Xayah is not beautiful. Not the way Rakan is. Her face is too sharp in too many places and her pale skin contrasts excessively with her dark clothes and dark makeup. As far as femininity, she is severely lacking. All muscle and skin and bone - Bony hips, thin waist, small breasts. Her face is rather plain, as well, her lips pulled downward in a perpetual frown.
The best word to describe Xayah is gloomy and usually Rakan just doesn't do gloomy chicks but… she resisted his dance. No one resisted the dance, yet this unknown, plain looking raven didn't even spare him so much as a glance when he first performed for her at the harvest festival. Instead of her being enraptured by him, like most usually were, he became captivated by her.
It isn't just a dance. It is more, so much more. Dancing is everything to him. Rakan is a battle-dancer. To humans, and to some Vastayan's, his dancing is just entertainment. They find Rakan beautiful, find the movements of his body beautiful, but they don't know what it means. They don't know how much of an honor it is to look upon him and his dance. He is one of the last and best Lhotlan battle-dancers in the world. He enchants Vastayan and human women alike, he is irresistible.
Yet, when he finally managed to get her attention with one of his oldest and favorite songs, Xayah was just annoyed and short tempered. But her gaze on him, contemptuous as it was, meant more to him than anything ever had before. Back then, he saw it. Hidden behind all that aggravation and contempt was an appreciation for what and who he was and an understanding of just how much his dances meant to him.
Xayah wasn't some fan girl, cheering and throwing roses. She didn't care about what he had to say. What she wanted went first. She was a woman on a mission, a rebel, who didn't have time to spare for a dance. So, he went with her. Waiting, and hoping one day she would take his extended hand.
Some days, he regrets it. Some days, he is lonely. Travelling has always been his thing, but he mostly travelled by himself. He never knew that journeying with a companion could be lonelier than travelling alone. How many days must he wait for a dance? Some days, it feels like too many.
Xayah would let him leave. He doesn't doubt that. She'd probably even appreciate his absence, but she never asks. So, neither does he.
Every day, he asks her to dance, but she never takes him up on his offer. He knows she has it in her. They've fought together. They're attacked pretty much all the time. He knows she dances, she battle-dances. Without him. By herself. It's so beautiful but just imagine if they did it together? Usually, he wants the attention all to himself. For the first time, he wants a partner. For the first time, his dancing feels awkward, incomplete. Every time he moves, he aches. He's empty.
He sees things differently now that he is with her. Somehow, the world is more beautiful. He is distracted so easily. Things he had ignored in the past were so beautiful to him now, and he felt an irresistible urge to share. Often "Look, Xayah," falls from his lips and she scoffs but she looks and he can see in her eyes that in another lifetime, she would appreciate what he's showing her. Appreciate him. Would allow herself to indulge in it, in his dance.
But this is reality. She just doesn't have the time.
Rakan wants it. Wants her time. Wants her attention. Wants her everything. He craves it.
The air is so cold it bites. Xayah is curled up across from him, cloak gathered around herself like a blanket. It's her wings. He taught her that little trick on one of the first nights they travelled together, a little bit of magic he'd carried with him for a long time. She was fully against it of course.
"I will not hide my wings," she had snarled, "I have no shame in what I am."
Eventually he had talked her into it. 'They are so beautiful, so radiant, that they catch too much attention,' he explained. "Sometimes, not standing out is for the best." Rakan had meant every word but she turned her lip up at him. It took a while, but she reluctantly agreed. Probably because even Rakan understood the idea of not standing out.
He regrets telling her. Rakan misses the raven's plumage, the way it glows and makes his heart race. Rakan shivers, and tucks himself under one of their animal skin blankets. Rather grotesque and ugly, but it was warm. He understood practicality, sometimes.
Xayah's expression, as usual, is distant. She's not here. She's in some other world, where the humans have lost and the Vastayans have returned the world back to its true state. The rain thunders from above, slapping the top of their tent. She is sitting with her bright mana crystal, reading from some parchment, her face tight with strain and concentration.
"They're losing hope," she murmurs, to herself, not to him.
