1, 15, or 28 for silavi :)
Don’t leave
——
By now, this had become something of a game for them.
A tacit standoff near the end of their allotted time together, each quietly daring the other to acknowledge it. Forty-eight hours come and gone in what seemed like an instant, respite in one another felt so keenly in the moment seemed to be over before it had even begun. Each of them silently dreading the moment Avira must once more become the Inquisitor, as Adrian must likewise return to being Silver.
They lounged together on a chaise by the open walkout to the courtyard, eyes set on a steady rain outside. Rare in Minrathous, and precious for it. Not unlike Avira herself, Silver thought, the rise and fall of his bare chest in cadence with the softness of her breath across his skin. She seemed adequately lost in their quiet repose, as he would have her, but he’d learned enough by now to recognize the tiniest twitches in her arms and her cheek against him. Tension making itself known in the tiniest of ways, wanting to say something but not without bracing first.
She’d be the first one to say it this time.
“What would happen, do you think, if I just...don’t leave?”
Clever. She always was.
Avira shifted so she could look up at him, no doubt expecting his face to say something his voice wouldn’t. She’d learned enough to know it would.
“Ever?” He raised his eyebrows, with a playful downward curve of his lips. “I suppose you had better hope they don’t know where to find you. Think of the scandal - ‘missing Inquisitor found, refuses to leave Tevinter pleasure house’.” His mouth pulled into a wide smile. “If we enlist everyone’s help now, perhaps we will be able to prepare the Oasis for the inevitable siege in time.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Avira scoffed, half-smirking with a sideways look. “You think my commander would actually bring siege engines into Minrathous just to get me to come back?”
“Oh no, we would be besieged by my neglected patrons long before your armies would arrive, siege engines or no.”
She chuckled a little at that, but neither found it as funny as it should have been. Quite the bittersweet thought, that outside of these two days each month they belonged only to each other, they each seemed to belong to everyone else.
Silver smoothed her curls away from her face and just studied her for a moment, all his fondness for her on full display in his eyes, his smile, his touch. It wasn’t often the weight of being Avira showed itself for how heavy it truly was, but he’d said the same from the day they met: he would have her find some peace here, and a place to set down her burdens.
“Such trouble, to be the happiest man in existence, grinning smugly as I keep the most important woman in the world to myself.”
Ordinarily, Avira would quip something back regarding his tendency toward hyperbole, but this time, perhaps the heaviness of how much she wished he would keep her to himself left her smile weak.
“Is it really too much to ask that someone else be the most important woman in the world, though? Just for a little while?”
As though staying here would make her any less important. Not in this world. Not to him.
“No one else could, I’m afraid.” Gently, he guided her head back against his chest, and pressed a kiss into her hair before resting his cheek on top of it. “However, as Alba demands that I rest as long after Lady Elenar leaves, I doubt the world would collapse if you were to remain another day.”
He felt her smile against him, and couldn’t keep from smiling himself.
“Another day it is, then.”
Their game decisively delayed, there was little else to do but settle back into each other and watch the rain for a bit longer.
