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"You're awake! How are you feeling?"
Haze. Pain. You blink open bleary eyes and for a moment stare at the ceiling of your room in the Pendants. When did you get here?
Sitting up leaves your head aching, but you refuse to fall back down. Ardbert is still watching you in expectant concern. As you breathe through the pain, your head trying to swim, he crosses the room to stand before you.
“That bad, huh?”
You cough before you can laugh, but the humor is still true. He has certainly shown a knack for making you smile, and it is hard not to be grateful in this moment.
“Could be worse,” you manage, voice hoarser than usual. “I seem to still be alive. Somehow.”
For a moment he is uncharacteristically hesitant; the fingers of one hand twitch, as though he might reach out to you. “After you collapsed,” he says, the words heavy, “Emet-Selch vanished. Then Ryne did what she could to stay the raging of the Light within your body.” He crosses his arms, seeming to recover some of his usual aplomb. “Thanks to her, you’re still you, but she’s only delayed the inevitable.”
Great. You sigh. The worst part is you can feel it, the power burning its way out, an inferno too intense to control. You raise one hand, focusing on the fingers… the glow is uncanny, unnatural. Certainly uncomfortable. You raise your eyes once more to Ardbert. He hides it well, but the worry has only been buried, not alleviated.
“How bad?” you ask, and the hoarseness in your voice has naught to do with your earlier coughing spasm.
His head turns to the closed window, and dread sours in your gut. “It’s back. The whole of Norvrandt is shrouded in Light again. And it’s because of you and the power you absorbed from the Wardens.”
You close your eyes, but pain pricks behind them no matter how you press them shut. “I thought… I’d hoped…” It doesn’t matter. The Exarch is gone, you remember that much, and even if he were here you would rather he sent you into the void rather than take this burden, this death sentence, upon himself. But as things stand, you don’t even have the opportunity to rail at him for his deceptions, his intentions.
Ardbert cannot affect the material world, yet you swear you feel the bed’s soul dimple as he sits beside you; whatever the case, your eyes open already trained upon him.
“No one knows but your friends.” The words are cold comfort, but it is comfort nonetheless. Frightened people are all too irrational… and killing you would only hasten the creation of a Lightwarden when all that Light found its way into the next nearest—and significantly less resilient—soul. Mingled pain and relief twine through you, and both are magnified as he goes on. “When they carried you down from the mountain, they told everyone waiting below that they didn’t understand why the Light had returned.”
You nod, drawing a shuddering breath. Maybe if you had been stronger they wouldn’t have had to lie. Recrimination burns heavy in your heart, and when Ardbert brushes his aetherial hand over your shoulder you feel it keenly, raising your face once more to his own and catching the afterglow of the sparks that swelled from the brief touch. You force a smile onto your face. He does the same.
“And now they’re out there trying to allay the people’s fears while searching for a way to save you.”
Of course they are. Even through the renewed pricking in your eyes, you cannot fight a smile. You could not ask for truer, more caring friends. And, you realize, you count Ardbert among them. After all, the others may have scattered to the corners of the realm in desperate search of a solution or even anything to delay what you cannot help but feel as inevitable, but in doing so they have left you alone.
After all, none of them know of Ardbert. He, at least, remained by your side. He was there, watching over you while you recuperated, for how else could he have been on hand the moment you woke? And, you suppose, while your friends are given much to action and their absence reflects that, Ardbert himself is constrained from interaction with the physical world, from any communication, in fact, with anyone beyond yourself.
Small wonder he chose to remain close. In this, at least, he could help. Could make a difference, if only to you. And you cannot be aught but grateful. Cannot help but relax a fraction, relief—the visceral realization that you are not alone, not in any way that matters—lightening your heart. Beside you, his shoulders swell with the memory of breath; his face proclaims a painful or harsh truth to come.
You head him off. “Thank you,” you say, and his face twists, pain and surprise together. “Thank you for staying, and for letting me know. If I had awoken truly alone…” You shy from the thought.
He smiles, cheeks dimpling. A true and full smile. “Of course. Least I could do. And I mean that in every way possible.”
Every way possible indeed. You have to smile back. What else could he do to help? And yet he chose to stay here, to do that part. “Perhaps it is little to you. But it means a great deal to me.” You raise a hand to rest upon his forearm. Again, like when he tried to help you through an earlier fit of light, the brilliance sparks between you, but this time neither of you pulls away. Your eyes instead train on the point of contact, striving against the burst of brilliance, searching for meaning in the odd phenomenon.
