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Miraak watches Arpina as she sleeps, unmoving save for the gentle rise and fall of her chest and the way her hair, slightly obscuring her face, fans out with every breath. She’s still asleep, despite it not being too long until midday, but she’s always been like this and he’s not at all surprised—it is not like they have anywhere to be but each other’s arms, after all.
He turns away from the foot of the bed and pulls the doors to the balcony open, fresh Falkreath breeze drifting in—a little colder than usual, he notices, and absentmindedly regrets not putting a shirt on, but he’s too lazy to have to check where his shirt from last night had gone. Sunshine glows over Bleak Falls Barrow, white clouds in the sky just the slightest tinge of pink still.
So maybe it is a little early.
Miraak yawns, pressing his hand over his mouth as he does so, stretching out his back. It’s a good morning, he decides. Perhaps we should seize the day.
There isn’t much to do in Falkreath when excluding the ‘urban’ activities in the city, but both of them enjoy hunting well enough, and exploring is never such a bad option—there was even this one time they found a memorial from his era, still standing, words still clear. It was certainly a blast from the past, to say the least, and she had to soothe his discomfort at finding it as they went back to the cabin.
“Miraak,” Arpina calls from behind him. “Come back. I’m cold.”
He turns around. “I wrapped you in blankets.”
“Well, then you didn’t do it so well,” she says with a small, bleary frown, sitting up in a cocoon of the aforementioned blankets. He can’t help but think that she’s so lovely to look at. The view from High Hrothgar could not hold a candle to her as she is right now, sleepy, wild-haired, and asking for him to return to bed. “Come here.”
And so he does, moving to her. He smooths a lock of hair back, tucking a cowlick strand behind her pointed ear. “Good morning,” he tells her, almost teasingly, smiling as she presses her hand into the back of his and her cheek to his palm.
“So you say,” she says, and tugs him down onto the bed insistently, only pausing when he obeys.
“We should go out. It’s a fine day,” Miraak says, amused. “We can do what you want. Visit a temple, or look for a shrine.”
Arpina laughs and comfortably seats herself in his lap, legs on either side, and she kisses him in response, pulling back when he’s dazed enough to lie back at a gentle push from her. He watches her above him, still soft in her sleepiness, but he’s the one pliant in her hands now. (Hasn’t he always yielded to her? Always yielded so easily, so gently—so lovingly.)
Her hair is fire as the dawnlight shines behind her. “A shrine?” she asks innocently, but he’s not blind—he can see the smirk, the little dimple under her left eye as she does so. “You could just make a shrine out of me.”
Miraak shifts at the suggestion, face already hot. Her smile widens. He’s not sure what’s inspired her to act like this but he’s thankful for whatever it was—he’s not at all losing here.
“You could just worship me,” she pushes daringly, leaning so one hand is at the side of his head, the other on her knee.
“I do,” he manages to say as his heart pounds in his chest, watching her with anticipation, and when she laughs and bends down to kiss him again, he lets go of that breath he didn’t know he was holding, heart warm as she stays down with her cheek on his sternum. “I could make a fine shrine out of you.”