PM to join Home With New Eyes (Naiya)

[Colt]

He didn’t know what to expect. He knew that what had happened wasn’t a bad thing, from an objective point of view. But it was something big. It was divine, yes, but not just a mark of favor. Caiyha did not give, she enabled; it was a mark of duty. It compelled service, not through worship or sacrifice, but through action. His eyes had been opened, and in the span of a single evening, his entire life had changed. It was no longer a matter of just hunting; that was a job far too restrictive now.

With this mark, Caiyha had given him the entire world and then asked him to fix it.

Naiya stilled when her eyes landed on his arm. He tensed, inexplicably nervous; what would she think of it? Would it change anything? Would she look at him differently now it was there? Possibilities ran through his mind without end, and he waited with bated breath for her to react, and to give him any sort of clue as to what this new change would do to the both of them.

After long, painful moment, acceptance fell onto her shoulder. He blinked. Alright. That wasn’t exactly what he had been hoping for, but it was better than something more negative.

Then she set herself back to the task of his hair, hands speaking subtle questions about what she was seeing. He dipped his head to give her better access, but did his best to keep her face in sight. Was she angry? Was she sad? Was she happy?

The only thing he could clearly see was her focus. She took up a comb and began to work through the messy clumps and snarls atop his head.

“It was all so fast,” he murmured, desperate for some sort of communication. “I didn’t know what was waiting for me. I just wanted to make us safe from the spearbacks. They aren’t supposed to be awake in the winter, but they were. They killed the Hazelweeds. I wanted to make sure they wouldn’t do the same to us.” Hopeful, shy, love? Would understanding bring her back to him?

He turned his arm to gaze at what had come of it all. He watched the grass shiver in wind he couldn’t feel, and he watched the birds fluff up against it. Even through such a small window, it was easy to see that it was winter inside his skin; the grass was brown and brittle, and the birds were thick with seasonal plumage.

“I found them, and they were all… wrong. Their spines didn’t poison us, and they were starving. I didn’t know why. But then they came, men, not Drykas, but strangers. They had dogs and so I followed them to where they were making their camp.”

Here Shahar had to pause, as disgust began to stir within him. The evidence of their foul work might have gone up in flames, but the memory of it still had the power to make him feel sick.

“They had… they were hunters. And tanners. But…” revulsion, “they didn’t hunt. They slaughtered. Their camp, they had skins… so many skins, I couldn’t count them. More skins than I have ever hunted in my life. More skins than Endrykas has zibri. The Drykas could not take this many in seasons of hunting; they took the skins and kept them, and they didn’t eat the meat. They gave it to their dogs, or they threw it away. They had horse skins, Naiya.”

He halted again, hesitant to continue. The reality of their crimes had been revolting, it was true, but his response hadn’t been exactly far off. He held no guilt regarding the fates of the two tanners, or of what he had done to them. Whether or not they deserved it was not a question in his mind.

But to Naiya, he didn’t know it would seem like.

“I stopped them,” he said. It was a quick glossing over of the details. It was an easier truth to say than I killed them. “And then she came.” He gestured to his arm, traces of wonder still lingering on his posture at the thought of it. “She came to me, and she opened my eyes. I know things now… I can see like I couldn’t before. There are things in this world, Naiya, and they need to be fixed. She showed me how wrong things are, everywhere. There are wounds, and she’s telling me to heal them. Everywhere.”

He made a wide gesture, one that vaguely included the entire world in its scope. How else might he have described it? Through his arm, he knew that things were inherently not as they were supposed to be. It was a broad, vast knowledge that he couldn’t put to words; he just knew. And it was the closest place he could come to speaking of it.

[Naiya]

Of course she loved him back each time he doubted her she would remind him, forever. She had no doubts about that. It was the other meaning of this exchange with the goddess that made her unsure of the future once more.

His explanation continued, and although she knew it was babble, so much more explanation than was needed, she needed the time to process, his story a helpful linear place to follow.

