Northstar Vale oh, really? you usually just let strangers rub chamomile onto your lovely bottom?

for @Melkor ♡ takes place from the 8th & wakes up today on the 10th! other tags for reference w permission :o

Bewitcher had sent his betrothed beneath the world; it was within their Rest, upon their stonebed that the dream-maker Morpheus and his soothsayer brothers two became the aegis of her; drew her into their arms, lie her down and fashioned figments that would cradle her fathomless to slumber; welding her lashes shut and whispering wellness;
it was timeless, here, and Undómiel drifted out of thought for what seemed a life-age. Her needs became primordial and few; like how, upon this third morn, the merest musing of Melkor stirred something delightful within her breast and belly; a sensation that kneaded down her stormcloak and worked itself into her thighs and between. She lips at what fur she can reach; rummages through it for all the warmth of him that is not enough. But wary, perhaps, she has made him  —  and why ever not?

On several occasion now had she stumbled after him when what-ever business must be conducted on the threshold of their privy pocket and could not lie with her; graceless elephantine steps and had even, once, gurgled and giggled the words  “I have followed you, my heart,”  with @Cupid present. Had, too, hobbled after that blue backside snipping and slurring some nonsense of  “Belly anything?”  (supposed translation: feed me?)  during reports of @Kalika and always, always was she herded back to bed.

And if, heavens forbid, visitation were had within the privacy of their Rest, to be involved was to have a strength that she did not have. But whether known for a year or day, she would miss not a moment to impress the truth of how insufferably mulish she be:

It was when @Star  (or, had it been @Tundra? bah!)  ventured into their chambers that the fée woke with whuffling sounds; skull wobbling on shoulders with a weakness that trembled her against betrothed’s broad back; with chin eventually coming to prop itself between the tender hollow between the lock of sturdy shoulders. Through fogged eyes that took a century to blink, took an age to settle gauzy and glistering upon another’s features; ruined mouth crusted with stale breath and some spittle  —  she had triumphed!
and could not help the thick-tongued, frothy-lipped bleat that punctured idly through what-ever canvass was beind daubed with their words ... and that was all it took for Andraste to return to her slumbering;
whisked away by the swift depletion of stamina from her whelpish outburst: her cheek bedded down into the woad hollow, her eyes lidded; all silence and soft snores.

Hours and hours ago, that;
she is in this final one of repose, now. And though her fears remain, what-ever vestiges of fevered fury has finally, finally faded from her; though frail it has left her. There is a delicacy wound through her bones and she is all tendered-raw; the laden workings of dreambrothers is done.

The Court's fairylight soon wakes, gumming stupidly at her own paw and remembers absolutely nothing of her errant, sleep-addled endeavors in Cuivénen.

during the days that andraste slumbers melkor tends to things so none have to come and wake her; during the nights he returns to her and settles into his place beside her upon their stonebed. she is not a quiet sleeper; rather she is restless sometimes even following him and uttering half-nonsensical things until he sends her back to bed. the scent of estrus hangs in the air and the stonebed is cool against the feverish feel of his fur for though he suspects it is only cupid's heat ( that he & mochi knows of ) and he has devoted himself wholly to andraste he already knows he has a penchant of giving into the temptations.

quellcrist was the prime consequence of such temptation. thankfully, she was off causing havoc upon wolves other than him.

having always been a light sleeper, — a necessity of his trade, really — melkor is aware when andraste stirs awake beside him, her movements different in the realm of the awoken than when she is taken with sleep. he leaves the land of sleep not long after, eyes blinking open one after the other, groggily peering around as he stretches. ❝good morning,❞ melkor greets his fey queen with a coy look over his shoulder. ❝how do you feel?❞

Voice, husky with sleep: “Mara tuilë,”
—heruvesto ... but she did not yet utter such things, for long as she might, she was still much too prone to shyness. The unfamiliarity of it was something to be cradled to her breast along with the name that hung there, waiting to be mantled to her own. And at this hour, her insides were tranquil, and the fée luxuriated in a delightful feeling that rouses when studying someone having to do something unwieldy that she was not required to do herself. It was one that still lingered to stay with her; but by the look of him, she is sure that  (her hazy harassments aside)  he managed in her stead well. And, for what-ever reason, he is warm; warm enough to coax a trademark hum from disused, dusky throat and reach for him.

Her doll-lolling head was not as heavied as before; not so burdened by a hill of sleepy snow that kept her eyes from peering o'er the bulk of him any further than his shoulder. Now, she rises past the woad shoulder, rummages with filmy eyes through the frostfade mane,  “I have missed you, melitse,”  tones a bit breathy, a little winded by the earnest way she'd melded herself to him with. He had presided over her in the deep slumber ... but now that she could again touch him, again taste him  –  Andraste rose, or, tried to—
tried to push herself against him in a needy little way; wobbly and weak, rickety; a huff of breath left her as she staggered in half-sit, her breast meeting the beryl ribs.

Dazed, some; features flushing as she lie awkwardly along him; wishing only to feel his arms around her and the beat of his heart at her ear. Hide against hide, flesh against flesh  –  but could not! How was she feeling?

