#did you know that hw link has a skin with yellow undertones?

[randomwriteronline]

Warriors wasn’t exactly well known for being incospicuous or particularly quiet in his movements.

He had a tendency of stomping his feet a lot - walking like he thought he was running, ending up too heavy on the soles of his boots, which were thankfully less likely to fall apart than his old ones were. It was one of many not necessarily healthy quirks he hoped to unlearn now that the war was dealt with and there was no longer a constant need to sprint from one place to the other.

But if he wanted, and if he put a lot of thought into it, he could will himself into a perfectly relaxed stride; and, if he put even more effort into it, he could even become quieter than a mouse in a barn.

Still, he knew better than to scare a hare by getting the jump on it from the back, so he opted to knock gently on the wooden table instead.

Ravio turned around without actually looking, used to the signal enough that he didn’t even flinch upon hearing it - though he did startle a bit when the face that greeted him turned out to be indeed fairly similar to his own, but not as perfectly identical as he’d naturally assumed it would have been.

“The well-off relative!” he squeaked with a small smile, seeming a bit nervous.

Warriors grinned back: “The very same,” he replied with a wave that was more of a flourish and half a curtsie.

His relaxed appearance eased the tension in the merchant’s shoulders as well as he chuckled a little bit, playing with one of his long sleeves more out of habit than to dispell his nervousness. The captain eyed the tic fondly, and the familiar motion gave him just enough courage to try his luck.

If it was too early for it... Well, he hoped he would at least still manage to make a good first impression.

“I couldn’t help but notice your hood earlier,” he said simply, leaning a little on one side as if that way his antsyness would just seep out of his foot: “It has a peculiar design, doesn’t it?”

“My...? Oh, yes!” Ravio remembered. His fingers grabbed the portion of cloth immediately, without thinking, but for some reason he stopped himself short of pulling it over his face, fingertips playing with the gold trimmed edges. “Made it myself, see?, as we all used to do in my family. We’re pretty good tinkerers, my aunt would say way back when, but even better tailors, eh...”

“Might I see it?”

“Pardon?”

“The design on it,” Warriors repeated: “Might I see it again? I didn’t get a good look at it back then, but it seemed beautifully embroidered.”

Maybe to comply, maybe to hide a slight rush of blush on otherwise almost squalidly pale cheeks, the other man blinked once or twice and then pulled the hood right back up, hiding away his entire head beneath the rabbit face as though it had never even existed in the first place.

Knowing full well he was being seen, the captain made a big show of holding his chin in his hand and tilting his head thoughtfully.

“My,” he started off with, “I was right, that is an awfully impressive work of art. Look at those golden details around the eyes - lovely colors for them, by the way, you’ve got quite a lot of taste - and those teeth even, not to mention the ears! If I’d only heard of rabbits and never seen any I’d mistake you for one.”

The weird compliment worked, as a little laugh accompanied delighted fingers drumming against the purple fabric.

Warriors smiled fondly; then suddenly he sighed, shaking his head: “Ah, but I’ll admit, it gives me the weirdest kind of feeling - like I’ve seen a hood made just like that before, like I know it well, you know? A sort of deja-vù...”

“Well that just ain’t possible,” the merchant replied quickly as his shoulders straightened in pride: “This one’s a Ravio original! Trademarked and all! Only one you’ll ever find around! Save for any mediocre imitations you might’ve had some sleazy retailers sell you for the real thing, that is, but I’d bet those pale in comparison to the genuine article as I’m sure you can see for yourself here right before you.”

“It’s certainly very distinctive,” the captain agreed, subtly stepping forward.

If Ravio noticed that, he made no comment on it - perhaps too busy patting himself on the back as he goaded: “Of course! Gives my brand a real distinct image, don’t it? Really makes it clear you’re dealing with the one and only! Sorta like, uh, that scarf of yours, if... If I may.”

Even despite those unmoving embroidered eyes covering any semblance of expression Warriors had the distinctive feeling that the man behind them was getting a little redder beneath the shade of his hood, as he could parse from a small nervous movement of his fingers as the hero smiled wider and absentmindedly passed his thumb over the blue fabric gently settled around his shoulders and neck.

“One of a kind too?” the Lorian asked, not without a certain cautious fear.

“You’d be correct,” the other replied.

