WEALTH of EXPERIENCE

TWO
Her Proximity

"The People call it the 'Big Cold,' you know. Or the 'Great Cold.'"

"An apt description – certainly a better aural presentment than 'winter.'"

She was always with him.

If not in body, then she was in his thoughts. She danced there, along the branching lines of memory and focus, swaying to the tempo of his heart and pulling at the fraying seams of his restraint until he sought her out, or if by some fortune she came to him. In the rare but rapidly increasing times when neither solution was possible – when battle or duty divided their paths – the steps to her dance would smolder, and mark her place within him all the deeper.

The physical reality of Daine was devastating.

Daine turned in the arm he had slung around both her and the terrace bench – a gesture both companionable and helpless on his part – and frowned up at him. Amidst the snow and torchlight she seemed to glow, her breath a silver fog in the night air. "Presentment?"

The warmth from her lips billowed across his jawline, and melted the pinpoints of ice there to a slow gliding caress. "Representation." He was almost trembling in the effort to keep from pulling her closer. Passing by them, a noble couple hid smiles behind fur lined gloves.

It was not that he possessed no control around her; Numair was nothing if not a man of discipline. He needed to be, with the power he wielded. In that, she was more like him than anyone – only her humanity was compromised by the complexity of her nature, not the almost amoral distance of mind and strength that had marked him a maverick, a Player. A threat. Numair knew very well the kind of person he was – or rather, what he had the potential to become – even if she could not see it.

But that was, perhaps, the problem.

Being with Daine – simply being near Daine – induced more than fevered thoughts of swallowing her passion, of playing that violin body to a crescendo. The inferno was there, of course, slowly consuming him, but Daine carried her own warmth that was somehow more staggering. Around her, Numair felt as if he really was a good person. That, around her at least, the strict code of ethics which ruled his life was not all artificial.

She was real, when everything else in his life seemed indistinct, and shadowy. She could draw the breath from his lungs, set it aflame – and the world would open up a little more to him each time with her swirling at its center.

And he was not the only one who realized it.

"I think – if we can manage it – that we should keep the two of you together," the king had said once, smirking at the mage's warning look. "Mage and Magelet... ha!These days, I cannot separate you even in my mind."

This was a sentiment shared by all their close friends, and this was nearly as torturous as the ease in which she rested her head against him now.

Numair loved that it was a common sight within the palace for her to walk at his side, taking three steps to match his one as they discussed the matters of the day. He loved that, whenever he entered a circle or a meeting, Daine would smile and point to a spot beside her that she and the others had saved for him. He loved that when her name was mentioned, it was now always in association with his own.

"What – " He swallowed the question he had been about to ask. " - do they call spring?"

Daine shrugged, her eyes on the ghostly moon lazing on the horizon. "A lot of things. We have more seasons than humans. The People do, I mean." She shook her head slightly, and tucked herself more securely against his chest. "Fall is still 'Fall,' though."

"I see..."

He loved so much, did Numair Daine, that he would break his own heart before ever losing hers.

Fitting dialog with a vague plot and style-overblown narrative is a struggle, to say the least. I started this project in an attempt to fine tune Numair's voice – and I feel that I am getting better at it – but as with Lover's Token, it is... difficult. But, my frustration has spawned yet another take on Numair and Daine's personalities (no doubt that one-shot will be out before the next chapter), so I suppose it all rounds out.