Work Text:
~*~
“Does it bother you?”
The question whispers over Y’shtola’s ears and makes them twitch towards the sound. Y’shtola doesn’t reach for her aethersight; not now, when she can so easily envision what’s beside her. Lyse, her lithe but powerful frame coiled in a quilt, gazing up at the ceiling as if through sheer force of will she could peer through it and see the stars. So bright and full of energy, even after… well. After. Just one of many things to love about her.
Y’shtola’s eye flicks open, ghostly gray and eerily bright in the darkened room.
“...Could you be a little more specific?” she teases.
“You know, your…” Lyse gestures vaguely towards her own chest. “N-Not that it bothers me, of course! You’re gorgeous, Shtola. Honestly, you’d be gorgeous even if you were wearing a burlap sack--”
“Lyse,” Y’shtola says, in that gentle, chiding tone. When Lyse’s mind, or her tongue, goes wandering off and needs a tug on the collar to get back on track. “You mean my scar.”
Hearing it said so bluntly stops Lyse’s thoughts in their tracks. When Y’shtola stretches, and the diagonal slash from her left shoulder to right hip glints puckered and pale in the moonlight, Lyse cannot help but hiss at the sight. Memories flicker in the shadows climbing the walls.
Lyse bites her tongue. “I-- I’m sorry. I don’t mean--”
“It’s alright,” Y’shtola urges. “Does it bother me? No, I don’t suppose it does. Did you think it would? If I cared at all who saw it, I would have reconsidered my choices in dress and neckline since. But as far as I’m concerned, let them look.”
“But… you got it because of me,” Lyse murmurs.
“And I’d do it again,” Y’shtola says with a shrug. “Please, Lyse, we’ve been over this again and again…”
“I know, I know,” Lyse worries at her lip with her teeth. “...Does it hurt, at all?”
Y’shtola hesitates. “...No,” she says at last.
Lyse shifts beside her.
“...May I?” Lyse asks.
Y’shtola nods her assent. She’s tempted to tease her, to half-jokingly ask her once again if she could be a little more specific.
That playful barb catches in her throat like a fishhook when she feels Lyse’s lips on her skin.
Lyse hears the hitch in her breath. Instantly she looks up, urgent, attentive.
“Sorry,” she murmurs. “Does it hurt?”
“...No…” Y’shtola says, breathless.
Y’shtola doesn’t lie. She just doesn’t tell the truth. She’s too proud, too stubborn. But while it’s so easy to claim that her scar doesn’t hurt-- out of sight, out of mind-- there is another scar, beneath the first. In the world of astral space, in her aether, a shining slash of chipped, jagged memories. Guilt and grief; two wounds, two poisons no magic can heal.
But as Lyse presses warm kisses up the pale line splitting her torso, Y’shtola can see it; the jagged shards of memory, their sharp edges scoured down by light and heat. Y’shtola takes a deep breath and lets it out slow, releasing tension she’d clung to for gods knew how long, letting it out inch by inch.
Memories of that wretched night flicker and fade. From flashes like lightning, moments captured in bright, garish clarity, to mere shapes and colors retreating from the view, daemons banished to deeper shadows.
Lyse presses one final kiss to Y’shtola’s shoulder, her touch blazing in the aether, fire-bright, before laying her head on Y’shtola’s chest, a weight warm and wonderful. They lay together for a long moment, cradled in aetherlight.
Until Lyse gasps, throws their quilt aside and sits up with a shout.
“Rhalgr, Shtola, are you purring ?!” Lyse squeals in delight.
Y’shtola rolls her eyes. “ Lyse. ”
“Oh my goodness, that is the cutest! Do-- do all Miqo’te do that? Is that a weird thing to ask? I’m so sorry, that is adorable!”
Y’shtola huffs, shaking her head. Lyse laughs above her, her soul ablaze with a light that turns the night right into day, until Y’shtola takes her by the wrist, tugs her back down into bed, and gives Lyse something better to kiss.
~*~