before he even started.
The sounds only get more insistent, and he can hear her taking deeper breaths, like she's trying to imprint the scent into her lungs.
He draws back just enough to murmur, "Yes, let go…", his breath almost cool against her heat, before his tongue continues its gentle, insistent lashing. His fingertips dig into the softness that cushions her hipbones, cold points of near-pain that contrast dizzyingly with the wet warmth lapping at her below.
It's one of the few times he can get her to nearly instantly obey, without asking any additional questions on the matter, and from the way her head falls back, his name more of a sound than the full of it, a cry of relief and pleasure both, she's been waiting for him to tell her when. Her hips attempt to buck towards him, caught instead by his grip.
She practically collapses back after the first wave finishes cresting, falling back onto the bed as the aftershocks slowly ebb. There's a fine sheen of sweat on her, and that flush, so familiar, is much darker than before, closer to red than pink. But the expression on her face is one of near bliss, her eyes still open, if down to slits, seeking his form down her body.
He can no longer see her face from this angle, and so after producing a handkerchief and tidying up his mouth he rises from his knees to sit on the edge of the bed beside her, looking down. He smooths her hair from her damp face and gazes down at it, looking nearly as relieved and rapturous as she.
"So beautiful," he murmurs, watching her as she recovers.
Her smile grows into something bright, her gaze flicking to his as she turns her face more into his touch, a soft little pleased laugh bubbling up from her like little sparks of fizz in champagne. The expression and the sound both have their own intimacy, seen only by a few.
The seastalk case rests on the center of her chest, and she moves a hand lazily up to it, deliberately stroking her body before gently lifting it off. She stretches out her arm to be able to place it carefully closer to a pillow, her fingertips lingering lovingly on the metal for a moment.
Zath's gaze also lingers on the case.
"Is he all right? Keeping busy?"
Oh, his expression when he asks. Like a child who has been chained in a lightless subterranean cell for half his life asking, Does the sun still paint the evening sky red and purple and gold? Are the fields still full of buttercups and peacebloom?
Avrenne's own expression grows softer, different from the moment before, and she reaches out both arms to him in a way that, if we were being entirely honest, is a little bit too much more like a mother than a lover, an offer of comfort and succor rather than salacious, for all of her nakedness on his bed.
"I believe he remains uninjured, physically, at present." Oh, that's…that's very specific.
Zath, still fully clothed, slips his arms around and under her so that he can arrange her comfortably on the bed with her head on an unoccupied pillow, and then he rests his head on her heart, his body curled in toward her in a way that makes him seem smaller than she is, in a very un-factual way. He has left the sea stalk case on the other side of the bed, as though making room for an entire person.
Judging by his I am smol demeanor, he apparently has no problem with the maternal nature of Avrenne's gesture. Quite the opposite. No one here has weird mommy issues; it's fine.
"He hasn't written to you either?" he says softly, his tone walking a strangely perfect line between relief and despair, with disbelief thrown in for good measure.
Avrenne strokes her hand along his hair, a soothing sort of petting, pressing a kiss to his hair at the question.
"No, he has," she says. "He needed to after the Expedition, the effort to find a naval route to Icecrown. We have lost some of the Fallon Fleet, Zath. Twenty three hands." That pause, of someone giving room for that statement, for the fallen. "Brother Eamon, a tidesage, and younger brother of our gardener, Mr. Larabie." Pause. "Captain Padraig Moore." Pause. "Captain Aldus Symond." Pause. "And two ships from Siamus' father's original fleet, Lady Kate and Eastern Maid." Her tone is that soft, gentle voice he's heard her use before, after Wrathgate.
"He sent me word, likely after who knows how many hours of writing to the families of the fallen. You know how he is. He would do it himself." Pride in him wars with a pained sorrow in her tone, of knowing that somewhere Siamus has been carrying something painful on his own. She points to her dress, on the floor. "I brought a copy with me, the report he sent His Majesty, if you would like to read it in his own words."
Zath is absolutely still and silent, his breathing so even and shallow as to be barely perceptible. She might think he hadn't heard her, or had fallen asleep, if she didn't suddenly feel the warmth of tears dropping onto her chest.
