how many years, decades, centuries had it taken for vesper to shake himself free of the lingering dread he'd felt around water? a great fear that had followed him through many ages, one he'd only whittled at with rough, impatient fingers, here and there like a project he didn't really have the time forโthat is, until he'd fallen so quietly in love with a dragon of the sea. perhaps, in truth, he'd have conquered his apprehensions far sooner if he'd put his heart and mind to it, before now.
maybe now was the perfect time, lulled into in a warm, soothing sleep against the edge of the hot baths. he'd come here alone, mind hazy with the delirium of insomnia, a raging sleeplessness he'd been suffering with for weeks now as his implants acted up and left him straddling the line of numbness and pain. he'd let himself in just for an ounce of rest, of healing perhaps, and of all the places he'd figured he might find it, drifting off unguarded in the bath was certainly the last thing he'd expected.
he'll have time to marvel at the ease with which he slept within the water sometime after he awakes. for now, he rests. if he's lucky, he'll wake up just as he drifted off: upright, breathing easy, with his silver-haired head laid on the tiled bath's edge.
vesper lets himself in unannounced now. there was a comfort to that dan heng couldnโt describe, but felt at peace with all the same. the hidden residency, itโs trelisโd shelter now flowering with the coming of spring, had been such a hard place to call home in the beginning, where the remnants of dan feng and all the imbibitor lunae before him had left marks the archivist was too fearful to erase. the fact that dan heng could not call his inheritance his own, that vesper could too, it made the residency feel more like a sanctuary than an abandoned building filled with waterlogged memories.
time to relax and unwind after his post amphoreus rehabilitation often resulted in coming here, a place untouched by the horrors he had experienced in that digital plane. here he could freely shift into his bestial form, large expanse crooning in gentle rumbles as his large body enveloped the edge of this pool twice over, looking after his beloved with affection. drifts of misty cloudhymn breathed out with each exhale, itโs soothing properties coming down in prayer-laden sheets of healing.
slow-blinking the dragon settled his large head close, as close as he could get without breathing on him, the ends of his tail slipping behind vessโ neck and the poolโs edge to cushion his head. like that, dan heng could fall into a similar stupor of slow-paced resting, drifting into an easy daze to his loverโs heartbeat. he'd missed this.