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OC Kiss Week - Wedding

Lucien and @effelants' Vierna are not the marrying type - but Luci certainly is the vowing sort.

Paladin habits die hard.

Vierna Do'Urden/Lucien Tenebris (The Dark Urge) | 1306 words | T

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Vierna had never been vain. She had run as wild as the free creatures of the fields, her hair falling from failing braids and her skin washed with rough soaps, more concerned with functionality than appearance.

The last thing Lucien had expected to see while pausing at the entrance way was her analyzing her body in a mirror, her brows knit together in a deep frown.

"Vierna?" he called hesitantly, still uncertain of his permission to interrupt without notice in the aftermath of his betrayal. Even if she should welcome him, he could not presume; she had already been more generous of herself than he deserved before he had rendered full restitution to her.

The echoes of his oft-broken and remade oaths of vengeance when no justice was forthcoming were not easily dismissed, not even when he was their target.

Though her back was turned to him a spark entered the eyes of her mirror-form at his call; a companion crinkle creased his own eyelids and his steps forward became lighter at the sight. He entered her space — their space — and stood behind her, running a hand down her arm and pressing a kiss to the shoulder that did not shy away from his touch.

In the mirror he cocked his head, his questioning 'why' at her actions left unvoiced.

Rather than take hold of him and pull him closer as she so often had once, she lifted his hand from where it lay and placed it higher, guarding the original spot with her own tightly closed fingers. He could touch her then, but not everywhere.

"She carved herself into my skin," she whispered, choking on unspilled tears.

Ah. Not vanity, not at all. Churning guilt rippled in his gut that he, who ought to have protected her, who had promised no harm would come to her, had failed in his duty toward her. That his misguided devotion to his father could have blinded him and left her so vulnerable that she could be taken to be the plaything of his sister.

He could imagine what she had endured at Orin's hands. It was written on her skin, plain as parchment; nothing so deep as to be deadly, but cruel. Exploratory. Artful, in its way. Every scar left on her marked a wanton spilling of precious blood, a sin paid for with death. His own fault could not be washed away so easily.

"Lucien, you are hurting me." Vierna's words were soft, with no judgement or condemnation, and he realized then that his grip on her arm had tightened beyond bearing.

"I am sorry," he said, flashing open his hand to tuck it away safely, where he could no longer cause her pain. She drew it back to herself. She held onto him and would not allow him to pull away, heedless of risk. Though he might crush her eventually, for now he folded her into his arms and delicately kissed the top of her messily-braided head.

Below, one of the blemishes stared back at him in all of its cruelty, a shallow cut, now healed. Unlike Orin's, those he carved had less needless design and more finesse. They were final, an end and not an interminable middle. They sliced deep and clean — and would heal just the same, under his paladin's hands.

"I may be able to erase them, if you will allow it," he suggested cautiously. "It will be painful-"

"Yes."

"If the wounds are reopened and healed over, the magic may remove them."

"Yes," she said resolutely. "I do not want her on me."

The faith and the confidence in her face when she turned to him nearly made the breath catch in his throat. Even now she held his word as absolute and trusted him to make good on it. Even now she would welcome and invite the hurt he brought for the promise of an uncertain future good.

Even now she would look at him expectantly and prepare for the sting of his blade.

There was pain when her sacred blood flowed under his knife, each cut marked by unfamiliar trepidation to slice through flesh and to hurt that which he held dearest. But there was relief too, when from the same hands that inflicted the wounds flowed healing that knit her through layer by layer and left her whole.

When they were through, not a single claim of Orin's was left upon her. Only one scar remained, the first injury Vierna had sustained in his company, the first of many she would never have received had she not followed him; the goblin arrow from the grove, where he had held her heart in the palm of his hand. He had known then, when it beat under his fingers, that he would risk any fate to keep it safe and protected.

He had since broken that vow, the single oath he had been determined to leave intact.

At the time his magic had been spent. The wound was deep and a scar had been inevitable, a slender silver mark that he had traced with hand and teeth in the times before he had failed her. It could be remedied now, at least externally, and then the scars he had left on her would only be invisible.

"This too?" he asked hollowly, prepared for her assent and yet dreading it nonetheless.

"Lucien." She rebuked him gently with his name. "Lucien, that is you."

Shifting to face him, she held his head in her hands and slid her finger down the bridge of his nose in that fond way she had that could allow him to forget for a moment that he was murder incarnate, spawned only to ruin and destroy.

Their foreheads joined. Her breath was warm against his cheeks and when she spoke her voice was quiet and deep, ringing with sincerity.

"I want to be marked by you. I want to feel you on my skin when you are not with me."

He could only thread his fingers between hers, so small and so breakable in his calloused knight's hands, and hold tightly.

"You would carry me over your heart even now?"

"Always, Lucien."

Their kiss was long, lingering and perhaps too soft. She had endured much, if not at his hands then because of him, and he feared to press too hard. Vierna's hands wrapped around his neck, pulling him close, leaning him over her, dragging him down — but at the last moment he drew back, slowing the pace, then stopping altogether without regard for the frown that once again creased across her brow.

"For as long as you will have me until the end of my days, the protection of my body I will give you," he promised with all the seriousness of one who understood intimately the gravity of oath-making. "This I vow to you, Vierna. You will not come to harm as long as I can prevent it."

"I know, Lucien," she said with a playfully impatient smile. Did she know? Could she know that among his dozens of oaths broken and remade this one would remain inviolate?

Or did she simply trust, even when he did not trust himself?

As if in response her features hardened into a seriousness that reflected his own and she met his eyes, never breaking their gaze at her.

"I will always be with you. You can be yourself with me, and I with you."

Her own promise. Her own vow. Her own forgiveness.

He allowed her to guide him and to set the pace as she took his hand and laid it over that single scar, that continued broken and remade bond, then led him down, closer, tighter, until he was over top of her and she made him remember that just as he was hers, she was his.

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