Avrenne doesn't rush him, keeping up that slow stroking of his hair, offering comfort, simply holding him closer to her while the emotions run their course.
It takes a while. He still makes no sound, but every so often his body contracts as though physically wringing something out, and tears continue to leak from his eyes. Once he brings himself under control, he reaches into his pocket for a handkerchief and first wipes Avrenne's very wet bosom, then his face, before tucking it away.
He still doesn't say anything, just lays his head back on her chest.
"We have a memorial being built at the House, for Brother Eamon," she says, her voice low and quiet. "Did you have a chance to meet him, in Northrend?"
Zath nods slightly. "I did, briefly," he says, rough-voiced. "I shall… send some flowers?" His voice tilts up at the end, helplessly interrogative.
"I am sure it would be of comfort to Mr. Larabie, to know someone else remembers his brother," Avrenne says.
Zath nods again. "Is he… at home now, or has he gone back to sea?" He clearly doesn't mean Mr. Larabie, judging by the strange tension and guilt in his voice, as though he is asking something Forbidden but cannot help himself.
"He hasn't come home yet, not since he left in August after his promotion to Vice Admiral. He sent a letter the day after the official report, and remained there in Northrend." Avrenne sighs, a soft inhale and exhale. "He asked me to arrange an appointment for him to meet with Lord Demasco, and he will be here for it on October 2nd, for just the evening and night, and he will leave the following day," she says because she does not have foresight, and does not know that this plan will be foiled by a spill of Cult Priest blood on Aisle Harvey. Foreshadowing!
"I see," Zath says.
For a moment he is still again, silent. Then he takes a slow, deep breath, and his manner is strange: as though he is loosening a white knuckled grip on something and letting it go, watching it float (or sink) away.
"I would say to take good care of him that evening, but I know there is no need. In the meantime, if there is ever anything I can do for you, please do not hesitate to ask. I know that being without him is… difficult."
Something about his slightly wry inflection on the last word makes it sound as though he has used the tepid word difficult to describe something like, say, dying from an open gut wound.
"It is, particularly now, knowing how hard this has been for him," Avrenne agrees. Her hand smoothes along his hair, dips down along his neck, brushing the length of his shoulder.
"And, I'll admit, it is difficult at times being without you. I do know that you are busy, and not on leave for all that you are closer to home," she hastens to add, as if to forestall the possibility that the former sentence might be taken as a reproach. "And with things as they have been at the house, I realize that it is not ideal for your privacy, or your preferences. Priscilla is living at Fallon House now, the Children, except for Daisy, are in resident there, along with Finley's tutors, and I have been mostly at the house when I have not been traveling, to ensure the construction of our current ships is as expedited as possible, and to help with the grieving of those lost. We also have had a visiting tidesage to bless the finished ones so they will be ready when Siamus calls for them into action. She recently lost her mother, another tidesage." That's a lot of grief, and Avrenne there at the center of it trying to hold everyone all at once in her arms, metaphysically and sometimes physically.
Zath adjusts his position, lifting his head from her chest and uncurling so that he can pull her against him and cradle her, lying on his side with her head tucked to his chest. Now she is the smol.
"You may come here anytime you need to," he says. "Even if I am not here, if you simply need some space and silence. And of course, if I am. I will give you a key, before you leave."
Technically, she is always the smol, but only by physical limitations. She seems pleased though, by this holding, her eyes floating to half lidded. "Thank you. It would do me more good to see you though. Perhaps there is some store on the route you take home that I might suddenly develop a preference for," she says, and there's only the slightest hint of a tease in her voice, the tone a little too serious, a little too revealing of a sentiment. She sets a hand on his chest, fingers tracing the buttons like she is, possibly, mentally calculating the tension of them and the force needed to rip them off. Just calculations. Like one does.
"I finished organizing the opening for Priscilla's Northrend series two days ago at the Nexus of Art Gallery," she says. You know, in her copious amounts of spare time. She and Siamus are peas in a pod of menaces of working. "There was a man there. His voice is pleasant, and for just a moment he reminded me so strongly of you that I thought I saw you there. I woke up yesterday, and could not go another day without seeing you."