Beside you, Ardbert draws a sharp breath. Almost you pull back, worried you might be hurting him. Almost… but his face bears lines of surprise, consternation without pain, and you hesitate.
“Is… does this hurt?”
“No,” he hastens to reassure you. When his eyes rise to meet yours, the blue burns with something warm. “No, it doesn’t hurt.”
“You gasped.”
His hand rises to cover yours, another point of light glimmering into existence. He takes a deep breath. “No one has touched me…” Another breath, shuddering. “Gods, I can’t even remember.”
Now you inhale sharply, a pain unrelated to the Light igniting in your chest. Eyes blurring, you lean into his shoulder, ignoring the bite of metal against your chest as you wrap your other arm behind his back and pull yourself close. Against you, he draws another deep breath.
“Thank you.”
For a time you remain so, holding him, feeling his hand clench upon your arm as he fights with something within himself.
“It’s okay,” you finally murmur. “I’m here for you. You can touch me.” A laugh, half-sob, forces its way from your lips. “I could certainly use the closeness right now.”
After a moment his hand lifts from yours to wrap around you. He strokes soothing lines up and down your back, and you raise your face to his. He speaks before you can collect your words.
“Do you remember? The fit you had, here, several days ago? The first time I saw this glow…”
You nod.
“Did it… help? My touch, I mean.” As you pause, frowning, considering his words, he hastens on. “It seemed to, at any rate. Not that I could be sure. But you seemed to recover more quickly.”
Your hand slips smoothly, quickly, from his forearm to brush fingertips over his lips. “I don’t rightly know. Certainly I felt much recovered afterward.” You sigh. Slowly you move your hand to cup his cheek, but your eyes linger on the pale lingering glow of light upon his lips. Hesitantly, not confident of your welcome but painfully hopeful, you stretch up to press your lips to that glow. He does not withdraw immediately. You move your lips, tasting, feeling him. It is much like flesh—certainly close enough; on this your mind and body are in agreement—but still he does not react. Disappointed, you sigh, unwilling to push him if he does not want this kind of contact.
Before you can pull back, he makes a raw sound. Desperate. Hands aetherial yet all-too-solid to you grip you, tip you, and you cling back in startled and off-balanced reciprocity, your grip gentling as you find equilibrium in the needy delve of his tongue between your lips. It burns with faint energy, tingling into your mouth and against your own tongue.
It is heady. You crave more.
You groan, hands pressing blindly at his armor, as though a seam might present itself beneath your fingertips by force of sheer determination. Ardbert, it seems, does not require air, but you do, and you bite gentle yet insistent at his lip until he relents. Gasping for breath, you seize this opportunity, hands sliding and exploring over his armor. He divines your intent without the need for words, hands helping you upright and then releasing. Catches pop, buckles are released, and a fleeting thought pings through you—why?—as you see the discarded pieces of armor and cloth fuzz to glowing light and snake back to join his form. But it seems some deep and natural instinct, some subconscious urge to reveal himself to you by degrees.
Without hesitation you do the same.
Your armor and clothing litters the floor about the bed in a way his cannot, does not, but it makes no difference to you. The faint aether that comprises him is so aligned, so compatible with your own that it feels warm, it has the give of flesh… yes, even the taste. Remembered it may be, yet memory strong enough to taste is… enough. Plenty. His chest hitches (of course now he thinks to breathe, you muse wryly) beneath your mouth, and one strong hand comes up to gently cradle your head.
“Ah…”
A shiver wracks him, and his other hand carefully frames your shoulder. You draw back, for a moment admiring the clear, slow-fading impression of your lips on his chest. As it grows indistinct, dim, your eyes rise to find his own. They are stormy, nigh-tumultuous with desire and many other things, too many, perhaps, to give name to. But his reverence burns clear above all else (save, perhaps, need) and sends fire burning through your body.
“Ardbert,” you whisper. He inhales, sharp. “I want to touch you, all over. I want you to remember how it feels. I want to caress you until you cannot forget.”
His hands convulse, tremble. Clench to draw you closer, and he bends at the same time. But though your lips tip and align toward his own, he instead presses his brow to yours. Not your aim, originally, but you still sigh at the contact. Finally he is freed to touch someone, and if that someone is you, well, so much the better.
