From being an Abandoned who had rarely left the Hollowed Grounds, to embracing the call of adventure, to dying and being reborn first as an Ascended and then as an Ancient, Maea has gone through quite the amount of changes in her life. One thing remains common, though, in her attempts to find out just where she belongs; she’s always had a craving for knowledge which has brought her to so many places and to meet so many people here in Caido. We can’t wait to see what else is in store for her!
Congratulations, Maea!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
Skinning and hosting by the epically talented Kaons, and functionality fanciness by the coding magic of Neowulf. If you ever see either of them around, make sure to show them some love!
Renewal and resurgence, not in vengeance, not in blood or chaos, not in mayhem or malice, but their own course of wickedness, settling in amongst hearts and souls, brandished without weapons, without steel, without iron. They were games and orchestrations for them to whittle upon when things threatened to become too deep, too true, too real, when faced with emotions and sentiments otherwise unexpressed. It was joviality, light and fragmented, to ease away notions – afraid, nervous, apprehensive in some aspects of exploration, and entirely too keen and bold in other sojourns. But he’d laid out a challenge, blunt and keen, an impassioned, committed expression when so much more seemed capable of slipping away, the outside world an uncertainty, but the one within these walls, these figures, these individuals, a more vivid capture of what he chased, of what he yearned, of what he craved. The play and nature seemed to be the same though; shaking heads in disbelief, disconcerted, misunderstanding the layers and lacquer that others had noticed, that others had seen, that others had hankered and hungered for. Her cheeks blushed and the rosy hue indicated too many semblances of the same kind – that they were silly and foolish and blind.
Instead of maneuvering his own head in doubt, he stared at her, something akin to wonder and perplexities courted in his stare. Constancy he could understand – because that was who’d he been from the very beginning, a composed figure on the summit, on the cliffs, on the water’s edge, determined and committed, no matter what task he would undoubtedly have to face. He didn’t veer off amidst incorporeal directions. He didn’t slide into mercurial semblances. He stayed the course.
Humor on the other hand, did cause him to laugh. No one would have ever accused him of having great depth to his amusements.
Taking care of others had never been something he’d thought of either – automatic, instinctual, inherent, forged somewhere between soldier, warrior, knight, general, and King; a camaraderie he wouldn’t have shared if still left in his detached, isolated ventures, if he still brooded and brewed, if he still claimed nonchalance in the vehemence of war. It was an expectation on the battlefield, to look after his brethren, his kin, his allies, as he ran and seethed, as he tore worlds apart.
Her inquiry causes the laughter on his lips to balk, soothing it back into its Cheshire state, eyes lifting to the ceiling, as if mulling over the contortions with great pain and stagnation. “When did I know…” he uttered, trailing off, pretending he was stalling for time, for infinite moments to think back. Except he already knew, had already understood all those points, all those instances, all those raw, real intervals where he glanced at her differently, where she was something and someone other than another person in the background, another figure he strived to avoid, another inhabitant of a world he didn’t understand. His stare was vivid and sharp on her again within a breath. “I think it was the pumpkin scones,” a tease, a measure to prolong the game, and then the truth, spiraling and curling, coiling in earnest, in warmth, in everything that laid between. “When we sang,” the warrior started, the list continuing, bright, luminescent, when so much had been cloudy and dark. When you died didn’t come into the void; the way his heart had raced and pulsed and he’d be convinced he’d be burying someone else. “When we destroyed your bakery,” intoned with a chuckle, deep and ricocheting off the basin’s design. Then he leaned closer, a veracious approach. “When you accepted me. When you did not leave me on my own.” When you did not leave me to sputter around in anguish, in melancholy, in the ashes and embers that I thought to burn within. Maybe that was enough. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe he'd have to give her more and more and more; show rather than say.
But then she maneuvered back into his embrace, and he was lost again, turning on lines of instinct and affection; surrounded by her limbs once more, comfortable and rapacious. He loosened a few rumbles as her hands wound their way into his hair, the mane besieged with shampoo, lathered, devotion on all counts – he permitted it, obeyed it, and dove into his own devoutness, hands keeping her in place, strong and stalwart, while his teeth, tongue, and lips savored their slow descent along her neck and down to her collarbone.