The amount of fidgeting with purple fabric increased steadily as a cascade of rambling left the hidden mouth: “Ah, yes, yes, I imagined - I mean, with that red trim over there at the end and that emblem on it, clearly something made for royalty or the like, see?, and the quality - no way some imitator could make something like that without putting in way too much effort or doing just a plain bad job, right? But, uh, ah - well ain’t that awkward now, I think you’ve put a bug in my ear ‘cause now I’m thinking I’ve seen that before, like you’ve seen my hood, but, eh! Eh, but that can’t be now, can it! Eh, nope, no, cannot be like that - but it really does look like I’ve seen it, I swear! Maybe a little dirtier, some splotches on it, some grass and, and, well and stuff that maybe I shouldn’t be talking about in a kitchen, ah ah, you understand? But it’s, it really... It really does, uhm... It... Really... Looks... Like...”

By the time he hushed, Warriors was standing a mere few inches away from him, the not particularly large difference in height between them magnified slightly by the merchant’s slouch as he’d closed in on his own shoulders a little, looking up at the grin on the rosy face. It would have definitely seemed like an intimidating scene, and by all means it was; but the tilt of the hodded head was more expectant than scared, and the little nervous smile peeking from beneath the gold trim of the fabric didn’t come from any fear.

In one swift motion the hero pushed back the hood, cupped the other’s face in his hands as though it would have escaped him, and landed a chaste kiss on his cheek with as much passion as possible.

Surprise tore a laugh out of Ravio and had his arms wrap in a bout of euphoria around the captain’s shoulders, bending his neck under the pressure of a mouth smacking into him over and his back over a hug that ensnared his waist tight enough that he could have been lifted at any moment.

Then he recollected himself, and pushed the other’s face away with a nervous chuckle: “Hey, hey - this is a kitchen!”

“Oh please,” Warriors huffed playfully, rolling his eyes, “There’s eight more people in this house including your ‘landlord’ and you think I’ll lay you for the first time in the middle of the kitchen?”

Instead of answering, Ravio decided to slip right through his grasp and scuttle away between his divaricated legs, making him stumble (since he’d put his entire weight onto the merchant) and grab onto the counter just a moment before his face collided with it in a less than graceful manner.

“Maybe!”

“Come on, I’m better than that!”

An airy laugh came from behind him with a quick squeezing hug: “You are,” the merchant reassured him, though he was very much still smirking dastardly. “And besides it wouldn’t be your style - I mean for cryin’ out loud, you took your sweet time tellin’ me you were who I thought you were right now, didn’t you?”

“What!” the captain argued back, snapping around to face him with a wide smile: “I couldn’t well just kiss you on the mouth out of nowhere!”

“I can promise you I wouldn’t have complained.”

“Time’s a fickle thing, you know that - what if you hadn’t met me yet? You would’ve thought me a maniac!”

“But I hadn’t ever seen you before I ended up on that battlefield, Lily-of-the-Valley,” Ravio reminded him as he tried to grab his nose between his index and middle fingers, “So we sure couldn’t’ve met earlier than that, don’t you think?”

Warriors lifted his hands in defeat, gently swatting the merchant’s own away in the process: “You got me there.”

“Course I did,” the other gloated: “I’m the brains and brawn after all.”

The flick of a wrist had his hood right back on his head: “Harr harr,” he heard an amused fond grin say, “And even if it were true, pray tell what I’d be left with?”

Without missing a beat, Ravio tapped his nose: “Beauty, of course!”

He counted the little snort as a victory.

“Don’t push it,” he was still playfully reprimanded.

The merchant chuckled in response, shoulders jumping a little with his voice. His gaze grew unbearably soft for a long, interminable second; then, with a sharp sigh, he allowed his forehead to fall forward so that it would on the taller man’s chest, and with his eyes closed he savored the solid reality of that contact together with the faint press of a hug.

He took a deep breath, catching a scent much more pleasant than the one he’d grown to expect to cling to that scarf, that tunic, and exhaled: “I missed you.”

Warriors leaned enough to press a kiss to his dark hair: “I missed you too.”

The rabbit in his grasp hummed very, very softly.

All of  this - that voice, the pressure on his sternum, the quiet between them - was distinctly, sweetly familiar.

He wished it didn’t bring back memories of laying on the ground, both soiled with sweat, dirt, blood and varied other disgusting elements after the horrid symphony of clanging steel had finally quieted down across the fields, breathing heavily, trying to stifle the adrenaline making his heart explode at least enough to properly feel the body breathing heavily as it laid almost draped across his chest; but it also brought back the silence of peaceful nights, of trying to fall asleep to one another’s heartbeats, and he focused on that, drowning the worse recollections in those hushed breaths in the dark.

