chasing daybreak

It is a slow realisation, her gaze first settling upon a near empty bottle of the scent she favours (one she now knows must have been replaced and not miraculously refilled or forgotten about in a fit of absentmindedness), then one of Aymeric’s scarves folded ever so carefully and set down beside it. A deep blue shirt cast over the back of a chair, the gold stitching about the collar something that he would only grumble about in his own attire. A tangle of flowers and feathers caught forever in one moment in time, that for one day or another had adorned her hair. An ear cuff of a familiar shape and colour; one she knows Aymeric thought had slipped beneath the bed or between the floorboards one morning, and must have been squirreled away by an Estinien whom she recalls was not especially helpful in the search.

The book on the bedside table is one she has heard Aymeric reading to him. Short stories akin to fairytales containing some moral lesson or another that she has known Estinien to pretend to scoff at while draped across their husband’s lap. And the glass meant for tea, though most definitely the work of a Thavnairian craftsperson, is of the same design that he brought back for her one evening and she has been enamoured of ever since.

There is more; little bits and pieces – evidence of them everywhere. Letters in a haphazard stack. The gloves she knitted him. A pocket watch that had ceased to work and that Aymeric had decided to part with in favour of a more reliable mechanism.

She turns, careful not to tangle the sheets about her, and presses a kiss to the line of Aymeric’s jaw before murmuring, “It’s a treasure trove.”

He makes a sleepy, content sound and tightens his arms around her.

“It’s a hoard,” she insists, which invites a funny little quirk of Aymeric’s lips.

“What is?”

“This. Here.”

Whether he is humouring her or not, she cannot precisely tell, but he lifts his head to gaze about the room and take it in anew, then lounges back down and reaches a hand to tenderly brush back her hair.

“Do you believe he knows?” he asks in soft tones that suggest he means not to tease her, but has taken her thought to heart. “That is, that he realises?”

“...I don’t know. I think... if he knew it was obvious, he would have it hidden.”

That Estinien would not have left his heart scattered about the room for all to see.

A thoughtful hum precedes a delicate, “Do you like it?”

“I love it,” escapes her before she has time to form the thought.

Aymeric smiles one of those smiles that makes her heart ache in all the right ways, then drops a kiss against the tip of her nose.

“So do I.”