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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | On another key anniversary shared by many who were affected by the Nightmare, but in particular for Oranna and Thalstan's first meeting two years ago, the couple takes a day to celebrate the past, and live in the moment of joy. 7400~ words. Romance RP. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
Chain: Orastan
It's an early Saturday evening, and the stone of the walls and ceilings of Ironforge seem to radiate exuberant and homey warmth. At least, they seem so to Thalstan Stouthammer, who is dressed to impress in a vaguely piratical billowing shirt, with dark leather pants and boots. His long, luxurious hair has been carefully swept back in loose waves, and there are even a few little braids in his beard today. In his hands he carries a little bouquet of fragrant hothouse geraniums, white cup-shaped blooms surrounded by smaller, light pink blossoms.
He moves cheerfully to the usual Stormbreaker house in its usual place and knocks brightly on the now familiar door. Today is another kind of anniversary, this one a happy remembrance of a meeting once upon a dream.
It doesn't take much time on this day for the door to be answered, no cat alarm required.
That doesn't mean the cat alarm is not there.
"Get out of — lass!" There's an audible crashing noise as something by the door falls over. "Ach! Befound! The coats! Move yer big housecat arse out of the — " The words are audible through the door before Oranna opens it, slightly flushed, but smiling brightly in a way that only warms further at the sight of Thalstan. It takes her a second to inhale again, and speak, and when she does it's in a bit of a rush of an exhale. "Hullo. Hi."
Oranna has spent some money prior to this anniversary on a new dress, the first in several years. It's not exactly the sort of dress that a person might choose to wear in February, unless that person was inside a thermally heated mountain, and a dwarf at that as well, but seeing as Oranna is both of those, it suits her. Deep blue, with a deep dive in the center to show off her natural assets, sleeveless to show off her tattoos, and with a slide slit up one thigh to show off those curves, it's a dress with a lot to offer. And there's a distinct similarity between the color of the dress and the color of Thalstan's eyes when he looks at Oranna.
Her hair's all the way down, framing her fully with the thick waves that come from being braided regularly. She doesn't have any actual stars in them, but that doesn't mean there aren't any metaphorical ones there.
Thalstan falls utterly still when the door opens, struck completely speechless by the sight of Oranna. He takes in the flush, the dress, the assets, the tattoos, the hair, and there isn't a single aspect that results in anything but wordless metaphorical heart eyes. He holds out the flowers to her, buying himself a few more moments to remember what language is again.
"Hullo. A dream…" he says finally, his eyes shining with affection. "You look a dream." Then he shakes his head a little, and says, "Are you ready to depart, my lady? I've a plan all laid out."
Oranna blushes, smiling and ducking her head, as she tucks some hair behind her ear with one hand, and accepting the flowers with the other, holding onto them with Thalstan's hand longer than necessary.
"I'm ready — as long as — it's not too much? Or, uh, too little? The dress? I — I wanted something special, and then it sort of got a bit…" She clears her throat. "And you look very special, too. Good. Special-good." She laughs self-consciously, but doesn't call for a tram stop.
"It's perfect," Thalstan says, and the intensity of his gaze shows that he means it. He smiles and says, "You look special-good as well. I thought today we might… do a bit of a tour. All the places I saw you and thought you might be a mirage. Should we take Befound with us?"
Yes, Befound says.
"No," Oranna says. She shoves the cat adult snow leopard in the mating season for her species back into the house more. "She's been in a mood, because she's well. Erm. In a mood." If u kno wat she means, Thalstan.
"A tour of mirages?" She blinks a few times at that as she grabs for a vase from a cupboard that reveals a collection of other glass objects that hold things, all grouped together. "Oh — I think I remember you saying something. That you'd seen me, and thought you were dreamstruck." She runs a hand self-consciously over her dress with another laugh. "I remember it because I'd been wearing the same dress a few days in a row, and told myself, 'ach, don't worry, no one will notice! No one's paying attention, no one will possibly know if you wear this four or five days in a row.' And then someone saw me several days in a row, wearing the same thing, and probably thought he was seeing an afterimage all over the place."
Thalstan waves a friendly farewell to the deadly wild creature in a mood, and turns back to Oranna.
