A BEE IN YOUR BONNET // @hearthalved

Jarlaxle looked at the drider but he couldn't keep his gaze upon them. He didn't like being reminded of the fate of those who the spider queen deemed unworthy.

The differences between how her mornings went when they wasn’t around were abysmal compared to this. Usually, if Asra was in one of their journeys, Nish would wake up before the sun was up. Get out of bed as soon as she opened her eyes, maybe prepare something fast and easy to carry around for breakfast, and walk around the shop making a list of the tasks for the day and advancing some of the work, being it planning quick trips to gather ingredients that were diminishing in the inventory, or preparing some oils or packages that she would have to deliver through the day. Never thinking of going back to bed. Never questioning if she should have stayed there for a little longer.

Not like she was trying to do cuddling against Asra with closed eyes and a soft smile on her lips.

“No…” A brief yawn escaped her mouth and interrupted her words, forcing her into a silence needed to remember what she was about to say before continuing from where she had left. “Now. Perfect.”

Alright, maybe not her wittiest choice of words, but it was the best she could do without being completely awake yet.

Nothing but the singing of a couple of birds outside the window and a few people going on the streets was what it could be heard from that spot. Not even Alwa had started to wander the house in search of her next meal, and Faust’s familiar slide wasn’t present either to her senses. And although that would have made it perfect for her to go back to sleep once more, it was their words what kept her there with a small laugh that was more felt in the trembling of her shoulders than as a sound coming from her mouth.

“We aren’t planning anything, it’s a decision already.” She answered with a teasing tone, nuzzling a bit against their skin and placing a lazy kiss over it before mumbling once more. “Unless you decide to insist on leaving. Won’t be easy but… I’m up for a challenge.”

kissy sentence starters.

That was certainly something she wasn’t expecting to hear. Not exactly because it was them who said it, but because… there had been something distracting at that moment. In that scene. Captivating, hypnotizing even. It had caught her in the moment they arrived, the colors in the water, that even with a dark sky upon it, seemed to glow in contrast of the night, as if every star had descended to submerge in the water for a moment while the moon wasn’t looking. And it had been so relaxing, so peaceful, that the silence that had fallen on them didn’t felt uncomfortable or needed to be interrupted.

Yet, she secretly thanked those were the exact words that ended with that contemplation.

“Well, can’t say I have.” She said looking them in the eyes, with a growing smile that was far contained for the rapid beating of her heart. Her eyes went a moment to their lips, appreciating the inviting form of them, and biting her own for a few seconds of silence before she turned to the lake once more. A soft laugh escaping her mouth as she observed the center of that extent mass of water with blushing cheeks and, dare to say, even a bit nervous. Nothing usual for her, not when she was used to flirting all the time and have the upper hand when it came to flustering the other.

But not with them, not this taken by surprise and not in such an intimate moment.

“But then again, I don’t know the first thing about swimming. Never tried it really, or not that I remember. So if it were to happen…” And one could tell from the tone of her voice that there was both some yearning and some teasing. Some wanting and some make it a childish dare, a game between the two of them that they were absolutely invited to join. “I don’t know, I guess it would have to be with someone who would be up for saving me from drowning. Holding me close… you know what I mean?” She faked innocence, like it was some hypothetical thing they talked about other people in another place.

A sharp smile took over her lips at the moment in which that bit of (very well needed) thought about the company they had in such desperate situation, arrived and unchained in her the relief that had been absent from the start of this whole incident. There was no lie about it, not now that she could remember parts of the past. Parts that explained how her life had ended. Parts that made her scared from the moment that she heard of the beetles coming and how that awoke something under her skin, the feeling of terror and reminiscences of blocked lungs and that monstrous fever.

A part of her felt the sickness coming back, even when it wasn’t real. Even when she knew that it wasn’t but her mind reacting to an event of the past, but still, impossible to be denied.

“Maybe.” She exhaled a soft laugh while turning her eyes to the ground. “But maybe it was all I needed to hear right now, so… thank you. Asra, I mean it. Thank you.”

The confession came in a trembling voice and with her looking more vulnerable than she had ever seemed. She didn’t have the energy to hide it or laugh it off as she would have in another moment. No, neither she wanted to, this was all honesty, and there wasn’t anyone that would understand and accept that more than Asra. She knew that it was like that. She was far too happy that it was like that.

