On the Breath of Ossë {Sirion, Summer 538 F.A.} [Mithiel]

So close had she drawn; was she an inch taller, Mithiel's lips would be against his. The shoulders of her white dress were near transparent in the downpour. The rain had engulfed them, yet they were both warm. Ruivo could feel the rise and fall of Mithiel's chest against his. Each breath she took; each word she spoke vibrating through her with an energy he could not have expected from a Vanyar.

He could not answer why he had left. The apprehension that had filled him at the premise of she, one so beautiful and sweet and lovely and pure, who had been saved from the grips of a kinslayer, to find out that he too was one of them. Ruivo had spilled blood as innocent as her own blood which pulsed through her veins. He could feel the throb of her heartbeat.

She told him of his scars, of his wounds and how she wished to see them, to heal them. Mithiel did not understand how deep they ran; how they were nothing she could heal. There was nothing to heal which wounds he held within him. Nothing to make up for what he had done. She could not understand. She could not know...

Mithiel was soft and delicate, and Ruivo's arms were around her small frame, yet it was so it was she possessing him. He was the one wrapped around, enveloping her, yet it was she who controlled him. Ruivo's skin felt as if it were burning despite the chill of the cool rain. Persuasive was the word upon her tongue, and he could sense it with her; he could see how she formed her words; how she made them just what was needed. Soft and weaving, and firm. She had spoken firmly to his cousins in the forge, unwaveringly to him here, and he could imagine how the words had parted from her lips even to Lord Celeborn. She was not one to back down. No, not even the rain would bring her down from her will. She spoke of desire, and Ruivo felt it. He could feel the way her body drew near. He could feel the arching of her fëa as it sought to find it's place within him and around him.

“Tell me thou can ignore Eru Ilúvatar’s will. Tell me thou are brazen enough to reject this.Tell me you feel nothing for me Ruivo and I will go...but know that I do feel the call. I can almost see it, shimmering threads. Telling me you are where I belong.”

“I cannot tell you those things. You are pure in heart and discern better the will of The All High and the Valar than ever I should know. Does Eru Illuvatar yet speak from the Timeless Halls? Do the Valar intervene in the lives of those who have forsaken them? I do not wish to wound you, by taking a chance. I have used my chances. I do not deserve more.” He felt Mithiel's hands the back of his neck. Her wet arms clinging to his skin.

“Yet I cannot say I feel nothing... You have come seeking me and I cannot reject you. The last anyone sought me... it would have been better for me to listen. It would have been better then… had I had gone. I have been numb, yet I do not.. want to be without you,” he admitted. He had preferred to remain numb. Mithiel reached deeper within; to a depth that had not been opened to another in many years. Ilsë had known him better than any. She knew her brother's thoughts and motives.

Yet all things led to another, and had he gone back to Alqualondë with his family, would ever he had met the maid who was born on icy mists. No, for there was no way back. No way to enter Aman. Even she, who had been born into her life on Arda, had no chance of returning. How would he have known her? Mithiel could not read him; she did not know him so well, but he felt her delving. Even deeper was her fëa delving into him, seeking his own. “Long ago, I dreamed of a shroud of silver mist. And the mist blew off the sea on the fringes of a storm, and shrouded me completely as I stood upon the shore. Through me and around me until I was covered by it. I could see nothing else, but I did not feel lost. I felt at peace. I did not understand when first it came to me, long ago by the shores of Mithrim, when Tilion was new in the sky. I have dreamed it repeated these past months, and I did not dare to hope or think...”

“I have always loved the sea mist. Írima ye Mithiel ninya.” Lovely is my Mithiel. “I will return to Balar with you,” he whispered, his voice deep with emotion. “You belong where you are safe. And where I can reach you.” He could not imagine Mithiel belonged with him; even though she had said the words herself, yet if she would insist, and he desired her so fiercely, how could he deny her? If she felt so strongly, and he felt her in his dreams, what would “You are… persuasive...”

Ruivo felt an ache rising in his chest as he gazed down, examining her face. Her lips beckoned to him, dripping with rain. Silver pearls upon rose petals. No longer could the ellon restrain himself, and he dipped to meet her. His kiss was gentle, covering her mouth. The ache in his chest ebbed away, released as a low moan upon his lips, while Ruivo gathered Mithiel up to him, an arm wrapped around her back held her steady, nearly lifting her from the ground; letting only the toes of her slippers remain touching the path as he held her against his chest.