He looks down, catching her head between his hands to tilt it up to meet his gaze. His glacial eyes search hers, sharp and intent.
"See me, then," he purrs. "I am here." He traces a thumb over her cheekbone, his eyes drinking in the lines of her face.
Avrenne searches his own with the attitude of someone surveying something familiar and pleasing for that reason, the sight of a warm bed at home after a long trip away. "As am I."
She reaches up a hand to brush a fingertip along his jaw. "Will you let me send Priscilla soon to get that portrait of you, for Siamus? Priscilla will not speak of it unduly to anyone. And I can only imagine how he longs to see you now, and what comfort it will be to have even the small reminder." She flicks her eyes to where her dress remains on the floor, then back to him. "I have yours with me. Well, the first two. There will be more, to grow the collection."
Zath flushes slightly. "If he wishes such a thing, perhaps one might let him ask for it himself, hm? I would find it too embarrassing to presume. Recent events have more likely than not greatly shifted his priorities. In fact… I know there will not be very much time when he returns, but if there is a moment when you can confirm that it is still all right for you to visit me, now that you are the mother of his child… it would set my mind at ease. For now, my selfishness demands that I assume permission until I am told otherwise."
Avrenne seems somewhat baffled by this, a little bit as though Zath has started this conversation in some other language and she's now trying to translate it, piece by piece, through Google translate.
"Of course he does still want it. I believe he is even expecting it, as we have paid for it already, discussed it before he left for Northrend again after I called him home to tell him the news. He may even commission Priscilla for one of you and I together, now that he's taken up her patronage officially. If you come by the house wearing something particularly charming, he's like to ask for a portrait of it, as an excuse to ensure her pay." The way she says it strongly suggests she is not joking, Zath.
Avrenne sets a hand on her abdomen, holding Zath's gaze. "I will speak to him if you would like, but if he had wished me not to go to you, he would have said so, Zath. I made my intent to see you again no secret at all."
"Well, how am I to know?" he says, his voice and eyes suddenly strained. "How am I to know anything?"
He hears himself and seems to realize he is spoiling the mood. He immediately looks ashamed, drawing her close again so that she can't see his face. He strokes her hair as though trying to brush away the Feelings he accidentally spilled on it.
This question hangs in the air for a moment, as though Avrenne is having to redo some math in her head, perhaps, readjust a formula. "Zath, have you been…waiting for something? From me, or him?"
"No," he says sharply, somehow managing to sound both guilty and offended at the same time. "No, of course not. Your visit was an utter surprise, a pleasant one. I haven't been… waiting like a spoiled child sure of a gift."
"No, I don't mean to imply such. I mean, was there a letter or note, or news that you have hoped to receive, more than just the news of the child. I had assumed you were simply busy, knowing that you must train an entire regiment for one of the most elite forces in the Alliance. I thought not to bother you while you were working," Avrenne explains. "I didn't intend to make you feel uneasy. I am sorry for it, if I have. If you thought things might have altered, and were not reassured when you should have been."
"But things are altered," he says, continuing to clasp her close so that he doesn't have to meet her eyes. "You have a family now. I thought — I did not know it would happen so soon. I want nothing but joy for you, and for Siamus, but… this is not my joy. Not anymore. The two of you are bonded now in a way that I shall never be with anyone, and I — but that isn't even the point. The point is that you have a true, adult life now. I am certain he understands this, and sooner or later even you will realize that it is time to put away your toys. Bloodlines are everything, to both of you, and so only the two of you can give one another everything. What is the purpose of me?" He stiffens immediately, and not in a fun way. "Don't answer that. I know my purpose. Bleak as it is, I've been living it. As best I can."
His voice is relatively composed, but as close as she is she can tell that he's palpably shaking with some emotion or other.
Avrenne has her own stiffening at the mention of bloodlines, but she composes herself, an exhale out, and holds him closer, that soothing stroking of his hair starting up again, albeit from a different angle. "Zath." She allows him the illusion of privacy of Feelings, keeping her head tucked under his.