“Alright, alright. The plan. Uh.. the plan, the options. Uh…” She stood up and started to walk around, biting her lips and focusing on the words they had said and trying to identify both the pros and cons of them. What would be the best for them? And at the same time, what would be the best for the people of Vesuvia, the ones that were this close to living once more the terror that had ended with so many lives in the past.

“We have to get to the Palace, we have to alert them of what is coming.” That was one of the priorities for her, as well as their safety. She had lost focus on one on behalf of the other in the past, but she sure hoped she could find a balance between those two this time. Or at least, try it.

“How long do you think those things will take to notice that we escaped? If it’s not much- if they are still going to chase us as soon as we leave we could try to stop a part of them. It… I don’t know, it seems to me that one way or another we will have to fight them, even for that moment that it would take your friend to get there. And if not- well, we should try to get as fast as we can to the Palace. We will have to confront Lucio one and for all, THIS has to end.” Terrified or not, she would have to get out of there and face it. Terrified or not her past would have to be left behind.

Not-So-Secret Crush Starters

Parted lips preceded an exhaled smile when the completeness of those words finally got in her system, making her experience that particular feeling that wasn’t at all foreigner to her since the beginning, since those first memories of her life with them in it, and which translated in a sensation of warmth that flourished in her chest and escalated all the way up to her cheeks.

“You do know that you are not only the guest in my house, but also my master, right? Wouldn’t- it be me who should have done that offer?” She says as if she addressed an audience in the room who is there to observe that particular scene between the two of them. There’s no displeasure or true shame in those words, only a bit of a laugh that tries to hide, or even diminish the color of her cheeks. The one that has got there due to that sweet gesture coming from a person that couldn’t make her feel more loved and protected if they tried. And oh, they seemed to actively try to surpass themselves, which didn’t help at all that little flame of a feeling that she wasn’t completely sure if she was allowed to feel for them.

“But… yes, some- tea sounds nice actually. Thank you.”

The apprentice fixes the little robe that she had put herself to leave bed, and crosses her arms over her body as if to gather a bit of warmth that she seems to need in those parts of the shop where it gets even a bit too cold, even for her which skin always seemed to carry a bit of the sun wherever she went.

nonsexual acts of intimacy: ♟ : Patching up a wound  

Quick yet careful fingers worked their way through the old bandages, removing the gauze that had been adjusted to their body with a silence that wasn’t but complete concentration in the task that she had in hands.

And, well, let’s say it: the worry that had flourished in her at the moment she heard of said wound in the body of her master, and the number of mental scenarios that could have led to a result such as that.

“How…” She stopped, her initial idea being replaced by something that came out with a smile instead of the feelings of apprehension that she had felt in a start. “How cliché would it be to tell you that I’d hate to see the other guy?”

And with that little joke the apprentice stood up from her place over the bed, gathering the amount of compresses that Asra have had on them when they arrived, and making sure twice to not let any of those behind as to keep that place as tidy as it could be before the rest of the instruments that she was about to bring over. “Please lie there for a moment? I’ll go fetch some things, it will- it will only be a minute. Half if I actually remember where I left the goldenrod this time, but if I were you I wouldn’t put that much faith on me.” The reassurance came along with an affectionate smile before she turned around and went to visit that part of her store in which she stored the products that she offered to the public. Some new bandages were placed over a trail, along with some boiled water thanks to the help of the little friend that look over the flames of their stove, and the amount of herbs that she would need for this specific procedure.

“Here, bet it was a long trip over here, isn’t it?” She left a glass of lemon water with fresh mint and some of the pumpkin bread she had got from the market that morning. The plan was to make something for dinner later, of course, but right now? She had other things to care about. Like the way in which she wet a cloth that she later used to clean the borders of the wound, applying a goldenrod ointment after it so an infection could be avoided, and preparing some gotu kola for what would be the scarring process of this new injury on their body.

And yet the question still remained, but this time, with her hands occupied over their skin and the feeling of familiarity that came with that short distance between the two of them, that she finally decided to see if she could get an answer from them.

@hearthalved