She drinks in each memory, each pledge, parched and starving in the desert, wondering and wide-eyed and newly entranced. Scones and songs, luxere and laughter, moments and glances have added up, becoming more than a single moment, more than a single drop. It is a torrent, a flood, every whispered innocent greeting, every time their eyes met and she felt that something more. Ruined bakeries, acceptance and love; she isn't sure when she did not leave him, because she cannot fathom ever leaving, ever slinking from his light. Slender fingers skirt across his cheek, caressing, adoring, her face rosy, her smile shy and sincere. How to say the things she feels, to aptly convey the weight of her emotion, the way he has brought light to her life again and again and again?
"I can't wait to dance with you again, next Fiat Lux," Amalia murmurs, onyx gaze meeting his blue, searing brightly in his sky. I will love you for a year, and another one after, and each one after that.
She smiles and murmurs as his hands close on her waist, leaning into the onslaught of lips, trying to focus on her self-appointed task even as his embrace distracts and entrances. Fingers lather through his long mane, massaging and playing and gently detangling - and truly, can she be blamed if her task brings her forward, pushes her body more closely to his? Her legs lock easily around his waist, a comfortable, familiar position for them now; she takes her time lathering his hair, arching as his mouth reaches her collarbone. "You aren't making this easy-" but it is a half-hearted protest, her body clearly wild and wanton, happy with his attention, happy to take and take.
When as last the soap is to her satisfaction Amalia lowers down, slipping firmly into his lap, her hips pressed against his. She lets her arms hang over his shoulders as she moves to capture his lips, thoroughly distracted, young and hungry, a brazen and wild youth in heat.
It had always taken a series of moments to coax him, to peek over the walls and fortifications of his own corruption and creation; but he’d been allured, entranced, and inveigled, curiosity encouraging him to follow, a beckoning siren song begging him to approach. It had been in her eyes and in her smile and in her soul, and his had strived to match them somehow, someway, making him a far better creature, cretin, fiend, fool, than he’d ever been – breaking down and falling apart and coming together again. His reverence was for her and her alone; the memories like brushstrokes, the canvas, the tapestry, of too many sights and sounds, and he’d been deigned to name them all if given half the chance, half the moment, breathless wanton things scheming and beguiling upon the other. He was possessed, but only by her, and his essence accepted that with such an avaricious grasp, clawing its feral, wild, untamed devotions. Her hands were on his cheeks and for an instant his gaze riveted back to hers, black, onyx, sable, her murmuring soft and sweet while his smile intensified into Cheshire gambits and the comfort in their mischief, in their mayhem. “I cannot wait to win again,” he teased, he taunted, maneuvering close to her ear, tongue and teeth reaching to whisper along the shell. “What will be my reward this time?” He wanted her to shudder, to quiver, in his hands, in his hold, brought and persuaded and shifted straight back into their wiles, their pleasures; the other things left unsaid, unspoken, unless she craved the corporeal tangible versions. Me either - to either bombard poor local inhabitants on their innocent charades, to embark in the most ridiculous of follies, or just to be together, without the damned world on their shoulders.
He was purposefully distracting, a menace, as she sought to continue cleaning his mane. He should’ve been appreciative, though a few purrs rectified and encouraged the measures, gaze hooded, then shut briefly, enjoying, contented. But then she was back in his fold, in his embrace, in his orbit, and he was attentive, lips smirking against her skin as he caressed pathways to her chest, mouth soft and dulcet, petalsoft, light kisses intentionally goading, provoking, incising, kindling, rousing. “I know,” he hissed, pleased with himself, despite the suds and soap lathered in his hair; tongue intent on ravishing further and further, until her arms were on his shoulders. The beast lifted his head back, blue stare adorned and traced with lust, with satisfaction, with all the shameless, savage predilections scorching in their sights. Then they reeled to her lips, lifting his chin to meet her mouth, hungry, avaricious, urging, beseeching, one hand unwinding to the back of her neck, the other still on her waist, closer it insisted; audacious and impudent.
