b e x l e y
the merry girl who became lot's bride, the happy woman who loved her wicked city;
T
he world is still cold, far too cold for Bexley’s taste, but the bite of the wind is offset by the barrier Moira’s body makes against it, and the way the heat of her existence tempers the winter around them. When Bexley finally takes a sip of her hot chocolate, eyes still fixed on the emissary over the rim of her mug, it warms her too. But not in the same way. No, the warmth Moira gives her is more intense: it’s deeper and longer-lasting, curling in her stomach like a ribbon, or a snake. The longer she looks, the more it grows. Suddenly her body is filled with that warmth from corner to corner, limb to limb. She feels it like a rush of electricity, tingling in and around every bone until she things she might fall over, muscles turned to liquid that barely lets her stand up straight. This is distracting. The curve of Moira’s smile, the flutter of her thick, dark lashes. How can she look away? The warmth rises and rises and rises. It hits the back of her teeth. Briefly, Bexley becomes light-headed.
She can’t breathe. Can’t hear through the rushing of blood in her ears. She blinks hard, but her vision is filled suddenly with a liquid dark, which rises and falls like a wave in the space of a few far-too-long seconds.
I think so too.
Her brain comes rushing back to meet her body, and the collide with a noise and a feeling like bones breaking. Bexley blinks in confused relief; the breath comes back into her chest, crashing and rising and crashing again, accompanied by a nerve-wracking rush of adrenaline. She can see again, and what she does see—the teasing smile on Moira’s dark lips, the peachy-gold pillow she holds up against the other squares of blue cloth, the way her dark hair floats around her like the darkest storm cloud.
Breathlessly, the golden girl smiles. It is a soft and honest thing, perhaps the first bit of honesty she has shown to anyone in…
Since that last death. So, quite a while.
She pushes the thought out of her mind with a hard, purposeful swallow against the dry knot that has built in her throat. “What are you doing here?” Bexley asks, finally, her voice warm and quiet. So quiet, in fact, it’s nearly lost in the bustle of the markets finally waking around them. It doesn’t sound like her at all. “What are you looking for, I mean?”
I’ll help you find it, is the thing she doesn’t say. Her eyes say enough already, wide and intent as they meet Moira’s from across the stacked-high piles of pillows and blankets. If Bexley had ever learned to be embarrassed, she might be feeling so now, nothing more than a lost little girl following her savior like a puppy. But as it is—she only feels warm.
@Moira | "speaks" | notes: <3
