Sword and Snow

In the end, the day of our wedding passed altogether pleasantly. Despite expecting a whole slew of issues, none really came to pass. Avuri and I were able to sit at our table and greet all of our visitors as we were expected to do, without any real interruptions. Both the dinner and party went smoothly. People enjoyed their time, and left without incident.

We were even sent home before clean up began, with Talya and Mica assuring us that it would be taken care of. Vyne even pushed us to leave with a smile on his face. And despite both of us arguing that we would be happy to take Cierra and Stena with us, Talya simply would not let us do so.

They also repeatedly and very clearly said that no one would be coming back to the main house for tonight, leaving the two of us perfectly alone.

Resigned to losing the argument, we gave in. After several happy farewells, Vale took us back to the basin and dropped us home.

And I mean dropped.

Once we were above the basin, without any particular warning beyond a laugh that was all but lost to the wind, Vale simply barrel rolled. The unexpected spin flung us both off of his shoulders and left us falling a hundred or so meters to the ground.

My string of expletives was similarly lost to the wind as we fell, but it was more out of shock than danger. We were both fully capable of landed safely from that height, while Vale used the spin to turn around and head back to help with the clean up.

With a controlled burst of Qi, we each righted ourselves and landed on the ground upright. Avuri laughed at me when I needed to take a few steps to kill the last bit of my momentum, while she landed cleanly and lightly.

As I narrowed my eyes at her for the teasing, she skipped up to me and took my hand.

“Shall we?” She asked, with a big smile spreading over her face. It was too hard to stay even remotely angry with her at that moment, so I relented quickly.

“Yeah, let’s go.” I responded, and gave her arm a tug as we walked toward our home.

Vale had dumped us a decent bit away from the house, so we had a little bit of walking to do. And as we moved together, our pace quickly went from a leisurely walk, to a jog, then to a run. And shortly thereafter, we were moving a full tilt through the basin together. The distance to the front door - which would have been at least twenty minutes at a normal walking pace - was covered in less than two.

We both slowed to a walk again as we approached the front door, hand in hand, then stopped, staring at it.

“We’re home.” Avuri said.

“Yep.”

“And married.”

“Yep.”

There was a bit of silence that was eventually broken when Avuri laughed. “I feel like this should be more special, but it sorta feels like any other night.”

I smiled and gave her hand a squeeze. “Yep.”

“Would you like to say anything other than ‘Yep’?”

“Yep.” I said again, and gave her arm a tug again, pulled her around to face me. I took a step into her and wound my arms around her waist to pull her closer still. “I love you, Avuri.”

“I love you too, Emery.” She responded, before hugging me tightly against her and resting her chin on my head.

“Hey.” I growled, leaning back a little to throw her chin off of me. As I leaned back, it put me at just the right angle for Avuri to lean down for a kiss. It was easily the most fiery and intense of the day, despite how many times we had kissed already. It wasn’t a particularly long kiss, but when we parted, we were both flushed.

Perhaps more telling, however, was the clearly smudged makeup we were surely both now sporting. We had taken deliberate care throughout the day to make sure the beautiful makeup work had stayed in place and relatively untouched. But now, as we stood at the door to our house, it was no longer a concern. And it showed. Very obviously.

Avuri and I both smiled, then broke into laughter.

“We should bathe.” Avuri eventually said, struggling between fits of laughter. “Get all of this off.”

“Yeah, agreed.” I said, rubbing my face. My hand came away stained with some of the makeup. “It looked really good, but I’m tired of my face feeling so heavy.”

“I’m inclined to agree.” Avuri said, dragging a fingernail down her cheek, gathering some of the caked foundation. “I appreciate how the makeup looks, don’t get me wrong, but we’re Cultivators. Our faces are basically flawless already; isn’t this overkill?”

“Right?” I said with a laugh as I moved to open the door. “I appreciate some added lip color or gloss and maybe some lining around the eye, but I feel like all of the foundation is so extra.”

Avuri nodded along. “Yes, exactly. But Mica still insisted that she covered my entire face.”

“Rylie did the same here. Though I’m curious how she managed to do it; because she didn’t hide my freckles, but I can clearly feel the makeup across my whole face.”

“She did hide your freckles.” Avuri said as she followed me through the door. We started making our way to our bedroom to grab a change of clothes for the bath.

“No, she didn’t.” I said, almost questioningly. “She showed me in a mirror, and I clearly still had them.”

“You don’t look at mirrors very often, do you?” Avuri asked. I blinked at the question.

“I suppose not, why?”

“Merri, the freckles on your face right now are all in the wrong places. I’ll give you, she got a few right, but they’re clearly added on with makeup.”

“What? No way.” I said, poking my own face.

“Yes way.” Avuri said as we reached the bedroom. She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward our bathroom. “Come here, I’ll show you.” I followed her as she pulled me along to stand by our mirror in the bathroom. She put me in front of her, so we were looking at the mirror, with her standing behind me and looking over my shoulder.

“For starters,” she began, “you don’t have a freckle here.” She pointed to a dark spot a little high on my right cheek, just above my cheekbone. “She went too high. You do have a darker freckle right here though.” She said, lowering her finger a few centimeters, to just below my cheekbone. Then she scratched away the makeup with her finger, removing the higher spot and displaying the lower one clearly.