"Aye, for me it was like when you learn a word, and all of a sudden you hear it all over the place. And you don't know if it wasn't there before, or you just didn't hear it because you didn't know what it meant," Thalstan says, offering her his arm in a courtly gesture. "Maybe we'd passed one another many times before, not seeing because we didn't have the meanings yet. But then, after the dream, it was like you stood out from everything around you. Always just a moment, before you slipped away." He grins and adds, "The dress did weigh things more on the mirage-afterimage theory, but also… it looked lovely on you."
Oranna gets a little rosier cheeked, as she takes up his arm more like a hug than a fine lady. "It's not anything special — not, not that you can't like it or think it's not — obviously, you can. It's, erm, just a simpler dress of sort of a laundry day kind of one for me, and I like it when I'm not having to be On, you know. I — I found that out about myself a few years back after Cress made me my first dress on the boat to Theramore. I'd never had any afore that, because my mother — " A small, yet oddly explanatory pause. "So, I didn't know I liked wearing them. They're comfortable and I like how they make me feel. Not for fighting, though, obviously. I don't know how mages and magic people do it. I think I'd feel naked or likely to tangle up my legs wrapping around something."
That's an image. She doesn't seem to hear it.
Thalstan definitely hears it, and it takes a moment and a second hand placed gently on hers before he answers her.
"Maybe it's different for mages, because they mostly stand a distance and fight with their brains," Thalstan muses. "I suppose I wouldn't quite know what that's like. Some of the outfits they put me in for the covers, I would not want to be on a battlefield with for sure. But for walking, for being about Ironforge, it's good to wear things that are comfortable, things that suit you."
He walks with a steady stride in the general direction of the Military Ward.
Oranna peers over curiously at him, keeping up with his pace, and not paying as much vigilant attention to their surroundings with him there. "Oh, aye. What's the worst outfit you've worn that you'd never want to be caught in fighting?"
"There was this one… a while back and it wasn't a Firststone. But they wanted kind of an 'Ancient Smith' vibe, and it was like… a sheet round my waist and little golden ropes. I just remember, because even I, not a smith, thought that seemed wrong. Bare chest to catch every spark and something flammable around my nethers?" Thalstan laughs deep in his chest. "It didn't look half bad, in the end, but still."
Oranna guffaws along with him. "Oh, aye, I bet Dane and Ben both keep outfits just like that, right next to their work aprons by the smithy." She shakes her head, still laughing. "I'd be worried running into a crowded market day wearing something like that, let alone a fight, no matter how comfortable the sheet might be."
"Aye, I'm not at all sure I'd trust the wrap and little ropes to hold it all up," Thalstan laughs again. "I like my clothes a little sturdier than that, and more affixed to me."
As they talk, they pass through the edge of the center of Ironforge, Thal casually skipping the walk through the Forlorn Cavern.
"Still, maybe not for combat, but its good to have days where you can feel comfortable in a pretty dress," Thalstan says with a lingering smile. "And I've heard Cressidha Aspenwood is a wonderful tailor."
"She is. Although I — I am only saying that really out of a friendship loyalty and bias. I…I don't really know fashion well enough to say," Oranna admits with a smile. "I think she makes some of the loveliest of things, but I do know that I'm probably looking at them differently because I know who made them. Still, I don't think that really matters in the end though, because I like them best, and what's it change if it's because they're amazing fashion or just a personal preference, aye? They're what I like, and I'm the one wearing them, so might as well get what I like best. I'm not sure Fashion has any interest in what I see or like anyway."
Thalstan nods slowly, his beard shifting with the movement. "I think I've usually seen fashion as… sort of a brainstorming? Sometimes you'll see a fashionable lass or lad walking around and think 'I'd not have thought to wear that, but I like it'. And other times, you think 'Wow, good on them for their confidence.' So when Fashion happens to hit your preference, you can find nice new things. And otherwise…" Thalstan shrugs.
They pass into the Military Ward, and approach a munitions shop that Oranna likely finds familiar.
"This is where I first saw you," Thalstan says with a smile. "Just there, and then a crowd passed by and you were gone."
Oranna glances up at the familiar sign, and then to where Thalstan indicates. "When you put it that way, it's almost… creepy, or unsettling at the least, like a ghost," she says with a little laugh. "This is where I like to get any trap launching supplies and explosives, and the bits and bobs of repairing and maintenance for the guns. Most of the time I get my bullets from Jo, especially if she's having a time of things." Because Oranna still uses bullets like a normal person with a normal gun, instead of magic bullets that just appear in her gun whenever she fires it.
