Oooof sensory prompt time!! How about 38?
Thanks Cassy and @wonda-ch for this sweet one 💕
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38. A person’s weight as they lie on top of you
“You sure clean up nice, chief.”
“Like the new look?” Siavash gave him a tired smile.
All the invigorating energy of the transformation had worn off by now except for a fine fizzing like Carpenden bubbly in his stomach. They stood on the island’s lip overlooking the cliffs of Drezen jutting black through a sepia Worldwound haze, while up here in the Court of the Lark a dome of clear sky jeweled with stars soared overhead.
Behind them a wild, drunken chorus dissolved into laughter. The festivities would go on all night.
They had killed an Archdevil.
He felt heavy. He rolled his shoulders and experienced the unfamiliar drag of wings—wings!—which should have filled him with joyful wonder, even knowing they were the gift of a half-fiend witch. Flickering butterflies danced around his peripheral vision. He gave off a faint glow like sunlight reflected from the surface of a misty lake.
Iomedae had offered him a way out and he hadn’t taken it.
The wound ached.
He held up a hand and frowned at his fingers. “I got this scar baking apple pie,” he told Woljif, pointing out a white spot on his ring finger. “Sugar dripped on it while I was taking it out of the oven. Had to sit there with my hand in a glass of water all evening.”
“You all right chief?”
“Ah… yeah. I think.”
“It’s still you in there, huh?”
“That’s what I keep asking myself.”
Woljif gave him an appraising look that gradually turned into a sly grin. “Want me to check?”
“If I’m the same on the inside?”
“Yeah.” A little shrug, a mischievous raised eyebrow.
Siavash cracked up despite himself. “I think you’d better. Come on.”
Above the Cavalry Sculptors’ camp nestled a grassy alcove hidden by hanging moss and raspberry brambles. On the way they came across Kel Five Knives, staggering to the edge of the embankment to relieve himself onto the treant grove below.
“Hey, Kel. Think you can post a lookout for us?”
“Sure thing, comrade.”
Siavash led Woljif by the hand into the privacy of the alcove and they threw down what was left of their cloaks. Somewhere above, Aranka was singing in her sultry, laughter-filled voice.
Enveloped by night, song and flowers they stood face-to-face clasping each other’s hands, Siavash’s glow reflected like flecks of flame in Woljif’s golden eyes, and neither needed to speak; all that was behind them now—the Abyss, the transformations, the fear, the clinging to one another desperately like drowning men—words could not say; and what was ahead did not bear thinking on.
Their kisses were tender at first, but Woljif’s lips grew insistent and hungry and Siavash started to laugh into his mouth. “Please don’t tell me I taste different.”
Eyes half-closed, lips reaching for his, Woljif murmured, “Nah, good as ever.”
Slowly Siavash drew him down onto the cloaks and sweet grass and, holding him tight, rolled with a crunching of wings onto his back, pulling his slight, comforting weight atop him. It felt good to be pressed into solid earth, even if that solid earth was a magically floating island. The ridge of a horn rested against his chin. The curls under his palm felt soft, the waist underneath the leather warm.
Cynosure winked, blurring in the tears that welled in his eyes.
Tears of joyful wonder—not from the wings, from this.