He stares out the crack in the front of the tent, where some water is leaking in. He can see the endless, foggy drizzle of rain. Rakan hates the rain. Hates the way the cold air clings to his skin, and slips through his clothes. Even though he is not wet, it still makes his bones ache. Usually, on rainy days like this, he would be in some inn. A woman would be in his bed and he would forget the rain exists. Right now, however, that is an impossibility. And somehow, it upsets him that he doesn't want that. It upsets him that he would rather be here, lonely and freezing with only silent, distant Xayah as his companion than in a warm, comfortable inn with a sensual, loving woman clinging to him.
What is she doing to him? Why is he changing like this?
Before her, Rakan pictured his life so simply. He'd make love to women wherever he went, dance wherever he went, forever. Children, marriage, love? No. What was the point of that?
Yet Xayah changed everything. He can't stop looking at her chapped lips, her skinny frame, her amber eyes. He finds himself thinking about her rough hands on him all the time. It's never-ending. He just can't get the image of her out of his head! The image of them out of his head!
He wants to be with her. Forever. Forever, forever. As in, "settle down and have a kid one day" forever. Yet she didn't want that. For once, a woman looked upon him, and didn't want that.
Rakan gazes at her, his chin between his knees, light blue eyes gleaming. She notices his stare.
"What?" she demands, and he answers.
"I usually hate the rain." As if in answer, thunder rattles in the distance.
Xayah raises an eyebrow, hesitates. "Alright…"
He doesn't know what else to say. Doesn't know why he said that in the first place. She goes back to looking at her parchment. No doubt, it was sent from one of her generals. She was young, yet she was the leader of a rebellion. She had her whole life mapped out. An endless fight for equality. Where did Rakan fit in there? What if she got tired of him tagging along, fighting for a cause he didn't truly care about?
No, no, that's not what he meant. He cares. Of course he cares. The Lhotlan tribe is dying. His people are dying. The children are dying. He doesn't want that, but he isn't the type to lead a rebellion in any fashion. Before Xayah, he hadn't really been aware of what was happening to the Vastayan's. He'd had a vague idea, but Xayah had made him see how dire the situation was.
That is part of why he can't leave. Now that he knows what she is fighting for, now that he knows one day he might be the last Vastayan in the world if he leaves and he had abandoned the fight, would he be able to continue living?
What if he left and they found her? The humans. What if they killed her? Anger fills him. He is cold and hot inside at the same time. He wasn't the type to kill. Never had been. But this shadowed image of a human killing Xayah? It's enough to make him murderous. His fists bunch up. Does she feel the same way about him? Would she care if he died?
Would she cry for him?
He wants her attention again. Those cold, freezing eyes. She's so beautiful. The sound of the rain only makes her more beautiful, somehow. She's just like rainfall. Cold. Unaffected by him. He can hate the rain, he can love the rain, but the rain didn't care either way. He can touch it, the water. But the source? The clouds? He can't reach them. They're far, far above him. And he can't reach them
He can't reach Xayah.
His chest hurts, his throat feels tight. He spits the tightness out with more words. "I hate gloomy things. The rain is gloomy and dark and it makes me feel cold."
Xayah sighs in annoyance, but her gaze…it falls on him. And that is all he wants.
"Are you okay, Rakan?"
Rakan holds her gaze and considers the question. Is he okay? Sure, in the normal sense of the word. His heart is beating steadily in his chest. He's breathing. He's not bleeding, or anything, but…
No. No he is not okay. The second she takes her gaze from him, he's not okay.
"No," he whispers. "No, I'm not."
The silence is unbearable. Xayah shifts, sits up. Her face is oddly troubled. He doesn't want that. Should he lie? Say it's a joke and that he's fine? He can't.
Xayah cocks her head, her deep, dark gaze questioning. "What's wrong, Rakan?"
He loves the way his name sounds, looks, coming from those lips. He can't bear it. His eyes lock on her mouth. Her lips are plump, and dark. Soft and rough at the same time. Her golden, gleaming eyes glow from between her dark lashes, her deep lines of makeup.
He knows he should stop himself. But he can't. He moves closer, wraps his arms around her thin shoulders, pushes her against him. So small. He claims her mouth with his.
Xayah whimpers. Her hands press against his chest, she tries to push him away, but he doesn't want that. Rakan wraps his hands around her wrists, pins them to the bottom of the tent. Funny, he always thought she was the stronger one. Her ears twitch and her body squirms as she presses her lips harder against his.