Thalstan draws up close to the entrance, and the pauses a little nervously. "I've a few… gifts for you. Themed, like. This first one is not so romantic, maybe, but I hope you'll still like it." He pulls a little box out of his satchel, tied with a little red bow, and holds it out for Oranna to take.
Oranna is visibly surprised, but she smiles warmly at him, keeping hold of his arm with one hand to squeeze it reassuringly, as she takes the gift. "Oh, for me? Wait, no, ah — you said, for me, and it's… there isn't anyone else so, it'd be…" She clears her throat. "I mean, thank you. Sorry, I'm not, erm… we didn't do gifts, my family. Not like a present sort of thing. You got weapons as you progressed, that was about… all." She glances briefly to the right, but doesn't linger, as she turns her gaze instead to her present, and then back to Thalstan.
"Should I open it now?" she asks. "I don't know what it is, obviously — you know that, I don't know that, but I — I still think it's romantic. Whatever is may be. Because of the…" She gestures with the box in some arcane sigil. Or maybe she's trying to signify all the planning out of the date. Unclear.
"The whole commemoration of when we met," Thalstan says, as if he's agreeing with her. "Which feels like an occasion for presents to me. My parents were the gifting type, so that's… one thing I'm likely to do, moving forward. I'd like you to open it now, and the ones to come after — three total, to know what's coming."
"All right," Oranna says with a shy smile, sliding her hand off his arm so she can open the box properly, peering curiously at it the whole while.
The box opens easily, with nothing sealing it but the little ribbon. Inside is a small container of gun oil, possibly bought from this very shop. It is an older, thresher-oil-based kind, which Thalstan likely noticed back on the day they went back to Oranna's workshop.
"I hope it's useful," Thalstan repeats hopefully. "I know the guns, they need a lot of care and attention."
Oranna's delight at the contents is easy to see on her face, even before she says, "Oh, my favorite!" She grins at him with a little laugh. "When you said it wasn't romantic, I thought you might mean something for, I don't know, taxes or accounting or something."
Hey! For some people that is Peak Romance.
Just not for Oranna. Guns are her love language. "I love it. It's perfect. I've been meaning to stock up again, after Pandaria."
"I'm glad," Thalstan says, a subtle flush touching his cheeks as he sees her happiness. He smiles at her, enjoying the moment, before he extends his arm again with a flourish, inclining his head. "Shall we continue on to the next place?"
From the direction he's pointing, the next place appears to be Tinker Town.
Oranna takes his arm back up with an attempt at a flourish, which ends up being more a hearty scooping up against her chest, so it probably works out favorably in the end by his accounting, even if she won't get any points for elegance or grace.
"I don't remember where I was, but — I mean, I know you do, because you… you remember," Oranna says awkwardly with a laugh. "Tinker Town? I don't usually end up there except passing through to the tram, well — u-unless it's a gnomish operation for something with Mekkatorque, who's a real nice fellow. A little, erm, free with his risk assessments of proximity to explosions and a willingness to sacrifice eyebrows, but, on the whole, he's friendly."
"The tram, aye, that's the place," Thalstan says, as they pass into the gnomish area of town and he heads for the moving gears over the tunnel to the tram station. "Mekkatorque is a good sort, isn't he? Very friendly and approachable, for a monarch. I can't think I'd approach King Wrynn in exactly the same way, though I guess he's also High King. Anyway, I hope they get Gnomeregan fully cleared someday, but…"
Thalstan pauses as they pass beneath the archway and into the tram tunnel. "That's not what I meant to talk about. Here was where I saw you next, dream girl. I imagine there's been a lot of half-glimpses in this place, before one or the other is whisked away to… well, not places unknown, but Stormwind, mostly. But what I care about today is you and me. And I prepared something, to commemorate."
Thalstan pulls out yet another box with a little ribbon. This one fits in the palm of a hand, wider than it is tall. "Less practical, but I hope you'll enjoy it all the same."
Oranna's smile is warm as she takes the box, working to open it. "I'm sure I will — I mean, you'll obviously know if I don't, but I can't imagine anything that I wouldn't like. Well, not, not that there wouldn't be things I wouldn't like to get," she corrects hastily. "Only that I really can't imagine that you'd give them to me. It'd be… you wouldn't — I should just…" She trails off as she focuses on opening the gift instead.