That he chooses it makes it sweet indeed.
Your smile, somehow wide and warm and true despite the horror of your Light-bloated condition, has finally infected him; he grins back, the expression at last pressed to your own mouth as he takes your lips with his. Your eyes slide closed, a hum of pleasure slipping free at his burgeoning confidence, his realization and acceptance of the welcome in your heart. It is good, and you communicate this with the sweeps of your lips, your tongue, the glow born of your contact lighting your vision even through closed lids. This time he is more cognizant of your own needs, releasing your mouth before your chest heaves for air.
You let your face rest upon his cupped hand as he studies you, as you catch your breath, finding his puzzling gaze roving your face when your eyes open.
“Mmmm?”
He smiles in response, presses a bright kiss to your lips. “I think it’s doing something. I feel a bit stronger, anyway. More real.” He shrugs, uncertain.
“It’s certainly doing something,” you confirm, a sly smirk creeping onto your face. With gentle hands you press on his shoulders, and he lets you coax him down to lie upon his back on the bed.
“You can tell?” Not all of his excitement is born of the quickening of his blood. Even as the two of you are, he still wishes so to help, to alleviate your suffering in any way he might.
You shift to straddle his hips, your hands trailing slow lines from his shoulders down his chest. Light follows the touch, slow-fading sweeps showing each fingertip’s contact. There is something unspeakably beautiful about seeing your touch linger upon his skin. You reset your hands and repeat the contact, near-faded lines lingering beneath new and bright ones. His eyes, too, rest on your hands, following the bright sparks of touch, his lips softly parted at the wonder.
“How does it feel?” you ask, voice husky.
He clears his throat. “Good.”
You wait for him to elaborate; he does not. “Just good?” you finally tease him, and at this his eyes raise to your own. A moment of consternation draws his brows together, but it is a mere breath before he discerns your playful intent, a crooked smile growing.
“Good, yes. Of course,” and now the playful tone becomes almost molasses-thick with casual intent, “perhaps you would manage more than good if you ventured a bit further along.”
Your laugh bursts free, high and clear and bright. It is good, to be teased so, playfully and kindly. You bend to press your lips to his own. For a moment that is all, the taste of him, the way his hands rise to stroke along your back and hold you gently closer. You are still smiling when you draw back.
“I would love to feel more of you.” Your fingers release his head and shoulder to draw lower, trailing here and there, abstract and irregular designs that gleam upon aetherial flesh to entice you. For a moment you stare at your handiwork, the glowing interaction of your souls, with something akin to reverence. His hips shift beneath you, firmness pressing closer to your groin and making your heart race as your hands light on his waist. With some effort you raise your eyes once more to his.
“Can you see it too?”
He nods. His eyes still linger on his own body, lending credence to his affirmation. Smiling, you reach up, forefingers starting together as they press into his abdomen, then splitting to draw a heart. His muscle twitches beneath your touch as he huffs a laugh, his amusement at the cute gesture warming you. He catches one hand by the wrist and pulls it to his mouth, laying a kiss on each fingertip before releasing it. You look at the pads of your fingers; the light upon your own skin fades much faster than it does on his. Still lovely, you think, and then your attention drops to where his hands now press upon your own belly. A brilliant gleam outlines his splayed fingers, thumbs and forefingers pressed tip-to-tip in a similar heart shape as the rest splay almost peacock-like about the symbol.
“Ardbert,” you murmur, soft and almost pleading. You feel his chuckle more than hear it.
“I like this,” he says, and your gaze catches his. “Thank you.”
Heat rushes behind your eyes, and his hands have to fall aside as you collapse onto him. You press into his mouth with confident demand. His welcome is divine, all you wanted, all you needed to feel, to be assured that yes, he desires you, it is not just you that sees your heart in him. Strong arms clutch you tight, and you gasp as his hips buck, just a bit, a reminder that you are still pressed intimately close below. You move against him in response, and he gives a groan. Catching his lower lip carefully in your teeth, you move your hips again, a slow and deliberate movement, sliding up and down his rigid cock and making him hiss.
The same heady bliss making his head tip back floods your veins as well, and you begin a rhythm, jerky with need, shuddering over him as his own muscles clench to iron beneath you. Relenting, forced to pause, you pant against his neck and shoulder. He recovers first, his thumb stroking over your parted lips. When you barely mouth at him, still overcome, he chuckles and shifts beneath you. Carefully he turns you to the side, rotating you both slowly until he now straddles your hips, bright afterglow still delineating your previous seat upon him as he dips his head toward you.
