𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒏.

[demainvient]

𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 ⊹ 𝒆𝒑𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒍𝒂𝒓𝒚 ⊹ 𝒗𝒊𝒔𝒖𝒂𝒍
 

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[demainvient]

Sometimes he wonders if this is a dream. Some long, spun-out hallucination, a figment of a mind letting go. There are nights when he wakes up convinced he's back on those cliffs, feeling cold light spear through his chest.

But he got off them, in the end. His friends saved him. Lune saved him.

Hard to say when her warm weight against his side started to feel so familiar, so natural; when it was that he realized how perfectly her head fit into the curve of his shoulder. He puts his arm around her now and chuckles, leaning onto his metal left hand as his gaze follows hers out over the city. "Why, would you let me up if I did?"

Teasing her back, the smile that's hardly left his lips since they stepped off Esqiue's back and onto the cobblestones of the harbor plaza deepening the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. They don't always fade away anymore, those lines. They're starting to sink into his skin, marks he can't wash away. Wrinkles that will only deepen as he ages. Now that he can age.

He turns his head to press his lips to her hair, taking a deep calm breath. Strange to smell good soap and shampoo on them both again, to be wearing something other than their uniforms. Her hair is soft and silky against his mouth, catching on the wiry hairs of his mustache and beard. He never really thought he'd ever feel this kind of contentment again. "Besides, I'd just hit someone down there if I tried. Not that I think any of them would feel it, just now."

[trebuchim]

We're bound by something deeper than blood or love. There is a shared unity, a shared trust, born from all we've been through. We carry each other's lives in our hands. There is no greater intimacy.

Several of the accounts in the Expedition journals they'd found have stuck with her, but the one from 51 comes back to her frequently. They'd done this— what was left of 33 had done what seemed impossible. And there is no explaining all they'd gone through to anyone else, nor the bond that connects them for the rest of their days. Gustave and hers intimacy didn't deepen just because of the Expedition, but it would be impossible to discount the affect of their experiences, either.

Rubbing her cheek against his shoulder like an affectionate cat, she closes her eyes for a moment when his mouth presses into her hair, a humming chuckle escaping at his teasing.

"No," Lune agrees airily, warmth suffusing her tone. "No, I would not."

As if in emphasis, she slips her arm across his middle to hold him in return, happy to entangle with him and evidently not in a hurry to change that circumstance. She draws in a slow breath, sighs as she exhales; so this is what it's like to be contented. Happy.

"Considering you no longer have a target..." Since the Paintress is gone. "Maybe you need a new hobby?"