EVERYTHING. OH. EVERYTHING SINGS.

wanting to say, tell me how you crossed the threshold of that temple, an object of desire made manifest. tell me how you stepped across the marble, it matters to me, what you're thinking now.

hand to mouth, a sip of his wine, sating his desire to press lips to skin. not wanting to kiss her snarling mouth, the jaw full of sharp teeth, but to her hands, the thinness of her wrists, the sweet slope of her too tense shoulders. a remembrance done in flesh and blood, a present tense caring to hide himself in.

his lips over hers and his smile like the first ray of the sun at the break of day. 

there had been mercy in the darkness of the shadowlands - a realm that had not been bleached and blighted by the sun; but something darker. stranger. the night warden finds no such mercy on the road to the gate - her eyes are pained, sensitive; skin now heavily freckled - another mark of shame, another reminder that she is so far from home; and will never return. the night, at least, provides relief - temporary. welcoming. it is almost a pity, then, that the wizard does not grant her the lenience that the stars and shadows always had.

her eyes are burning, blurred - they often are these days; squinting up in the light that streams in from the haphazardly tied flap of her tent, keenly aware of gale against her, the memory of him; and that she did not have the sense to turn him away after they had finished. a weakness of both the mind and the heart; and the wizard had repaid her with distracted hands that could not hope to replicate her own regimented fingers.

head turns sidelong, burying into the warmth of his neck and away from the offending sun - it does little to alleviate the pain in her eyes; a soft sound of displeasure as she feels gale shift against her - waking, moving when she has not yet given him leave to.

" wizard. " an edge of admonishment in her voice with no heat; a blade the night warden sheathes for the time being; half-lidded eyes watching him warily as he moves; sluggish, unworried - far too comfortable for someone who is caught in her web ( there is another thought, barely simmering in the haze she has found herself in - gale is not so much tangled in her web as she is tangled in him ); but she allows him this - the privilege of not turning him away when she is satiated; the ability to touch her, and come away unscathed.

his lips are soft against the tender underside of her wrists, ghosting over bone and veins - an act of tenderness so sweet it may as well have been violence; red, red eyes fluttering shut at the sensation against the palms of her hands, her calloused fingertips as she hums in approval, fingers combing through his greying hair. wizard, she calls him - as if she does not know his name. as if she has not sighed it into his mouth and whispered it against his neck, his ear under the cover of darkness. his lips to her shoulders, her collarbones - no longer guarded or sharp as she ought to have been. no longer a blade, but a woman; raw and real. an exposed nerve, painful to the touch - ugly in some lights. her hand in his hair, slipping down to cradle the back of his neck and as with all things, the night warden holds on too tightly.

a part of her wishes to speak - to tell him that this silence suits him, that his deference does, too; sharp jabs to his underbelly where he is vulnerable. but the wizard ( no. her wizard. ) has yet to bring a blade to her back or a spell to her skin - and a moment is a moment that will be gone too quickly with the morning light; better left savoured, and kept for herself. instead, she curls into him - closer when she presses against his chest; when her leg, lithe and long, drapes over the curve of his hip. her body, always primed and ready for a battle she knows is imminent, melts into him - relaxes when she heaves a shuddering sigh.

his lips continue - the burn and drag of his beard against her sensitive skin; shuddering under the touch, leaning into him - looking up into the darkness of gale's eyes, the dawn of his smile, her own fingers tracing the lines of the netherese orb that curls down his cheek, cupping his jaw when he kisses her, all wanting; gentle. a gentleness she is still unused to, angling his head when they part so that she does not have to see the part of him that belongs to another, when she has marked him all the same - when he is hers, entirely.

" if your mind has not been muddied by those scrolls you consume - " a kiss to his jaw, her lips lazily trailing kisses up to his ear, nipping there. " - when you come to me tonight, ensure that you secure my tent properly. " another kiss - another mark of ruin; and when the night warden speaks, the venom she has laced herself with is nowhere to be found. all talk. " if you cannot obey, i will ensure that you do; and you will find no pleasure - nor the promise of it. "

despite it all, or perhaps because of it, maglor is bent over their companion's arm to soothe his pain. strands of dark hair interspersed with white have loosened from the long, heavy braid they wear it in, falling to the sides of the elf's face while they spread a thick, cooling salve over wyll's skin. the only betrayal of their inner turmoil is the slight tremble of their hands, not so easily disguised even when scarred fingers carefully hold in place the bandage, while the other hand wraps it around his arm.

he tips a bowl of melody into the night, murmuring ancient words as though to balm with them the bandage and wrap his gentle song around the wound alongside it. the lull of it is deep and calming, less weary and regretful than most of his song in recent decades. it seems almost a touch of home, as if the elf only remembered its words as they formed upon their lips, surprising even themself with the memory. how long has it been since they sang a healing song? not since they held elrond's little hand and sang for his scraped knee. though it is hardly singing now, more of a murmured hum, with brief glimpses of the skill that lies beneath.

❛ there, ❜ maglor concludes at last when he is satisfied, testing one final time the tightness of the bandage before releasing the other's arm back into his own control. it is only then that dark eyes lift their gaze, now bleeding less concern than earlier they were. ❛ you should be alright until morning, given you're careful. ❜ tucking his hands away, he offers consolation. ❛ with some luck, it will not scar. ❜

hands, trembling and perfect pressed to heated skin, stuttering along burns emblazoned into flesh, how their song falls over him like silk against skin. aching to return that tenderness, the first lick of flame across him and it had felt, for the barest moment like a homecoming, easy as answering the call of your name. for all that he's left bits and pieces of himself strewn along dirt roads and in village gutters this he holds onto, when he's long since left his identity drifting along in some stream - lost. philanthropist of self, his mud caked titles and names, his patchwork living, little by little he's unraveled himself with his own hands, and here, these dying bits of personhood respond with an old longing. kindness, like new sprouts pushing through soil.

tell me, like an overburdened leaf, wet with morning dew, bowing to the weight of a new day, have you learned like i have, that you must bend before you break? does the dew dry all at once?

their song and it feels like the burbling of a brook, quiet and self contained, as if any jubilance that was once felt must be harvested. sat here, soothed, and what kind of beast is he, that music affects him this way? and what kind of beast is he, here and dreaming of blood? wondering if he'll leave the space rust stained. bloody. if it will just be wyll asking, how much blood is too much? a pint in the stomach will make you sick he knows, he's experienced it, but a few drops here, there, will that ruin the softness? will that stain the cotton? how many people, good, bad, how many people rest their heads on bloody pillows and sleep well?

his hand, unshaking, catching the threads of shadow and moonlight spilled around him like ink, or the first edges of an oil spilled night. the strands are fine and soft against his skin, and he's careful, so careful not to pull, not to tug, already, always, feeling something of a bumbling fool in his eyes. as maglor so carefully wove a healing into song, wyll threads their hair back, tucking it into the heavy plait it's fallen from.