She shivers as his lips trace her ear, a low growl drawn from between her lungs, her body shuddering and wrapping against his. There is no part of her prepared to answer the question he poses; her senses are wrapped up in his ministrations, her mind briefly blank to anything but base, feral urge. He knows how to ruin her, to bring her down to building blocks, putty in his hands, nothing but instinct and quivering desire: yours and yours and yours. "Whatever you want," she manages to mumble, though whether in response to his question or his actions remains unclear as her eyes flutter open, her heartbeat racing, hooded and panting with her lip between her teeth.
Neither of them are done, however, never finished with their game. The water is only lukewarm by now, but she does not feel it in the heat of his embrace, emboldened and incensed by his renewed ardor, easily distracted by his wiles. He rises to meet her and she gives him her all, greedy and gasping, lingering and touching, her tongue plundering into the depths of his mouth. Eager hands slip into his hair, tangling among the soapy locks; she clings with avarice and ardor, willingly pressing into his embrace. Her body slides down slickly along his, and she feels him pressed to every inch.
Amalia is not shy in her desires; her hips curl brazenly against his own, an invitation, an unsaid demand. More, because she cannot have enough, not of him, his body, his touches, his love. Urgent, impatient, she bucks against him, making her intentions crystal clear. She isn't sure how the water will affect the sheath, but she is already too far gone to care; besides, she trusts in Phoebe's herbs, the mixture taken diligently every day.
He’d already built her altar, her shrine, with his hands and confessions, and between the reverent prayers and the wanton ministrations, any other pretense was a lost cause. He took her shivers and their absolutions, their lack of inhibitions, their signs and signatures of undone fixtures; senses driven to seduction and unholy distinction, melding and molding with his, rapture in their ensconced haven. Whatever you want was just a phrase; he had no response other than adoration and devotion, figments of his adulation in bold, fiendish whispers, in feral sensations, in the rivulets of their longing. Two halves and two hearts and two souls bound in the simmering, smoldering fervency and ardency of their desires, and he didn’t hold anything back, not like before, before, before, savage intimacy unrivaled now. They were both greedy and grasping and avaricious and rapacious, acquisitive clenching and holding that neither paid any heed to; proffered, offered, without a perishing thought or whim, beholden to their ardor, their love, their scintillating benedictions: the very few he ever gave whittled and carved and sculpted for her. His body was hers, rising, devoured in the same way that he consumed her flesh; her tongue against his, an unspoken challenge as figures ignited and slid. Every curve, every edge, every arc, every undulation his and hers and hers and his; perfection in their impatience, in their urgency, in their
The shyness, the vulnerabilities, any and all reticence had long since shattered – fully aware of what the other craved and hankered. He gave into her demands because they were the same as his more, in wild, wild, abandon, more in an aching, glorified triumph, more in a persistent, growling intention, more in the hissing, grinding esteem. Perhaps they were both mercenaries, perhaps they were both victors, perhaps they were both fixated on and in and around; one hand slid to endow himself with the sheath, the briefest glows barely caught by the water, ensuring it stayed. It lingered back along her waist, waiting, the other trailing its way down to join; invitations extended with little preamble; the preludes already there, beckoning minstrels of time and moments shared. Then she bucked against him, an insistent, declared command, and he smiled against her lips, laughter echoing and bounding off a sharpened inhale, gaze hooded, and closed, and he maneuvered his hips, up, and up, and up, slowly, carefully, intricately, until it was just them again.
She whimpers and moans, sings his hymns, praises in sweet, shuddering exhalations, in mewls and gasps and rumbling purrs. There is no shyness in her onslaught, nothing hidden or withdrawn: she wants him, wanton and unabashed, unafraid to make her desires known, to clearly broadcast her avarice, her greed. Is this trust? Is this love? To be finally freed from insecurity, from anxiety, to be so brightly illuminated by another that you cannot even see your own shadows? He is her noonday sun, her midnight star, and she can bloom and thrive beneath him, her broken pieces briefly forgotten as he covers her flaws, fills her up.
