Work Text:
Autumn, 1247
She spun in circles, heavy wool skirts dragging across the ground as she gathered fistfuls of daisies and marigold.
“You’re going to get dirt all over your hem, sweetheart,” he chuckled, coming up behind and lifting her tiny body into his arms. She giggled, kicking her legs in a bid for freedom.
“Let me go, isa,” she squealed as he pressed a million kisses to her down soft cheek. “I need more flowers.”
“You need more flowers,” he teased, swinging her, dirty hem and all, around in his arms. “Just like your mother, always looking for the prettiest flower.”
“Which ones the prettiest?” She giggled, breathless as he spun her around and she wrapped her skinny arms around his neck.
“That depends entirely on who you ask, my sweet.”
“What would aiti say?” She blinked innocently, bright eyes dancing in the sunlight.
“Your mother is rather fond of lilies and snow blossoms,” he kissed her nose, eyes darting across the field towards the crystalline voice reaching across the clearing. “I myself, prefer the night-blooming cereus.”
“But they’re only there for one night,” she shook her head, waving her fistful of daisies, “mine are always here.”
“That may be so,” he nodded solemnly, “but their fleeting nature is what makes the cereus so beautiful to me. I know the flower will always bloom, even if I can only enjoy its beauty for short time.”
He came back to awareness slowly, adjusting to the subtle changes in his bedroom as he inhaled the subtle mixture of sweet smells as rich as the forest he spent his childhood playing in.
The world beyond his eyelids remained dark, either the middle of the night or earliest hours of the morning. The gentle warmth of flame kissed his cheekbone and warmed his hair, too minuscule to originate from the fire dead in the grate. He suspected the flickering light at the edge of awareness came from a candle.
As he blinked away the final vestiges of sleep he brought his left hand up to stroke the soft mane below his chin. His fingers moved from crown to the base of her spine.
“Zephyr,” he hummed, willing the cobwebs to blow away.
The small body shifted away, leaving his chest cold as the mattress dipped and sun warmed fingers cupped his jaw and threaded upwards through his hair.
“Good morning, husband,” her pert nose skimmed his cheek before she pressed a lingering kiss under his jaw. Her tongue darted out to tease the skin.
“Is it, my light,” he chuckled, raising his chin to grant her better access to the skin she so clearly wished to claim as her own.
She shifted further, raising one leg up and over to straddle his hips and press her full weight across the length of his torso.
“Mmhmm,” her hum vibrated through his chest. Her dextrous fingers loosed the collar of his night shirt, exposing his cool body to her hungry lips. “If you don’t wake soon, you’ll sleep all of our time away.”
He shifted fast, bracing her spine and the back of her head as he sat upright and held her tight.
“And how much time would that be, my darling?” He quirked an eyebrow. “Short, I should say, if you worry about me sleeping it away.”
Her breath caught. The new angle forced her to meet his searching gaze.
He longed to spend more time with his wife, alone in bed, but that was unlikely to happen with his littler light so much like his wife curled near his hip.
“Now you know I can’t tell you that,” she bit her bottom lip, fighting to hide her smile as she traced one finger through his dark hair. “Nobody can say how long any of us have together, Kol.”
“You my light,” his fingers pressed into her spine, kneading the soft cotton of her dress, “are not just anyone. So tell me, how long do I have with you this time?”
“That would be spoiling the fun,” she tilted her head.
“Just this once,” he swallowed. In his chest he felt his heart stutter to a halt. “Please, every time you leave all of the light goes out and I’m left in the darkness.”
Her expression sobered as she shuddered a slow breath.
“It’s a short visit for me, Kol,” her hands rested on his chest, placing a modicum of space between their bodies. “But I’ll be back before you even have time to miss me, I promise. I always am.”
He nodded slowly, gaze dropping to her open mouth as she slowly breathed in and out.
“I still miss you.” He pressed his eyes shut, lowering his brow to her collarbone. He inhaled deeply, ingraining her sweet smell in his memory. “I come alive when I see you, and I am nothing without you.”
“That’s not true,” her voice caught in her throat around a lump of emotion. She slowly ran her hands up and down his back, soothing the tense muscles frozen forever in time by his mother’s spell nearly three centuries earlier.
“You are everything,” she shifted and pulled his face upwards to meet her earnest eyes. “Why do you think I keep coming back to you?”
He chuckled, laying his brow against hers.
“I thought I was just someone to pass the time.”
“You are nice to look at,” she giggled, kissing the tip of his nose, “but if I was just looking for entertainment I’d seek out one of your brothers; they’re unpredictable and it amuses me… sometimes. You, however, you I come back to whenever I can, because I love you.”
“I love you too,” he pressed his lips to the corner of her mouth, tasting sweet chocolate and cinnamon. “I will love you forever.”
“I’ll love you always,” she threaded her hand through his thick hair.
“Even when all of this is inevitably done,” his eyes flickered to the starlight twinkling beyond the second floor window, “even when we’re home and everyone you know is back?”
“Then and beyond,” she drew his chin back around with a single finger, light dancing in her eyes, “that’s what always means.”
He hummed and drew her impossibly closer. If he could have done so in that moment he would have fused them together so she could never leave him again.
“Are you going to hold me like this for the entire duration of my stay?” She teased, shifting her legs to wrap her calves around the small of his back. Her eyes dropped to the dip of weight near his hip. Soundlessly, their littler light leapt from the mattress and slipped into the hall, leaving them temporarily in each other’s company.
“Yes,” he nodded, rolling around to press her body into the feather mattress. “You have to admit, its incredibly romantic.”
“What is?” She rubbed her heel down and over the back of his thigh. “Secreting me away where nobody can find me and hoarding me all to yourself?”
“Perhaps I don’t want to share your affections with my sister,” he dragged her white cotton shift upwards exposing her hip to his fingertips.
“My affections toward Rebekah are very different then the affections I show you,” she rocked her hips upward.
“I should certainly hope so,” he tugged the material higher, revealing her belly button and waist, “now enough talk of my sister, it’s hardly romantic.”
She pulled his shirt over his head and laughed.
“You’re the one who brought her up.”
He silenced her giggles with a sound kiss.
Many, many hours later, after failing in his valiant effort to stay awake his eyes fluttered open once more. This time the sunlight warmed his face and a soft body breathed deeply against his chest.
He glanced down at Zephyr’s quiet features, then to the blue shift concealing his wife’s shoulders from his view.
“You kept your promise,” he smiled.
“What promise was that?” She tilted her head on the pillow.
The corner of his mouth lifted and he shook his head.
“Don’t worry about it, my light,” he curled one hand over her hip, dragging her closer. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”