As Mithiel spoke of the Valar, Ruivo listened, letting the words seep into his mind, as the rain seeped into the earth to nourish the plants of summer. She spoke as one who had repeated those words for years; as one who had known all along, and Ruivo listened as if he were an elfling first hearing such thoughts. Though his own Ammë had taught him of the Valar; though Ilsë had instructed him in her own ways, Ruivo had not listened. But now he listened. Atonement. There was atonement for those who had done wicked deeds. Those who had forsaken the Valar.

Ruivo wished to ask her; if there would be atonement for those who had not only forsaken, yet also slain. Could there be atonement for the sons of Fëanor? For those who had slain their own kin... not the ones who had done so mistakenly, thinking it was in defense, but those who had gone in with swords bared knowing what they were doing. Cold blooded murderers, such as himself. Ruivo could not will the words from his lips. He only looked down at Mithiel as she spoke; holding her, and stroking his knuckles over the trailing water on her cheeks as she blinked up at him in the rain.

“You would wound me if you do not take the chance, you would wound me no matter which path is taken Ruivo.”

Ruivo's chin dropped from his clenched jaw as he felt the soft tickle of fingers against neck. How long had it been since such pleasure had rippled through him, he knew not, but Mithiel's face was so serene below him, what could he do? He would not ask her to stop. He would not take his hands from her; would not separate from the silver mist encircling him; curling through and around him.

“Then do not be without me.” Ruivo sighed feeling her fingers shift to his hair, the scritch of her fingers against his scalp, as none had ever touched him before. He realized how he adored such touch in an instant. Mithiel seemed to accept the dream hes spoke of with ease, and told him of her own, pronouncing that they had dreamed of each other; and it seemed it had been the truth.

“You have wonderful ears.”

The touch of her hand on his ears was Ruivo's undoing. He was moldable in her hands. She was now the smith, and he the metal, and she was heating him, reforming him, smoothing the rough edges of his interior. He would do whatever it was that Mithiel wished of him. He would not go from her; he would stay, and he would keep her. She could have his ears. She could have whatever it was she desired. If she wished to be kissed, he would not deny her as he had upon Balar, for she deserved everything.

"My Ruivo."

In two words was he no longer his own, and Ruivo felt his heart racing and his ears thrumming with the rush of blood that was staining his warm face pink. He sought almost frantic to kiss her fingertips as she traced over his mouth; and relief filled him again as their lips met once more. Mithiel made what he was sure was the most beautiful sound he had heard in his lifetime. He could hardly believe that he was the cause of it; that his lips could bring such pleasure to her. Such adoring pleasure. Yet something within him told him it was not simply the pleasure receptors in her mouth moaning their joy. Something felt different as threads entwined and knotted between them. His fëa had latched to her own, interlocked as their fingers had when they had walked upon the shores of Balar, and Ruivo knew that his entire life had changed; that Eru had deemed his life no longer his own. Ruivo tried to move lower, deepening the kiss, but Mithiel had pulled back only slightly, panting against him.

“Pick me up.”

For a moment, Ruivo ignored the request; though the corner of his mouth twitched as he leaned down to kiss her again, chaste against her searching desire for him. Almost painful for his own need to kiss her. His lips moved from her mouth just barely; just far enough to reach the smooth corner of her wet cheek, sliding over her skin as his lips traced up to her temple and he stopped, standing up above her again. This time as he stood looking down at her, an ease filled his chest. “Yes, my Lady,” Ruivo answered her in a low whisper, amused as he let his hands run down Mithiel's sleek back, dripping, and curl down over the curve of her hips.

***

Leptafinyo still flipping his knife in hand was chuckling at the scene, the tall smith stooped down over the little Vanyar woman. “Well it is no wonder, Celleth,” he called to his sister, who was a few paces beyond the doorway on the stone walk. “If she's his type, it's no wonder he did not give you a passing glance. Night and day!”

“Look at that,” Niphrechil hummed low in the stone doorway beside her grandson.

“Vanyar wench,” Celleth growled beneath her breath. She stood several paces out on the stone walk, rain plastering her dark hair to her face. Her clothes were soaked; water flowing in a river over her leather apron, and soot was making a grey stream from her fingertips, and she turned with eyes of fire back on her brother and began to storm back into the smithy, her shoulders taught.

A flicker of metal, as Letpafinyo's blade flipped again before her eyes, rhythmically annoying to her senses. Until suddenly she saw his eyes widen in a shock, and in losing his focus the tip of the blade scraped the edge of his finger. Leptafinyo cried out lightly as the blade clattered to the ground, and looked at the slice on his hand, blood pooling as his finger shot to his mouth.

