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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | Avrenne arrives in Pandaria at long last, reuniting the Fallons after a four month separation. 3033 words. Romance RP. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
Chain: Siarenne
The place has been selected for its combination of luxury and privacy. Set near the top of Paw'don Village, it lies back from the street, ringed by a wall that encircles both the house and a courtyard in front of it.
The round, red-painted arch of the gateway in the white wall opens into a flagstone-paved space screened at one end by a rustling stand of bamboo; pale petals from the apple trees on the other side of the wall are scattered on the stones like pastel confetti in honor of Avrenne's arrival. The little rill of a fountain that spills over artfully-arranged stones into an ornamental pond murmurs in soft conversation with the stronger voice of the river that runs behind the property's wall. Crickets exchange sweet notes in an evening darkness scented by cool water and the blooming orchard that spreads below the village.
Golden lamplight shows through the round windows of the house. Like the other houses in the village, this one has a peaked roof of clay tiles, ornamented along ridgeline and eaves with brightly-painted carvings; their vibrant colors are indistinct at this hour.
It is 9:19 PM.
At the center of the courtyard, Siamus Fallon is waiting in full naval dress uniform, because that is what one wears to greet one's lady wife. He is electric with restless energy, and only just stops pacing when Shine steps quietly to his side and takes his elbow.
"One minute," Siamus tells him.
"Aye," says Shine. "We're on time. But ye won't be able to help summon if ye can't stand still."
There's no sign of worry in Lena's form at all, as she stands by the edge of the courtyard with a faint smile. "I confess myself tempted to say something teasing about needing to focus, such that the summoning won't go wrong. But I would never let that happen here, and I trust you know it."
"I don't think a lack of focus is his problem, anyway," says Shine dryly, at the exact same moment Siamus says, "I'm very focused."
The corner of Shine's lips twitch.
"It will take me a few moments to locate her," Lena says, stepping forward and reaching for the usual purple crystal. "We could go ahead and start it now, and I can make sure to contact right at the proper second?"
"Aye," says Siamus, relief audible. Yes pls to commence the Wife Summoning. He moves to Lena's shoulder, and Shine follows. Bun follows Shine.
No one invited Bun to this welcoming committee; no one had to. Bun knows he is part of every party.
Lena's gaze flicks down to the little tanuki, for a moment colder and more measuring than her usual look at the little pet. Will Bun interfere with the summoning? Her expression softens as she seems to decide on an answer to that. Then she raises her hand, crushing the crystal and drawing open a shadowy portal.
Siamus and Shine extend their hands to the portal, focusing intently. In Siamus's case, this means he is staring black-eyed at the portal like he can burn a hole right through it with his eyes; in Shine's case this means he looks pretty much the same as usual.
Bun was not expecting a shadowy rip in space, and hides behind Shine.
"Your Grace," Lena says quietly, with that same faint smile, right at the appointed second. One can safely assume she is reaching out to the woman by name, at least where magic is concerned.
Somewhere else in Pandaria, a pandaren honor guard by an entrance portal has only just barely made a correct and polite bow to the latest expected arrival, who returns it with a gracious nod of her head, and then she vanishes. He hopes that was supposed to happen.
The swiftness of her acceptance of the summons is so precise that it has an uncanny element of prescience to it, although it cannot be known if she had also attempted to accept a summons before it arrived a few seconds prior, and there is nothing in the duchess' composure to reveal it.
Duchess Esprit, Lady Fallon, emerges from the shadows that seem to cling to her like a cloak of night sky; it's only the illusion of the deep navy velvet traveling coat with long draping sleeves that she wears, the lighter blue picking up touches of light in a triangle around her golden ivory throat. A keen sighted person might note that under the traveling coat is a line of red silk, barely visible, perhaps whatever it is she is wearing beneath the coat. Her hair is caught up in a chignon held by a mignonette brooch, and discs of gold pressed by dill grace her ears.
The evening light is forgiving, and kind to a woman who has likely been up since before the sun, managing a day of a house full of children and a birthday party for babies, arranging for her absence, hosting a dinner and seeing children to bed before traveling to a city to go through portal customs. All that shows is that lighting up of her face, a smile she cannot repress no matter how she tries, as she extends out her hand to Siamus, her eyes locked on his face as if for a moment nothing else exists just yet.
"Admiral."
"Your Grace," says Siamus, in the tone of a child discovering that Greatfather Winter is real because Greatfather Winter has just teleported into his room with a pony and a million dollars. He steps forward to take her hand and bows to brush a kiss across the back of it decorously. His expression is not entirely decorous.
Lena steps back, giving the couple room for their greetings.
Shine moves when Lena does, to stand beside her and reach for her hand, a faint smile directed at the reunion.
Bun scrambles to continue hiding behind Shine.
Lena reaches down to intertwine her fingers with Shine's.
