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A month. A month it took, in the desert, for Detraeus to make it through his assignment and back again. A sandstorm held them up not once, not twice, but three times, and there wasn’t a day that passed where he didn’t worry about the woman he left behind. He had left often enough in the past — even, on more than one occasion, for periods greater than this — but having departed with her sick, not knowing how she had fared since his leaving, that unnerved him. And nightmares plagued him as a result.

He returned to Taliuma deep into the night. Having traveled with a band of almost solely oblivionites — one hybrid — they made use of the desert night’s often, and it was no obscurity to arrive in the town perhaps two hours since the highest passing of the moon. It meant less activity to deal with in the streets and a clean path to home. He entered soundlessly but for the creak of the door and stepped in, eager to move immediately for his shared bedroom.

Unfortunately, he did not make it that far.

Immediately upon entering, he sensed something ‘off.’ Enough so that the hairs on his skin rippled and stiffened, his long ears twitching, and the spines at the end of his tail bristling like a wary spine-snake. He slowed his breathing, quieting it to all but nothing, and narrowed his gaze as it darted about the room, one hand already on the hilt of a blade, at the ready. Too quiet. Too untouched. And—

His attention landed on a shattered in windowpane. Like a chain reaction, his pulse doubled up: once, twice. Panic seized him, and he ran for his and Ara’s room, calling out for her before he slammed the door open and feeling his blood chill when he found it empty. She’d been sick. And he’d left her. She’d been sick. And he’d left her. She’d been sick. And he’d left her.

He left her alone in the house. Alone and unprotected when they had had threats. He snarled, limbs shaking as he stormed through the room, and then the rest of the house, throwing open every door, every sheet, every possible place she might be — and plenty of places she couldn’t logically be, though his mind wasn’t ready to accept it — calling out to her all the while. On his way back out, when his boot crackled over the shattered glass beneath the window, he whipped around, snapping and spitting curses at the floor. At the house. At the air.

His pulse felt like a thunderstorm compressed into the space between his eardrums and he couldn’t breathe. He slammed his fists to the wall, hard enough that something cracked, but he didn’t notice, his mind too busy tumbling over itself like falling down an endless flight of stairs. Someone had taken her. Someone had taken her, might be hurting her, might have—

He shoved the latter speculation away and zeroed in: someone had taken her. And he would find them. And kill them.

But where, and how? Who would—?

His thoughts flit to Lithian and Casseth. They had sworn to watch after her. If anything had happened to her, they would at least know when and where they had last seen her. Detraeus left the house without so much as bothering to lock it behind him, and the instant he made it into the open, his wings spread, driving him along. Upon spotting a hastar tethered outside a small in, he wasted not a moment’s thought on the action before unsheathing a dagger, slitting the beast free, and mounting it before driving it off in his desired direction. Other than a startled whinny, it seemed blessedly cooperative — to the misfortune of whoever owned it, not that their fortune was high on Detraeus’ mind — and in record time he was at Casseth and Lithian’s door, pounding at it with a loose and highly confused hastar in tow, climbing its way over the rocks where he’d abandoned it.

When there was no immediate answer, he raised his fist and began banging again, half ready to break the thing down himself.

“Ara,” Detraeus growled, all but before the door was even fully opened before him — not so much as noticing Casseth’s wings in his distraction. “Where is—?”

“Ara’s here…” Lithian said, frowning and covering a yawn as he moved up behind Cas. “She—”

But before he even got to that sentence, Detraeus was storming past them, shoving his way inside. Lithian’s finger pointed him to the door he needed, and in an instant, he was in. Immediately, his heart gave a tiny, and then massive trip, as though a thousand pulses had coalesced into a single, thud, and he swallowed back a sound high-pitched and fractured with relief as he scrambled forward.

Breathing. Whole. Unharmed. Groggy.

