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Whether the fine, sifted mist that twirls between fingers of mountain air, over the terrace fields of Neketaka – the large beads tossed by handfuls at his face and shoulders, making it a struggle for him to open his eyes – or the wailing torrents outside that now dims the sky above Lifter’s Refuge, rendering the other’s skin to be like the mottled hide of a corpse, the tangled red hair to be like clotted blood – always, rain is what reminds Aloth the most of home.
He pressed a thumb against one pointed end of the outlander’s torc, letting his fingers follow up and down along its hammered-gold surface. It rather reminded him of the hammering of rain over a loamy earth, with all incredible greeneries over Cythwood nodding in acquiescence. And Aloth knew precisely of the kind of longing he was looking to sate.
The scar, however – the one bearing pale little legs where stitches had been, crawling downward from merely a finger’s width beneath the barbarian’s left eye – felt rigid and fibrous beneath his touch, though no less warm than the rest of the other’s cheek. What Aloth received in turn was a soft smile – a soft kiss behind his ear and another over the tip of it.
From here, standing nestled against the other’s heart, amidst the weighty, rain-scented air that closes like a hand around his throat, Aloth could only see the lower portion of the outlander’s face – the finely dappled nose bridge and cheekbones, the wound-cloven lips (he knew what lies directly beneath that scar, for he had chanced a few glances – hewn, atrophic gums, a couple missing teeth). At the bottom corner of his vision was a gossamer glint of the golden torc, ill-placed against a gloom that refuses to be assuaged – a thin red plait braided from a tress, falling like a red line drawn along the other’s neck.
Presently he couldn’t see the outlander’s eyes, nor had he any desire to – he shall look into them again in time, in another one of their pleasantries about the weather, the sailing, the endless stairs to climb from Queen’s Berth… About food and drink, tiredness, physical pain – only to see in those eyes a liveliness as artfully maintained as his own impassiveness.
Nor did he expect to be kissed over the lips, and it tensened his stomach and his back to feel those ungiving scars against the corner of his own mouth, in a way not unlike when pangs of hunger were replaced by that of sudden indulgence. Aloth’s eyes snapped open only to see the other’s closed, to see the sparse lashes and the eyelids dusted with freckles, the fawn-red blush rising over a countenance darkened by the sun.
Easily then, he yielded and closed his own eyes, and whatever tore at his spirit a moment ago seemed to subside, reached and soothed somehow by the hands cupping the small of his back, the fingers splayed over dimpled flesh.
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What would he do then, if he were to return to Aedyr? Days, nights, decades might have gone by in a flurry of clear and gray, as a colorless seabird passing over foams and sands. He’d like to think of himself as dutiful – as having borne his burdens unflinchingly and very well – if only to convince himself that those years hadn’t passed away in vain. Wouldn’t it be a good thing, he thought, were he to be as cursed as every paladin, to see beyond duty nothing else sacred in this world.
Wrapped up in his cloak like a giant fruit bat in its wings, Aloth lay close to the outlander who sprawled unclad and at ease. The barbarian’s body is freckled from head to heels, dappled as a quail’s egg and adorable. And Aloth felt as though he could never give it enough affection – no amount of caress, kisses and lovebites could glut his own desire, could suffice for him till long after the moment of farewell.
“You said you like wine.” Reaching beneath waxed fabric, the other sought those paired dimples at the bottom of Aloth’s spine, and kneaded the flesh there by handfuls. “You mean the wine made from rice?”
“Those are very good, but the kind made from grapes is what I’d prefer. Sadly for me, they aren't the most common in the Deadfire.” Aloth narrowed his eyes – a tell-tale sign of pleasure, a secret to neither himself nor (lately) the other. And at this moment he did feel self-conscious, though not vulnerable.
“What is ‘grape’?” The barbarian’s eyebrows arched, apparently in bewilderment.
“A fruit, often round or oval in shape and can be a variety of colors. Black, purple, yellow, or green, for instance.”
“So, just like eggplants.”
“I gave a thoroughly terrible description. Allow me another chance – ”
“But that was meant to be a joke! How can it be so hard to make you laugh… Lipasalis has a lot of vineyards; it is wine country. Perhaps that’s one more thing to tickle your fancy – to make you happy, if you ever visit. The mountains have faces of sheer rock, have shadows of passing clouds cast upon them – have a beautiful fragrance when it rains. Oh, and maybe even try the goat cheese bathed with wine, with sweet and savory tastes, with reddish-purple veining over their white flesh…
“Yet where will you stay, and with what shall I welcome you? Your host has nothing there anymore – no herd and no home, not even an honorable name. How will you even find me, a nameless one in a city as great as the capital of your own land?”
The carmine that suddenly rose over the other’s countenance – was it of anger, or what else so unpleasant to bear? Intuitively, speaking softly the outlander’s name, Aloth drew the other’s head closer to lay upon his arm. For a few moments warm, scrumptious limbs draped across his own, then all of a sudden he was held with crushing violence against the other’s frame, the softer parts of his ribcage giving inward and scuffing against his insides – before just as suddenly he was released.
“You startled me.” A laugh of surprise and thrill forced its way from his lungs, and tears nearly from the corners of his eyes. “Are you sure you didn’t intend to kill me?”
“How else, then, can I let you go?” In the outlander’s eyes now was a rare, remarkable lack of mirth, yet all else remained there unchanged – a bitter fondness, the metallic, piercing color of copper.
“Very well… Do it slowly then, and by a thousand cuts.”