"Bloodlines are not everything, to either of us," she says, her voice gentle, not accusatory, a calm reassertion. "The children — Finley, Daisy, Isla, and Otto — are mine, and would have been part of my House, had they wished to be. They did not." There's an old, long scarred over pain there, there and gone in a breath. "Siamus cares for them as he would any child under his care. It's who he is, to have a heart as large as Fallon House, with hundreds of rooms to fill. His desire for natural children is part of his faith, and his own sense of duty. It does not mean it is more important than anything.
"We are not children, and have not been. You are not a toy that we have been playing with, ready to discard. It's not in either of our nature to let go of someone so easily, Zath. The opposite, perhaps, if anything," she admits. "I won't speak to your purpose as though I am a goddess knowing such things, but I will speak to you of what you are to me — to him. Zath. That is all you ever need be, to be wanted. I know it for myself, and I have seen it in him. He gets a look about him whenever he thinks of you, pleased and content in just that memory of you. Is that not enough? That you make us happy?"
A small twitch, as if a doubt has crept in. "Or is it…that you feel that way about us, that we are toys you might put away when you do marry, and I do believe you will, Zath, and father children, if that is what you want. Will you leave us then, for that life?"
"Of course not," he says immediately. "I love you." He flinches as soon as it comes out of his mouth, as though he's spilled something expensive, but then he presses forward, perhaps hoping that a flood of additional words will draw attention away from those embarrassing three. "And I would never marry someone who believes that she can have all of me to herself. I will be plain from the start. If I can find someone who can bear the thought of having children with me, I will be kind to her — in my wildest dreams I hope that I at least like her — but how could I forget you, or Siamus?" He laughs bitterly. "I tried, by the gods, when I thought I'd seen the last of you. I cannot. And as you will eventually see — Two weeks ago I clearly gave up the idea of forgetting you — I did so privately but quite dramatically."
He pauses then, as though only now fully processing some of the words she said in the middle, there.
"I make you… happy?"
Sounds fake, bruh.
"Yes," Avrenne answers, to the question, although she's still doing some math in her head of what he meant in that little bit in the middle about forgetting her. That question might be being shelved for later. "When Siamus and I arranged our marriage, we spoke quite frankly on the subject of lovers. It is in our contract, in both of our expectations. Siamus made it clear that he will be away, he will have lovers during that time, and that he will always be on his way back. That is who he is, Zath. He's on his way back to you."
Zath does that Going Quiet thing that means he's probably crying again. At least not all over her boobs, this time.
When he's able to speak without sounding too weepy, he says, "And you will never leave me again, no matter where you may go. Look."
He draws back a little, wet-lashed and slightly bashful, avoiding her gaze as he unbuttons his shirt. Carefully he pulls the parted fabric loose from his trousers, and while she can't see the entire thing, the top of a two-week old tattoo peeks out from under his waistband: a black line forming a wave pattern just inside his hipbone.
Avrenne's mouth does that little drop, the rare genuine surprise of her face, of something she did not expect when he was starting to take his clothes off. She reaches out a hand to touch it in a way that might not be entirely on purpose, because she does hesitate as she gets closer to it, hovering above it, as if concerned she might press on it and cause pain. "Oh, look at that," she says, a little breathy, clearly affected by it.
He reaches out to lay his hand over hers, pressing her palm against the tattoo, both where it is visible and where it is hidden.
"Two weeks ago I decided — perhaps with the aid of a glass of whiskey or three — that even if I never saw you again, I would hold on to what you gave me. You made order from my chaos, saw beauty where I had seen only pain. Even if your love had faded, I wanted to ensure that I continued to see what you had seen — that I remained grateful for the time I had shared with you and forever carried it with me."
Oh no. Those are shiny bits of water in her eyes. We're blaming the pregnancy, obviously. At least Avrenne for sure is. She tries to blink them back and away, begone tears. Mostly it just makes her eyes go a little red and watery, and draws more attention to it than anything.
It takes her a hard swallow before she says, "Lovely." If she means the tattoo, the sentiment behind it, or simply Zath, is a little ambiguous, and very possibly she's being efficient and it applies to all three. She adds quietly, as if to herself, something with that tone of someone holding onto the words with both hands, as her own physical one cups around his hip, as if she'd grab the tattoo if she could, "You won't forget me."