His lips press first upon your forehead, bringing a measure of relief to the aching buzz still ringing through your soul. Light outlines his smile as he gazes down at you, his eyes warm with a light unrelated to the Light that paints him wherever your skin touches his. You want to taste that glow, and he lets you draw him back down, his back arching gracefully as he meets your lips with his. His movements are more controlled than your own, his hard length pressing over your sex to wring a gasp from you, quickly swallowed. One hand releases his head to find his hip, to let you press a strong grip into the muscle corded there, to feel the arch of bone, the way the sinews shift and draw tight with each slow roll of his hips.
Though you do not truly demand aught of him, still your grip seems to spur him on, the careful motions of his hips picking up in pace as he kisses you harder, his tongue’s thrusts moving in tandem. It is heady even without the faint taste of levin, the tingle that burns from the glow building between you as you both press heedlessly closer. Each ilm of skin on skin heightens the sensation of prickling pleasure and the almost static charge between you. Your heart is set near to beat out of your chest by the time he releases your mouth.
He smirks now, visibly pleased with your glaze-eyed state; you cannot help but feel similar pleasure, defocused eyes still able to admire the gleam of moon-pale light lingering on his skin. He slides one hand down the side of your body, caressing slowly each contour on his path and coming to rest for a moment at your hip.
“Are you enjoying this?”
For a moment you blink up at him, confused. How could he doubt— Of course, you realize, fit near to kick yourself. It has been longer than your life since he touched another. Words abandon you, due in no small part to the pain brought on by that realization, so you turn next to action. You bury your hand in short strands of hair, clutching and pulling to bring his lips once more onto yours. Your mouth pulls and sucks at his, your tongue licking over the kiss-swollen flesh of his lips until he parts for you with a soft groan. For a sweet moment you tease and pluck at his lips with yours until his eyes burn dark with desire and you release him with a grin.
“That’s a ‘yes,’ in case it wasn’t clear.”
He chuckled. “I dared to hope.” Your hand tightening in his hair wrings a breathy laugh from him, coaxes him to action instead of banter. The hand lingering upon your hip slides down to catch you just above the knee, bringing your leg up to part your thighs and open them wide. The next slow thrust of his hips snatches a shuddering breath from your lips as he presses with extra verve on your own swollen and needy flesh. You buck upward against him with a cry, your leg clinging to his back; his hand hikes it a bit higher, pulling your hips into a new alignment flush with his own.
The redoubled pressure is exquisite, the friction divine, but you want more. You want to feel him filling you, scorching you, to know that light flames within you where you so crave to be joined. His mouth again catches yours, the kiss almost clumsy as he grinds down upon you in faster and faster motions. You groan against his lips and open to welcome him. Dimly through the pleasure winding tighter through your body, you skate one hand down his frame, over ribs and clenching muscle to come up over your thigh and press between you. A moment of groping, a sound of surprise from Ardbert along with an accommodating lift of his hips, and you seize tight upon his cock. A shout, ringing in the ears of your soul—handy, you think with a smile—accompanies his first thrust into your grip.
“Ardbert,” you gasp, and watch his eyes darken. Gently you guide him until the blunt head of his shaft rests against your entrance. His fingers clutch, surprising strength in his ghostly grip just beneath your knee and upon your hip. You wonder if he can leave marks upon you. A part of you hopes for it. His eyes slide closed as he draws a shuddering breath; his hips move in tiny rolls, pressing against you without pressing in. You cry, inarticulate, your hand clenching on his cock. His eyes open once more, seeking your own.
“Do you—”
“Yes!” you cry, need snapping through your voice. “Gods, Ardbert, please!”
For a moment he falters, his eyes rolling upward at the plea, color washing over his face. It lasts but a moment before he moves, short controlled thrusts working his still damnably careful way into you and leaving you moaning, rolling limp beneath him in an agony of relief. Not quite the ravishing you crave, but it makes your heart swell to feel how careful he is with you, even after a hundred years of touch starvation.
