17. Seeking Solace
Hundred Themes Challenge
Arcadia-Sama
Genre - Dragonlance; Chronicles/Legends Era
Disclaimer - Dragonlance and Raistlin are certainly not mine, while Rheana, on the other hand, is.
Author Notes - This is an old, old, old pairing of mine that I've had time to work on. I think twelve years is long enough, don't you? As is, there aren't that many tender moments between Raist and Rhea, but they are there, usually hidden in the shadows of night.
Outside of their bedroom, the two of them are snarking at one another in a manner that makes you think they're going to kill each other.
Rather fun, that.
He's had the nightmares for a long time now.
He may always have them, and honestly believes that they're his punishment for being what he is, and yet, he can't always argue with them. Because he has an angel there in his bed to keep him safe.
She's there when he has the nightmares.
It's always a simple thing for him to jerk awake and she's always waking up because he moves and he only wonders for a brief second what made her come awake at the slightest hint of noise from him.
But as he buries his face in her chest, feeling her arms come around him, her long silver hair veiling him from the world, from the shadows, from the nightmares, he knows that she will keep him safe. Oh, yes, later he will sneer at himself for being upset by a dream.
But her touch soothes the pain, her breathing grounds him, the smell of her stirs him in ways that he had once never thought would be fulfilled and he runs long, bony fingers through argent strands that hint at what she truly is.
She always smells of rain and mist and in a strange, cold way, cleanliness as well. Such a contrast that she is compared to him. But those blue eyes look on him without pity, without fear, and shine with an emotion that is wholly human.
Human.
But she's not human, is she? His head lifts and in the silver rays of Solinari that spill through the window of the room that is hers (for his room always leads him to nightmares) he lifts his head enough to see her shadow – and the wholly unelven shape it forms.
Yet all of that fades away when he looks in her eyes and sees the warmth there and the smile on her lips and she is drawing him down, pressing her lips to his, soothing away that nightmare until it is little more then a shadow.
Here, in her arms, in the silver light of the moon, he knows the shadows cannot reach him until he departs from this bed. And that will come in its own time, yes. But for now, he is safe and he is secure and happy, as happy as he can be.
And so Raistlin's eyes finally close again as they hold one another and fall asleep together, one of his hands buried in her hair while the other drapes across her back and Rheana is smiling to herself in her sleep, her arms about his waist and it's such a sweet, gentle sleep that night.
He's always safe in her arms.
Always.