"Never," he says almost savagely, and then seizes the back of her hair and swoops in suddenly to sink his teeth into her lower lip. He gentles the bite immediately, but there is still something devouring in the subsequent kiss, as though he wishes he could be using teeth.
There's a little cry, not of pain, swallowed by his kiss, as she yields to the onslaught, tipping her head back more, opening her mouth wider in invitation, pleased to be devoured.
Her hands take this opportunity to slip inside where his shirt has opened up, moving across expanses of skin in that same unerring way as they did on his back through the clothing — she's deliberately moving from scar to scar, tracing shapes of invisible lines in between that only she knows are there, her touch that way of hers, light and soft, like he's something precious to her, something to be savored through her fingertips.
He kisses her deeply and wildly, pressing her against his bare skin, for quite some time before he seems to realize he has Lost Control and gentles the kiss, softens the press of his hands against her back. He lifts his head a bit to kiss her closed eyes, her forehead, her hairline. He breathes in the scent of her hair.
"You are with me, always," he says roughly.
"Yes, I am," she agrees, that husky note back in her voice. It's more than a little obvious that her engine has been revved, as she slides a leg up along his still clothed one, as if she could vanish it away by just rubbing against him.
"Mmm," he says at the hungry movement of her leg, and he relaxes palpably, a little smile playing at one corner of his mouth. "I am sorry, my radiant Duchess, did I fail to completely satisfy?" His tone is a mix of teasing and genuinely eager to please. "Forgive your humble admirer and let him know how he may atone for his inadequacies."
"I don't know that I will ever be completely satisfied," Avrenne murmurs, leaning into him. "I always want more of you, no matter how much I have had of you."
"Oh dear," he says, pressing a lingering kiss to her forehead that somehow manages to be not at all forehead-kiss-like. Not calming or paternal. He kisses her forehead as though the forehead were the most intimate, secret part of the body, so shockingly erotic as to sear his lips. "This seems like a terrible problem," he says, as a cool hand skims along the outside of her hip, then the back of it along the front of her thigh.
Avrenne laughs, low and sweet, a deep, dark honeyed sound. "Only when I cannot have you. That is not the case now, is it," she practically purrs it, her own hand going wandering, moving to trace the edge of his trousers, finger circling the first button.
He lets out a soft groan and falls onto his back so that she has better access. "Those soft little hands," he says drunkenly. His hips lift slightly for a moment, a yearning gesture, and under his crisp military issue trousers, something appears to be trying to break its way out.
Oh no, poor thing. Avrenne is on the job, although first she changes her angle of approach, following him over to straddle him across his thighs, where she can access the rest of his shirt to free him from it.
The next step is the trouser jailbreak, where Avrenne is obviously willing to be an accomplice and the getaway vehicle. She moves very deliberately, her eyes on his face, a sweet, wicked smile curling her lips, as she undoes the buttons one by one, sliding her hand down like she's offering a rope ladder for a sneaky escape route.
Zath gazes at Avrenne's face through eyes that have gone half-lidded and yet somehow sharper, his slender pale hands now gripping the dark gray-blue blanket that covers the bed as though it is keeping him from rocketing through the ceiling.
"Succubus…" he hisses as his hips once more yearn toward her hand. "Gods help me."
No gods here, although given their usual ways, that might be for the best; there's only a very small, very mortal goddess whose House's motto speaks of benevolence, and it's possible she will have mercy on him.
Eventually.
The rope ladder is just an encouragement it seems, as she takes him in hand with a light touch, a single, lingering stroke upwards to fix the angle more than anything, as she withdraws once more, leaning forward to place agonizingly slow, hot kisses to his chest as she works both hands under the waistband, and begins to slide them down, moving with it in teasing stages, her hair falling to the sides to trail blonde wisps of touches across his skin.
For all of the subservient nature of her positioning, there is nothing of it in her bearing. No, there's instead that almost innate regal nature of her, in the way she looks at him as she travels along his body, in the confidence of her actions that she has laid claim a right to do — a little queen surveying her kingdom with approval.
"Yes…" he whispers, his eyes fevered as he reads her demeanor. "Yours. Take." Oh dear, the Poet has been reduced to monosyllables.