“What damned trenches of Ulmo's lair are you...” Celleth cursed, though Leptafinyo simply laughed, and Niphrechil too had grinned to herself, shaking her head and turning back into the forge.

Celleth wheeled around to see what was so amusing and startling all at once, and her own jaw dropped at the sight. Ruivo had plucked Mithiel from the ground, and after a quick sorting of the folds of her sodden gown, the wretched elleth was wrapped around him as a tourniquet.

**

Ruivo had after moments stooped, lifting Mithiel, one hand around her thighs, and the other around her waist. He had carried her once, though she had been unconscious and not pulsing with the warmth and energy that she now did. He had never before picked up a lady. He had never been commanded to pick up a lady, though Mithiel seemed to know how to best situate herself and her arms were around him, her legs wrapping about him in a way that made something within him ache to be nearer.

She was featherlight; Ruivo felt he could have held her for an hour; felt he could hold her for a lifetime. The rain was making him blink, dripping down his face, running down his nose, and Ruivo leaned to press his lips against Mithiel's wet cheek. The sensation of cool rain against warm skin, and it was no more than an instant before his lips slid back against hers.

His arms tightened around Mithiel as he felt her legs squeezing at his waist, and all Ruivo could bring to mind was the way she felt against him; perfectly fit. Perfectly matched. Unmistakeably his, none other's, and Ruivo knew he would never desire to kiss another elleth but she again. Perfectly matched as a gem in a fitting; the two made for one another. Mithiel felt alive, and Ruivo felt alive against her. He had not felt so alive, since the beginning of the wars.

“Morgoth's claws, get out of my sight with your Valar forsaken wench, Ruivo!” Celleth finally shouted, brimming over in anger and jealousy.

Ruivo groaned as he released Mithiel's lips; shaking from his frenzied state. He could hear Celleth's fit behind him, and wished not to acknowledge it, nor be interrupted.

Leptafinyo's voice called from behind them; “Lest the Vanyar of house Finarfin be shamed in the streets!”

“Manwë strike you both by lightening!” Celleth shouted over the rumble of thunder. The sky was dark with nebulous clouds, and Ruivo almost hissed at the words, taking a few steps off the path, nearer the embankment of the Sirion.

His boots squished in the mud, and he pressed his face against Mithiel's hair for some moments trying to regain himself, squeezing her in his arms. Ignoring Celleth's cursing and Leptafinyo's teasing. Ruivo's lips grazed over Mithiel's ear. “She should not curse what is mine,” he muttered low against her. Where he had been merely annoyed by his cousin before, he was now angered, and he closed his eyes, letting the smell of rain and honey and apples fill his senses and calm him.

“Down, down,” he muttered to Mithiel, prying her loose from him, straying near to lean down and kiss her hard, his hands on her face, sliding around her neck and into her dripping hair. He groaned, ripping himself away suddenly and swiftly, and looked over the bank where the stream was rolling beneath aside the shore, and he stepped off the edge, landing five feet below in a puddle which splashed mud over his boots; over his breeches, but Ruivo was soaked already and did not mind, and the rain seemed unrelenting.

“Down here, down here,” he voiced quickly almost a laugh on his voice, sucking in his breath as he looked up at Mithiel. Finally standing apart from her, the stormy sky arching overhead. He could see her fully now. She was garbed as if in mist and rain alone, her clothes slick about her, and he blinked against the rain, adoring the look of her, wearing Ossë's storm. Mithiel's dress was nearly sheer upon her, and Ruivo knew he should not look, but he could not help himself. She was to his eyes like the bronze statues lining the streets of Tirion. Too beautiful to be kept hidden; to be admired and adored. Standing against any weather the sky could give them; through any storm. Yet warm and living beneath her exterior. Beautiful and delightful to her very soul. She wished to be with him, and Ruivo could feel whatever bond it was that was stringing them together now weaving further. His fingers ached to touch her again.

Ruivo reached up for Mithiel, his fingers grazing what they could reach of her calves through her dress from his place beneath. “Come to me, my Írima.” He offered his arms to catch her.

Ruivo could not seem to believe the laughter and amusement upon Mithiel's lips and glinting in her eyes as his cousin's exclamations. Eye to eye he could now see her easily. Eyes of green seaglass reflecting the grey storm clouds above them. It had been so long since she had been this near to his eyes; she had still been healing then, but now her gaze was glimmering with some yet undiscovered liveliness which Ruivo had not expected.