Inside the box is not another container of gun oil, but a little golden bracelet. Not only a simple golden bracelet, though — this one is tram-themed. The links are little gnomish tram cars, one connected to another, making a train that ends at the bracelet's clasp. One might call the clasp the tram stop.
"I know it might not be practical, when you're fighting," Thalstan says, a little apologetically. "But I thought in peaceful times…"
Oranna gasps at the sight, with a little oh! of genuinely touched delight. She wrangles it awkwardly out of the box one handed. "It's our tram!" she says with a laugh. "Like our — our signal. So that's — we've been sort of going down this trail for a while, aye? Almost like it was foreshadowing, but in real, real life, obviously. You coming over that time and I was working on guns, and shooting together. And then a tram of thought, and… well, you — you know, because you were…also…there." Oranna finishes the thought with a touch of a trail off, but she lifts the bracelet towards Thalstan. "I could put it on — I mean, could you, could you help me put it…on?"
"I'd love to," Thalstan says with a warm smile, taking the bracelet and holding it out for her to place her wrist. "And aye, it's like a reflection of you and I, of the path we walked together, isn't it? Now you've a tram of thought and also one of gold to enjoy."
Oranna watches with a warm blush. "It's real pretty. I've never had a bracelet afore," she says. "My mother didn't really… well, you know."
Thalstan clasps the bracelet carefully around her wrist, and then holds her hand in both of his. "If you find you like wearing them, sometimes, then tell me so. I'd love to shower you in jewels and finery, if you liked it." His eyes shine a little like imagined jewels. "Not literally, maybe, but I want to give you things you enjoy, or things you might like to try and see if you enjoy."
Oranna laughs brightly. "That would be a very dwarven princess of a story book's sort of shower," she jokes with a wink. She tilts her wrist this way and that, feeling out the new weight and the look. "I think I do like it. Well, so far anyway. It's a bit of a — a short experiment."
"There's time to consider," Thalstan says with a deep, friendly chuckle, watching the light of the tram station on the gleaming gold. "Though I'm glad to hear it holds up to the first few moments — that makes me more hopeful for how the last gift will go over. For my part, I like the look of gold on you. It looks warm and bright."
He smiles and steps back, offering her his arm once more. "Shall we continue on to our next stop?"
Oranna admires her bracelet one more time with another turn of her wrist and a smile bright and warm as the gold flashing in the Ironforge braziers' lights, and then she links back up with his arm. "Aye, let's." She leans her head on his shoulder before they start walking again. "You know, you're really good at this sort of thing, of turning the way the world just is, as it is, into a story. This has a Tale Of Threes to it, like a fairy tale or a fantasy story where there's a spell over the heroine that can only be broken with the right answers to a curse riddle. Something like a 'When her skin flashes warm and bright with the chains of travel, she will walk freer through the earth.' You know, the things that only make sense after you know what it means."
Thalstan moves towards the exit of the tram tunnel, in no rush as he enjoys the feel of Oranna's arm in his, and the soft touch of her hair against his shoulder.
"Aye, a Tale of Threes, this one the story of the young hero who glimpsed the heroine in a dream, and then sought her in the waking world," Thalstan says with a warm smile. "From combat to travel to sweetness, three visions, leading to a curse broken, or a prophecy fulfilled. The third, of course, you're about to see."
As they exit the tram tunnel, Thalstan shifts them in the direction of the Mystic Ward, and says, " 'She will walk freer through the earth'. I like the sound of that."
"I was trying to do something for the hint of the tram, you know, traveling fast under a tunnel, without saying 'underground' or 'tunnel' or 'commuting' or 'it's like she's on a tram.'" Oranna laughs with a bit of a shrug, bumping her shoulder into his arm with it. "I like those sorts of bits in stories though, where you finally understand it all when you look back through the book, and you realize everything was part of it all, nothing was random or done just because."
"Ahh… aye, I see," Thalstan nods. "Traveling through the earth as the Deeprun Tram. And yes, those are the best books, where everything falls in place like a puzzle, even if it all looks scrambled at the start. Now let me think, what's a prophecy for the next part of our journey."
As they pass into the mystic ward, he tries out, "A fruit that was never grown is set in a living tree, one whose branches always bear the strength to bloom anew."
The fountain comes into view, and off in the distance is the wandering Longberry fruit merchant, calling out her wares to anyone that will listen.
