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The mara invasion tore the lands asunder like a scar. It ripped through cities, put a gash between families, destroyed homes, and cost all of the races of Magesc their blood, sweat, and lives in great numbers. When word of it initially reached Taliuma, Lithian fought briefly for the safety of that town, but soon, even Casseth’s pleas for him to remain there — safe, where he and his father would be at his back — were not enough to keep him at bay. Lithian needed to have word of his family, and knew by word of mouth from the incoming soldiers and previously attacked war refugees, that the Celestial Plane was similarly under siege. With Araceli at his side, the two of them made for the portal.

After struggling to find transport for weeks, they eventually made exchanges with a smuggling vessel, Lith offering up his talent for keeping the waves as tame as he could manage in their vicinity and Araceli her ability to keep the winds always at their back.

The process was long, dangerous, and exhausting, the first event in the whole of his life where Lithian had been forced to witness the outcome of war firsthand. Displaced, orphaned children. Shattered families. Death, destitution and desperation at every turn. It hurt to witness it, and not only to see, but to be helpless to help in so many cases. He had only so much coin in his pocket and only so much magic in his blood, and a thousand worries of his own. He was ever grateful for Araceli’s company at the time.

Eventually, after much loss, the two did succeed in their ventures, breaking through to the Celestial Plane and aiding in the battle there. By the time they reached that point, however, the mara forces had already been driven significantly back, and it was only a matter of a few weeks before the rocky abominations were driven completely out of Abronaxus’ world and back to the realms below. What they left behind, however, was a damaged, scarred version of the homeland Lithian had always known.

Despite a small platoon of trained soldiers at Marcus’ command, the Plane itself was unused to and unprepared for attack. It had been the common people, rising up and fighting with their elements — regardless of war experience or not — who had provided the numbers and the power needed to keep their homes defended, and that had not been enough in all cases. Lithian found homes and families as broken as those on Eowyn, and his blood kin in desperate need of aid. As such, he stayed.

Desperately happy to find that both his family — and Vyren, to his pleasure — were alive and well as could be expected, Lithian lingered long on the Plane. He aided his family in rebuilding the necessities of their home — which had been severely damaged, given that they lived on the outskirts of the city proper — and spent long, exhausting hours among the wounded, acting under the orders of lead healers who had organized city ‘sick bays’ and volunteering his magic wherever he could.

As the chaos gradually calmed, Lithian found himself spending ever more of his spare time with Vyren. After the incident on Serenia, he had felt a connection with him — despite their limited opportunities to spend time in the immediate aftermath, particularly due to the mara invasion — but in the wake of peace again on the Plane, Lithian found increasing opportunities to share the man’s company, and found he liked it. It calmed him, made him feel safe to have at least one person with whom he could be completely open with about his interests. Araceli accepted him, and that helped of course, but she didn’t understand fully, given she wasn’t like him in that regard, and it was a great weight off of Lithian’s shoulders to share the company of someone who truly did understand.

Weeks became months, and though Lithian did travel back to Eowyn on occasion, he found himself making shorter and less frequent trips. The instant word of his relationship with Vyren got out to Casseth — a truth Lithian felt he owed to his best friend — a tension developed there, worse even than the initial tension when he’d told Casseth of his preferences for men. As such, Lithian felt that relationship straining itself. It hurt to think on it, because little as he liked it, Casseth still meant so much to him, and to feel like they were drifting — that, because of him and his preferences, they were losing something irreplaceable between them — gouged at Lithian’s heart.

But Vyren warmed over those hurts. Though they did not ‘click’ in all the same ways that Lithian felt he did with Casseth, Vyren made him happy — he stole kisses, and showed off, and made him smile. Neither of them were comfortable with making their relationship public — Vyren because it seemed, as far as Lith could tell, that he had a bad history with such things, and Lithian because he was terrified of the backlash, having no idea what his parents’ or siblings’ stances were on such things. But Lithian’s family was pleased to see him spending more time on the Plane, and that made things easier. So, from there, Lithian lingered in tandem, aware that not everything could stay in a perfect balance forever, but happy for the moment to share spaces with Vyren, share a secret, and learn about himself in the process.

It was during one such event, some months after the withdrawal of the mara, that Vyren invited Lithian for a ‘walk’ just outside the city limits. Lithian knew well enough by now that such an invitation was primarily an opportunity for them to find some privacy together, but — though they had never progressed beyond ‘adventurous’ kissing and some debatably bold touching — Lithian looked forward to such things at least as much as their conversations and entirely innocent activities together. It pleased him to have someone to open up to.