“Am I your wench, Ruivo?”

His eyes widened that she would even speak the word wench, yet his body ached at the tone of her voice. “Of course not,” he muttered quickly, almost too forcefully. The way he had been kissing her… he had not meant for the others to see, for it to clash with her good name in such a way, yet Mithiel seemed not to mind. “No one should call you thus, you're a demure, proper...” The words stilled in his mouth, caught on his breath. He could almost feel the laughter on her lips as her mouth settled upon his scar, as her lips began to trail down his jaw and down the sensitive skin of his neck.

Mithiel had never been this close before. Even on Balar… the one night she had settled upon his lap for those few minutes he had not drawn her so near. He gasped in shock at the way she met his collarbone, and his breath left him in a groan, almost inaudible, as her legs squeezed him. Ruivo could barely focus on anything between the way she caressed, and the calls his cousins were making behind him.

Yet Mithiel, faithful to the Valar had no condescending words for them this time. Her chastisement came only as a jest to him; perhaps for the sake that his fingers were reaching and gripping, pinning her against him as they took their leave of the forge. “Yours”, she affirmed as they took their leave of his cousins. He heard Celleth's voice echoing in the background as she dipped back beneath the roof of the forge, and Leptafinyo's roaring laughter as Mithiel leapt down the embankment to his arms.

“Out of their sight,” Ruivo murmured against Mithiel's cheek, the moment he had caught her up in his arms again, letting her slide against him in the rain as he brought her to rest again eye to eye. It was barely an instant before the elleth had pressed her lips against his again. Though the rain was cool, the sudden heat of her body against him again made Ruivo's mind recall every curve of the lithe frame that had been on display before him. He shifted her while she kissed him, dropping an arm beneath her thighs, the other tightening around her narrow waist.

“You make me impetuous.” Ruivo chuckled once as Mithiel's nose brushed against him, as she sought out his ear. He droned out a contented hum while the thunderhead rumbled, clenching his fingers against her leg. The rain was heavy overhead. “I like you impetuous,” was his answer.

“Your arms, they are nice, I noticed on Balar but I never said. I like them...I am sure you’ve heard that before… And you do still owe me a dance beneath moonlight at the turn of the season...but for now, hold me and kiss the one that is yours.”

“I had not heard it from you,” Ruivo answered her, as if it were the only thing which mattered for him. Celleth had a thing or two say about his arms, though it disturbed Ruivo to no end. A fourth cousin was still kin. There had been… plenty of ladies in Tirion. In Formenos. Her thumb was toying with his lip, distracting him, and he took a few steps in the slick mud. He needed to sit down, to draw her near. He needed to touch her, and drive her to distraction the way she was him.

Ruivo twisted his neck, nudging her pretty face over onto his blind side so he could see, and he started forth up the frothing river as if on a mission. His feet sunk into the mud, and he tried to keep Mithiel from his lips; if only to keep himself focused on the task at hand, as he strode through the rain, leaving only bootprints filling with water behind. “I shall dance with you all night on Autumn's first moon. And before… I promise I--” He swallowed, continuing to walk forward. “If my promise can mean anything to you.” He wondered if she was looking at his white eye; at his scarred cheek. How could she not mind it? Not mind to be so near. Ruivo tried to reason to himself again that she did not mind it. She had said it did not frighten her.

He carried Mithiel with ease until they rounded a bend in the river where a willow grove reached above the Sirion, the great roots dipping down into the water. Ruivo placed the elleth gently on the ground, grinning as her bare toes sunk into the mud beside him, and he reached up toward the hanging boughs of a willow which quivered against the tempest, parting the leafy curtain and looking upon Mithiel expectantly, as if he were offering her entry to a ballroom.

Though stray droplets leaked through the thick leafy branches they were suddenly lost to the brunt of the wind and rain, and the edges of the river flowed beside them. It smelled of earth, and loam, and damp, and they could have been a thousand miles into the depths of the wilderness for the solitude offered. He strode across the mossy ground to great flat boulder, a place he would often come to sit in peace away from the bustle of the city being rebuilt.