They feel just like he imagined they would. Rough, and chapped, yet soft and sweet. Eventually, she stops struggling. Just lets him kiss her, her pale skin so deliciously flushed, her golden eyes so angry and dark and…
Rakan pulls away, kneeling on either side of her legs, his forehead falling to her shoulder. "I'm sorry."
What did he expect? For her to accept it? To smile and understand? To kiss him back? Something along those lines.
Instead, she shoves him. Her sharp face is angry. Her hand draws back and her slap hurts his heart more than anything.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" she hisses. "Me trying to push you off me means 'stop'!"
He kneels there, his face aching from her slap.
Xayah touches her mouth, her eyes angry - is that hurt in the depths? - and her whole-body trembling. "Why? Why did you have to do that, Rakan?!"
Rakan doesn't have a proper explanation. He doesn't know fully himself. "I…I love you," he whispers. The words sound so right, coming from his mouth. Yes, he loved her. He didn't just want her. Didn't just desire her. He loves her. "I love you, Xayah." He tightened his teeth together. "I don't know what else to say! I keep thinking, can't stop thinking about you! I want to leave but I can't! I'm so lonely. So lonely…"
His voice is so broken, he didn't know he could sound like this and… what is this wetness on his cheeks? Why are his eyes burning? He's crying? Rakan the Charmer is crying?! Never. He can't get the tears to stop!
"You don't know what love is, Rakan." She smiles bitterly. "You've just never met someone you couldn't have. You're such an idiot."
Anger rises in him. This was what she thought of him? "Take me seriously," he snaps. "I'm not a child. Maybe at first it was about that, but it's more now. Can't you see that?"
Xayah gazes at him. Her pale face is paler than usual, and there is so much pain in her eyes. He wants to soothe it. She doesn't respond.
She doesn't believe him. Doesn't believe in his feelings.
He kneels, crawls close. Wraps her up in his arms. "How do you feel about me?"
She shivers in his embrace, scoots closer. "Rakan, I can't. You can't possibly mean…You can't…love me. You could have anyone, Rakan. Anyone…" She tucks her face into his throat. "A woman like me…"
Suddenly, it makes sense. The pain in her gaze, the doubt in her tone and her body, and the fear. It's not his feelings that she doubts. It's his ability to feel them for someone like her. Disgust filled him. Rakan had always considered her less beautiful than him. No doubt, she felt the same. Perhaps he was, in the traditional meaning of the word, "beautiful", but she was not without beauty. She was worthy of his love. She was beautiful in her own way.
He nuzzled her, pressed his mouth to her ear. "You're the only woman I want, Xayah." She shivers.
"You can't do this to me," she whimpers, "you can't do this to me you… you asshole!" She punches him lightly.
He cups her cheek, grazes her lips with his. "Will you be with me? Will you allow me to stand at your side?" The rain was almost comforting in it's constant, unbreaking tempo. Xayah's breathing is shallow, her face flushed, her lips trembling. He didn't allow her to turn her gaze away, locking hers with his. "Will you be my life mate, Xayah?"
Xayah pushes his face away and practically leaps up. "I-I can't decide that right now!" Immediately, she clambers away. "Fuck, this is all so sudden - and you're so damn cute, sitting there all teary-eyed!"
He grins. She thought he was cute? Thought his crying was cute? And here he had felt humiliated.
"That was a heavy question. I get it. Then, Xayah, will you dance with me, at least?"
Xayah turned to him. Her smile was hesitant. "That's just another way of asking me out."
Rakan chuckled. "Asking you to be my life-mate is a lot more than asking you out. Will you be my lady, Xayah?"
Xayah nodded. Slowly, but she nodded. "Yes."
Rakan's heart lifted. The ache left, and a terrifyingly wonderful warmth filled him. "C-Can I kiss you?!" The rebel blushed bright red. Rakan stood now too, grabbed her hands, squeezed them. "Xayah, can I kiss you?"
"No. Fuck." She slapped her hands onto his chest. "Yes?"
That was all he needed. Rakan leaned down, pressed their lips together. And somehow, amazingly, she kissed him back.
Xayah kissed him back.