Ah, and does he ever- the girl gasps sharply as he enters her, bottom lip between her teeth, something halfway between a laugh and a groan whipping, smoke-like, through the room. Dark eyes flutter heavily closed, a grin illuminating her angular features as her head hangs back, her neck exposed. "Hnng." It is a slow descent, languid, sultry, a little bit teasing, a little bit cruel. She wants to draw him out until he breaks, takes the things he wants from her - the same game, and she is doomed to lose, but oh, if it isn't fun to play a little, to pretend she has any pretense of control, that she isn't entirely at his mercy. Ah, but she is, and happy to be so, his plaything, his toy, a beacon for his pleasure.
Finally, Amalia brings herself down, her hips locked in against his for a moment as she holds herself there, caught in his embrace. Eyes opening at last, they are lit with onyx fire, bright and burning, heavy and heady, lust and mischief raging war in the grin she bears, the arch of her brow. Slowly, slowly, she rises again, her toes curling keenly on the floor of the tub, her hands on his shoulders for leverage, grip tight. Make me, the challenge is written on her face as she stretches the moments and tries to suppress her own shuddering need. Please-
Because fuck how he feels, she can't hold out for much longer than this.
The game is the same, both wanting to draw the other to release, to liberation, to deliverance, to heights they’ve reached before and then higher, consuming selfless chords on the fumes of smoke and sighs. He took and he filled and he brandished every chord, every string, plucking on tones and decibels and tones he hasn’t arched before; hips thrusting forward on a slow, leisurely crawl, drawl, inclination, tracing foundations and fortifications. There were delicate details in those arches and lilts, ardent salutations on evening raptures and undone piety, bending on a groan loosened, mouth dragging deliberately down, down, down, starting from her cheek and down to her exposed neck. His lips found her pulse and sketched a husky hallelujah on her skin; a hiss, a moan, a gasp, a plea; eyes only following the lines of her cheeks, the rise of her eyelids, the snap of bright, scintillating, smoldering fire. He wanted to take it all for himself, every inch of every movement and moment, a piercing, demolishing avarice slipping in the bones of his ribs. He had no idea what his gaze christened or anointed now, the composure gone but the control barely maintained, sizzling and searing down through his thighs, his loins. The beast leaned back against the basin and maneuvered, moved, met her on highs and lows, their stretched, taut rhythm pervaded, surrounded, by the touches of water; echoing on the ricochet of their pleasure.
She braced against him and his eyes met hers again, wandering beacons of shudders, a tremulous venture raking along his spine, insistent, gaze hooded in the midnight oils, in the fires and flames licking over their contortions, their distortions, their sounds, their desires. He could see the challenge in her depths, and it sent a growl, a muffled, nearly inaudible howl down through the muscles of his chest, coiling in the undulations of his abdomen, make me imploring and beckoning, and he chased, he chased, he chased. The heathen altered his course, delicately, deliberately slow, bending them both like bows, thrusts of affection, devotion, the only prayers he’d ever to send to any deity (her). Caught in that lustful, shadowed haze, the motions were meant to send her along the edge, the fringe. Torturous in his demeanor, because he waited, persistent to the end, you first unwinding from molten, infernal seduction, the please and pleas in the unspoken vows, swallowing and devouring the encouragements, the sounds, the decibels. Love was in his actions, the only eloquence he’d ever been able to muster – for you, on a sigh, on a growl, on a moan, on a grin.
He responds with as much playful patience as Amalia has come to expect, teasing and taunting, rising to each challenge, responding with mischief and adoration, pushing and compelling until she breaks, his name on her lips, her need in his hands. Is it wrong to revere him with such fervor, to find solace and absolution in his touch? No, she thinks- no, their bodies were made by Rae, compelled by Frey, given the ability to love and lust and shudder and shiver by the will of the gods. It is a new sort of reverence, of piety, of prayer, one she has never sought to engage in, never before him.
