A'steri lay quiet, sore and spent. To lay in bed with Zenos was shockingly comfortable... and to bed Zenos was a sharp reminder in how blissful the tight, bruising edges of discomfort could be. (She was fairly certain she would be feeling this in her legs for at least the next few days. To say nothing of the bruises...)
But to lay with him, curled against his side like a perfect comma of a girl, her tail lazily draped over her thigh and twitching against his skin... it brought with it a surprising sense of safety. With him, none would dare encroach. He was always the biggest threat in the room, and right now, that threat seemed to be temporarily abated. She could never be certain with him.
Her eyes trailed upwards through fluttering lashes, to the spot just below his jaw, framed by goldenrod locks. A scar, long and deep, in a frighteningly clean cut... never settled for anything less, did you, you old warmonger? She remembered that moment. Sore from battle, the wind wafting the smell of Ala Mhigan flowers into the air, soon joined by the coppery scent of spilt blood.
She shifted, just slightlyโgetting herself comfortableโand nestled her head against his broad shoulder. Her nose nuzzled against the scar, breathing in the scent of skin and sweat and sex and something distinctly him. Briefly, her tongue lapped it; soft-yet-rough as a coeurl's, in a brief show of affection typically reserved for those a miqo'te was particularly close to. She sighed softly, her breath warming his neck, as she settled in once more.
Any talk would ruin the moment, she felt. So she settled for silence, and soreness, and the memory of Ala Mhigan flowers.
Ask him how it happened -- how ANY of this happened -- and the Garlean noble would have naught to offer as an explanation. Merely, that it had... battlefield tensions turned into passion, turned into this. Something had SNAPPED, met its peak and broken 'neath the pressure, and here they were now... naked, at their most vulnerable, but TOGETHER.
Most may believe him to have been a virgin prior--- after all, to sleep with the heir apparent of an empire built on tyranny was unheard of, but even HE had his admirers. The occasional woman sent to his quarters merely to please him, to prove their WORTH to Garlemald by, mayhap, enticing the stone cold prince enough to produce an heir. Nothing ever stuck, sex merely SEX, and away they were banished the moment the deed had concluded, lacking in passion, warmth, anything that may cast an illusion of CARE from him.
The concept of sticking around to CUDDLE, then, is... understandably foreign and unheard of. She rests against him, somehow COMFORTABLE despite his cold, hard body. The innerworkings of his form are surely an enigma--- how sweat GLISTENS upon his body, just as it does hers, yet he remains terribly frigid to the touch, and how blood FLOWS despite there being no heart in his chest to encourage its course. He had been gentle in the aftermath of their anything-but tussle, large limbs moved and stilled to accommodate her against him, his fingers idly smoothing against her lip and teeth loved skin. His eyes had absently locked upon the ceiling above them, staring at absolute nothingness and merely BASKING in the stillness of this post sex euphoria...
--- until the slick warmth, ROUGHNESS, of a tongue gliding along the souvenir from his self sabotage breaks through the disassociation. " --- nngh---? " It halts every modicum of thought, his entire body stiffening and retaining that tension until he manages, to SOME degree, to register what, exactly, she's done. Long healed, the fatal wound, but still some FEELING to it, the nerves beneath it sensitive and swift to react to the attention given to it. It's never been paid much mind otherwise, save for the RARE moments he might let his gaze linger 'pon it in the mirror, reflecting FONDLY of a time long since passed. She eases into comfort again, but his mind still embarrassingly LINGERS on the ghost touch he can still feel against that clean cut...
His cheeks flair, WARMER than the rest of him, and he turns his head to hastily hide it away.