Avrenne's grip on Siamus' hand exceeds the decorum by more than two standard deviations of the mean, and she takes two steps closer to him that could be considered reasonable as a lady approaching with intent to assume a place for an escort to a place to stay. Her luggage becomes visible as she does, a practical and likely enchanted bag of dark leather that blends in visually with her coat, but not with her movement.
It takes her effort to tear her gaze away from Siamus, her lashes flickering as she at last takes note of her surroundings, and the others in quick flicks that return to Siamus in between like a fixed point by which she anchors all the rest. "Oh," she says softly at Pandaria, and some of her grip eases, fractionally. Her gaze comes to rest on Shine, with another smile she doesn't suppress entirely by her cool public persona, and his wife. "Shine. Mrs. Shine." Her eyes flick to the shape behind Shine, and then to Siamus, and back. "And Bun, I presume?"
Bun knows that word! People keep saying it at him! Much like the word No! He does not know what either of those words means. His nose twitches as he surveys the Appearing Person with beady black eyes.
"Lady Fallon," says Shine warmly. "Avrenne. A pleasure to see you. Aye, that's Bun."
"Lady Fallon," Lena echoes, and she drops slightly in a sort of impression of a curtsy, though she doesn't release Shine's hand. "Pleased to see you here at last."
Avrenne nods in equal impression in echo. "It's a delight to see you both again, and looking well. I trust married life has been suiting you both. Thank you for your efforts with the summons. They are most appreciated," she says as she tucks herself up against Siamus with a visible relief of someone who has held something taut for a long time at last giving permission to release it.
"All else aside, this has been a lovely place for a honeymoon," Lena says, shifting her gaze slightly to Shine, her smile warming. "I hope you will have a chance to see much of the countryside."
Shine's smile warms at Lena's mention of honeymooning and he squeezes her hand, though he doesn't look directly at her. "I've got some leave from Cobalt," he tells Avrenne, "so I'll be happy to show you about if ye like." His glance flicks to Siamus and then back to Avrenne. "… some other time, that is."
"I expect I shall benefit greatly from your observations and local knowledge tomorrow," Avrenne says, and there's only a slight pause, a crinkle of edges around her eyes that betrays her playful teasing, "afternoon."
"Afternoon is the best time to see the area," Lena agrees, her smile still just a touch warmer than the usual polite mask. If she noticed any implication in the timing, her face shows no sign of it.
"Thank ye very kindly for the summons," says Siamus, offering Lena a slight bow. "We'll see the pair of ye tomorrow." He is not successful at keeping the hint of impatience out of his tone.
Visiting hours are over, people.
"Yes, sir," Lena says, lowering her gaze respectfully, as she takes another step back. Her hand is still in Shine's, so she pauses to walk out together with him.
Shine does not lower his gaze respectfully, but gives Siamus one last narrow-eyed look before bowing his head to Avrenne and stepping away to depart with Lena.
(And Bun.)
Avrenne slips her hand around Siamus' arm in a manner that would be unforgivingly familiar if she was not his wife, the tilt of her head, and the curve of her shoulders all giving that stronger sense of a compass being pulled to its true north as she leans towards him.
"It's lovely," she says, remarking likely on the location, and not on the privacy recently afforded to them by their friends' indulgence. Or maybe a little of both.
Siamus is gazing down at her, dark-eyed. "You are lovely, my joy," he tells her quietly. "A sight for weary eyes." There is the briefest pause. "Will ye come inside with me?"
It's been like four entire minutes since she arrived, and a man can only wait so long for some things.
"Only if you will promise the same, Admiral," she teases, her expression says Duchess for anyone looking, but her voice is all Wife for him in the privacy of their little corner of the universe. There's no pause in her walk, drawn into his orbit as surely as a shooting star eagerly accepting its course.
His laughter in the darkness is low and husky. "I am glad to oblige Your Grace, and gladder still to be able to do so." Siamus ushers her through the generous arched doorway to the house's interior.
The spacious front room is lit low and softly by a few paper lanterns hung here and there. The furniture, too, is low: low, lacquered tables surrounded by silk cushions, low but generously wide settees upholstered in more silk. The floor is of burnished bamboo. A small kitchen area is separated from the main room only by a curving counter-island, which shelters behind it carved wood openwork cupboards holding glazed stoneware plates and bowls and teacups, enameled canisters of tea and spices, bamboo steamer baskets and a hammered-iron wok.
Along the opposite wall are several curtained doorways and one open arch that appears to let into another courtyard, this one an interior one.
Siamus pauses at the threshold and slides his hand to the small of Avrenne's back, waiting for her AirBnB review.
Avrenne's eyes flick from area to area, those quick touches of surveying and cataloguing that have perhaps less to do with aesthetics and more to do with technical placements and mathematical observations but by no means detract from her enjoyment of them for those reasons.
