The Ninth Morning
It is morning. The breath of the salty sea fills the air. Nine nights have passed since everything changed atop the Pharos. This is the first morning in nearly a month that Penelo has woken up in a soft feather bed. She doesn't want to give up this precious luxury she has found.
A man sleeps along side of her, his arm locked around her waist, his face buried in her unbraided hair. She touches his hand as she traces a slow switchback path up and down the length of his sturdy fingers. The pad of her index finger stops to mark invisible circles on each of his familiar fingernails. But this is not the hand of a familiar man. Penelo closes her eyes and covers his hand with her own. She pretends it is Basch clutching her to his chest even when soundly asleep. Basch has never held her like this, never held her while lost in sleep, arms gripping her as close as possible, fighting off the fear that she might suddenly slip away and with her all the world threatens to be lost. Such deathless devotion is not Basch's nature. He is a man who is pledged to noble ideals and were he ever to display such intimate devotion to another, he would no longer be the Basch she knows. She likes him how he is.
Penelo opens her eyes to the morning light, to the sea breeze lifting the curtains in the window. The man curled around her is Basch's brother and even in his charmed state, she can tell he seeks what his brother does not. It saddens her to think that this will soon come to an end.
Twisting her torso, she turns inside Noah's tight embrace. He murmurs half formed words into her hair asking her to stay. She answers his wishes. With her face pressed into the hollow of his neck, she slowly lets her weight fall on him as he rolls onto his back. Their legs intermingle, her pelvis presses into his hip. He sighs sleepy pleasure as his hands settle in newfound places: one hand warming the small of her back, the other grasping her shoulder.
Noah's arms are thicker than his brothers and the muscles across his chest are harder and more defined. Much like his brother, the surface of his skin is marked with scars yet Noah's record of misfortune suggests different tales. Over the nights, Penelo coaxed him to tell each of his stories. For most Noah recalled tales steeped in pride, punctuated with pain. For some Noah said little as he frowned and Penelo had to fill in the silent gaps with words she had heard earlier from his brother. When Noah fell silent at night, he would press his face against hers or kiss the top of her breasts through her clothing. Firelight danced in his pleading eyes but he never voiced what he wanted. Penelo was left to guess. Sometimes she would hold him or kiss him, other times she would undress him and herself and she would lie back as he covered her with his naked body. The paths and boundaries of the scars on his arms, shoulders, sides, and back became a living landscape she memorized by touch. His muscles would flex and strain, yet he always moved slowly and steadily until he came inside her and whispered the name of some other woman he would never mentioned any other time.
Now they're back in Balfonheim, back under Archadian jurisdiction, and here she should set Noah free. This needs to be easy, needs to be done without feelings of harm. She knows from the last few mornings that Noah complains when she tries to get up before him. She doesn't want him to wake. Without a movement or a sound, she recites the words of a sleep spell in her mind. She waits until he sighs and his breath drops into a slow, heavy rhythm. When she is certain he will not wake, she untangles herself from his limbs and sits upright.
She pulls his left hand into her lap, his fingers are lax and unresponsive. One last time, she touches the calluses on the mounds of his palm but she does not lace her fingers with his as they have done before. Instead, she slips a silver bracelet from his wrist. A shimmer of mist flashes and fades around his arm. He grasps for her, but she puts a pillow in his arm instead.
She stands and she places the bracelet in the center of an empty bedside table. He will see it when he wakes. She knows he is well versed in the magicks of manipulative mist. He has told her stories of illegal items and with much satisfaction in his voice, he shared how tracked them down and his methods for identifying their properties. He'll recognized the inscriptions engraved on the inside of the bracelet he has worn for the last nine days. Then he will rise from bed and look out the window to see the Port of Balfonheim. He will understand how he was led back into the Empire, back to safety, and away from the dangers of the sun-cryst. He will forgive her, she believes, but she doesn't want to be with him when he wakes. Let Basch calm Noah instead.
Penelo bends forward to touch Noah's cropped hair. He snores softly. She does not kiss him even though they have now kissed so many times his lips feel familiar. She hardly makes a sound as she dresses. When she leaves, the door clicks quietly behind her.