His musings were interrupted as he felt the other wriggle in his loose grasp ever so slightly, and he undid the fastening of his arms around him to let him pull back in case he needed it.

Ravio waited a little before doing so, maybe to try and commit this moment to memory better than all the other ones he had alowed to simply slip by, as one can never know when the chance to encounter a lover from a different time once more might happen - a thought that hadn’t struck him until only after they had bid each other a barely adequate goodbye for what could have very likely been the last time they ever saw one another again.

“I’ve been, ah--” he stammered a moment as he pushed himself back up on his own feet, “I was tryin’ to, ah, find a way back to you, actually, y’know? I mean, I found one for here, so, there oughta be one for there, don’t you think? It’s - ah, ahah! It’s a weird situation, my whole...”

His hand made an incredibly vague motion in the air, pointing all at once to everything that might have been both in the room and outside of it.

The information made Warriors furrow his brows slightly and tilt his head not unlike a dog that hadn’t understood the command: “I thought you were pretty homesick, back then,” he muttered, a little confused.

“I was! Goddesses know I was!” the other was quick to reply: “And I was so glad to be back home even though I had... A lot of stuff to handle still like you know, my house being a mess and everything else, but I was happy! I swear! But, eh, I’m here now, right? And it’s ‘cause I... I got homesick for here too, if you can believe that? And so I came over because I missed this sun and this house and, and then I got homesick for your place too, or maybe, maybe just for you, I think, I didn’t really - sorry if it’s rude, but I don’t got really good memories of, you know, er... But, but the point is - I keep gettin’ longin’ for all these different places all at once and so I end up makin’ myself scramble all over all the time, it’s - it’s a mess, is what it is, but I can’t help it! I don’t know how! I can’t - I can’t choose, I guess? I want t’ be in Lorule, and also here, and also with you, and it just sends me runnin’ in circles over an’ over an’ over an’--”

"Hey,” a quiet voice reached him together with a hand on his shoulder, and his rambling came to a halt.

He sunk in the collar of his robe: “Sorry,” he peeped. “Got carried away.”

“I missed you so much.”

There was no follow-up.

Ravio realized his vacant stare had been fixed a little above the captain’s belt buckle for a while now, and raised his head. Link was looking at him without any real feeling, his expression set on a near total, mildly relaxed neutrality - which made the vague air of melancholy bubbling in his eyes a little harder to spot for someone who might’ve notbeen looking for it.

Without really thinking, the Lorian put a hand to one of the somewhat squallid sienna-colored cheeks. He felt it sink into his palm.

“You thought of comin’ to see me?”

Warriors just nodded.

He laughed gently: “Well, I oughta made your job real hard then, huh?”

The other shrugged with a small smile: “Didn’t do much about it, actually,” he replied, a little sheepish. “I got cold feet about asking. Since...”

“Hm,” now it was the merchant’s turn to nod, “I get it.”

He gently squished the captain’s face in his hands a little tighter, causing him to huff through his nose as he attempted a smirk. Emboldened by the power of being able to do whatever he wanted without repercussions, Ravio swayed the blond head left and right with his fingers as his soft grimace turned into a more mischievous grin.

He only stopped once he heard a muffled ‘watch it’ that made him giggle a little as he raised his arms away from the captain in a show of innocence.

Dusting his palms on his robe as if to better hide the tender playfulness of the gesture (though it was an action not at all motivated embarrassment, but merely yet another of his many nervous quirks) his voice suddenly turned casual, as if he were a humble innkeeper addressing a customer: “So how long will you be stayin’ over?”

Warriors shrugged again with a weary sigh: “I’ve told you, time is a fickle thing,” he answered, “Who knows where and when we’ll be told to leave.”

“But you do stay around a while, right?”

“That we do.”

“So maybe we could work together, no? To, ah - figure out, maybe, kinda, a way to make this... Not, the last time we meet?”

Green eyes gleamed at him hopefully.

“Because-” Ravio added quickly as he waved his hands about to try and mask his eager antsiness, “-If there was a way, y’know, to come see you anytime, or even just some specific times, but surely, for certain, without fault... Y’know. I’d hop right on it.”

The captain smiled.

“I would too.”

A bucktoothed grin shined right at him: “So we should get to work, eh?”

“I reckon we should.”