Oranna is in the middle of thinking about it when she hears Longberry, and she looks up at Thalstan in earnest shock and questioning wonder. "Did you — did you buy me Bimble Longberry… in — in a tree?" She hears it after she says it and laughs awkwardly, holding up a hand and waggling it back and forth trying to Etch-a-Sketch erase that from the air. "No, no, wait, that's — no, that's a daft thought. Ignore me. That guess doesn't count."
Thalstan laughs warmly, the movement shifting his beard against his chest. "No, not Bimble. But close — remember when we finally met here, and you said you had already too many apples, and they'd go bad before you had time to eat them? This is a kind of apple that I hope you won't need to worry about it ever spoiling."
He holds out a small black box towards her, and this one he opens himself, positioned so she can see. The top hinges, and inside is displayed a necklace with a fine chain and a pendant of a small golden(bark?) apple.
"For a reminder of the time we finally met, and not in dreams," Thalstan says, offering it out to her.
"Ohhhh, look at that," Oranna says as she reaches for it with a warm glow. "I — I mean, you've… seen it. Ach, I meant, it's — it's very pretty. Beautiful." She laughs awkwardly, but smiles at him as she removes the necklace from the interior carefully, like she's thinking that she's worried she'll break it somehow.
"If you break it," Thalstan says with a smile, noticing her care, "I can always have the jeweler mend it. It's fixable. And if it's beautiful, then that's fitting. I hoped it would be something lovely enough to suit a lady like you, Oranna. Gold against the warmth of your skin, an apple's sweetness for your sweet, dark eyes."
Oranna turns redder, but she's smiling. "Wow, that's…" She moves her foot in a circle on the ground.
"If it broke though… oh, aye, there was that one gnome around here, who fixes up jewelry…" Oranna says as she looks around the Mystic Ward in memory. "But I think maybe it'd be better to go through Cress' nice younger brother, in Cobalt. He's always been kind. And probably fewer sketchy criminal side jobs as you get the impression that Talvash del Kissel does. Not — not that it's not good to support local gnome jewelers, of course. I'm… I'm rambling." She blushes harder and holds out the necklace to Thalstan. "Could you put it on me? I'd really not like to break it and make that choice, erm, less theoretical."
"Aye, I'd rather Aspenwood than Kissel, though no offense to Kissel and his skill. We can always support gnomish crafters in other ways," Thalstan says, reaching out to take the necklace. He moves around behind Oranna, reaching one hand to gently shift her dark hair to the side. He carefully draws the necklace around and holds the clasp behind. For a moment he fumbles with the clasp, his fingers brushing against the back of her neck. He breathes in sharply, as if there was some jolt of pleasant lightning from the Stormbreaker's skin. Then he carefully does the clasp, setting it down gently.
Oranna tries to somehow look behind her without moving her head which mostly leads her to heavily side-eye Thalstan after he breathes in. "Is it okay?"
"Oh, aye, nothing broken," Thalstan says, and maybe there's a touch of blush to his cheeks above the beard, as he circles back around. "How's the length? Do you like it?"
Oranna glances down to just below his waist.
Then back up to his face with a blush so bright she might be casting a slight glow.
"Oh, ah, aye, mmhmm, yes. The necklace. Of course. That's — that's what that question would be about, and that's also what I heard," she says with some level of convincing. "I. Do. Like it. The length. Is good." Her voice is a little strangled. "I like this necklace."
Thalstan watches the direction of her glance, and there might be a touch of affectionate smolder in his own eyes. He can't help it. He takes a step closer, offering his arm.
"I'm pleased you like the length… of the necklace," he says with a warm smile, and there's just the slightest pause to indicate he might have heard anything else. "And now we're where we first met awake, following our own footsteps. Our next stop was the Thirsty Dragon, so that is one option for our next stop."
Oranna sets her fingers against the apple, which rests nicely among the other assets displayed by the cut of the dress, as red as an apple. "Aye, that's — no, I'd like that. It's — I'm feeling thirsty." An awkwardly timed pause as she looks at him. "For. I'm. It would be good for. Water?" Oranna tries. She clears her throat.
She reaches for his arm gratefully, and tucks her hair behind an ear. "I'm dressed like a princess, but I'm definitely still me," she says with a laugh. "Thank you, Thalstan. I like being me with you. I mean, I like the me I am when I'm with you. I like me. You."
