i want to be the hand that feeds, i want to be a home

[subsidence]

[They used to do paintings of women like this. The limbs strewn about in decadence, the half-open mouth and its full spectrum of reds and pinks. The curvature. Estinien didn't go to school for art and he doesn't know the names of the painters or the years in which they did the paintings--but he knows they did paintings of women like this. They called them harem girls or Greeks although these were just ideas. They were ethereal, unattainable, in how they blushed and sprawled. They were impossible. They were fantasies that didn't breathe.

Aymeric's mouth is colored like their mouths. Her cheeks and her chin curve as theirs curve, and the way she is lying, so does the rise of her hip. In art, the shape of this body could just as well be an allegory, something pastoral: a lush hillside, rolling against the horizon. It promises fortune and fertility. It will see him through the winter if he takes good care of it.

Her eyelashes flutter while she sleeps. She is every impossibility of all that fawning art but she breathes beyond fantasy. She is reality in his bed--and now beneath his hand, as he pushes her hair away from her face with his palm. Her sigh hits his wrist, from the parting of her summer-seeming lips. None of the painters had this, did they? They thought their women impossible. But this one, she moves and mumbles. Her cheek bears the weight of his thumb with roses.

Estinien taps the side of the spoon against the lip of the jar, to rid the spoon’s bowl of dripping excess. It wouldn’t do to get her sticky, would it, not first thing in the morning, not all across the linens. The clinking isn’t enough to wake her, so he says,] Come on, then. It’s time for breakfast, Lord Commander. [She is only barely rousing, and he doesn’t care to flummox her with the explanation of how he’s just tapped the hive and this is the first of it. It only needs to be as simple as this:] I have need of your tongue this morning.

[She still isn’t fully awake, but she moves to prop up her head and open her mouth, even as her brow furrows in gentle confusion. Estinien puts the honey past her lips without delay. He guides the spoon carefully onto her tongue and then carefully away from it once she has taken the mouthful.

The painters never got to watch their women glisten like this. Estinien, meanwhile, can sit on the edge of the bed, beside her hills and the hidden meanings of her, and he can ask her,] How is it?

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[embankment]

[Aymeric couldn't say that she's ever been much of a morning person. Until recently, each and every morning was a struggle in and of itself--a civil war between mind and body, between duty and circumstance. Until recently. Not that long ago, not at all, she had a shrieking alarm on her phone to wake her in the morning, followed by a second, and a third; she couldn't afford to turn over and go right back to sleep. She'd force herself out of bed with her back aching something fierce, with her hair a complete mess, and it would take a huge cup of coffee--with plenty of sugar, plenty of cream--to get her into an acceptable state. Only a borderline fatal dose of caffeine could hope to ferry her into and out of the shower, into her business casual, into her car. She'd drive to the office with an iron-tight grip on the wheel, her brain still two ticks from taffy and her eyes feeling awful. Every year, this morning ritual got a little bit harder to do, and it made her a little bit sadder and wearier, too. It made her feel empty and dried out. Until recently, she didn't know that mornings could be slow, drawn-out experiences, warm and then satisfying, with someone else to share in them with her. She couldn't have known the first thing about that. Until recently, she didn't have Estinien's hand on her cheek, nor his voice, nor the gifts he often brings to her like an affectionate cat. She didn't have his unspoken promises. She didn't have this laden spoon.

The honey is almost too intense for Aymeric's tongue, this early in the morning. The flavor is sudden, immediate, the distillation of nature and art. It's sweet. She breathes in deeply through her nose as it spreads through her mouth, sinking into her, into every crevice of her, bringing color to her daybreak. Somehow, she feels far more roused by this spoonful of honey than by what a cup of coffee might've dragged out of her until recently. She swallows, then exhales, this time through her mouth. She kind of lifts up one of her shoulders, then stretches out both of her legs. She's waking up. There's none of the blind, half-panicked urgency that used to define the mornings that led her here, when she needed to be out the door in twenty-odd minutes or else there'd be hell to pay.

Her eyes are that impossibly pale blue you'd only find in paintings of dawn. In the direct sunlight, they're crystalline; they could well be mounted on rose gold or wrought silver. She's looking up at Estinien, now, an artisanal happiness to her, with her tongue still roaming for the final traces of honey. It presses into her cheek before settling back down.] Good morning to you, too, [she murmurs, lifting the back of her hand to rub at her eyes. She can't guess at what time it is, other than knowing there's light in the sky. Until recently, she would have been counting down the seconds to being late for work as soon as she was able to...

Estinien does look a bit damp from what must have been an early-morning shower. She has this vague memory of him slipping away from her, out of bed, when it was still dark out. He may or may not have squeezed her hand before he went. More than the honey, just knowing he's minding himself like that makes her feel all gooey and warm on the inside. The furthest thing from dehydrated.]

It's divine, [she says.

The sight of him, freshly washed. The spoonful of honey. Just knowing she doesn't have anywhere she's expected to be or anything she's expected to do, unless here in his bed and rest and relaxation should count. Her heart squeezes in her chest to think that, sooner or later, surely, she's going to have to bring this dreamy vacation to an end. Sooner or later. Estinien can't be expected to look after a lazy layabout indefinitely, now can he? This is real life. Not a video game. Those aren't the rolling hills of Coerthas outside.]

Mmm, I think you made the right decision in planting all that rosemary back there. Paid off in dividends. That's what I think...