Welcome to Gaia! ::

For a moment, Xil blinked silently at the canvas overhead. It wasn’t surprising that at the start of their journey Damissan had only been to neighboring cities from where he was born, so it felt as though of course that would’ve made the experience of long distance and lengthy travel interesting, if also tiring and somewhat cumbersome. Xilarn was more accustomed to such things and didn’t despise making trips to anywhere, however…

Damissan wasn’t the only one who’d never been to Matori.

If he had to think on it, Xilarn would have assumed that if not for this, that he never would’ve gone, and he’d be fine with that. ‘New’ wasn’t really the type of experience he enjoyed, and it certainly wasn’t anything he looked for. But quite literally everything beyond this point- once they were out of Zena and moving forward from there- everything past that would be new to both of them. They’d already visited villages that Xilarn never had reason to, but those at least had been nestled within areas he was familiar with, and people he had some understanding of the lifestyles of.

Xilarn turned to watch the man at his side. The path to Matori, the land once they arrived there, the activities a new culture and tribe came with… And the continuously developing feelings between them, which most definitely felt like pleasant, yet still unfamiliar territory, all new.

It could potentially make for very hesitant and uncertain progress.

“I think you should know,” Xilarn began as Damissan grinned and stretched out before him. “That I’ve never been to Matori, either. And though as an older man, I don’t think I would have been interested in places of likely still-spiteful natives and as much sand and sun as your homeland, with you I would make an exception.” He slid nearer, close enough at Damis’ side to be brushing against him for the vast majority of the length of him, and propped himself up on an elbow. “With you, I am too happy to explore and discover new things together. Even if I couldn’t imagine wanting anything out of Matori or expecting any good to come of a place I am unfamiliar with, I know it will be enjoyable now because you will be there, and you bring joy with you.”

He dipped to touch a kiss to Damis’ chest, then smirked against his skin. “Besides, I already know I hate Oba, and you’ll recall that you were with me last I was there and it hardly made a difference at the time, except for to make it entertaining enough such that I would entertain the idea of going anywhere with you for any length of time… I’m not sure I trust your qualities to embetter everything about such a horrid place, my love.”

He shifted up, dragging his mouth toward Damis’ lips and pecking at him lightly. “Not yet, anyway. I did say I think just a little more time would be beneficial to us.”

He probably shouldn't have expected anything but acceptance from Damissan. For all Xilarn's prior concerns and grievances, Damis had turned out to be a very agreeable young man, good natured and easy to get along with and not opposed to reason, which, admittedly, Xil had not initially given him credit for. Xilarn would have understood if his lover had been ready to return home, though. Perhaps also slightly disappointed, but at least understanding. They'd come a long way, and there was a certain strain to continued divergence from the 'norm' of what they were accustomed to individually.

This type of distance coverage was no more normal for Xilarn than it was for Damissan, and the older man had wanted the comfort and security and expected norm of what his home could provide. Despite the complications that had arisen while they were in Sauti, he'd even enjoyed the time they'd spent there and wasn't opposed to more of that. He'd always been perfectly content with the idea of domesticity. If he was wary of bringing it up now, it was only because he didn't understand how it would fit into what was already established between them, and what they'd been doing while building that foundation- exclusively traveling.

Xilarn threaded an arm across Damis' torso and shifted down from their kiss to rest his head against his lover's shoulder. This felt like the norm now. Traversing these lands together, dealing with whatever situations arose with just what the two of them could come up with, worrying about nothing outside of just them- This was 'normal,' now, and Xilarn wasn't particularly fond of straying from his comfort zone.

Taking Damissan home to Oba would be a definitive end to this, and could potentially lead to-

He didn't know. He didn't know. It was one of the reasons he didn't like what was abnormal or unusual. Xilarn preferred to know with some decent amount of certainty what was most likely to happen, and there was simply no 'most likely' scenario to come from returning to the desert: Damis' home. But not his.

Xilarn didn't make a habit of attempting to predict the 'could be's and 'what if's of the future, since life often had a way of diverting from what may be expected, but he was already displeased with most variety of things that could occur once they'd finished their travels. Once the 'norm' came to an end, once the expected path had deteriorated...

A puff escaped him, and he shut his eyes. "I'm sorry I'm selfish."

"I believe it," Xilarn uttered. True, he had only the most limited experience that could possibly be imagined for coming to an agreed-upon arrangement with the other man's parents, but he hadn't been particularly fond of them initially—allowing their clearly wayward child to traipse across the continent at his own discretion with only an unchecked stranger to guard him. It was the most absurd and lackadaisical approach he'd ever even considered possible for child-rearing, and the word 'careless' had come disgusting close to his thoughts of them, except-

It was very, very similar to what Akiyal was doing right now, with the bonus that Xil wasn't paying Callum, meaning the man had even less incentive to see the job done properly.

Xilarn grimaced and felt a distinct stab of annoyance that it had come to this. He wanted to reason that he'd at least tried to do right and had wrestled with his personal turmoils, and this is just what it had led to such that there were few alternatives, but it still didn't make it right, either from his or Damissan's parents' standpoint. And they'd been wrong, as Damis had so helpfully pointed about before, about 'underestimating' their son.

He shifted marginally, tipping his head so as to look toward Damis' face. Before, Xilarn would have never anticipated an easing in his mood nor a hope for the future, but Damis inspired that in him, inspired a weird sense of reassurance that was easier to deal with than anything else. It would all work out. Against all of his better judgements and his innately pessimistic nature and even the certainty that anything that could go wrong would, regardless, it would work out.

Knowing this didn't stall the reactionary rapid thrumming in his heart. 'Permanency.'

Xil's fingers curled against Damis' skin. Their words had suggested as much. 'I love you' did not generally come with an intent to part ways, but still Xilarn had wondered (in the short span he'd had time to consider it) what it meant to Damis. 'I enjoy us right now,' but it could be inconvenient later had been among Xilarn's top thoughts, and the word 'discontent' when speaking of their relationship didn't quell that entirely. And the spoken admittance that it would be dissatisfying to some of the most important people in Damis life spoke to the concerns Xilarn had always had, but-

"It was never my intention to drag you through any strain I could prevent. I have always said I would follow you wherever you went and do whatever I thought was best for you..." Except he wasn't a child that needed people to decide what was 'best' for him. "We will work it out when the time comes, but for now I am content to enjoy whatever time we have." Whether entirely accurate or not, it was still pleasing that Damis did expect some form of permanency. There probably wasn't much of anything on this world Xil would prefer than to spend the rest of his life with the man he loved, who'd faced the dangers of many countries to prove it to him and convince him of its sincerity.

He craned his neck to kiss Damissan's jaw, and reached back to disentangle the other man's fingers from his hair, threading them through his own digits instead. "You are wrong, though," Xilarn hummed softly, sliding his weight to rest more fully atop the boy beneath him and pressing a knee between Damis' thighs. "I'm very selfish."