It's somehow easier after that morning, easier to breathe, to wake each morning in a strange but magical place. It's like a fairy tale.
A hidden tower in the sky with a prince of stars locked away within its shining walls.
"Are you a prince?" Sarai asks once, seated in the ornate chair in the study, swinging her feet back and forth, her bare toes just brushing the stone.
Aaravos laughs, the sound warm and sweet from where he sits beside the roaring fire, sketching idly in the journal he's stolen from Sarai. She doesn't mind; she's not really a writer anyway.
"No. Only an Archmage, though I am that in name alone now. It is a title reserved for our most gifted, our most powerful mages. There are few that have walked the world since its beginning," he pauses, looks to her with curiosity. "Would you like to hear the story we elves tell of the fajar, of the world's dawn?"
"I would," Sarai says. Aaravos, she's found, has many stories squirreled away, and she likes hearing him speak of far away places and events long passed.
Aaraovs smiles.
"Once, the stars walked in the endless void," Aaravos begins, "and found that the silence that had once embraced them as a mother might her child, had become smothering.
So they sang into being the world.
But the world was still and silent, and so the stars sang the dragons into creation.
Their roars and cries broke the stillness and ensured that silence would not reign again.
The Stars shaped the world with rivers and deserts, rolling hills and towering mountains, but the dragons flew through the world with only each other for company, and it was then, that one of the stars, a herald of storm and thunder, happened upon the idea to create other beings as well.
So the Stars sang the elves to life, binding each to one of the six Primal Sources.
But humanity rose from the song of the youngest star, one of shadow and dark, unbound to any Primal Source. Thus began the age of Sky, and ended the age of Stars."
"How many ages are there, by elven account?" Sarai asks.
Aaravos mulls the question over, clearly leafing through his long memory as pages in a book. "The age of Stars is the age of Creation, the age of Sky is the beginning of recorded history, the age of Earth has just ended...I believe it has been three so far. It is the age of Dark now, with the coming of Dark magic to humanity's hands."
"What determines a new age?" Sarai asks, "An event of some kind?"
"Usually," Aaravos says, "The age of Sky ended when the stars withdrew from us, and the age of mortals began when scribes took up quills to write the histories we had begun to shape. The age of Earth was a prosperous time that ended as the age of Dark came, when humanity discovered the magic that dwelt within the deepest reaches of the world, the magic that is performed by sacrificing life."
"That's what dark magic is?" Sarai asks, horrified.
"It is, and the story of its discovery is not a story I feel strong enough to speak of just yet," Aaravos murmurs.
"That was a thousand years ago, right?" Sarai asks.
"Correct," Aavaros says, and for a moment, for one dark moment, Sarai can see the shadow of something raw and anguished surface in his eyes. Then it is gone. "I have been here a long time," he says, setting his charcoal to the page again.
Sarai studies him, wondering not for the first time, what her companion had suffered, how he had come to be trapped here.
"You don't have to sleep in the study, you know," she says one evening as she prepares to leave.
"Is that an invitation to join you?" Aaravos asks, and there is an undercurrent to his voice, low and perhaps, Sarai is imagining it, hungry.
Sarai turns her head, raising an eyebrow, "It might be."
Aaravos laughs. "It will be a tight fit. I was not meant to have company here."
"Well, then we'll just have to squeeze in," Sarai says. "Any objections?"
Aaravos shakes his head, gesturing towards the door, "Lead the way."
It isn't as tight a fit as Sarai had initially feared, thankfully.
"Comfortable?" Aaravos asks, smirking.
"Yes," Sarai says, grinning back, resting her head against his shoulder, "You are a very nice pillow."
"Mm," Aaravos replies.
Sarai tilts her head, just enough to see his eyes gleaming with amusement in the dim darkness, the only light coming from the moon's rays filtering through the curtains.
Fuck it, she thinks, and kisses him, quick and impulsive.
He makes a quiet noise of surprise against her mouth, but leans into it, eager as she for contact.
She tangles her hands in his hair, finding it delightfully soft between her fingers.
"Are you certain you want this?" Aaravos murmurs.
"Yes," Sarai says, "Are you?"
"It has been a very, very long time, Sarai," he says, "Since anyone shared my bed."
Sarai waits for an actual answer, because as much as she may want this, he hasn't said either yes or no.
Aaravos hums, kissing her again, "And...I...do want this."
"Fantastic," Sarai says and pulls him down to meet her.
Nearly every morning after that night, Sarai wakes to find herself tangled up with Aaravos.
It's nice; she hasn't had a lover in a while and she's missed the intimacy, the calm sanctity of waking in the morning light together.
Sarai thinks Aaravos looks just as beautiful in the daylight as he does at night, the stars across his dark form a map that only she can read.
He is also less likely to leave their bed early now that Sarai is beside him.
It's a peaceful existence, one that she has come to terms with as the seasons pass. And it has been seasons.
Aaravos tells her that Startouch elves have a unique ability with time, being able to tell the exact passage of it without timepieces or looking at the sky.
It has been eight seasons since she's arrived, two years total.
"However," Aaravos says, as Sarai absorbs the idea that it has been so long that she's been here. It certainly doesn't feel like it. "Time flows differently here. A year in here would not be a year in Xadia."
"How long?" Sarai asks. "Not a century, surely?"
"Not that long, zahrati," Aaravos murmurs, pulling her into his embrace, pressing a kiss to her forehead, "Perhaps a month. I cannot say for sure. I have only the sense that it would not be a year to year balance."
"Two months is still a long time," Sarai says. "Gods, Amaya must be so worried."
"Do you want me to scry for her?" Aaravos asks. "I wish to ease your mind, zahrati."
"Could you?" Sarai asks.
Aaravos kisses her again. "If that is what you wish."
