closed. the number of hours we have together is actually not so large.

[elegiaque]

WHO: Gwenaëlle, Stephen, and special guests.
WHAT: Gwenaëlle and Stephen go to visit her family for First Day.
WHEN: First Day.
WHERE: A small cottage in the woods, the Free Marches.
NOTES: Content warnings for dealing with lyrium addiction and decline, family member dementia, end of life care, caregiver burnout, grief, loss. Potentially a huge downer of a time.

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[portalling]

And the conversation continues: Stephen picking Gwenaëlle’s brain and ransacking her family memories, trying to gather a sense of the couple they’re about to see, girding himself for the complicated situation awaiting them. He doesn’t have a family anymore for her to meet, and even if he did, they’d be inaccessible an entire universe away. So he’ll have to do his damned best to make a good impression here.

The conversation meanders just as they meander, and it eventually winds up on other topics. By the time they reach the small town they’re overnighting in, midway to the cottage, his ass hurts from the horseback ride and he’s ready for a rest. Clambering off, stabling their houses, paying for a room at some shabby inn along the Marcher road, ordering food brought up to them later.

It’s not until they’re in their private room and the door’s firmly locked behind them that Gwenaëlle’s finally able to loosen her clothes and shrug off her coverings. By automatic rote habit, Stephen moves to stand behind her, helping to unwind the wrappings pinning her wings to her body, and nimbly ducks his head out of the way when they unfold and stretch. He presses a kiss to the nape of her neck, unspoken support.

Tomorrow. They’ll get there tomorrow.

And then, the thought suddenly occurring to him, as he looks at unfamiliar walls and an unfamiliar bed and a small overnight bag to unpack and knowing that once upon a time, this would’ve been expensive sheets and a piping-hot shower in some Ritz-Carlton suite —

“You know,” he says, “I just realised, this is sort of our first trip as a couple. I mean, there was visiting your grandfather, but that was mostly under the guise of a work trip, and we had the eluvians to get the fuck out whenever we wanted.”

[elegiaque]

Early attempts had been experimental, tricky; in the weeks and months since Sarrux, she’s taken her time designing bindings for comfort as much as practicality— thin silk that wraps around her, wider where it presses wings to skin, narrower where it fastens in place. It’s still a relief to unfurl them privately, arching her back and letting them stretch out, sighing, like the sensation of loosening a corset times a thousand—

they lower as he leans close, fluttering between their bodies, and of all the things he might’ve said in that moment she is sort of delighted to have not been expecting that at all.

A beat passes, probably Gwenaëlle almost quibbling and then doing the math and, “I think you’re right. I mean, if we aren’t counting trips we’ve taken for work, then…”

And fair play to him not to, all things being equal. What a novelty it suddenly is, to travel only because she wishes to. Even for this.

“And that didn’t count, we had to go to parties.”

The prospect of having to do hard physical labour for the maintenance of Gervais and Coupe’s lifestyle cottage still sounds more like leisure than attending a masque.

🎀

[portalling]

Stephen laughs at her withering tone, and drifts to the side as Gwenaëlle nimbly helps unbutton his coat, quicker and easier on his hands. “It’s perpetually amusing to me that I like the parties more than you. I can take one for the team, next time we have an invite.”

It’s simpler for him: he’s the foreign rifter curiosity, but there’s less court baggage, no family history to trample on.

They settle into the inn’s bedroom; comfortable, a little rundown, but the business is glad of the patronage, their guestbooks having suffered so near occupied Starkhaven.

First trip as a couple. They’re collecting the milestones as they go, more and more for the stack: often going about it all backwards, first a hookup then the relationship, moving in together then deciding to live together. First time meeting her family, again and again. First Satinalia in bed. (First anniversary. First fight.)

He should be terrified, probably. Navigating a relationship like this is still alien and unfamiliar and frightening, but— it’s worth it.