"You always follow danger, love, it is no wonder I worry so." The words were gentle, clearly affectionate teasing, but her mind was only half on the words.

She shivered at the recounting of his words, her own revulsion growing in response to his own. They had slaughtered the animals, not for food, but for skin, for sport perhaps, but worse they had done it in scores, killing animals that had no business being hunted. Killing horses, for what? What purpose could that possibly have? Her hands halted their work to shape confused wonder, intense disgust, the words shaped towards the foreign hunters.

It was good that he had stopped them, her sign leaving no room for discussion or doubt, men of evil had no purpose in their world. The ability to rid the world of evil was a gift.

"Everywhere," She echoed. The scope of his work was vast, promising trouble, but, they could face it together, just as they did everything else. She sought the words for him, to reassure him of her, or her presence, that nothing had changed.

Pride, was what she settled on, she had married a great man, and even the gods knew it. She told him so, a smile playing across her lips as she returned to his hair, working loose all the tangles bit by bit.

The water had surely warmed, and she rose with reluctance to fill her bowl, dampening a cloth to rinse away the dirt, blood, and ash from his head. She inquired once more permission to continue her fussing over him. She placed the full bowl beside them, the empty one close to catch the water as it ran from his hair.

She pressed the damp rag against his forehead first, a gentle hand at his chin leading him to tip his head back, once she was sure the water would not run down his face, she squeezed the cloth, letting the water run down his untangled hair.

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[Colt]

She was unsure. It wasn’t quite hesitance, though; she was at the same time confident, both in herself and in him. She loved him, of course she loved him––he always assumed the worst, and she always reminded him of the best. Nothing had changed between them, not really; he was Shahar and she was Naiya, and that was what mattered most.

Her revulsion at his story was clear in her hands and the distance in her eyes. Shahar hoped she wouldn’t think too deeply on the story; the image of the hunting camp was burned into his mind, and he didn’t want it burned into hers. It was over now, and he was there to make sure it didn’t happen again. He would know if Clive returned and took up the hunt again, and he would know how to stop her.

But as Naiya continued to contemplate the scope of what had happened, her uncertainty shifted into pride; she was proud of what he had done, and of what had happened to him, and she told him so in the lilt of her posture as she turned to tend to the heated water.

His fire-wife took up a cloth and dipped it into the warm water, settling over him to start working at the mess he had made of himself. She arranged the bowls around him and then tilted his head back with gentle hands to put the damp cloth to his forehead. Back, back, until he was staring at the roof of their home, which was far enough for the water to run through his hair instead of over his face.

Shahar regretted that he could not look down at the rest of his body, which he knew was in just as sorry a state as his face. Absently, he braced a hand on the ground behind him so that he could use the other to pick at the wound in his shoulder; he felt useless, simply waiting for Naiya to finish what she was doing and not doing anything himself. He knew he was dirty, and he could feel the dirt on his skin, but had no method of cleaning it.

“Naiya,” request, be honest, “How bad do I smell?”

It was an innocent enough question on its own, perhaps possessing an undertone of amusement, but it was also wrapped up in a more subtle request offer, desire to help; he was dirty, and he wanted to help in the pursuit of becoming less so. Anything except just sit there and wait; he wanted to at least be helpful in some way.

[Naiya]

She leaned in, playful and put her nose right to his hair, inhaling a comically deep breath. He smelt of smoke, fire, blood, and dirt. No surprise there, she moved her face closer to his, repeating her exaggerated breaths at his cheek and again in the crook of his neck.

“Awful,” love, unbothered, she told him, not missing the underlying message of his question. “Be useful then, but I'll still have to check and make sure that you get all those wounds clean.” She passed the bowl of water closer to him, adding a second cloth to the bowl so that he could begin to wash himself as well.

She rinsed his hair twice before taking a comb to it once more, starting at the dripping ends of his hair and working loose the tangles and clumps of debris. It was easier this time, and she was quickly able to put the comb aside and reach for the soap, lathering it in her hands before adding it to his hair.