“Lovely. Rested. Come here,”  then, as she was never one to forget her manners, even now:  “please?”

mara tuilë; andraste chirrups back at him her voice thick with the remaining vestiges of her long slumber. though his progression of learning valeian is slow melkor assumes, given the context, that it is some version of 'good morning' and tucks it away to practice later during his patrols when he's alone and he can stumble over its pronunciation without feeling the burn of embarrassment.

a soft chuckle rumbles in melkor's scarred throat at her words. ❝you were asleep every time i left,❞ he points out playfully and then adds, with a spark of mischief flaming to life in glacial irises as he adds, ❝you mean you didn't dream of me? i'm wounded —❞ he asks in mock hurt. he feels her against him as she tries to rise, watches her progression upon limbs weak and weary from such long slumber. 'be careful' almost comes from his lips but he bites it back. she is clearly aware of her uneasiness upon her legs as she uses him as a support beam.

as she readjusts her position, melkor watches as she lays back down and he shifts his weight upon their stonebed. ❝i am here, tonttu.❞ he tells her matter-of-factly, fighting against the smile that threatens to pull at his lips dumbly.

“I never s-said that I,”  clumsy and cottonmouthed,  “did not dream of you, melitse,”  come to pick petal-soft paws over the ridiculous breadth of him and  (getting her wrists wound up in the meantime)  punctuated her return to the world of the waking with another airy euff! as she was felled upon her ribs and now lie strewn beneath that glacial glint;
and it is where she stays, eventually half-remembering herself as she sculpts her ruined brow into the tender crook of his elbow; staring, studying, and was then seized with the desire to only touch him more – for he would not ever be near enough as she would like – though remains captivated, with weak-parted lips as she listens to the life-rhythm of his bellowed lungs, deep, even. He is no dream, he claims; yet the legacy of yester-three-days only furthered it all within her somnolent, dopey head that he was, indeed, figment (nevermind that he was not the finest, for they were all mortal.)

And though she needn’t say it, needn’t him to even hear it, but bespoke it with a soft sigh for she wished to, anyways—
“... I love you,”
—and the rosebud nose was as gentle as a moth’s foot as she reached to kiss the scripture of his scars; a thanksgiving for his salvaging her from the despondent descent of herself; now a better fighter of her fears for all of it.

a soft, roguish smirk plays at the corners of the tundrian's lips as it becomes apparent that his teasing has flustered her. or at the very least, that was how he chose to take the stutter of her tongue over her words as she is quick to dispel them. ❝i was teasing, tonttu.❞ he brushes it off errantly with a low chuckle, seconds before his jaws split with a yawn. when it ends he smacks his lips together for a few seconds, blinking the remaining vestiges of sleep from his eyes.

an itch seizes his left paw suddenly and he nibbles upon it to relieve it, tongue drawing over the teeth mussed fur as her admission falls from her lips.

i love you.

for a moment heart and world appear to stutter to a stop; frozen in time. melkor is as a sculpture of ice and stone as those three little words work their way thru his head, touching upon his heart, his veins, his soul and the very marrow of his bones. i love you. she is the first outside of his parents — and even then only lotte probably said it — to utter those words to him; the first to say it in a way of lovers. they're much more powerful than the warlord would've ever thought them to be; arresting him so.

it is her kiss against his scars that unthaws him; liberating him. ❝as i love you, andraste.❞ he'd thought of using his nickname for her but in light of the heavy confessions using her name seems stronger still to him.

( ‾ʖ̫‾)

Though she had reached for him, and though her ruined lips found the woad filaments 'round each laceration, melitse's reciprication was such an inconceivable, unforeseeable thing that the breaths fluting gentle from waxen throat returned to her lungs, sharp, soft; left her likewise stuttering, shuddering. Clockworks all had squeaked to a halt. The trappings and riggings made rust. A mischievous, macabre humor in the form of a delayed, deep blush of spilt wax that crept through the vessel of her. Her hummingbird-frail jaw fluttered, could not glut the honey of this moment and return those nectarous words; useless.

Andraste had been returned to the age of creature, where all she had known was the preytaste on her tongue and air snorted hot through flared nostrils, not a word strung from wildwood chords lest they be wolven bruffs. Thoughtless, insatiable, territorial. But by some spell or scheme, his echoing elicits an unprecedented:

“Oh.”

That was all it took to have everything expedite itself. The clockworks churned; the gears whirled away. She thinks steam went a-whistle from her ears. She fears she might faint. It was too much for her to conduct: the balefire of his– his love—  (his!) and the chugging of her heart's blood within her weakened breast. The wax spreads, stains the parchment of her; dribbles over the unyeilding oakwood of him. Too much to be felt within a figure so thumbelline. The boy with robinfeather had been right all along; four children sit on her enervated minute hand. The fée twitched; fairydust clung to starstruck wings.

A funny laugh; a bleat; a mewl. Thin and trembly little unwolven noises, all plucked from the broken lute crooked between throat and lungs. Stares dumbbell and rasperberry-red at him and can find not a thing more to tell. Until—  “Oh!”

So terribly tremulous and aquiver that she could not tuck her face away betwixt her paws in a pathetic attempt of self-preservation. But ... they clasp about her snout all the same and skewer her bashful features from his sights. She cannot dare to touch him, now; she would implode, she would burst at the seams of her now-garbled wits and be rendered entirely a dolt that delighted only in her darling's attentions. A dimwit, godless girl who sustained herself on the gospel of his voice.

Andraste is diminished to the edge of her own delicacy and feathers out in unfettered rapture upon their stonebed; ever-shying.