Ruivo seated himself, and his arms were out immediately, seeking to draw Mithiel near, that she might have the kisses she requested. “Your dress is ruined, impetuous one,” he muttered as he looked at her. “I hope you never hoped to wear this one again.” He helped her gather up the folds as he had before, careless to protect them from further mud for the state she was already in, making it quite clear with the fervid way he tugged at her that he wished for her legs around his waist again. “I told you...” he muttered, as Mithiel's hips finally settled over him where he desired. He fingered the cloth of her dress. Splotched grey with soot, brown with mud. “I ruin… I'll ruin...” He could not quite finish his thoughts, his head growing foggy with the desire for her closeness. His lips met hers again, and it seemed as he could drink her in for an age, and for what was perhaps half an age he did. No words; only the song of the rain falling overhead; dripping on them through the branches as the sky grew darker. Her lips, her hands, her touch, and every bit of affection Ruivo had forgotten existed over the last five centuries washed over him.

“Do you feel it still?” Ruivo asked after a long while, his hand grazing down Mithiel's side over the wet fabric of her dress. His thoughts lifting from Mithiel's lips and hands to some grasp which went beyond. The binding that held them; the threads and the mist which were invisible, yet… he could feel them. He could almost see them glimmer, if it were not his imagination.

Her chest against his was driving him to distraction, and his breaths came heavy against Mithiel's cheek. He kissed over her wet skin two times, three, then her jaw, followed by her ear. “All encompassing,” he whispered into it, before he kissed her earlobe again. His nose pressed against her hair, and he breathed against her, warm breaths in the humid summer air. “As if I've been smothered by silver waves, yet I can breath clearer for it.”

Ruivo's hand dropped to Mithiel's, and he grasped it within, raising it up to look at it. “You feel what binds us… I have never. Never felt like this with another. Have you… with other ellyn?” Ruivo tempered the lowness of his voice as he spoke of others. The mere thought of another ellon touching Mithiel almost made him wish to growl, though he knew it was unfair to think that way. He wetted his lips taking a deep breath, as he let the thoughts simmer and he closed his eyes and turned his lips back against her cheek.

The entrance to the forge left light flickering from inside, orange against the grey and black stained walls, from the soot which covered all. Humid inside, though the fires worked to dry the air. Some had been put out for the end of work day, though others burned yet; for orders were yet to be finished and the sons and daughter of Gaenir would stay behind as always until they were through.

“I've said for half an age about the flipping of those knives,” Niphrechil was chastising as she stood near the rare clean basin of water, fresh drawn from the river, cleaning the cut upon Leptafinyo's hand. “What kind of worm do I need to put into your ear to remind you?” Exasperated at her grandson.

“You could lose an eye,” Vercano teased as he leaned over.

“That is none to jest on,” Niphrechil reprimanded as she looked toward the rainy entryway where Celleth yet stood watching from the doorway the empty riverbank.

“Your cousin lost his eye well over five hundred years past. All those years of smithing, and his quality of work is still degraded from what he could once do in Tirion. You best not lose your eye, nor make a fool of yourself speaking on it.”

“But who could have known?” Leptafinyo noted. “When that little--”

“Haughty, snipe tongued, Vanyar wench,” Celleth grumbled, turning from the doorway as she started in, watching her Grandmother bandage the hand of Leptafinyo. “It serves you right for speaking so coy with her. Spawn of Morgoth… I cannot believe he had that waiting on him.”

“He never mentioned her,” Vercano pointed out. “You couldn't have known.”

“Ruivo never mentioned her because she is a snipe! A wench!

“Didn't seem too disinclined to leave with her...” Leptafinyo grinned, then winced as Niphrechil pulled taught the bandage.

“Legs may have had something to do with it,” Vercano noted.

Celleth merely groaned, beginning to step away from her brothers, as a figure shadowed the doorway, the Vanyar's wet slippers in hand.

“Excuse me, I am looking an elleth. Lady Mithiel… She would have been wearing a white dress with heraldry upon it.”

“Mithiel,” Leptafinyo perked up at the name. “She would not tell it to me.” He clapped his hands together, then winched again as he was reminded with a sharp pain of his injury.

“Just missed her, I should say. Went off with a bit of a leap,” Vercano spoke, proud of his play on words.

Celleth groaned a single word, “Huilien.”

“Who is asking?” Niphrechil wondered studying the finely clad elf as he stood before them, looking a great deal worried. “She's in good hands. Why do you look so nervous?”


***

Chuckling at the thought of a grey dress, Ruivo could not help. White he had always seen her in, at least to his recall. White here in in Sirion, white in the Healing Halls of Balar, white in her blood stained nightdress upon the ship that bore them. Translucent upon his lap. Beautiful, though beautiful in any color she would be, whether or not it was drab grey or brown.

“Missed me in your lap already.”