And so it was that, as the open, starless, sunless, moonless sky above faded from its warm, daytime brightness to the soft, darkening blue of night, Lithian picked his way along the edges of Astral City, towards their agreed upon meeting place.

However long Lithian waited, it couldn’t have been much — and he didn’t mind, regardless, given the tranquil beauty of the Celestial Plane’s evenings — but when he first heard another’s approach, his pulse stuttered up hopefully in spite of himself, and he found himself beaming on spotting his—

—friend?

—partner?

They weren’t lovers, certainly.

‘Or, we aren’t yet,’ a different part of his mind unhelpfully provided, which only successfully made heat flare up Lithian’s neck and into his face, leaving him all but entirely mute by the time Vyren actually arrived before him.

Not that it seemed to matter. Within moments of his approach, Vyren’s hands were on him. Fingers at the nape of his neck and at his hip and neck, tugging him in and forward, and sending rippling tingles of enthusiasm through his nerves — not all entirely innocent — and despite the continued burn to his cheeks, Lithian readily leaned in. He, too, reached as he did, his own fingers coming to a light, clutching rest at Vyren’s front while he kissed back. When the contact broke, he swallowed, not immediately opening his eyes. Or moving.

“Mm? You’re—oh, late,” he repeated, only having half-registered the statements in his distraction. “Yes,” he agreed. Then, after another second: “Er, I mean, no. That is…” He cleared his throat, flushing again as he shook his head and took a half step back. “You’re not that late. And even if you were a little, I don’t mind. I am just…also glad that you are here. I would have been so lonely otherwise, mm?” he teased.

His eyes flit away, though, as he said it, fingers rising to tuck a lock of blue behind his hair abashedly and gaze drawing over the surrounding landscape. When he spoke again, his tone was more relaxed, and quieter.

“I’ve been well, partly thanks to you. I had not been spending nearly so much time here until we…came to know each other as we have, but it’s lovely, don’t you think? I used to forget, sometimes, how beautiful the Plane could be when compared to wild beauties that the lower world holds, though…” Tilting his head back a fraction, Lithian’s eyes curved up to the smooth dome of the open Celestial Plane sky; in the midst of the action, he dared to flick his fingers out, catching lightly at Vyren’s and tangling them. When he dropped his gaze again, he settled it on his companion, smiling. “I always miss the stars when I am here. Do not let me ramble forever, though…shall we walk? Or do you have some other great, secret and dastardly adventure planned and tucked away into your pocket…”

Lithian blinked, startled at first, and then flushed, shaking his head with a laugh. “Thank you,” he said, “but as your dedicated local healer…” He leaned sidelong as they walked, butting his shoulder just enough to Vye’s to emphasize his teasing, “…I think you need to get your eyes checked. Many will attest to the fact that I am gangly, awkward, too tall, and oh so boringly average on other fronts, though…” He snuck a glance Vyren’s way from beneath his lashes, his tone softening to something more serious. “I do appreciate that you think so…”

After a pause, his lips edged up, expression warming as his gaze flit down over his companion.

“And, I could say the same of you.”

However Vyren chose to apply the term, Lithian did consider his companion ‘beautiful,’ at least in some senses of the word. Not the ethereal, loose and delicate beauty of a flower or drapery, certainly, but a bolder, vibrant sort of beauty. Like a desert sunset, when the sky itself at the edge of the earth was on fire. Or a dangerously colored viper: powerful as it was lovely to behold. He also had a much more conventional attraction to him than Lith’s own personal appearance, which Lithian considered to be a hodge-podge of things. Where Lithian was a mix of too much of this or too little of that, Vyren had hard lines, defined muscle, and a raw air of confidence which he seemed to exude effortlessly.

Though they did not always move in tandem — or perhaps partly because of it — it surprised Lithian, from time to time, that they even had what they had. It felt to him, far more often than it ought, likely, that eventually, Vyren would find better. Ushering that thought away with a mental frown — for it had no place tampering with the happiness they had in this moment — Lithian returned his thoughts to the present and wondered, genuinely, where Vyren intended to lead him. While he didn’t mind the extra distance in the least, it was rare that they went all that far out of their way on excursions like this.