She makes an altar of his body and lays down hymns, sings praises to the moon and sun, offers herself again and again, happy to be captured, compelled, his and his and his. Their eyes meet and the girl shudders, grinning, red-faced, wild and free, devouring his growls, basking in the knowledge that she brings forth such sound. Slowly, steadily, they move in tandem, frenzy abandoned for purpose and love, intimacy in the way he plays her body, eliciting songs and gasps from her lips.
The curve of her spine increases, arching, pleasure drawing every line of her supple form taught as she descends again, their hips once more meeting, fire and desire blooming through her loins. Surrender makes her body shudder; she lets him continue to set the pace, compliant and needy, no longer aching, no longer demanding or in control. Dark eyes close once again as she stifles a growl of a groan, lip between her teeth, hands coiled and clenched on his skin. Incoherent and close to oblivion, she shivers and gasps, his name half whispered, half moaned, half sung. She is on the cusp, easily brought there by his ministrations; she wants to fall off the edge with him, to take them both over that precipice, to crescendo and crash alongside her lover, bliss brought on by his embrace.
His reverence had always been into vehemence and violence, the rapturous efforts of vitriol, animosity, and hostility, so ingrained, so imbedded, so inherent in his muscles, in his brawn, in his movements that to exact anything else seemed unordinary, perplexing. But not here, not now, not in the threshold and boundaries and orbit of her, where the sun rose and fell and the moon basked and the stars glistened behind his eyes – not a holy man, not a pious individual, summoning all his homage, dedication, and devotion to Amalia. He didn’t need gods, he didn’t need celestial beings, he didn’t need veneration: it simmered in his blood for her, for her, for her, a play of worship and adulation to her existence and no one else’s. He wanted to bring her light, guidance, protection, the avaricious dedication of his love and ardency, fervent, diligent oblivion. She was solace and sanctuary, a haven, a luminescent, effervescent beam in his gaze; and he wouldn’t allow it to dim, wouldn’t allow it to fade, wouldn’t allow it to seethe or lose its luster. They offered to one another, bodies and words, forms and figures, incandescent, unsaid things that still brimmed on tongues and loosened from lips – his eyes were hooded and then closed altogether, following the arcs and blends of her skin, smooth paths he’d already memorized, kept sheltered in his heart. His mouth traced and imbibed, drunk on the essence of her, ambrosial and acquisitive, not enough, not enough, sketching an outline of her shoulder, head dipping towards her breasts, inhaling on her fire, exhaling on his growls. “Amalia,” he gleaned and crooned and murmured into her skin, a hint of the impending rise and fall, the only thing he could manage to impart behind his teeth: you, you, you. His movements and motions were still controlled, but all the more barbaric and simmering, a smoldering facet of lines and ligaments and muscles and undulations; hips imploring, inveigling, alluring, beguiling, closer and closer still.
He wondered if she was simply waiting for him; neither first, nor last, together in some lustful folly, and he almost laughed. It was a challenge, rankling and ricocheting down his spine again, igniting the feral knots in his bones and the looming, poignant crescendo embarking in his loins. Ascending, descending, a pattern in their moans, in their gasps, in their salacious, seductive whispers, but he sought for her to claim victory before his. One hand was lowered, tracing over her thighs, soft, light, almost like a breath, like a whisper, like a chaste kiss, until he traced where they were joined, beckoning a flame, intending to bring her over, for her to fall apart in his ministrations, along the echo of their beating hearts.
She can feel his rising urgency, the tension of his body beneath her hips, the way he rises into her hips, filling her and pushing her, always avaricious for more and more and more. A laugh coils roughly from her chest, low and gravelly, coated in a moan. Stubborn, stalwart, she wants to win, to bring him all the way to the brink, to claim his pleasure as her own, holding out until the moment just after his break. Through teeth and lips and ministrations Amalia holds her own, gold hair wild on her shoulders, meeting him measure for measure, moan for moan, her mouth on his head, the shell of his ear, her body pressing closer to his as she seeks to feel him on both sets of lips.
