Welcome to Gaia! ::

Spring came to Ayr in bursts of rose, mauve, honey-gold and white over the green slopes and up the rocky stacked mountains and spires. Flowers bloomed in the fields and in between rocks, in nooks and caves, and up the cliffsides. The scents of them washed down over the open plains, through the narrow canyons and along the trickling riverbanks.

Over the weeks and months since their departure from Eowyn, Detraeus and Araceli had worked at their own pace, but steadily, on the new house on Ayr. It sat, perched, at the upper end of a climbing cliff face, coated in a thick blanket of soft wild grass and overlooking a narrow, but ever-pouring waterfall that rushed over and down the nearby ravine and into the lake and valley below. From the riverbank at the base, several lush and untamed but fruit-bearing trees grew, and in the shade of one, Detraeus could look up and see the shape of their house, elevated on the high plain.

When, finally, the house reached its final stages, they began arrangements for their ceremony. It was, they both agreed, to be a simple thing. After all, it was for them, and not the rest of the world. Closest friends and family came in attendance, including their children — when Ataya was finally found for contact — Araceli’s parents, Casseth and his mate and children, and Kilian. Despite the lack of grand ceremony, however, when they stood together on that bluff with the spring winds dancing through the folds of Araceli’s white dress and exchanged their vows, Detraeus could not imagine a moment of greater happiness.

When he kissed her, she was his and he hers, and the union they had recognized for decades now in their hearts had a rite of ritual in their name — for the gods, and any else who cared to see, with or without their approval.

“I love you,” he told her, and marveled silently how impossible the easy words had once seemed—and how much they meant, now. “You are the only perfect woman on this earth.”

Detraeus grunted softly, and though arguments arose in his mind as to her perfection, to him, for the sake of lack of argument, he let them rest. After the exchanging of vows, they spent the remainder of their evening comfortably, enjoying the time and company of those closest to them. A meal was prepared, thorough and delicious — though far from ‘extravagant’ — and satisfying to all.

Their company stayed with them through the evening and the meal, congratulating them and sharing stories and small gifts, including one from one of Detraeus’ closest friends over the years, Malta, who had not been able to make attendance due a wave of illnesses blighting her encampment and children in particular. She had delivered to them, though, a great basket including a variety of flower-bearing, fruit-bearing, and herb-growing seeds, an assortment of actual fruits and medicines, and fresh meat from encampment, preserved through careful spellwork, to bless their long-prolonged ceremonial union.

At the end of the evening, though, all seemed to silently agree it proper to give the ‘newly mated’ couple the space of their new home to themselves, and their guests eventually drifted off to their own spaces, leaving Detraeus with his mate alone before their new home. Though it had been available, they had left the house largely unlived in other than for the occasional storm, and it would be their first full, ‘proper’ night in it, together.

Overhead, the great galaxy twinkled, winking white stars down at them through the enveloping navy canopy of the night sky. A gusty, scented breeze whistled soft and crisp over the lands, and in the far distance, night creatures whispered, but besides them, the world was empty but for their occupancy.

Detraeus glanced to his mate — the way the moonlight trickled over her white dress and caught on her fair cheeks and glinted over the shape of her scales — and he reached out, brushing his fingers up her wrist. “You are beautiful…today and this moment as you have ever been…does this place make you happy?”

Detraeus flushed, leaning into her kiss and then moving at her tug as surely as a leaf guided by the current. He remembered, surely as yesterday, his initial insecurities with her — the way he balked at her touch even after he began to want it — and the way it had frightened him so to share private spaces with her. Now, however, as they slipped into the cool dark of their home, broken only by moonlight slipping through the windows or doorways to spill down onto the floorboards: he was content. Relaxed. Thrilled.

Confident.

And comfortable.

All but immediately after crossing the threshold into their living room, he gathered her closer to him, winding his arms around her middle, and brushing his lips up her throat. “Not Aisko,” he grunted. “But here…yes.”

Stooping down a fraction, he slipped an arm under her legs, gathering her up and carting her the remaining distance: through the den, up the stairs, into the bedroom, and onto the untouched bed. He set her there, though, on its edge, tail sweeping leisurely side to side as he eyed her.

“What do you think…” he murmured, thumbing gently up the shape of her flat stomach, the folds of her dress still keeping him from skin, “…does this house need children, like the last had?”

Detraeus grunted, shifting and then nodding as he settled himself over her. This was their moment, after all. He couldn’t pin why, precisely, the thought of more children continued to press at him. He had never expected the two he got, and certainly never anticipated more, but — after eighteen years with them, no matter how deeply he loved his mate — there was a certain want that missed the extra presence of a child. For the moment, however, he tucked the thought away.

Araceli was, and always would be, the center of his world. His universe.

She was, in the end, more than enough and more than he ever deserved. So, together, they rehearsed the ‘process’ with care and practiced skill, each knowing the other as well as they knew anything else in the world. By the time they lay still in the aftermath, silent and satiated, the question of children still lingered in the back of his mind. But, remembering the flicker of her expression and how it seemed to dim her enjoyment of the moment that was theirs, Detraeus let the subject rest, drawing his fingers silently up and down her belly gently instead and kissing her shoulder.

“The stars are out,” he said, though he didn’t move and his voice remained quiet. The light from the night sky, though, spilled in — an efflorescent, white-blue — from the balcony by their room. “Would you like to count how many look over us and rehearse again, or stay here where it is warm, and sleep…” With the last words, he tucked a kiss against her hair, eyes shutting.

Detraeus paused as Araceli’s fingers caught his, stilling them. Her skin lay warm beneath his fingertips and he left his eyes shut, breathing the scent of her hair and her body near to him, feeling the rise and fall of her chest and the intimacy that came with a private space and moment shared between just the two of them.

When she turned and kissed his forehead before slipping out of bed, his gaze followed her, tracing her shape, dark, against the bright white of moonlight and soft as it slipped and shifted through the shadow and out onto the balcony. Her hair, like wild ink, rippled and fell loose down her body, catching the breezes and swaying with her.

Eventually, he too slipped out of bed, tracing her footsteps and letting his attention slip and drop down over the curves of her body when she turned to face him. He moved into the space in front of her, fitting himself loosely against her and resting his fingers on the rail as the smooth back of his tail curved up her calf.

“I want you,” he said. “You and your happiness, first, foremost, and before all else…” After dusting a kiss to her nose, to her cheek, and then to her lips, he said, “But…if another child of ours could come into this world without damaging those…then…” His lashes lifted, gaze catching hers and holding it. “Yes…perhaps. I…miss the presence of our children,” he admitted. “They were near the most precious gift you ever gave me, second only to yourself, and I know we will never again be younger than we are this moment, but…” His fingers swept the curve of her waist. “What we have now…it is more than enough. I promise you. If you do not wish for another…so be it.”

Detraeus flushed, nodding, and let the subject slip away. He, too, was want of some time spent just with her. As much as he did miss his children, the time they had had thus far — out on the open wildlands of the windy continent upon which they had first truly begun to become each the other’s — it was precious to him.

So, with the both of them finally ‘mated’, now by history, emotion, mind, action, and ceremony alike, they spent the remainder of the night on each other and each other alone. He sampled the way Ayr’s moonlight and starlight tasted mixed on her skin and they took their time, for they had no reason to rush, and no fear they would be interrupted.

The world, in this small section of it that they claimed their own, was theirs for the taking and keeping.