"You're welcome — I like the you you are, too," Thalstan says, his eyes raising from the apple to watch her tuck that strand of hair, a gleam of desire in his eyes. He might be feeling a little thirsty, too. "Whether you're dressed like a princess or an expert marksman with a leopard. That is, I mean to say, the you that's there, always. So aye, let's go get some water… and maybe something sweet?"
It's written all over Oranna's expressive face when she looks at him that she's thinking he's the sweetest thing she could get from the Thirsty Dragon. "That's… I'd like that," she says out loud.
Time Passes
There is indeed water at the Thirsty Dragon, and pear tarts as well, even if Thalstan is sweeter. Ma Stouthammer is as friendly as ever, pleased for this window of time when her boy and his lady are both in town and can be coddled. The time passes easily and comfortably, until Thalstan offers to walk home with Oranna. The two stroll back toward the Mystic Ward, warm in the radiated heat of the lava channels, whose glow casts a shine on the tram bracelet and the apple necklace.
Soon enough, they arrive at Oranna's front door. Thalstan slows to a stop, Oranna's arm still in his.
Oranna is a glowingly warm ball of dwarf sun on his arm, content and pleasantly drowsy of someone who has been happy and fulfilled for hours in body and soul. Even the worry line in the center of her brows has relaxed enough to fade away in most lights, including the softer braziers of Ironforge.
She opens her door — a deep thunk sounding from the heavy deadbolt — already anticipating the snow leopard nosing up against the opening. "Ach, lass, back up," Oranna says, shoving her hip against the giant predator.
Befound petulantly wiggles backwards, staring accusingly at them.
Oranna rolls her eyes, and then beams at Thalstan, a touch of redness in her cheeks. "Would you like to come in for… I was going to say 'a wee bit' but I think I'm — I might ask — that is, if you wanted to be… the night? Or — or — or any amount of longer time that would be through into the night and …" She falters into an awkward sliding stop of the sentence.
"Into the morning?" Thalstan asks, and though his smile is soft and his manner altogether content, he is now studying her expression carefully. "I'd love to make you some pancakes or some such. But… only as long as you'd like me to stay. Only as far as you want to go, always."
Oranna hip-and-elbows them into the house, as Befound sulks, and sets an enormous paw on Oranna's foot as soon as the two dwarves are back inside.
"I — I would like you to stay… to morning… for pancakes and… I'd like you to… I really just don't want you to go," Oranna elaborates (?). It shows on her face, a certainty in that thought. "I might be a little skittish with sleeping — literal, literal sleeping. Sometimes it's hard for me to have someone else there, but I don't have anything to do tomorrow. I'd rather be a little sleepy tomorrow and… have you here."
"I don't mind not sleeping," Thalstan says, and then reconsiders how that sounds. "That is to say, I like spendin' time with you, and aye, I'd like to spend the night with you, through to the morning. Whether that's talking or other things — I like spending time with you. And I've nothing to do tomorrow, if we need a quiet morning in and resting."
Oranna's smile is both relieved and pleased, as she runs a hand over her hair — and then is immediately struck with a worrying thought about hair care. "Oh, aye, but… if you did want to… go back and get a bag? You are close, I mean, you live close, and I have to feed Befound anyway," she says.
Yeah, says Befound. She has not moved her paw off Oranna's foot.
"Is that… am I… is that less romantic?" Oranna asks anxiously, fiddling with her bracelet. "But I don't have the same brush as you, and no change of clothes, and I don't know if you would want to do any beard care in the morning first thing, and…"
"Planning a thing does not make it less romantic," Thalstan says, resting his hand on hers over the bracelet. "And the delay would only serve to heighten my anticipation of seeing your beautiful face once more. I can pop over and be right back, while Befound settles."
"Aye, plan-plan is romantic, but I think I've done a spontaneous-plan-plan, and — now, now I've said plan too many times," Oranna says with a little laugh and another small smile. She shuffles her free foot. "Would you — do you want — I mean, I would like it if you would also like it if you wanted to maybe…keep some things here? More — more on purpose? I know you live just — but if you wanted to sometimes… here? For other times like… spontaneous plan-plans?"
"If you've a drawer that could be Thalstan, in your organizing scheme?" Thalstan asks, and his bushy eyebrows raise slightly. "All the things of Thalstan, like a place setting. I would like that, and — if you'd like to do the same — I've room in my room and… now I may have said room too many times. Not today — today I'll come back here, but next time."