She might have stood a chance against him, might have been able to withstand, were it not for the finger on her inner thigh, teasing its way closer and closer, a threat, a promise, in each caress. Another laugh, this one more guttural, barely anything other than a wanton moan; despite herself the girl bucks, her hips eager and needy as she searches for the impending onslaught, embracing and relishing in her imminent doom. "Deimos," she mewls as he meets his goal, shudder coursing through her body, adoration and adulation in the rapacious grasping of her hands. And as his digits circles her clit she can feel the overwhelming tide, the drowning onslaught, and does not resist, pushing her lips against his skin, singing his praises, moaning his name as wave after wave of pleasure pushes through her, rocking the baker to her core.
They were selfish and selfless persistence intertwined; taking, giving, obtaining, granting, grasping, proffering – only theirs are unspoken, but tangible lines, threads plucked and strummed, a hum in the decibels, an assortment of accompanied lilts and strains. He took her higher and higher, molten and infernal, the tempos cast for her melodies and tunes, the pitch and harmony of a laugh caught within a moan’s reverie. The challenge remained, christening and crooning at his senses, and he held it together purposefully, machinations still at work while their bodies laced and wove, mischief on the prowl with his minatory grace, with his feral eloquence. Caught somewhere in between were her incandescent vows and her wanton sighs; he trailed after bucking hips and desperations, on the fringe, on the brink, on the precipice, growling, intending for her to be the first, only victors here, no spoils. There were a few moments where his composure was almost entirely gone; the roots torn asunder, the foundations cracking and fumbling on shaking, mercenary tangents, the sanction of pleasure, of ardor, too immense, too intense, her mouth on his ear, her breath along his skin.
But she shattered before; and he tried to hide the smirk against the juncture of her neck and shoulder, pressing, caressing, stroking, stoking, fanning the flames there with teeth and tongue along flesh, a rasp as she crashed, as she keened, as she mewled. His name on her lips only made him follow, one hand pressed into her waist, pushing her further into his loins, hips bucking and core rippling, a hallowed sound on his gasp, on the pull of sensations coiling into his soul. Perhaps the only consecration and bliss he’d be allotted, allowed, permitted, shuddering along his frame, his figure, taut and rigid, boneless the next, the overwhelming wake suffocating every nuance except satisfaction, contentment, pleasure; rich and scintillating, driven savage, wild, untamed on its extortions. The beast called her name on a guttural, rapturous interlude, hovered and harpooned its sacred chords on her skin, as his mouth slid, as his head bowed, as he seemed in prayer, in reverential decrees and degrees. His lips found her pulse and savored beneath the quick measures, breath billowing along sated salt, forgetting entirely that his mane was still covered in soap, the rapacity an unearthly, otherworldly contortion rankling through his veins. So he hummed instead, laughing, chuckling, at the amount of distractions instilled.
He follows her down the rabbit hole, and Amalia grins, still shuddering, her body still contorting and racked with shockwaves of lingering, lasting release. He pulls her closer and she gasps again, whimpering as he pushes deeper, filling her with his fervent release, their bodies melded and molded so close that the end of one and the beginning of the other are entirely indistinguishable, skin and sweat and breath and souls bound together, making their broken pieces whole. There is no measure for this degree of pleasure, the awe of being in a lover's arms, brought to completion, raised to precipices, worship and passion replacing loneliness, acceptance a song they harmonize. Her second release of the evening is brighter and more radiant than the first, intimacy tied in ribbons and knots, shuddering down the length of her spine. She can feel it in each of her nerve endings, tingling and trembling, electric and alive.
Shivering, shaking, she relaxes at last, letting the tension of her muscles wane, letting herself fall into his embrace, a quiet chuckle on her lips, a hum of rapture in her chest. Each kiss elicits a soft, pleased murmur, sleepy and soothed, simpering, sultry, appreciation echoed in the way her fingers trace his spine, the aimless patterns in her embrace. It is only when she lower her lips to press against his scalp that Amalia remembers what they have forgotten, sputtering at soap suds in her mouth. "Your hair is full of shampoo," she remarks, trailing fingers to his front, still settled comfortably in his lap. Leaning back, Amalia lets herself sink almost below the surface of the water as she lies upon the porcelain basin, her own golden hair a wreath around her, the lukewarm liquid coating her skin.