One hand reaches to slip into her hair, but tentatively, as though he expects her to smite him with her divine radiance. He stares at her. Meanwhile his toes deftly slip the heels of his subtle black house slippers off his feet and then kick them both vehemently off the end of the bed, where they land on the hardwood floor with a pair of soft pleps.
He lifts his hips to help her slide down his trousers. Then, after his lean white scarred thighs are already bare he lifts his hips again, as though trying to somehow fuck her through a couple feet of air. She might notice there is slightly more concavity at the inside of those hip bones than when last she saw him; he has somehow managed to lose even more weight. But the tattoo is now fully visible, and it is a thing of (mathematical) beauty, a perfect copy of the line she once inked there.
The bright smile that spreads across her face is its own thing of beauty, that inherent intimacy of it, an echo through time of a much younger Avrenne not yet scarred by the world, whose brightness was never about a purely physical beauty. She traces first the sinusoidal wave itself, and then with that same finger writes out the formula for it along the inside of his hip bones, leaning forward to place a kiss to punctuate it.
This would ordinarily be when she would take him in hand, but not this time. Things, as Zath has noted, are altered. After all, it's not like she can get any more pregnant.
She climbs back up him like a fallen tree, much easier this time minus a dress and with him prone, straddling him once more in a way he's seen her do to Siamus many times over the week spent together in Wintergarde, placing herself over him, not yet inside.
Zath makes a sound like a man who has just felt the first turn of the torturer's rack and is still trying to be stoic. He struggles for words, teeth clenched.
"Is it… all right? Can I — have you." The last two syllables are more of a vaguely word-shaped exhale. His eyes are blowtorch flames of pure lust.
Avrenne's own eyes have gone heavy lidded and so dark they're just pools of ink as she rocks gently against him. "Yes," she whispers, a ong exhaled sigh of pleasure.
She uses her thighs to grip onto him and lift up, angling differently, and presses down onto him. He knows well how tight she is, has felt it with his fingers, that for all the slickness of her she has to work him in deeper and deeper with multiple strokes, each one a harder thrust than the last, into her depths almost burning with that inner fire.
His eyes fall shut, and his expression is one of utter torment it would seem, if one viewed it without context. His hands fly up to cl;utch at her hips; he tries to meet her rhythm, bucking against her. Squeezing him as tight as she is, she can almost feel every subtle pulse and twitch of the rigid heat inside her as he is dragged toward ecstasy.
With his eyes closed and his rapturous expression, one might almost wonder if his mind had wandered to some fantasy. He is clearly intensely and rapturously thinking about something beneath those closed lids, the inky lashes still slightly damp from his earlier sorrow. But what could he be thinking of? What has him looking as though he has soared away not only from the room but possibly the planet?
"Avrenne," he rasps, spoiling the mystery. But there is still a strange quality about it as though he is only imagining her, as though this could not actually be happening, and so he must just be lost in a familiar fantasy.
He fucks the living daylights out of that fantasy.
Avrenne is not her most articulate this caught in her pleasure. There's an answering cry of pleasure at her name, a breathless oh yes as he moves in her, and a familiar begging as she rides him closer to her own edge like a horse she's decided can race after all simply because she wants to go fast on it.
Her begging isn't particularly sophisticated, or witty, although it might have its own charm for all of that, as all she says is, "Please. Zath. Please." Specifics might help, Avrenne. But she may be slightly beyond specifics now. That flush of hers has a deep rosy hue, as if she's been out in the sun too long, that perspiration growing once more, lending a particular sort of glow to her. One could call it a maternal glow, given her state, but it depends on whether one finds that erotic or not.
Zath must find it so — which we will not question at all — because when he finally manages to drag his eyelids back open and gaze at Avrenne's face he flat out loses his mind. The sounds that emerge from him are feral and desperate, and he completely loses his helpful and harmonious rhythm, bucking chaotically beneath her and digging his fingers in hard enough to her hips that there will be marks there after.
One of the sounds he makes might be her name as he stares glassy-eyed at her face, convulses beneath her, and empties himself into her. So much for being a gentleman and letting the lady go first, Zath. He is well beyond such things at this point. His body has the reins now; brain may have fallen completely out of the saddle and is possibly lying somewhere back there in the road in a cloud of dust.