“Will you,” delicate inquiry,, “tell me about the mark? You said you see everything differently?” Hesitance, small burden, unnecessary to share. She did her best to shape the words appropriately, her curiosity was small compared to the weight of the mark of a god, and she didn't know what if anything he could tell her.

She didn't push for an answer, rinsing soap from his hair instead before carefully massaging more soap into his scalp, chasing away flakes of blood and ash with careful pressure of her fingers. When all the dirt had been washed away she took a few moments to section and braid his hair, putting two small braids on either side of his temples before bundling the rest into a large knot. The first braid was difficult, the dampness of his hair making the strands heavy and uncooperative, but by the time she began to weave the sections of the second braid into a sturdy line she had gotten used to the feeling. While she knew he didn't often do anything with his hair, this would keep it from falling in the way, and keep it clean.

She used the soapy water to rinse the back of his neck, the top of his shoulders, and his back. She inspected each scratch and mark on his skin that she came across, plucking dirt and bits of cloth from the wounds when needed and paying extra attention to the cleanliness of each open wound.
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[Colt]

She played his game, swooping down to stick her nose directly into his hair and take a deep inhale.

Of course he smelled awful. How else would he smell?

Naiya, bless her, made it clear that the smell did not bother her. They were in the process of getting rid of it, after all, and she seemed as equally entertained by the affair as he. With this knowledge, Shahar was comfortable enough to settle cooperatively into her hands, tilting and shifting when her motions asked him to so that she could better reach one spot or another.

Her hands in his hair were the best, though. The smell of home and the smell of her washed all his worries away with the dirt and blood, forcefully halting his thoughts as she rinsed his head and ran her fingers over it, back and forth and back and forth. The clumps and clots were secondary, barely noticeable in the grand scheme of touch and care.

He didn’t know how long it took for the thought to come to him, but he was enjoying it. Was he supposed to be enjoying being touched this closely? It had been so long since anything of the sort had summoned anything but a knee-jerk reaction of fear and escape.

No, that wasn’t true. Not at all. Naiya touched him all the time. How long had that been happening? He couldn’t recall. It was so natural… it had simply never been unusual enough for thought or remark. Why was that? And why hadn’t he thought of it until now? Where was the recurring memory of poison and pain? Yellow eyes and poisoned claws? Naiya’s fingers didn’t hurt him.

Another jolt of realization shot through him. Naiya’s fingers weren’t hurting him. It felt so strange––not the fact that they weren’t hurting him, but the fact that he felt like they should be. Naiya’s fingers, even given what they were doing, didn’t feel like… her… fingers.

Naiya had just asked him a question. Shahar blinked and tried to recenter himself.

Yes, this, “It’s changed… the way I see things.” He paused and roped together as many coherent thoughts as he could. Difficult to describe. It is like… “Doctors know what illnesses look like. They know the right herbs and tools to make sickness and wounds better.” Sort of similar, closest I can find. “Caiyha… she made me the same. She… showed me what sickness and wounds look like, and what I must do to heal them. Only, it is not for people.” Vast, outside, everything, whole world. “The world is sick. The plants and animals, they aren’t as they should be.” Frustration at self, at loss for words. “The whole world… it has a fever. And it keeps getting sick, because bad things keep happening. She made me a world-healer.”

He shook his head. Apologies. “I am distracted.” Lost in thoughts.

She didn’t press for any more than he gave freely, and so they settled into the routine of cleaning up. As his wife worked, Shahar paid attention to her hands, waiting for them to incur some reaction that threw him back to his seasons spent in that cave, so long ago it felt like a lifetime.

But for all intents and purposes, wasn’t it a lifetime ago? He was not the name person now as he was then. But Hope––misguided as she had been––had dredged those memories up before, when she had been making motions not unlike Naiya’s.