She looked half-asleep and not yet up, but all he could think was that she was alive and safe, and all the terrible, terrifying things that his mind had plagued him with could dissipate from the corners of his mind like poison gas retreating from the edges of a nightmare. He didn’t recall the process clearly, but one instant he was in the door frame, and the next, he was on her, falling apart and squeezing his eyes shut as he touched his forehead to hers and his trembling fingers to her cheeks, her hair, her nape. He swallowed the painful lump in his throat and groaned as he stretched his wings over them both.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry—I’m sorry, I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have left. I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have left you alone. You’re alright—you’re alright…no one’s hurt you? Who threatened you? Did they touch you? I’ll break them—”

Detraeus opened his mouth, but then Ara’s lips were on his, and he shuddered instead, giving a small, soft mix between a whine and a growl and leaning into the kiss. Mine. Ara was safe, he reminded himself, and he slowly, slowly started reminding himself how to breathe, first as he kissed her, then as he tucked against her. At length, he nodded.

“M’fine…now. Three sandstorms…took us too long.” He thumbed back over her cheek and grunted as the full weight of her statements sunk in. Lithian and Casseth had taken her in, making sure she wasn’t alone. That made…sense. A lot of sense. Perhaps he ought not have panicked quite so quickly. At the thought of those who had wanted to ‘cause trouble’ though, the spines of his tail bristled again, and it flicked across the bed as he grit his teeth. “We should move,” he muttered. “I don’t trust the town. Not with you.”

He let his fingers trace up and down along the curve of her waistline, brushing over scales and skin, grounding and comforting himself in simply having her under his fingers again before he frowned as something else occurred to him.

“You were sick…you’re better?”

Detraeus blinked, startled at her sudden acceptance. He had been mentioning on and off desires to move out of the main town for nearly a year, perhaps over one, and now, out of the blue, she was simply saying, ‘Okay?’ When she tugged him in for another kiss, though, he let the confusion drift away and focussed in on his relief. He had her here, she was healthy, and he was home safe.

Given that it would be impractical to leave at this hour, he eventually forced himself to pull away from her long enough to strip away his armor coat of weapons, boots, and excess clothes, and pulled the door to her temporary room shut before crawling back into bed with her. Under different circumstances, he might have been more of a mood to seek additional forms of ‘comfort’ from her, but his scare and lingering nerves — as well as the late hour — left him perfectly content to simply hold her against him and take solace in the fact that he had her in his arms. He fell asleep far more easily than he might otherwise have anticipated, and woke warm, and satisfied, tucked with her to his chest and black hair spilled under the pillow beneath them.

“Mm.” Shifting his weight as his body woke, he grunted.

Though it hadn’t been apparent — and certainly not relevant — to him the night before, in the light of morning, Detraeus immediately noted one prudent fact: he needed a bath. Four weeks on the road and three sandstorms while there had left him coated in sand and grit which had gotten down to the roots of his braids and coated his body with a second, dusty skin over his natural one. He was almost surprised Ara had let him into bed with her, but at the same time, wholly grateful. Despite the facts, he was reluctant to leave, and contented himself for the moment with letting his tail coil up her legs and thumbing aimless patterns over her shoulder as he leaned in to kiss her forehead.

She was here, and safe.

For now, that mattered more than even a body-coat of Eowyn desert and grit.

Detraeus grunted at the commentary, but his gaze immediately snapped up and followed her when she rose, stare trailing down her shape, only loosely obscured by her nightgown. The previous night, nerves — fear, guilt, anger at phantom parties, and so on — had deterred him from wanting anything more than her company. Now, however, his body pointedly reminded him that he had not had Ara’s skin under his tongue, or any other intimate form of contact, for that matter, in a month’s time — and he missed it. It took no further prompting to get him out of bed, and in a moment, he was at her side, trailing in her wake.

She hadn’t lied.

Clearly, Lithian’s role as a peisio had played into the design of their bath. Smooth, varnished wooden planks covered the floor of the sizeable room, flat but for the center and obvious ‘main attraction’ — a generous, deeply cut round bowl of a bath, fed by a simple but elegant fountain system, clearly maintained by spellwork, with water pristine as the sky was clear. To the side, two ladder-racks supported several fresh drying clothes, and upon entering, the room lit up with a soft white, ‘firebug’ glow of aedaun magic, glimmering, random beads of light giving the full room an ethereal look.

