"There's a reason why people use their hands when they tell stories." –Anonymous
She was laying there, just laying there, gazing at the ceiling. It was a nice ceiling, sturdy, with thick wooden beams and planks to keep the slate on the roof from sliding off. No rain would penetrate that kind of handiwork, she thought absentmindedly.
Then she was looking at the walls and the floors, both strong enough to withstand a dragon crashing into it at full speed and soft enough that little toddler heads and hands wouldn't be harmed as they tumbled about.
There was the bed she was laying on, solid wood with metal supports. The headboard was large but didn't dwarf the room, and was covered with delicate scenes of dragons and Vikings and fairies and gnomes. Several of the pictures had faded over time from hands rubbing across their surfaces, telling their stories. She had lost track of the number of times she had sat on that bed, touching those delicate scenes and wishing she could just carve herself right into them.
She sunk back into the pillows on the bed, staring once more at the ceiling. But she wasn't even five minutes into her reverie when a ropey arm crawled around her waist. The warm body it was connected to gave a contented sigh and pulled her closer into him so they could be together. She had to smile—even in his dreams, he would never let her go.
His grip was tight, but she managed to wriggle a hand into her line of sight. It was loose now that the man had relinquished control over it. She ran a finger over the creases; it twitched. She chuckled.
Like the headboard they created, those hands told a story. There was the scar on his palm when his knife slipped; the burn across the top of his hand from when the ingot had splattered in the forge; the slight crook to his thumb from the time he accidentally hit it with a hammer trying to build a new front door (the previous had been knocked down by a certain pair of dragons).
But as rugged as they seemed, they could be so delicate.
Delicate enough to craft their wedding rings; delicate enough to stroke a babe's face with the gentlest of glances; delicate enough to tell the truth even when his lips couldn't.
Delicate enough to carve those precious stories into the headboard that would serve generations to come.
So she sat, studying his hands until light shone through the windows and the body next to her stirred. She never did let go of them, even when he finally woke and stretched, then started with surprise when he found he couldn't.
But he just smiled and stroked her cheek with those rugged, delicate hands. He placed a kiss on her forehead, then her nose, then her mouth. Then he gently loosed her grip and started to get ready for the day.
She still sat there, listening to him shuffle around the place they called home. They had built it—together, like a family should. It was covered with knick-knacks and dragon scales and harnesses, reins, and saddles. Several charcoal drawings from decades past still decorated the walls, some framed with sticks tied together with twine.
When she heard him walk out the front door with a basket of fish in his hands, she sat up and placed her feet on the floor. She could hear him still, shouting to his best friend the Night Fury. She laughed as she stood; even the dragons couldn't resist the touch of his hands.
She walked to the window and watched him mount. She smiled when he caught her eye, waved as he did, and watched as he took off into the sky.
She knew he would come back. And if he didn't, she knew what she would remember: not his laugh or his limp or his smile.
His hands.
Yours,
`ww