Azusa Yumi did not get lost. Between her impeccable sense of direction and keen eye for details, she could get her bearings even lost at sea (a thought experiment she had, in fact, puzzled her way through during the small hours of one random morning until she had come up with a satisfying solution for the imaginary threat). She'd even honed these nearly preternatural senses in her to final years at the DWMA on her way to becoming a Death Weapon. Azusa was particularly proud of that one mission in which she successfully navigated the streets of Beirut mere minutes after being dropped into a town center.
The point was: Azusa did not get lost. Which made the situation she was currently in – decidedly lost and gazing hopelessly at the horizon – all the more confounding. She watched the sunset with a quirked eyebrow, the equivalent of being gobsmacked in a more emotive person. The rays were too dark and low to reflect off her glasses, exposing her ink-blue eyes and the wonder and disbelief in them to the world.
A defeated sigh exhaled beside her, and Azusa immediately shifted her focus from inward contemplation to outward concern. Her eyes slid to the side to take in Marie's slumped posture and weary expression, and the sight was as amusing as it was pathetic.
"Ugh," Marie groaned again. "My feet are killing me."
"You only have yourself to blame," Azusa chided in her usual cool monotone. "Once again, you've chosen style over comfort."
Both women looked down at the blonde's feet. Indeed, she was wearing a stylish pair of boots, leather (or close enough) with a slight heel. Cute, they were, Azusa had to admit when Marie had shown them off at the base of the mountain, but completely nonsensical for the hour-long-hike, the more so for the hours-longer-trek it became. Pity Azusa hadn't had the fortitude to tell her so earlier.
Somehow, seeing the boots injected a boost of energy in Marie. She straightened again and angled her feet alternately, both admiring them for herself and modeling them for Azusa. "They are pretty, though." Azusa hummed her agreement, which was enough, apparently, to keep the blonde upright. "So," she continued, "we're hopelessly lost." She raked her hand through her hair in a way that assured Azusa she didn't know she was doing it and sighed again, this time much softer. "I'm sorry about this," Marie said, and Azusa was already forgiving her.
"It's fine." Her clipped tone might have offended someone else, hollowed out her reassurance to another conversationalist, but Marie simply smiled in that half-relieved, half-embarrassed way that indicated she felt she didn't deserve to be let off so easily.
"Honestly, I checked the routes twice! This should have been a simple hike up and back down the mountain!"
And yet "simple" didn't begin to describe the trip. It had started off well enough, with the two weapons entering the trail just after noon at a steady pace. They'd stopped occasionally to admire the scenery or point out a critter to each other, but these breaks shouldn't have kept them from reaching the waterfall Marie had wanted Azusa to see. Or so the blonde had promised. Azusa had realized they were wandering much sooner than Marie had, though neither woman could tell when exactly they had deviated from the path.
They had continued walking, Marie motivated by the chance to redeem herself, Azusa compelled by the logic that they'd have to find their way back to the path eventually if they kept moving. Hours later, they were seemingly no closer to the waterfall and running low on both patience and water. As Marie wilted under the pressure of Expedition Leader, Azusa swooped in with grace, guiding the blonde to a promontory nearby.
So, there they stood, overlooking the rest of the mountainous forest stretched out between them and the horizon. At first, Azusa had ignored the beauty of the scene in favor of the sour realization that she recognized none of it, but eventually that twinge of fear bottomed out and an instinctual awe and admiration for the natural took over.
"It could've been worse," she said, though she had no reason to believe so. "Besides, we're not lost." Azusa didn't know if it was staunch denial that she could err as badly as her directionally challenged companion that made her say this, or if she was just trying to be comforting. She decided she didn't care either way because it was true: now that she could see which face of the mountain they were on, it was a simple matter of tracing a path back to the car.
"I should've known I didn't have to worry with you here," Marie said, her tone soft and warm. She stepped in a fraction toward her, and Azusa automatically met her hand halfway. She could feel Marie trembling, just a little, and was instantly impressed at the woman's ability to swallow back the panic that was causing it. Azusa intertwined their fingers and the trembling subsided. "Always taking care of me."
Azusa turned her head to say something – what it was, she'll never know – but paused when she saw the open admiration on Marie's face. Azusa was already leaning in by the time the earnestness in those golden eyes went hazy with a darker emotion, and Azusa's lips met a slightly open warm and wet and inviting mouth. Marie's tongue skimmed along the inside of Azusa's bottom lip, encouraging Azusa to meet it with her own. They briefly parted for air before coming back together for a deeper, longer kiss, and only the increasingly annoying press of Azusa's glasses into the bridge of her nose broke them apart again.
Azusa fixed her glasses with her unoccupied hand, and she watched Marie's flushed lips come into focus as her vision returned to normal. "Like I said," she spoke up with a coy smile, "could be worse."
Marie beamed in the dying light of the sunset, and Azusa had to blink and look away from the brilliance of it. Instead, she peered back out over the promontory, at the sky rapidly going pinkish-purple with the onset of twilight. Though Azusa preferred the grey of a crisp morning, she didn't hold that against the current starless sky whose soft stripes reminded her more and more of the flush in Marie's cheeks when she laughed or cried or admitted something embarrassing or came. That last made something flutter low in Azusa's stomach, and she glanced over at Marie to see if she had somehow picked up on the sensation; she hadn't.
The couple watched the sky a while longer until it converted to dusk completely. As though awakened from a trance, Azusa's chest panged with alarm at the realization that with the sun had gone their light source, making it nigh on impossible for them to find their way back down the mountain now, even if they hadn't been lost – er, rather, been so far from their original path.
Marie loosened her hand from Azusa's and eased herself onto the ground, sitting with her legs stretched out in front of her and hands behind her. She was the very picture of Not Understanding Their Current Situation, yet Azusa couldn't bring herself to care just then. It wasn't the first time since they had known each other that Azusa had to be the gentle – yes, she could be gentle, as surprising as it might be to someone like Death Scythe – voice of reason, and she strongly suspected it would not be the last. With this in mind, she was shocked to hear Marie had come to the same conclusion, maybe sooner than she had.
"Well, we'll have to wait for the moon to rise so we can see our way back down," the blonde said, swaying her feet a little. She leaned her head back to look up at Azusa. "Sorry about that." And she added a contrite smile.
Azusa lowered herself to the ground, too. "I already said it's okay. Besides, it's no waterfall but stargazing is kinda romantic, too, right?"
"Of course! Plus, we're in a secluded spot, no one around to interrupt us..." Marie's voice trailed off meaningfully, and Azusa half expected her to waggle her eyebrows. She chuckled, rested a hand on Marie's thigh for leverage, and leaned in for yet another searing kiss.
"No one, indeed."
A/N: Inspired by and written for tastewithouttalent, the hero of the Soul Eater fandom.