Sultry inhibitions, lingering along their passion and seductions, curling deep into his marrow, into his bones, a ravished declaration while his heart sang and his lungs quaked and nothing broke into fragments or pieces. For those moments before, during, and after, he was whole, he was aflame, he was better than nothing and no one, not ash, not embers, not coals, but stoked conflagrations, coming apart and together in as much reverence and rapture as he could ever muster or give. Then there seemed to be nothing but repose, locked and tangled and not dismayed, not brutalized, not barbaric, existing in the presence of sunlight and stars. Purrs of appreciation rumbled and resounded from his chest, softer sighs, lacking their sharpness, their keen, rapier munitions. It was bliss, it was contentment, it was all those moments they hadn’t been able to grasp and hold before – and maybe it made them greedy, maybe it made them wanton, maybe it made them mercenary, avaricious, acquisitive beacons, but he didn’t care. Her fingers traced along his spine and his mouth slid and slipped, purposefully dragged in soft, assuaging pulses, seeking to pervade and surround in his affections, in his ardor, in his fervency. He quivered, he quavered, skin undulating under her piercing touches and light caresses, familiar patterns soothing and curling; an uncoiling, a relaxing tempo and tempest to his muscles.
Her lips ghosted over his scalp, and then seemed to recall they’d been distracted and deterred from whatever actions had taken place prior to scintillations and irreverent hymns; his grin wasn’t remotely sheepish or shy, a Cheshire indication that he’d known exactly what he was doing, and she must’ve as well. “Is it?” He murmured and whispered, entirely aware of the suds curling and foaming upon his mane.
But she tucked herself into his lap, then bent backwards, and his hands around her waist supported while she floated – angelic halos of gold eliciting a snicker, a smirk. He followed, but only for a moment, lowering his head to trace over her sternum, lips arching, sketching, detailing a path to her navel, ghosting along the water’s edges and surface, laughing upon her skin, breath light and reverberating. Only thereafter a quick tease, a swift taunt, did he mimic her motions, finding space between the rim and her, and ducked his cranium down, allowing some of the suds to dissipate into the lukewarm abyss.
He holds her as she falls again, supports her weight in the lapping water, his hands wrapped firmly around her narrow waist. Amalia lets her eyes fall closed, imagining for a minute that they are somewhere else: a sunlit shore, a hallowed sky, the chill water washing over them as they enjoy a morning's sultry breeze. A simpler time, before the world was strange, when all Amalia had to be awed by was the open horizon and the behemoth who held her heart.
A sigh escapes her coral lips, upturned, content, here in his embrace, his fingers on her lower back, his mouth upon her chest. She arcs her sternum up to meet him, humming low at the soft affection, the absolution of his ardor. Goosebumps rise across her skin, a shiver running up her spine; her legs tighten around his waist as she exhales a note of happiness, savoring each moment, each each breath. It is with reluctance that she finally rises, water pouring from her hair as she one more straightens in the tub, her dark eyes open and full of him, and oh, the expression on her face says more than language ever could. Oh, her gaze sparkles, her cheeks cry, Oh, you're here, and everything is okay.
Pushing herself at last from his lap, Amalia reaches for the shampoo, working her hair into a lather as he dips his head into the tub, soap suds rising around his shoulders, his curls dark and smooth as ink. A crooked smile lights her face (it never left, never leaves, always there when he ignites it, lurking in the corners of her eyes); she watches the leviathan's ascent before dipping her own head back into the water, scrubbing dirt and soap from her hair, her face. "There," the baker announces as she ascends, her long locks plastered to her shoulder, the last of the blackberry gone from her cheek. "Now we look civilized enough to fool them all."