Detraeus grunted, flushing in spite of himself, and approached the bath. After glancing back to reassure himself Ara had shut the door securely behind him, he stripped out of his remaining clothes and stepped into the water. Warm as an Eowyn morning.

“Nnh.” He shut his eyes as he sank into it, though it was short lived, his gaze almost immediately flicking back over to Ara. “They put thought into this house.”

Detraeus’ gaze trailed down Ara’s body as she undressed, taking in the details and refamiliarizing himself with each dip and curve. She was fuller, he noted. Not dramatically so, but enough to notice: a subtle added layer of weight, focussed around her hips and belly, and in her breasts. His attention followed that as she moved in, and he breathed in sharply when Ara fit herself in front of him.

“Mm…” He thumbed up the shape of her hips, fingers just grazing over her stomach before settling at her waist. “We could,” he said, but when her lips found his, her body pressed in as it was, architecture and design were the farthest things from his mind.

Detraeus sat with his eyes shut, ocean water lapping gently at his feet and early morning light warming his face. It still amazed him, sometimes, how calm he could be in Araceli’s presence — a concept which had been all but entirely foreign to him once upon a time, and was now, if not precisely ‘the norm’ then at least something familiar and common enough. At her initial commentary, he grunted, flushing.

He hated his hair. Embarrassing. Too big. Wild, and unruly. Untamed, it got everywhere, and as a boy, it had done just that. Now, he kept it all but perpetually tamed. But, through persistence over the years of sharing his space and his bed, Araceli had persuaded him to teach her how to perform that process herself, and he found it surprisingly comforting, to have her fingers working through his hair.

At her later comment, though, he stilled. He didn’t turn, not wanting to disturb whatever process she was in the middle of, but a subtle tension built in his shoulders just the same, and his tail flicked back to touch her. Reassurance, of a sort. His mind naturally jumped to a thousand possibilities which made his gut knot and his blood cool with dread, but he did his best to swallow those back and not panic outright.

“Tell me,” he said.

At the initial pause, Detraeus’ tension built like a wire stretched too thin, coiled tighter, and tighter, and tighter, his head imagining the inevitable: she’d found someone better during his time gone. She’d just been waiting to tell him, not wanting to hurt him. But she’d had hands on her, lips on her, a mouth on her that could do better than his, kiss gentler, touch softer, learn her more thoroughly, make her feel safer. Someone who didn’t get angry. Didn’t spit curses. Didn’t get terrified over the slightest dangers to her—

Then she mentioned her sickness, and that tension fractured, crumpling in, but was immediately replaced by new fears. She’d said she was alright. Had that been a lie? Was something terribly wrong with her? Would she need special treatment? Whatever it was—

At the word ‘pregnant,’ a good portion of Detraeus’ thought process shut down. What remained spun its wheels over the term for several long moments. Pregnant. Pregnant?

She was…

His pulse trip-stuttered over itself, catching in his throat, and he coughed. Pregnant. He spun around, only just managing not to fall off the deck in his haste. “You—what?” He shook his head, heart rate continuing to pick up as the gravity of the assertion sunk further in, trickling down like water through sand. No. No, no. Pregnant meant children. Children meant infants. Infants were…

Tiny. Tiny little things which required extreme care and protection and suitability and knowledge as a parent and a—

Father.

If Araceli was pregnant, that meant he was…

A slightly strangled sound escaped Detraeus’ throat. Panic. Want. Fascination. Terror. All these things swept him at once, and his gaze darted to her belly. He flushed hotly, throat already stopping itself up. Gods.

‘Soudana, help me.’

He’d never been a child properly himself, how was he supposed to raise one? And yet, the recurring concept kept throwing itself at him: there was life in Araceli’s body. A single, dependent new life, formed in part due to him. His child was in her. And the thought was overwhelmingly appealing. Thrilling beyond the terror it caused. Warming beyond the guilt and inadequacy he felt. She was carrying their baby, and it felt like a blessing so infinitely beyond anything he ever could have conceived to ask for, he had no words for it.

“You’re…sure?” he asked, and he had the sudden, all but irresistible urge to reach out, and touch, as though simply by doing so, he might ascertain the truth of the fact himself.