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⊹ elain archeron x yrene towers ⊹

eternally toward the sun

read on ao3

synopsis: What happens two people who have squashed their own identities for other people's sake and remained kind throughout it all find each other? In which Elain and Yrene fall in love. word count: 1283 words notes: ... this was meant to be a moodboard. I had procrastinated writing this until THE LAST DAY OF THE EVENT. so if this feels rushed, you know why!! anyways it felt a bit sad not to write gay fic on pride month so these two are my very beloved, chosen subjects :) for: @sjmsapphic day 3 - slice of life (bit of identity as well, to be honest) divider by olenvasynyt

The first time Elain saw Yrene, it was in the Dawn Court, the renowned abode of the healers. Her breath had caught and stuck in her throat at the indubitable beauty of the woman (the term Elain was most accustomed to using at the time) and the delicate arch of her neck as she threw her head back and laughed.

She, the mysterious stranger, was a little like the famed angels in myths Elain had grown up reading – and dreaming – of.

Perhaps it was no surprise that the patient nearest to her, wincing a moment ago because of a headache, had perked up, as if Yrene's light, airy laugh had found a way to brighten the people around her.

Elain's gaze wandered to the scar on her neck – and caught there. A slashing across her throat, so brutal that Elain could see it even from afar.

That woman knew what was it like to endure inconceivable horrors and endure. Trudge forward, plaster a smile on your face and sometimes, pretend that it was real, even when it was not.

Elain felt a spark of kinship (and something else that she did not yet examine) towards her, towards someone who understood what it felt like to persist through adversity, retain that hope, clutch it to your chest. Even when it weighed on you. Even when it felt easier to let hope go into the awaiting night.

As Yrene left her patient with a squeeze of their hand and a promise to be back soon, Elain somehow felt the touch too, a phantom prickling in her hand. The book she was holding teetered in her unsteady grip, as if it were placed on the edge of a cliff.

(Elain, on the other hand, was already falling.)

As Elain swallowed the feeling down and made her way past the crowd of healers, all she could see was that stranger: the brown curls cascading down to her waist like a waterfall; her dark eyes that sparkled like stars, two pinpricks of light piercing through a sea of black. And most of all, the scar and all that it represented. Elain felt her presence even more acutely as she passed the stranger: though they were on opposite ends of the room, her heart thrummed like a bird set free from its cage.

Elain willed herself not to look, not to stare for any longer than she had. But she felt Yrene's imaginary, achingly warm hand lingering in hers all the same. She could not shake off the feeling of being a sunflower, drawn eternally toward the sun.

Elain made it out of the hall, breathless, and squeezed her eyes shut.

She dearly wished that it was her who had fallen ill today.

Three years had passed since then.

Elain smiled sleepily as her eyes fluttered open. Like the unfurling of a tulip through the seasons, Yrene mused, a smile tugging at her own lips.

Elain awoke in a perfectly ladylike manner, quite contrary to how Yrene herself woke. According to Elain, Yrene waking was more like the languid stretching of an annoyed cat. On paper, Elain was completely at odds with Yrene herself, born in the furthest corner of the Dawn Court to a mother long gone.

What an odd, and strangely complementary, pair they made.

The flicker of grief about her mother (accompanied by the smell of smoke) wore away as Elain threaded her fingers through Yrene's, something that Elain had dreamed of doing for so long and was now the first thing she did every morning. Her hand radiated blissful warmth.

As Yrene slipped her fingers a little lower, to Elain's wrist bone, Yrene felt and heard Elain's pulse beating erratically underneath. Even as she drew her fingers away, Yrene could hear the heart beating beneath Elain's ribcage, as if it were her own.

"I can hear it. Your heartbeat," Yrene said softly, gently.

Elain only smiled and brought her lips to Yrene's cheek, which tinted ever so slightly pink. The first time Yrene had wondered aloud about how she could hear Elain's heart, Elain had stopped still, and then laughed, a sound that was like spring personified.

Elain had said, a little awe-struck, "I've always been able to hear… others' heartbeats. I don't knew how, but… they could never hear mine." In that moment, Yrene could picture what Elain had been after the Cauldron: leached of all colour; weighed down by sorrow; mourning the loss of her human body and soul. With no one there to pull her out, or see her, or hear her. The hope Elain had worked tirelessly to carry for so long, through smiles and tears, at risk of vanishing entirely.

Sometimes, Yrene knew, it was harder to be hope-bringer than any other role: what happened when hope slipped out of your tenuous grip and shattered into pieces on the floor?

Who drew you out then?

"But you can hear mine," Elain had said slowly, blinking away tears from her lovely, doe eyes. Then, like she was declaring it to the world, "You can hear mine."

Yrene had smiled and kissed her, Elain's steady heartbeat echoing in her ears. It could have been the last thing in the world that Yrene heard, and she would have loved it all the same.

That had remained true for the three years after it, to this very moment, in which they lay, sprawled in their bed. Yrene doubted the fact would ever change, not as Elain's arm slipped around her waist to hold her. Not as Yrene plucked two rose petals out of Elain's light hair and held them up, almost admonishingly.

"This happens every day," Yrene tutted. "Some flower or the other dirtying your lovely hair."

"What more do you expect of a gardener, healer?" Elain replied back, a smile in her voice. "This is no different from when you tumble into bed well past midnight because of a late healing."

When she had first talked to Yrene, she hadn't been nearly as assertive. But Yrene certainly had, armed with a quip to go with every one of her sentences. And so, Elain had learnt. Learnt how to speak, instead of whisper; how to consider her own desires, instead of the quiet pressuring of those around her. (Later, Elain would learn that Yrene had once been just like her, too small and too shy to retaliate.)

Yrene laughed. "Well, there's nothing I can say to argue against that." She buried her face in the crook of Elain's neck and inhaled the sweet scent of saplings and spring. They rested in companionable silence for a while, before Yrene said, "I have an early meeting that I need to go to..."

Elain asked, with a soft yet teasing smile, "Is it terrible if I want you to stay, despite what they might think?"

Yrene's brows rose. "Well, I thought we had eschewed what others think of us a long time ago." First on an individual level, unlearning years of letting others dictate their choices, and then, when they had decided that what they felt for each other was far greater than what a mating bond or the wider world thought.

Yrene let go of the rose petals in her hand and the pair of petals fluttered gently down to the floor. Carefree. Unbothered by the gusts of wind rushing in from outside.

So Yrene did stay.

Elain and Yrene remained in bed as the morning light streamed in from the window. Bathed them both in yellow, the brilliant shade of a sunflower. They stayed there for a long, long while.

Just as they had a thousand times before. And would do for a thousand more.

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