But now, the only thing haunting him was the vague confusion that nothing was haunting him.

His wife had decided his hair was finished, and so she moved it aside so she could attend to his back. It stung where she rinsed out his scratches and wounds, but not overly so; he twitched at the larger ones, but remained fairly motionless for the most part. It was hardly the worst pain he’d ever suffered.

He continued to pay attention to her hands. His expectation slowly ebbed away as he accepted the fact that the careful, caring touches simply would not bring up anything more than they were already: comfort, relaxation and the odd flinch when she reached a particularly raw area.

But if that was true… did that mean…?

“Naiya,” he said as she moved further down his body. “Do you remember the night after the tree appeared in Endrykas? The one with fire for leaves?” He leaned back a fraction and placed a hand on her knee. “Do you remember us talking that night?” The previous mirth and confidence were no longer present; there was a seriousness to Shahar’s tone, but even that was distant and almost incidental. His body was empty of any signs at all, neither happy, sad, or anything else. He was entirely blank, both on the outside and on the inside; he hadn’t planned to touch the topic of their discussion, but the words were out of his mouth now. He had to… no, he wanted to plow ahead. And that was as much of a surprise as anything else.

“Do you remember… what I told you?” A flicker of hesitance. My past.

[Naiya]

His humor vanished as his mind wandered, leaving him blank. She watched the change, curious as to where his thoughts had taken him, yet her hands stopped their careful work at his question. Of course she remembered, apology shaped her hands, unintentional, she signed to him, moving to his side so that he might see the movement of her hands.

His hair was clean, his back tended to, he would be more than able to care for himself from there. "I'm sorry if I've made you uncomfortable, gavee." She told him, offering him the supplies she had brought to tend to his wounds. Offering space that he might need.

A zith woman had marred his skin, hurt his soul, and that still echoed with him, she recalled the words. Still she remembered the night, the horrors they had faced and shared.

She had no need to force such things on him, she could simply enjoy his presence, his return. His hesitance seemed to speak enough, he grew uncomfortable, his thoughts taken away to a time long ago. Not long enough, however, and she understood that it was no reflection on her.

She patted the hand on her knee in reassurance, the shape of comfort quick to follow.

Still she could not help but to reach out to his face, a different touch perhaps more welcomed. Her hand pushed back a loose strand of hair, careful, slow. She brushed a smudge of dirt from his chin, she was struck again with the joy of his return, and the risk he had faced of not returning this time.

She blinked away tears that pricked at her eyes, waving away concern that he might show. She signed to him overwhelmingly happy, safe return, missed you.
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[Colt]

She read his words as something different; his question must have come out sounding like a request for space, because she paused to give him exactly that. Naiya retreated respectfully, giving apologies and offering the healing supplies so he could do the rest himself.

Wait, “No.” He reached after her, but stopped just short of touching. When it came to things this deep, he always managed to leave others confused and hurt. She didn’t show the hurt outwardly, but he knew it existed––not the same way it had with Hope, but not entirely different either. Perhaps she hurt because of him, but she also hurt on his behalf; she knew what the past had almost stripped from him.

Almost stripped from him. That was how his thoughts phrased it. Almost.

Hope had thought she knew what he wanted, and Naiya thought she knew what he didn’t want.

Did he want it? Was he capable of wanting it?

Naiya patted his hand comfortingly, reaching toward his face to tenderly brush away some hair. She was happy for his return, and that was what mattered most. Below that lived the subtext: she knew his one iron boundary, and she would never cross it.

But as that thought crossed his mind, so did another that made his breath stop: he wanted her to.

Oh no.

Shahar reached up to close his hand around hers and forced himself to breathe. His stomach began twisting into knots and his entire body went stiff with… fear? Confusion? Amazement? He had no idea which. He tried to swallow, and couldn’t. He tried to speak, and couldn’t. For the second time in his life, he was rendered speechless by another person.

He had to control himself. He had to remember, how had he gotten over the last time he felt this way?