It is his turn, it seems, to slump once he seats fully within you, and as much as you want him to move already, dammit, you cradle his face in gentle hands, stroking arcs of light onto his cheeks as you instead savor his need and gratification that he is here, that he can have this, that you can be with him. It is precious, and so you cherish it as he trembles, finally mastering himself. Trusting your leg to maintain its grip about his back, he releases his handholds to slide and caress up your body, his eyes devouring everywhere his hands touch until both touch and gaze come to light upon your face. He cups your cheeks and bends to lay a kiss on your lips, chaste, gentle. Your own arms wind about his shoulders, and when he begins to thrust once more you greet the blessed friction with a muffled moan.
He draws back at length, glowing lips parted in a grin. Your eyes dart between your bodies; he is arched slightly above you, muscular frame rippling with each push-and-pull motion of his hips. Light streaks his chest where it has brushed your own, and, overcome, you run fingers down the ridges of corded muscle, trailing brighter streaks, painting lines over his abdomen and then back up. Where he thrusts into you is nearly too bright to watch, a magnesium flare lit between you, a pleasant prickle igniting your intimate flesh. He huffs a soft laugh at your fascination, and one hand snags yours, bringing your hand to his lips. You watch those lips as he places kiss after kiss, up the wrist to the back, then over the thumb, turning the hand to press a kiss now to your palm and make your face burn.
When he releases you and bends for another kiss upon your lips, you hook your arm behind his neck. That plus the other about his back give you the leverage to press into the kiss, to raise your torso partway off the bed and move in complementary rhythm to his thrusts. It is good, so good, deepening the pleasure and the friction. His skin now rasps over your own, chest and abdomen generating additional heat. Soft sounds begin to slip from you with each thrust, pleasure gathering in your limbs and growing, leaden and sweet. His breath begins to gasp and hitch as well, whether in response to your audible enjoyment or the increased pleasure.
He shifts, sliding an arm beneath your lower back to lift and angle you better. You cry out as he presses deep, long powerful strokes filling you and leaving your toes curling. His lips hit yours, rough and careless and quick.
“I want—” he groans, and buries his face against your shoulder. “I want you to come with me.”
You gasp a breathy laugh and slide a hand between your bodies, fingers finding your weeping and engorged flesh. A gentle swipe over it, a careful roll of fingertips, and you cannot stop from bucking into your own touch, into his sharp thrusts as he nears the precipice of ecstasy. You know he feels how you clench about him by the cry that escapes in response. “Gods, I’m close,” he chokes out, and presses his lips to your skin. Sweet suction burns your sensitive flesh, blood and Light rising to meet him as you give soft sobs timed to his thrusts, to the plucks and pulls of your fingertips. Your voice rises in an inarticulate cry as pleasure seizes you, crushing and twisting you beneath him. He gives a ragged, rough sound as well, muscles going rock-hard as he spills within, arching and straining into you.
Sharp pleasure slowly dulls to a sluggish heat in your veins; Ardbert pants atop you for a few seconds before rolling with a groan to free you. Smiling, elation lightening your spirit, you shift close, ignoring your sweaty state to rest your head on his chest. The glow still sparks between you, though you would almost swear it has become a shade dimmer. More testing needed, you think dimly, and begin once again tracing shapes and patterns and lines over his skin.
For a time you are both silent, both watching the afterglow of your souls’ contact linger on his form. When he moves, it is to catch your hand once more and draw it to his lips.
“Thank you,” he says. His voice is still hoarse, from emotion now instead of pure pleasure. “It has been… so long.”
You laugh, still warmed to your core by his blatant affection. “I would complain it has been a long time for me, too, but it’s nothing compared to how long you have waited.”
He chuckles, the sound buzzing up through his chest, the movement making you bounce lightly where you rest on him. “Just because it may have been longer for me doesn’t mean it hasn’t been a while for you, or that you don’t know how it feels.”
Heat prickles behind your eyes, and you wrap your newly freed hand over his chest, squeezing him tight and pressing close. “Thank you,” you whisper, touched by his ever-generous heart. “I don’t know for sure, but I think the light is better. Even if not, though, I’m glad we had this time together.” You draw a deep breath. “I suppose I should go see the damage, shouldn’t I?”
He hums thoughtfully. “Not yet, I think,” he murmurs, and wraps his other arm over you. Slow strokes up and down your back lull you, mingling with the lingering pleasure, the warmth of passion burnt down to coals. The knowledge that, perhaps, you might once again fan those coals to flame is just as warm. In his arms, against his chest, you drift once more to unconsciousness, and while the world may be all wrong, still in this tiny corner all is right, or at least right enough.