It might speak to something of Avrenne that the chaos of it ignites something in her — that display of unbridled, unconstrained passion gone wild — because even after he throws himself out of that saddle, she continues to ride him, frantically with sharp, quick movements that drive him deeper into her as she grinds down on him. And so it is that as his wanes, hers waxes, a familiar sudden tightening around him as she cries out, the word — if it was a word — mangled into nothing but a hoarse cry as her eyes hold onto his, her hands over his own keeping them in place on her.
She shudders with the intensity of it all, breathing hard as if she's finally crossed a finish line of a race that came down to a photograph finish, and still placed second after all, but she grins at him, open mouthed as she pants, flushed all along her chest and face, looking extraordinarily pleased.
Zath takes a moment to catch his breath and come back to earth, and then his death grip relaxes and he slides his hands up to rest on her delicate ribs, drawing her down so that her slight weight rests warmly on him. He wraps an arm around her to keep her there, the other hand finding her hair.
"You are… magnificent…" he murmurs into that golden hair, his words slightly slurred.
Avrenne manages a few sleepy sort of kisses to his collarbone, settling neatly against him in a way that suggests she's not intending to move anywhere any time soon. She murmurs something mostly unintelligible. It might have been thank you, although the first part was more hummed than enunciated.
She's breathing deeply, and slowly, as she comes down from her peak. there's a boneless quality to her weight, a lack of tension in her. Wait. Did she just fall asleep?
The duchess might have hit the nap time button.
Zath does not fall asleep, but he seems content to lie very still with a sleeping duchess on him, gazing softly at the ceiling. He barely breathes, and his overall demeanor suggests that he is freezing this moment in time to hold on to forever. He lies there, still and dazed and grateful, for as long as is necessary.
It isn't terribly long, or it's a very long time, depending on how one views the passing of an hour in a single careful position. The duchess seems content, slumped over, her face squished against his chest, hair falling where it wants to. She doesn't snore, but there's a very regular rhythm to her breathing — until it shifts, and with it, the woman herself, as she breathes in a deep breath and exhales out a soft sigh of his name, moving against him in a rather suggestive way, her lashes a small tickle of a whisper brush against his skin as she opens them and blinks a few times.
"Mm?" She makes the sound as if he'd spoken, and she's responding, a drowsy, unclear sort of inquiry.
Zath responds with a gentle kiss to her hair, and a hand reaching up to stroke the golden strands back into order.
"You're all right," he murmurs reassuringly, in case she's forgotten where she is and is feeling uncertain.
He still doesn't move; he seems deeply relaxed. He may have dozed a little, or just slipped into a hypnotic trance listening to the sound of her breathing; in any event his muscles and tendons all seem to have melted into a catlike languor.
"Mmhm," Avrenne agrees, a sleepy little sound. She shifts restlessly against him, getting her physical bearings once more. Where are her legs? Oh. There. Right, yes, where she left them. She tips her head up to face him, slow blinking at him like he is, indeed, a cat and she's communicating some secret code. Probably she's just still sleepy. "Zath," she repeats, more certainly than this time, less of a mumble.
"That's right," he says warmly, as though she's just made a brilliant deduction that only a genius could have managed. He's so proud. And drowsy.
Avrenne makes a hum of a sound, not quite a laugh, and slides more to the side. "I apologize. I am well, I assure you. I simply get a little more tired these days. It took me by surprise, at first. A side effect of the pregnancy. I should have warned you I might drift off."
"There is no need to apologize," he says softly, sincerely. "Whatever you need. I am here." He punctuates the sentiment with another kiss to her hair, lingering a bit to inhale the scent of it.
Her hair is where the scent of lotus is strongest, that blend of something sweet and spicy, aquatic and of green growing things, not entirely one or the other but something in between.
"Thank you." She settles for a moment and then lifts her head up again. "Oh, but you must not let me forget. I have gifts for you. Priscilla completed two of your portraits, for your collection."
"Oh?" There's a hint of surprise in his voice, as though he'd either forgotten he'd asked for such a thing or hadn't expected it to materialize. His angular black brows draw together. "I — I am sorry. I have nothing to give you in return. I did not expect this to be that sort of meeting."