The last time this happened, said a voice in his head, a young seamstress was measuring you for clothes, and you got over it by marrying her.

Shahar laughed out loud, equal parts amused and terrified, and shook his head.

“No,” he said again, bringing Naiya’s hand close enough to kiss her knuckles. “It’s not what you’re thinking. I…” … fear, amazement, hugely self-conscious. Inquiry, request––nevermind, bad idea, “I don’t know, Naiya. I just don’t know.” A chuckle. “I am a strange, foolish man who cannot use words.”

He tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling, as if that might hold the answers. Gods above, this was something he actually wanted.

But wanting and having… that was another step. A step he knew Naiya wanted, a step she was more than ready for; he was the only thing that stopped them before now, him and his iron boundary that always hurt people and that had suddenly become an almost---mutable and impermanent.

But if he crossed that boundary, he would stumble. How could he create something good now if all he had ever felt in the past was pain? He knew nothing, absolutely nothing about what was expected, and she had waited so long for him––how could he move forward with such high odds of disappointing her?

His grip on her hand tightened, and he tried to suppress the terrified self-consciousness washing over him. Tried, and failed.

With a shaking breath, Shahar looked back at his wife-of-fire, and it was that one look that made him remember. She had waited for him. Not out of desire, not out of duty––she had waited for him because he asked her to. When she’d learned of his past, she hadn’t recoiled. She had accepted. And when he asked for space, she had understood.

He excelled at assuming the worst, but Naiya was Naiya. He knew in his heart that to fear being judged was to do her a disservice, but this wound… no, this old wound that was magically healed and scarred over now, it still twinged the more he worried at it. That was one of his two greatest skills: hunting and self-degrading.

But… he didn’t have to feel that way. Not here, not with Naiya. Not anymore.

He wanted this. He wanted her. And he didn’t have to be afraid of it. He didn’t want to be afraid of it.

Slowly, Shahar shifted toward Naiya to close the distance she’d put between them. He kissed her knuckles again and leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers.

“Many of my thoughts stay inside me,” he said, not really to her but not really to himself, either. “They are so loud and disagreeable. They fight with each other, for hours if I let them, making noise and worrying about things I have no control over, making me doubt myself and fear things that aren’t real. But sometimes they need to be put in their place, yes?”

He tilted his head up to place a gentle kiss between her eyebrows.

“You have put them in their place, you strange woman who never expects things for yourself. You and your strange Naiya-magic; you touch broken things and make them mend. And when your husband comes home with blood, ash and three days of filth, you decide you simply must lean in and smell him to prove how dirty he is. What sort of trickster dreamed you up?”

He pulled back, finally allowing his nervousness to show––but without any fear or terror––and came down to kiss her mouth.

“It’s fate, I suppose, that you married a man who would do such a thing in the first place, one who can’t speak what he wants without confusing everyone around him. What an odd choice you made in a man who doesn’t speak the thoughts out of his head like normal people. Until he is alone in his pavilion. And covered in blood and ash and filth. And he’s confused himself until he suddenly can’t stop talking because he’s strange and doesn’t know how this works, so he’s keeping the air filled with words.” Unevenly, he trailed across her cheek. “What would they say of a family where the wife seeks bedwarmth and the husband hesitates? Do they call him lucky to have such a willing wife, or do they call her unlucky to have a such a cold husband?” He paused, annoyed with himself at having said it that way. “What right do they even have to speak of this?” He brushed his lips against the line of her jaw. “No one else has business here."

With a shaky breath, Shahar slowly, slowly leaned around to kiss the spot where Naiya’s jaw became her neck, brushing softly against her ear before pausing.

There was nothing to say here. He realized with horror that he was out of words. For the first time in his life, the silence choked him; he froze, completely unable to move or even begin imagining what to do next, except wait helplessly for the quiet to stop sounding so loud.