Despite having guessed their intended destination purely from experience — Lithian had been to the area on occasion in the past when seeking out a place to think, relax, or read — it still pleased him to see it come into view, tranquil and lovely as ever. A barely-there night breeze tickled through the low hanging leaves of the trees, but other than that, the area was all but glassily still and undisturbed. A warm flush crawled up Lithian's cheeks, well aware — whether Vyren was or not — that the outskirts of the pond had at least some reputation as a getaway for ‘lovers’ of various stripes, and at this hour, they seemed fortunate enough to have the full stretch of the area to themselves.

As Vyren moved to lie down, Lithian’s eyes flicked in that direction, and then out to the pond. For a long moment, the desire to strip and wade in — or at the very least wet his feet — tempted him fiercely. At length, though, he dismissed it for the time being and moved over instead to settle in on the grass next to Vyren where indicated.

Or, rather, to drop to the grass and then roll to lay atop him, straddling Vyren’s hips loosely and leaning over him. Positioned like that, his hair fell loose, draping like a blue curtain to either side of their faces, and in the privacy of that space, Lithian smiled.

“So. I ‘calm you’, do I?” he repeated, voice barely teasing before he leaned in and down, catching Vyren’s lips in a loose, lingering kiss. This, at least, was now very familiar territory, and he relished in the freedom to engage in it, safe from the range of prying eyes. “And here I had hoped that at least on occasion I inspired the opposite sort of reaction…but…” He leaned up, sitting back on his heels, but still perched over Vyren’s hips as his smile spread to something broader and more open, “…calming is good, too. Did you want to go swimming? Or…” His gaze flit about the area, and then back down to Vyren. “Did you have something else in mind, gallivanting me all the way out here? We could talk about the meaning of the universe…” His eyes skimmed the shape of Vyren’s jawline. “Or the history of the modern political era…or…”

At the initial ‘order’, Lithian huffed, opening his mouth to insist that they were just friendly suggestions, and that obviously they didn’t have to do any if Vyren didn’t want, but it seemed a waste to come all the way out here and not—

“Mmh…”

When Vyren’s lips muffled his own, Lithian’s lashes flit low, sinking towards his cheeks. Then, Vyren was tipping them, flipping their positions and putting Lithian onto his back in the grass, and — with the firani’s weight holding him down, heat above him and ground below — Lith very quickly forgot anything he might have said in favor of turning his attention to that. And only that.

It wasn’t entirely new, of course, to kiss and share moments something like this with the other, but never before had events lined up quite in this fashion, and Lithian felt his pulse speed. His breath burned quick and hot in his throat as their kissing progressed, and Vyren’s fingers left trail-markers of heat on his flesh. When Vyren’s touch skimmed down his throat, past his shoulders and down, under the cloth of his tunic to his chest, he wanted—

—but he wasn’t precisely sure what, and so his fingers tripped messily down Vyren’s sides in turn. He clutched at first at Vyren’s chest, but that lasted only briefly before his grip dipped, to Vyren’s sides and then hips as Lith squirmed beneath the heavier weight atop him.

“Vyren—” Even the name felt too-thick and clumsy on his tongue which suddenly seemed to want to be everywhere. But nowhere more than Vyren’s mouth. And so — with a hesitant, darting lick — Lithian did just that, pushing up a fraction as he did to press himself close as he tasted and swallowed back his abashment. “Is this…alright…?”

Lithian’s pulse stuttered against the cage of his chest, equal parts wanting and anxious. Eager, and terrified. Despite not knowing it would get quite this far from the beginning, he knew enough to know now what Vyren was getting at, and quite without his permission, his body responded readily, making its opinion on the goings of things painfully evident. Blush having long since crawled out to his eartips, where it now seemed content to sit and burn, Lithian swallowed hard and hesitated only a moment longer before nodding mutely and notching his hips up in silent invitation.

So it went. And, for all his insecurities, Lithian would venture in retrospect to say that it went well, the two of them discovering each other thoroughly in the tranquil privacy of the open night. As life tended to go, the proceedings were a touch more awkward at points than in romanticized stories, and sprinkled with minor pains and messiness. But the end result was a pleasant and very manageable ache combined with a full-body, satisfied lethargia that made tucking against Vyren’s chest easy and confronting the fact that they would have to eventually walk all the way back oh so very difficult. Worth the effort, and worth the risk.

At length, they did also make it back, of course, and Lithian mentally cataloged the experience as one more area where he was not quite so naive coming out as he had been going in. He hoped, though, that Vyren would be interested in refining their technique in the future.

He had much to learn still, after all.