“She clearly paid no attention to the dusting over your nose, because the shapes are all wrong, but that’s fine. It wouldn’t be worth it to get those right. But there are a few on each cheek that she didn’t get right.”

Avuri then proceeded to point out three more locations she got wrong, but also two that Rylie had transposed correctly.

I chuckled after she eventually scratched away some of the foundation over my nose to show me how that was all wrong too. “It’s remarkable how well you know all of these.”

“Is it?” Avuri asked, meeting my eyes in the mirror. “I stare at your face all the time, Merri. Of course I know it.” She offered a small, happy smile after saying so. “Besides, if I recall correctly, you once gave me a rundown of the vast majority of the beauty marks all over my body so…”

“I was drunk when I did that.” I said indignantly.

“And you were still one hundred percent correct about each one you mentioned.”

“...yeah, fair.” I gave in, leaning back against her. “We should probably get changed and go use the bath if we’re going to.”

Avuri squeezed me in a hug before letting go and walking back toward the bedroom. “Right, right. Let’s go.”

The two of us made short work of our bath. We had assumed that the rest of the families would be coming home after cleaning up, and wanted to be well finished by the time they arrived. So, going against our natural instincts of taking our time bathing and enjoying the hot water, we washed up fairly quickly to make it back inside before anyone else made it home.

We were giggling and laughing like children as we bolted from the bath house in towels, running and hiding behind things as if we would be caught. Once we were safely inside the main house, we both ran straight up to our bedroom, closed the door, and pulled the shade over the window. We lit a few of the lighting Arrays, casting the room in a dim but warm light.

With our little sanctuary situated, Avuri sat on the bed, running her fingers through her hair which was messy and loose from our running. I smiled as she tugged fingers through knots and slowly pried her hair apart.

“Stop that.” I said, “Let me get the comb and I’ll do it for you.”

Avuri grinned, and sat up straight on the side of the bed, pulling her hands from her hair like she’d been caught doing something naughty. Her legs dangled from the bed, just shy of reaching the ground because of our raised bed. I couldn’t help but stop and stare for a moment, just taking in the image; she just looked perfect.

When she noticed me staring, she smiled and tilted her head in question. I chuckled and shook my head. “Sorry. You bewitched me for a moment.” I laughed. “You’re absolutely beautiful, Avuri.” When the look in her eyes turned sultry, I quickly added, “Now let me get that comb,” and quickly dashed into the bathroom to retrieve it.

When I returned, Avuri was still sitting neatly on the bed, waiting. I crawled up onto the bed and maneuvered my way around behind her, where I settled in. Avuri promptly brushed her hands through her hair and fluffed it out behind her, letting it pool in my lap. Unsure exactly where to begin, I simply ran my fingers through her hair and over her scalp in something resembling a massage before picking a section of hair to run the comb through.

After the first few passes of the comb, Avuri seemed to relax with a contented sigh as I worked it through the knots in her hair. Thankfully, her hair was rather cooperative and I didn’t need to struggle through any nasty knots, nor did I need to pull her hair at all. Most of them came right out under the tug of the wooden comb.

Despite neither of us saying anything, the silence was comfortable as I worked through section after section of Avuri’s hair. She seemed to delight in each time I ran my fingers instead of the comb through her hair, especially the moments where I gently scratched her scalp. I mentally tucked that bit of knowledge away for later use.

Over the twenty minute or so period, I shifted around and moved to stay comfortable. When I was down to the last few sections of hair, I shifted again, this time stretching my leg to either side of Avuri, functionally putting her in my lap. And when I finished the last section of hair, I placed the comb off to the side and snaked my arms around Avuri, pulling her back against me.

“I’m finished, Ri.” I whispered in her ear, then kissed it lightly. Avuri shivered and all but melted in my arms at that for just a moment. Then she promptly spun around in my lap and tackled me to the bed. After a searing kiss, she climbed more fully up onto the bed, trapping me entirely beneath her.

I wiggled up to be more fully on the bed myself before Avuri leaned down for more kisses, each longer and deeper than the last. There was an eagerness and fervor to it that I hadn’t expected at first, and Avuri’s hands began to urgently tug at the towel I still had wrapped around me.

When her mouth began to trail down my jaw and neck and I could speak again, I called her name and tried to push her away by her shoulders. “Avuri, relax.” I said, a giggle escaping with the words. Her eyes met mine in the dim light, and I could see the intensity in them begin to melt away into something more warm.

I leaned up to give her a gentle kiss, one of my hands resting on her cheek. “We have all night. Slow down and enjoy it.” I said against her lips.

Avuri tilted her head to lean her forehead against mine, then she laughed. “Sorry. I suppose I got a little over excited. Between how you looked today, plus waiting through the bath, then the hair combing…” She trailed off, then said, “You’re a bit of a master tease, you know that?”

“Oh, because it’s been so easy keeping my hand off of you all day.” I countered, then put my arms around her and pulled her down toward me again for another kiss. “Don’t need to anymore though.”

Rather than with words, Avuri responded with another kiss. Slow and warm; a perfect precursor to the rest of the night.