Avrenne presses a kiss to the underside of his jaw. "There is no need for any exchange in that way. Although, if you were of a mind," she says, as she draws away slowly, a little reluctantly, but her gifts are not in her current non-existent pants. "If you would consider another portrait, for me, I would be happy to have it. I would understand if you would rather not." She slides out of the bed, not remotely self conscious about her nakedness, looking for her dress on the floor.
"Another portrait?" he echoes uncomprehendingly. "What sort? Why?" He watches her as she goes, admiring her form.
"So that I might look on it. I have one of Siamus, for my desk in my room at the house. I like to have it out while I'm working." Avrenne's dress has, it seems a secret pocket, a cloth beneath the fabric. It looks flat, empty, but it certainly cannot be, because she reaches in and removes two cases, almost like very large lockets, one of silver and another of gold, as well as a rolled scroll tied with a dark blue ribbon.
The design of the lockets is possibly familiar — Siamus had one of that shape and size in Wintergarde, with his shaving kit, a locket that he forbade Sintha from opening when she "accidentally" reached for it as if it might be a pocket watch.
Avrenne holds the items to her chest as she climbs back onto the bed. She presents them to him one by one. The scroll is first. "This is a copy of Siamus' report of the expedition, in his own words, sent to the King of Stormwind." Her fingers linger only briefly on it. Next is the gold case, closed, with its clasp. "This is the portrait of Lady Cressidha and Lord Bertrand." She does not linger on it.
And finally, the silver case, closed like the other. "And this, Siamus and I.”
Zath sits up and reaches for the silver case immediately, opening it as though it contains food and he hasn't eaten in days.
Inside, once he opens the clasp, is a portrait done of the Lady and Lord Fallon, the Duchess and Duke Esprit. At least, that's what it appears to be at first — dressed in their house colors, a formal pose. A quick glance and someone would have no reason to assume anything deeper in it. Just a portrait, ordinary, for someone who collects art, of a well known friend and his wife.
But there in the details are suggestions for someone who knows to look for them. Avrenne with a small smile, and Siamus' own warm one, the corners up and his eyes soft and gleaming at the viewer. And there, odd perhaps for someone with an eye for fashion, notes of green in Siamus' cravat and Avrenne's earrings. There is no reason for it — unless, of course, one knows that Zath's favorite color is green, the green of growing things, not of the fel.
In the background, three bright stars, a suggestion of a triangle, the placement of the center one at the exact height that Zath's head would be if he had been there, standing with them. It is all subtle, but unmistakable for a man with a sharp eye.
The corners of Zath's eyes tighten as he gazes at the portrait, and he gazes at it for a long moment in silence. It's possible he isn't able to speak, nor to close the case. He might be stuck here forever.
Avrenne waits a moment, watching his face. "Will it suit?" She asks, eventually.
Zath blinks once, twice, and takes a deep breath, shaking himself gently. He closes the case crisply and lays it aside.
"I can see that you put a great deal of thought into it. I am — I cannot sufficiently express how moved I am."
Avrenne smiles, clearly pleased. "I am happy that you noticed. I was quite specific on ours. Siamus was very pleased by our little codes to speak to you through it." She looks at the silver Fallon case fondly, in memory. Ah, codes and signals. Good times. Her eyes flick to Aspenwood gold. "I did leave the other to entirely to Priscilla and whatever the Aspenwoods might have chosen for their own reasons. I did not want to interfere with it unduly."
Tyrrell nods. "I'll have a look at it later," he says. "And the report." He reaches for Avrenne again, pulling her close against him where he sits on the mattress. "Once again I apologize for not being better prepared for the nature of your visit. I feel I have given you rather a cold reception."
Avrenne laughs, that sound like a warm summer day that's gone lazy and soft in the heat, an inherent invitation in it to laugh with her. "Oh, but I do so like your cold reception," she teases back, her hands going to his own cold ones, wiggling suggestively in his grip.
The corners of his mouth soften a bit at the sound of the laugh, and he raises her hands to his lips to kiss each of them in turn.
"If I remember correctly, you're ready for another round by now," he says. "Let me put away these marvelous gifts, and then I'll see what I can do for you…"