“Months too long. You asked me what I liked,” Ruivo suggested, as Mithiel's hand came to his jaw and her kisses sought deeper than they had yet shared. The shorter elleth finding place upon his lap left them eye to eye and comfortable to enjoy one another. Ruivo's hands roamed pleasantly and then held Mithiel secure, and experienced lips danced with hers, unwilling to part.

“I do...I feel it, stronger than I felt on in the healing halls of Balar.”

“Mhm,” Ruivo hummed, following the motions of Mithiel's hands. No anxiety or nervousness plauged him, for her fingertips placed him right where she desired him to touch her, and he relished the feel of skin. Her legs were bare around his waist. His heart pounding as she shifted nearer on his lap, as her wet skin tugged against his. As the weight of her shifted on his lap, finding her space of comfort. He groaned, the sound coming from deep in his chest with her movements, and sighed against her ear.

“As if you’ve found something you did not know was missing...something that just...feels right.”

Ruivo paused, his fingers clenching lightly against her thigh, and he simply nodded, the hint of a smile upon his lips. Something missing. Something which had always been missing. Sweet, cooling mist cast over him.

“I have never felt this with another. Only with you, have I felt such. Since I was in the healing halls, I first felt the tugs.” Her eyes closed, Ruivo looked in open adoration upon her face as her fingers found the spaces between his. “Perhaps the best course of action before we allow ourselves more is be certain we are not...family...I do not take family as…”

Ruivo huffed against Mithiel's cheek, feeling a silent bit of reprimand beneath her words. Between the things both Celleth and Niphrechil had blurted in the forge, he feared what she would think of him.

“My cousins in the forge… third, fourth cousins. I assure you, I showed her no interest. The Matron, I knew her in Tirion. Long ago, she came in for training then, when there I resided. Distracting to me, when I was young. I did not realize she was a cousin… I was careless with ladies then. It was… all a game. All merrymaking and sport… I did not care who...” he admitted, swallowing hard.

“You are no game,” he added.

“I have not touched an elleth since before you were born,” Ruivo muttered, leaning against her ear, lips toying against the lobe. His appetite for her insatiable even though she had stilled her own advances as she waited for his answer. He wetted his lips, pulled back just an inch; he was staring at the fair skin of her cheek, at her hair which was darkened with the damp that still lurched from the sky as the boughs of the willow swayed around them,

“I am of the line of Mahtan if you had not yet guessed,” he stated. Though some of his Ammë's honor was perhaps teetering on the edge, Ruivo said nothing of his other house. He could not speak of the Teleri. He could not reveal to her… that part of him. And the sam

Perhaps, Mithiel would consider that both his parents were of House Mahtan. It was common enough among that household that cousins would wed… third, fourth… closer kin was not common though even second cousins on occasion. If she would assume… not ask further.

“I do not think it possible we are related. Tell me. Tell me your family line,” he murmured instead. “I will be… listening,” he whispered in Mithiel's ear, before Ruivo's mouth met her skin again, trailing a path of slow kisses from her ear down the curve on the side of her neck. His thumb traced the same path down the other side, then gently he tilted her head back, exposing the damp skin at her throat to his roving eye.

For a moment, he pulled back a space to look at the marred skin of her throat bared to him, in the strange green-yellow light that the storm cast through the leaves of the willow. The thin line of her scar was healed. “Perfectly imperfect,” he whispered. He had not seen her neck bared since last he had been in the Mouths of Sirion with her. Her skin had been desecrated and bloody. The thought of her as such was devastating to him.

Ruivo stroked her damp hair, urging Mithiel to keep her head tilted back for him and he studied her as he listened. He traced the scar lightly with a finger, and then dipped his head to kiss it; his free hand delving into into the depths of her damp hair as his lips worked themselves gingerly across the tissue. Every inch of the long scar was lavished in gentle adoration, as if he he could counteract the ferocity that Celevondir had used against her. Purring in hum against her skin, his other hand occupied yet against her thigh where she had rested it. Ruivo was loathe to lose the touch of her skin, his hand creeping higher. The damp of her dress running atop it, while beneath flesh which desired his touch.

“How does it feel?” he whispered, as he willed his hand to still, fingers beneath her dress clenching lightly. “The wound,” he clarified the meaning of his question, a curl to his lip, as Ruivo held the back of her neck in hand to support her, breathing against her scar. Laying another gentle kiss right to the center, and humming against it. Surely by now the pain was gone, though Ruivo knew well scars. “Some of mine are numb still, after years, and others are… rather sensitive.”