Oranna sighs, and turns her hand over to hold onto Thalstan, with a soft, sad smile. "Oh, aye, I'd like that, for mine to yours, too. As for me, aye… I've… room. A whole other side of a, really. Because that's where… Bargrimm was. It's… I would need to move some things, the things that were still here that he didn't have with him. I've never really — I haven't done anything there. But I think… I think I can, now. I think… maybe it would be good to start with a drawer and then…" She takes a deep breath, and nods to herself. "And then the future."
"Just a drawer for now," Thalstan agrees, cradling her hand in his. "And only if you're ready. There's no timeline, no rush. Plenty of future ahead." His gaze drifts over towards the disgruntled snow leopard. "I'll bring things for the night, and a little more. I'll be back before you know it." He raises her hand to his lips, gently kissing the back of it.
Oranna giggles at the kiss, and nods. "You can just come back in, when you do. I'll leave the door unlocked," she says. It'll be fine. She can leave it unlocked for a bit.
It's not like someone else would come in the house while Thalstan was out and just walk inside because the door is open, and maybe this is just what someone was waiting for in case Oranna ever left her door unlocked. That's not a thing that would or could happen, right?
Oranna's nervousness increases rapidly enough that she nearly breaks into a sweat, and she grabs Thalstan's hand, and shakes off Befound to draw him over to an entryway table. "Actually, erm, you know, even better than leaving my door unlocked where anyone might just come on in to possibly rob me of everything I own, how about I give you a spare key? That's — that's also a good thing that you could… you could just have. For more than now. To be a… key that you have." She opens the drawer — filled with all manner of things — and expertly selects from under a sheet of paper, one of two keys, to hold out to him.
Thalstan looks at the key like it's an unexpected wonderful present, and takes it with a little bow. "I'll keep it safe. I mean, of course, I'll be careful of your spare key. And I'll… I'll bring one of my own, just so you can have. For the future." He gives another courtly bow, and steps back. "I hate to go, but I'll be coming back soon, to stay." He pauses. "For the night."
With that, Thalstan steps back, distracted briefly by fitting the key onto his own keyring for safekeeping as he moves towards and through the door.
A Short Time Later
It really isn't very long at all until a key can be heard turning in the lock to the front door of Oranna's house. Thalstan makes no attempt to be silent about it, likely intuiting that it's better to come in well-announced. He carries a small bag over his shoulder, which must be full of clothing and toiletries one might need to prepare for or conclude a day. He also carries a small key in his free hand, a dark metal with a head carved to look like a (very flat) dragon's.
Befound, napping in her bed, raises her head up as Thalstan enters, and then she sets it back down on her tail with a feline huff. She has been fed. He may proceed.
There are a few sounds from downstairs — a drawer closing, and then Oranna calling up, "Thalstan?" in an uncertain voice, like maybe it could also be an intruder that mugged him and took his key on his way there.
"Aye, it's me," Thalstan calls, and hesitates there in the front room. "Should I come to you?"
"Oh! Aye!" Oranna calls back up. "I'm downstairs! Which — you… you could probably… tell that…" The rest is inaudible as she mumbles.
Thalstan hefts his bag on his shoulder, tidies his beard, and heads down the stairs to find his lady.
Downstairs, through the hallway, is the open door of the master bedroom, and the warm orange spill of light guiding the way to Oranna.
The room itself is half as large as the living space above, without windows, which might have made it more cave-like, but for the sweeping, high ceiling and the openness of the space in a cozy, but sparsely furnished room. The bed is centered on the back wall, with a nightstand on each side, and a built in wardrobe of fine dwarven craftsmanship set beside, with a place for hanging clothes, and two lower drawers beneath.
In the corner of the room is a squat, ironcast heater stove with a pipe leading up through the wall. A large, soft wool yellow rug covers the majority of the stone room floor, gentling the chill and noise both. Wildhammer tapestries cover the sides of the room, bold patterns with traditional runes, and there are two different types of pet beds, one that is covered in white fur and seems recently used; another that has gray hair and a covering of dust.
Oranna stands by the right hand side wardrobe, which is still open, revealing an emptry drawer, and she chews on the side of her bottom lip, looking up at Thalstan when he arrives. She gives him a warm smile and a wave, and then laughs at herself. "Hello, again. That seems… odd. But I don't know if saying, 'welcome back' is less… odd."
