Welcome to Gaia! ::

Eowyn’s sands smelled of sunset: scorching, and steeped in the lingering light of approaching evening. Detraeus stood with his weight to the wall of the house he shared with Araceli, breathing the bated breezes that danced the dunes. On the wind, the sounds of the city chimed in, and he marveled at how vastly different his life was than anything he could have anticipated a decade or even half a decade prior.

Nearing on a month and a half had passed since his face off against Lithian, and his interactions with Araceli had only improved with each day. The two of them worked together, learning each other in private and working his nerves gradually along. This in addition to all those things which did not test him, but simply reinforced what they already had — cooking with her, reading with her, discussing her business, his jobs, and their plans for things to come.

Recently, news had come to her from the Celestial Plane that her father was ill. Seriously enough so, that her mother implored her company, and Araceli felt compelled to travel at least to see them. Her departure was set for the following morning, time gone likely to fall in the range of two weeks, and Detraeus was loathe to watch her go. But, he surprised himself in realizing that his anxiety was based purely on the given circumstance: that she would be absent for two weeks and that he would miss her strenuously. Once upon a time, not even so long ago, he would have been petrified, agonizing over the fear that not only would she go, but when she did, she would not return.

Here, now, he trusted her, and believed wholly that she would. It was only a matter of time.

In honor of their ‘last night’ together for some time, both had wanted to dedicate the evening to each other’s company, and decided that part of it could involve experimenting with a new recipe to try together. Given the already waning hour, the sun only a handful of lengths from the approaching horizon, Detraeus suspected Ara would want to start in soon. So, with a last glance to the surrounding town, Detraeus started for the door, and slipped inside.

Detraeus moved in. After shutting the door behind him, he stepped up before Ara and propped an arm at the back of the couch, bracing himself as he leaned down to kiss her. Light and chaste, he withdrew after only a moment, but let his gaze linger on her afterwards. Assessing.

She’d been stressed as of late, for understandable reasons, and though he couldn’t personally relate, it was part of the reason he persisted in not pressuring her to stay. Ever since getting the news, it had seemed to weigh heavy on her mind, and his desire not to be apart from her in this case was selfish. If she needed time without him, so be it. Still, part of him wanted to follow her. Wished he could breach his way into the Plane and ascertain her safety while there. Worried that something drastic would occur while she was out of his reach.

He pushed the concerns from his mind and brushed his lips over her forehead. “Decided?” he asked.

“Mm. Very,” Detraeus answered.

So, recipe at hand, they went to work. Detraeus made the most of every opportunity to steal contact, everything from brief, subtle bumps or brushes, to quick kisses and trailed touches. They worked for quite some time, but process was enjoyable enough in and of itself, and the result more than worth the effort. By the end, though, after having eaten and as they were beginning to clean up, Detraeus felt the tug anxiety. The darkness outside their window promised that soon, the morning would come to steal away the woman at his side, and nothing he did could stop it.

After finishing with the bulk of the clean up work and towel drying his hands, he came up behind Araceli, slipping his arms in and around to lay over her stomach and pressing his lips to the back of her shoulder.

‘Don’t leave,’ lingered on the tip of his tongue, painfully insistent, but he managed to curb it. Instead came the words: “Take me with you…” An impossible request, he knew, but one he felt the need to voice anyway, simply to get the desire across regardless of its implausibility. “You can stow me away amongst your clothes.” He touched his lips to her throat. “Or pass me off as a very exotic, ‘harmless’ pet…”

Detraeus carded his fingers into Ara’s hair, kissing the crown of her head and shutting his eyes. It wasn’t often that he thought much of anything of their differing races. He’d never, originally, considered that he would find himself in any form of relationship and had not dedicated thought, therefor, to which race he might prefer if he did. It wasn’t a subject for consideration.

Araceli had fallen on him.

Literally, in some cases. And now…

He caught at her waist, coiled his tail, and lifted, hoisting her neatly up onto the counter. Stepping between her knees, he grazed his fingers down along the upper edge of her thighs and leaned in to place a kiss to her stomach. “Were I dragonborn…” he said, “or were you a daughter of Soudana…we would not have this issue. But…” His fingers skimmed back up, teasing the under edge of her top and slipping beneath it to trace skin, “…I like your scales, in all the places that they are…it only frustrates me that there are places you may go where I cannot follow.”

“Mm.” Detraeus hesitated only a moment before grunting, pushing up into the kiss and sliding his hands back. Catching her weight and coiling his tail beneath and around her again like a hammock, he lifted her back up off the counter, and out, but did not deposit her. Instead, after encouraging her legs to wrap around him with a guiding nudge of his hands, he started towards the bedroom.

Once in, he closed the door behind them with a tap of his boot and pressed her to it. His hands skirted up, ushering the cloth of her top higher, but not off, and his mouth found her throat: kissing, and then suckling as his tail flicked, the concept ‘mine’ highly prevalent. For all the practical issues it might cause her, part of Detraeus wanted her leaving for the Plane with some evidence of his passing.

Visible proof, to ward off her fellow dragonborn.