She turns in place, letting her bag gently drop to the floor, arms raising in an elegant arching curve to come to rest on his shoulders, fingers seeking out the edges of his uniform to stroke them lovingly, and the brilliance of her smile lights her face as brightly as a lantern.
"You have always had excellent taste," she tells him, her voice smoke and heat and teasing playfulness.
His smile has a wicked edge. Rather than reply, he tilts her chin up with one finger and bends to kiss her.
What begins slow and tender quickly becomes… not that, and then he has taken her by the hips to lift her up and carry her toward one of the silk settees. His mouth on hers is hungry and heedless, and he bends with her as he lays her on the settee, never breaking the kiss.
She does not pace herself well, not for this first kiss, as if it has broken a long held pressure seal, and she is left breathless with it, panting and overwhelmed by the sensations in a trembling surrender to his hold on her. Her eyes are at half-mast, caught in between closing like she can't bear yet to not see him, and yet unable to hold the whole of the world. Her hips rise towards him, though her coat limits her movements, and she struggles against the fabric like a mermaid caught in a fisherman's net.
"Siamus." His name is spoken like an indulgent invocation, and a sinful plea all at once.
"Avrenne," he murmurs at her ear. "Mo ghra." His lips are warm at the outer corner of her eye, her cheekbone; he lingers at her mouth again, savoring her, and then he shifts to trace kisses down the side of her throat.
His hands, meanwhile, search for the fastenings of her elegant coat, because multitasking is efficient.
"Oh, yes." It's an answer to various things. A hand flies off his shoulder to his, guiding with a light touch to a fastening at that folded collar that forms the triangle glimpse of her skin. It's not the forever classic buttons of her usual choices, but the cutting-edge gnomish zipper that periodically makes its way into her fashion, usually when she makes a request of her tailor that prioritizes speed of removal over all other considerations. This would be one of those times.
The scent of her skin is her usual — for this first renewal of their meeting, it is only as he has always known her — the lotus oil she has worn for decades bathed in so recently he can practically imagine the cling of the warm water still on her skin, the flush of her arousal giving another sense of the illusion.
"Mm," Siamus approves at discovery of the zipper, and tugs it down. He turns his face into the curve where her throat meets her shoulder and inhales. "Tides, that smell. Ye smell like joy." He kisses her now-bared collarbone and slips his hand into the upper, unzipped portion of her coat… and then he seems to realize her collarbone is bare at the same moment he makes a surprising discovery.
He lifts his head to gaze at her. "What are ye wearing for me, pet?"
She laughs, baring her throat as she tips it back, a triumphantly sweet and rich pour of whiskey in a glass sound. "Find out," she purrs, an echo of their wedding night.
His answer is revealed with each pull downward of the zipper, as a familiar series of red gold silk lines appear, the creation conjured out of what remained after Avrenne's sumptuous and lavish pandaren dress was finished, and immortalized in art.
It may be even more scandalous in person than in the painting, for even the most talented of artists can't capture the movement of her body within, how her breasts brush against the silk, how the lines stroke against the most delicate parts of her with every shift of her legs.
Siamus pushes himself up for better vantage and slides the zipper down with the deliberate care of a man unwrapping a long-desired gift, drawing out the final moments of anticipation. His intent, dark gaze is so heated it seems she should be able to feel it on her skin.
As the red-gold silk appears, his lips part on an inhalation. "Ah, pet. Tides a'mighty, look at ye." He draws the coat open reverently and leans down again to kiss her between her breasts. He fits his fingers beneath one silk strap where it begins between her legs and then slides them upward, testing the silk with his fingertips, his knuckles brushing across her bare skin. "The painting was a wonder," he murmurs, "but this is a glory. A man could die happy, I tell ye."
She moans with his touch, shifting her hips closer impatiently to seek more as the silk darkens, her head tipping back even further. The lines of silk slide enticingly with her, pressing against her breasts, outlining the arches of her nipples straining against the fabric (math).
There is, ever so slightly, somewhere around her shoulders, around her eyes, the smallest flinch, a freeze of her breath at the mention of his death, and then it's gone, and there is only the warmth and welcoming smile, the opening of her thighs for him, the curling of her fingers as she beckons for him.
She is a mermaid on a rock of the silk settee, still half caught in a net of her coat at her wrists, but laid bare enough for this tidesage. "Oh?" She spreads herself wider, back arching, an invitation and display for his benefit. Like the painting revealed, she has changed in four months of separation, her thighs smoother and tighter with muscle, her stomach and hips slimmer, and her breasts smaller, but she is always still Avrenne with those bold, dark eyes and that temptress mouth. "And what did you wish you could do to me when you saw it, thwarted by a painting's canvas and glass?"
He shifts to brace himself directly over her, smiling down at her. "It would take me days to tell it all, pet. Simpler to just spend the days showing ye."