"I'll take either," Thalstan says, his gaze less on the room than it is on Oranna, his eyes warm. He does, still, glance around as he walks toward her. He just takes short moments to glance before she arrests his sight once more."It's right cozy in here. Comfortable, with the carpet and the hangings, holding in warmth and pulling in sound. I brought you something." He holds out the dragon-headed key. "It's for home and the Dragon both."
Oranna takes it, immediately running her fingers over the dragon-head curiously. "Look at that. Thank you, I mean," she says. "I'll just put it — " She looks over at her nightstand. The nearest place of hers, but also Not The Right Place. That's fine. It's temporary. She could put it temporarily in the wrong place where if she forgets about it she won't look to search for it and then it will be missing and what if she had an emergency where she needed it and she didn't know where it was, her face says. She looks back up at Thalstan with a nervous smile. "I'll just be right back. I'm going to put it upstairs, where it should be, so that it's… there. And not… missing. Right back. Just."
She gestures to the open drawer, as if he might have missed it. "And this is the drawer. Which you probably could have… I'll be right back," she repeats a third time, holding the key up, as she starts towards the upstairs.
"Come back soon," Thalstan says, and his gaze trails after her as she goes. Then he turns back to the drawer and begins to tuck in his belongings. A spare set of clothes, nightclothes, smaller containers of his beard shampoo, conditioner, oil and wax, as well as brushes and combs. Soap as well, and skin lotions. It all fits, set tidily side by side.
Oranna doesn't take long — she knows where everything should be, after all, in some form of organization that makes sense to her — and she's back down quick enough to suggest she might have jogged a little, her hair moving in a brisk way along with her when she arrives back in the room. The flush on her cheeks seems less likely to be from the movement though, and more a cause of seeing Thalstan in her room, settling in.
She smooths a hand over her hair, and tucks some better behind an ear. "So, I was thinking — " She starts, and then waits until she's all the way back closer to him, reaching out to put her hands on his shoulders. "I mean, I am thinking, on going sort of way, how much I really do feel different when I'm around you. Comfortable different. Good different! It's a — it's a very good different. Not a nervous different."
"I like a good different," Thalstan says, reaching to settle his hands around her waist. "I like how I feel when I'm with you. Like the fires are a little brighter, the colors a little sharper. Like there's more joy in the world."
Oranna lets herself naturally shift closer to him, fitting herself against him with the soft warmth and press of her curves against the muscled planes of his body. "That's what it's like. And I've had… people who bring a lot of good joy, friends that mean that the world is a better place when they're near me, or even just in it, and I know of it. And I also know that… it's not… quite the same thing with you." She takes a deeper breath, and relaxes back into a truth.
"It's not only that I like you, and that I'm… attracted to you. It's not the adding of two different things together, separate, of a friend and of someone more. It's… it's just the one thing," she says, her face already giving the truth of feeling before she says it. "I love you, Thalstan. I am very much in love with you."
Thalstan looks down into her eyes, warmth in his own gaze. "I've liked you since first we met, and I think I've said as much. You looked to me like a beautiful heroine, there amidst a nightmare. Every day since we met again in waking life, every thing I've learned about you, has only deepened that feeling. I love how you talk your thoughts aloud, I love how expressive you are, I love how you care for your companions. I love your heart and… and your soul." He leans his forehead down to touch hers. "If it's not clear, I have been falling in love more each day."
Oranna smiles, her cheeks aflame with feeling, but a smile even brighter. "It's as clear as the blue of your eyes," she says, her voice gone breathier and lighter with emotion, and she squeezes him closer. "If it wouldn't be a danger to just about everything in here, I'd set off a firework. I'm surprised I'm not doing it just on my own, right out of me into the air." She laughs a little, and leans into him, tilting her head for a kiss, but stopping before she closes the distance. "I want to be with you. I want you to be with me, and feel with me. I want this to go on and on, and I'm ready for it — I think I'm ready for it."
"You are a firework, beauty and light and wonder," Thalstan says, his voice low and husky as he holds her tight. "I want to be with you. But only if you're ready. It will only be right if you're here with me, in the joy of the moment."
And then he waits, giving her time to pull away if she needs, before he closes the distance to kiss her passionately.
She melts into the kiss with a softening further of herself against him as she lets it light her up from within, right there with him in the joy of the moment.