[Naiya]

He asked her to wait, and it wasn't for space that he asked. He reached for her again, looking conflicted, but she didn't push him as his hand closed around hers.

She watched his body dance with emotion, mostly negative, but decorated with... other. He brought her fingers to his lips, and Naiya could only watch, bemused.

Not what she was thinking, he said, and that rang in her head as strange. She had been wrong about the shift in his demeanor, the meaning of his question. He wasn't looking for her to answer him, clearly, he was searching for the words he wanted.

She studied his throat and jaw as Shahar peered up at the rafters, gazing at wounds written into hard lines of muscle. It wasn't her touch he was fighting, he'd said, so she reached out to brush a gentle touch across his collarbone, reassuring herself with the feel of his skin.

His grip on her hand tightened, and he solidified into a self-consciousness that spoke of terror. Was he shy?

It seemed unlikely, they had been married, living together, sleeping beside one another. Yet, it was clearly self-consciousness that had formed in his posture, and not for the first time this evening. It didn't stop him from coming closer to her once more, bringing his body into an easier range of touch.

His lips pressed against her fingers once more, and he leaned in, their hands clasped between them. Shahar leaned against her, resting his forehead gently upon her brow. He spoke of his mind, filled with noise, worry, and doubt. She knew that feeling knew with intimacy the way doubts could bury her mind and curve her body in on itself. Even still Naiya worked on her own tendency to let such thoughts distract her. He wasn't looking for her answer, however, he was musing, speaking to align thoughts in his mind.

His lips pressed gently against the furrow of her brow, and the concerned set of her features softened under his affection. Her smile warmed under his compliments, his vision of her laid between them like their clasped hands and she was proud to be the woman he described. A dream of Ionu, playful and teasing.

He pulled away from her, only long enough to let nerves show through before he was back, kissing again but this time without the desperation of long-awaited reunion. She leaned into his kiss, letting her lips soften against his as she shifted forward, her free hand a point of balance on his thigh.

He broke their connection, pulling only away from her lips as he spoke further, rambling, lips trailing kisses across her skin. He was unsure, although his intentions were fast becoming clear.

Shahar's lips feathered across her jaw and a shiver ran through her body. He was right, there was no 'they' who belonged in their bed. More than his touch, it was those words, the communication of his intention. However it had taken form.

His breath warmed her skin as he kissed skin beneath her ear that she hadn't realized was so sensitive. Naiya canted her head, allowing him better access to her neck as her breath departed in a soft sigh of pleasure. Shahar grew still, however, and after a tick, she turned her head back to him.

Frozen beneath her gaze like prey, Naiya realized just how unsure he was, how nervous. It shouldn't have been surprising, but the way his lips had danced across her skin had clearly distracted her.

She could distract him, too.

She disentangled their hands trailing her fingers up his sides and over his chest, fingers spread wide across the muscle she found there. She was careful of his injuries, her fingers skirting around them as they continued up his neck and into the damp mass of his hair. She peppered little kisses across his features, or what she could see of them, dancing her fingers across his scalp.

He was bound up in his own fears, far too serious, and Naiya searched for the words to free him.

Gavee, She signed to him, summoning his attention, "Meeting, trusting... understanding. That's the hard part." She told him, her words coming slowly as she returned his kisses in reverse, starting with the patch of skin just below his ear, moving down along the rough feel of his jaw.

"This," eachother, learn, gavee, "is easy." She kissed a line across his cheek, finally capturing his lips with her own. She was nearly as unsure as he was, if only less embarrassed by it.

If he was uncomfortable, however, there was no need to push this intensity, so her kiss was light, and the next one lighter, and lighter until it was silly, playful passes of her lips across his skin. The prickle of his beard tickled her lips, and she chuckled softly, right against his skin. Her hands moved too, in the same not-quite playful dance, trailing almost tickling touches across his neck and shoulders. She hoped to bring his warmth back to her.

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Naiya space Pavi | Common | Tukant
other space Pavi | Common | Tukant